The Times of Miranda

For now, while I find the words

2012-01-17T08:46:00.000+03:00

Our new man-cub

Crackle crackle...do you read me over?

2011-12-19T09:53:00.004+03:00

I am not dead.

I am very much alive.

Just waddling about waiting to give birth with very little internet access.

I am in Jo'burg, staying with my lovely sister.

Due on the 6th Jan but midwife says be prepared from 27th Dec. Husband is coming on Christmas eve, so hope the little mite stays in until then! 5 more sleeps. And then.

I am ready.

Duck!

2011-10-24T07:39:00.004+03:00

When I was a kid we had a pet Egyptian Goose called Garlic. We'd take him swimming at the Mfuwe Lodge swimming pool. Mfuwe Lodge, in those days, was a study in 70's taste. All unpainted cement, peeling varnished wood and orange and brown cushions. I can still smell it now, twenty five years on, a mix of creosote and wood smoke.

The pool had big cement benches and tables with wasps underneath that would ambush us kids. And the entrance to the pool had a little thatch roof and underneath a patch of cement with hundreds of bottletops embedded in it. I was eternally fascinated with those bottletops, I'd look at them for hours and marvel at how they managed to get so many of them together to put in the cement...I just couldn't fathom that it was possible. Okay, so I was a simple child!

So we'd take this baby goose to the pool (and also my baby lizard until I lost it) and we'd all swim and play and splash. And sometimes use the icky shiny white plastic lounger mattresses (that smelled vaguely of vomit) as lilos until the grownups told us not to. And waaaay before it was time to go home we'd have to start the charade of trying to catch Garlic. One of us would swim up to him, get really close and just as we'd reach our hand out to pick him up, he'd duck under the water and pop up at the other end of the pool. So we'd swim to the other end of the pool, reach out to grab him and he'd duck under again and pop up somewhere else. Repeat. For a good half hour I'm sure.

And so it was this weekend with my two year old on the bouncy castle. We went to have a look at it but there were three boys playing on and she wasn't so keen "Eeee, no mummy, there are boys there." (Long may that last!). Once they'd left she ventured on and tottered about and found her feet and fell over and then really got into the groove. And when it was time to go I'd reach over to pick her up and she'd slip out my grasp and pop up at the other end. And I, all 7 months pregnant and beached whale like couldn't get to her no matter how hard I tried.

Random September Pictures

2011-10-03T06:48:00.005+03:00

There's a leopard in one of those trees!

********************

The picture window!

Conversations with my two year old

2011-09-28T07:15:00.002+03:00

So last night in the bath my two year old pointed to the bottle of conditioner and said:

What's that?

Me (keeping it simple): Its shampoo

Lara: Its not shampoo

Me: Yes it is. Its shampoo

Lara: No its not shampoo, its conditioner

Me: Geez, Lara, how did you know that?

Lara: I'm just clever!

Me (to Mark): Did you teach her that? I didn't

Mark: No, I didn't. Holy crap, maybe she can read!

Things my 2 year old says

2011-09-27T09:36:00.000+03:00

When watching rugby: "They keep falling over" and, in the scrum "They're hugging each other"

"Lemme see your eyes" Stares for a long long time. "What's inside?"

Me: Hi baby, what have you been doing today?" Lara:"oh, you know" Sigh "Just hanging out" What, a teenager already?

And today, my favourite, trying to see my boobs. I show her a bit but she lifts my bra right up "I want to see the eyes"

Doing

2011-08-23T19:56:00.002+03:00

The words are stuck. Glued to the inside of my head like dead leaves 0n a wet pavement.

What have I been doing? Aside from cussing that we never have any electricity? We get juuust enough, in the middle of the night when everyone is asleep, to keep the inside of our fridge from going mouldy.

Well, I've been working. In a moment of lapse I agreed to take on creating 3 plays and 1 invisible theatre training in just under 3 months. Which is crazy at the best of times, let alone when you're waddling full speed ahead into your third trimester of pregnancy. So far so good though, it'll work out. Oh we've put a video up on our website of one of our plays. We've just had an invitation to perform this play in China in December but with me calfing then and Musa gone I'm not sure we'll manage that. Can't have it all I guess. Just like the electricity...

And I've been feeding Craig's snakes. 5 little baby egg eaters who require a long syringe full of egg into their tummies once a week. Its a slimy smelly fiddly job but they're so cute and I love it. They're growing and growing. And get so cross when you first take them out of their glass box. All hissy and strikey, little black mouths open. They're very clever snakes. They can dislocate their jaw so that they can swallow eggs whole then they spit out the shell later in a neat little parcel. Not these ones obviously - no one has time or inclination to go and find little birds eggs for them to eat, hence the syringe.

Lara likes them too. She sticks her tongue out at them

And I've been hanging out with my baby girl, who just makes my heart expand inside me every time I see her.

And I've been visiting friends on lovely chilly-but-sunny lazy sunday afternoons, where conversation is easy and laughter flows and bursts out of you.

And, you know, just living life I guess.

My Mate Musa

2011-08-02T09:45:00.006+03:00

Sitting around the campfire sometime in the mid 90's - 96 I think - Musa and I are hatching a plan to start a theatre company. He is an actor based in Chipata and has recently been 'discovered' by Theatre for Africa. He is on a worldwide tour of Guardians of Eden and the cast is camping in our garden in Mfuwe. I am coming to the end of a drama degree at university wondering what I'm going to do with my life. I have only just met Musa but we click immediately. He is funny and easygoing and has a certain something about him that I can't quite put my finger on. A type of magic I guess, that must be why he's such a good actor and why audiences love him so. His performance in Guardians is electric.

A couple of years later, late 1999, Fate is bored and picks up her big old snow globe and shakes things around a bit. Things whirl up in the air and slowly come back down to settle and once again Musa and I are thrown together. I've been a safari guide for a few years after my drama degree and am bored of this. I always swore I'd never be a guide - too easy a path to fall into where I live. And then out the blue Nick Ellenbogen from Theatre for Africa comes to our corner of the globe and says "I'm putting together a cast of 14 actors to tour around Southern Africa. I am getting 2 people from each Southern African country. Musa is on board and I want you to be the other Zambian." I think about it for all of one day. I cancel my trip with friends to climb Kilimanjaro. I can do that another time (yeah right!)

And so begins my friendship with Musa. Its a motley old crew, 2 Mozambiqueans, 2 Botswanans, 2 Malawians, 2 South Africans, 2 Zimbabweans, 2 Namibians and 2 Zambians - Musa and I. Surprisingly (14 actors all living and working together for months on end) we all get on really well - Musa has worked with many of them before and we fall into our two months of training in Cape Town and Namibia like we're old friends. We squabble, we bitch, we laugh, we tease and we play. Once the training is done we all go back to our respective countries for a year. We set up little theatre groups we conduct research on environmental issues and at the end of it all we all get back together with all the info we’ve gathered and make one big ol fancy play that tours around Southern Africa for a few months. At the end of it a new, mini version is created to take to Washington DC. Only 4 of us can go. The 2 Mozambiqueans and Musa and I. I’ve never been to DC; I’ve barely been out of Africa. Musa has; he shows me around, makes me feel at home. Takes me to the huge shopping malls where he buys a ridiculously large DVD player to take back home.

And so the seeds of Seka are sown. After this project we go back home and pick up where we left off. We form a company. We call it Seka. Which means to laugh in the local language. We train up seven actors. He lives with me for a while while he moves his family the 150km away from Chipata to Mfuwe. And we stumble along, making plays, training actors, spreading the magic. We have a two man show we perform. A fabulous Australian puppeteer comes for a few months and teaches us all how to make puppets. We go to the chief, he gives us a beautiful plot of land in the bush with a huge Tamarind tree for us to rehearse under. We’re not making any money, if anything we’re losing it, but we’re doing what we love and what we’re passionate about.

Then we get a break. A three year project based in Chipata. With salaries and everything! And so for three years we work our asses off. Seven actors plus Musa and I living in villages across rural Chipata. Week in and week out for 3 years we live in various little huts and classrooms across the region – us girls in one the guys in another, all squashed together – conducting research and making plays. In retrospect I realize what an awesome time that was and I think even at the time I did too. We made a super-cool team we did.

One day I say to Musa, “You know, I call myself a Zambian but I’ve never even tilled a field before, grown a crop” and so he offers me a patch of his back yard to hoe and plant. I share it with his 8 year old son George and I am the joke of the village. All the neighbours come and watch me plant – gawp at the crazy white lady - and Musa sits nearby and hoots with laughter along with the rest of them. I love it.

And we take the actors to perform in Joburg. Some of them have never even been outside their village before, let alone outside the country. They are wide eyed and open-mouthed. And cold. Musa and I chaperone them, show them the sights. We see the world through new eyes.

We also take the actors to Durban, this time bringing along Musa’s wife and son George, shortly after they lost their little boy to Malaria.

We make a road trip up to Tete, Mozambique. Live in a small village outside town trying to train actors in a language we are not familiar with. Luckily Musa knows more Chichewa than I and we get by pretty well.

In Tete town I turn off down a one-way street by mistake. A man walking down the road says “ Hey sister you are driving the wrong way!” Musa laughs and laughs “Your driving is so bad you even made a Mozambican speak English!”

In writing this I realize that we packed a lot in to the 15 years we have known each other. And I’m only writing down the half of it. In this time there have been children lost and children born, there have been good times there have been hard times, there has been sickness, there has been squabbling, making up and hard graft. Most of all though, there has been much much laughter.

We were colleagues, co-conspirators, but above all we were friends. And now he is gone. He died two weeks ago and has left such a gaping hole I just don’t even know where to begin.

There are too many memories to put down. But I needed to write down some before my chest cracks open and drowns me.

Zanzibar

2011-07-31T09:44:00.005+03:00

So I told you I was off to Zanzibar for ten days didn’t I?

My in-laws were here for three weeks.

Three weeks.

And we spent ten days of those three weeks in Zanzibar.

Day 1 we arrive at our accommodation which was oh just terrible! The people the night before had had a huge party in our room and by the time we arrived at 5 in the evening they still hadn't cleared it up. It was literally like walking into a night club the morning after. Beer all over the floor, smashed beer bottles, shot glasses, blood, vomit. The lot! (bear in mind I'd been in charge of choosing and booking the accommodation!). And stairs. So many steep stairs! Usually fine, but not so great for my aging father-in-law with dodgy knees.

Day 2 my almost 80 year old father in law falls down said horrible steps and breaks his arm. Shortage of x-ray films in the whole of Tanzania, doctor not around for the whole day. Evening finally manage to get x-rays done, electricity goes off, manage to start generator, but can only put plaster cast on the next day. Incredibly lucky though that he didn't do worse injuries, considering the huge lump of jagged coral right beneath the steps...

Day 4 I find out that Musa my dear dear friend, co-conspirator and co-founder of Seka has died. Just devastated. I don't even know where to begin.

Day 7 my 100 year old great aunt dies.

Mixed up with pure white sand, warm blue seas, the usual family tensions, pregnancy hormones, a 2 year old child, beautiful weather, a very kind taxi driver and seafood.

I want to tell you about it all in detail but I’m not sure I have the energy…

I want to tell you about Musa. His magic, his humour, but I am not ready.

I want to tell you about Eve my very cool great aunt who always pretended she was 30 years younger than she was and usually got away with it too. But it seems all I’ve been doing these days is writing about dead people so…. All in good time.

Right now though, I’m ready for a holiday…. Zanzibar perhaps?

There's something I've been keeping from you

2011-07-24T09:31:00.002+03:00

Serengeti and dreaded toddlers

2011-07-03T07:33:00.006+03:00

So back from the Serengeti in time for a swarm of two year olds that will be invading us today for my daughter's birthday. Oh my god what have we got ourselves into? Last year was fine, we just invited all our grown up friends over and we all got drunk. This year there will be cake. That I have to make (not a forte of mine) and sausages and lots of sticky hands and fighty 'MINE' toddlers.

Back from the Serengeti. The flight in we flew over Ol Donyo Lengai, an active volcano that last erupted about 3 years ago. We flew reaaaallly close over it and could smell the sulphur and the little plane did a huge bump as we went over it.

I couldn't unzoom my camera enough to get a picture, we were so close.

6:30 am to 6:30 pm back to back examining. Tiring, mind numbing at times but great to be out in the big open skies. Here's the Mara river

And here's a rock agama, doing what it does best

And on the way back flew over lake Manyara, a shallow soda lake with thousands and thousands of flamingoes that looked like pink confetti rolling on waves from out the aeroplane window.

Trips

2011-06-29T10:10:00.003+03:00

So my in-laws are coming on Friday. And guess what I'm doing today (aside from frantically trying to get the house in order before I leave!) - going to the Serengeti! Yay. Just for 3 nights, examining some poor souls for their safari guide exams. Fairly mind numbing but also sooooo nice to get out into the bush again. I'll be leaving the baby with her dad and grandparents. heh heh.

SO. I'll try and post when I can. I'll try and take some pictures, at the very least.

There's STILL no electricity and I fear its something we'll have to get used to. Off for 24 hours yesterday, a few hours on in the middle of the night and off again by the time we woke up this morning. We'll be having a big meat feast soon for all our defrosted meat I reckon!

Aaanyway, teeny bit of battery power left and oh I have to pack and then when I get back from Serengeti look forward to a trip to Zanzibar. yipeeeeeee

Sorry, am I gloating?

The plot

2011-06-23T10:51:00.005+03:00

So I think I told you that we have a plot of land? A wee dry windswept hilltop with stunted gnarly trees and dusty patches from decades of overgrazing by goats. And sweeping views of the maasai steppes and mount Meru. I love it.

We've tried to plant a few acacia trees and, a bit ambitiously in a drought year, some other indigenous plants that require a bit more water than there is out there. We shall see how they fare.

We've been having these power cuts. Mostly off all day every day and sometimes all day every day and all night too. There used to be a loose system - if its off in the day it'll be on at night and vice versa. But I believe there is very little water in the dam due to terribly bad rains so now its certainly more off than on. Which, as Lemon Gloria would say, is a very rich person's thing to complain about. So I'll try not to. Just sayin!

So the days that we have electricity I trawl the internet for house plans and ideas, and the days we don't I make these little cardboard models. Yes I have a bit of time on my hands at the moment!

I'm not sure when we'll start building, but its all a very exciting process and I'll be sure to keep ya'll updated. And yes, we're looking into the solar/wind energy options!

And time for a picture window update, no?

Not much to see these days...

Dreams

2011-06-21T15:43:00.002+03:00

I had another dream about Mark J.

Last week my dad and Mark's family took his ashes down to Chibembe where I spent the first 6 or so years of my life and where, twenty years later Mark and I worked together. A special place.

