What I remember first is driving through a rocky, flooded river in an open jeep. I remember a long period of waiting through a long discussion before we started across, and then a profoundly adventurous drive across where we were battered by waves and rapids, almost swept away several times, and then watching the jeep go back across to bring the women over. But I was six at the time, so likely it was much less dramatic.
It sounds strange that only the men went across first, but I think that's how it was. Or maybe the older kids went across first. I distinctly remember standing on the cobbled rocks and watching with concern as my mother Anne and my sister V came across, and being glad they made it. I can construct a narrative where my father Hans (I called my parents by their first name), in order to allieve Anne's concerns about the crossing, went first, and brought me with him. But maybe that's a mis-memory too - if there was concern about safety, why bring a six year-old along?
This was in the early 80s, in Jamaica. My first real country. The one I felt I belonged to. I sang the national anthem every day at school, loved the flag, the national symbols, the national heroes. My sister and I spoke the local Patois so well that sometimes our parents couldn't understand us. But it always charmed the other Jamaicans. I felt that I was welcome anywhere, which was only natural, since I too was Jamaican. Out of many one people, and that included a little white boy, who was a citizen of two other countries, and born in a third. "Out of many, one people" was the National Motto, and I lived it.
