Ten houses I lived in

On top of the mountain facing the sea, where winter wind blew roofs and cars away … 1965

Amongst the fish ponds, where in summer nights clouds of mosquitoes attracted to the light-bulbs turned them dark … 1983

The room in the basement in which two of us would sleep so comfortably in a tiny single bed … 1985

A tin house so cold in the winter that the water in the bathtub turned into a block of ice … 1989

A tiny square room without a window, bath or shower, which I shared with three. Did I enjoy the public bath … 1991

Hideaway in the rainforest where the screeching bats on the mango trees kept us awake all night; and so did our baby … 1996

A massive condominium with lifeguards who could not swim, but were concerned with babies floating petals in the water …1999

An English village, so English that even the English themselves could not believe that such Englishness still existed. It was the house where I passed the change of the Millennium

A white castle with a living room the size of a basketball field. We turned it into a kids’ gym, but the neighbors  did not approve … 2003

A blue house where my son found lizards bigger than him in the backyard. We never kept them for long … 2005

It’s these ten houses and the many others I have lived in that made me realise that it’s who I am and not where I am that matters.