Harold Bergsma

Rhododendron Wine Factory: Memoirs of a Wanderer Harold Bergsma

The author tells stories about his international wandering. In India he writes about his childhood and growing up in boarding school. He experiences frustrations of a child living with a dorm bully. His story "The Year I Became a Thief describes his humorous rationale for his resulting strange thefts. In "Bears' Cave" he describes a terrifying cave exploration with his older brother where they almost lose their lives. Bergsma resided twelve years in Nigeria. He made close friends with many of the traditional people resulting from both his work and his hobby, hunting. "Fat Hearts" is a story of Asema Kehe, his hunting companion for twelve years and their many unusual experiences in the bush together. After twenty five years apart, Bergsma returns to Nigeria and finds his dying friend. In "The Salt Makers" he becomes lost on a hunt and ends up in compound where six wild looking Utur tribesmen are boiling something in a huge metal pot. Bergsma's attempt to solicit assistance by using pantomime is a hilarious spoof of cross cultural mis-understanding. While in Yemen Arab Republic, in "Sleep Deprivation" he becomes involved with Russian spies and a noisy amorous couple in a hotel room in Sana'a. In Belize he accompanies a project student home. He stays overnight with the student in a tiny stilt house above a swamp and becomes acquainted intimately with "Sleep Apnea" when his partner dies a hundred times a night. In Egypt, with his family, they descend ancient stone steps under a pyramid. He discovers he has a serious case of 'tombaphobia' in "Pharaoh's Tomb". His memoirs speak of the birth and rebirth of ideas and beliefs over a lifetime; 'we are born in mystery, we live in mystery and we die in mystery'.