Bien que je me sente toujours à l’aise dans cette langue, des fois je sens qu’elle est là – lourde et tout faisante pour se faire remarquer – sur mes épaules : cette créature fictive avec son importance fictive. En vrai, cette langue n’avait jamais facilité une fondation vraisemblable entre moi et mon fantôme. Comme toute langue étrangère, elle m’a fourni avec un voile avec lequel je pouvais dissimuler mes sentiments et mon propre être. En français, mes douleurs tournent au drame.

Ainsi, je me sens toujours plus à l’aise d’oraliser mes plus faibles moments, mes plus fragiles sentiments. Je n’aurai jamais l’intention de me libérer du joug de cette frontière linguistique. En plus, je tiens à mes fautes de langue – carrément vous en trouverez beaucoup dans ce texte, j’en suis sûre. Elles servent de preuve irréfutable que toute expression en français n’est qu’une dissimulation, qu’un jeu. Ou peut-être ce jeu est aussi irréel que mon aise dans cette langue.

Néanmois des phrases écrites par une ado en crise me hantent.

*****

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******

It’s late February, and I’m forcing myself to go outside on one of those rare days where there’s sun for more than a measly few hours, but it’s already gone four and I’m almost certain I’m going to miss sunset. I’m wearing my trench coat (pretentious: it’s freezing outside) and I keep forgetting to send it off to get dry cleaned for those black marks from when it got caught in the wheel or the chain of my bike back at uni. My scarf is also ornamental and frankly I’m freezing. I lopped my hair off less than a month ago and my neck isn’t used to being this exposed to the elements. I’m in a reading slump after ploughing through the first three instalments of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet, so I turn to Coco Mellors’ Blue Sisters: I bought it after a Mellors interview and meet-and-greet last May, but so far I’m not tearing through it like Cleopatra and Frankenstein.

Queue heartbroken central asian hip hop wednesday morning, where ‘До завтра’ (‘Till Tomorrow’) by Gafur and yngluv comes on. It’s got a dark bass drum beat, and their falsetto breathy singing feels wildly out of place for what was supposed to be a wholesome chance to sit and read by the Italian Fountains in Kensington Gardens. I listen to it a few times later that day but otherwise forget about it. It’s not until I’m on the train back from Oxford a few weeks later following a late dinner and unexpected (and ill-advised) cocktail spree with my best friend who flew in for her graduation that it comes to mind again. It’s the ideal soundtrack for my tipsy train ride home following a long, overdue giggly catch-up. It becomes my most listened to song for March.

*****

It’s mid-March, I’m walking on Air Street emerging on Piccadilly when the Ukrainian song ‘ПЛАКАЛА’ (‘CRY’) by KAZKA comes on. The sun is shining down — it’s surprisingly hot for early March. I wait for the next song in the queue on reggaeton summer jam tuesday afternoon (this song is neither reggaeton, nor is it summer) and fruitlessly browse in Waterstones, my arms already weighed down from other retail therapy purchases. I’m hungry, I need fortification, I leave the bookshop and thankfully it’s not a long wait for the next bus. ‘ПЛАКАЛА’ is on loop for the whole journey home as well as over the next few days.

****

It’s May and I’m on the plane to Slovakia for our first proper “just-so” visit since the pandemic. The plane is cold though the seats aren’t quite as uncomfortable as I was expecting from Ryanair. I’m fruitlessly attempting to sleep on the flight over — I think I nod off every now and then, my head resting in an awkward position against the lifted blind of the small plane window. The scarf that I’ve wrapped around my head does nothing to fend off the incessant air conditioning.

Clearly, it’s a party rap czech drill thursday afternoon and I wake up with a start to the funked up notes of ‘FANCY’ by Ben Cristovao and Sofian Medjmedj. It’s catchy, feels a little retro but very upbeat. I’d like to dance. I’m trapped by the plane window instead. I’ll save it for later, once the summer sun is out and I can blast it on loop. It resurfaces with a vengeance a few months later when we’re in Croatia and I’m looking for the perfect songs to queue during the quick showers I take between long and languid swimming sessions in the bay of the Adriatic Sea, or after sun-kissed days stretched out on the lounger, buried beneath the pages of Lidija Hilje’s Slanting Towards the Sea and Olivia Manning’s The Great Fortune as our prawn, lemon, and chilli linguine simmered downstairs.

***

It’s late August. We’re returning from the blissful, if mosquito-infested, Croatian paradise of Blace. We arrive at Luton at a disgusting hour of the morning, and the National Express journey home felt especially hellish on an empty stomach and my indefatigable yearning to return to the Adriatic. I’ve fallen asleep in the coach and as we reach Paddington, I wake up increasingly disappointed at the comparative pallor and drabness of London against my memories of the islands rising from the water, almost like mountains, covered in forests that look thick enough to lose yourself in forever.

