I grew up in a world where “social media” simply meant being social in the most literal sense: chatting over fences with neighbours, gathering at the community market to exchange gossip, or walking to each other’s homes whenever we needed a conversation. There were no mobile phones to broadcast our every thought, and even landlines were a privilege for only a few. Those years might seem slow-paced to some, but to me, they remain a testament to genuine human connection, where friends were made and kept through face-to-face interactions and the occasional handwritten letter.

Not many households in our neighbourhood had a television set. Those that did often displayed grainy, black-and-white images, which seemed luxurious at the time. A simple question like “Did you see that thing on TV last night?” would spark lively discussions the following day. Everyone knew precisely what was being referenced, yet we might disagree on the hue of a blouse or the style of a hat, given that our TVs did not faithfully reproduce colours. Yet, for all our arguments, the experience was communal. We had a collective reality.

That collective reality stretched into many other parts of our lives. Toys were a luxury, and they arrived at irregular intervals—perhaps as a birthday present from a generous aunt or through a random stroke of luck at a market stall. Books, meanwhile, were an even rarer commodity, though they, were my true sanctuary. My primary school did not boast a proper library; just a few shelving units in each classroom, where dog-eared paperbacks and out-of-date readers clustered together. I devoured them all. After speeding through these titles in a matter of weeks, I found myself in a literary drought, clamouring for new stories to spark my imagination. So hungry was I for anything printed that I’d even read the newspapers vendors used to wrap fruit and vegetables at the market. Old headlines, half-obscured by the stains of tomatoes or oranges, still offered a whiff of mystery, of distant lands, or of events unfolding beyond the confines of our community.

Beyond that, the nearest community library lay some five kilometres away. Five kilometres might as well have been an ocean in those days a distance I couldn’t cross alone. My parents were often too busy to ferry me there, so the solution came in the form of my friend Belmont. He attended a school near that library and regularly checked out books to read. For seven days (or fourteen, if the librarian was lenient), the book would pass from his hands to mine. I read like a boy possessed, racing against the clock, terrified of fines I couldn’t afford. I returned each book pristine, not a dog-eared page or smudged margin. Belmont was, in that sense, my silent partner in literary exploration.

I’ll never forget the day he handed me a book from the Pacesetters series. It felt immediately different, alive with African settings, voices, and issues that felt both refreshing and deeply familiar. My early reading had consisted mostly of children’s adventure tales and a ragtag mix of textbooks and English literature from your Charles Dickens to Thomas Hardy , so to find a novel that resonated with the world I knew was both thrilling and validating. From that moment on, Pacesetters became a treasured staple in my reading diet.

Even at home, books held a place of pride, thanks to my father’s well-curated but modest four-level bookshelf. He stocked it with titles by Ken Follett, Sidney Sheldon, Jeffrey Archer, and John Grisham, heavy tomes filled with political intrigue, court proceedings, and sweeping historical backdrops. Perched among these adult novels was our ever-present Cambridge English Dictionary, its spine cracked, and pages marked by constant handling. In my downtime, I would read it from A to Z, savouring every new term as though it were an undiscovered gem. I suspect my fascination with words took root in those moments, flipping through pages that spelled out the limitless possibilities of language.

When I had exhausted all the standard books within reach, I began writing my own stories, scrawling them in exercise books and on scrap paper. If the real world wasn’t providing enough new narratives, I would create them myself. My earliest attempts were patchwork imitations of the adult thrillers my father so loved, but over time, I started weaving in the sunlit details of my own life, the winding paths leading to the market, the city council stalls where vendors wrapped tomatoes in old newspapers, the vibrant chatter of neighbours in the early morning.

Around that same time, mobile phones were nothing like they are today. If you wanted to stay in touch with friends who’d gone to boarding school, you wrote letters. I remember penning pages to Chengetai and the two Vimbais, each time double-checking my spelling and carefully sealing the envelope. Then came the agonising wait—often two weeks or more—for a reply to travel back into my hands. In every crisp fold and swirl of ink, I could sense the affection and excitement of friends who were miles away. There is nothing quite like the soft crackle of a paper letter, or the knowledge that it’s been passed from person to person, through streets and the post office, just to reach you.

Meanwhile, diaries and “autobiographies” were popular among my schoolmates. Far from the traditional sense of an autobiography, these were notebooks filled primarily with the lyrics of the day’s biggest hits, painstakingly copied from the radio. Though I appreciated their dedication, I never quite caught the lyrics-collecting bug. Instead, I filled my own diary with observations and reflections, small glimpses of everyday life, from the way the dawn light crept over our yard to the excitement I felt when Belmont passed me a new book.

Looking back, I can see how these formative experiences led me to fall in love with writing. In a world where resources were limited, and everything we had was shared among neighbours, writing offered a private space of boundless creativity. It fed my curiosity and helped me document the fleeting treasures of childhood. It also allowed me to connect with people who were far away, knitting friendships across distances that, at the time, felt vast and unbridgeable.

Yet writing served another profound purpose: it preserved moments that might have otherwise slipped away. Childhood is such a transitory phase, filled with vivid impressions and first experiences that can so easily fade into fuzzy recollections. By putting pen to paper, I discovered I could anchor those memories in a concrete place. Rereading an old entry or story instantly plunges me back to the exact mood and setting in which I wrote it, accompanied by all the earnestness and wonder of youth.

Sometimes, I catch myself musing about how different my life might have been if I’d grown up in the age of smartphones and constant digital chatter. Perhaps I would have scrolled through endless feeds instead of thumbing through a battered dictionary. Maybe Belmont and I would have swapped e-books instead of well-thumbed paperbacks. Those might have been convenient changes, but they would also have robbed me of the slow, profound satisfaction that accompanies tangible books and thoughtful letters. There’s something irreplaceable about reading a sentence someone’s penned in ink or feeling the crisp corner of a page turn beneath your fingers.

In the here and now, with every conceivable resource at our fingertips, I continue to write for the same reasons I did back then: to remember and to reach out. To explore the recesses of my mind where new ideas dwell and to preserve the stories, traditions, and beloved faces that shaped my early years. I write because each word feels like a promise—that the memory it captures will not be lost to the relentless march of time.

Years later, someone called my prose “vivid but crowded like Mbare Musika (a market).” I didn’t tell them it was on purpose. That the clutter of adjectives, the tangents, the thieves and lovers jostling in my sentences, were all homages. To the bookshelf that never had enough space. To the library I couldn’t reach. To the days when a single book had to hold all the air I could breathe.

That’s the real enchantment of writing. It serves as both a refuge and a museum. It’s a place to create when real life seems too sparse or overwhelming, and a space to store the cherished fragments of our past. So, whether I’m recounting old anecdotes about Belmont and the Pacesetters, recalling how my father’s bookshelf spurred my obsession with words, or reliving the anticipation of letters travelling across dusty roads, I know each page I fill becomes a container for a memory that might otherwise slip from my grasp.

And that, at its heart, is why I write: it anchors me to the child who read everything from dictionary pages to newspaper scraps used to wrap fruit. It reminds me of a time when letters were lifelines, and books were treasures waiting to be discovered, even if they were five kilometres away. In a world now saturated with instant communication, writing remains my most patient and faithful companion a gateway back to everything that was, and a promise of all that’s yet to come. And that’s the thing about writing it offers a way to hold onto something you might otherwise lose.