ROOTS

by MPHO LUCRICIA SEIPUBI (South Africa)

I didn't expect to find South Africa

"Ethiopia always has a special place in my imagination and the prospect of visiting Ethiopia attracted me more strongly than a trip to France, England, and America combined. I felt I would be visiting my own genesis, unearthing the roots of what made me an African", this quote by Nelson Mandela has always intrigued me, it has always pushed me to view my travels in the continent with an unfiltered eye. When I visited Ethiopia last year, I expected to encounter a lot of things, I expected to learn a lot, just not about the history of Ethiopia and the continent but about African spirituality. Had you told me that in discovering all this I would come across myself as well, I would not have believed you. My time in Ethiopia was telling, I left Ethiopia a woman more aligned with oneself, more understanding of oneself and with a new perspective of what it means to be myself in an Africa that has finally opened it's self to the women in the continent and their voices. African stories being told from an African perspective has always been imperative to me understanding how complex and diverse we are as a continent, and this I got to learn and see in practice in Ethiopia. I will always go back to Ethiopia to encounter the woman I discovered in Ethiopia last year, myself.