Chapter 2: Cold Shock Therapy
by September 20, 2025We had to leave Sudan.
Word got around that the rebel armies were getting closer.
We were advised to leave.
My dad, who always had a feel for the undercurrents, caught wind of it early.
No drama, no panic — just a quiet understanding:
It was time to go.
So we packed up what little we had and fled to Kenya.
I was two years old — just beginning to form memories.
Everything moved fast, but I remember the feeling of motion.
Like we were being chased by something invisible.
Kenya felt calmer. Safer.
We stayed there for a while, catching our breath.
But it wasn’t meant to be permanent.
Kenya was temporary.
A breath in. A breath out.
Then: back to Holland.
You’d think returning to your birthplace would feel like a homecoming.
It didn’t.
We landed in the middle of winter.
Sudan had shaped me in silence and heat.
I’d never worn shoes. Never needed a shirt.
I was used to barefoot sand walks and naked sun baths.
But Holland?
Holland in winter was something else entirely.
Cold air that pierced the skin like needlepoints
Grey skies. Everything square. Everything sterile.
And the clothes — my god, the clothes.
I remember my mother bundling me into this thick snow jacket.
One of those Michelin Man puffers with a thousand zippers and buttons.
She zipped me up tight, pulled the hood over my head…
…and I just stood there.
Completely stiff.
Like a mummified marshmallow.
I couldn’t move.
Couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t feel anything.
That’s when she knew.
This wasn’t home.
We tried. Really.
But I never fit into the grid.
I was used to fluidity, to warmth, to the kind of chaos that made sense.
And suddenly I was surrounded by cold order, blinking lights, and invisible fences.
So we did what my family always did best:
We kept moving.
And so, with barely a pause to unpack,
we left again —
this time, toward the East.
To where the air was thick, the streets were wild, and hip-hop was waiting in a back alley market, stitched into a rejected FUBU hoodie I couldn’t afford.
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