Memories, Reminiscences and Nostalgia…

I never allow my family to forget that I was born in Nairobi, Kenya. Never. As soon as there is a nip in the air and my family dig out their woolens...

 I stare at them with utter disdain, a look of sheer contempt...

‘Are you guys feeling cold?’

I know they are rolling their eyes...but who cares?

Then I add my piece, ‘I rarely feel cold...You see I was born at the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro’ Geography be damned.

Oh Yes, it was terribly cold in Nairobi, peeking out my feet for the socks, a small satchel with hardly a thing in it, a soup-plate shaped school hat and a red sweater completed my uniform.

My mother, insisting that all you needed to do to plant roses in Africa, was to poke a rose twig in the extremely fertile soil and voila you had yellow roses all the year round.

Such insufficient memories...

Such sketchy memories...

Not enough to fill a page. We returned very early, not late enough to be called Africanders. By the time the ‘real’ Africanders had come we had only tons of Memories of Goa.

So here we are, let us share your memories, let us treasure your reminiscences, and let us nurture your recollections. 

Good memories? We will rejoice and giggle with you.

Sad ones? We will mourn and empathize with you. 

For what are we but friends sharing a similar past?

Do you wish to remain incognito? Well, that’s not a problem at all.

We will leave you undercover with a super-duper name, how does 007 sound? 

But whatever the memories we will cherish them.

Or do you want to let it all hang out, consequences be dammed. That’s amazing too. 

No matter what, we will cherish your innermost memories, because if we don’t give them a life they will die...lost forever, for we are made of memories.

For you my dearest Africanders

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv9PSkNkUfs