Voices on the New Diasporas - an MIT student journal


Submission deadline for Spring 2008 issue is March 15, 2008.


Copyright Notices

The works displayed on MIT's E-merging Journal are protected by copyright and other applicable laws and are made available by MIT's E-merging Journal for use by you, the individual accessing the E-merging Journal, solely for your own educational, non-commercial, non-monetary purposes provided you credit the author(s) identified on the particular work(s) and the MIT E-merging Journal for the material you use.

These works may be viewed on-line, downloaded, copied, distributed and displayed by you for your own educational, noncommercial purposes, or the URL of a document (from this server) included in another electronic document; however, the text of a work may not be published commercially (in print or electronically), edited or otherwise altered.

This is a summary of the license terms to you, the full text of which is available - Legal Notices.

How He Knows by Arthur Musah, Graduate Student

Ansomaa!
Fo gaa be son?
Fo ma be son?
Fo ba be son?
A biiri taa laafie?
A tomo be son?
Ka a sori?

This is the way he first knows
he's home.
Before the sun-baked soil has warmed
his feet
and a Harmattan air has sucked all suppleness
from his lips
before his nephews have brought him their sheanuts
and smiles
and his nieces their tuo-zaafi and bito soup
with rabbit meat,
his mother tongue says welcome.

And then he asks in turn:

Morning!
Was your sleep good?
Is your mother well?
Is your father well?
And the wife?
Do the children have life?
Is work good?
And the road?