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@onalaja_

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Valley files and other stories. Vol 1. taken in San Jose, California by @onalaja_

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5 days ago

2026 ✨ by @onalaja_

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9 months ago

Sunrise set, movement ,sweat and laughs. Just being, because why not. by @onalaja_

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10 months ago

It’s as one of your philosophers said, once a man knows himself completely, he is free to die.

Algeria reminded me of my own incompleteness.

At the airport, Abdelhak is hugging me firmly as he drops me for my late flight to Istanbul. My eyes are welling up.

Later, he sends me a WhatsApp message to tell me he had forgotten a gift he got me.

“I had bought some boxes of dates, but I was unlucky. I forgot them in the refrigerator, and time was short.”

He would have typed in Arabic, then translated it into English.

He is a pure man.

One day, on our way back from the Intra-African Trade Fair, I notice a road I don’t recognise. I gesture with my hands to say so.

He turns and tells me, in his hesitant French, that he was taking me on a little tour. That is how I came to see the Place des Martyrs.

A day before I was to leave Algiers, he hands me his phone. His son is on the line.

“Hey bud, my dad is asking if he could take you on a tour of Algiers tomorrow,” Amine informs me in English.

You see, Abdelhak speaks only Arabic and a broken French. Our connection had been built on Google Translate and his son playing the interpreter.

I said “yes”.

The next day, Saïd joins us. (One day I will write about Saïd.)

He comes with Safo, and we all visit the Notre-Dame d’Afrique, then the Casbah, where we buy small, expensive keepsakes, dressed up, plucked at a mondol, and ate sardines and Pizza Carré.

Saïd taught me what to do with the lemon wedge that comes with seafood. Turns out It’s not entirely to enhance the taste of the food (One day I will write about Saïd.)

It’s 8PM. I am wheeling my Samsonite case into Houri Boumedienne International. Abdelhak is waving from the side of his Citroen Spacetourer, and I am fighting back tears.

I am not the one for tears at the airport, but I guess this is what we are doing now.

It’s as Camus, your great Algerian philosopher, once wrote: We continue to shape our personality all our life. If we knew ourselves perfectly, we should die. taken in Basilique Notre-Dame d'Afrique by @onalaja_

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a year ago

A thoroughly defining time crossing three countries to arrive Côte D’Ivoire in time for the AFCON final.

Gratitude for the sun; for open roads; for friends who leave couches to be crashed on and the ones who pose for speed cameras. Gratitude for the Trans-African Highway 7 and the infernal pockets of corruption that pockmark it.

Till we meet again.

☀️ taken in Côte d'Ivoire by @onalaja_

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3 years ago

You have been here before. With Dylan who, two days after you met, won the Math Olympiad in Masaka. You have been here.

You smelled the dust of the first eastern rain and got hooked on it. You were here flailing at the bottom of the Nile, the oar of an inflatable raft threatening to break loose your front teeth.

The Nile Crack Club was with you and together survived the Nile then made a Spotify playlist about it.

You have been here before, pulling at the nipples of the devil and smiling in her face. You drank a beer beside Nalubule in celebration of your survival of Devil’s every scheme at revenge. taken in Walukuba, Jinja, Uganda by @onalaja_

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3 years ago

Alleluia, it’s a new year. | 10/08. 💐 taken in Kibuye, Rwanda by @onalaja_

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3 years ago

L’chaim! 💐 taken in I.I.T.A , Ibadan. by @onalaja_

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3 years ago

These ones are kindreds. From salt to the sea. From red to the Martian moon. They lift me like a cool blunt smoke rising through darkened finger tips and darker lips. #lagos by @onalaja_

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4 years ago

☀️ taken in Óbidos, Portugal by @onalaja_

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4 years ago

🌵 — Take it to the edge. Breathe.

At home ft. @jime_akpusugh taken in Vale Furado by @onalaja_

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4 years ago

Spent a beautiful sunny day in Bath witnessing the love of these two sweethearts blossom into something unbreakable. Congratulations @taslimokunola (h/t for the most creative proposal I have seen in a long time) x @thesandraio 🥳🥳. I love you guys. So much. taken in Bath, United Kingdom by @onalaja_

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4 years ago