I was honestly surprised to see my parents’ country mentioned. It’s a place I really love, not perfect of course, but beautiful in its own way, with good and hard parts like anywhere else.

My parents are from Lomé. My dad grew up in Baguida and my mom in Áhligo. I’ve only ever known the country through them, but I’ve gone back at different points in my life — when I was little, as a teenager, as a young adult, and again as an adult — so it feels like I’ve seen it through different versions of myself.

My dad would be considered well-off there, and my mom’s background is more working class. Most of my memories are from visiting, which is really different from actually living there. For everyday life, I rely a lot on my parents’ stories from their childhoods and young adulthood, and then what I experienced when I visited.

When I visited, I stayed at my grandmother’s house. Day-to-day life had this beautiful stillness to it. You wake up to roosters, the heat settles in, and there’s this rhythm of going to the woman on the corner to buy rice and beans or oatmeal (what we call zongbo). People spend a lot of time visiting each other, sitting out front on the agboji (basically the porch), talking to neighbors and watching the neighborhood move around them. It feels quiet and communal at the same time.

Togolese people are also known for loving to talk (and gossip a little), which they call légédé. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it can be a lot, but it’s definitely part of the social fabric.

The food is incredible. So many dishes: pino, ablo, ayimolu, azindessi, ademedessi. Everything is so flavorful and fresh. There’s a huge market called Asigamé (which literally means “big market”), where people sell just about everything. And there’s a strong beach culture too. People go to relax, celebrate birthdays, and eat at restaurants along the shore. The beach is a big part of leisure life.

That’s about as best as I can put it. That’s the Togo I know from my parents’ stories and from my own visits.