22 replies to this topic

[mrdee]

My home town is Bredene, situated at the Flemish coast, next to Ostend.
It is the town where I was born, at home, like all six of us (Mum had none of us at a hospital, all six children were delivered at home by a visiting midwife).

The town has three main areas:

• The part referred to as "The Village", a very rural and formerly agricultural part of town.
  
• The seaside part, referred to as "The Dunes", which is the "tourist" part of the town
  
• The part which forms the link between Bredene and Ostend, referred to as "The Dock", which was the more "industrial" part of the town.

I am from the village part, as said before, a formerly very rural, rustic area where the predominant source of income was agriculture.

It used to be a very romantic place when I was a child, you had a car going through the main street once about every 5 to 10 minutes, and everyone knew everyone in the community.

I remember my parents telling me how they, just having moved from the bigger city of Ostend, often got annoyed when the inhabitants of Bredene, whom hey obviously did not know yet, all said hello to them when they saw them in the street, something which never happened in bigger cities, so, my parents often thought they were making fun of them.

There were also some lovely old little houses in the village, situated around the central village church of St. Richard (where I became the organist later), and lots of shops and pubs (supermarkets were unheard of in those days).

Every year in September and May, we used to have a fun fair in the village, great fun for the kids, and there was also the tradition of "fun fair Monday", the first Monday of the fun fair, when the local business people went round the pubs and treated their customers to drinks.

There were also two schools in the town, the Catholic School, founded by an order of nuns, and the secular school, ran by the town council.

Like I said, everything was quite romantic, there was business going on, but bit by bit, things began to change:

Lots of the agricultural land were claimed by the town council and bought of the owners to be used as building land, and whole areas, which used to have grazing cows on them, now made room for whole modern villa areas, and many people from the nearby city of Ostend built their house and moved into Bredene.

One after one, the shops began to close, due to the pressure of the, much cheaper, supermarkets in Ostend, which was only a short bus or car ride away (even public transport had been improved and extended a lot. Where you could take about one bus every one and a half or two hours, or face quite a walk to get to a bus stop with more frequent buses, the bus traffic had now become more regular).

Also the pubs began to close one after one, partly due to the fact that the lesser financial times began to announce themselves slightly in the 70s and people could not afford to go to the pub as regularly as they used to.

I still remember, on hot summer evenings, when all the neighbours were sat outside their doors talking, until one of them got the brilliant idea to say to the neighbours: "real thirsty weather, isn't it?", to which they obviously all agreed, so everyone barged into the pub two doors away and quenched their thirst until the landlord practically cursed them to go home and let him go to bed.

It was also the time when there was no full-blown police force as such in the town, only a rural policeman, patrolling on his push bike, who often joined the villagers in the pub during his duty.

They say times change, but is it always for the better??

While Bredene has now become a modern town, most of the romantic looks and times I used to know as a child are now gone forever.

[Ananya]

