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When I think of Belgium, I think of Chokotoff, Sirop de Liege, Speculoos and Wittamer... It's far away from my home, New York, even further from where I'm originally from... Migration is in my blood, Belgium was in my path, its former colony was my birthplace. I lived between Africa and Belgium until I reached this island, Manhattan, thirteen years ago...

So how did I start in Africa? My paternal grandparents fled the Fascist Italian regime back in 1923 and settled in the Belgian Congo. Leopoldville became their home, my father's birthplace and its capital Kinshasa my home. We all sort-of became Belgians... We had Belgian friends, we spent holidays in Belgium and eventually we moved to its capital Brussels.
I remember the country so intimately... All the woods in the heart of the city, the hedges trimmed and clipped, the streets so clean, everything so organized - a shocking difference from the chaos of Kinshasa! I fondly remember spending the summer weekends in Knokke-le-Zout, the winter weekends in the Ardennes...

I came to New York, home of the migrants, to find a piece of Belgium and Africa and much more... Here I found that Belgian sense of sophistication with the chaos of the Congo... And that pioneering spirit that anything is possible if you're bold enough to dream it.

ALBERT ANGEL, Italian. Born in Kinshasa, D.R. Congo. Raised in Kinshasa, D.R. Congo and Brussels, Belgium.
Lives in New York, NY, USA.