Kumbukumbu
What it costs
Now asking

When your children look back on your life one day, what do you hope they will remember about you?

Your mother has answers to questions nobody has ever asked her. Kumbukumbu asks them, listens, and keeps her voice.

Record someone How it works
How it works

No app. No typing. They just talk.

Most people who should be recorded are the least likely to install anything. So there is nothing to install.

01

You send a link

By WhatsApp, SMS, or you hand them your own phone and sit with them. It opens like a web page, because that is all it is.

02

Someone asks about their life

They press one button and talk. When they mention the year they left home, it asks who else was in the truck. It listens before it asks the next thing.

03

You keep the recording

Their voice, and every word written down. Yours to keep, download, and give to your brothers and sisters.

The questions

Ten questions, asked properly.

These are the real ones. A father in Nairobi answered all ten.

  1. If you could give your life story a title, what would you call it?
  2. Tell me about where you came from and the childhood memories that shaped you.
  3. Who are the people who have had the greatest influence on your life, and what did they teach you?
  4. What have been the biggest turning points in your life?
  5. What are you most proud of achieving or becoming?
  6. What has been one of the hardest experiences of your life, and what did it teach you?
  7. What has love and family meant to you throughout your life?
  8. What has becoming a parent taught you about life and about yourself?
  9. What lessons and values do you most want your children to carry with them?
  10. When your children look back on your life one day, what do you hope they will remember about you?
Language

In the language they think in.

People do not tell the truth about their lives in their second language. They tell it carefully, and shorter. So the interview happens in whichever language your parent is most themselves in, including ones no other product on earth supports.

What it costs

One person. One price.

$79
per person recorded
  • The full interview, however long it runs
  • Their audio, downloadable and yours
  • Every word transcribed
  • Any language on the list
  • No subscription, ever

In Kenya, pay in shillings. Ask and we will send the number.

You will not remember how she told it. You will only remember that she did.

Record someone

Tell us who you want to record and what language they are comfortable in. A person reads every message.