Supermarket Driving Rules

A quick pop into Woolies Sandton on Saturday to pick up a sandwich and a bottle of water turned into 17 minutes of coronary-inducing tensioned despair.

Sure, it’s early November.  Only one more pay cheque before Christmas and the hordes are out in force, eyes wide and glistening, their tails wagging as they fall prey to the Machiavellian marketing ploys of savvy retailers.

With 7 ½ weeks still to go the store is Yule infused floor to ceiling from the door all the way to the food department at the rear, where the Christmas machine rises to dizzy heights.  Subtly placed in front of and surrounding the food hall entrance, racks and shelves sparkle with shapes and textures in hues of silver, red, green and gilt.  Yes, I carefully selected that word, playing on the shiny gold colour which retailers deem essential seasonal decor and mixing it with how we feel pre- and post Christmas.

This descriptive detail is just to set a mind picture for you, reader.  The poor goons who passed the portal into the food hall were psychologically switched onto silly season, and perhaps this blew the circuit breaker on their usual common sense and courtesy motherboards.

Why else would a rather large mother and daughter duo halt midway through the entrance and lean on their trolley to chat inanely about what they were going to do after they’d left the store?  Meanwhile, at least eight people and an assortment of baskets and trolleys were stalled, desperately seeking a small gap to pass through and begin the hell of busy Saturday grocery shopping.

It went downhill from there until I escaped clutching my items, perspiring, heart racing and ready to switch religious faiths to any one which doesn’t celebrate this insanity.  And this is weeks before I think about getting my Christmas act together – usually I’m a good way into seasonal shopping, wrapping and planning before I decide that the whole thing is for nutcases and completely over the top, seeking solace in wine, chocolate and a good dose of Ebenezer Scrooge, sensible man.

However, in my ongoing quest to provide answers alongside my whinges, I’ve devised a solution to the appalling pedestrian trolley antics witnessed on Saturday.  In fact, the solution is so simple it should become common usage in all supermarkets throughout the year.

1.       A small section of the car park is set aside for trolley driving tests.  Shoppers have to demonstrate that they can handle a trolley and earn a trolley license.  This is a one-off test (unless you lose your license due to bad driving at a later stage) and the credit card-like license is swiped to unlock a trolley as you enter the supermarket.  The cards can be used at any chain and any branch.

2.       Trolley /pedestrian traffic moves left to right, so as you enter with your trolley, you turn left and commence a slow, steady perambulation up and down each aisle, picking your items of the shelf as you pass.  A one way system comes into play here.

3.       Shoppers must have a hand on their trolley at all times.  If you need to leave the trolley and reach something, you neatly park it parallel to the left shelf, fetch your item then return swiftly and move on.

4.       Should you decide, due to aisle congestion, that you don’t need to enter an aisle with your trolley, you may park it in one of the designated parking bays at the end of the aisle.  Stay within the lines please.

5.       When you get to the till and realise as your last item is rung up that you have forgotten something or want to change an item, ignore the impulse to dash off back into the fray, telling the cashier that you’ll be back in a second.  You won’t, and the rest of us will be devising hideous torture and disfigurement for you.  No, you hang in there, sweetheart.  Pay for what you’ve got, park your trolley on the other side of the check out and run back into the supermarket to pick up the errant items.  You forgot it, don’t make it my problem and force me to glare at the stalled check out crew while you complete your shopping.

6.       Husbands and children – fabulous that you’ve got someone willing to tackle the grocery shop with you.  Now send him and the brats outside to window shop, spend a fortune at the arcade or read story books at Exclusive.  The supermarket aisle is no place for family meetings and discussions on products.  Be brave, have only one shopping decision maker.  Truly, it’ll save hours and others’ blood pressure.  As for that thing you do, parking the trolley at a 45° angle across the aisle, whilst you and hubby block whatever space is left and chat, leaving the kids to meander around in front of other shoppers – do you do that on the road?  No, didn’t think so. 

7.       In fact, following the rules of the road is pretty good advice for cruising the supermarket aisles as well.  Keep left, indicate when turning or stopping, park your vehicle(and your body)out of the way of other traffic, and be courteous at all times. Simple.

Happy Christmas shopping to one and all.

Globally Warmed in Tete

Blimey, it's blistering hot today.  Well, to be honest, we've sweltered and schweated since Thursday but today I went to the trusty Norwegian weather site to check the temp - 42 deg C.  Dropping to a low of 40 by 23h00 later. Oh joy. 

One really should listen to one's more experienced mates.  The shocked, sympathetic faces in August when I revealed my October return trip. "October?  You're coming in October?  That's the worst time to be here!" before advising that they were making plans to hightail it outta town this month. And they have - Mauritius, Harare, South Africa...anywhere but here.

