A multigenerational longhouse in Derbyshire
Mike and Sarah wanted a multigenerational and energy-efficient
longhouse they would share with their octogenarian parents and adult daughters.
They believe that children should care for their parents when they can. Their
vision was turned into reality through Grand Designs. Now they have peace of
mind having their parents around.
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This reminds me of a friend's compound where the main house used
to be shared with her brother and their mother and single aunt while their
father worked abroad. It remained everyone’s home when her brother got married
and had six children which my single friend helped send to college. One by one,
these children had their own families and built their own homes with everyone’s
help on this ancestral land. DIY construction, that is. The remaining ground in
the middle retained its smooth, concrete-like texture as children’s feet from
many generations past had played games on it using rubber slippers, empty cans,
sticks, and marbles, long before the digital age.
In this intergenerational abode, it’s not infrequent to see
a child walking to the main house with a bowl of freshly cooked meal to share
with their grandma, great aunt, and great-great aunt. One’s “specialty” food,
in particular, ought to be shared with everyone, and profuse thanks and
compliments follow. This specialty becomes the expected dish during regular
potlucks on special holidays and gatherings such as Christmas and New Year
where the aroma of a suckling pig being roasted wafts in the air all day. The made-up
“rotisserie” is manned by two or more topless male adults as they drink the
local beer and take turns turning the poor piglet on a bamboo culm with its
limbs tied tight, making it appear like it’s holding on to the bamboo so as not
to fall into the fire pit dug on the ground. Before dawn, the squeals of this
pig reverberated in the air and signaled to everyone in town that it was time
to get up and start all the peeling, chopping, and cooking that should be done
for the Noche Buena, or Christmas Eve feast, which every family enjoys after
the midnight mass. After Noche Buena, my friend who loves to play Santa Claus
gathers all the children around the Christmas tree and hands out their presents.
Every year, she happily starts shopping when the “-ber” months come (September,
October, November & December) and checks off the names of nephews and nieces
on her list, and later their children, making sure that everyone happily goes
home with something.
On this family compound, when a child or an adult falls sick,
an aunt, the great aunt, the grandma, or the great grandma is usually there to
lend a hand, helping care for the sick or looking after the family if one is in
hospital. They bring their usual home remedies such as Vicks VapoRub and
liniment oil, and of course, hot soup. From their kitchen or garden, there are also
medicinal plants such as ginger and guava whose preparations and benefits are known
to the local population. In this clan, there doesn’t seem to be a lack of traditional
knowledge and caring hands.
These caring hands seem to be in short supply now,
especially in places where adults work in shifts or multiple jobs, children are
left in the care of older siblings or in front of screens, minimum wage is
never enough, inflation is constant, politics and economy are unstable, and the
elderly are left to fend for themselves. MLJ/18/08/2024
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