Raised Everywhere, Rooted Somewhere

A third culture kid’s definition of home

Cape Town, South Africa. Photo by Tyzana Craig on Unsplash

By Ringisai Susara Campbell

“Where are you from?” should be followed with a straightforward answer. Not one where one must decide which or where, or how much about their life they want to disclose to a stranger. It’s a predicament, and I have now become an expert at hiding the churning bolts in my mind to find something easy to say

Perhaps that’s why I wanted to write it down, get it out on paper — so that perhaps one day that simple question is followed by a simple sort of answer.

I am from the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe, where waterfalls and pine trees are nestled between mountains that meet the border of Mozambique, running down streets lined with purple trees to the tuckshop where I would buy loaves of bread, airtime and a freeze-it.

I am from the Western Coast of South Africa, where the fynbos-covered mountains meet the sea filled with penguins, seals and whales. Where my hair was messy from the long hikes up Table Mountain, and my shirt stained blue and brown from bubble-gum milkshakes and chutney from the braai.

I am from the rainforests of Java, Indonesia, where the fern-coated rain trees shield you from the sun, the jajan-pasar sticks to your fingers on the commute from school, and the volcano’s peak looms over the landscape.

I am from the mangroves and deserts of Northern Australia, where prehistoric saltwater crocodiles roam free, and red dust coats the landscape, which gives way to the most amazing starry skies. Where the land stretches on for miles and miles in every direction.

It is in those memories and stories that that question is followed by a not-so-simple answer. I cannot pick just one. Each of those places, people, and times shaped who I am today, how I relate to people, my sense of humour, loud laughs, and music choices.

For many people, at first glance and listen, it is tricky to pinpoint one particular place that defines me. Not with my mixed-girl skin and curly hair, or my patchwork international school accent that jumps in and out of familiar accents and notes. Hence the question, and hence the lengthy explanations.

Darwin, Australia. Photo by Lucid on Unsplash

Rooted n’ Raised

The concept of home to me is an interesting dance between the idea of ‘rooted’ and ‘raised’. This relates to how my sense of self is formed, shaped, or grounded into environments, experiences, and relationships.

Rooted connects to being born into something: an ethnicity, nationality, and its traditions. In my mind, it’s like tree roots, offering stability and anchoring. There is a resistance to changes or alterations. It’s a sense of belonging, purpose that remains fixed in place. I am rooted in my African identities because those are the values and cultures that live on in the way I was brought up. I still to go “home” and visit family, and so having that connection to single places and people continues to ground me in the work that I have chosen to do, and the core beliefs I carry in my day-to-day

Photo by Jan Huber on Unsplash

Raised, on the other hand, is shaped by the environments, people, and experiences that I’ve moved between. Norms and identities can be learned or acquired. It’s a changing and flexible process, where identity changes over time, and multiple identities are acquired. This one is interesting because now, having lived in the Nordics for some time, there are definitely some norms and practices that I carry on in my day-to-day life. And as I continue travelling and moving around, I find that the cultures come with me, and continue to shape the person I am.

The conflict between these definitions is fundamentally tricky for a mixed-kid living away from it. This means there are some parts of my identity which I can decide on for myself, but others have been decided and pre-prescribed to me. While I might have the right to choose my identity, I inherit and adopt others unknowingly.

Growing up in a multi-ethnic family that moved around a lot, I didn’t think much of it as a kid. Recently, I found a drawing that I did when I was younger. I drew my parents and I; on my label, I wrote: “mixed”. That was that. Unfortunately, it is with age that that simplicity feels as if it has been tossed out of the window.

My explanation depends on….

What I have found myself doing is adapting to my context: speaking to someone from Asia, I might start on the Indonesian foot, or someone from Africa; I might start on a Zimbabwean and South African note, or an Aussie one. It is a simpler way to jump straight to the point of reminiscing over shared flavours and experiences… Perhaps that, or my subconscious survival technique.

….but this shortcut leaves me with the guilt of leaving out so much. I am very proud to have grown up in each of these cultures, but suddenly, in choosing one it feels as if I am quietly erasing the others.

Bogor, Indonesia. Photo by Ryan Dinata on Unsplash

Not everyone deserves to hear the full story, and I don’t always have the energy or social battery to open the door to the flow of follow-up questions that arrives. But when I do present the full picture in all its twists and turns, I am met with the responses: “Oh, so not a real Zimbabwean then”, “Fake Australian”, “Not African”. I am then asked to prove my knowledge of a place; then I am asked to rank which country I relate to or love the most (which I am not able to do, despite an expectation that there has to be a winner).

Zimbabwe. Photo by Omoniyi David on Unsplash

My concept of “home”

Growing up everywhere, I never thought too much about what “home” meant. I would even say “let’s go home” in reference to the hotel we were staying at for a few nights. Home was never a fixed point on a map; it was fluid and moved with me.

Photo by Michael Tuszynski on Unsplash

My parents brought a lot of their furniture with them to our new houses, and with the familiar hardwood tables and benches, it managed to morph the ‘new’ house into our home. Even in foreign lands, home met me there. It was interesting to navigate new cultures, languages, systems, and words, a world away from the ones my parents had grown up in. It’s interesting that we moved around so much, considering that they never really did.

My biggest loss is losing touch with my birth language, Indonesian, and my mother’s language, Shona. Ironically, my passport and ID documents remind me of my birthplace in bold letters, a gentle reminder of the islands from where I was born. I stopped speaking these languages when we moved to Australia; with my troubles learning English, the teachers had told my mum to stick to speaking one language at home. Now, as a twenty-something-year-old, I do miss that, especially when I am with Indonesians and Zimbabweans, not quite fitting-in as my brain expected me to.

It is confronting to continue to be “home” while still feeling a sense of homesickness and belonging to someplace else. Shaping that I struggle to go a week without some sort of rice dish (thank you, Indonesia) or that I still make pancakes every Saturday morning to keep up with our Darwin morning market breakfasts. I will still support the Springboks whenever I can, and I will never pass down a meal of sadza. It is in that sense of nostalgia and familiarity that I find myself ‘at home’.

Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash

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