The swallow of our childhood
As we sat around the table covered with the feast my friends and I cooked through out the afternoon, we started talking of our childhoods. Since we grew up on tree different continents, the nature, climate and architecture that surrounds us as children differed, but a few elements concurred.
Our childhoods are all very different from typical Canadian childhoods for our respective generations. We all grew up in warm countries, and played outdoors. We also experienced warm nights filled with bats and lizards proctoring use from insects. Interestingly, one thing that stayed with us is the memory of a clay nest of hardworking, fast flying, tiny, tuxedo like coloured, elegant birds.
We all remembered the name of that bird in our native tongue, yet we all had forgotten the name in English. Quite frankly, it sounded better in each of our mothers tongue. We all felt a little closer from knowing we shared similar experiences while living in totally different corners of the world. This multicultural unity gives me a profound sense of belonging. I don’t even feel like telling my friend I checked the translation of the bird name to find out we all were talking of swallows. To commonly share a vivid recollection of a beautiful creature in each other’s languages is much more poetic.