The suitcase is filled to the brim — it’s my fault for bringing more than one outfit change for each day of our holiday — and I’m being sung the lullabies of big beat czech pop saturday morning. A Slovak song comes on: naturally. We’re all the same to the algorithm anyways. It’s an older song. Oh, it’s ‘Voda čo ma drží nad vodou’ (‘Water That Keeps Me Afloat’) by Elán. My mum loves them. Maybe she knows this song. It’s set to the words of a Jozef Urban poem, though I don’t know this yet. The streets are empty, a mediocre attempt at fog already hangs in the air: a presage of the impending dew, no doubt. The road is a lot less smooth than I anticipated and I’m having to engage muscles hitherto unengaged unless in a ballet studio to push it along and keep it from following the road’s natural slant. The drama, the vocals, the guitar solo are all enough to convince me that I’ll be completing my morning routine to this soundtrack for the foreseeable future.

**

It’s January and I’ve once more forgotten my gloves. They’re deep in my pockets for a second before I resolve that it’s simply too depressing to walk around in the dark and the rain without gloves and without music. I scroll through anything that feels appropriate for this scene. There’s the scene francaise french indie sunday morning playlist that I saved a couple weekends ago when I was feeling particularly nostalgic for my year abroad. We’ve also just bought tickets to Paris for early April to see my second family: the ones who the Paris leg of my year abroad that much easier.

‘Feel Good’ by Charlotte Cardin comes on (everyone loves an anglicism). Initially it gets lost between the other nostalgic, misty-feeling, soft-spoken French pop songs. But a few tracks later, my nostalgic, misty-feeling self is still ambling through the labyrinth of tall white Cornwall Gardens townhouses wet and no closer to home. My thumb scrolls and searches for Cardin. Her voice reminds me a bit of Alma (shout-out Eurovision 2017) but I convince myself there’s a maturity to her voice that suits me better now. I can hardly make out the words thanks to the rain pelting down, but her timbre and the melody is enough to guide me home. That weekend, as I’m sifting through the pages and pages of notes for my The Grandmother review for Asymptote Journal (self-plug), Cardin’s voice keeps me sane and focused.

*

It’s March again. Literally a only few days ago. I’m up late catching up on some personal admin and preparing shortlists of various examples of world literature to consider for review. It’s been a while since my daylist has given me anything of interest, let alone substance. Lately, my listening habits are so repetitive that I’m pedalled the same fifty songs at all hours of the days, all days of the week. On this particular evening, I’m presented with ukulele baladi tuesday evening, whatever that means. Only now as I look at this title for the tenth time do I realise that “baladi” is probably an attempt at “balady” — the word for “ballads” in both Czech and Slovak.

A young voice that sounds suspiciously like Czech singer-songwriter-rapper Calin’s has already done a heartfelt rendition of Brontosauři’s ‘Růže z papíru’ (from the genius mind of Jan Nedvěd, legendary Czech folk singer-songwriter-composer, who brought us classics like ‘Podvod’ — incidentally covered by Calin a few years ago).

Not long after ‘Růže z papíru’, or maybe it was a few hours later, the same voice fills my ears again. I check what the song is: ‘Balík trávy’ (‘A Bag of Weed’) by Skippy McDippy feat. Lajfr. There’s a whole conspiracy theory that Skippy McDippy is in fact Calin’s secret persona, which is certainly not helped by the fact that Skippy McDippy, despite having over 85,000 monthly listeners, has a private Instagram account. But the guitar is calming, the build-up in the bridge is uplifting, though the lyrics are a mix of romantic and disheartening.

I can’t quite seem to explain why this song works. Already, I’m late to the party: it was released on the last day of August 2024. Czechia has already lost its mind at this song. Its wave of popularity has already passed there. Now, it’s going double platinum in my home. The main singer’s name, Skippy McDippy, had me prejudicially expecting something more in the Soundcloud rapper department than the voice that fills me with an equal desire to sing, dance, laugh, and cry. A music scholar would probably take one look at the chord progression and tell me immediately about my chemical reaction to it.

The lyrics are hardly complex, certainly there’s less metaphors and euphemisms than some of my other earworm songs. But the simplicity is exactly what keeps me coming back. It feels a little like the Czech counterpart of Declan McKenna’s ‘Brazil’, in that same unpretentious, authentic way.

I was sceptical at the thought of a bag of weed ever working as a metaphor for anything, let alone for romantic feeling. The story is about a girl who is euphemistically “spending all her time” with another guy (our singers) despite having her own boyfriend. There’s an admission to complicity, to going along with it, but never to fully give into it. The coldness and detachment, their inability to compromise themselves along with the instrumental has weaselled its way into my brain. Is it novel? No. But it doesn’t feel derivative.

In any case, it has infected me for this birthday month, and now hopefully it will infect (some of) you too. See below for a translation. It is rough and my Czech is rusty, but hopefully enough of it makes sense to understand how the meaning and the music work together to create my latest necessary music obsession.

