Our house was located at the exit of Beauraing, probably less than 100 meters away from an even smaller village, Baronville. Some despicable boys from my school  would say I was not a real "Beaurinois" because my house was in Baronville. But I was adamant: our house was located within the territory of the bigger "city".  Ten years after I was born, this argument lost all relevancy: in 1976, the Belgian government decreed the "merger of communes", which meant Baronville became like a district of Beauraing.  That summer 1976, we had a historic heatwave and Assia was born, 2000 km away from Beauraing.

On the 7th of June 1976, I remember as if it were yesterday, I realized I had reached a 2-digit age. Before reaching this ominous milestone, I thought time was not a parameter on how to live a life. Until that day, I was convinced my horizon was unlimited. The sudden realization of the inescapable flow of time caused a state of anxiety that has never entirely left me. I entered my teenage reluctantly. At the time I was quite a believer, in spite of my mother's staunch opposition to the church, god, priests, or anything spiritual in general. Only after she passed away  in 2004 did my dad rediscover the virtues of faith in the face of palpable death.