My mother tells me that the longest ten minutes of her life happened that time I wandered off on my own in a supermarket in Bogotá in the mid seventies. Colombia was an edgy country at that time and child abductions were a reality; often, I am assured, with the purpose of using children for begging. I can imagine my mother’s horrendous anxiety for what must have felt like ages as she raced around the aisles looking for me. I don’t remember where she eventually found me but I can only suppose that her immediate relief was quickly supplanted with anger…and then tears.

The last flat we had in Bogotá before moving to Holland was in the Edificio Militar. It was a tall high-rise and a safe place to live, no doubt thanks to the majority of the tenancy and the tight twenty-four-hour security. I think we lived quite high up on about the twelfth floor. One day, my mother and I walked into the lift on the ground floor and just before the doors closed a man with dwarfism came in behind us. He was also of very dark complexion. I was fascinated and I remember pointing my finger at him and shouting to my mother “ Mira el chiquito morado! Mira el chiquito morado! Mira el chiquito morado! Mira el chiquito morado!” (look at the little purple one) ….on and on. I suppose my mother looked up and kept her gaze on the dial: one…two…three…four…five…..