Last night, I got back to Cambridge after a bus ride from Luton. After exiting the bus, with a suitcase and a huge bag, I stood for a moment looking around…scanning the area. I was looking for a taxi. A tall, white man stopped, smiled and asked me in the kindest of ways, with an English accent, “Do you know where you’re going?”. I smiled back and replied, “Thanks, yes, I know”. He then laughed a little, smiled again and said, “Alright, Cheers!!”. He then went on his way, pulling his suitcase behind him. I smiled to myself for a short while, and I thought to myself too after coming to a realisation…. because up until that moment, I didn’t know that I was carrying around a chip on my shoulder.
It’s a two year old chip, hurt, pain. When I first got to Cambridge two years ago, another tall, white guy completely ignored my parents and I as we asked for directions. It was during the day time, as we stood on a corner waiting for the street light to change so that we could cross. He wouldn’t even look at us, and I felt invisible, slighted and hurt. Since then, I had received help from various other white people during the daytime, but it was unpredictable. However, when I tried to stop folks to ask for direction in the nighttime, I was ignored… always ignored or brushed off as far as I can recall— unless the person I asked wasn’t white. So, I started discriminating in who I asked for help. Thing is, I know that I can’t judge all white people based on those encounters. I know that it’s a broad, damaging and dangerous generalization to think ‘white folks in England won’t help you out with directions in the nighttime’. Knowing that that was a harmful generalization that was almost certainly untrue, I didn’t believe that I was carrying around any particular hurt. But when that man stopped last night, and offered to help, I felt the strangest feeling…. I felt as though a weight was lifted, as though he righted all the little hurts I’d been carrying around. Little hurts that I didn’t even know I was still holding on to. He’ll never know how big a moment stopping to help then was for me, both in coming to self-awareness and in personal growth…. but it was, and I’m grateful that his helpfulness allowed me to heal and to align my emotions with what I knew to be true.

I’ve never seen so many black people in one place in Cambridge. The African and Caribbean Society organized a lime at Nando’s. The first 30 people to get there got their dinner free, up to a maximum of £10 (I got something costing £10.35— the extra 35pence was allowed free—yayy!!). SEO London sponsored it. I got there quite early; ‘early’ because I wanted to ensure I got free food, and well, ‘there’ because I wanted to see black people. By ‘see’ I really mean just ‘see’, as in ‘look at’. It sounds creepy, I know. It’s a bit sad I guess, because I wasn’t particularly keen on socializing. I honestly just wanted to see people who looked like me so that I’d feel less like an anomaly in this city. Sometimes I want to stand out, other times I want to feel like I fit in, blend in… and being there in a crowd of black people, black students at Cam Uni just made me feel like I belonged there. When I arrived, there were about 6 other people already waiting outside the restaurant. I smiled at 2 of them that caught my eye. Either way, I waited, and more and more people crowded the pavement outside the restaurant. Soon enough, over 30 black folks, 3 white folks and an Asian girl were waiting outside the restaurant on the street for the lime. I looked at passers by look at the crowd, stare at times… obviously a bit amused, or confused. I don’t blame them, it’s strange seeing a large gathering of black people on the streets of Cambridge. Nando’s soon enough cleared the tables and the group, which probably amounted to around 60 by the end, went in and took up about half the restaurant. I didn’t speak much. I worried that folks would think me standoffish and weird because I was so quiet. Maybe they did think that. I was tired, and well, since I really just wanted to see the existence of young, black folks at Cam Uni, I pretty much got most of what I wanted out of the night before it really began. I ultimately ordered my free food though… it was good: Butterfly chicken burger sumthin with mango lime sauce and chips. Most members of the ACS are British with African and Caribbean ancestors. When I first got to Cam two years ago, I went to a group meeting they had to feel like I belonged. They were super nice…. But I felt sort of out of place because it wasn’t the ‘Caribbean’ I had imagined. I’d hoped to hear Caribbean accents in abundance, but I didn’t… and thereafter I made effort to find other Caribbean folks in Cambridge. At the time I realized that I felt closer to Caribbean folks, regardless of race, than I do to black folks who aren’t ‘Caribbean’ (generally speaking). It was an interesting realization… because perhaps for the first time, I came to know that in terms of identity, I see myself as ‘Caribbean’ before ‘black’.

First days back in Cambridge. 

Two years ago I started my ‘Happenings’ album. It was to be my diary of sorts; my catalogue of moments and experiences I had during my first time away from the Caribbean. I wrote stories of experiences that delighted me, conversations that bothered me, sights that confused me… and I shared it all because, well, because that’s just something I do. I won’t explore the underlying, deeper reasons why I might have. Either way, I shared my experience…. but not all of it. I kept a substantial piece of that story within me- not because part of me didn’t want others to know, but because part of me didn’t. I’ve allowed glimpses into that story each February for the past 2 years, nearing Valentine’s Day, and also through various drawings I’ve posted without deep explanation on Facebook. It’s not easy for me to open up on deeper feelings regarding love and attraction… though I can talk at length about how depressed I might be. A few months ago, I decided that perhaps I’ll tell it a bit more, tell it a bit less abstractly, but not all of it. Perhaps, I’d tell it a bit more according to the timeline during which it unfolded… a post in early October 2015 describing how I felt in early October 2013… and so forth. This is the first such post, and attached is the sketch I had drawn to accompany it a few months ago. I met a number of people when I first got to Cambridge in 2013; a number of whom are still in my life today, but when I first met them then, I had no idea of the friendships and relationships that would grow out of it. I had no idea of the journey I was embarking on, and to this day, some of those past journeys are still unfolding in beguiling explication. I assume that even with two years having unfolded, and even when 2 more go by again, I’ll still have more to unpack using matured hindsight. Life is rich like that; 1 million and 1 ways to look at the same moment. Still though, in that moment, there is perhaps only one way in which it is viewed… and back then, my perspective of that moment was ‘these are the people I’ll be working professionally with’. I had messaged my supervisor, John, to let him know that I was in Cambridge and to find out when we could meet. He told me when I could come in to the office, and so I came in and said Hi. He made me feel comfortable, everyone did. They smiled and said Hellos. To be honest though, I barely gave a thought to anyone else, and forgot almost everyone in the office shortly after meeting them. The only people I remembered meeting from the research group was John (my supervisor) and Bartosz (‘the computer guy’)… and I remembered Bartosz because he was just so ‘different’. However, I’d meet everyone else again in time, and they’d grow to make big impressions on me during my stay in the UK.