There is this song called Gambia by Sona Jobarteh. The last song that was on reply like that was Hello by Adele immediately it came out. 

This song is giving me this euphoria that I can’t explain. Like I’ve been high on this song since Jana. Like really high. The dreamy kind of high. I feel giddy with excitement. My mind and body can’t sit still. Like I’m just high on something. 

I love music. But beyond that, there is music that makes love to my soul. And this one right here is one of them. 

It has made me feel like my dreams will one day come true. I listen to that song and I see my footprints in Lesotho. I can feel myself watching the Victoria falls inside the beats of the drums. 

The song ends and I see myself at my death bed, happy, content and satisfied with the places I went to. With Africa. God knows I love my continent! 

In my last semester in campus, I attended this talk by some big shot in the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) east Africa. He was from Congo. He was impeccably dressed. He had prepared his speech for a thousand students. Only ten of us showed up. 

But still, he gave his speech with the same vigour as if he was talking to millions of people. That man made a serious impression on me. I remember everything he said and how he said it. He told us he was from a small village in Congo. And as a young boy, he had been herding goats. Now as a grown man, he was busy being chauffeured around in a new country to speak to their best universities( he didn’t say that, I just observed it, he was busy talking about serious stuff)

That man made me realise that we all have our locals. Some people stay in their locals forever. Some go and come back to their locals. Some go and never come back. Some foreigners come and make new locals the places they’ll be buried in. 

And as for me, listening to such music and relating so well with an environmentalist from Congo, makes me feel as if Africa is my local. In my head, i don’t expect to find much difference if I go to a village in Liberia or I live in Accra. The languages will differ, but inside us,I think we are the same. 

That similarity is what is making me enjoy a song whose meaning I don’t know. That sameness is what will make me pack up and go work in North Africa. I feel the corners of my local calling my soul. My mind is long gone from me. While its just going to be a little while longer, before my feet follow suit. 

Viva Africa!