I wasn’t supposed to be there.
Not this year.
Not in the tents, not in the fields, not with glitter on my skin
and falafel in the air.

I came home to rest.
And somehow rest,
for once,
gave me space.
And that space took me straight to Greenbelt.

Hope in the making.
That was the theme.
And it couldn’t have been more relevant if it had
slapped me with a wristband at the gate.

Because most days I’m in Sierra Leone.
Where hospitals groan under the weight of need,
where mothers wait too long for care that comes too late,
where nurses fight on empty stomachs
and patients count their coins like confessions.

And at Greenbelt?
They were shouting about Palestine.
About climate. About borders.
About broken systems dressed up as normal.
Different geography, same anatomy of injustice.
Same rotten roots, sprouting in different soil.

And I sat there in the crowd and felt the echo.
Felt the tug of solidarity stretching
from Freetown to those English fields.

Because exploitation doesn’t respect passports.
Oppression doesn’t ask what language you pray in.

Hope in the making, they said.
And I believed them.
Not hope as in wishful thinking,
not hope as in Pinterest quotes.
But hope as work.
Hope as blistered hands, pulling weeds out of systems
that told us “that’s just the way it is.”

And I realised,
maybe coming home, maybe resting,
brought me there so that hope could catch up with me.

Because in Sierra Leone, in the wards,
I’ve seen resilience like resurrection.
Women mentoring women.
Nurses mentoring nurses.
Sparks of light refusing to go out.
That’s hope too.
Not polished. Not perfect.
But hope,
in the making.

And that’s what Greenbelt was.
A reminder the fight isn’t mine alone,
that injustice is global,
but so is the movement that resists it.

So no, I wasn’t supposed to be there.
But maybe there was exactly
where I was meant to be.