Home Away From Home

What community Allotments mean to migrants

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“You like it?” he called out to me as he walked towards the fence where I stood peeking go

“Yes.” I smiled demurely from the other side at the hunk logging firewood in his arms.

Guy probably figured I was looking at him but I was thousands of miles away in my village. Far across the Atlantic. Mentally, I have sailed over all the man-made barricades. Morphing through immigration barriers of border controls, visas, airplanes and passport stamping queues.

I escaped through the gates of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport at Lagos and somehow transported myself back to my village. I sat on a patch of grass at my mother’s farmlands with a few others. In that circle, we were eating yam, palm oil and hot peppers with our fingers.

What else is the best way to take a respite from hours of farming?

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I shuddered as he hauled the wood onto the floor and came to stand beside me by the fence.

“Reminds you of home, yeah?”. he read my mind

I nodded and smiled.