Ama’s first night in the new country was quieter than she imagined. The streets were empty, the air bit through her jacket, and her thoughts were louder than ever. She had landed with nothing but two suitcases, a borrowed address, and the kind of courage that comes when there’s no way back.
Her first few days blurred together. The city lights didn’t sleep, but she couldn’t find rest either. Buses came and went faster than she could read their routes, and even the supermarkets felt foreign — too clean, too cold, too quiet. The only thing that made sense was the little Ghanaian shop three blocks away, where the air smelled of smoked fish, pepper, and nostalgia.
The woman behind the counter didn’t speak much English, but she smiled and slipped a free cube of Maggi into Ama’s bag every time she came. Somehow, that small act of kindness filled the silence better than words.
Weeks passed. Ama learned to count bus stops instead of reading signs. She marked time not by dates but by survival: the day she got her first job, the evening she learned how to use the washing machine, the morning her mother’s voice on the phone made her cry without reason.
Loneliness was constant but not cruel — it pushed her to adapt. One night, she wrote in her journal: “Maybe belonging doesn’t come all at once. Maybe it arrives in pieces — one handshake, one meal, one kind face at a time.”
Winter came early that year. Her window frosted before dawn, and she watched her breath fog the glass as she boiled water for tea. When the kettle whistled, she smiled for the first time in weeks. The place still didn’t feel like home — but she realized she no longer felt like a stranger.
Ama’s story is not about arrival; it’s about becoming.
Because sometimes, the truest beginnings happen far from home, when all you have left to do is start.
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