Já vim, žes mi
Volala dneska asi osmkrát
Tři dny, tři noci
Kdy mi kamínky hážeš do okna
Co by řek tvůj kluk
Kdyby věděl, co tady teď děláš
A nejsem tvůj kluk
Takže tě nechci napravovat

I know that you
Called me around eight times today
Three days, three nights
With you throwing pebbles at my window
What would your boyfriend say
If he knew what you’re doing here right now
But I’m not your boyfriend
So I don’t want to correct you

Klidně piš básničky, já budu rád
Klidně piš zprávy vždycky, když budu sám
Budu tvůj balík trávy, schovávej si mě dál
Vim, čeho jsi schopná, proto nebudeš má

Go on and write me poems, I’ll be happy
Go on and write me messages whenever I’m alone
I’ll be your bag of weed, keep keeping me hidden
I know what you’re capable of, that’s how I know you’ll never be mine

Na balíku trávy
Se mi s tebou nejlíp usíná
Jak dvě zrnka kávy
Vím, beze mě nemůžeš spát

Like after a bag of weed
I fall asleep best when I’m with you
Like two grains of coffee
I know that you can’t sleep without me

Baby, klidně piš zprávy, říkej, jak mě máš ráda
Volej, jak jsi beze mě úplně v píči
Vím, že můžu být rád za takovou jak ty
Ale nic ve mně mi nedonutí mít tě rád
A ty to víš, baby, ty to víš
Stejně u mě čekáš na něco, co má být z nás dvou
Ty to víš, baby, ty to víš
Víš, že jen se mnou se cítíš sama sebou.

Baby, go on and write me messages, tell me how much you like me
Call me, tell me how you’re completely fucked up without me
I know that I should be happy to have someone like you
But nothing can force me to love you
And you know it, baby, you know it
You’re still waiting for something to happen between us
You know it, baby, you know it
You know that it’s only with me that you feel truly you.

*******

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𝓢 𝓛 𝓞 𝓥 𝓞
looks forward to welcoming you back soon.

Since mid-December, there’s been one frequent topic that I have been consistently bringing up to my nearest and dearest: Africa Cup of Nations. I wish I could say that it was for love of the beautiful game, but I would be lying. No. Rather, I was excited because I would be watching Algeria play… and on Moroccan turf no less.

Much like between most any neighbouring countries, whenever representatives from each battle each other in a sports match, tensions run high. Yet Algeria and Morocco’s animosity runs deeper than a simple petty rivalry — their fraught diplomatic relations have been turbulent for many years, especially in the wake of their respective independence from French colonising powers: border conflicts during the 1963 Sand War, closure of said border in 1994, respective support of separatist and self-determination movements in the other’s country (the Sahrawi Republic and Kabylie), and Morocco’s involvement in the Abraham Accords.

Representations of Algerian-Moroccan relations in popular culture acknowledge the tensions but often steer attention away from the political undertones. Whether it’s Medi Sadoun’s character from Qu’est-ce qu’on a fait au Bon Dieu (Serial (Bad) Weddings, 2014), Rachid Benassem, saying that as an Algerian he’d rather die than have a Moroccan marry into the same family into which he did, or the Moroccan-French stand-up comedian Amine Radi joking about the way Algeria and Morocco root for each other’s downfall rather than their own success — Algeria feels avenged for the misfortune of being assigned to the same group as Argentina because Morocco is with Brazil in the upcoming 2026 World Cup — both countries love to hate one another.

With this rivalry, especially within the context of AFCON, there was a latent hope that soon took on a more actualised and palpable excitement as Algeria and Morocco won both their first matches: what if these Maghreb brothers somehow end up playing each other in the semi-final… Moroccan friends excitedly declared how they would fly out straight to Casablanca to watch the carnage unfold directly before their eyes.

But there is, of course, a sweeter side to the Africa Cup of Nations: it valorises and spotlights budding talent as well as uniting diasporas scattered across the world. Yet during the sports tournament of a continent whose history is so marred by the interference of colonial powers, anticolonial and political discussion come inherently part and parcel of the tournament. A great example of this comes in the form of a fan’s dedicated and powerful tribute to a politician and independence leader: a heroic and symbolic figure in various African countries’ fight for their independence from colonising European powers.

Kuka Mboladinga earned himself the nickname “Lumumba” or “Lumumba Vea” over the course of AFCON for his devotion to Patrice Émery Lumumba, the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo and leader of the Congolese National Movement, who was tortured and executed by Katangan separatist forces and Belgian mercenaries in 1961. For the entirety of every match that DRC played, Mboladinga would stand motionless, his right armed raised in the same salute of Lumumba’s tributary statue atop his mausoleum in Kinshasa. Not only was he a powerful symbol for Congo’s fans and players, a beacon of hope guiding them through their impressive games against Benin (1-0), Senegal (1-1), and Botswana (3-0), he was a pathosic reminder of Africa’s past and hardships, and its long and arduous journey to independence. He was a favourite among football fans and teams alike, always dressed to the nines, stoic and determined, almost a monument in his own right.

