A return to Tutume

I’d been looking forward to returning to Tutume for some time.  It has been the place of many happy memories for a number of years.  I had lived there from the age of 2 till 6.  My memories were vague in some respects and strongly linked to feelings and emotions rather than organised visual ones.  I was intrigued to see how much of the village I would recognise.  We had driven from the airport in Kasane down to Nata the day before.  We had a relaxed afternoon and leisurely morning before heading off at 8:30 to Tutume.

We approached the village from the west on a road under construction.  I didn’t recognise anything... we drove for several minutes and I realised that either Tutume had grown tremendously or my memories were insufficient.  We drove right through what was now clearly a town and I didn’t recognise a thing.  I was a little disappointed but thought we should turn around and drive through once more.  This is the direction we would have entered Tutume in the past and as a result I started to get familiar feelings.  I first spotted my old primary school, got out and looked around.  Then with the help of the head found our old house.  It took a bit of hunting as there were more than twice as many buildings in the compound, 30 years on.  Lastly I tried to track down some old family friends, who I had heard were still about town.  We had lost touch, so I wasn’t sure I was going to be successful.  I did, however find them, and they remembered me and the family.  They took me to see, Habana, who was Will and my old nanny.  We shared photos from the past and recently, and it was great fun.  Unfortunately our trip down memory lane had to be cut short as we still had quite a drive ahead of us.  We exchanged contact details before we set off back to Pretoria for our last few days in southern Africa.  Despite our restful evening the night before I was really shattered by the end of the day.. it had been quite an emotional experience!