What a gift it is to come from multiple islands. Cabo Verde is a volcanic archipelago made up of 10 of them. For much of my life, the landscape of the country my Grandmother emigrated from was her house in Brooklyn where bottomless pots of cachupa flowed and Cesaria Evora’s “Sodade” moved a young boy to tears before he could figure out where they were coming from. Now I’ve laid eyes on another homeland of mine where passionfruit rum reigns supreme, color is used to punctuate, arid mountains decorate, and Amilcar Cabral the man who forged our independence struggle is widely celebrated. It is still also my grandmothers home in Brownsville but now it is accompanied by the intrinsic knowledge one re-inherits when you swim on the African side of the Atlantic for the first time.