Scandal arose when Algeria, also on its own impressive winning streak against Sudan (3-0), Burkina Faso (1-0), and Equatorial Guinea (3-1), faced the Democratic Republic of Congo on 6th January. They carried the same hope as DRC, yet Algeria was also cognizant that winning this match would see them continue to be, as yet, undefeated and one step closer to the possibility of facing Morocco in the semi-finals, as well as perhaps becoming the newest AFCON winners.

Social media fans of Algeria’s national team had reached an all-time fever pitch: from the initial elated surprise of seeing the legendary Zinedine Zidane’s son, Luca, in goal representing his grandparents’ birth country instead of France as his father had done, to frenzied fascination with young, prodigy-like stars Ibrahim “Ibo” Maza and Anis Hadj Moussa, online content ranged from fanatic appreciation of these young up-and-comers as much as Algeria’s seemingly unbeatable streak.

There was a lot of discourse surrounding how Algeria’s same young star players were either half-Algerian or even born abroad, and yet opted to represent Djazair over their birth country: Luca Zidane — of Algerian, French, and Spanish descent — born in France; Ibrahim Maza — of Algerian and Vietnamese descent — born in Germany; Anis Hadj Moussa — born in France. The country and the Algerian diaspora rallied around all its players, exhibiting the same exuberant fierté (pride) which is so often stereotypically attributed to Algerians as much as it is reclaimed by them (see DJ Kayz’s 2018 hit “Beauté algérienne” [Algerian Beauty]: ‘trop fière elle connaît son passé’ [too proud, she knows her history] and ‘trop de fierté mais c'est comme ça’ [too much proud, but that’s how it is]). Social media mania only continued to grow after Algeria’s defeat of their Congolese competitors thanks to Adil Boulbina’s goal in the 119th minute of game play. A trend grew, labelling ‘[X] as more beautiful than an 119th-minute Boulbina goal’.

Yet jubilation turned bitter after Mohammed Amoura mocked “Lumumba Vea” right in front of his and the rest of the Congolese supporters’ faces by striking the same Lumumba pose before falling to the ground, rounding things off with a celebratory pump of his fist. Tensions grew still more, with Amoura issuing an official statement of apology acknowledging his error and stating his own ignorance of the significance of Mboladinga posture, as well as reaffirming his respect for the Democratic Republic of Congo, its players, and its people. The Algerian Team’s official account echoed his sentiment, even going on to aver how it continues to stand with Congo and recognises the profound important of Lumumba as a figure.

Indeed, Algeria is a staunch advocate for the anticolonial cause, hosting the International Conference on the Crimes of Colonialism in Africa, held with a view to ‘redressing historical injustices through the criminalization of colonialism’ on the 1st December 2025 — the same month as AFCON’s start date. It resulted in the Algiers Declaration, which ‘consolidates decades of reparations and anti-colonial advocacy into a coherent continental position’, emphasising the importance of ‘reclaiming memory’ as a path to ‘reclaiming sovereignty’ (Peoples Dispatch). This focus on the crucial role of memory in collective consciousness calls back to post-colonialist philosopher Franz Fanon’s words:

L'expression vivante de la nation c'est la conscience en mouvement de l'ensemble du peuple.

1961, Les Damnés de la Terre

The living expression of the nation is the collective consciousness in motion of the entire people.

1961, The Wretched of the Earth

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Algeria’s colonised past is one which continues on in various facets of every Algerian’s living memory. The famous chant ‘One, two, three ! Viva l'Algérie !’, though now associated with rallying football supporters or general Algerian patriotism especially during sports tournaments, was born during the Algerian War of Independence. Initially, it was composed as a subterfuging way of communicating Algeria’s desperation and determination for independence to foreign powers, all while evading colonial censors’ understanding. The original chant was ‘We want to be free ! Viva l’Algérie !’, with the English lyrics morphing and melding over time, transforming into the rousing count. In a way not so dissimilar from the Democratic Republic of Congo then, at every Algerian match, Djazair supporters hark back to their plight for independence from the coloniser.

Tensions between the Algerian diaspora in France and the Français de souche (the French of French origin/ native French) remain high. In 2019, anticolonial female activists graffitied the phrase ‘nous sommes les descendantes des Algériens que vous n’avez pas noyé[s]…’ (we are the descendants of the Algerians that you didn’t drown) on the anniversary of the 1961 Paris massacre, where the French National Police murdered Algerians living in Paris through a mixture of intense police brutality and drownings en masse in the Seine. The graffitied phrase echoes the same non-gendered statement (nous sommes les descendants des Algériens que vous n’avez pas noyés), initially penned in response to the Massacre, as well as the graffiti on the Pont Saint-Michel in 1961: ‘Ici on noie les Algériens’ — ‘Here we drown Algerians’.

