The Set

Home Is Not Always Where We Stay

By Alex Teller

Filmmaker and Field Observer

Many of us leave the place where we were born. Some move to the city, others move abroad, and for many people this movement becomes part of growing up. At first, leaving feels like movement toward opportunity, toward education, and toward something larger than the place that raised us. But years later, when we return to the hills and villages where our childhood began, something unexpected happens. Everything looks familiar, yet something feels different. The hills are still there, the wind still moves across the grass, and the houses still stand where they always stood. Yet the silence feels deeper than before, and slowly we begin to realize that the difference is not only in the place itself. The difference is also in us.

The Place That Raised Us

Home is not only a physical place. It is a rhythm that shaped how we grew up. It is the sound of conversations that once filled the evenings, the football fields made of dust and stones, and the neighbors who knew our names long before we understood what the wider world looked like. In the countryside, belonging was not something we had to define. It simply existed in the way people greeted each other, in the way children played together, and in the way elders shared stories across generations. But as life expands and opportunities appear elsewhere, many of us begin to follow different paths. Cities pull us toward education and work, and other countries sometimes pull us toward new experiences. Leaving does not always mean rejecting home. Often it simply means continuing the journey that began there.

The Quiet Difference

When you sit quietly in the place where you were born, you begin to notice small things that once felt ordinary. The silence feels wider, the space feels calmer, and memories begin to return with surprising clarity. You remember the paths you once walked as a child, the neighbors who used to sit outside their homes in the evening, and the laughter that once filled the air between houses. But today many of those voices are gone. Some of the people you grew up with have moved to the city. Others have left the country entirely. Life has carried them toward different directions, just as it carried you. The place itself has not lost its value, but the rhythm of life has changed. Cities grow, countries connect, and dreams expand, and people follow different roads.

A Question Many People Carry

This reflection is not only about nostalgia. It is about understanding something that many people experience but rarely speak about openly. What happens to a place when the people who grew up there move away? And what happens inside us when we return to it years later? Do we still belong there in the same way we once did, or has our relationship with home quietly changed? These questions are not simple ones, because they are questions about identity. They ask us to think about where we come from, where we are going, and how the two remain connected even when distance grows.

Looking Forward

This reflection about home is only the beginning of a larger conversation. The next reflection goes further and asks a question that many young people in Burundi and across the diaspora think about every day. Should we leave the country in search of opportunity, or should we stay and build something where we are? Both choices carry meaning, and both choices carry responsibility. Neither one should be judged too quickly. Because in the end, home is not only the place where we live. Home is the place that shaped who we became.

Watch the full reflection documentary on YouTube through the link below.

Does Burundi Still Feel Like Home?

And tell us honestly:

When you go back home, what do you see?

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Home Is Not Always Where We Stay

The Place That Raised Us

The Quiet Difference

A Question Many People Carry

Looking Forward

The Burundi I Know

The Set Academy

The Setback Podcast