History and Geography
Today I meant to write about the fact that i have received my open ticket from London Gatwick to Lomé leaving the 07/11, and how I have been taking a day off doing anything departure related because the chase for the the cheapest, as direct as possible, valid one year ticket has left mestrangelyy exhausted. Or how preparing to move this time around is so much complicated than 5 years ago when I crossed the Channel my own Rubicon. Or something that would have to do with the realness and the imminence of this new little adventure of mine. Basically, a topic in line with the "true" reason for starting this blog: keeping in touch while I am away.
Instead, I'm continuing what I've been doing from post one: breaking the only rule I'd set to myself of not writing about anything personal.
After calling my guardian to tell her the news of my departure, I started thinking of my family history. I never liked explaining it to people. When I was little, I would have had to say: I live in Paris with my white guardians and one of my younger sister, and I have parents and two younger sisters living in Burundi/Togo/RDC wherever they would be at the time. 2 sets of parents, 3 sisters.
Now if I were to give a complete picture, I would have to say: I leave in the UK, my guardian lives in Paris, her husband died in Peru, my sister also lives in Paris, but not with my guardian; my mother and my two younger sisters live in greater Paris, my father died in Guinée.
Of course don't give the complete picture, I just say I live in the UK and the family is in France.
For a long time I had only limited contact with my "African family", meeting relatives while on holidays in Togo, or a few awkward visits in Paris from un familiar Uncles and Aunties.
Since, I have discovered the two very different and feuding segments that compose my African family. We use to think of it as a Romeo and Juliet type of story: the Proud but Modest family living in the village (my father's), versus the Proud and Well-off trading family (my mother's). The hinterland versus the coast we would hear.
Things fell into place one day while researching on the Slave Coast of Africa. The well known fact of my father's people being transported throught the Middle Passage, and suddenlly, my mother's family name in a history book, recorded as traders of other human beings. Unlike the writer Ekow Eshun, I am not shocked because the clues were there all along: how else an old family could have made its money on the coast of West Africa?
The past lives on and fosters dislikes and inimities generations on.
Going home in a few weeks means going back to all of my family, their histories and my human geography.
Instead, I'm continuing what I've been doing from post one: breaking the only rule I'd set to myself of not writing about anything personal.
After calling my guardian to tell her the news of my departure, I started thinking of my family history. I never liked explaining it to people. When I was little, I would have had to say: I live in Paris with my white guardians and one of my younger sister, and I have parents and two younger sisters living in Burundi/Togo/RDC wherever they would be at the time. 2 sets of parents, 3 sisters.
Now if I were to give a complete picture, I would have to say: I leave in the UK, my guardian lives in Paris, her husband died in Peru, my sister also lives in Paris, but not with my guardian; my mother and my two younger sisters live in greater Paris, my father died in Guinée.
Of course don't give the complete picture, I just say I live in the UK and the family is in France.
For a long time I had only limited contact with my "African family", meeting relatives while on holidays in Togo, or a few awkward visits in Paris from un familiar Uncles and Aunties.
Since, I have discovered the two very different and feuding segments that compose my African family. We use to think of it as a Romeo and Juliet type of story: the Proud but Modest family living in the village (my father's), versus the Proud and Well-off trading family (my mother's). The hinterland versus the coast we would hear.
Things fell into place one day while researching on the Slave Coast of Africa. The well known fact of my father's people being transported throught the Middle Passage, and suddenlly, my mother's family name in a history book, recorded as traders of other human beings. Unlike the writer Ekow Eshun, I am not shocked because the clues were there all along: how else an old family could have made its money on the coast of West Africa?
The past lives on and fosters dislikes and inimities generations on.
Going home in a few weeks means going back to all of my family, their histories and my human geography.
posted by Kékéli at 13:23
1 Comments:
oh...geographies of home. i stole that phrase from loida maritza perez.
you're going to togo for a year? for what?
Post a Comment
<< Home