The Land That Knows My Name

The Land That Knows My Name

There is a land that knows me—

not by passport,

not by the sound of my accent

or the way I walk through airports,

but by something deeper,

older,

sacred.

It knows the weight of my footsteps before I take them.

It knows the rhythm of my breath before I inhale.

It knows the echo of my grandmother’s voice

and the prayers she whispered into soil

that I did not yet know would one day receive me.

When I arrived in Ghana,

it was not a first meeting—

it was a remembering.

The air greeted me like an auntie at the gate.

The earth felt familiar beneath my soles,

like a floor I had danced on in another life.

And the drum—oh, the drum—

called me not as stranger but as kin.

They say the land holds memory.

I say the land holds me.

This land,

where babies are named not only for identity but for destiny.

Where women gather at dawn to bring life into the world

and midwives hold the future in their hands.

Where tea is sipped slowly,

in honor of ancestors who knew how to wait.

Here, I am not a visitor.

Here, I am not performing purpose.

I am becoming it.

For every mother I meet in the ward,

for every midwife who walks miles to serve,

for every child whose cry is a new beginning—

this land teaches me again who I am.

She does not ask me to prove myself.

She simply reminds me:

You belong.

You are part of the river, the red earth, the rising sun.

You are held by something older than time.

You are home.

Because there is a land that knows my name.

And when I touch her soil,

she speaks it softly back to me.