Digital Story from the Bawso Stories Project. In her story "Charcoals and Chapati", which was inspired by a visit to the National Slate Museum, Mary remembers the familiar sights, sounds and smells of working and cooking in the village where she grew up in Kenya.

English transcript: I am very happy today to visit this museum and I’ve seen some different few items and objects which attracted me. One thing which I seen was a saw. The saw, we used to use it to cut the trees and there was that sound, you see that sound, when we were cutting the tree, and when we cut the tree, we used to make a pole and then we used to prepare it so we can burn charcoals. So after charcoals, before it’s ready it used to take eight days, before it’s ready we used to use fire wood and that fire wood, it reminded me of these pots where, they were in one of the house, where you have to use it to boil the food, and it used to change the colour.

So when I seen those pots and I seen the charcoals it reminded me back home, back home in Kenya, yeah when I used to be 10 years living there. We used to use firewood and use the charcoals for cooking and for warming the house. So those three things I seen, it reminded me back far away when I was very young.

Yeah, so I love it, it has a very unique smell, but the smell used to attract some, when you are cooking, using it, there is these things we used to cook called chapati. So and it used to come out with a smoke, and it used to be the mix of the charcoal and fire wood, and it was attracting neighbours, and they knew what we was cooking, yeah.

So it was a good thing, yeah. They all come and involve themselves, yeah, everyone used to love it, and we was happy when we knew somewhere there is chapati getting cooked and we used to go all there and share together, especially at Christmas time. I love those pots, and I love charcoals and saws because all these subjects were coming out with something.