Calling All Indigenous Foreigners
By Kweku Ulzen (@kw3ks)
From the peaks of Kilimanjaro to the depths of the Caribbean Sea…from the favelas of Brazil to Striver’s Row in Harlem…from the solemn slave castles of Ghana to the rave culture of South Africa, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover. Black people are not a monolith and the descendants of those calling Africa their home have cultivated many unique cultures across the globe. Like the griots before us, we must continue to tell the stories of these cultures and document our bliss in life the best that we can. There’s no better way to learn of a culture than immersion—a deep dive experience into a place, enveloping yourself in the history, liveliness, and air of that locale.
If you’re reading this, you’re an Indigenous Foreigner. We all are in some sense. Indigenous people originate or are native to a particular place, regardless of where they live today. We can take the term foreigner in this context to mean someone new to an experience or place as well. This paradoxical portmanteau is well-fitting on people such as myself and many others across the globe. The scourge of some of us having their ancestors unceremoniously stripped of their native land, forced to build new lives across the world and some having left their homes years later due to a variety of economic, political, or opportunistic causes, has created a worldwide community of people traveling to places their bloodline used to call home—or where their distant cousins landed—and experiencing those areas for the first time. You see these travel communities thriving on social media or in group chats, learning of flight deals and the latest trends in which to partake. Indigenous Foreigner aims to feed that community with the most relevant information and imagery to help them guide their tour through the African diaspora.
Technology and logistics have made us closer to one another than we’ve ever been. If you’re living in California and see a great music festival taking place in Ghana with your favorite artists, you are just a click away from the ticket. We are the conduit of informing your experience in between. From understanding the best hotels to book, best ways to travel through the country, and other sights to see while on our journey, let us be your end-to-end guide in your travels. With descriptive articles, images, interactive maps, and deals for events, we’ve got the hook up. Thank you for considering our community. Please follow us on our social platforms to join the conversation.
