Born in Namibia, raised in splendour and taught with passion, my journey toward professional writing begins with the urgency to understand myself and the world I was born into.

I remember the day vividly, March 5, the year 1999. The motionless passing of time, under grey clouds over the rooftop in my bedroom. It's raining; my sister who is slightly older informs me. My world as a four-year-old, rain usually accompanied a boring stay inside, no chance for adventure, what now? I was always a restless child, as such I never familiarised myself with confined spaces.

A box full of toys never sufficed, I yearned for freedom and usually playing outside provided that. There it was, lying open after my sister had left the book open, what are those mesmerizing pictures I see, I move closer trying to understand the commotion I see within the pictures.

I remember my sister murmuring out loud some of these words, what they mean, and how do they relate to the pictures. I quickly recall the first word she read 'boy', I move to the next word that starts with 'B' but the letter after it is an 'A', and the two letters after that are 'L'. I string it together as my teacher taught me and I pronounce "ball"!

I felt a tingle in my brain, the excitement that came with that initial feeling of reading. It was my first time actually reading on my own and the feeling was infectious. I wanted more, I spent the rest of that day slowly completing a small paged book that probably had 30 or 40 pages.

The bug had caught me, I found a new world with adventures that actually kept me still for a while. My parents surprised, they found me fixated, except for a brief turn of the page. They spurred me on encouraging my reading and helping me.

It's been over 20 years since that day, through that time. The childhood primary source for identity led me to J.K Rowling, J.R.R Tolkien, and Chinua Achebe. The secondary pubescent will for adventure found me mingling with Wole Soyinka, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Charles Dickens and Edgar Allen Poe, while the tertiary institution has me charting my own course with friends like Friedrich Nietzsche, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Albert Camus.

Trying to make sense of the absurd, I am Adrian Mataa and this is my story.