Aden: Thanks to my unknown readers

At the moment I have no more Aden material, and I would like to thank those of you who have followed me for all or part of the journey. Now I have finished everything and had time to reflect, here a re she musings arising from my Aden blogging.

Blogging on this website provides me as the blogger with statistics. Some are useful. Some are interesting, such as the ability to know where visitors to the blog have come from. This includes some ghastly search engines in Russia which are not really that. I wish I could eradicate these from my figures. 

Nevertheless, on the plus side I am flattered by the large number of visits from the UK, which is really my target audience as I imagine most people interested in my life in Aden would be there.

However, I am very curious about the handful of visits from the Yemen. Here's hoping the interest is from ordinary individuals like myself and not any state or commercial organisation. If it is anther "man in the street", whoever you are (singular or plural) thank you for being intrigued enough to visit my blog. I wish you and your country peace and stability, especially given the recent turmoil. If you are from Aden, then my wishes are more heartfelt still.

My nomadic childhood has left me with more than one place that I think of as "home". In the 50s I grew up in Singapore and Hong Kong, where being surrounded by ethnic Chinese and Malay was a normal everyday experience. On my first return visit to both places after 30 years absence I felt strangely at home. Its not easy to explain to somebody who grew up in the same place how normal it feels to go back somewhere and feel more comfortable as part of a minority of the population. Home is many places to me. Singapore, Hong Kong, Aden, Gloucester, Cottesmore are all my very early homes in my time of childhood and innocence. I have a bond with them all. 

I fear I have lost my opportunity to visit Aden, given the current political and religious turmoil in the world. I cannot adequately express how much I would love to see Ma'alla, Steamer Point, Elephant Bay, Crater and Khormaksar again and see how much has changed or stayed the same. Youtube has been useful, but not all the videos posted are very good. Too many of modern Aden are more about the persons in the video than the place, but such is the vanity of humans! 

I regret very much not returning to Aden before the recent religious divisions between Islam and the rest of the world surfaced. I feel my presence would not be welcome in certain parts of the world, but I do not mean that all Islamic countries are forbidding to me. For instance, when I was in Penang I felt most welcome by the locals I came in contact with. One abiding memory is of school children saying "Welcome to Malaysia" to us. I understand they would have been encouraged to do this, but a child's generosity of spirit is a precious gift, which more adults could do worse than try to rediscover within themselves. Given a less than happy previous experience in Kuala Lumpur, the people of Penang more than adequately made up for that experience.

However, after that digression I shall return to the topic of religious division. To me it feels as negative and pointless as the Protestant and Catholic divisions in European history, or the Christian behaviour of the Middle Ages which effected a superiority it did not deserve. Then the Arab or Moorish culture was far more advanced than the so-called Western civilisation. One only needs to visit Granada and see the palace of the Alhambra and the gardens of the Generalife to realise how more advanced that society was compared with the regressiveness of the regime of "los reyes catolicos". In my blog about Crater I commented on the Cisterns of Tawila. To this day I still think they are a marvel. I can still remember how awesome (I use that word not in its modern guise) it was as I walked around. You really need to be ignorant or blind to reason not to acknowledge the cleverness of mind and sophistication of a society that brought them into being.

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and in my case, my absence from Aden has made me realise how lucky I have been to revisit Hong Kong and Singapore more than once. The memories I have of Aden are mainly positive, but the negative memories were due to the British presence outstaying its welcome. I am sure had I been a native of an occupied country my feelings would not have been too dissimilar. Whether I would express my displeasure I don't know. I thank my lucky stars I can express my opinions, which was not always an option open to the Adeni.

Aden: Random Memories 5: Swimming.

Life went on in its usual way. Dad had to go to work, I had to go to school, and Mum stayed behind at home doing what mothers do, but there were some differences now we were in Aden. I had to go to school REALLY early in the morning, but the upside was about lunch time I wasn’t in school for the rest of the day! How those free afternoons were spent in the early months I cannot recall, but as a family we used to go to the beach a lot. Our two haunts were at first Elephant Bay and the Lido at Steamer Point. Elephant Bay got its name from the eroded rock jutting out into the sea because it looked like the head and trunk of an elephant.

To get to Elephant bay was not easy. It wasn’t in the middle of bustling Steamer Point. The road down to it was wide enough for only one way traffic, and if you got there just as the lights had turned red, well, you had to wait for ever and ever before they changed to green. And why did they change when there was no car coming up anyway, especially, as my father assured me, there was a man (who, mysteriously enough, was invisible) controlling the lights from a little tin shack just beyond the topmost lights?

When we got down there, the sea that looked calm from higher up was not so placid. Sometimes the sea would come crashing in with big waves (nearly any wave is big if you are only 7 or 8 or 9). We were safe anyway, as there was a wall and a shark net. Nevertheless, I always kept an eye open for sharks, just in case the net wasn’t in perfect condition. It never hurts to be cautious.

It was in Elephant Bay I had my first swimming lesson, and a very big lesson in life. Never believe a word your parents say, they are the biggest fibbers, ever! We went until I was really out of my depth, a sense of security was given by letting me sit on our green Li-Lo. My parents in turn held me while I practised doggy paddle strokes. This happened over several days, and then one day, my mother let go of me and I had to paddle like crazy to get to my father. I was swallowing gallons of sea water. The taste was disgusting. I swear my father kept backing away from me, and of course they thought it was all very amusing.

Despite the fact I had been let down by my parents (and I haven’t even got round to talking about Father Christmas, the biggest adult deception ever), I learned to swim and I have enjoyed it ever since, but swimming in the sea between the tropics (or at a pinch a heated swimming pool) is preferable to anywhere else!

Well, after that, I also spent time in the pool at RAF Khormaksar, getting proper swimming lessons. They always took place late in the afternoon, and most times it was dark, or almost dark, by the time I had changed out of my trunks and back into my ordinary clothes.

I was able to return to Elephant Bay and swim with greater confidence, so much so I could get to the built up part at the far end of the enclosed area. Locals would fish from there and their catch would make a meal. The sight of an angel fish always reminds me of Elephant Bay where they were caught in abundance, and dispatched swiftly and efficiently by the Arab fishermen.

As the time to leave came closer, it seems to me I spent more time at the pool on the base at Khormaksar. Not only could I swim, but I jumped and even dived into the pool and this was from the top board as well! My mother used to sit in the shade knitting jumpers for us. We were due to return in April, Eliot's 'cruelest month'. My mother wasn't going to take any chances!

© 2012 Gwailo54