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bending_sickleThe next day the whole library was gone. I never found it again…*
Kit’s question for the meme, which country I lived in would I have liked to grow up in, brought to mind a little mind-exercise I had a few days ago. But first, the stats:
City, Country: years (number of residences)
Braine L’Alleud, Belgium: 1 ½ (1, assumed)
Nairobi, Kenya: 4 (1, assumed)
Rome, Italy: 1 ½ (1)
San Jose, Costa Rica: 5 (3)
Montreal, Canada: 2 (3)
Mexico City, Mexico: 3 (3)
Athens, Greece: 3 (summers) (1)
Montreal, Canada (part 2): 4 (3)
Toronto, Canada: 3 (summers and holidays) (2)
Barcelona, Spain: 2 (4)
Some of these places of residence were quite brief, some even just a few weeks. But they were all the home I had, and as thus are included in the list.
Total: 4 continents, 8 countries, 9 cities, 22 homes in 23 years
Occasional places of residence: mimimum one week
Gran’s house, Burgos, Spain: every summer (1)
Brother’s place, Montreal, Canada: Easter 1998 (1)
Brother’s place, Chicago, USA: every year since 1999 (2)
Uncles’ old place, Barcelona, Spain: every summer (1)
Uncles’ house in Zaragoza, Spain: one summer (1)
Josie’s place, Nova Scotia, Canada: summer of 2005 (3)
Maria Jesus’ place, Miami, USA: one summer (1)
Maria Jesus’ place, Madrid, Spain: various summers (1)
Cousin’s place, Paris, France: various summers (1)
Summer Camp, Normandy, France: one summer (2)
Summer Camp, Montreal, Canada: two summers (2)
Biology Expedition, Somewhere in Mexico: one autumn (1)
Not to mention hotels and one-nighters at friend’s places.
So it’s not like I have a paltry few to choose from. Thinking logically about this, I suppose the place it would have been best for me to grow up would have been Montreal, Canada. Mainly because I was so blown away by it the first time I went there, and then also because I fell in love all over again whilst doing my BSc. It would have been ideal conditions to growing up. At least, that’s what my head says.
But if you asked my heart, I’d say Nairobi, and I don’t quite know why.
All my life, I’ve occasionally uttered pleadingly, to no one in particular, “I want to go home.” Even, yes, whilst sitting at home. Although now I don’t mean anyplace – or anyone – in particular, when I was little, I always meant Nairobi. I suppose the fact that it was the first country I was conscious of leaving may have affected this deep-rooted connection.
I remember making a presentation about Kenya for 2nd grade in Costa Rica, of being so proud of the country. I even claimed to speak Swahili, which, although technically a lie – I only know a smattering of words – I felt it to be true. I didn’t even remember what it sounded like, but I couldn’t fathom my not speaking the language of “my” country.
Throughout my life I’ve still kept the connection to Kenya, reading my mother’s novels, set in the colonialist era, watching wildlife documentaries over and over, reading and rereading the coffee-table books on Kenya my parent’s had bought... I even committed to memory, using the board-game Safari’s flashcards the names of animals in Swahili, and studied a “Mammals of Eastern Africa” book routinely.
I think I’m more familiar with East African wildlife that I am with any other place I’ve lived in. (In the vegetation department, the American tropics wins out.)
I still get flashes of homesickness of some countries I’ve lived in. Costa Rica I miss during rainstorms, and when walking in the tropical area in Montreal’s Biodome. Canada I miss during the winter, when I am surrounded by a complete lack of snow.
But these flashes are nowhere near as poignant as the ones I get of Kenya. True, they’re very rare, but they leave me aching. Last month I watched The White Masai. It’d been years since I’d seen the countryside – Discovery Planet and Animal Planet having seriously declined in quality – and I teared up.
More recently, watching Blood Diamond, I identified with characters and situations I have no real right to. I knew what Arnold Vosloo’s character meant when he said to Leonardo DiCaprio’s that, “This is your home. You will never leave Africa.” Yet, knowing what he meant, what it would feel like, I was bitter – angry, even – that I would never know what that was like.
All of this homesickness or emotional connection is simply the result of my hanging onto early childhood memories and to the memory of homesickness. I suppose this is the same that happens with people who are, or think they still are, in love with someone they haven’t seen in years. Do I really feel this way about the real Kenya, or is this all just a figment of memory? Is it the memory of the emotion, or the subject which we crave?
