I will be flying to Africa tonight.
To keep me company, I will take my grandfather’s book. The one he wrote about his travels to the Belgian Congo in the 1950s.
I will close my eyes and see him sitting on a window seat of one of the first Sabena planes to fly from Europe to Africa.
He would smoke a cigarette, drink a Martini-dry and look out into the dark, mysterious African night. People he would never meet were sleeping in its sweet embrace on the ground. And the plane was flying over deserts, mountains …breath-taking sceneries he had only seen at the movies or read about in books.
My heart stood still the first time I read this sentence. I would have used exactly the same words. The old pages of this book, which are slowly turning yellow, seem such a fragile link between me and a man who played such an important role in my life and left me far too early.
I also expect Africa to speak with a voice of another man in my family, this time one I never met.
I am excited to finally be flying over East Africa. My great-grandfather spent 16 years there in the early 20th century after running away from home in Naples and boarding a ship to China. I will image him sitting next to me on the plane in his beautiful uniform, the one that made my great-grandmother fall in love with him.
Tonight I will be going “home” to Africa.
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