making a history
My father makes things. He has, so far, been a cartographer, a filmmaker, a soldier, a photographer, an inventor, and a businessman. He speaks four languages. He is ambidextrous. He has lived in all three worlds and has seen many of the faces of poverty and wealth. My father has three names- one for each country he’s lived in. Unconventional, stubborn, eccentric, with a mode of problem solving that drives my mother crazy, he is filled with stories. This is one of them. I hope I get it right. My father was born in Tunisia, in Tataouine, back when it was a tiny village in the desert. His father, my grandfather, ground wheat for a living. They lived in a hut with no electricity- mother, father and half a dozen siblings. My father talks of adventures climbing palm trees, of hitting birds with his slingshot, of making fantastical shadow puppets with the kerosene lamps. He talks of speaking French in a grade school where the teacher smacked him for wr