I lived on-and-off in this house in Cliff Avenue, Mombasa, between the ages of five and twelve. I say, 'on-and-off' because the first half of our time there was interrupted by leaves in England, the second part because, from the age of nine, I spent most of each year at prep school in England. Despite this, my memories of the house are, in general, happy ones, though the recollection of the misery of leaving it each September to return to school in England hangs like a pall over it.
The house came to mind because of the swallows' recent return to Golspie. This house was where I first became aware of these small birds' existence. In particular, I recall their excited, chattering cry as they swooped up under the eaves of the house and, when night came, how their place in the sky was taken by bats.
At the time I wasn't particularly interested in 'nature'. If you asked me what other birds I remember from the Mombasa of that time I would say....
...."mouse bird" because, for reasons which are now beyond my comprehension, we thought this bird evil and used to hunt it with our catapults. Only later, as we moved from this house to the Hoey House at Nyali beach, did I start to notice other small birds, in particular....
....the spectacularly-coloured weaver birds that came to the bird bath each evening as we sat and enjoyed our sundowners.
Looking back, my ignorance is so sad for, as we discovered during our visits to Tanzania in 2010, 2011 and 2012, the East African coast is exceptionally rich in bird life, yet I have no recollection of being encouraged to take any interest in the natural world which surrounded me.
A good friend on a visit to Mombasa some ten years or so ago told me that the house still stood, while the house further along Cliff Avenue, where we spent the last three years of our time in Mombasa, was demolished some time ago.
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