Fortunately a heavy workload has kept me desk chained in an air conditioned office, and I'm wondering if, having come so far, I can conduct telephonic interviews instead of travelling 10 kilometres into town.  That involves walking 50 metres or so outside, travelling from cool office to refrigerated car and really, that's to be avoided at all costs. 

At times like this I think of my schoolmate Sandy, living in Doha.  She often posts the temperatures she staggers under, and let me tell you, she wins hands down.  But when you choose to live in the desert, you get what's coming.  Everybody knows that deserts are hot, and at least she has wonderful restaurants and a choice of souks to trawl through.  So sorry, Sandy, no sympathy for you today.

The heat here is dry, you can feel your skin shrivelling and shrinking as soon as sunlight strikes it.  Yesterday my eyeballs, behind sunglasses, burned.  Not that scratchy irritation feeling, they burned as in the air was so hot, it punished the vulnerable bits it found.

There's that involuntary gasp from everyone as they enter or exit a building - relief on the in and shock on the out. On Thursday, my neck and shoulders were sunburnt from 4 or 5 trips between unit and office during the day - a distance of about 100 metres a trip.  What SPF factor can counter that few minutes exposure? Should I follow the elephants and have a riverbank wallow, donning a protective mud coat?

The curtains and blinds are now firmly closed during the day meaning that we live indoors and in the dark!  (Is this what they mean by darkest Africa?) because at 10h30 this morning the glass sliding door was hot. Not warm, hot. It faces south and gets no direct sunlight at all, yet it burned to the touch, and was allowing heat in. Don't be fooled, glass is a fabulous conductor of heat!

We persevered with a candlelight dinner outside last night, panting because even at 21h00, there was no relief from the heat - it felt as hot as it had at midday.  Good news is that the swimming pool is finished and filled, but believe it or not, the very last thing one wants to do is jump into it while the sun is shining - staying out of those piercing rays is our daily goal. So a roof over the pool is  planned -  bizarre!

I can quite understand those cave towns in Australia but that wouldn't work here.  We drove off road on Sunday, bundu bashing in search of a waterfall (which eluded us) but did stumble across some local mining activity and were totally enthralled by the seams of coal glistening just a shovel depth below surface. The banks above the road, excavated by the diggers, were layered like a Black Forest gateau cake; dark soil above coal above soil and so on down many metres.  If we created an underground home here, we'd be practising for the shovelling we're bound to be doing in the hereafter, getting hotter the deeper we plunged.

The very thought of planet temperatures raising 2 degrees makes me whimper. Please Sir, instead of global warming in Tete, may I request an ice-age instead? At least then the days of tepid gin & tonics will be over.  I'm rather tired of the ice melting faster than the drink slides down my throat.

Roadtripping Essentials in Mozambique

A weekend at an eco lodge in Caia, Mozambique exploring uncharted territory was irresistible to friend Gigi, husband Alan and me.  Experience taught us to pack extra fuel, water, padkos and pillows for soon-to-be-aching backs… and Gigi’s Garmin, a toy we hadn’t yet played with.

I’m sure our travelling routine is familiar to other couples.   The Y chromosome climbs behind the wheel, double X is in charge of refreshments and music.   The devil, in this instance, lies not in the detail but in the navigation.

In the first third of the journey, double X is asked for directions, which, super organised, she has on hand.  Mid-third, tension arises and smiley happy journey vibes change to vicious death stares, searing accusations and a stony silence as Y snatches the directions from double X.  We finally arrive.

Commencing the journey home, I announced that I’d refrain from proffering directions unless the driver asked.  To pass the hours I morphed into a Generation X-er, exploring the Garmin.  

The arrival time changed abruptly from 19h01 to 22h57.  Unease set in.  Switching on and off, resetting and shaking all produced the same answer.  Plan B - the navigation tool on Y’s smart phone?   No signal in the middle-of-nowhere.   Gigi’s advice “switch the satnav off, it doesn’t know these Mozambique roads” was heeded.

Eventually we entered an attractive little town.  Barbecue fires filled the air with a smoky tang, dogs sprawled in the road and music blasted from every house.  Suddenly, a ‘phwoar’ noise whooshed through the cab.  “Blow out?” Gigi asked.   Indeed.  The right front tyre was neatly sliced and we were officially halted.

Gigi and I were dispatched to hunt down an icy 2M beer for the wheel changer.  Late afternoon light bathing the charming community, we paused to watch the Sunday afternoon soccer match, taken aback by children sidling up to us, snapping photographs on their phones and rushing away, giggling.  Obviously, we were a novelty here.  Something wasn’t gelling, though.  Every commercial building was named Chemba something or other and we surmised (correctly) that was the town’s name– one not on our route.  

