While I'm trying to not worry too much about Dad, I figure I might as well post a Friday Five. This is something we used to do on the uvScene. Here are some questions that have come up based on my research into the family back here:
1. Are you part of an extended family?
2. Is there any mixed ancestry in your family?
3. Any family secrets that you've recently discovered?
4. How important is it to remember your ancestors?
5. Are you doing anything to remember them?
Mum and I visit South Africa in 2007 and 2012 to learn about the life and times of my great grandfather, Vincent Lawrence (1872-1965). Lawrence worked with Gandhi when the Mahatma was in South Africa, got involved in the struggle against apartheid, and helped found St. Anthony's Church in Durban.
1 comment:
1. Yes, my Mum is Indian, and the oldest of 10 children, so I have all sorts of aunties and uncles, and cousins here in South Africa. The Indians have a very strong tradition of extended families, and everyone has been very welcoming, even distant relations. On my Dad's side, I have an uncle and an aunt, and a few cousins. We keep in sporadic touch.
2. I'm the product of a mixed marriage: my Dad is Scottish-Irish from Toronto, and my Mother is Indian from Durban, South Africa - that's why they call me "the brown Scottsman". Also, while I've been here, I've learned that my great grandmother on my mother's side was from the Cape, and there is some suggestion that she may have had some Black African ancestry, although that is difficult to confirm. Of course, I think that would be so cool...
3. Lots. I learned a few years ago that my grandfather on my Dad's side had committed suicide, owing to an intractable illness. I only learned this a few years ago, as an adult. And while I've been here in South Africa, I've heard all sorts of colorful stories about various distant relations, including an Indian relative who got his black maid pregnant. She had a child, who later grew up to become a "high-class call girl". What I thought was most funny about this story was the fact that my Mum insisted that she was a "high class" call girl - to drive home the point that whatever our family chooses to do, we do it well.
4. Well, I think it is important to honor the ancestors: the unbroken chain of all those who have come before us, all the way back to the animals and the fishes. At the same time, I am still not sure what it all means, to discover one's roots. We are all just strands in the human fabric, and especially with large families like mine, you see such a diversity of relatives and of life paths, that it all seems to blend in with everyone else: where does your family stop, and the human family begin? For me, I am really starting to feel that we are all part of one human family, and so I feel that identification with any particular tribe or group is misplaced: you are descended from a specific line of individuals, and your line is a strand in the human tapestry. Really, we are all related, and in ways, we all have the same stories.
5. Well, I am here in South Africa, meeting my relatives, spending time with my Mum, and working on making this mini documentary. Wish me luck!
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