The Word That Changed How I See Belonging
I joined a SIETAR virtual event about Kigali and African traditions on a Tuesday afternoon, mostly because I had tea getting cold and nowhere urgent to be. I signed up out of curiosity, hoping to bring more living culture into the books I am writing, and fully expected to leave with a few interesting facts and maybe a new Pinterest board.
Instead I left with a single word I could not stop turning over: teranga.
I write about identity migration and parenting abroad. Teranga landed differently because of that.
It is Senegalese. It gets translated as hospitality but that is like describing the ocean as some water. Teranga is a way of being. An invitation and a responsibility at the same time. It is the kind of openhearted welcome that starts before you even open the door, in how you think about the person coming and clear space for them and make sure they do not leave feeling like a guest.
I made tea afterward, a fresh cup this time, and wrote the word on a sticky note. Seven letters in my handwriting. It felt like remembering something I had always known rather than learning something new.
The Cultural Cousin You Recognise Instantly
I grew up in Brazil and the moment I heard teranga described I thought: oh, we have this. We just never named it.
It is the friend who will not let you leave without eating something. The neighbour who sends you home with a container of food and gets personally offended if you return it empty. The table that somehow expands to fit whoever shows up. In Brazil, generosity does not announce itself. It just assumes you are staying for dinner and starts setting the extra place.
The word was new, but the feeling not.
The Problem With Welcome
We live in a world drowning in welcome. Welcome emails, welcome sequences, welcome packages. We welcome new followers and feedback and communities until the word has been so thoroughly automated it has stopped meaning anything. It is a checkbox, a trigger word in a drip campaign.
Teranga is the opposite of that. You cannot schedule it. You cannot outsource it to a caption or a chatbot or a carefully crafted onboarding flow. It requires actual presence, the uncomfortable, inefficient, gloriously human kind. The kind where you put your phone down and actually look at someone.
It is the difference between being included and being cared for, and once you feel it you cannot go back to mistaking one for the other.
If belonging is something you are working on, for yourself or for the children you are raising between cultures, Parenting Unpacked was written for exactly that. The first forty pages are free. 💛
What Belonging Actually Looks Like
I have lived in several countries and each one has taught me something different about welcome. In some places hospitality means showing up with help. In others it means giving space and not overwhelming someone. I have felt completely embraced and completely invisible sometimes within the same week, in the same city, around different people.
Belonging is not a place. It is not a passport or a language level or how long you have lived somewhere. It is a series of small moments where someone chose to make room for you. Sometimes it is remembering the snack that reminds someone of home. Sometimes it is learning to pronounce their name correctly and actually practising before you say it out loud. Sometimes it is just staying quiet long enough to really hear what someone is saying instead of preparing your response while they are still talking.
Small things with enormous impact.
That is what researchers call identity preservation, the active work of knowing who you are clearly enough that difference does not destabilise you, and what I argue in Parenting Unpacked: belonging is something you make. For yourself, yes. But more importantly, for others.
What Teranga Looks Like on the Page
As a writer and as a mother raising a child far from where I was born, I think about this constantly.
What does it mean to write with teranga? To hold space for someone else's story, not just use their experience as texture for mine? To write a character from a culture I did not grow up in and treat them like a person rather than a lesson?
When we first move abroad we believe belonging is something we find, a place that finally fits, a community that finally gets us. But over time most of us figure out the uncomfortable truth: belonging is something you make.
You become the person who holds the door.
So now when I sit down to write I think of teranga. I think of the strangers who made me feel like family before I gave them any reason to. The dinners where laughter did what language could not. The people who mispronounced my name for months but tried every single time, which somehow mattered more than getting it right.
I try to do on the page what those people did in real life. Make space, offer care, remind people they are seen.
Because a story can do one of two things. It can close the door or it can hold it open, stand there patiently, and make sure everyone gets in.
teranga (teh-RAN-ga) — Senegalese concept of hospitality, generosity, and welcome. The kind that does not wait to be asked.
Write it down. Put it somewhere you will see it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does teranga mean?
Teranga is a Senegalese concept that translates roughly as hospitality but encompasses far more than the English word suggests. It describes a way of being with others that begins before the guest arrives, in how you think about them, how you prepare for them, and how you ensure they leave feeling genuinely welcomed rather than merely accommodated.
How is teranga different from Western hospitality?
Western hospitality tends to be event-based and transactional. You host, the guest arrives, the event ends. Teranga is relational and ongoing. It is not something you perform for a guest but something you embody as a way of moving through the world with others.
What is the connection between teranga and belonging?
Belonging is not a place or a status. It is the accumulation of small moments where someone chose to make room for you. Teranga names the practice of creating those moments deliberately rather than waiting for belonging to happen. This connects directly to the concept of identity preservation and the broader territory explored in Parenting Unpacked.
What is SIETAR?
SIETAR is the Society for Intercultural Education Training and Research, a global network of practitioners, researchers, and educators working in the field of intercultural communication and cross-cultural understanding. The virtual event described in this post was organised through the SIETAR network.
Is teranga relevant to expat and immigrant families?
Absolutely. The experience of moving countries forces you to confront what belonging actually means because the automatic version of it, the community that simply exists around you because you grew up there, disappears. Teranga offers a different frame: belonging as something you actively create for others rather than something you passively receive.
