This is the camper-caravan that was my home and the home of my family for the first ten years of my life.  It was a 1951 Victour Housecar that my father obtained from a Christian missionary organization.  Today it would be considered vintage, but over the years the wear and tear from the African bush, dust, wind, rain, heat, and constant travel took its toll, and it seemed that we were constantly replacing bits and pieces of it, so that it ended up looking quite different from what it originally was.  This picture was taken when we were en route from one location in Zambia to another.  During the summertime, we parked it in the shade of trees, preferably on a hilltop, because we did not have the funds for air conditioning.  We also rarely had electricity.

When I see pictures of this old vehicle, which ended up literally falling apart, I become nostalgic.  Our lives in it were Spartan, but it reminds me of the love and warmth of my childhood.  It also represents how my parents made the most of what they had, reserving much of the space inside the caravan for foodstuffs (There was a refrigerator, but it wasn’t always in use.), medicines, and books and learning materials for Joyce and I.  The theme of having to create something out of hardly anything, which my parents had to do, and which the poor people of Africa still have to do, is one that carries through to my books, for my characters have to do it too.