And so, after a brief trip down South to Claviers, the first crates of memories start piling up in my office. Like the memories of youth, they come as a mud-slide of materials, un-processed, raw, and yet, with an underlying narrative. Still, I have now a large part of the verifiable truth within arms’ reach. The perfect inflexion point, from the pointillist approach of sights and sounds, to the brutalist expose of processed memories. The memorabilia of a narrative.
Trying, and often failing, to make random photos stand in chronological order, watching movies frame by frame, digging out items and facts, I realise how much I saw but did not look at. How much I heard but did not listen. How much information I stored but did not, could not, understand. How much I felt but did not empathise.
It seems, that was somehow the meaning all along. Do not stop at how, what, or even who, just take in the spirit of the thing.
The following has been my family’s one true gift to me:
Understanding that life is an ongoing journey
between a Past to dream of, a Future to hope for,
and a Today to endure.
It is a gift. As life is always hope, not greed. You can’t freeze the now, you can’t “stop” it.
It is also a curse. Today never ends, it cannot be won. It is a life suspended between two infinite ends. Today being only an intellectual effort.
That was Africa. No date, not even a location needed.
It is just there in the subtext of the pictures, the answers you guessed the letters answer, the souvenirs always kept for “when”. When you will be older. When you will have kids. When they will come … Where, when, what, who? Never worth discussing. It will be. Africa, Back There, brighter, warmer, freer, funnier, more promising. Back There meaning actually Back Then. Frozen in place looking at the hills from the balcony in Claviers, frozen in place looking at the Horizon. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow will always remain.
All of these heaps of pictures, texts, items, were never shown, alluded or even hinted at. Like the travel trunks, they were the necessary memories and would not bog us down running to the Future.
That is the last shard what I was passed on. A physical, cultural, social, and mental, pattern. Yearning for Atlantis, waiting for a Promised Land just around the corner. Neither needed to be dramatic, nor perfect. They just needed to exist. And for that, you contribute your own to the saga. Just up sticks, reshuffle the cards, create new ripples for you and others around you.
There are many other ways to look at life. Some may be better, more efficient, more pragmatic … and yet, I know now that this is how my soul was imprinted. It is not an urge. It just makes sense to me.
And, for that journey between a past and a future, ever going on, you need a support system: the family. The family as a travel unit, without which you would not survive very long, physically nor mentally. The family as a laager to enable life, circled wagons that support and defend. But survival is not emotional first. The family does not have to be the famous “little circle of trust” of Robert de Niro in “Meet the Parents” – his best ever movie. Transparency, openness, empathy may even be dangerous. So it is not needed. Everyone looking in the same direction, building and moving towards it. Drama and emotions exist. They may even be a good thing. But they are a distraction, and possibly a threat to the laager.
Family as an ever-ready, ever self-reliable, support system. Not something to decipher.
That is how these items, pictures and paraphernalia came to me. Not in choreographed introductions, “this is your grandfather…”, but in hints, glimpses, overheard comments. This is what is so fascinating for me, to discover, put in context and share with you over in this second arch. Videos, reels, pictures, items, and stories, once cherished memories, a small part of the Past, and anchors for the Future.
With a touch of context, they are significance. Without it? Just curios in funny hats.
I did dig out some pictures already (cfr. below). A carnival in the 1920s in Africa. My young grandparents alone in the bush, driving the Bugatti race car of Zia Bey in 1923, a handwritten Gbaya/Kiswahili dictionnary.
Without the actual context, they are only conjecture. To mean something, these pictures need keys.
At worse, they are a human connection over the years through someone’s kept mementoes and cherished memories. At best? Wrapped into as much context, historical, personal, as available. Well, you get to be the judge of it.
Let’s weave back the Past through material evidence that once were Tomorrow.
Stay tuned for more.
My grandfather always dreamed of owning a Bugatti, but never did. He drove and brought his Chevrolet Deluxe with him to Congo – as can be seen on the videos posted on Facebook and Instagram. In 1923, however, he got the occasion to drive the Bugatti owned by ZIA Bey, the then Turkish minister, at the Autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry in France, as seen on this picture.
1924 Carnaval. Deep into a photo album, among gazelles, buffalo’s and mining prospectors, a picture of a light moment. Unexpected, untitled, and dated by proxy, partly a mystery. In the middle, staring at the camera, my grandparents.
On the back of the official Gbaya and Kiswahili dictionary, the handwritten personal notes and translations from my grandfather. Above is a page dedicated to the hunt. Interestingly enough, my grandmother and mother still spoke partly Kiswahili to me when we were in Claviers during summer.
Africa, late 1920s. My grandparents in the bush before settling down definitely in Jadotville, Congo.
Photo and video material is released every day on Facebook and Instagram.
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