I have always wanted to visit Africa, though the question for me was…where? Africa is a vast continent comprised of 54 sovereign countries.

 This picture shows the vastness of Africa. Vastness of Africa

It houses 3,000 tribes and over 2,000 languages. Therefore, it was important to me that I was intentional with my visit. So, once I received the results (previous blog outlines that discovery) from my African Ancestry DNA test, I got busy with researching Guinea Bissau, West Africa, and the Fula tribe. Wikipedia, You Tube videos, and Google were the friendly research tools I used to gather information. I then organized that information into categories. I’m a retired teacher, organization and deep dives are my thing. I learned that there are Fula tribes all over the Continent mainly because of their nomadic nature. But my tribe, meaning my unique DNA, my maternal bloodline originated, like many other Black people, in a country bordering the Western Coastline. That’s where the Atlantic Slave Trade took place for more than 400 years.

The country of Guinea Bissau is a small country on the Western Coast that sits between Gambia and Guinea. It has 9 regions, 5 sections and 12 villages. My initial research on the Fula Tribe of Guinea Bissau led me to Piche, a sector in the region of Gabu. That region holds the most concentrated of the Fula people. I thought at first that I would travel there. However, as I was going over my notes for writing this piece, I noticed where I had crossed out Gabu as a possible place to stay or visit. A page over, I crossed Gabu out again and wrote, “there’s nothing there.” I remembered what I meant by nothing, was the fact the region of Gabu in the country of Guinea Bissau didn’t have an airport I could fly into. There were some patches of grassy areas that served as landing strips for small planes to receive supplies and such, but nothing commercial. So, I concentrated my research efforts on the Capital of Guinea Bissau, simply called Bissau, which did have an airport, the Osvaldo Vieira International Airport.

Notice the darker blue area off the water in the above picture? It’s broken up into tiny little shapes. Those shapes are islands! Eighty-eight little islands to be exact. There is a whole documentary about those islands on this site’s video page. It is a fascinating historical account of how the islands, and their people came to be. I was so very fortunate to stay overnight on one of the islands and visit another. Further down the road on this journey, you’ll see pictures and videos of my time there.

The Universe is perfect, and as I sought…I found. I came across a You Tube video entitled, Going Back to Your Roots by get this…Decade of Return Guinea-Bissau (Nov 2022).  That 3:41 minute video lit me up!

Video Decade of Return

I must have watched it 20 times. Little did I know, that soon (via Zoom) I would meet the two people behind the video’s creation and whose journeys I now realize were predestined to cross with mine. My Soul’s Journey Home continues…next month.