It is difficult to imagine that a homecoming could happen up to 4,000 miles away from the place of one’s birth, but this year’s Taalu provided just that for a great many people. September 11, 2026, saw a mass of vibrantly colored and extravagantly dressed students, staffulty, and guests descend upon the brightly lit auditorium.
The powerful and poignant opening performance by the Dead Poets’ Society, with their poetic verse meticulously braided through the melancholic melody of Sananda Maitreya’s song “As Yet Untitled,” planted the seed of the baobab tree as the metaphorical genesis of the journey home. Pan-Africanist pride soared to an all-time high that afternoon, as Kenyan bracelets gleamed against the blue and white of Tunisian jebbas, and Ethiopian eskista was performed with the same graceful rigor as Sudanese ragaba. The stomps of the Swati warriors seemed to shake the world, almost equal in force to the thunderous roar of applause that followed each and every performance. From beginning to end, Taalu spread its beautiful canopy to shelter ALA’s community under the common shade of culture.
Like the water essential to the nourishment of a tree in the early stages of its growth, Taalu’s speeches served to nourish the very soul of the community. Dean Uzo Agyare-Kumi’s touching speech on the inevitable change that grief and loss beget ended in a reflection on ALA’s mission, unwavering in the face of the winds of change that have swept through the pathways of the Academy over the years. She urged the newly arrived first-year students, in times of challenge and difficulty, to remember the gratitude and joy they felt when they said yes to ALA. She encouraged them to remember the promise of change and growth they had made to themselves and their communities.
Student Government chairman Mehdi Mlaouah, a Year 2 student from Tunisia, reflected on community in his speech. He spoke fondly of memories of eating mi goreng with his dearest friends, a feast made with Ethiopian spices, Tunisian harissa, and Egyptian cheese. Tantalizing though it may have been for the taste buds, the feast they shared that night also represented the diverse tastes of Africa and the strength of connections formed at ALA. It held the promise of a future in which one might fondly recall eating mi goreng with a future president, showing how these connections help forge Africa’s future, in perfect alignment with ALA’s model. Both speeches served as a return to the soul at the center of Taalu.
The photographs taken after the ceremony captured a tapestry of faces against the lush green hues of the quad, illuminated by stark camera flashes. Faces turned in reverence toward the sun marked the completion of the return to our communities and our cultural selves. Taalu may have been immortalized in photo booth pictures, but it truly lives on in the rhythm of 300 hearts, racing together to the tune of Africa’s future.
Claudina Taylor '25
Claudina Taylor is a Year 2 student at African Leadership Academy from Kenya and Sierra Leone. A writer at heart and a lover of all forms of African creative expression, Claudina has cultivated her love for storytelling at ALA through her work on the student media team and in her Writing & Rhetoric classes. Claudina hopes to pursue the study of anthropology at university, but for the time being, you can find her in the African Studies library with her head buried in a book.
