She was just a young dancer at the time. It was a wonder that her mother allowed her to take part in the dancing since it had nothing to do with the church, but an older woman from the community saw her potential and promised her mother that she would look after her. She joined the other young women who danced and took pride in their African Heritage. She did not know at the time that the majority of the blood moving through her body originated in West Africa. This isn’t something that was taught in the colonized institution of education, and certainly not something her mother had knowledge of or felt was important. Her mother was a Christian woman and because she lost her own parents at such a young age, she held tightly to the teachings of the church. After all it was the church folk who took her mother in as family and cultivated her mother as a good and wholesome woman. There was no room for anything else, especially the old African ways. They were thought to be wicked in nature.
It would be many years before the importance of what was lost could be realized, but as she danced she could feel it in her soul. Her spirit was buried deep in the rhythm of the drum, and it spoke to her and taught her how to move with it. As a dancer, she was exposed to people who took pride in the culture. They were feeling the call to reconnect to their West African roots through drum and dance. When a cultural instructor at a local university was visiting from West Africa, he named her Kalia, “This is your African name” he told her.
Her first love was a drummer. Her connection to him was immediate and intense. He was familiar to her in a way that could not be expressed in words. They expressed their connection with each other best through their understanding of the drum and the dance. Like a magnet, they were drawn to each other and with intent and purpose, created life of their own. She danced to the rhythm of his drum as this life grew in her womb. As destined, a daughter was born. As a breech baby, that daughter nearly took her life, but her strength could not be broken. Her dance with her African ancestors carried her to rebirth, so they named their daughter Kalia in honor of their love and their bond. She lifted the newborn Kalia into the air to show her gratitude, and begged The Creator to guide Kalia and look after Kalia. “She is a gift that I give back to you.” she sincerely prayed, and so the journey began.
It would take me, Kalia, forty five years to return to our home, Mother Africa.
I write this in honor of my beloved mother. In honor of her innocence. In honor of her youth. In honor of her strength. In honor of her vitality. In honor of her obedience. In honor of her dance of life, which was not always graceful but was always true. I write in honor of the love from which I was conceived and born. I write in gratitude for my ancestors who have always been there carrying me and guiding me just as my mother prayed they would. Ase
Ifayinka 