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La Der des Ders
1914-1918 Postcard of WW1, war frontBelfort, France – 27th September 1915 War Memorials that list in every village strings of similar names, as if entire families were decimated in one event. They...
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Claude-Anne’s Africa
I am addressing you Emm. As you told me some days ago that you knew nothing of my life before, when I was a young girl over there [in Africa]… I know that the memories we keep, even with images, the...
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Hunting
The Hunt, Spirits and Nature Look, you ask me why I have so many photos of animals I shot, so many teeth, horns and skins? Pictures of antelopes shot in 1917, 1929, 1937 or 1943. I understand your...
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Superstition
Did you ever find out that your house was shielded from evil spirits by an ancient spell? I know, right! By now, I should not be surprised anymore by the underlying sub-plot of mystical, spiritualist...
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African Suburbia
1940-1955 1942 – Panda, Katanga, Belgian Congo The triage of memories continues. Albums pile up. They get thicker. Now covered in heavy bordeaux faux-leather, they look like spell books waiting for a...
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Chameleons
If you want a friend, get a dog. Warren Buffet. Do you eat whale, horse, rabbit, guinea pig? What about domesticated pigs? Are animals just emotional support, Life’s guide dogs? Or should they be...
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Christmas, Terminal Felicity
I overdid the cuteness lately, didn’t I? So, off with the cherubs, the kids and any cute animal, into.. Christmas. Just look at all the Christmas pictures. Is it mandatory happiness, childhood...
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The Orange on the Dresser
My grandparents thought Christmas was too commercial. Their parents did too. How did they say it? With the story of the Orange on the Dresser. A European trope. It goes something like this: “We used...
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A Malachite Genesis
1917 – Lubumbashi – Mine de l’Etoile – Gonnersville blower Diamonds, copper, cobalt, uranium, … Name it, and Congo is likely to have it. The country, shrugging off civil war, regains its rank of...
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What Drove Pith Helmets Extinct?
For my entire life, until 5 years ago, pith helmets were just colonial helmets to me. At least, until I needed one to round off a fetching steampunk outfit for a Comic-Con. Afterall, a pith helmet...
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Mwami Msiri, King of Bunkeya
The 2017 memorial of the death of Msiri first king – Source: Raphael Kalume The massive red brick church on screen was one of the traditional cues of The Old Movies. It was the kick-off of memory, the...
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Buduh Square
Katanga remains a primeval mystery to me. Oh, you can set foot there, travel through it, and yet the depth of its reality never ceases to fascinate me. Tucked in a wallet, neatly folded in equal...
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You Never Go Back
“You never enter the same river twice” ~ Heraclitus the Obscure aka Heraclitus of Smyrna 24 May 1931 – Dar Es Salam, Tanzania –Departure of the MV Llandgibby Castle (later Juno LSI) That was...
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A Pith Helmet for Every Climate, Location and Occasion
To my utter surprise, the small piece “What drove pith helmets extinct” has generated quite the reaction. It means that pith helmets are still lurking in our collective mind. To this day, they remain...
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Creepy Crawling Maggots
Now, don’t be squeamish. Maggots are back in fashion. Maggot therapy is even at the cutting edge of wound treatments in establishments such as the Chester and Westminster hospital. We put green-bottle...
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French, Not France
Life magazine with De Gaulle – 13 November 1944 Mélanie Vogel, representative for the French living abroad, quoting from the results of a global study among French non-residents, December 2024: The...
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Frenchcore
1947 – Jadotville, Panda Likasi, Congo – De Gaulle in the living room If you wish to know yourself better, there will always be people to tell you what you are. Now, it is also true that it is up to...
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WWI National War Loan Campaign
1917, The Last Push To finance the war effort during WWI, France balanced money printing and war bonds. The war bonds were not a novelty, and had been used since the French revolution in every...
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The Club
30 October 1948 – The Club, Elizabethville (now Lubumbashi), Congo All of it stopped when my grandmother died. It did not have to, but there was an inevitability to it. Maybe because they were doing...
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Core Sampling
March 1936 – Kotouba, Cameroon – Core sampling We take for granted the copper of our electrical lines, the iron in our concrete, the rare metals that allowed us to engineer mobile phones that fit in a...
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