“Where did you say your grandmother lived?” she asked me. “Kwambe” I repeated proudly. Then she said, “Where in Kwambe? We’re driving through Kwambe right now!” Shocked -what? No way! I thought. “This is not Kwambe!” I claimed as I rapidly turned to look around hoping not to see anything that would confirm that this was indeed Kwambe. I looked to my left nothing other than the lake looked familiar, phew! I turned to the right, still nothing. “This is not Kwam-” my words were chopped in half as I saw her. I couldn’t believe it. Kwambe, a small fishermen village between Mountains and a Lake. A village where you ate rice for breakfast and fried sardines for lunch. A village where my mother spent most of her youth trekking between the rice fields and the lake shore. A village where I spent my summers helping my grandmother pound yam under a baobob tree. Where I learnt to swim in big waves and carry baskets on my head was gone. There was nothing but a thick chocolate ground left over from the yearly floods. No fields, no trees, no houses. “Stop the car” the 4x4 stopped at my command. I quickly jumped out and started to skip from one dry patch to another making my way to my aunt who was sitting on her front porch.