When I was young, my father used to say, ‘If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die.’ I thought about these words during my journey, and they kept me moving even when I didn’t know where I was going. Those words became the vehicle that drove my spirit forward and made it stay alive.

I was still hesitant to let myself let go, because I still believed in the fragility of happiness.

We must strive to be like the moon

In the sky there are always answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy and confusion.

My childhood had gone by without my knowing, and it seemed as if my heart had frozen.

ONE OF THE UNSETTLING THINGS about my journey, mentally, physically, and emotionally, was that I wasn’t sure when or where it was going to end.

As a kid in Africa, you were so connected to nature itself because you went farming, watched the moon out at night, observed how the sky was different, and how the birds chanted different songs in the evening and the morning.