Humanist

Even when I am away and far from it, when I think of it as mine, my heart warms. Some of my most treasured memories are of times spent in that house with my siblings and my late tata (grandma), the mother of my late father.

Even though since modified for my comfort, there is a lot of the old still in it. It warms me when I see the old bits which trigger remembrance of the good times.

I see her in the kitchen preparing a meal for her grandchildren. Whereas, her physical kitchen is no longer in the spot it was, the same timber of the roof of her kitchen is still there, colored with the smoke from years of firewood cooking.

Yes, tata was the envy of the village. Her son built her a big house – a complex of five semi-detached rooms, if my memory serves me right, among which was a kitchen.

Unlike others, the rest of the village, where the kitchen is usually a separate little house from where the bedroom is, tata had all her facilities in a connected complex. Even her bathroom.

Memories of times spent on the veranda that connected all the rooms, each with its own door, bring a smile on my face. I remember her bunch of keys tied around her waste all the time. I think even in her sleep!

Try as you may, without her express permission, you would not access her rooms, especially her store, food pantry really, which always had the goodies – preserved meats, ripening bananas, roasted groundnuts, etc.

I feel privileged to be its current owner.