So I guess he was on my mind or maybe he was out there flying high and flying free.

In my dream there were a whole lot of us, all sitting outside around a big table eating, drinking, on a happy sunny beautiful-light day. And in amongst us all was Mark, just sitting there normally, laughing and enjoying himself. And as I was leaving I went up to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek and said, “Why aren’t you telling anyone you’re alive?”

And then I suddenly realized that no-one could actually see him. But he was sitting there amongst us all and laughing and having a good time.

Busted

2011-06-21T13:43:00.001+03:00

There are no secrets with an almost-two-year-old in the house.

The other day, on my way home from town, I was reallyreally hungry so stopped off and had some sushi. Mark was cooking supper that night. We got home and the first thing Lara said was "Mummy eating sushi"

Busted!

On a similar (but hopefully less true!) note, yesterday she kept saying

"Daddy's got a lady"

I THINK what she was trying to say is "Daddy's getting ready".

But it came out as "Daddy's got a lady"

"Daddy's got a lady"

Ad nasueum!

Eclipses and other night time adventures

2011-06-16T14:02:00.005+03:00

"I'm excited on the inside" my man says drily in response to my hopping around the house in excitement singing "eclipse, eclipse, lunar eclipse." He's feeling rotten and goes to bed. I manage to stay up and watch it.

I put on the biggest warmest fleece I can find and slide out the front door with binos and camera. I sit in the dust wedged between two thorn trees, crook my neck up and marvel at the moon silently disappearing. Getting eaten up, being possessed. I should really be lounging on the day bed round the other side of the house, sipping a glass of wine pondering the mysteries of nature and life but frankly I can't be bothered. I'm happy enough in the dust, gingerly moving the huge acacia thorns from my chosen spot. Dashing in to the house every now and then when I get cold or bored. But each time I come inside I'm drawn back out there. Just one more look.

I am not a night owl. 9:30 is late for me. The eclipse starts at 9:22. I manage to stay up though. Until she is swallowed whole and then she's completely gone, and its dark and the clouds come in and I feel bad that I'm not going to see her transformation back. I gingerly hang around a little nervous that that's it, she's gone forever. But the clouds have come in and its really really dark and now I'm tired. Just before I get into bed though, I peer out the window and see the acacias outside my window bathed in yellow moonlight again. Phew!

My grandfather was really into his stars. We'd often go and drive one of the game drive vehicles up the road to a clear spot and lie on the seats and look up at the stars. And he's show us how to find south from the Southern Cross and thats Scorpio and there are the Seven Sisters. And I have a memory, a bit blurry around the edges, but clear in the middle. Maybe six years old, sitting up behind our house on camp chairs at three in the morning with my mother and grandfather and his bashed up green and silver Coleman flask of hot milky tea.

And seeing Hayley's Comet. Waking up in the night needing a wee. Lying in bed listening out for elephants and hippos. We're not really allowed to go outside for a wee in the night (we live in the bush and don't have ensuite loos - the toilet is faaar away). I try and keep in in but its no good. I quietly sneak outside, squat down for a wee and look up and... Holy shit look at that! And sneaking back into bed feeling smug and somewhat richer.

Grandfather Diaries III

2011-06-14T10:08:00.002+03:00

Some more experts from my grandfather's diary:

Monday 27/8/45

.... Have just shot a rhino in front of camp. When I arrived the chief complained that there was a rhino which kept chasing the people in the gardens and the women were afraid to go to the stream to draw water. I was rather skeptical, having heard this kind of story too often before: it is usually dished up every time an official comes round on tour in the hope of his shooting some meat for them... But as I was camped in the gardens I told the chief I'd see if it really was as bad as he said when it came round. The millet crop has now been reaped and all the tall stalks cut to the ground, so there is a nice cleared open space al around camp, except for a patch of tall reeds about half an acre in extent. Whilst I was having tea, the carriers saw the rhino come out of the reed patch. I went over to investigate but as he went back again into cover I left him and detailed a guard to keep watch and tell us when he came out again, which he did in about and hours time. He was very thin and walked with a heavy limp as if his rear hind leg were injured. we gave him every opportunity to clear off and after watching him for about a quarter of an hour deliberately walked up to him in the open. He charged but I gave him time in case it was bluff but his intentions were obvious. I fired when he was 15 yards away as did the two fundis with me. I was not being foolishly heroic or anything, but merely wanted to give him a chance to clear off if he wanted to. There was very little risk with three rifles. He was very emaciated and his body covered in suppurating sores and he was obviously a very sick animal which probably accounts for his behaviour.

Tuesday 28/8/45

Did not strike camp as I have to get in a stock of meal for the forward journey xcountry to Luangwa as there are no villages for several days after we leave here. Had a party last night. All the youths and maidens (sic?) came and gave a dance around the camp fire to show their gratitude for dispersing of the village monster. One Akunda native (not a local who are Awisa), obviously a professional, gave a most amazing performance and held his audience with the confidence which would make a London stage comedian envious. For his act he wanted a song accompaniment unknown by the locals so he proceeded to teach them, singing a few lines which he made them repeat after him. He had a most attractive voice. In no time at all the crowd were singing it for him - something about a 'chipembere' and he did a most realistic 'rhino dance'. Then he gave a gruesome exhibition of fire eating and various other self maiming feats which were rather horrid, but what impressed me was his marvelous stage techniques. In fact he was a double of Maruice Chevallier (straw hat and all).

Things I love about this town

2011-06-07T12:54:00.006+03:00

- The mountain, in all her moods. Astonishing from every angle

- The weddings. Full brass bands, all dressed the same, in the back of open, ribbon-laced pickups, heading the wedding precession, stopping the traffic and entertaining the crowds on a Saturday.

- The rotating chefs. The restaurants don’t matter, the chefs have a following. A restaurant closes down and the chef moves somewhere else ‘Mary works at such-and-such-place now’

- The mix. Mosque sits next to church; the fancy two-story house glances down at a humble duka* selling biscuits that smell of washing powder and decanted bottles of paraffin; the factory squats next to cattle boma (no, the effing factory is not a thing I love about this town); the mud and cow dung house with shiny tractor outside.

- The sunflowers by the airport

- The random giraffe patterned bench that someone made a couple of weeks ago at the TGT junction

- The grasscutters at the airport. Every month or so, when the grass at the airport gets too long a bevy of grasscutter come and swarm the area near the runway, cutting the grass for their cows

- Grotty grubby downtown Mbauda with occasional scrawny trees that sometimes and surprisingly burst into yellow flower.

- The industry. Everyone busy. All the time. Making things, painting things, crafting things, stealing things, returning things, breaking things, fixing things, adapting things.

- The shop art. Storefronts with elaborately painted murals of their wares. From nuts and bolts to tractors to unidentifiable bike parts to cooking oil, cows and bars of soap.

- The daladala** signs. Like fortune cookies, giving you your message for the day. The Long Wait; Cupcake; One Day Yes; Life; Snakeboy; The Long Way; Passion; Painkiller; Faith; Trust; The Lord is our Shepherd; God is Great; Insh’allah and so on. One to suit every mood.

*Shop
**minibus taxi

For more pics of this town see janelle and my website Hometown Arusha

late and slow and also bird poo

2011-05-29T20:43:00.003+03:00

I think I may be a little late to catch up here but I just discovered the stats thing on my blog! No way! How cool is that. I've often wondered how that worked, when people said 'someone googled 'how to drink stars' and landed on my blog' how they KNEW that.

Well, now I know too! And lots of people seem to be asking Mr. Google how to stow thrones in grass houses and end up here but my best is:

bird faeces is what number in a dream

Anyone know the answer to that?

Che Hari

2011-05-27T15:44:00.004+03:00

Che Hari was one hellova guy.

He always had a hat on his head, a rolled cigarette in his hand, a hearty cough in his chest and a twinkle in his eye.

I loved spending time with him, sitting under the mango tree outside his village, chickens scratching about our feet and scrawny puppies yipping and tumbling. His host of (mostly) devoted grandchildren close at hand.

And he would often pop in to visit us too. He’d walk to us from his village 12km or so away and, in his later years, one of his grandsons would cycle with him on the back. And we’d laugh and he would reminisce and tell jokes.

He really was a remarkable guy. I have no idea how old he was but he fought with the Kings Africa Rifles in Burma in the Second World War, so he must have had a good few years behind him! 85? 90? Can you imagine? Coming from a remote village in the middle of Africa to fight for a cause he probably didn’t care about in the middle of Burma? Amazing. I wish I’d spoken to him more about those times.

He was a Yao (serious minority where he lived), born in Malawi. I don't know how he came to be in Luangwa but worked for the game department there all the time I remember him. He worked as a game scout in safaris with my grandfather, Norman and was one of a handful of experienced escort scouts who had seen it all. He was the last one, in fact. He always told the story of crossing the river with my mother as a little girl on his back and all sleeping out in the bush (my grandfather, Che Hari, my mother) on mats on the ground with mosquito nets over them. My dad says, in his book

“He shot maneating lions and during their expeditions together [with my grandfather] he used to sleep on the ground not far from Norman. He would sometimes see elephants and lions coming close to his sleeping bag and would always hear Norman whispering ‘don’t shoot, don’t shoot’”

But it wasn’t just his achievements and nerves of steel that made him special. There was something about him. A twinkling humour that always made him such a pleasure to be around.

Most people his generation and culture there is always a respectful boundary. A certain distance, a respect for elders, ulemu, that prevents you from getting too close. Things you wouldn’t say and do. But it was different somehow with CheHari. You could be familiar with him, laugh at his jokes and him at yours. Hug him. I can't explain it and I'm not doing him justice. And I don't think I can - I've had this post in drafts for three days and I want you to know about him so here we go.

I'm glad I knew you Che Hari, and I know that you are happy where you are, in the bush in the sky with your .458 and all the big long gone elephants. Say hi to everyone up there.

All pics by Francois Delbee

Signs

2011-05-21T09:12:00.003+03:00

My dear friend Janelle always reads the signs on daladalas (minibus taxis) to see what messages and signs there are out there for her. She says

i love the timing of those dala dala's...i ALWAYS read them....like they are carrying messages i need to read at that particular time...i never ignore that kinda shit...

And I’ve started doing it too. Its fun. They’re quirky and funny and sometimes poignant.

Sometimes I'm driving along, going happily about my day and suddenly, unexpectedly, I find myself crying, thinking about my friend Mark J. Last time this happened it was triggered by this Jackson Browne song. The version I have have is this by Linda Rondstadt and Emmylou Harris. Mark and my dad sang it for another friend's funeral a couple of years ago.

...I don't remember losing track of you

You were always dancing in and out of view

I must have thought you'd always be around

Always keeping things real by playing the clown

Now you're nowhere to be found....

...And I can't help feeling stupid standing 'round

Crying as they ease you down

'cause I know that you'd rather we were dancing

Dancing our sorrow away ...

Today though, I was driving along, heading home after doing some boring chores thinking how much I missed my baby. How when I'm away from her I feel like my arm is missing. Then I thought about Mark's widow saying she felt cut in half. And I was thinking how its his birthday next month and how he loved to celebrate his birthday with all his friends. This year he was planning to have it in the valley - my hometown. And there I was sobbing in the traffic again. And then - and this happened last time too - a daladala (minibus taxi) drove past with MARK emblazoned on the front. Those are the only two times I’ve seen (or noticed) that daladala.

Coincidence maybe, but I choose to take comfort from it.

Randoms

2011-05-17T20:19:00.009+03:00

Hey, did you see what I did there? Got bored of that old layout. Thats why I could never get a tattoo. I'd like to sometimes but I'm way too fickle.

Its a power cut night but our neighbours have just installed an inverter which means that we can tap off their internet even when we have no electricity - hurrah! Since last year our electricity schedule - when tanesco stick to it - is Monday - off all day, Tuesday, off all night, Wednesday - umm, can't remember - off in the day? Or maybe its actually on on a wed, I forget, Thursday, off all night, Friday off all day, weekend - ON! Yay! But as of Thursday I'm told its going to be off for 19 hour stints. Oh yawn, am I boring you? Anyway, could be worse. At least we HAVE electricity. Well, kinda!

I went to Dar last week to see the actors who are performing there. Camping in a school yard in the pouring rain. Quick sudden downpours ('with no introductions' said the actors) and then suddenly gone, leaving everything cool(ish) and damp.

Hey have you heard about Babu at Loliondo? I've been meaning to tell you about him for ages.

Google babu loliondo - there's loads of info on him. He is a pastor who got visited by God in a dream and told to make a potion from a certain (usually poisonous tree) to cure people of all ailments. From HIV to diabetes. There are BUSLOADS going down there every day. People from Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Japan, all OVER. There are three helicopters now based at Arusha airport that are flying in and out I don't know how many times a day. The president has been. Its amazing. Every fourth person you come across is talking about babu. Huge debates. Is it real? Is he a fraud? Could it really work? Yes I know so and so who was completely cured. Isn't it irresponsible of him saying he can cure HIV? But he can only cure you once of HIV he says. If you get it again...

I read in the paper a couple of weeks ago that the queue of vehicles to his little remote village was 56km long. Everyone has a story. Many many many people have gone. Some have waited weeks to see him. The government are trying to crack down on the number of people going there because there is just no infrastructure to cope with the amount of people. Someone told me today that a man went there who wasn't sick and took the potion and when he got back to Arusha he started attacking people with knives. Many many more stories.

Aaanyway, battery on computer coughing so I'll be off.

My ma

2011-05-16T09:13:00.003+03:00

Oh my dears, I've been neglecting you! You're tired of my excuses I imagine so I'll just keep quiet. I started this post on mothers day which was, what weeks ago (the SA/US one that is. The British one was even more ages ago than that!). But then our internet broke and then I had to travel to Dar and then I had to replace runaway actors... oh, there I go with the excuses! So I started writing about my lovely mother. But didn't finish. But I'll still post as far as I got and then I'll start my 'I'm going to blog every other day' resolution from scratch. Again!

************

My mother and sister. Long ago!

I'm not going to be able to give this post the time it deserves. I'm at home with Lara and we're looking after her friend Gracie while her mom is away for the week. So its kinda like being stuck in a big cage with giant carnivorous hamsters that have chewed the corner in a sack of speed.

I wanted to write a post about my fabulous ma. I've written about her a bit before, here and there.

My folks, they weren't into the whole traditional parenting; God parents, violin lessons and school runs.

Being home schooled by my ma

It was more a sleep in the back of the landrover, eat cornflakes for supper kind of upbringing. That sounds neglectful. Far from it.

My mother, you see, she took time with us. She played with us. She listened to us. We had adventures, everything was a marvel.

