Headspace Studios.

Hi there. Welcome to Radio Headspace Space. It's Dora.

So lately, I've been thinking a lot about home, belonging, and identity.

I'm preparing to move across the country, and as I've been packing up my life, sorting through what stays and what goes,

I keep asking myself, what am I actually looking for?

I think when we're making big changes like moving, unknowingly, there's something that we're after.

Is it a place? Maybe it's a feeling.

A sense of finally arriving somewhere that fits.

And this question brings me back to a trip I took a few years ago,

one that completely reshaped how I think about belonging.

I was traveling to Kenya. That's where my mom is from.

And I had this unspoken promise with me, that once I arrived,

something would finally click, that I would feel at home in a way I never had before. Since I was

born and raised in Canada, there's always been this part of me that has longed for home.

So when I landed in Nairobi late in the evening,

the air was warm and thick, with the smell of rain and red earth.

My aunt picked me up from the airport, and we drove through the city,

past Matatou's blaring music, street vendors

closing up their stalls, families walking home under street lights. Everything felt both familiar

and foreign at once. The first few days were beautiful, and I was welcomed with warmth, with meals that stretched

long into the evening, with stories about my mom's childhood and with laughter.

Then slowly I started to notice something, the way people would pause when I spoke.

...