It was the sight of the majestic Zambezi, molten bronze under the fast setting sun that finally clanged the penny into our empty brainboxes.  This was definitely new territory – we were lost.

Rushing back to the car, finding first our glasses then the map, it was confirmed.  Hopelessly off track, we’d navigated almost a full circle and after five hours travelling we were closer to Caia than to Tete.

But here’s where the wonder of African travel kicked in.  English was not the lingua franca and our pidgin Portuguese wasn’t getting us anywhere.  An enthusiastic crowd of ‘helpers’ recruited the school teacher to translate and within an hour the flat spare tyre was taken (with Alan) on the back of a bicycle to the repair shop and returned.  With the wheel changed, we drove to the repair shop where the proprietor spent several hours finding and fitting a tyre to replace the slashed one. 

Meanwhile, we inspected the choice of two accommodation establishments and plumped for the one offering an en suite with the double room, agreeing to share the bathroom with Gigi.

After ordering food and wine from the bar across the road, we realised that the ‘en suite’ was a toilet with no cistern, alongside a bucket of water to be used for washing and to pour into the toilet bowl.  Emptying our cases of towels and sarongs, we laid them on top of the sheets and retired to the ledge in front of our rooms, perching on newspaper and dousing ourselves with mosquito repellent. 

Congratulating ourselves on remaining calm and our good fortune in being stranded in such relative comfort, another penny clattered into our boxes – the Reubenesque lady staying in the room next door was receiving a number of gentlemen visitors for short periods of time. 

Before the food - grilled chicken, rice and salad – was served, two waiters arrived with a jug and bowl and juggling soap and towel, they poured warm water over our grubby hands.  The simple dignity and courtesy of the act blew our minds.

Long before daylight we were on our way, desperate for coffee and a shower.  But the fabled African road trip hadn’t finished with us yet.  Within the hour, a pop and a hiss brought us to another halt.  Wearily, we checked the tyres – all good.  Finally, the cause was discovered – a blown turbo charger hose.  Much searching of luggage produced some cord and roadside repairs were made.

It was many hours later before we limped into Tete, thoroughly fed up but at the same time marvelling at how, in Africa, kindness, hospitality and solutions are found in the most unlikely of places.

Living the Vida Louca in Tete

The crazy life – or vida louca in Portuguese, pretty much sums up how we live in this town of opportunity, north (or south, or east) of the borders of where we call home. 

Tell people you are heading off to live in Tete and they’ll gasp in horror, saying you’re crazy.  An interesting observation from people who usually haven’t visited themselves, but perhaps they aren’t too far off the mark – there is plenty here to make you crazy, if you weren’t already so when you arrived. 

Collar a veteran ex-pat, and they’ll regale you with toe-curling stories of no shops, no roads, no restaurants, no supplies, no electricity, no potable water, no English…and then tell you how easy ‘you new un’s’ have it.  Still, here’s the list of crazy-making daily challenges we face.

Dust.  Wafting and curling its way through window cracks and under doors.  Softly layered onto every horizontal surface, clinging to your hair, creeping between your keyboard keys, hazing the screen, sucked up by the fan and forcing your computer to run slower and slower until eventually it spits and splutters out of life.

Reverse hazard beepers – a safety measure the mines insist on: their continual screeching drills inside your brain, making your teeth ache.  Why, oh why, can’t someone invent an on/off switch for them, so that they can be switched off when they leave the mine and use the vehicles in the suburbs and town?  As an early morning wake up call, the neighbour’s rooster can be dealt with (piri piri chicken) but land mining his driveway would be frowned upon.

The leisurely processing at retail pay points, and, if you are unlucky enough to require a factore, waiting for the painstakingly handwritten itemized listing of the entire contents of your grocery trolley.  After you’ve already received a till slip and paid for them.  Sigh.

Ordering food immediately when walking into a restaurant, and arriving well before we plan to eat.  I don’t know what I’ll want to eat in an hour’s time, but I do know that stirring hunger pangs are not the time to call for a menu.

Road traffic and obstacles of all kinds – cars, trucks, bicycles, motorbikes, pedestrians, taxi’s, goats and cows, tractors, potholes, subsided road shoulders - hazards fly at you from 360° and dare I mention the officials stalking the byways...

Just a few of the things testing us as we live the vida louca in Tete.  

WHAT LIES BENEATH

For all the turbulence surrounding the coal mines, international companies, local politics and mining in general here in Tete, until now there has been very little sign of the actual resource that’s caused all the trouble.