We went on walks, we had lessons in a scruffy combretum bush. We had a big wall we could draw on as much as we liked.

We had freedom and we were loved. What could be better than that?

My mother and sister

Photo promt

2011-05-04T11:20:00.003+03:00

see the home-chopped hair!

I promised that whenever I was stuck for things to write I'd put up an old photo from longlong ago.

So here we are.

My mother was into falconry when I was kid. Well she still is but doesn't have any birds at present.

And we had these two Lizard Buzzards. One was hers and one was mine. A male and a female. And my mom, she taught me all the things to do. We made all the jesses for their feet and the lures and everything. And we (tried) to teach them to hunt and they came to our welding gloved hand at the blow of a whistle. Not necessarily the most agile or quick to learn creatures in the world but I loved my bird so!

The babe

2011-04-27T21:14:00.004+03:00

I've been busy! Meetings here. And trying to organise the group in Zambia to go and perform in Denmark next month.

Oh and I fell off a horse!

And its been easter!

And so ah, some pictures of the babe for now.

lack of inspiration turns rambling

2011-04-14T15:37:00.005+03:00

My head feels all sawdusty and words, no matter how much I may want them to flow, are rusted stuck, like the wheel nuts on an old cumbersome truck, lying cockeye in the grass with peeling paint and a tree growing through it.

We used to play in an old truck like this behind the carpentry workshop. It was an old yellow mercedes I think, the springs showing through the crumbling seats and listing to one side. It had a sortof trapdoor roof that gave us much joy, allowing us to pretend we were soldiers in a tank. It was littered with heavy maybe-one-day-this-could-be-salvaged junk, rusted bits of crankshaft that wouldn't budge, grooved unidentifiable chunks of metal whose powdery rust you could apply as war paint. The old worn gearstick was smooth and fitted perfectly in my small hand. I'd alternate between jiggling the gearstick back and forth, back and forth, clanging loudly and wildly hanging on to the steering wheel with my scrawny arms, gripping tightly and juddering along as if I was careering down a corrugated road, out of control.

And what perfect hiding places for snakes and scorpions. Now that I have a child of my own I seriously wonder how my parents managed to keep from going white haired and frizzy with worry. People were always finding cobras and puffadders behind the carpentry workshop. Granted we weren't really allowed to play in that old truck and they probably didn't know we were there but seriously, what kid could resist?

The truck, if I remember correctly, was yet another broken relic of my grandfather's sense of business. Which has been passed down the generations along with the crooked nose. We always were - and still are - blessed with an extraordinary inability to see the business logic of things (certainly the maths of it) - though this is countered with great dollops of enthusiasm , like clotted cream masking the fizzy taste of bananas that have been left in the sun just that bit too long.

Like the camp he gave away in exchange for roof tiles he swopped that truck was for something. I forget what.

My grandfather was always very frugal with Stuff. He always said 'don't get possessed by your possessions.' He had so little, yet wanted so little. He had all he needed I guess. A great - if slightly off kilter - family who adored him, good health. A small rustic camp that he shared with his family in one of the most beautiful soulful, spots on earth.

Oh, I was going somewhere else with this story, but I got a little sidetracked with the whole truck as mind metaphor. I was going to tell you more about my grandfather. His history. If you're interested have a look here

The Grandfather Diaries II

2011-04-07T08:13:00.002+03:00

More excerpts from my grandfather's journal

24/8/1945 Went for a walk round camp in the afternoon and met a rhino which gave us some sport. On approaching closer for a better view puppy gave chase (or attempted to) but she turned on him with a snort and a puff like a train starting up. Puppy turned tail and came straight back to me for protection - followed by Mrs Rhino. I was standing in the open on a small mound. She slithered to a halt when she saw us exactly 10 yards away (I paced it out afterwards). I was unarmed but the fundi* with me (a very reliable ECG) had his .404 beaded on her though I wouldn't let him fire. Everything stood still.

There we were - a white man, a black man, a black and tan dog and a cantankerous though somewhat bewildered rhinocerous all glaring at each other waiting to see who was going to make the next move. Eventually I broke the spell by shouting at her but she wouldn't budge, then I threw a twig at her but no better result. So what! Simon (the fundi) I could see was itching to shoot but I wouldn't let him which showed commendable restraint on his part. At last I said to puppy "ssssaa" (which means 'see him off') and he made a bolt at her whereupon she turned with a terrific snort and blast and crashed off in a cloud of dust. I felt a good deal of relief after she' gone - not for my own safety as I have perfect confidence in Simon (who has shot more elephant than I'd like to count) but it would have been a pity to kill her in a game reserve, especially as we started it. She can go away now and lay a few more babies for someone else's amusement.

This is the second time puppy nearly got me into trouble. This morning when inspecting some elephants a young immature bull chased him at the same time emitting the most ear splitting squeal. But thats another story. Only I wish he wouldn't shelter behind my petticoat.

*fundi - game scout

Moshi

2011-04-05T15:04:00.002+03:00

Quick quick. No power at home but am at neighbour's who have a generator. Went to Moshi yesterday for some performances. Here are some audience pictures. Thats it for now. x

The Princess and the Pea

2011-04-03T18:55:00.003+03:00

Image from internet by Edmund Dulac

We all know the story of the Princess and the Pea, right? Okay so Hans Christain Anderson tells it a little better, but just to recap: A prince is looking for a princess to marry but all the princesses he meets are not to his liking. Then one night there is a storm and a woman claiming to be a princess comes seeking shelter. The family put her up for the night, but place a pea on the bed and pile twenty mattresses on top. When she wakes in the morning the prince asks how she slept and she says 'terribly! Didn't sleep a wink! Sooooo uncomfortable" or some such thing. And so hurrah! They know she is a princess. Which is just as well because the prince fancied the pants off her. So they get married and live the proverbial happy-ever-after-sail-into-the-sunset.

I was always horrified by this story. I would cringe with embarrassment at the princess's bad manners. So what if she had a bad night? These kind people put you up for the night when you had no-where to go and the next morning all you can do is COMPLAIN? I was truly, deeply concerned by this.

I don't know what made me think of this, or even write about it on this velvety sunday night. But thats what's on my mind.

Nothing heavy, nothing big.

Which is just perfect for this cricket-chirrupy sunday night, sky all black and crunchy with stars

The grandfather diaries

2011-03-31T07:04:00.005+03:00

My grandfather with his two lions, Big Boy and Little Boy

Do you do this I wonder? Have Stuff to do but instead start Tidying?

I've been meaning to clear out the office for ages so although I didn't get said Stuff done, I did get one tidy office and one tidy bathroom. And while doing this I re-found an old journal of my grandfather's written in 1945. Its a diary of a 2 month walk he did through a couple of game reserves, over the escarpment in Northern Rhodesia when he worked for the game department.

The papers I have are photocopies of the real thing, which has thin-thin pages, see through and slightly bruised like an old lady's skin. Seeing his handwriting flings me back in time to when I was a child, an adolescent, a young woman. His always-have-a-notebook-in-your-pocket lectures, his what-bird-call-is-that. You know how smells can immediately transport you back somewhere? It seems his handwriting does the same for me!

The journal is full of matter of fact accounts of rhinos and porters and having to shoot elephants that have been raiding villagers' crops. Interspersed with letters to the Director of the Game and Tsetse Control Department and various District Commissioners with recommendations for the parks.

A random excerpt:

Wednesday 22/8/45

Continued eastward (on leaving of approx 118 degrees) along old Fort Jameson - Serenje track. This was the route used by the Angonis on the raids against the Lala and Awisa. Through typical valley mopane country and camped on Luangwa at site of Saidi's old village. Elephant, buff, rhino tracks littering the country most of the way but didn't see any myself - the carriers in the rear saw two herds of elephant. The game on the Luangwa is magnificent - the best I have ever seen I think (including the vast herds one sees on the Kenya and Tanganyika plains. Though there are greater concentrations in these countries, they lack variety). Within half a mile I saw the following - often in sight at the same time or at least within a few minutes of each other: impala (too many to count), puku (ditto), roan (2 herds of 20 + 8), 2 herds of zebra(20 + 12), a beautiful kudu bull silhouetted on an anthill plus 8 cows and a warthog (which chased and was in turn chased by puppy!) Add to this some baboon and vervet monkeys seen perviously and the hippo which are plentiful in Luangwa at this spot and you get a pretty good list which it would be difficult to beat anywhere.

I've always wanted to retrace this walk, see how things have changed. Maybe one day I will.

Anyway, I could go on but need to get cracking with my day! More soon.

**********************

Picture window. Misty this morning

Life admin and bird poo

2011-03-29T08:01:00.003+03:00

Yesterday was end of month life admin day. Ugh. All those boooring things the government says you need to have. Or else. Forms, VAT, PAYE, NSSF. Taxes basically. Bla. I want to get a T-shirt printed saying 'I'd rather be on Facebook'. End of month in town is never the best, 'specially when you have all these taxey type things to do. Aaaanyway, its not such a big deal. So halfway through my day I noticed a bird had shat on my arm.

The parking attendant at TRA (Tanzania Revenue Authority) was looking very dour and grumpy. I tried to be extra nice to her. 'Pole na kazi. Pole na jua kali'. Sorry about your work (doesn't translate quite as well but a common saying) sorry about the sun. How are you, how is home?' She thawed ever so slightly.

'What's that on your sleeve?' she asked 'Looks like a bird shat on you'

'Yes, they say its good luck'

She laughed 'Whoever told you that is a fool!'

Fair point.

A series of dreams

2011-03-25T13:23:00.002+03:00

I’ve been having these dreams about my friend Mark.

A series of them, of differing themes, but always, just before I wake up I see him, he is alive and all is well. Laughing. And I wake up, so relieved.

Elated.

Just for a euphoric split second though.

Because then I realize it’s not true. Yes he is still dead.

And I have this Dylan song playing in my head

‘I’ve been thinking

Of a series of dreams

Where nothing comes up to the top

Everything stays down where it’s wounded

And comes to a permanent stop’

And I switch on the car radio. And its playing.

I met Mark in the early 90’s. He was sitting at Wildlife Camp bar, chatting to the barman in chiNyanja. For some reason there are not many wazungu* in Zambia who speak a local language and this was like a special, secret bond between us.

We worked together for two years in sister camps off in a remote part of the park. And became fast and firm friends.

Too many memories to put down.

Later, my dad bought a plot of land from him on his farm just outside Lusaka, and they became neighbours and good friends. So it was weird going back to Zambia. Driving past his house, less than a kilometere from my dad’s. And knowing that he wouldn’t be popping by later to see me.

And going to his house. Walking up the driveway, past the bourganvillea and he doesn’t come out the house with the biggest smile and the hugest hug. (He always did give the best hugs). No playful “ulibwa?’ Chuckle chuckle. Instead I see his 4 year daughter playing on the trampoline and his 2 and a half year old boy naked playing in the sprinkler. And he looks up at me and.

Oh.

I am winded.

Yes Mark is here after all. Just different.

I try not to cry. I really try. I don’t know why. I suppose I want to savour the moment. Pretend like its not true. Like I’m just popping in as I always do.

His wife is not there so I try to leave, like if I go away, start over, the result will be different. But we meet in the driveway and still I try not to cry.

But it doesn’t work.

I somehow felt like I was on a different time zone to most other people in Lusaka. On a different schedule. Not to his wife who says now is worse than ever, and I didn’t see his sisters or parents, but…. I can’t really explain it. I had been in Tanzania when he was shot (he’d been on his way to pick up his daughter from school in the middle of the day, just a couple of kilometers from his house. The site is pointed out to me. It looks so normal) so I had felt somehow removed. I had cried. Oh yes I’d cried. Suddenly and unexpectedly while driving in the traffic. Washing the dishes. At baby bath time. Ground swallowing sobs that didn’t want to stop. But I hadn’t really been there to mourn, with his family, his other friends. Hadn’t been to his memorial. Hadn’t driven past his house. So it was like it had suddenly, shockingly, hit home.

He’s not coming back. And when I go back to Lusaka, he won’t be there.

So I cried some more. And some more.

And that night I dreamed about him again. But when I woke up he slipped out of my grasp. Clutching frantically at smoke. I know I dreamed about him. But this time I knew that he was really dead.

*white folk

Old School

2011-03-24T15:06:00.004+03:00

When I'm stuck for things to say I'll trawl through some old pictures to show you.

My sister and I were home-schooled, I'm sure I've told you this before. Our classroom varied from an open sided grass chitenje to walks in the bush to a little wooden house (pictured) to a mud hut to a magical little clearing inside a combretum bush which was my personal favourite.

Looking at this picture I see that the alphabet is stuck up on the wall, on the top. I think its the same one where M was for Miranda and J was for Johnny and I threw a complete wobbly because J and M were not next to each other. My mother eventually got around this by drawing walkie talkies in for us. Phew, close one.

And there too, is Widdle the warthog.

Sheesh we all look a bit trailer trash huh?

And what am I WEARING?

Connections

2011-03-23T09:13:00.003+03:00

I am constantly flabbergasted (now there's a great word) at the connections this blogging thing brings up.

It all started with Janelle, dearest friend and two times neighbour. A few years ago (three?) she was sick in bed and surfing the web. And stumbled across Family Affairs. Read her blog cover to cover, loved it. Started blogging, which started my clever sister Tammy blogging, which started me blogging which started Geli which started Val and so on. A tumbling waterfall of words, all out there. And then you start to discover other real life friends doing it - Tanvi, Tim, Shiny. I love them all.

And then you start to make connections. Friends in the making who you've never met. Reya, Lori, Mud, Lisa. I know I'd love every one of them if we met up.

And then you go one step further and meet up with some of said virtual friends. I met Mud when I was pregnant, waiting to have my baby in Joburg. I always knew we'd get on great and we did. A too-short cup of coffee when we could have sat and chatted all week. And she came with a friend of hers - also very newly pregnant - and we got chatting and she went to university with, and was mates with, my friend Johnny who died.

And Family Affairs, turns out, knows my family. Has a picture of her dad and my great aunt on her mantelpiece. Completely out the blue.

And then Mud moves to Singapore and becomes great mates with Janelle's sister.

And I get parcels of lovingly and beautifully knitted hats from Lori for my child.

And I recently become Facebook friends with Lisa who lives in Washington DC and it turns out WE know someone in common, who lives in Zambia and who went to school with her in India! I mean seriously - isn't that bizzare? All these connections from completely random clicks of buttons, from people spread out all over the world. And yet all connected.