As videos circulated online of Algerians in Paris gathering and celebrating by Barbès-Rochechouart station in the 18e arrondissement, known for its Algerian immigrant population, comments under these same videos express undeniably and overtly racist sentiment. Some highlights include: ‘oop, quick papers check 🤣😂🤣😂’, ‘on, two, free ,,go back to your country!!!’, ‘do they go to work? ah no’, ‘on the ✈️✈️✈️ all that’, and ‘oh fuck is it barbès or Algeria😂😂’. A shame that the effectiveness of some comments are marred by their own spelling and grammar errors in French.

Amoura’s ignorant mocking of “Lumumba Vea” is therefore all the more disappointing because of the shared suffering and painful legacy of colonial oppression shared by both Algeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo, to say nothing of the other fifty recognised African countries which were also colonised and the role that Algeria played in aiding a vengeance (of sorts) of Lumumba’s murder.

Algerian leaders at the time of Lumumba’s assassination condemned it as ‘an unpardonable colonial crime’ and so captured and intercepted Tshombé in 1967 — considered the man to delivered Lumumba into the foreign hands that killed him — holding him prisoner and refusing to release him back to Congo. Tshombé would die two years later in captivity.

All this to say what, exactly? On Saturday 10th January, Algeria lost to Nigeria 0-2 in a devastating match that sent the team packing. Karmic retribution? No, the better team on the day won. (But don’t get me started on the ref…)

AFCON is a tournament that extolls unity, talent, and prowess in a clash of nations so rarely given the spotlight in Western media. Yet AFCON was broadcast on both Channel 4 and Sky Sports and we saw people and heard commentators getting riled up and cheering on non-white people. It was heart-warming to see so many rooting for those so often villainised, or branded with reductive, ignorant, and insulting labels such as “aggressive” or “terrorists”.

What of these dates? Why the dates, even? 12th January of every year is Yennayer, Amazigh New Year, belonging to a tradition several millenia years old. The Imazighen (or Berbers, as they are less affectionately called after the Greek word for ‘barbarian’: barbaros) are the indigenous people of North Africa, predating the Arab colonisation of the Tamazgha region as part of the Umayyad conquest of North Africa, led by Musa bin Nusayr. ‘Amazigh’ in Tamazigh literally means ‘free people’ or ‘noble people’ and the symbol for the Imazighen has the ‘yaz’ (the thirty-second letter of the Neo-Tifinagh alphabet also known as the ‘free man’ or the ‘standing man’) at its centre.

The universal Amazigh flag sees a ‘yaz’ painted in a dark red — the colour of resistance — on a background of blue, the sea; green, the mountains; and yellow, the sands of the Sahara. Any and all reclamation of of Amazigh heritage revolves around the vocal acknowledgement of the Imazighen’s fight and pursuit of freedom despite relentless persecution and attack by both Arab and French colonising forces.

As I set out my dates alongside my couscous, baklava, mint tea, and traditional Kabyle ceramics in preparation for Yennayer 2976, I anticipate a sourness to their otherwise sweet flavour. My dates of celebration taste bitter as the dream of an Algeria-Morocco showdown, or even an ultimate Algerian win, are shot down. My dates of celebration taste bitter as I am reminded once more of the complexity of my Maghreb heritage as a half-Algerian-Amazigh woman. To be proud while watching Algeria play football, on a team with a significant number of Amazigh players, holds the bitterness of the realisation that even the ‘Algerian identity’ whatever that may be, will forever have the imprint of both Arab and French colonisation veiling it.

Nevertheless, looking down at my ceremonial henna, catching glimpses of the reddish hues of my late grandmother’s Kabyle hair in my own, imagining how much fiercer it must have been when caught in the crosshairs of the Atlas mountains’ glare, I remember that freedom which all peoples across the world ultimately strive for against forces who would otherwise seek to deprive them of it.

And so as we embark upon this new year, be it 2026 or 2976, I can only hope that we will continue to see more people fight for their freedom, and more people still attain it.

Assegas ameggaz, les amis.

ⴰⵙⵙⴻⴳⴳⴰⵙ ⴰⵎⴻⴳⴳⴰⵣ

Trop de fierté mais c'est comme ça. ⵣ

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view of the path leading to the Váh River just behind our village, c. 2018

Four years ago to the day, the student newspaper for which I wrote published an article which had been my most personal to date. I would be lying if I said that I remember my writing process. What I do remember is that my second year at university had just finished. As had the second wave of COVID. My romantic and friendship relationships were in turbulent flux and I was set to fly out for the first leg of my year abroad in just over a month. I was fully cried out, drained, and scared about what was to come.

