Sunday, September 16, 2007

Finding relatives in unexpected places

Today I found out Baby’s two closest friends, who regularly spend a night/ weekend with us, are actually relatives of sorts.

The girls’ mother mentioned in passing she had a tenuous link with my village. Her uncle (father’s brother) was adopted by a family in Phokeng, she said.

When she mentioned him by name, I realized she was talking about one of my father’s cousins.

My father was very fond of his cousin, and would have gotten a big charge out my connecting with his biological family in this way. Both of them have since passed away, so they'll never know.

1 comment:

Janet Grace Riehl said...

Damaria, I love these kinds of connections. I lived in Africa for five years in the 1970s and I still yearn for the connection I felt during those years. I worked in Botswana, both North and South, and spoke Setswana. I also lived in Ghana. I traveled in South Africa (mostly through it)during the Apartheid years, and that still gives me chills as I sit here. What a beautiful country and how marvelous that you are there building it further into the modern age and raising your daughter. If you'd like to be a guest on my blog Riehlife sometime to speak about connections (computer connections, village connections, family connections might be ripe ground for discussion, no?), I'd be honored.

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