THE DUNES OF ASUNSHON
Going through some old albums, I came across photos I do not remember seeing before – photos of my mother running down the sand dunes at Asunshon, taken by my father in 1940. Seven years later, when I was born, no trace was left of those dunes. All the sand of those 5-meter-high dunes had been trucked away - to be used in construction. Today the bay, on the rough north coast of the island, is awash with rotting sargasso seaweed, just where the dunes would have been.
As a child, I begged my father to talk about the dunes in Asunshon again and again. There was something unreal about those dunes that existed once, before I was born, and were gone. I was fascinated by the thought that once upon a time there had been sand, and now there was none. That things had once been so different from the reality I knew as a child. That once this whole island had been covered by the sea and only the highest peaks could be seen above the water, as geologists determined from the remains of seashells found on top of the Christoffel.
And my father would tell me how the Waaigat was once a big lake that reached all the way to the Pietermaai Church. He was still a young boy then. Mami grew up in Cuba and her family returned to the island only after this part of the Waaigat had already been turned into land, so only Papi could remember it. I envied him, for having seen it all. That he had this memory of a world with lakes and sand dunes that did not exist anymore.
I had a vivid geographical imagination, thriving on stories of the explorations of unknown places on earth and always regretted that there were no great rivers, waterfalls, deserts, or high mountains on our island. The Christoffel was less than 400 meters high, and that was our highest mountain – a hill. The thought that once there had been dunes in Asunshon, almost made up for that geographical deprivation.
Often, I would fantasize about going back in time, to climb those dunes that were no longer there. At the top, I would look out at the wild and roaring sea that comes splashing against the rocks of the North Coast, and then I would run down the dunes and throw myself into the soft white sand to feel its warmth all over my body.
Even though, rationally, I did not doubt my parents’ stories about those dunes, they still seemed to exist only in a dream world. Finding those photographs of those dunes my father took in 1940, with my own mother running down the sand, somehow confirmed their reality. As if I needed that physical proof of their existence.
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Photo taken by my father, Frank Mendes Chumaceiro of my mother running down the dunes in Asenshon, 1940
Photo taken by my father, Frank Mendes Chumaceiro of my mother running down the dunes in Asenshon, 1940
sandy beach at Asunshon, 1940 by my grandfather, Benjamin Gomes Casseres