Well talking about hometown is something which is truly near and dear to anyone and everyone. As far as my upbringing is concerned its not at all in a big metro city.You can just say that I am a small town girl.Its Barrackpore in West Bengal,India.But yes the connectivity to proper Kolkata was truly nice. Its just 45 minutes by train.My neighborhood did consist of a typical middle class family background where you can easily find joined families encompassing around you.But mine was a little different.Since my parents used to work under Indian Air Force,we had chosen Barrackpore to build up our house and stay there which was near to my parent's office.Only my maternal grandmother used to stay along with us as my mother was the sole child of her parents. The same holds true for me also.As I had no other brothers and sisters so my grandmother used to fill up that empty space for me.She was my guardian as my parents had to go out early morning to match up with the early office timings on one hand. On the other she was my story telling grandma and also she was my peer like as I used to fight with her if things didn't go well with us.Her stories used to take me to Dhaka,capital of Bangladesh which was again her birthplace.Her family migrated from there post independence or may be a little bit early when actually Hindu Muslim quarrels started taking place regarding division issues.Piece of lands get easily divided amongst us but when you put your mind and heart on something its very difficult to get yourself away from there. Since she grew up there,spent childhood there it was truly difficult for her forget those sweet memories of her upbringing in Bangladesh.Otherwise she traveled a lot along with her husband. But her stories were mainly Bangladesh centric.My schooling again was something truly special as my school was inside the premises of 6 wing Air Force unit,Barrackpore,a truly prohibited area from outside.But inside it was a true fun to be there.When we used to recite the morning prayers in our nursery school planes used to fly just above our head.Just besides our school premises planes used to take off and land.Children usually bear an innate craze for watching planes and they satisfy themselves by buying some different models of planes but I used to watch them live.Although I spent about a lapse of 23-24 yrs in Bengal itself but only due to my school I witnessed a true multicultural and multilinguistic environment getting glimpses of almost every culture existing in our country.Our inter house competitions used to bring forward Folk music and folk dance from almost every corner of our country- Assamese, Kashmiri, Gujarati,Marathi,Bengali,South Indian,Rajasthani.My school friends belonged to various parts of our country and different religions too.So my school kept intact the true Indian ethics of secularism.

[xChellesei]

My hometown is called Hermosa. Its name, meaning "beautiful", came from the Spaniards who came to our country hundreds of years before. It's a rural area in the province of Bataan but is pretty near to the city. It takes two hours to go to the city by car, but it only takes 30 minutes by ship. It's a pretty large municipality with approximately 52,500 people living there. It's getting more and more industrial now. It is composed of 23 villages. The village where I lived is called Palihan. In that village, there is a street where most of my grandmother's (my mom's mother) relatives live. The name of the street was also based on the name of my grandma's dad since they bought that whole street. My great grandfather divided the land into four equal parts since he had four children. Then when his children married and had kids, they divided the land again. My grandma has 6 children -- three boys and three girls. When my mom married dad, they stayed at my grandma's house first. Then, I was born and my sister followed me after two years. Dad went overseas to work. From his earnings, they decided to build a house on my mom's part (the land from my grandma).

Not so long, Aunt X (let's call her "X") married too. They lived at my grandma's house and had two kids. Seven years after they got married, their house was finally built. Several years after, Uncle Y and Aunt Z married too.
Playing outdoor games, going to our neighbors' houses, running as fast as we can, shouting so loud when we're the victors, getting so pissed when we're the losers... it was fun... really really fun.

The air is really fresh since there are lots of trees there. The houses vary in sizes. Going out to go to other houses or to take a walk is everyone's daily routine that's why I know most of the people living in that area. I'm not really close to all especially to those people who are not related to us by blood, but I know most of their faces.

What I don't like about my hometown are those people who keep on spreading and spreading rumors and wrong assumptions about someone else's life. I mean, why gossip someone? It's not like they get something good from that. Moreover, they just make someone look bad. Instead of gossiping, why not just do something better?
But I guess I can't do anything about that. Gossips can't be avoided wherever you go.

If there's a bad side, of course there's a good side too...
I remember that time when I locked our house with the key inside. Everyone's out and I'm the only one left so I decided to go to where my mom is. I thought my mom had the key so I just locked the whole house. Then when I met her, she asked me if I locked it and I said 'Yes. The key's with you, right?". Then we went back to our house to find a way to get the key. Just a few minutes after, many neighbors came to help. When I was 4 years old, I asked my dad to make a swing for us. While my dad was making a swing for us, some uncles (my grandma's sibling's sons) came to help him do it. This is what I love the most in my hometown. Most people don't mind lending hands to those in need. Even if there are busy bodies spreading gossips, there are also those busy bodies helping others. I don't want this to change.

But due to some issues, we decided to move in the city. During the holidays or vacations, we come and visit my hometown. I miss living there but due to some family reasons and some promises I made with my friends here in the city, I think it's better to stay here. But still, I love my hometown.

Edited by xChellesei, 10 May 2012 - 01:06 PM.