Every year we set aside one evening in August. This year it fell on the fourteenth, and for the first time in a decade it was held at the family house rather than a hotel ballroom.
Preparations began three weeks ahead. The courtyard was cleared, the old diwaniya doors were re-oiled, and the long table — assembled from six smaller ones — ran the length of the shaded side of the yard. By eight o'clock there were ninety-one of us.
What we discussed
The gathering is social first, but it is also the one moment each year when the whole family hears the same update at the same time. Three items were put to the room:
- The archive project — 1,400 photographs digitised, roughly a third of the collection.
- The education fund — its fourth cohort, and the decision to open applications to cousins studying abroad.
- The house itself — a maintenance plan covering the next five years.
The point of the evening is not the announcements. It is that the children now know a hundred faces they would otherwise have met only at funerals.
The archive table
A table near the entrance held prints from the digitisation work — the harbour in the fifties, the first family shop, a wedding no one under sixty could place. Several of the unlabelled photographs were identified on the spot, which is exactly why the prints were laid out in the first place.
Next year
The date is already set for the second Friday of August. If you would like to help with hosting, catering or the archive table, write to the family council through the contact page.