THE STREET WAS HOME

The street raised us.

Not gently—but honestly. The kind of honesty that comes with heat pressing down on your back and hunger reminding you of time better than any clock ever could. We learned early that morning smelled like exhaust and bread, and night smelled like dust and tired laughter. Accra never slept; it only slowed down long enough to breathe.

We slept where the shade was longest. Sometimes under the mango tree near the chop bar, sometimes beside the abandoned kiosk with the peeling MTN poster. Wherever the ground didn’t burn too much and the noise felt familiar. Home was never a place—it was wherever he was.

I met him long before I knew what brotherhood meant. We weren’t born from the same mother, but life stitched us together tightly enough that blood didn’t matter. When you share hunger with someone long enough, it becomes loyalty. When you survive rain, stones, shouting, and the occasional kick together, it becomes family.

People passed us every day. Some pretended not to see us. Others stared like we were part of the scenery—like the potholes, the posters, the trotro conductors shouting destinations no one ever fully heard. A few were kind. A woman would sometimes toss leftovers our way. A child once laughed and followed us for half a street before his mother dragged him back.

We learned which streets were safe and which ones weren’t. We learned when to run. We learned when to stand still and hope invisibility would do the rest. Mostly, we learned to stay close. Close enough that if one of us moved, the other felt it.

At night, when the city finally loosened its grip, we talked.

Not about dreams—we didn’t have the luxury of dreams. We talked about survival. About where food might come from tomorrow. About the man near the market who didn’t like us. About the loud music that played every Friday night and how, for some reason, it always made us feel less alone.

Sometimes we laughed. Quietly. Because laughter attracts attention, and attention attracts trouble.

We didn’t know then that trouble had already seen us.

That somewhere between the horns, the shouting, and the dust, a decision was already being made—one that would split the street in two and teach me that brotherhood can be torn apart with nothing more than a pointing finger and a few folded notes.

But that day, the street was still home.

And we were still together.