Getting Lost in Brussels: Finding History, Memory, and Myself

As I looked out the window, sipping my morning tea, I didn’t know that this would be the day I’d lose my way to find so much more than directions. 

Whenever I travel outside North America one of my first stops is to find a cellular store. I don't have an international phone package, this means when I travel internationally I’m limited to wifi until I get a SIM card. The beauty of going to the EU is I can use the same SIM in all of the member countries. I looked up the route to the store, it was only 2 miles from where I was staying. I entered the address into the GPS and set off.

Half a block in, the GPS arrow spun, that’s when I remembered: no signal, no directions 🤦🏿‍♀️. 

I was lost. So I wandered. 

First I found a mural of George Floyd, in Brussels. Five years later I still heard him cry,

“Mama… 

I 

can’t 

breathe.”  

I continued to wander. 

Nearly hidden, I stumbled upon a monument memorializing the atrocities Belgium committed in Congo. In the rustling of the trees I heard the  screams, across centuries, 

“Mama!”

I continued my wandering. I happened upon the Royal Military Museum. Curious, I paid the entrance fee. With each exhibit my heart constricted. People seem to keep finding better ways to kill each other 🤷🏿‍♀️. There were more exhibits of Congo’s forced contributions to Belgium, I heard the questions whispered across the generations.

“Where are you from?

Cameroon? Uganda? Ghana? Benin? Congo? Slavery?

The truth is, it could be anywhere. False boundaries drawn by colonizers separated families.

At dinner a gentleman from Cameroon told me, “You eat your fish like my mother.”

When I clicked my tongue in thought a man from Benin laughed, “That’s what we do!”  

A new friend from Uganda smiled when he said,  “You remind me of home.”

I was born in the United States. My DNA is Africa. The world is my home. I carry both the trauma and joy of the colonized and enslaved. I carry their brilliance, creativity, and enduring will to live that was forged in the furnace of unimaginable violence. They lived so  

I

can

Be.  

Breathe. 

Rest.

Mama…

On the other side of the history of war and violence, I found a sculpture of two hands. The placard read in part:

Photo taken of Unitatis by Martin Rehrl in Parc du Cinquantenaire

“Unitatis by Martin Rehrl. A symbol that serves as a reminder for all people who have learned and understand that we can only overcome crisis together”

…we can only overcome crisis together…

I may have been lost in Brussels, but I was found in history, memory, and connection. In #TheAgeOfChaos, we will overcome. We will create. But to create, I must keep unpacking, my bags, my history, my words.

As I unpacked history in Brussels, I knew Paris would ask me to unpack something even heavier: the weight of words.

“In the world through which I travel, I am endlessly creating myself.” 

Frantz Fanon

With a new SIM card secured, I continued my journey. As the train whistle blew, I looked out the window and saw the sign: 

Next stop, Paris.

🔜What’s in a Word: Where getting lost in translation might be the only way to find the truth.