And I loved blogging. I used to write lots. Some of it rubbish, some of it goodish. And then I got distracted and it started to sputter. And stall. And the less I wrote the more rubbish I thought everything I wrote was. (Which is quite an awkward sentence!) And the confidence waned, and rehearsals stared to push in to blogging time and when once I used to write twenty times a month, suddenly it was only once. (And no, not quality over quantity unfortunately.) And the gaps between posts got stretchier and the guilt over this got denser. And underneath this all the mental blogging still goes on. The words burble and tumble and 'hey, that would make a good post' and 'ah man, a dog licking a baby cow at the bottom of our hill, I MUST blog about that' And then I don't and then the moment has passed.

Sheesh man! So what I'm trying to SAY. IS. That I'm going to try and blog more. It may be 3 times in one day and then not for two weeks. But I'm really going to try. Coz I love it. And I love the connections it makes.

And you? What blogging connections have you found?

**********************

Picture window, all clear after the rain

Consolidation

2011-03-22T10:55:00.005+03:00

joburg

There was a moment of madness there, when I thought I should have all these different blogs. I mean really! So I'm going to consolidate. A bit. Still contributing to Hometown Arush a separately. Work one, yah, need it, will keep it separate, but baby one I'm just going to do here. Sod it. So I've transferred two of the posts from there to here.

So on that note...

Mud

2011-03-22T10:54:00.000+03:00

So we went for a walk down the road and Lara found this nice big juicy puddle. And sat in in for hours. And I was torn between running back home (a few hundred metres away) and getting my camera or staying with her and making sure she didn't get run over by a random passing car or cow.

I chose to stay which I think was probably a good call!

And then eventually, her covered in slimy mud, she wanted to go home. No, be CARRIED home. And me in a pristine white skirt. And her in a cloth nappy that had soaked up at least 6 litres of very muddy water.

So I kinda held her out at arms length and trotted back to the house. And then I changed her nappy and shoes, got my camera and took her back to the puddle to try and re-enact the scene. And she was all 'what do you mean you want me to sit in a puddle? Are you nuts?'

So I took a picture anyway, but it wasn't quite the same.

Old Pics and New

2011-03-22T10:51:00.001+03:00

Sorting through the pictures on my increasingly sluggish computer. Trying to lighten her atlas like load.

And I find these old pictures of me, a bit older than Lara is now, I guess.

And these, of Lara

In Obama We Trust

2011-03-21T13:21:00.003+03:00

Back

2011-03-19T20:12:00.005+03:00

Okay so my recent silence on the blog front is not unusual, but my wrenching myself away from the computer is....

I've been away, you see. Visiting family in Zambia and South Africa. Awesome to meet my nephew, the sweetest boy in existence. Sad to visit my friend's house, so hollow with him gone. And to see his babies, with him staring out through their eyes. Many stories to tell. And I shall. Really I shall.

But seriously, my nephew? Sheesh but he's cute.

For now, while I gather my thoughts, here's a picture of Monkey on the plane.

And when I left it was drydry but now the rains are here.

Its good to be back.

More soon.

Mwanza

2011-02-24T20:53:00.004+03:00

Seriously though, what was I thinking? Starting how many new blogs? All in a fit of excitement over a whole day with electricity. So now I can feel triply (tripoli) bad when I have bloggers block.

Aaaanyway.

So I went to Mwanza, on lake Victoria for a couple of days. To be with the actors who are performing there for a week. Left the baby gal at home for two nights. First time to leave her overnight. I felt positively nauseous to begin with but soon got used to it! I think she barely noticed I was gone, frankly!

I'm sorting through the pictures now but here are a couple for now.

Oh and I've also posted on one of my other blogs!

Blogs out of ears

2011-02-15T16:39:00.004+03:00

Something strange happened today.

We had power. All. Day. It means we will not have any tonight but that's okay. It also means that I have been connected to the computer intravenously all day. I need to finish this post and get outSIDE.

And so the novelty of having electricity all day somehow made me a little overexcited and for some strange reason I have started not just one other blog, but TWO. What was I thinking? Like I find enough time to even update this one, let alone three! Well four actually if you count Hometown Arusha. Geez.

It all started with an e-mail from Lori suggesting I post more about the baby gal. And I agree but am worried about boring the less baby minded people out there. So The Mothering Times was born. And at the same time as creating that blog I'm updating our website and thought, huh, maybe I should have a blog on there. And so another one, for my work stuff. What's with this compartmentalising my life?

Anyway, I really must get outside. It rained last night on the hill for the first time in MONTHS and it is glorious out.

See?

The Power of Thought

2011-02-11T14:42:00.004+03:00

So I was riding through the dusty loose-stoned cow- tracked korongo on my motorbike yesterday, on my way to meet P. And I was having this conversation with her, in my head, saying “I’ve ridden through that korongo so many times I can’t believe I fell off”

And as soon as the thought was out there in the atmosphere, BAM, I hit a stone and tumbled off, banging my knees and hitting my head on a rock. Thank god for helmets!

As I said, I was on my way to meet P and we were going to drive to a performance a couple of hours’ drive away, in Karatu. The actors are camping there for a week, then they’re off to another spot for a week. Ten weeks performing, three weeks rest, then another ten weeks. Covering all districts in the country, two groups, performing twice a day. Shew.

Stork

The play, if you’re interested, is about children’s rights. 50% of Tanzania’s population is under the age of 18 and the premise is, if we don’t look after our children now, treat them with love and respect then what of the future? What will the future leaders and citizens be like? How to develop as a nation when children are routinely beaten, spat at, called dogs?

Beating, burning children with hot knives, tying their hands together so they can’t fight back. These are all extremely common ways of disciplining children. It is so common that trying to get across the message that it is wrong is very hard. It is normal. ‘It’s how we teach we our children.’

When we first started creating the play, I had a file full of information. Statistics. How many young girls have to drop out of school because they have been fallen pregnant by teachers (8,000 girls dropped out of school in 2007 due to pregnancy); how many people have experienced at least one type of physical violence as a child (70% of females and 67% of males); that nearly 30% of females described their first sexual intercourse as unwilling. The stats go on and on and on.

audience

So we spent the first week with the actors (twelve of them all together – two casts of six each) and swopped stories. Of the twelve actors only one had never been routinely beaten (only once, she said). They all started comparing scars and stories. One of them had stolen food from the pot as a child and blamed it on his younger brother. So his mother got the brother, tied his wrists together, filled his hands with dry grass and kindling and set it alight. Until his fingers burnt almost to the bone. Another shows a scar where she was burned with hot knife. Another tells how her young child always went through her and her husband’s pockets looking for coins. So in order to teach her not to she tied her daughter’s hands up and beat her until she knocked her teeth out. “I thought I was teaching her not to steal”. The stories, like the stats, go on and on.

Our challenge of course is to take this information and try and make an exiting, positive and interesting play. I firmly believe in positive messaging, and keeping things light despite the heavy topic. The heavy stuff is there, of course, but I think it is very important to balance this out with the fun, the positive, the happy. Laughter is a way of making intimidating issues more manageable. Positive thinking, positive messaging.

eagle

So the story follows the life of a boy Ilunje/Kitonyo (the two plays are slightly different which is fun, same basic story but the spicing, if you like, is distinct for each play) and his step-sister as they navigate through childhood. There are scenes of abuse, of hope, of hunting, fishing, working and playing.

hunting warthog

We’ve tried to keep it real, break down stereotypes, balance out the serious with the fun and above all, not to lecture, not to wag fingers, look superiorly over the tops of our spectacles and say condescendingly, “now now, don’t do that’. The play is interactive with the audience so they have a say in what goes on.

mother and son

Am I boring you? It’s hard to explain, doesn’t translate very well, but culturally especially, it’s very effective.

Aaanyway. The actors have been amazing. I auditioned them from all the small theatre groups and societies in Arusha, trained them up and created this play, over a few months. They are so excited to be on the road and are very very keen, enthusiastic and energetic! They say that Tanzania has never seen any theatre like this. They want to perform as much as they can wherever they can.

I hope it lasts, its early days. But I think it will.

Positive thinking, right?

fishing

Picture Window

2011-02-11T08:21:00.004+03:00

I realise I haven't posted pictures of our picture window for an age. This is probably because these days it looks like this:

Can you believe how much that tree has grown?. Hopefully it will continue to do so and soon we'll have our view back AND a lovely big tree in our garden!

This is November 2009

And February 2010

July 2010

And today

Show on the road

2011-02-07T16:11:00.006+03:00

So our show is finally on the road. Damn, as I write that I see that I missed an opportunity there. I could have sat in the back of a pickup truck and shouted "Lets get this show on the ROAD" together with unnecessary circular hand movement, finger in the air, round em up style. Its the sort of thing one always wants to say isn't it? Along with "you're probably wondering why I've gathered you all here today" and "I'm gonna take you DOWN". Ooh and "see you in court"

Or is that just me?

So yah. After months of crazy rehearsals (two casts, one play) they're on the road for 20 weeks. Two casts performing twice a day to schools and marketplaces across the country. So exciting!

Here are a few pics from the first week.

riding in an oxcart

cows

bicycle

and audience shots...

Hats

2011-01-25T20:12:00.003+03:00

I've left it too long.

This blogging thing.

Now I don't know what to say!

A picture of my child, perhaps? All cute in the snow? Ah yes, the snow! We went to England in December. We arrived in a blizzard, one of the last flights allowed in to Heathrow before they closed it. And drove up north in a blizzard. All picture postcard black and white, the occasional blue sign jumping out at the last minute. Traffic on the motorway crawling along at... well.. crawling pace.

And the child, when we went out, all wrapped up, hats, gloves, scarves, coats. The only thing you could see/she could move were her eyes!

And being there for Christmas.

And then getting home, and wearing a t-shirt and nappy again. Oh. And hat.

And bumping into things.

Remembering the Dead

2011-01-20T17:13:00.001+03:00

A very long time ago someone told me that one of the hard things about losing someone close to you is the period

After

After the shock, After the wanting to dissolve into a pool of salt water, After the numbness. After support network of friends and relatives have started drifting off and getting on with their own lives. For you it is still raw and real and at times unbearable. But your support network? They have slowly started picking up the pieces and are beginning to live their lives again.

And so I promised myself that I would always remember. That I would remember the dates, and I would always offer my support and love, if not every day then at least on those anniversaries. And so it has been that I have always done this.

When my friend Johnny was killed by an elephant I had my first proper taste of the truth of this. And always on the anniversary of his death in July and on his birthday (just two days before mine, on the 15^th January) I would write to his mother and his sister to say I was thinking about them.

And now I have moved to Tanzania and once more I live close to Johnny's mother and sister. And I see, on his birthday and the anniversary of his death how perhaps my 'thoughtful' reminders are just too much.

And then a few years ago my good friend lost his two year old boy to malaria. It was absolutely devastating. Of course. He was not the first child they had lost. It was almost too much to bear. And one year, on the anniversary of his death I gave his mother a card. Saying I was thinking of her on this anniversary or some such thing. And she opened the card, thinking it was something fun. An invitation to something maybe. And her face. Oh my heart nearly imploded in on itself.

So what do you think? What is remembered lives, as Reya says? Or is it just picking at the scab of wounds that should be left to heal?

This n That

2010-12-17T11:13:00.007+03:00

Okay people, just a reeeeaaaal quick one in between packing and doing all those last minute things one does before going away. Aish. We're heading north - up up and away to the isle of England for a couple of weeks. And boy does it look COLD there! I have a real hard time packing for cold weather when I'm hot. And vice versa. I just cannot get my head around it.

News snippets. Fabulous very good very old friend, neighbour and all round sterling lass Janelle has started a blog that her, another friend and I will contribute pics to called Hometown Arusha. Check it out if you have the time or inclination.

We're busy rehearsing this new play (one play two casts) that will tour around the country fro six months from end of Jan. Did I tell you this already? So been frantically writing and directing and making props and generally being a contortionist. Been great fun. Still not finished but getting there.

Oh I'm sure there's lots more, but I really do have to go.....

Oh and we've bought a plot of land! Sooooo exciting! Its just down from where we live now. Here's the view on one side. On the other is Mt Meru and Kili on a clear day. When we build our house we'll have to have another picture window.

Speaking of which..... from last weekend, with Janelle's horses

So for two weeks we're off, leaving our little house on the hill to fight the elements

bayeeee, happy Christmas ya'll. xxx

Shadows of windows

2010-12-05T08:41:00.000+03:00

Oh it is so time for a new post. Of this I am fully aware. I have things piling up behind me though, things to do, piling up and piling up and slowly pushing me forwards like all this snow falling on our northern hemisphere friends. And soon it will have pushed me forwards, up against the wall, to a point where I have to deal with it, discard, bury, or do until I can rise to the top, dig myself out. Its not bad, its just, you know, there.

Instead I find myself every morning hopping on my motorbike and riding to work, through the fields that have - virtually overnight - transformed from dusty haze into clear-green. Dodging fresh aardkvark diggings (that make me whoop with joy) and seeing little mini stone bomas and cattle kraals that the little herdboys have made while they pass the time looking after their sheep and goats. I pass the sheep too, looking terribly gormless and doff. Heads all together looking at the same spot on the ground. Maybe they are much cleverer than I am giving them credit for. Maybe they are actually discussing world affairs. Of the human or the sheep variety - either would be impressive.

And as I ride I have been pondering all those big question life throws at us sometimes. You know the ones. About life. About death. About how things can change so drastically in just a millisecond. This post, for instance from an old university pal who is in a wheelchair. All the things we take for granted. The feeling of the sea on our toes. And this post, so well put.

I find myself clutching to life these days, remembering how tenuous it really is. Hugging my baby gal a bit tighter. Worrying when my man takes the motorbike on the big road. What was the last thing I said to him? What if it's the last thing I did ever say to him? I feel like I'm turning into neurotic worrier. But I get like this sometimes, it'll pass. I guess when someone close to you dies so suddenly you're bound to feel a bit tumble dried.

In other news: Our group in Zambia has just been invited to perform at a festival in Copenhagen! How cool is that! (More paperwork edging up behind me)
Rehearsals are going great. Am loving it. Its one play, 2 casts, that will tour around the country next year. Having fun. I'm doing what I love. And what I'm good at. (If I don't say so myself!)

oh and also the RAINS are here! This time of year makes me so nostalgic. The different bird calls. They sound so happy. The different weight of the air. Look, here, the first rains:

And now, so green!

The Red Thread

2010-10-29T06:17:00.003+03:00

I hear the news. It explodes deep and red in my solar plexis and slowly seeps out, through my body, into my veins.

Out my eyes.

I imagine him looking down on us now, seeing a thread of red, winding here and there, linking together all the people who knew and loved him. Because really, as clichéd as it sounds, to know him was to love him. In some places the colour is deep, the thread is thick, in some, perhaps for those who didn't know him as well, it is faint. But it is there. The centre is in Lusaka and the threads come off from there, all the way to England, to South Africa, to here in Tanzania.

