It wasn’t really something we spoke much about growing up. You know, the whole race thing. It just didn’t happen. I mean why would we? It was kind of this unwritten code that would spring up from time to time only as a Warning or as a reminder.

Being an African kid, in an African family growing up in a predominately Afro-Caribbean community in East London, meant that most of the faces you saw were black or brown. In General, black and brown people were the minority in the grand scheme of London, but in our little world, you’d never guess it. There was this sense of community, where nowhere else outside of this little borough mattered. 

Newham was its name. The second poorest borough in all of London where most households lived below the poverty line and has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates not just in England but in all of Europe. 

Still, none of this mattered as we knew no different. This was home and we had our community with its own problems and challenges and anything outside of that was simply alien, redundant, or as we saw it, stuff on MTV or in the movies. We saw ourselves on channel U.

“Ay yo! bro?! Where in Africa you from?! A stranger shouts out as I’m on my way home from uni. This happened occasionally so I wasn’t overly surprised.

“Huh?!” I reply, unsure as to who the question was directed towards. I ignore it and continue walking — You never want to be that person who answers a random question shouted out by a stranger in the street, it’s just risky and weird especially if it or your reply weren’t funny. The only times you could, was if you were passing a loud grocer at the market making football (soccer) or political jokes in attempts to draw customers to buy some apples or pears or maybe joining a football chant before a major competition. Anything other is asking for trouble.

He jumps out in front of me this time and asks again “Ay yo! bro?! You look African,” scanning my face, inspecting my eyes intensely like he’s some doctor, and adds, “Where in Africa are you from? Ghana? Nigeria?”

“Nah, I’m Ugandan but I —” I reply before he interjects.

“Ah, OUUganda,” he replies condescendingly to highlight just how westernised my pronunciation of my birth country was.

“Yes, Ouganda, Uncle,” I reply politely. 

Any black person who was your elder you would always address as ‘Uncle’ if it were a man or ‘Auntie’ if it were a woman out of respect for their much superior number of years on the planet to yours even if they weren’t related to you. It’s mainly an African thing but almost all black people do it. Guess it comes from the whole thing about ‘It takes a community to raise a child.’

The stranger looked roughly twenty years older than I was but I couldn’t tell for sure, I was 19. He had low cut, balding nappy hair and wearing a washed-out red T-shirt, dark blue slightly baggy jeans, and hands so tough and dry they felt like rock when I shook one of them. Life has a way of aging people — Black people too, under enough pressure, eventually even black cracks.

A couple of minutes pass and I really needed to bounce. He’d rambled on enough about how even though I grew up here, ‘home is where the heart is and hearing its call.’ 

Instantly that reminds me that I need to get myself home to my family now before mum puts dinner on the table. Being late was not an option.

After one final nod, I prepare myself to leave the interaction. He concludes by saying;

“I’ve seen it all young man, and one thing I’ll say is to remember where you’re coming from. There is more to life than just this place,” he opens his hands, raising his head and scans around, “it’s hard to escape. If you have the opportunity, find a way to grow and get out of here. Life is much bigger than any of this, bigger than any one place.”

Powerful words, but all I could really think of at that moment was If I don’t get myself home to my family in Stratford right now I won’t have a life in a few hours to see any new place.

Respectfully, I pull myself away, clench the straps of my backpack by my chest, and speed on home. Mum’s going to kill me!