Favourite places

BY OMOLIGHO UDENTA
WE were talking about our favourite places. She happened to have travelled quite a bit and talked about some of the places she’d been to.
She talked about the opera she attended in Berlin. She described the way everyone looked glamorous and how beautiful the hall was with its bright lights and all.
When everyone was seated, the lights were dimmed and the show started. She forgot all about time and though she didn’t understand a word of what was being sung, she found her eyes full of tears at the end of the show.
The way she talked about the experience I thought that that would be her favourite place or experience.
But no, she started to talk about some restaurant (a meat lover’s haven I believe it is referred to) in Kenya she went to each of the six days she was there.
She ate a different dish each day with the main dish usually game meat. Monday was some fancy antelope meat dish, Tuesday was giraffe meat, Thursday was ostrich and on Friday she had crocodile.
Since she didn’t say what she had on Wednesday, it could very well have been snake meat!

FOR me one of my favourite places is standing on the porch in my family home (in my village).
I love the way the air smells, the way the grass and trees look so green and the hills, the way they undulate so gracefully. The food there is the best; everything is as fresh as can be.
She seemed surprised to learn this perhaps because she knows that I’ve been to this favourite place of mine all of seven or so times.
Anyway I wanted to know where her favourite place was since it didn’t seem to be Berlin or Kenya.
‘My favourite place is my bed,’ she said.
‘What? Your bed? What is so special about your bed?’
‘Well, when it’s all made up especially when I dress them with those special sheets, it looks heavenly and when I lay on it I feel like a king. I feel like I have all I could ever want in the world,’ she said.
I was silent for a while as I digested this. I would never have thought this would be her favourite place to be.
I didn’t feel this way about my bed but I understood what she was talking about, the feeling of self-contentment she was describing. Of course different things do it for different people.
For some it’s a car, for most a house or more precisely owning their own homes, others might feel this way about a dress they’ve always wanted to own.
I can’t say what yours might be. Only you will know for sure where your favourite place to be is, a place that makes you ‘feel like a king’.

omoudenta@yahoo.com