He didn’t make it, my friend.

And I am so so so very sad.

Maybe later I will write more. Tell you more about him. Maybe not.

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And on the other side of the spectrum my sister had her baby, which is just the best news in the world. I am an aunty and so so so happy!

How is it possible to be SO sad and SO happy, all at the same time?

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Picture Window

Ain't it beautiful out there?

Small Fry

2010-10-21T21:39:00.003+03:00

Scars

2010-09-28T14:46:00.007+03:00

I love scars and the tales they tell.

On a side note - I am also neurotically catious about making such a statement in case the gods say "oh she likes scars, lets give her one to remember - third degree burns on most of her face, perhaps?" It irritates me, gets in the way of a good story. Anyhow, throwing said caution to the wind.

I love scars and the tales they tell.

As a kid I had a friend - well if I'm honest he was more of a slave really. I called him Wheelbarrow. See? I'm sure he actually had a name, but I didn't know it. I would climb into the cement crusted wheelbarrow like a princess royal, wave my grubby hand at Wheelbarrow and say "Wheelbarrow, lets go" And he, the poor fellow, would push me around for hours. And hours. It's a mystery really why he did it. Usually I'd sit in the wheelbarrow, but one day I chose to sit on the prow, if you will, and put my feet on that metal thingy that goes around the wheel. And on the wheel was a sharp metal tab that cut a perfect slice into my heel. To this day I have a pretty silver scar on my left heel.

Moving up. Right calf. An extremely innocuous fall off a motorbike left me with an 8 inch long 3 inch wide burn on my leg - the shape of a good sized fish. The burn was pink and raw to begin with, then looked like a big Texan portion piece of steak glued to my calf. Slowly it faded away until all you can see now, if you look really closely, is a faint pattern of silvery lines.

Then there are the other motorbike scars, etched about my body from a less innocuous fall. One of those falls that when you finally get your bearings back and dust yourself off you wonder how on earth you have bruises and grazes in so many different places. It must have been quite the tumble. Shortly thereafter my mother took some pictures of me for an art work she was doing, naked in an old crumbled overgrown building at the bottom of the garden. Covered in scabs.

I had a biblical infestation of boils as a child. They were numerous and pustulous and just plain gross. At one time I had fifty something boils on my legs alone. Sis hey? The scars are mostly gone save for a neat little round scar on my left knee, that looks like a perfectly formed 22 bullet hole - complete with exit wound on the other side.

Then on my right outer thigh is a little silver inch worm of a scar. James Schulz had a pet warthog who was mostly very friendly but would occasionally attack at random. When I was about 9 I used to go for French lesson's at James Shultz's house (he also had a baby monkey that thought it was a cat) and one day the warthog went for his son, who must have been about 5 at the time. I managed to rush in and grab the son, Daniel, before the warthog got him. And she tusked me instead, the bitch. I pretended to be very brave and said it didn't hurt at all, but it bloody did!

I have a couple on my wrist, one from an air conditioning unit, and another from some scaffolding that was the set of a play I was in. Another on my head from an old school basketball injury. Heads bleed, huh?

Aaaaanyway, that's enough for now.

Now your turn. What are your most interesting scars?

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Picture window

It's pretty much all tree these days isn't it?

Just stuff

2010-09-24T15:59:00.006+03:00

I’ve been all kinds of grumpy this week. The baby gal has discovered that she has a temper. Of epic proportions! She wakes up at about ten to five in the morning and then gets Seriously Pissed Off that she can’t get back to sleep again. And lets us aaaaallll know about it. It’s a whole new kind of torture. This morning, for instance, she woke up at four thirty, yelled for two hours and then fell asleep, juuust as it was time for me to get up and get ready for work. Nevertheless. We love her still.

Here she is ignoring the neighbour's calf that comes in and eats my herbs.

And here, humouring her mother.

This morning (despite the early start) I woke up and everything was shiny and shimmery again. The mountain (who has been rather shy of late) has thrown off her cloak and is stupendous. I suddenly noticed that the jacarandas are flowering. Have they been doing this for long? Have I been so self absorbed so as not to notice? Or have they only just started?

Rehearsals are going great (we’re almost done – eek) and I just love the motorbike ride from home to where we’re rehearsing.

This is where we have lunch.

It's called the Olasit Holiday Inn

The kitchen, through the door

A cow drinking just outside. But you can see that, can't you?

And why has the writing gone blue?

...

2010-09-14T15:31:00.004+03:00

Oooooh oooh look, a free moment to blog!

You know that iconic picture of Einstein with the big white sticky up hair? Looking slightly crazed and bewildered? I feel a bit like that at the moment.

Except not as clever.

Oh pants. The baby has just woken up and that free moment I had? Poof! Gone. Ah well, I may as well post this anyway just to prove that I'm still alive, albeit with little to say. Or at least little time to say it in.

Let me at least take a picture through the window.....

Costume shopping and mzungu prices

2010-09-07T20:53:00.004+03:00

Today we went to Mitumba, the second hand clothes market, to buy costumes for our play. I have waxed lyrical about Mitumba many a time so shan't do so again. Save to say that I LOVE it. You can find all manner of marvelous things there. From Diesel jeans to skanky choopies (underwear) to silver cowboy boots. Its fab. ANyway I managed to not get distracted by these delights (not the choopies) and get all the stuff we needed for the play. We also went to the market to get materials for making props and I had to hide each time, wait for the actors to go and get the proper price and then appear to pay. "You need to hide with your white skin!"

Conducted an experiment. I said to one of the actresses.

"How much would you buy these shoes for?"

"6,000 shillings"

"How much do you think they'd charge me? 25,000 shillings?"

"Yes, about that"

So she went and asked. 6,000 shillings. I went and asked 25,000 shillings.

Feh.

Forgive the brevity of my posts. I am ti-i-red! But really want to write more. So....

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Work. Play.

2010-09-05T20:40:00.004+03:00

I've started work again.

Every day I ride the back way on my motorbike, along scraggly goat paths, getting dust on my takkies and snatched at by thorns. Under the wide blue sky, watched by the mountains. And I stand up most of the way and want to woop with joy.

Hope it lasts!

We're rehearsing on a quiet plot under a big ol fever tree. Making play. And props. And stuff.

Its damn hard leaving the baby gal every morning but I guess I have to do it some time. And she cries a bit when I go but I think its mostly for show because she soon gets distracted by the cat and tries to sit on him. He doesn't seem to mind.

Aaanyway. Off to bed.

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Outside looking in

Some France pics

2010-08-30T08:07:00.001+03:00

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Picture window

The bend in the road

2010-08-28T22:47:00.002+03:00

So you plod along, living your life. You go to work, you hang out with your kids. Maybe you’re irritated that the power has gone off, or that you couldn’t find any cream in the shops.

And then you hear from your dad that your good friend has been shot. At close range by an AK47. In the shoulder and in the head. He tells you that he has been medicaved to Johannesburg but is stable. That he is in an induced coma but they do not yet know the extent of his head injury.

And your world spins away from you.

And your ex tells you “He was shot in the side of the head and has a shattered eye socket and no ear. But he will pull through. If you remember he was shot in the leg with shotgun SSG 10 years ago. Mark just put his fingers in the holes in his thigh and was taken to his father's house to be sewed up, so this is just another scratch!”

And you think, “Are you sure?” Because you are scared to hope.

And you try to keep positive. You try not to think about it too hard; not to let your imagination run riot. But then it catches you off guard when you’re chopping ginger and you find yourself sobbing on the kitchen floor.

And your husband says “One step at a time. That he was found on the side of the road in time before he bled too much. That he was able to be medicaved. That he is stable. Now we wait to see the rest. One thing at a time.” And he hugs me. And the baby laughs, thinking my sobs are laughs. And I hug them tight.

And what else can you do? But live your life. Try to plod a little less and live a little more. Because really, you never know what’s around that bend in the road.

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Picture window? It's dark, I'm writing this in bed. Next time.

The holiday part the third and final

2010-08-25T12:34:00.007+03:00

If you got your atlas out and looked at the top part of Germany and then ran your finger over the map, all the way south, about as far south in France as you can go before you hit the Pyrenees you'll trace the journey we did.

Ah, I started writing this days ago. And I kept thinking, I'll get back to it when I feel inspired, I want to give it the time and poetry this part of the trip deserves. I want to tell you about the beautiful old farm house tucked away in the woods, complete with summer vegetable patch and strawberries ripe for the picking. Of visiting an old stain glassed windowed church - all echoey and old, and of the baby gal splashing about in the stone basin of holy water. Of driving into the Pyrenees and taking fleeting pictures out the back of a funky yellow car. That matched the fields of sunflowers. Of market day and fois gras and enough cheese to sink a galleon. Of medieval villages and old winding streets. Of family and laughter and comfort and reminiscing of old times.

But...

I've started work you see. Rehearsal. And its just taking up all my brain and my energy.

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Oh and the picture window! How remiss of me!

The Holiday - part the second (with some brief family history thrown in)

2010-08-18T14:03:00.003+03:00

My grandmother used to be an author. She is 89 and pretty cool, in a laugh about farts sort of way. She was born in India, and raised partly in the UK and partly in Nyasaland, now Malawi. This is where she met my grandfather and where my mother and aunt were born.

She lives in Cornwall now and so we trekked down there for a couple of days to visit and be buffeted about by the wind. We stayed in a little B&B out in the magical woods.

She stays in a lovely big old house right by the sea that is a care home or assisted living or whatever the euphemism is nowadays for God's waiting room. She's been there a few years but seems to think she's just arrived and seems to quite like it so....

We walked in the woods, ate seafood, got wet by waves crashing on rocks, told the same stories manymany times (she's a little forgetful now, my granny) and spoke about the past (she remembers all this perfectly). Oh and laughed. Lots.

Then we hit the road proper.

Drove from Worcester in the UK down to the coast, hopped on the ferry in Dover, arrived in Calais, reprogrammed our brains for driving on the other side of the road, dusted off my schoolgirl French and up up and away!

Destination Shnakenburg, Northern Germany. Where my 90 year old grandfather lives. That first day we started off in England, then drove through France, Belgium and Holland and the next day into Germany. Sheesh!

My grandfather is 90 going on 70. Must be all the berries he eats. He is seriously fit - it's a bit freaky actually! He took us on a guided tour of his (and my dad's) hometown. His other son, my dad's brother, came to be there too. To help with the language and all. Because otherwise there would have been an awful lot of smiling and nodding. And awkward silences. This is a side of my family I don't really know, you see. My father left Germany for Africa when he was 20ish and I think this is only the third time I've met my grandfather; my uncle I'd only met once before. And their other sibling, Geli? Have I ever properly in real life met you?? Don't think so. So yes, I have German heritage but I don't speak the language nor do I really know much about this heritage. Time to redress that I reckon.

There he is striding forth, we could barely keep up with him!

Shnakenburg is tiny old town on the river Elbe halfway between Hamburg and Berlin. Surrounded by huge forests. You look across the river into what used to be east Germany and it looks so peaceful now you can't really imagine the patrol boats ready to shoot people on sight if they tried to swim across.

He also took us to see an old section of the fence between east and west. Where a small village was demolished to make way for it, the residents given a few hours to move out. Gruelling to think, but again, such a weirdly peaceful spot.

The houses are all oldold with gaps in between them for the cows to walk through. Some have shrapnel pockmarks. They are beautiful, and mostly really well maintained,

with a few old crumbling buildings, overgrown with ivy.

We went inside one that a friend of theirs was renovating and its amazing to see how they were built, all straw and mud and beams. And to have survived all these years. The termites can't be as bad as the ones here, surely?

And an 800 year old church that apparently no-one really attends. I found that odd, I'm not sure why.

Oh I could go on and on and on but I can feel you all shifting boredly in your seats, stifling a yawn. Lots of stories and pictures I have. But we still have France to get through!

The Holiday - part the first

2010-08-16T09:37:00.005+03:00

We thought it would be a good idea to visit Europe in the summer, since I'd only ever seen her in the dark dead of winter. Which I love.

But the summer?

Oh its all shiny and sparkly and covered in smartie flavoured flowers! And I can totally believe in fairies and talking trees and jacket wearing rabbits in the English summer countryside!

Divine.

Its always something getting used to driving a little car when we get to the developed world. The engine is so quiet. Sometimes you think its not on and try to restart it. And when you try and touch the clutch, you put your great big foot on all three pedals at once. And the breaks? You only need to use your big toe! Well, I say this as if I drive in England. Noooo. You wouldn't catch me dead driving in that scary traffic. Well, actually you would.

Give me a big old landrover and scary African city driving any time. The driving here may be crazy with people overtaking overtaking cars and cutting in and basically driving into you if you're not on your toes and anticipating each driver's move within a 200 metre radius, but at least people expect you to make mistakes. In Europe or wherever everything goes so smoothly. If you did make a mistake you'd be the crumpled one on the side of the highway that causes the tailback and that everyone rubbernecks at as they go past. No no, not for me. Luckily (since we were doing a road trip through Europe) the husband loves to drive.

So we landed at Heathrow and picked up our wee car. And the other thing? How can you tell which car is yours in a crowded parking lot? They all look the same. (Yes yes, I'm a girl I know). Okay, so the time difference is only two hours but having woken up at four that morning, and having been on an all day flight with a squirming one year old we thought it would be a great idea to go and spend the night at a mate's house in London and have a party. I mean why not, right? The gathering of the clans. And the last time we'd seen most of them we were being crazy, climbing trees and drinking copious amounts of beer on an elephant dung infested dry river bed in the middle of a national park. And now we see them and most of us are all familied up. Kids. Cars full of broken plastic dinosours and armbands. But not above drinking copious amounts of beer. And climbing trees and playing cricket with said elephant dung if there was any around. Right? Or at least taking about it. So in with a bang and it was great.

Part of our mission on this trip was to go and visit all the rellies. Many of whom I've only met a couple of times - most of whom are pushing a hundred but we thought it would be fun to go and see them all, introduce them to the baby gal. A victory lap of sorts.

But first stop middle of England somewhere, spent a week with my parents-in-law. Shop. Eat. Shop. Eat.

Next stop Cornwall to visit my 89 year old grandmother.

Honey, I'm home! (but shhhh, don't tell anyone)

2010-08-12T11:44:00.006+03:00

I am back from holiday. Well fed and dragging my heels.

Where to start, where to start?

Can I just pretend I'm on holiday a bit longer? Lay my head on my pillow and deal with everything tomorrow? Or the next day?

Maybe Monday.

I think I'll keep my Out of Office Reply on just a little bit longer....

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Picture Window

with drier grass and taller trees

Computer Sabatical

2010-07-09T09:27:00.008+03:00

I am going away today for a month and leaving my computer behind! Gulp!

