I had forgotten a bit which happened before the last dream.
I am standing in a self-service restaurant around a smörgåsbord talking with a young woman. She asks me if I have been learning Dutch or Afrikaans.
I say, “no, have you noted a Southern lilt to my voice?”
“Yes, at first I thought it was South African now it sounds a bit more Aussie.”
“How do you know?”
“I am a Kiwi.”
I explain to her that I lived as a child in Australia and Zambia, both Southern Hemisphere.
In 1977-78 the war for the founding of Zimbabwe was getting hotter. This had knock on effects like air raids of guerrilla camps, marauding “soldiers” and shortages in the shops in Kabwe, Zambia.
There my father was working on a German built rotary lead kiln to extract lead from the lead rich tailings, waste which was abundant. Later Kabwe was acknowledged as one of the most polluted places on earth. My mother was getting anxious and my father was looking further afield for jobs. He was offered one in Windhoek, one in South Africa and one in Brazil. As an ex-army officer in REME during the Malayan insurgency he would be required to serve in the military reserves. When I reached 18, I would have to do national service. The first two were vetoed.
Dad was interested in the job, possibly in Santa Amaro City near the Subaé river. I would have gone to international school either in Rio or Brasília. It was by the same German kiln manufacturer. He was keen, my mother less so. If they would have paid him in Deutschmarks and not cruzeiro novo, we probably would have moved there. Instead, we came back to blighty…
A possible fate diverged on a simple decision. My life would have been very different had I gone to international school in Brazil as opposed to a grammar school in North Kent.
I would have been very Southern hemisphere in my adolescence and education….
Traou an Dour 