In a desperate attempt to assuage my panic, I remember that I walked to a newly opened Daunt Books a good forty to forty-five-minute walk away. A lot of people around me had been talking about their favourite podcasts and I felt like a fraud because I didn’t have one. I decided on giving some BBC history ones a crack and was listening to a soothing, if somewhat soporific, male voice intone about Roman literature. Without playing into stereotypes, I am fairly certain that an orgy was involved. My pseudo-intellectualism didn’t last too long and I have since resigned myself to the fact that I am not a podcasts girl. My subconscious is too accustomed to making the sound of voices lull me into a dark, abyssal sleep.

These are the only thoughts and memories I retain from the day I decided to write that article. All save for one.

Guilt.

Despite being born and educated in London, whenever I thought of family or home, I thought of Zelenice, the village where my grandparents' lived. It had been a year and half since I had last seen my grandmother in Christmas 2019—the longest we had gone apart since we first met when I was 16 months old. And every month away from her gnawed at me. Our plans to see each other the summer prior, as per tradition, were scuppered by global protective measures, yet despite the rational side of me knowing that all was out of my hands, when the flight cancellation email came through, I was heartbroken. We were set to fly out 15th July 2020. After being deprived of what felt like my most basic human right, to be with my grandmother at my heart’s home, the fact that I had a flight abroad scheduled for 31st August 2021, a mere year later, felt deceitful.

How dare I jet off to live out an exciting new chapter of my life in far-flung and exotic locations? (I never left Europe.)

Perhaps my motivations for writing Zelenice Dreaming the first time around arose out of a selfish need to prove that the bonds which tied me to that place were just as strong as ever. Perhaps, in what felt like one of the lowest times of my life, I simply wanted to reminisce about the peace and sun-lit weeks of my childhood, where my greatest worry was the mind games our psychotic cockerel and I inflicted on each other at our every encounter.

Just as COVID had torn me away from Zelenice, so too did it mercilessly rip my grandmother away from it, from her ancestral home where she had been born. Dramatic images aside, she had moved in my uncle for safety during the pandemic, leaving behind the house and the yard and the garden and the well and the cellar and the orchards and the vineyards and the sunflower field that I once called home.

my grandmother in her youth (far right) pictured at a friend’s wedding, c. late 1950s

When the back end of our verdant garden had been sold to neighbours, I was distraught. I always thought that would be where I would live. My fourteen-year-old self had clandestinely been planning to build her own house there, as I saw everyone in the village had been doing. Somehow it would be me, my mother, and my grandmother all living on the same land which had been in our family since time immemorial, one long branch of the same family tree with our matriarch at the head. Life had other plans.

Despite the latent entitlement I feel felt towards that place and the beautiful house and family who have since become our neighbours, even my fourteen-year-old self knew a hostile takeover was impossible preposterous. But the hurt at selling off what I naively assumed would always be mine was only amplified by my forcible separation from that place because of COVID.

These were my motivations for writing Zelenice Dreaming then. Nostalgia. Comfort in the face of the unknown.

Four years have passed and my motivations for writing now are quite different. After a long hiatus, I was finally able to go back and properly spend time with my dear heart two months ago. I was, once more, able to make the solemn pilgrimage to our Lutheran church where my grandfather, great-grandmother, and great-grandfather are buried. I, once more, felt the sheer panic of rushing to our village’s local bus stop, knowing full well that if I missed the bus, the next wouldn’t come for over an hour. I was, once more, seated amongst those who began as friends and became family, and those who began as friends and were discovered to be direct family. I, once more, went to my old haunt, the river Váh which winds behind our village. I, once more, cycled down the rocky roads and dirt tracks, racing past open, grassy plains to the soundtrack of deafeningly vocal crickets.

a newly planted sunflower field on the way to the River Váh, 2025

I returned and I felt healed. But our ancestral home remained a plaster I couldn’t quite muster to rip off. I saw the overgrown flowers peeking out from behind crumbling walls. Walls which had been standing for hundreds of years were in dire need of a new paint job. The wooden gates that had formerly opened before me remained locked fast. The place of my childhood was no more. And these past four years had only made this a more permanent and irreversible reality.

So why rehash old wounds now?

It feels a genuine privilege to know I am returning to my heart’s home in early September. It is a bigger privilege still to be able to spend my grandmother’s upcoming 90th birthday with her. It will be the greatest privilege to return to Zelenice, a fact which I am too afraid to ever take for granted again.

When Zelenice Dreaming was first published, I posted about it on my Facebook along with a separate Slovak translation. It seemed deeply disingenuous to write an hommage to that place in a language so divorced from it. Therefore four years on, I want to give that translation the place it deserves by actually publishing it.

Treat what you’ve read as an introduction, as context. Below you’ll find my mum’s and mine Slovak translation as well as the English original beneath it. They will be best read alongside the track “California Dreamin” by The Mamas & the Papas, whose titled inspired the article’s name.

Have compassion for the writer I was four years ago, and thank you for reading as I find my voice again.