So.

Bye bye and see you on the other side. Saturated with stories of good food good wine, a European summer (I've never seen one of those) and many other tales.

Will try and blog.

Maybe.

We'll see.

Who am I kidding!

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Picture window

Winter window. You think it doesn't get cold in Africa? Think again!

Bayeeeeeeee. Miss you already!

Dreaming of mistaken Idols

2010-07-06T11:20:00.006+03:00

An old faded colonial house with a dusty threadbare garden and flame trees. Squeaky gauze fly screens with holes in. Inside is a man and a woman, greying hair, sitting next to a radio and crooked piles of dusty paper, smelling of old maps.

I somehow find myself in this room having been chosen (from a poor rendition of 'Summertime') to be one of the top three finalists in American Idol.

I assure the two lovely judges that there has been a terrible mistake. I cannot sing. They tell me I am being modest. I say no really. I really really cannot sing.

The other two contestants are waiting in the dusty car park, under the molting flame trees near the servant's quarters. I feel sorry for them. I know that they can sing and it would be a terrible travesty if I got picked by mistake.

No please, I say, I really can't sing. I don't know how this happened.

I get given another song to sing. A French song. I sing it. The woman says

Oh yes I see, you're right. Now I hear it in French, I understand. You really can't sing

Phew!

Invigilatinzzzzzzzzzzz

2010-07-01T10:43:00.004+03:00

Yesterday I found myself invigilating an exam with no time limit. Sitting under a clutch of yellow Fever Trees keeping my beady eyes on 8 poor souls writing their safari guides exam. I started out very keen. Head tracking back and forth like I was watching a tennis match. Then, after about two hours I started to get booooored. So when faced with a looong string of hours stretching off neverending into the distance what does one do? Except stifle yawns. Walk around a bit.

And after 5 hours? Well... I seemed to spend a lot of time playing with a big two prong acacia thorn.

Things you can do with acacia thorns:

1) clean your fingernails

2) clean your watch, rings and various other pieces of jewelery

3) see how many raisins and dried cranberrys you can fit onto one (17)

4) draw circles in the sand with it, compass style

5) Fancy dress - fangs. Horns

6) Scratch 'I woz ere' into the soft flaky bark of one of the fever trees

7) Use them to prop your eyes open, matchstick style

etc etc etc etc

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Picture Window on this winter morning

This glass is half full

2010-06-21T08:55:00.004+03:00

That's all.

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Picture Window, with sunlight

Monkey

2010-06-17T10:26:00.005+03:00

I have frozen peas for brains.

I really want to write more on this here blog, I do. But what to say? Every time I open my mouth, put fingers on grubby white keyboard this is what comes out

<<<<<>>>>>

ooooooooooo

So I look through my pictures to see if I can at least show you something from there.

Maybe one of those old ones. Lets see. Ooh yes, here we go. Monkey

Monkey was my soul mate. No, seriously!

I went to Germany when I was 1. I claim to remember but no-one believes me. I'm not sure I do either anymore! We went to the circus. I remember the clowns bursting terrifyingly out of a stripy tent, white faces and big noses. Seals playing with coloured balls. An elephant riding a bicycle. But... I was 1, so... maybe... maybe I don't really remember... Oh and a tree house. (Geli? Was there such a thing? Maybe that was somewhere else)

Aaaanyway. Apparently (this bit I don't remember) we went to a big old toy store. And I saw Monkey on the shelf and I grabbed him and would. not. let. go. So Monkey stayed.

Even Blue Teddy took second place to Monkey.

See that worn patch on his mouth? Yes, I kissed that hole to existence. And then would try to feed him through it. And cut his hair and wondered why it didn't grow back.

The biggest trauma in his life (possibly aside from being yanked off the shelf in a nice cozy shop in Germany and thrust into a new life in the middle of the African bush) was when our horrid little dog Baked Beans chucked him onto the fire. I must have been 4 or so and my mother came to me with Monkey one morning, looking worried (this bit I do remember). And she said that Monkey had been in an accident but he was fine. She had already done some First Aid on him and he was all bandaged up. His one leg was completely burnt off - now a bandaged stump - and his other leg had a bandage around the ankle. And I gingerly looked underneath the crisp white bandage and saw charred flesh. Poor little guy. But he was very brave and wore those bandages for the rest of his life. If possible I loved him even more.

Monkey went Ev-rey-where with me. I kissed a worn patch on his mouth, his limbs had come off and been sewed back on several times. His head too, I think (in a tug of war with some horrible person who wanted to take him from me).

His stint with me ended one day when I was about 12 or 13 on a hot and dusty day in Lilongwe, Malawi. My mother was driving up to see us at boarding school (why Monkey wasn't actually with me I'm not entirely sure. Maybe we were starting to go our separate ways already) and Monkey was in the back of our old brown open sided jeep. Along with all my mother's art materials (I think she was planning on spending a week at the lake working). And she heard a rustling in the back of the car, turned around and it was all Gone. She made a valiant attempt at rescue. Chased the thief through the mealies. But he was not to be caught.

And so Monkey I hope found another home, made another child as happy as he did me.

Or not.

Whatever.

Life goes on.

Go to sleep my weary hobo

2010-06-16T09:37:00.005+03:00

My baby often thinks that 3 in the morning is a very pleasant time to sit up in her cot, lean over, poke her mother in the eyes and start chatting. I tend to disagree with her but what can you do? Oh yes, all sorts of things really. Almost every new mother I meet has a) a baby that sleeps through the night and b) numerous ad hoc techniques that will get my baby to sleep like... well, like the proverbial baby. Sleep training, let her cry it out (It even has an acronym - CIO - which usually results in the 'I'm awake now, lets chat' state of mind), change of day time routines. Bottle at night, sleep association. Bla bla bla. I'm bored of it all frankly. I've read up loads, I've taken much of the advice to heart and now it's all yawn yawn (and not just because of the lack of sleep). There are bigger things happening out there in the world. This isn't forever (they sleep a lot as teenagers, right?) and lets-talk-about-my-baby talk is boring even me, a new mother.

So last night I found myself singing. Again. There is a particular Zambian lullaby that she seems to like. A beautiful song, all lilting and exotic. But after 11 months of singing it every day I am soooo sick of it! So I thought I'd try something new. I wasn't brought up on The Wizard of Oz so I don't really know the songs, but last night I heard myself singing either the Yellow Submarine, or Follow the Yellow Brick Road - or possibly a mixture of the two - the first few lines then morphed into a song about someday, sailing a small boat to Bombay, buying a parrot on the way, who would sit on the boat, and clear its throat.

There was more, I forget though. It sounded pretty good at the time.

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No picture window today. The man has gone off to the bush for the week with my camera. But outside it is cold, a few stray wisps of mist, low cloud and I think I just spotted a polar bear lumbering past.

Boys and Girls

2010-06-07T17:40:00.004+03:00

Our closest neighbours have two little monkey-boys. Four and seven I think they are. They are very cute and wild and crazy. And our neighbours across the hill Janelle et al have three kids, the youngest of whom is the sweetest little girl you ever will meet (apart from the baby gal of course!) Her name is Gabby, also seven.

The two monkey-boys came screeching in here one day armed with sticks. Gabby was quietly playing on the floor with a little box of glittery treasures. The boys, wild eyed and crazy shouted:

"Gabby! Gabby! We're going to go and kill a real live CAT! D'you wanna come?"

And Gabby pondered this for a few seconds and then in a polite little voice said:

"Ummmmm, no thanks"

And went back to her box of shiny treasures.

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Picture window this evening

Owee

2010-06-05T17:25:00.002+03:00

I wrote this yesterday. And didn't think it was appropriate to post. I'm still not sure. I may take it down again. Or not. Hmmmmm

At the moment my mind feels like its half full of water, with old pieces of toy floating and sloshing about. Farmyard animals - a sheep with chewed bent hooves, a bit of old plastic fence. A piece of scuffed red lego, a barbie’s hollow leg, all filled with water.

And I can’t seem to be able to sort through my thoughts. My good friend here in Tanzania nearly died. She got cerebral malaria and was medivaced to Nairobi where she was in ICU in a coma for a few days. I heard this news while I was in Zambia and I was fully expecting her to die. It is really something of a miracle that she didn’t. She has a little boy who is a month older than my baby gal. While she was in the hospital they did some tests on the little boy – to check that he didn’t also have malaria and because he wasn’t looking too good. And while his mother was in a coma they discovered that he has leukemia. They had to fly to Europe that night – the boy and his father, leaving the just out of a coma mother with a friend in the hospital. And she’s finally starting to feel a little better (physically). Her and her friend drove back from Nairobi the day before yesterday and I went with her to book her ticket. She flies tonight. I spent most of yesterday with her and saw her briefly today.

What do you say? How do you balance the creepy shoulder squeezing “how are you” with being too upbeat? I find myself talking about the times I have had malaria, how I felt afterwards – in an effort to sympathize and understand but surely that comes out as all memememe? And she says yes, please come and visit I’d love to see you. How do you balance that with overstaying your welcome? Will she feel weird seeing me breastfeed my daughter in front of her?

And how can she possibly even begin to deal with recovering from malaria (which is a bitch at the best of times), and nearly dying, let alone the fact that her son has leukemia and she hasn’t seen him for weeks. How do you even begin to offer comfort? To sit in silence mostly? To listen? And other people come and visit and if I’m feeling irritated by their questions (can’t you see she’s tired? Can’t you see that’s an inappropriate question?) then what must she be feeling? As irritated by me as I am by them?

And is she strong enough to travel? Should I have encouraged her to spend a few extra days to recover more? Surely she needs her family around her, needs to see her boy, her husband. But will the flight and seeing them be too much to cope with? Will she have a relapse? The doctor says no. How can we be sure?

And the thing that bugs me most? Why am I making this about me? Am I? grrrrrrrrr

Stork Colony

2010-05-31T21:30:00.004+03:00

When I was a safari guide, many moons ago, there was a stork colony that we’d drive to and were guaranteed to see great game. Situated on an ox-box lagoon were three or four old gnarled and weatherbeaten ebony and winterthron trees that the squawking nesting storks would make their home for a few months of the year. They’d decorate the place white and play loud music; you could hear them long before you actually bumped across the ox-bow and rounded the corner to the drama of their lives.

The trees were adorned with teeny baby fluffy white storks. And they’d sit atop their trees and squawk and shout and flap their wings. And the parents would wearily go off every morning and fish. And they’d bring the slippery flappy fish for the upturned babies’ beaks. And many would find their mark into the babies’ bottomless tummies but a good many more would slither and fall to the bottom. And every now and then the cute little fluffies would also lose their footing and tumble down.

Into?

Camera pans down and cue dark scary music.

The waiting big toothed jaws of the predators below. There they lurked and circled, waiting for the feeding frenzy. A slippery fish here, a succulent fledgling there, its eagerness to fly outsmarted by its inability to do so.

Crocodiles, hyenas, marabou storks, civets, leopards. Nocturnal and diurnal, airborne, waterborne and land (bourne?). Mammal and reptile. All classifications forgotten.

The reason for this rambling narrative? It reminds me of something. Every time I put my daughter in her high chair to feed her the cat gets up from wherever he has been basking and starts circling underneath, waiting for the baby to drop her bits of food. Which she does, most diligently. A twirl of pasta here, a chicken drumstick there. And every day, three times a day on a small hill on the outskirts of a Tanzanian town, they re-enact a suburban version of the Nsefu Stork Colony.

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Picture Window

Then and now

2010-05-23T15:11:00.002+03:00

I love staying at my dad’s. Going for a walk early in the morning to the bottom of his plot. Walking into sticky cobwebs that catch the morning light. Looking for spoor telling the story of the night – a duiker here, a bushpig there. A mouse, an elephant shrew. The dogs bark at a bushbaby. taunting them big eyed up a tree.

Meeting up with old friends. Having a funfun games evening with old girlfriends. You know the game Articulate? One person has a word on a card and they have to describe it without saying the word. And you have to guess. And see how many you can do in a minute? Guz had Jay. She said “It’s a bird. It’s also a letter of the alphabet” so I say “ABCDEFGH – Swift!”

Maybe you had to be there.

Talking with my ex who lives in my dad’s studio. Him full of reminisces

Remember that huge puff adder we found in the generator room?

Remember the Korean client who trod on a puff adder.

Remember Sebastian, our squirrel.

Remember that wounded lion we had to dart, the one that you walked into.

Remember when I nearly shot you. And you had to dismantle the mechanism on the rifle so that I wouldn’t try again.

Yes. Yes, I remember

And having a session with Rosie the psychic masseuse who looks at your feet and into your soul, and tells you your secrets.

But the best thing. The best thing is that I’m ready to go home.

To Tanzania. To my man and our little pink house on the hill with its pretty picture window. And I love Zambia and its place in my heart but I no longer ache to be here with every fibre. I now also love my new home, my new friends and the new adventures to be had.

And that’s the main thing, isn’t it?

The father's exhibition

2010-05-22T10:32:00.004+03:00

Okay, so its my dad's turn now. He had an exhibition opening on Wednesday. Here are a few of the pics. No words today, maybe tomorrow!

These are all pretty big

A selection, more later

The night of the exes

2010-05-13T22:23:00.004+03:00

my ma and my gal and me. And some dogs

In haste. For some reason thought I'd have loads of blogging time in Zambia. But. I don't.

So. I'm in Zambia for a couple of weeks. Me and the baby gal. The baby gal and I. And peculiarly my mother and my sister and my father are all in the same place at the same time. Which usually happens like... well... twice. My wedding, my sister's wedding. My parents are divorced, see. It's not like they don't get on, it's just, agh you know. History n all that. So there has been much sitting around on the lawn, playing with clothes pegs (the baby), drinking tea (the grownups), spraying picture frames (the father - he has an exhibition next week so I'll be able to post lots of his pic like I did my ma's). My (pregnant) sister came up (down?) for a few days specially to see us and its been fab, just fab.

And tonight at dinner. Exes all over the place. an ex wife (my mother) and an ex husband (my father), an ex boyfriend (mine - he rents my dad's studio at the bottom of the garden) and my mother is staying with my sister's ex up the road. Jeez Louise, you couldn't make this shit up!

But shhhhh, the baby is alseep and I reaaly want to be too, so toodleoo and I'll try and write a better post tomorrow.

Or not.

