On the main square, François sits in the shade with the Chief under the squat hut awning. He is on a smaller seat, as protocol and manners dictate, leaning forward intently, scrutinising a line of local candidates standing at rest in the sun. The griot/féticheur/ healer stands behind the Chief…
This is a society that existed but no one remembers. This is a society that existed but no one wants to remember. This is a society that was already forgotten even when it existed. This is a society between societies, a time between times, a world between worlds. They were…
Social media does often gives you a sense of inadequacy. Hair falls like this, bodies look like that, the soufflé always rises and stays up. And, of course, when they clear their basement, “they” find the missing Rembrandt hidden in a crate, forgotten for centuries, just waiting to be found....
The last piece of furniture has been disposed of. It was the worms that got all of them. Some, most maybe, were 150 years of memories written in wood. Eaten through, shedding little showers of sawdust every now and then, when you nudged them. Hours, weeks, months spent to try...
The fascination with the Second World War does not wane. In Europe, we are still finding the bombs, grenades, weapons, helmets, tanks, trucks, planes,… in swamps, in lakes, in the ground, under houses or in the sea. It is still beneath our feet. Walk around our cities, try and spot the...
Once upon a time, eons ago, in the 90s, humanity finally had the support it deserved to store its records. For ever. Or so suggested the advertisements. Away with self-erasing VHS tapes, begone mpeg-1 pixelated VCDs, to the museum, the 30 cm-wide laser discs. Don’t forget to recycle these K7....
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 it for the kids, not so much for themselves. And when the reason went, the endless days and weeks just evaporated. The visitors disappeared, the family...
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 you to consider or dismiss what they say, but even if it is totally off, you know at least what people think....
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 fly maggots in wounds to cleanse necrotized tissue. And it is faster and better than usual dressings. Would you believe...
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 bravura moment of the retelling of ‘what-we-did-in-Congo’. A breeze of sighs, dreamy smiles and fleeting nods. Nostalgia started oozing from the walls. Smiles we did not...
August 16, 2024
My Heritage | Travel Trunks and Suitcases
August 2, 2024
August 9, 2024
From Ghent to Likasi, the Heart of Darkness
September 20, 2024
August 30, 2024
November 15, 2024
WWI in Soissons, Henri Penotet and the Big Bomb
November 8, 2024
November 1, 2024
January 3, 2025
November 29, 2024