Bottletops

It is funny the things that take you back to different and past times and places. It seems that the smallest little trinket can trigger an ocean of memory that puts me back in a place where smells and textures are very real.
I am currently in the process of unpacking my new house, Maggie and I are moving in to our adjoining room, and having a bit of fun fixing it up just the way we like it. I just hung up, on the rim of my book shelf, thirteen pop tops from glass bottles. Four of them aren’t from Africa, but the other nine are, and each one, as I sat back and admired my work, reminded of some amazing times.
There are two ‘Krest’ tabs, one white and one green. The white one is a ginger ale and the green is “bitter lemon.” The white one I drank while Rob and I were in the guesthouse in Nairobi. We were looking about in the gift shop and decided to get sodas. It was our last time in the Nairobi guesthouse, and the memory brings back the layout of the first floor. There was the front desk and two wooden chairs with a table and magazines between them. There was a rather large living room area with African art hung on the wall and African style furniture arranged in a welcoming way. The other Krest cap was from Litein, I had it the night that I was very sick.
There’s an “Alvara” top that is an orangy yellow colour. This we picked up in Kajiado town when we went and had yama choma in the locker of the town. Yama choma is a leg of goat put on a rotisserie apparatus and cooked for a while. Then they bring the leg in on a large wooden cutting board/plate and cut it up with a huge knife. On the edges of the plate are little mounds of salt, which you dip the meat that you tear off in and eat. Daniel (the director of the Kajiado Child Care Center), Rob and I all had this soda with our goat leg. It was a fizzy pineapple and it was very enjoyable.
Another tab is a lime green colour and it was from a “fanta citrus.” This was the soda that I had in Amaya, a mobile clinic that we did while we stayed in Churo. Festus, the nurse for the clinic, went and brought in soda for all of us when we were nearing the fourth hour of our work that day. It was very generous of him, and we all appreciated the cool drink and the break for our feet.
There are more tabs, and each with specific and detailed memories. It is good to remember.