My mother was getting her degree in anthropology when my family and I moved to Kenya for a period of time when I was a teenager in the 1970’s. One of the things she did was move from our house into a local African village — N’gecha — about 30 km outside of Nairobi up in the highlands near the edge of the Rift Valley. There she was welcomed into the Kikuyu ethnic community and lived as a Kikuyu person. She learned to speak their language and cooked, ate, and slept as the Kikuyu did. Meanwhile my father, brother, sister, and I lived in an expatriate environment.

Even though we were apart, I would go visit my mother in the village from time to time. I loved to visit her. She lived in a small one room, unfinished wooden hut with a dirt floor and corrugated steel roof. It was always dark inside because there was no electricity — just two cutout window openings with shutters on a hinge to let light in. It would get cold at night so she’d close the shutters to cut the draft. In the daytime a little sunlight came through those tiny glassless windows, but she also had small tin cans crafted into paraffin oil candle burners, which served as her form of light. There was always black soot on everything. But the soot always made it warmer and it smelled good.

In one corner there was a small wooden cot. It was low to the ground and narrow. The frame was made of rough-hewn wood with ropes tied from side to side. She had a thin bedroll that served as her mattress and rested on the ropes. Near the bed was a small table, also handmade. She had a couple of enameled metal coffee cups, chipped and speckled, and a small iron hibachi grill called a “jico.” She would light her charcoal and put a clay pot on top for cooking and keeping the room warm. Every morning three young girls from the village would walk to the river about a quarter of a mile away and fill pots with water to bring back to the village. And they would always bring one to my mother. She always had water in a pot.

I remember the smell of cooked food when I would come to visit her; rich ghee and other earthy aromas steaming in her cookpot. And always the smell of burning wood charcoal. She cooked on the jico — mostly stews — and I loved the smell of her cooked vegetables; the hearty, thick greens simmered over ashy coals with potatoes, onions, and tomatoes. Occasionally she’d add some chicken or chunk of goat. That smell would merge with the smokiness of the charcoal and the earthen clay pot. She made ugali; maize meal that you boil in water until it firms up like polenta and is compressed it into a thick, flat disc. It added a starchy aroma to the other glorious smells within that one room which was her home. We’d eat with our hands, using that ugali to scoop up the stew. I have memories of sitting with her in that hut on little wooden stools that she used as chairs, eating and drinking tea in the dim light. It was magical.

It’s the scent of that experience in my mother’s Kikuyu hut that is imprinted in my memory to this day. It’s a very complex smell, almost ancient in its natural, deep earthiness. A redolent combination of charcoal infused in clay pots and old rough-hued wood that has absorbed the aromas and smokiness of her hut. It’s a deep, woody smell. Like the scent left in a house or forest that had been on fire years before. And within that smell was also the ambient smell of Africa. Of the garden outside and the red ochre soil. Of goats and cow dung and burning leaves. It was grassy, woody and smoky all at the same time. Not bright and fresh, but rather deep and heavy. The outside smells seeped in because there was no insulation or barrier against the scent of the village. They swirled and mingled and blended into a warm, wonderful bouquet. The fragrance of my childhood.

Even to this day, that smell makes me feel safe and comfortable. It’s calming. It slows me down and grounds me. It reflects the essence of who I am away from the artificialities of everyday life. It reminds me of a time and feeling of safety and warmth. And of who I am at my core.

The smell was enveloped in a blanket of generosity that I felt from the Kikuyu people. I especially saw it at Christmas when we’d go to the village. For the Kikuyu the holiday was all about people. It was about walking around the village and visiting with friends. Going from hut to hut and someone boiling tea in milk and sugar for you. Occasionally, someone would make a generous gift by slaughtering a chicken and cooking it. But overall it was about walking around and just being together with people. You would shake someone’s hand and not let go, instead holding it as you talked. It was a kind of closeness I haven’t found anywhere else — the true essence of Christmas that had little to do with wealth or gifts. That feeling of the Kikuyu people, wrapped around the smell of my mother’s hut, is something I’ll remember and treasure forever.

My mother passed away many years ago. Years later I opened a box of her things we had in storage. All of a sudden the scent crept in. It instantly took me back to my mother’s hut in Kenya, as if we were sitting there live. Even the faintest smell —just a wisp of it — feels so big. Sometimes I’ll grab the wooden stool that I’ve kept from her hut. If I press my nose right up against it — right where the seat curves into the leg of the stool — I can get a tiny whiff of that smell and am immediately transported back to her Kikuyu home.

I have thought a lot about why this smell is so important to me and have realized that it represents a discovery of what matters to me in life. That smell is why I prefer street food over fancy restaurants; why I like to be in the woods; why I like to go to places that are a little unpolished or rough around the edges. So many of my values stem from the experiences I had when I was exposed to those smells. Smells have told me a lot about myself and explained why I am the person I am.

If the scent had a sound, what would it be? It would be a low, deep and hollow sound that would resonate in a soft, rich tone. It would be gentle on the ear, like a thick hollow log or old wooden drum thumped by a heavy stick. If I had to compare it to the sound of a musical instrument, it would be to an Australian didgeridoo or a low-toned Brazilian berimbau, but with a slow, steady, African rhythm.

If the scent had a color, what would it be? It would be a deep, rich mixture of brown shades that would both absorb the light around it and also reflect it outward in occasional glints of light and color. Like petrified wood rubbed with dark chocolate.

If the scent had a texture, what would it be? It would be slightly rough-hewn; not smooth and slick, but a little coarse and fibrous, like a very old piece of wood, weathered to a texture beneath its aged, dark patina.

If the scent could give you advice, what would it tell you? It would remind me that patience and steady tenacity is important in all I do. Of avoiding taking an extreme position unless it is truly what I believe, and following a balanced, middle path. The advice would be old and wise and proven by the passage of time, as if given to me by an old man with deep insight and nothing to prove.