I have some posts swimming around in my head. Remind me to tell you about the python.

and this pic of the baby gal for Lemon Gloria coz her baby has the same monkey on his PJs

Speaking of ash clouds

2010-05-05T19:36:00.003+03:00

We have a volcano in this part of the world – well the place is lousy with them really (which, according to my dentist is why there is so much fluoride in the water and why I have to use rain water or Cool Blue water from Dar es Salaam to avoid fluoride staining on my child’s teeth. The things you learn when you have a baby!) Anyway, we have a volcano here called Oldonyo Lengai. And every now and then she erupts. And all the pilots fly in a little closer to have a look. Once a friend did just that – flew in a little closer to and got a slick of ash all over her windscreen. And then had to go and find a rain cloud to fly through to clean it. Hmmm!

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Picture window

Picture window with moths

Mr Time plays tricks on us

2010-05-03T08:12:00.017+03:00

You know that book I started writing in November? That I said I’d start editing in December and get in good shape some time in 2010? Well, I’d like to say I’ve been working frantically on that and that’s why I’ve been so bad at blogging. But. It’s not true.

Or maybe I’ve been really busy with work? Nah. Work? Wassat?

Its just Time you see, playing tricks like he always does. Boy, he’s good at that, no? One day I’m writing a blog post and the next day you realize it been more than 2 weeks since you last said anything on this here public sphere. Well. What to say, what to say?

Do we talk about the weather? How the misty mornings swirl and whisper? How we can hear the rain water gently trickle and gurgle down the pipes and into our big underground water tank? How winter has stuck her foot in the door and is slowing trying to edge her way in. How the wildflowers smile at us ever time we drive down the hill? How we slip and slide down the road at the bottom of the hill in the rain, wildly gesticulating to the pedestrians to Get. Out. The. WAY! This fishtailing and sliding? No, I have no control over it and I seriously advise that you move move MOVE!

Or do I tell you about the baby? How she loves her new aeroplane tyre swing that my friend made us? How she miaws at the cat. Squints her eyes at him. Copies everything we do? Or how she is trying to crawl but is just not quite there yet. How bloody damn cut she is.

Or all that other mundane stuff?

The rugby? A Tanzanian vs a Kenyan side. Us cheering from the sidelines. Shouting encouragement as the Tanzanian side slip deeper and deeper into the quagmire of Losing. Us eating ice cream all the while.

How my mother broke down AGAIN. And we finally put her on the next plane outta here. Her car is fixed again now and sits forlornly in our yard, looking sad and neglected. A foreigner in a foreign land, different number plates for all the other cars to see and jeer. He wants to get home, I can see it in his headlights. Need to make a plan to do just that.

And we had a lunch thingy. With all our friends from these parts. Sun and wine and silliness. And fun, of course. How we say, 'what fun that was, we MUST do it again' Knowing full well it'll take us another year. That Time thing again.

And. And. And. And. Huh, so there has been stuff happening after all.

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Picture window

Hippo in the House

2010-04-16T09:16:00.006+03:00

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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Picture window

no hippos out there

The Cow Drawer

2010-04-07T08:45:00.007+03:00

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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Picture Window with rainbow

The stuttering journey

2010-04-02T10:45:00.005+03:00

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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Picture window

Pinch and a punch

2010-04-02T07:45:00.001+03:00

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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Picture window

The re-invention of Miranda

2010-03-27T08:15:00.009+03:00

I daresay I had fun at the hairdressers the other day. Yes yes, I know I'm supposed to hate it and all but, boy it was just what needed. The baby gal had been yelling for a couple of days straight - teeth and all that. And I needed. To. Get! Out! Fast! So I did. The lovely hairdresser said 'Do you still want to be able to tie your hair back or are you over that?"
"Over that"
"How do you feel about a fringe? Bangs?"
"Sure"
She started to gently chop.
"What are you doing?" I said, "I thought we were going short?"
"Well, I'm just being cautious"
"FUCK cautious"
And this the result.
I love it.

And I even got a manicure and a pedicure and everything. The manicure was a bit of a waste of time since I had to get on the motorbike immediately after and smudged all the paint stuff off. But it was the massage-y bit I was after really.

And then. And THEN. We went to Mitumba. Retail therapy - if not entirely original - makes my heart sing. Cheery Country and Western songs. I've written about Mitumba before a couple of times. Its the second hand clothes place. Huge area piled with gorgeous delightful second hand clothes. We went on a Tuesday when they got new bales in and bought loads of new things. hurrah!

So a bit of girly time and I can handle all the screaming my baby gal wishes to throw at me. Within reason, of course! She's stopped though so thats a good thing...

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Picture Window

The Last Installment

2010-03-23T07:53:00.006+03:00

Okay, I'm milking this for all its worth - easy blog posts these! Last installment on my mother's exhibition.

Coz after this I need to tell you about my new haircut!

Okay, this is going to be a big old photo-ey blog. Coz I found it so hard to choose which pictures to show ya'll.

Its hard to get an idea, but these are all big.

Ghost Elephant - Trade Routes

And here, some of the blurbs that I so diligently printed and put up about the place!

"Pam Guhrs-Carr was born in Malawi and raised in Zambia, in one of Africa’s prolific wildlife areas, the Luangwa Valley where her father Norman Carr was Game Warden and later a well known conservationist. She grew up with an intimate knowledge of the wildlife in the area. Living in Lungwa’s wilderness environment has formed her work on multiple levels as she draws on its history, indigenous cultures and biodiversity. Her work challenges hackneyed perceptions of animals in Africa. From western eyes that visit zoos and game reserves to local perceptions of animals as intrinsically linked to ancestors, she revisions the metaphorsthat bind humans and animas.

The black and white images in this exhibition are inspired by her research of the rock paintings of eastern Zambia and their relation to contemporary women’s initiation practices in Luangwa Valley.

She has exhibited her work in Zambia, Botswana, Kenya, South Africa, the States and London. Her work is represented in museums and collections internationally and has been auctioned by Christies in London. "

Softly Treads the Forest Floor
"The aadvark softly treads the forest floor, making music with its feet" Pablo Neruda

ANIMALS
“I am interested in the different cultural perceptions of nature and people’s place in it… the shifting boundaries between animals and humans represented in indigenous knowledge systems… Animals often become metaphors for universal concerns – cycles of life, birth, death etc. or are used in a shamanistic way, as a conduit to a different state of consciousness”

Lunar Births

Bedroom Window, 3am

During her research into women’s initiation in eastern Zambia for her MA Fine Art, Guhrs discovered that the images the women were using to teach the girls were the same as some of the rock paintings in Zambia. Although simple and abstract, some of these symbols contain a depth of concept.

The sun image relates to the male element and the moon is female. Stories and dances and songs illustrate the philosophy of opposing yet related elements, male/female, spiritual/material, culture/nature.

Her paintings of these tar and lime images are a result of her immersion in some of the language of pictograms, cyphers, signs and symbols at the core of Kunda thought. She absorbs concepts and images repeating them again and again almost in mantra mode, internalising a lexicon.

Women's Symbols, Men's images

And detail of one of the panels:

The elemental materials such as tar and lime, both subject to chemical changes, used in Guhrs’ paintings reflect concepts of transformation and regeneration and also the repetition inherent the initiation teachings.

Leaping Leopard

Since the 1800s Europeans in Central Africa have reported an association between lions and the spirits of deceased chiefs. In 1832 Gamitto, a Portuguese explorer in the Luangwa Valley noticed the Africans there being able to chase lions away from the animals they had killed and take the meat for themselves. Local Africans explained this was possible because the lions were really benevolent chief’s spirits.

“The person that the spirit lion comes to is made to feel sick until the job is completed…If the person does the bidding of the spirit lion he or she usually feels well again and acquires a special skill, such as knowledge of medicines or healing.” (Strickland)

Spirit Lion

Okay, enough already. For more info visit her website

Encounters

2010-03-21T10:32:00.004+03:00

More from my mother. These are also small. Same size as the ones I posted yesterday. They're called "Encounters"

Funky Landscapes

2010-03-20T07:06:00.007+03:00

So Tam said to put up pictures of the funky landscapes. From our mother's exhibition. They're little, about 50cm x 50cm. And so cool, I love them.

This one is called Into the Trees
Sold

Flying Fish
Sold

Trade Routes
Unsold

Add my fave, Orb Rising.
Surprisingly, unsold

Detail:

The flying fish with written wings

The orb

Angels dancing on pinheads

Hey, this is fun. Next post - "Encounters"

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Picture window, after the rain

The Day of the Red Stickers

2010-03-18T10:48:00.007+03:00

The day started out as one of those tread in dog poo days. Metaphorically and physically. What comes first, the bad mood or the treading in the dog poo? You're in a bad mood therefore you tread in dog poo (negative attracting negative and all that) or you tread in dog poo therefore you're in a bad mood?

It started as a tread in dog poo day and ended as the day of the red stickers.

It was the opening of my mother's exhibition last night. She drove up from Zambia with all her paintings stuffed in the back of her "you're-going-to-manage-to-drive-more-than-a-thousand-kilometres-in-THAT?" old car. So it was all go go go yesterday, Printing labels. last minute hanging, nails in the walls, oops, haven't signed that one, let me get my paint. That kinda thing. And I was running around and the baby was Pissed Off but the lovely ladies at the internet cafe took her while I printed and laminated and cut up labels and price tags. Oh and I trod in dog poo, did I mention that?

Anyway, that was the morning. By late afternoon we were all done and the tone was set by someone who came early and bought a painting. A Spirit Lion - the very one pictured above. And then opening time - 5 o'clock and there's that moment where everything seems to hang in the balance. Will anyone come? Will they buy? Did we over-cater? Under-cater? Will I be able to at least cover my costs? And then one by one people trickled and then gushed in. And the wine flowed and the people drank and bought bought bought. Red stickers everywhere. My mother is a hide-in-the-corner-don't-pay-any-attention-to-me kind of person. And she always feels very uncomfortable when she has a show and everyone looks at her art on the walls. We usually have to save her from herself as on more than one occasion she has persuaded people NOT to buy her work.

Customer: Ooh I like this hyena, I think I'll buy it for my husband
Mother: Well, I'm not so sure. People sometimes find hyenas and paintings like this very threatening
Customer: Oh, okay

Remember those posts a while back saying why I'll never be rich? These are my genes.

Anyway, it was a success. People bought and she could have sold a few of them five times over. It's still on for a few days so I shall go and take more pictures for ya'll.

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Picture Window

Look at those cloud waves!

Don't be alarmed...

2010-03-07T21:34:00.004+03:00

... these pictures are old

This is where my heart lives

My mother and her man are here visiting. And they bring tales of home that make me ache with longing. It took them three and a half days to drive up from Zambia. The same trip that we did two years ago, all our belongings wrapped up in a spotted red handkerchief tied to a stick like one of the three little pigs. Two of the three little pigs.

This is the time of year - at home - that the river rises and breaks her banks. And our houses, perched precariously on the edge of the oxbow lagoon stare wide eyed as the water rises. And rises.

And rises.

And our green, puku and impala studded view fills up with brown water and nile cabbage complete with glinting eyed crocodiles and lazy yawning hippos. And our houses shrink back and curl their toes up as the water laps at their feet. Nothing unusual there.

In 2006 though, it rained. And kept on raining.

And the river rose

And kept on rising

And people started to mutter

And the water rose higher

And the muttering grew louder

And still the water rose.

“It’ll be like the floods of 1978” they said

And Robin, who was there in 1978 (so was I but I was only 2) saw what this water could do. And every year he would move his fleet of land cruisers up and away from the hungry river and out to the airport. And every year we would all laugh at him. But this year…

He was right.

Weekends are for playing

2010-03-01T09:33:00.005+03:00

It was an (almost) Full Moon Party complete with bonfire, a pot of stew big enough to satiate Obelix and a beautiful little stone house that smells of leather and woodsmoke. The brave little house, all lonely and windswept, hangs for dear life onto the sweeping howling plains and looks up at Kilimanjaro in awe.

And there are friends. Old and new and not yet met. And jamming. Guitars, drums and the most beautiful violin you ever did hear.

And.

Just before midnight.

A dancing horse.

The clouds are scudding across the sky, rolling off Kilimanjaro and getting sucked across to Mt. Meru, where lightening and thunder are announcing their own full moon party. And the moon is round and aloof, staring down disinterestedly. Well she pretends to be disinterested, but I know better.

The hill children, who have up until now been fighting sleep with light sabers suddenly wake up and rush off to the stables. (Like elephants before a tsunami. How do they know?) Snippets of excited babble. "I saw Carlos".... "In a black suit" .... "looks just like Zorro" .... "no silly, without the mask" And they scamper back and report to the grown ups that It's Time.

As we troop off past the stables, I see Orion do a double take as he looks down and sees a trio of musicians standing in the centre of a riding ring in the middle of the scrubby African plains. And under the guardianship of the two ancient mountains a dark powerful horse is galloping and frothing and, yes, dancing under the soft and skillful hands of our fabulous host Carlos.

The drive back the next day is stark. The sun is shouting, drumming up the clouds. On our left Kilimanjaro, on our right Meru, the dusty road snaking between them.

"Very Fung Shui" says the man, drily.

And we Make Plans. To explore more. To get a tent. To embrace this country we live in.

And all the while our daughter sleeps on.

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Picture Window

So very clear today

False promises

2010-02-25T10:53:00.006+03:00

"l'll write every day!" she said

And then she got all these punctures

And then she got distracted by Facebook. And uploading all these pictures onto their new Seka page

And then she went to help teach a drama class at the school down the road. And loved it.

And then she tried to help her sister with some budgets and how to get said Seka down to the Out the Box festival in Cape Town

And then she tried to take some pictures of the lightening. But didn't really manage

And then she couldn't drag herself away from her oh-so-cute baby

And then she even went to the gym and to yoga. Baby in tow.

And then she got all excited from all the lurkers on her blog making themselves known.

And then she took a picture of her picture window

And then she said "WOA, have those acacias in front of the window GROWN?"

Bullet points of my life

2010-02-22T13:35:00.005+03:00

sunset from our verandah

Every couple of months Janelle and I decide we're going to give up blogging. And then we hint and beg for comments and we tell each other that we can't give up, that we must carry on and then that spurs us on again. So on Thursday we had one of those conversations. To blog or not to blog. Does anyone really give a shit about our sad little lives up here on this hill? Is that we why even do it? For the comments (hell yeah!) Bla bla bla. I'm sure we all go through this. And I have decided that I really should try and write every day. Even if its drivel. Because really even if I write twice a month its the same bloody quality of writing (read drivel) so why not just jam up the waves with it. It's good practise. Or is that practice? So I shall try. But today the baby gal thought that 4 o'clock in the morning was a good time to wake up and start singing cheerily, so poetry I cannot give you. Bullet points I can

- I have decided to try and take my book seriously and do some hole filling and patching and editing. See what happens

- There is rain here right now, pattering on the roof and it is divine

- My mother and her man are coming to stay next week. So will need to hide the kettle. She has an exhibition here towards the end of March so will be here for the month or more. Excited.