Maybe what I feel is the same thing that prompted Danny Archer to call his country Rhodesia instead of Zimbabwe: the childhood memory of the country outranks the reality.
This very subject was what I was thinking about Wednesday night.
I know nothing about the Kenya of today. I’m well aware of that. Hell, I know very little, historically, of the Kenya of Yore, as The In-Between World of Vikram Lall by M. G Vassanji proved.
What would it be like to go back? (It’s always “back”. Never “again”, as with other countries. I’d always feel like it was “going back”.)
I wouldn’t recognize anything. I’d step down from the plane and be slapped by the realization that everything is utterly foreign.
The places I remember probably don’t even exist anymore. The house I grew up in, with it’s large garden and swing set, has probably been torn down to make way for construction. (I don’t even know where it was.) What would it feel like to walk into Kabete Kindergarden again, if it’s still there, and see the inevitable changes? Is the Carnivore restaurant still open, and does it still have the huge wooden hippo and croc I used to climb onto? What about the playground of which I have one single memory, that of my father taking a picture - the picture – of Chris Holly and myself?
Would anything be familiar? Would even the red earth seem strange to me?
That Wednesday night I realized that I never really could go back, and the disappointment and loss brought me to tears.
I’ll never be able to go back to the house – which house? - I grew up in, or see my childhood friends all grown up. I’ve known so many people in my life, but most of them I’ll never ever see again, irrespective of how much they might have meant to me. Apart from my immediate family, there is no one in the world who has seen me grow up, seen the whole spectrum of years rather than a short glimpse.
And while I appreciate the opportunities this lifestyle has given me, I wish I’d had that chance.
* Lucien, Sandman #2: Imperfect Hosts, by Neil Gaiman
Kit’s question for the meme, which country I lived in would I have liked to grow up in, brought to mind a little mind-exercise I had a few days ago. But first, the stats:
City, Country: years (number of residences)
Braine L’Alleud, Belgium: 1 ½ (1, assumed)
Nairobi, Kenya: 4 (1, assumed)
Rome, Italy: 1 ½ (1)
San Jose, Costa Rica: 5 (3)
Montreal, Canada: 2 (3)
Mexico City, Mexico: 3 (3)
Athens, Greece: 3 (summers) (1)
Montreal, Canada (part 2): 4 (3)
Toronto, Canada: 3 (summers and holidays) (2)
Barcelona, Spain: 2 (4)
Some of these places of residence were quite brief, some even just a few weeks. But they were all the home I had, and as thus are included in the list.
Total: 4 continents, 8 countries, 9 cities, 22 homes in 23 years
Occasional places of residence: mimimum one week
Gran’s house, Burgos, Spain: every summer (1)
Brother’s place, Montreal, Canada: Easter 1998 (1)
Brother’s place, Chicago, USA: every year since 1999 (2)
Uncles’ old place, Barcelona, Spain: every summer (1)
Uncles’ house in Zaragoza, Spain: one summer (1)
Josie’s place, Nova Scotia, Canada: summer of 2005 (3)
Maria Jesus’ place, Miami, USA: one summer (1)
Maria Jesus’ place, Madrid, Spain: various summers (1)
Cousin’s place, Paris, France: various summers (1)
Summer Camp, Normandy, France: one summer (2)
Summer Camp, Montreal, Canada: two summers (2)
Biology Expedition, Somewhere in Mexico: one autumn (1)
Not to mention hotels and one-nighters at friend’s places.
So it’s not like I have a paltry few to choose from. Thinking logically about this, I suppose the place it would have been best for me to grow up would have been Montreal, Canada. Mainly because I was so blown away by it the first time I went there, and then also because I fell in love all over again whilst doing my BSc. It would have been ideal conditions to growing up. At least, that’s what my head says.
But if you asked my heart, I’d say Nairobi, and I don’t quite know why.
All my life, I’ve occasionally uttered pleadingly, to no one in particular, “I want to go home.” Even, yes, whilst sitting at home. Although now I don’t mean anyplace – or anyone – in particular, when I was little, I always meant Nairobi. I suppose the fact that it was the first country I was conscious of leaving may have affected this deep-rooted connection.