Snívam o Zeleniciach

(originálny predklad titulu “Zelenice dreaming” je prepožičaný z piesne “California Dreaming”

-Snívam o Californii- americkej skupiny “The Mamas & the Papas”)

Tak ako každému aj mne, posledných pár týždňov v Oxforde boli bezbožnou zmiešaninou dokonalého šťastia a božského lenošenia. Len čo som zazrela prvé slnečné lúče, moje podvedomie šikovno zabudlo na všetky hroziace sa písomné práce, preklady i trápny počet odkladov v prospech jedinej veci: leta. Najdúc sa s tvárou hore na tráve, moja myseľ začala robiť to, čo jej ide najlepšie – túlať sa na miesta, kde jej COVID-ové nariadenia nedovolia. Slnko má v sebe niečo zvláštne; má akúsi moc, ktorá ti dovolí preniesť sa kdekoľvek, ak si to veľmi veľmi želáš a predstavíš. Pre mňa, takéto miesto nie je nič iné než malá dedinka na západnom Slovenku, kde býva moja babka: Horné Zelenice.

Babkin dom bol vždy mojím druhým domovom. Nech bolo ako bolo, toto vždy bolo a bude jediné miesto, kde som sa skutočne cítila ako doma. Spomínajúc na tie zázračné letá, každé jedno bolo akoby vystrihnuté z románu. Veľká drevenná brána, ktorou sa vchádza do "úkola", s hniezdami lastovičiek schovaných v kútoch hrád, ktoré džia "hóru na predku", či nežné hrkútanie hrdličiek, čo ťa ráno zobúdzajú. Na konci dvora je vysoká slivka, na ktorú babka spolu so svojimi sestrami liezli, keď boli malé, v tieni ktorej stojí kurín čo kedysi dávno býval chliev. Dávno, ešte keď babka s dedkom chovali hydinu "za bránku", muselo sa prejsť do záhrady okolo sliepok, kačíc a husí. Nakoľko mi bola známa povaha nášho domáceho kotúta (ktorý si - úprimne povedané - trochu moc o sebe myslel a tváril sa, ako keby mu patril celý dvor), som vždy utekala ako blázon snažiac sa vyhnúť potýčke s jeho zbesnene trepotajúcimi krídlami, predtým ako sa stačil vžiť do role tajného býka a zaútočiť na mňa.

Frances Hodgson Burnett (autor románu "Tajná záhrada") mohla napísať o záhrade, ktorá ma dodnes upútáva, ale záhrada mojich starých rodičov ma vždy chytí za srdce. Napriek tomu, že plodiny boli každé leto iné, každé jedny sú zviazené kontrétnou spomienkou. Bol tam sklenník, kde rástla paprika, do ktorého som sa odhodlala vkročiť za zadúšajúcej horúčavy, keď som sa pokúšala chytiť motýľov. Potom tam bolo kvetové pole nechtíkov, levandule a púpav, ktoré som si natrhala a urobila si z nich púpavový venček, keď som pobehovala v malom vinohrade a naháňala psa. Boli tam aj jablká a hrušky rastúce na stromoch, rajčiny, mrkva, repa a zemiaky, ktoré boli obyčajne dovážané do pivnice na "táčkach", v ktorých ma babka vozievala do záhrady, keď mi bolo päť alebo šesť rokov. Keď kostolné hodiny odbili šiestu, vykrikovala som na susedov cez plot tváriac sa, že som pouličný predavač zeleniny ponúkajúci dyne a slnečnice za najlepšiu cenu, akú táto časť krajiny videla. Raz, keď dedko trhal fazuľu, vbehla som do kukuričného sadu, ktorý pokrýval zvyšok záhrady a zostala som tam schovaná v tom kukuričnom bludisku tak dlho, že musel ísť zavolať na pomoc babku a moju mamu by ma našli.

Ale najlepšie zo všetkého bolo, keď sme ja s mamou a obyčajne aj so známymi išli na bicykloch k rieke za dedinu, k Váhu, čo sa neďaleko vlieval do Dunaja. Keď si zavriem oči, stále vidím kamienkovú pláž, skalné útesy v ohybe rieky, kde prúdy boli najsilnejšie, malé rybky unášané dolu prúdom, dedinské psy čo vbehli do vody a brodili sa za starou tenisovou loptičkou. Stále počujem šumenie vetra v stromoch, či smiech detí ktoré skúšajú kto dohodí kameňom najďalej. Stále cítim kamienky a kamene pod nohami, keď sa vnáram do vody, či chlad vody, čo ma zviera do náručia alebo odrážajúce sa slnečné lúče, čo ma zohrievajú. Ten pocit, keď som plávala v čistučkej vode je neprekonateľný. Pokoj, v ktorom pozorujem priateľov a známych plávať, keď si čítam knihu na kamienkovej pláži mi prenikol do každého kúska môjho tela.