- Made a cake the other day. This is an unusual Miranda activity. I've been slowly working my way through the whole thing so took it over to the neighbours (the very same Janelle) and palmed it off on them.

- Just saw a dog and a cockrel, their faces a foot apart staring at each other. The dog sitting straight and barking loudly, the cockrel just staring

- Speaking of livestock, I spend an inordinate amount of time chasing the neighbour's cows out of my herb patch. Like, six times a day. Starting to drive me nuts! (I just reread that and I'd written chasing the neighbours out of my herb patch. haahaha. No not that)

Okay. Could go on. Shan't.

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Picture window
The valley below, all washed clean

The thundery blues and clear skies

2010-02-19T12:35:00.008+03:00

I wish I’d taken my camera out with me yesterday. I suppose it’s a good thing coz it means I’ll have to tell you instead of being lazy and uploading a pic (although with the connection we have uploading pictures is no easy feat!). The three pictures I would like to have shared with you:

Picture 1: The mountain, all clad in torn bits of cloud, like lace, looking oh so shy-yet-sexy. A clear sky, save for these clouds, hugging the shape of Ms. Meru.

Picture 2: The road. The river. The river-road. Driving through the horizontal rain to visit my friend C. The road is a torrent of brown hurrying-rushing water, hurtling down the hill. I know there are lots of deep gashes in the road that you mustn’t drive into but have to try and remember where they are since the road is basically a river. It is fierce and most impressive

Picture 3: The egrets. I’ll still get this picture since they’re there every evening. There is one tree at the bottom of the road - not a very big one - that is iced with egrets. Every morning and evening they are there, hundreds of them. I have no idea how they all fit on, and why they don’t just spread out a bit into other trees. But last night they looked so very white against the thundery blue-black sky. Oh so melodramatic.

So night before last I had one of those mini meltdowns. You know the kind. Where you’ve survived seven and a half months on much less sleep than you’d prefer and for most of the day you’re in the company of a little critter who you lovelovelove more than anything, but whose conversational skills are not yet up to scratch but still wants to chat with you all. Day. Long. And you have to try and interpret the shnoffles and coos. Hungry? Tired? Bored? And all you seem to be doing is whizzing food up in a blender or whipping your boob out and Doing the Shopping which is not as easy as it used to be now that you have a squirmy thing attached to you limpet-like that you can’t just put down in a corner while you lug those heavy shopping bags to the car. And suddenly it dawns on you. Oh my god, I’m a housewife.* I’m not cut out for this. I used to, in my tiny way, make a Difference in people’s lives. What happened to the theatre? What happened to the heated debates in the villages? Giving a voice to those who struggle to make themselves heard? What am I doing, spending my days frazzled, exhausted and forgetful freezing baby food?

And yes, I know that I am soverylucky to be able to stay home with our fresh-mealie-scented daughter. That I don’t have to work. That this is the blessed most wonderful thing in the world. But vok it can be hard work!

And so I spent the morning with J, one of my oldest and bestest friends, and the afternoon with C, one of my newest loveliest friends.

And I made some resolutions. Ones that I didn’t make for the new year coz I don’t do that.

I will get Seka up here to perform. It will cost about $6,000 and I will raise that money and get them here. Kick start my brain and creativity. Hopefully it will be the start of something new and fabulous.

I will make a plan to just have an hour to myself a day I’m not sure how yet. Maybe I will have to employ someone to help with this. Let go, Miranda, let go! Then I will be able to go to yoga. To swim. To ride my motorbike. Maybe to work a bit

I will hang out more with my friends. Get out the house. Go Do Stuff.

And of course, the oldest best cure of all. I will go clothes shopping. Mitumba here we come!

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Picture window and mirrors

* Some people use the term *housewife* like its such an insult. It should not be!

Lets talk about the weather

2010-02-15T10:45:00.005+03:00

You know how when you're in a really hot climate and you're packing for a wintery place you find it impossible to imagine what the weather will be like? And always slip some inappropriate item of clothing into the bag. Like a pair of shorts, just in case? And vice versa.

Or is that just me?

And so it is with my bloggy friends living in the snow. I just can't fathom it. I read their blogs all agog at how much bloody SNOW there is and how COLD it must be! I mean, look at this! And this!

Zanzibar last month was absolutely scorching. You know that slushy heat where every movement is bogged down with lethargy? Every breath seems to be an effort? No electricity on the island meant no fans at night, so you'd lie under your mozzie net listening to the roar of the tide as she came up over the reef, with your face against the gauze window gasping for a breeze. Anything.

And you'd wake up at dawn, sweaty in your bed and step down into the ocean. And the tide would amble out leaving little pools of warm water and and the glare of the sun would make you think you're in a different kind of snow.

And then the breeze would sigh and smile and indulgently tousle the tops of the palm trees who would rustle and giggle in glee. And everything would be alright again.

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Picture window

We don't have snow, we have this:

Yet another day in the life of

2010-02-01T15:06:00.006+03:00

Somehow Monday is Shopping Day. I'm not sure how things turned out this way, that I have a specific day for shopping. But there we have it. I guess it leaves me the rest of the week to do things of great social and political Import. Uh huh.

This morning the man left to a Secret Destination. A long long drive that will take him away into the night. He's going to recce a new site for a possible camp. I'm hopping jealous of course but will stay at home at make chicken broth and look after the baby. I like doing this too.

So grunted awake at hmfff-waa? o'clock just as the bloke was edging out the door. Kinda waved him off and went back to sleep. Woke up at a more respectable 7. All the general baby chores. Get her up, dressed and fed. This takes 6 times longer than you would expect. And then twice longer again.

Off to Shoprite (shopshite) to buy the usual. Nutella. Beer. Mustard. Pasta.

At the veggie market an old Maasai lady comes up to me and offers to sell me beaded trinkets. I smile, "no thanks"
"yes but look at this pretty basket"
Smile, "no thanks"
"What about these earrings?"
Smile, "no thanks"
"And this necklace?"
Smile, "no thanks"
"This chameleon?"
Smile, "no thanks"
The baby gal is fascinated. The woman is all set about with jingly janglies and and she can't stop staring.
"Can I hold your baby?"
"Sure"
She stands next to me and follows me around while I shop and when it comes time for me to take the baby, she's having nothing of it. The baby that is. "Nono, I like it here on the hip of this jingly-jangly lady. Please can I stay, please, mom, please?" So I buy the beaded chameleon and wrench my daughter away.

On my way home I slow down where the police often hide in the bushes with a speed gun. The limit is 50km an hour, which even for a slow-ass driver such as myself is a little much, this being the main drag outta town an all. Got caught here a couple of weeks ago by a pissed off aggressive cop who decided to take out his shitty day on us. He launched into a spitting, finger jabbing diatribe that instantly makes my arteries expand and my teeth hurt. That is to say it pisses. Me. Off. But I never rise to the bait. But this day even my usual uber polite gritted smiles didn't disarm him (it usually does. Seriously, I have a knack). So we asked 'What's the charge'
"Speeding" he spat
"Yes, but what's the charge?"
"Speeding"
"Yes but what's the - how MUCH?"

The past month I have been teaching. It was only a month's work though and its now come to an end. I find myself oddly at a loose end and I shall start planning and plotting on Getting Out There again. Make some plays, start a new drama troupe. Something. And then I think, "ooooh but I could stay at home a little longer and look after this gorgeous sweet daughter of ours". I will find the balance.

But for now I shall spend the afternoon making chicken stock (see I wasn't joking) and lots of little ice cubes of mushed up food for the gal. Who knew a 7 month old could eat so MUCH!

Oh and I shall also keep my new month's resolution and spend more time OFF the computer than on.

So.

Ciao.

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Picture Window
The mist rolling in of a bright sunny morning

Why I will never be rich part II

2010-01-30T09:11:00.003+03:00

My uncle is famous for getting the decimal point in the wrong place. Where most people just buy a lottery ticket and hope for the best, he is a little more pro-active and full of brilliant get rich schemes that are genius in their originality and are powered along by sheer enthusiasm. He sits down and does the sums and says, “This will make us a million!” Then he looks closer and says “Oh, no maybe that’s 100,000. “ And someone else will look at the sums and say, “no that will make you precisely 100 “
“Not 10,000?”
“No, 100”

He often goes ahead regardless, just to make sure.

These are the genes that I have inherited.

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Picture window

The meek shall inherit the moon

2010-01-29T11:12:00.004+03:00

A few years ago I shared a house with the lovely T. We lived together for two to three years and when she left she sold me all her furniture, kitchen appliances and so on. She said “I’ll give you everything for $1,500”

I sighed.

Scratched my head.

Frowned.

Took a breath and said

“Make it $2,000”

This is why I will never be rich.

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Picture window (in need of a clean!)

Still no title

2010-01-27T19:39:00.009+03:00

Let the record state that I love my daughter more than anything,

Anything.

(You can hear a but coming can't you?)

A combination of a cold, PMT and work-from-home-with a fevery teethy baby have left me feeling like some crafty bugger has pulled the bones out of my body, carefully minced them up and then poured them back.

Yes, yes I know. "It will get better" I hear you all chorus, but I want to moan and feel sorry for myself. Just for a minute, okay?

Thanks.

Feel better already.

Just went for a ride on my motorbike and screamed and swore as loud as I could at the bus that tried to run me off the road. Then hit the 20 speed humps on the hill up to our house as fast and hard as I could in the failing light, standing up, with my whoops and shouts reverberating in my yellow and black helmet.

Much better.

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Picture window

Close up of one of the craters as seen in certain light from the picture window

Not even a title springs to mind

2010-01-21T18:18:00.003+03:00

It seems the shimmering sands of Zanzibar have sucked all the words out of me.

So I guess I shall have to try again later.

Be patient with me?

When I said driving through trees, I meant it

2010-01-13T19:04:00.003+03:00

Driving through a tree where the fairies live

We have more in-laws staying at the moment, this time of the sister variety. And we're off to Zanzibar tomorrow, ho hum. So more when we get back. Expect lots of gloating, Even though Zanzibar doesn't have any electricity and they only expect it to return in March!

No matter we'll be on the BEACH where it doesn't matter! Nanananana.

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The picture window

This is where the fairies live

2010-01-11T10:19:00.005+03:00

I kept expecting to see them flitting through the moss hugged trees. Maybe they were and I just wasn't quick enough. They're cunning little buggers, those fairies. My sister says that I should have taken along green lollipops, that they like those. Damn. At least I'll know for next time.

The pictures don't do it justice but the higher we climbed the louder the trees whispered and the swirling fog tugged at our coats and licked the back of our necks.

And all the while those pointy eared ones peered out from behind the wet rocks and with shiny eyes and ducked back again as we passed. They danced over water and said "nanananana" when we weren't looking.

And we drove through trees that hummed and vibrated and saw flowers so small that we nearly trod on them.

And when we reached the highest point we could go, the sky opened up and butterflies danced by on light wings.

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Picture Window
And I woke up this morning to this. There's a magic in the air, no?

In and Out

2010-01-04T09:23:00.001+03:00

The Christmas feast

2009-12-29T08:29:00.004+03:00

I wish I had taken a picture of the food we prepared on Christmas day. Delicious vegetable skewers, succulent pork ribs and rare juicy steaks all chargrilled on the barbeque. Bacon and black olive polenta cakes, nshima* with a fragrant tomato relish. Followed up by the best banoffee pie known to mankind.

That was the plan anyway.

"We'll eat at 4" we say.

So the husband has charge of the braai. The barbeque. The meat and veg is cooked to perfection. I am in charge of the polenta cakes and the nshima. And the pudding. I am halfway through the polenta cakes when the baby starts to cry. Real proper oh-my-god-I've just witnessed-that-fat-boy-from-next-door-eat-my-hamster kind of crying. The grandparents try to console her but she's having nothing of it. So I go to her and leave a glutinous, lumpy pot of Matter on the stove. The husband tries to deal with it. "What must I do?" looking all distressed.
"Just, add the onions and the bacon that I cooked earlier and a bit more stock if you need to and then put it in the oven" I say
He looks at me like I've just asked him to diffuse a nuclear reactor. Or fly a plane solo with no prior experience.
He comes back a minute later. "It's all lumpy"
"Okay, I'll come and deal with it just now"
All of this shouted at top decibels over the baby's screaming.

Finally the baby settles and I come out of the bedroom to see a perplexed looking mother-in-law and husband standing over the pot of said Matter. It is indeed lumpy and shiny and glutinous and looks ab.so.lutely disgusting. No matter, I put it in the pan and whop it in the oven nonetheless.

Now to the nshima. Halfway through making it I'm thinking, "This isn't right. It shouldn't be so wobbly, so lumpy. It should be grainier than this" Now where I come from unga is mealie meal. Maize meal. Here, unga is flour, it is mealie meal, it is basically anything powdered. So the unga I was using was not mealie meal. It was flour. I had, on the stove a gloopy wrist deep pot of white sauce except without the milk and butter. And with A LOT more flour. It looked like a huge albino wad of wood glue, left out in the sun.

And in the stove I had... well... words can't really describe it. It smelled good. But who knew flour could get so shiny? We decided the best course of action was for husband had to take over the fragrant tomato relish action ("Will this tin of tomato and onion mix do?" "Hell yeah!") while I tried to salvage the nshima issue. Found the real proper mealie meal, made a burnt bottomed passable pot of nshima. The polenta cakes? Well, I didn't bother trying to salvage those. I scraped off the cooked top bits and the bottom bits, which were alarmingly jelly-like, and put them in a pretty dish on the table. I tasted a little. The dogs enjoyed the rest. With coaxing.

And the braai? Had you forgotten about the braai? Coz we had. You would be forgiven for thinking we were serving up pieces of tortoise shell and bits of tractor tyre cut up just so. The vegetable skewers were unrecognizable. Even by eating them you couldn't tell what was what.

The funniest thing though, is that no-one said a word. We all sat around in our paper hats and everyone was all "Hmmmm, this is good! Well done guys, great meal!" And I felt like standing up on the table and cackling manically and saying "REALLY? You reckon?" But we all so hungry (we'll eat at 4? Yeah, right!) that we gobbled it all down like it was the succulent meal we had originally intended.

Oh, the banoffee pie was good though. (HAha! Just caught a typo that said that banoffee pie was food though. Yes, well....)

Maybe next year we'll go out.

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*Nshima - a stiff mealie meal porridge thingy. Sounds disgusting but (usually) delicious! Called Nshima in Malawi and Zambia, Ugali in this part of the world, Sadza in Zimbabwe and South Africa

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The picture window last night

Storm a-comin

2009-12-27T18:05:00.005+03:00