I remember making a presentation about Kenya for 2nd grade in Costa Rica, of being so proud of the country. I even claimed to speak Swahili, which, although technically a lie – I only know a smattering of words – I felt it to be true. I didn’t even remember what it sounded like, but I couldn’t fathom my not speaking the language of “my” country.
Throughout my life I’ve still kept the connection to Kenya, reading my mother’s novels, set in the colonialist era, watching wildlife documentaries over and over, reading and rereading the coffee-table books on Kenya my parent’s had bought... I even committed to memory, using the board-game Safari’s flashcards the names of animals in Swahili, and studied a “Mammals of Eastern Africa” book routinely.
I think I’m more familiar with East African wildlife that I am with any other place I’ve lived in. (In the vegetation department, the American tropics wins out.)
I still get flashes of homesickness of some countries I’ve lived in. Costa Rica I miss during rainstorms, and when walking in the tropical area in Montreal’s Biodome. Canada I miss during the winter, when I am surrounded by a complete lack of snow.
But these flashes are nowhere near as poignant as the ones I get of Kenya. True, they’re very rare, but they leave me aching. Last month I watched The White Masai. It’d been years since I’d seen the countryside – Discovery Planet and Animal Planet having seriously declined in quality – and I teared up.
More recently, watching Blood Diamond, I identified with characters and situations I have no real right to. I knew what Arnold Vosloo’s character meant when he said to Leonardo DiCaprio’s that, “This is your home. You will never leave Africa.” Yet, knowing what he meant, what it would feel like, I was bitter – angry, even – that I would never know what that was like.
All of this homesickness or emotional connection is simply the result of my hanging onto early childhood memories and to the memory of homesickness. I suppose this is the same that happens with people who are, or think they still are, in love with someone they haven’t seen in years. Do I really feel this way about the real Kenya, or is this all just a figment of memory? Is it the memory of the emotion, or the subject which we crave?
Maybe what I feel is the same thing that prompted Danny Archer to call his country Rhodesia instead of Zimbabwe: the childhood memory of the country outranks the reality.
This very subject was what I was thinking about Wednesday night.
I know nothing about the Kenya of today. I’m well aware of that. Hell, I know very little, historically, of the Kenya of Yore, as The In-Between World of Vikram Lall by M. G Vassanji proved.
What would it be like to go back? (It’s always “back”. Never “again”, as with other countries. I’d always feel like it was “going back”.)
I wouldn’t recognize anything. I’d step down from the plane and be slapped by the realization that everything is utterly foreign.
The places I remember probably don’t even exist anymore. The house I grew up in, with it’s large garden and swing set, has probably been torn down to make way for construction. (I don’t even know where it was.) What would it feel like to walk into Kabete Kindergarden again, if it’s still there, and see the inevitable changes? Is the Carnivore restaurant still open, and does it still have the huge wooden hippo and croc I used to climb onto? What about the playground of which I have one single memory, that of my father taking a picture - the picture – of Chris Holly and myself?
Would anything be familiar? Would even the red earth seem strange to me?
That Wednesday night I realized that I never really could go back, and the disappointment and loss brought me to tears.
I’ll never be able to go back to the house – which house? - I grew up in, or see my childhood friends all grown up. I’ve known so many people in my life, but most of them I’ll never ever see again, irrespective of how much they might have meant to me. Apart from my immediate family, there is no one in the world who has seen me grow up, seen the whole spectrum of years rather than a short glimpse.
And while I appreciate the opportunities this lifestyle has given me, I wish I’d had that chance.
* Lucien, Sandman #2: Imperfect Hosts, by Neil Gaiman
no subject
Date: 2007-02-20 09:55 pm (UTC)i thought maybe you would say kenya. i wasn't sure, and i wanted to know the reasons why, which is why i'd asked... but i knew you loved it there.
i feel i understand your desire for permanence better now, by the way. and also... you remind me of a book i read once, where a man was dying and all he could think about was his sister and how when he died, there would be no one left in the whole world that could remember her as the carefree girl playing in the park when they were kids. people only knew the middle aged cranky woman that she is now.
and though you aren't a cranky old woman, it's true that you must have changed a lot since you were a kid... but there's no one to point and say "rememeber that time?"
this makes me sad.
love
kathleen