Tano Steenbergen

That trip to Zimbabwe left a mark on me, though not in the way I had expected.

Growing up in Amsterdam, my life was one of comfort, security, and opportunity. My adoptive parents made sure I lacked nothing. Good education, family vacations, and a home filled with books and art—everything was in place for me to thrive. Zimbabwe was just a word on my passport, a place I had no memory of. But as I got older, a quiet restlessness grew in me.

At 35, I finally decided to visit the country of my birth. It felt overdue. I wanted to see if there was something inside me that would click into place. Maybe I’d feel a connection. Maybe I’d find some sense of home.

When I arrived in Harare, the first thing that struck me was how normal it all felt. The streets, the noise, the market stalls spilling with tomatoes and bananas—it wasn’t as foreign as I had imagined. And yet, it was. I blended in physically, but something in my posture, my way of walking, the way I held my shoulders, marked me as different.

People’s eyes lingered a little too long. A vendor in Mbare looked at me suspiciously when I asked for directions in English. A taxi driver laughed when I greeted him in broken Shona. “You look like us, but you talk like them,” he said. “Where are you really from?”

I explained my story too many times. Each time, the reaction was the same—curiosity, amusement, sometimes something sharper, harder to define. I knew what they were thinking: I was one of the lucky ones. Raised in Europe, given a life far from Zimbabwe’s struggles.

In a small village outside Mutare, I met a man who could have been my uncle, or cousin, or brother. He had the same deep-set eyes as me, the same sharp cheekbones. He studied me for a long time before shaking my hand. “So you came back,” he said.

“Just visiting,” I replied.

By the end of the trip, I was exhausted. I had hoped to feel something profound, something like belonging. Instead, I left with a sense of quiet alienation. I wasn’t fully Dutch, and I wasn’t fully Zimbabwean. I was something in between, something undefined.

Even now, three years later, I still think about that journey.