I live in a small place in Norway, and sometimes I envy my neighbours who have lived here all their lives. They are well rooted; feeling safe and happy in a bounded community. Their hearts and minds are harmoniously attuned because both are attached to the place where they saw the light of day. Where they belong.
Whenever I need to be reminded of where I really belong, I look out the window - at an old Land Rover parked in the yard. That long look transports me back to Tanzania. The heart knows where it belongs even if the mind is busy dealing with the social practicalities of life elsewhere.
Social identity, cultural understanding, psychological well-being; all these dimensions in a person’s life are formed in time and in space, says the Chinese-American geographer and philosopher Yi-Fu Tuan.
Space refers to physical places and all things material that frame our lives and to which we inscribe meaning. They consist of everything from big landscapes to minute things that, subsequently, function as mnemonic devices for those meanings. Whenever we connect to the objects through our senses, their ascribed meanings are evoked. The formative years - and spaces - in a person's life are crucial..
Whenever I look at that Land Rover; a 1962 series 2A model, grey in colour with a white metal top, strong emotions stir in me. Objects are “concentrated points for emotional connections”, says Tuan. The Land Rover conjures memories of a happy childhood growing up in Tanzania. I am a small kid standing on the floor by the passenger seat, hands clutching the metal dashboard, barely tall enough to look out on the track winding its way through the bush. Safe in the company of my dad.
We went on countless safaris. Many times also accompanied by my mom and sister. As I grew older, I got to sit on my dad’s lap and learnt to manoeuvre the steering wheel. A few years later, I was the driver and he sat beside me.
My parents lived for over 40 years in East Africa. They got very attached to all things African. Dad’s voice mellows with nostalgia when I talk to him on the phone about the Land Rover. Yet, deep down, Africa cannot compete with his natal place, a farming community in western Norway. He calls the place Machacos yangu, my Machakos. That is in imitation of an old friend of ours in Kenya who came from a place called Machakos, and who ended any and every conversation with praising the virtues of - Machakos.
Another anecdote from our family history confirms Tuan’s point about spatial attachment. When my wife and I as young missionaries travelled to the beach in southern Peru for our first vacation, we got very disappointed. To us, the word “beach” evoked fond memories of the white sands and palm trees at Diani beach south of Mombasa in Kenya. This beach in Mejía fell short of all that. Grey desert sand stretched all the way down to the waters, and there was not a single palm tree in sight! After vacationing in Mejía every summer for about ten years, we got used to it. Our sons, however, just loved the place. This was home to them.
Then we took our sons for a visit to Kenya. With emotional voices, we told about what to expect; places such as Diani beach! For Marit and myself, finally being back listening to the breeze sing softly in the palm trees, walk on the hot white sand, splash in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean, was just too much good. Ours sons, however, were not that impressed. A little disappointed, in fact. Why? The sand was not grey!
From time to time, my heart and mind cross paths and meet at the same place. I write this sitting in the shade of an acacia tree looking out on a vast savannah in Masai Mara in Kenya. I have seen this scene a thousand times and never tire of it. My inner being knows why.
Asle Jøssang, March 2015.