Hippo in the House

I dreamed there was a hippo in our house. He was huge, rubbing against the kitchen counter. I kept shouting at him to chase him away

"Toka, man, get outta here"

Peering round the door to take pictures so I could put them up on the blog and tell you all about the hippo in our house.

But then he started talking and I felt really bad that I'd been so rude. So I offered him a cup of tea.

As you do.

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no hippos out there

The Cow Drawer

I'm not sure how to upload a video. In principle I do but our connection is reeeaaally slow and frankly I'm too lazy to try, get halfway through and have the connection dropped. So here's the link instead.

I love this guy. If you can't get the link its basically Sir Ken Robinson saying how school can kill creativity. He's very funny and eloquent.

Aaaaanyway, this is all by the by. But it reminds me of a story told to me by my good friend Musa.

We were out and about in dusty one-horse Chipata town. He pointed to a rangy sweaty man shovelling stone into a big blue truck. He started laughing.
"I went to school with that guy" He said.

One day, at school, they were asked to draw something and when the teacher went round to all the pupils to see their drawings, this guy, (lets call him Eric, I can't remember his name) had a blank piece of paper in front of him.
"You haven't drawn anything" said the teacher, cross.
"Yes I have" said Eric
"I don't see anything"
"It's a cow" said Eric
"Don't be stupid, boy, there's no cow here" said the teacher
"Yes there is. He was eating all the grass on the page, but he's finished it all and now he's wandered off"
"You are a very stupid boy; Draw something else"

The teacher came back later and Eric had scribbled the whole paper black, with his pencil.
"What's this?" the teacher asked. Even crosser
"It's the cow. He's back but now it's night time and you can't see him"

He got into big trouble. And now here he was twenty years later shovelling stone for a living.

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The stuttering journey

A few days ago my mother's rickety old car got taken off for a service before the four day meander back to Zambia. And the mechanic called in the evening saying he'd broken down a couple of kilometres from home. One of the rocker arms had broken; a proper engine-y bad breakdown. There was much exclamation about how lucky they were that this happened with the mechanic close to home and not in the middle of bum-fuck no-where. So the lovely mechanic had the car for a couple of extra days and fixed and fiddled and coerced the car back into action.

And this morning the car was packed to the hilt - tool kit, bed rolls, mosquito net, left over paintings, food for the road, flask of hot water for coffee. Old paint tins, brushes, a tired old bottle of turps. A worn map book for a few adventure-detours. And we waved goodbye and promised to see each other soon. And Janelle said "I hope you break down in a few kilomeres so we get to see you more"

And now, two hours later I get a call. "Geoff Tz" it said on the display
"You've broken down, right?" I said
"Yes"
"Okay. we'll come and get you!"

Ho hum.

I think a family Easter egg hunt is in order, no?

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Pinch and a punch

This date thirteen years ago an old man left this world and a new girl, his granddaughter, came in. Happy birthday beautiful cousin Ruby. And Bonkar, we miss you still!

My mother and her man are packing up the car for the long trudge home. I mean for the exciting adventure home. There was talk of driving to Kilwa, down the coast, off on an adventure, but the car is seriously tired and I think they’re sensibly going to leave that for another day.

Just came back from a quick trip to Zanzibar. But I’m sure you’re all starting to get rather bored of pictures of dhows and words from that spice scented island. In case you’re not though, here are some more! Pictures that is. The words are being little hermit crabs again (I see a pattern forming here. Come back from Zanzibar and the words stay behind. Hmm).

Anyway, started writing this yesterday and must just post it already. And wave my mother and her man off. Bayeeee. For now.





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