Where is home?

Where is home? Is it the place you grew up in? The place you were born? Is it where your parents and grandparents grew up? Or is it where you went to college? Or simply a place where you are living now?

I was born in Shinyanga, where I also attended primary school for 7 years. After that, I was selected to join Ilboru Secondary school, which is one of the top public schools in the country. I spent the next 6 years at this school which is located a 15-hour bus drive away from home. 

Then I lived in Dar for a year before I started my adventurous 4-year college journey in the Middle East, China, India, Germany, and the United State. When this journey ended, I went back to Dar es Salaam and started my career journey.

During this adventurous journey, I felt very far away from home before I lost a sense of home at all. However, this was a turning point in my life because I found another meaning of home. Initially, I used to define home as a place where I or my parents were born. For example, while in high school I used to tell people that my home is Shinyanga. At college in the UAE, I would say my home is Tanzania. When I was studying away in Tanzania, this question had a more-than-one sentence answer. I said, my home is Tanzania but my home campus is Abu Dhabi. This answer was still valid a year later when I had a chance to study away in New York.

At the end of the 4 years of college, I had so many memories of the places I spent time with my classmates during winter breaks, class trips, and study away semesters. I could remember the days we partied all night in our dorms, the days we sneaked into private beaches at night unnoticed by the beach's guards, the days where we visited countries where no one among us could speak their language and still survived, etc. 

As time goes, my memories of my origin home, Shinyanga, keep fading away to the point that I no longer have the night dreams I had when I just moved to Arusha for high school. This is by part because I haven't been there for more than 10 years now and by part because I have accumulated enormous memories of other places and other people who I have met.

Which place do you call home? A coworker recently asked me this question and the discussion we had made me write this response. I am currently working and living in Dar es Salaam so one would expect me to call it home. I was born in Shinyanga, so my mom will definitely expect me to refer to that place as home. But in fact, most of my memories now are still about the food, the places, and the people I met in Abu Dhabi. I formed life-long memories and bonds with them.

 So to conclude where is my home now? The truth is I do not know. Or like what NYU students say to the common "what is your major?" question "I am undecided yet".