Moussa Kouacou

When I got home last Tuesday evening, my clothes were soaked with sweat, and my head was heavy from the sun and the endless shouting at the construction site. I’ve worked there for years. It’s not what I dreamed of doing, but it pays enough to keep me afloat here in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. I live alone in a small flat in Yopougon. After a quick shower and a bowl of instant noodles, I opened my old laptop to check emails. Mostly spam, as always. But then I saw a subject line that stopped me cold: “Your Brother from France.”

At first, I thought it was a scam. But the message inside was too specific, too real. The man said his name was Julien. He wrote that he had spent two years searching for me. He said he was adopted as a baby and raised in France by a family who gave him everything he needed. After his adoptive mother died, he started looking for his biological roots. That search led him to our mother, who told him she had given up a second son—me—who ended up in a home in Côte d’Ivoire.

I’m 29 now. I’ve lived all my life in Abidjan. My memories of the children’s home are still vivid—thin mattresses, harsh voices, and the constant feeling of being unwanted. No one ever came to visit. No one explained anything. I grew up with questions I learned not to ask. I left that place with nothing but my name.

And now Julien—my brother—was reaching out to me. He said he wanted to talk, to know who I am, to hear my story. He has a wife, a daughter. He said he believes it’s not too late for us to build something.

I haven’t answered yet. Not because I don’t want to—but because I’m afraid of what this means. Of what it might awaken in me. But maybe, just maybe, fate hasn’t forgotten me after all. Maybe it waited until I was ready.