Reconnecting with my Angolan family

In November 2015, Marcia Veiga was returning from a university lecture when she received an unusual Facebook message. It was from a man claiming to be her uncle. Within minutes she had received several messages from aunts and cousins.

“I just wanted to throw up. I had all these questions. I was just so overwhelmed. I was quite scared,” says Marcia about her reaction to the message she had received.

That message set Marcia on a journey of discovery. She was born in the capital Luanda but left Angola with her mother during the 1975-2002 civil war and lost contact with her father.

While growing up, she tried to stay connected to her culture by attending birthday parties within the Angolan community: “I was very familiar with the things that make a culture what it is, in terms of the music and the dances and stuff and the food. It’s particularly the food that links me back to my country,” says Marcia.