I’m in Leeds, it’s summer and it’s raining. I’m shivering in a T-shirt that I thought was acceptable to wear considering it’s August, but no, I thought wrong. At times like these, I can’t help thinking that I’ve been stolen from my rightful home – a home I was not born nor raised in, a home where I cannot speak any of the local languages, but my home nonetheless.

I suppose it may be confusing for some that I call Eritrea my home when my culture, my nationality and my community belong here, in the land of wet summers. But first generation diasporans suffer an estrangement from our ancestral home that our parents may not understand. As I studied, worked and grew, my feelings of estrangement, of longing and exhaustion intensified. But how to solve this?

After graduating, for the first time ever I had no deadline or semester dates holding me back. A new term would start but I was no longer part of the cohort. September is my chance to do whatever and go wherever, so my decision to go back home was born.