Life in Massawa in the late 1940s seemed like some compensation for the separations and privations of the War. Being the wife of a senior police officer in the British administration brought both status and servants. Other hands eased the burden of caring for a new-born daughter. Sunshine and the otherness of Africa displaced the grey wreckage of London. Bereavement followed a too soon departure. In 2009, a lifetime later, an urge to see Massawa again. A fleeting visit from a cruise liner replaced the memories with the modern reality of poverty, dust and decay. It rarely pays to go back.
Photo: Massawa, Eritrea, December 2009 (AFH)