No hoci som obklopená podobnou zeleňou či hrkútaním hrdličiek, keď sa prechádzam okolo rieky Cherwell alebo sa idem pozrieť na kamarátov, ktorí skáču do vody v Port Meadows či Hinkley Park Lake, nič sa nevyrovná pokojnej babkinej záhrade či malému kamienkovému riečnemu brehu, ktoré naplnilo moje detstvo and dospievajúce roky takým ohromným kľudom. Ako si tu tak ležím vo fakultných záhradách, moje návštevy Horných Zeleníc ma naplňujú nie až tak veľmi nostalgiou ako elegickym pocitom šťastia a lásky, aj keď niektorí už zomreli a príroda upadla a zmenila sa. A táto istá láska ma vždy bude ťahať späť do tej malej tichej slovenskej dedinky, ktorá je tak blízka môjmu srdcu, and ktorú budem navždy volať domovom.

my grandmother’s long gone garden with its cornfield, vineyards, and apple, pear and damson trees, c. 2015

Zelenice Dreaming

Perhaps much like everyone else, I have found the last couple of weeks in Oxford to be an unholy combination of absolute bliss and divine procrastination. As soon as I saw that first ray of sun, my mind conveniently forgot about all the imminent essays, translations, and embarrassing number of extensions in favour of one thing: summer. And as I found myself lying face up on the grass, my mind began to do what it does best: travelling to places where COVID guidelines won’t allow me to go. There is something special about the sunshine; it has a power that allows you to be transported wherever you want, if only you wish it hard enough. For me, that place is none other than the small village in western Slovakia where my grandma lives: Horné Zelenice.

My grandma’s house has always been like a second home to me. It has and always will be the one place where I feel like I am well and truly home, no matter how bad things were going for me here. Summers there were magical, and looking back on it now, every summer seemed like the kind of thing you read about in books when you’re a child, which you hope to experience one day. There’s a great big wooden gate which you need to pass through to enter the property, and swallows’ nests tucked away in the nooks of the beams which support the attic, and the soft cooing of wood pigeons that wake you up in the morning. At the far end of the yard, there’s a tall plum tree which my grandma and her sisters used to climb when they were children, with the chicken coop hidden beneath in its shade. Many, many years ago, when my grandparents still kept poultry, you’d have to pass the chickens and ducks and geese before even arriving at the garden. Knowing the temperament of the resident cockerel (who was quite frankly a bit entitled and possessive), you’d have to make a run for it, judiciously avoiding the frantic flapping, before he embraced his inner bull and charged at you.

Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote about a garden that to this day still captures my imagination, but my grandparents’ garden will forever capture my heart. Every summer, the crops there were different, and yet somehow, each one holds a specific memory. There’s the greenhouse which grew peppers, where I’d brave the suffocating heat in an attempt to catch butterflies. Then the fields of flowers, marigolds, lavender, and dandelions, which I would pick and twist into a crown to wear as I ran up and down between the small grape vineyards, chasing our dog. Apples and pears grew from the trees, while tomatoes, carrots, turnips and potatoes were regularly brought in on a wheelbarrow, which I rode in when I was six or seven, pushed by my grandmother. As the church bell struck six, I would shout out to neighbours across fences, pretending to be a vegetable vendor, offering our pumpkins or sunflowers at the best prices in this end of the country. One time, while my grandfather was picking bean pods, I ran into the patch of cornfield which filled the rest of the garden and stayed hidden in that maze of maize for so long that he had to enlist the help of my mother and grandmother to find me.

But perhaps best of all would be when my mother and I, along with family friends, would cycle beyond the bounds of the village to the river which flowed nearby, the Váh, which itself fed into the Danube. If I close my eyes, I can still see the pebble beach, the crags of rocks at the bend in the brook where the current was strongest, the little fish wriggling away downstream, village dogs bounding in and paddling to retrieve a mangled tennis ball. I can still hear the rush of wind in the trees or the laughter of children as they saw who could throw a rock furthest. I can still feel the pebbles and the rocks beneath my feet as I wade in, or the coolness of the water enveloping me like a hug, or the reflected rays of sun warming me. The feeling I had whilst swimming in that clear river is unrivalled. The calmness of watching my friends and relatives swim and splash as I read a book on the pebble beach pervaded every fibre of my being.

So, even if I’m surrounded by similar greenery or the same cooing of wood pigeons as I walk past the Cherwell, or see my friends diving into the water at Port Meadows or Hinskey Park Lake, there is nothing that can beat the tranquillity of my grandma’s garden or that small pebble beach river that filled my childhood and adolescence with so much comfort. Even though people have passed, and nature has dwindled and changed, my travels to Horné Zelenice fill me not so much with nostalgia as with an elegiac sense of happiness and love as I lie here on my college quad. And this same love will always draw me back to that quiet little Slovakian village which is so dear to me and that I will forever call my home.