Imposing company signage for "Tayanna" overwhelming the smaller sign for "Minas Moatise" stood adjacent to a few small piles of black dust surrounded by some machinery, neatly placed next to the main road between Tete and Moatize.  We passed it several times before I thought to ask that was all about, and was told that I was gazing at a coal mine – I’d thought they were a road construction camp!  So much for visions of headgear and an impressive mine infrastructure.

There are many stories of people struggling to establish gardens, as the coal lies less than a spade depth below the surface.  Its proximity causes tremendous surface heat, killing plants even if you can dig down deep enough to plant them.  This resource, which has global industry sitting up and panting, literally just lies in the streets.  As for large mining houses and set ups of the sort we’re used to on the Witwatersrand, not a bit of it.   Just some signage announcing the mining companies, with a few branded cars and bakkies parked next to small office buildings, very little else to show.

But things are changing.  On the surface, Tete is slowing down.  People are packing up and moving on and there’s a glut of rental houses on the market at prices much lower than they were. The community notice board is filled with posts advertising cars and household contents for sale.

At the same time, the range of general items we take for granted in less out-posted places has exploded and (ignore the cost – rule one of international travel, DO NOT CONVERT TO ZAR!)  – Provita, beauty and hair salons, bath towels and stationery are quite easily come across now.  Don’t shriek with laughter at how excited I was to find sponge scourers for washing up - persuading Elita to keep it intact and not remove the scourer side attached to the sponge is another matter.  Decent coffee, tea light candles, clothes pegs…the list goes on.

 Since my last visit two lovely new restaurants have opened up; we now enjoy superb Indian cuisine from the little place across the bridge in Tete town and the sundowners on the deck at Agua do Coco in Moatize are fabulous.  Pizza from Chingale beats any we’ve eaten in White River hands down.  The wizened Italian proprietor, who doesn’t speak a word of English but always visits our table to ‘chat’ and nod, leaves us a little uneasy – we’ve seen too many godfather / mafia movies, I think, but there is definitely a whiff of the Italian underworld about him.  So life here is getting easier especially as we are still in the cool season and the temperature remains in the low 30 degrees C.

But comfort living and consumer goods are not the only changes in town – the mountain of coal heaped at  Minas Moatize now is staggering.  Huge boulders of the black rock gleam out of the pile which is taller than a double storey house.  The number of processing conveyers has multiplied and the activity level bustles positively.  And this is a minnow compared to the mammoth global mining conglomerates up the road.

Earlier this week I was transfixed by the sight of a passing train.  Freight car after car loaded with coal clattered past for many long minutes. The railway woes keeping the ‘bullion’ hostage in Moatize for the past year appear to be clearing and the business of mining and exporting coal is picking up.

I’m not sure why the sight of that train so stirred me.  Coal is, after all, the underlying reason for the frenetic development of the region and why we are all here.  Why should a noisy steel monster bearing piles of black energy cause any wonder?  After some pensive thought, I realize that the growing mountains of coal and the rattling railway cars herald change.  The town is moving forward, the time of pioneering derring-do has passed and everything is growing up –transforming into and establishing adult status. 

LIVING IN A TUPPERWARE BOX

Finally, we are almost moved into our Tete ‘home from home’.  Which happens to be a lidded plastic box, with a few windows, doors and airconditioning.  You’ve heard of Silicon Valley, we are in Tupperware Tete!

I’d best be circumspect, because if Him Outdoors gets to read this, I’m in trouble.  He’s gone to extraordinary lengths to secure a double unit, hunt down a sliding glass door, find a carpenter to fit a mini kitchen (all non-spec) and ensure we’ll have running hot water by tonight.  Bless him.

My job is to pack up our bits and pieces at the house in Matema and get them safely across to Moatize, which is a doddle as we don’t have much left to move, HO has transported quite a bit in the past week.  He also, in the process of hunting and gathering the above, tracked down and clasped to his chest not one but TWO of the largest TV’s I've ever seen, and has already safely locked them up on site!

One will fill the lounge end wall, and he seems to think the second one will fit into the bedroom, for use when I’m not there.  After all, much comfier snoozing in front of the box on the bed  than falling asleep on the couch, waking up, and having to walk 3 steps into the next room.

He’s a nutter – a screen of that magnitude requires a room the size of the average town hall, failing which our eyes will be blown backwards out of their sockets.  That ‘essential’ will find a home elsewhere in the Kwikspace complex – it’s too big for the gym or communal dining room so either he builds an outdoor lapa pub next to the swimming pool, or we set up a cinema in town.

Anyhow, enough of the boy toys, back to the plastic box.  Our new home closely resembles a shipping container, made of plastic panels. It’s quite compact and neat - a wipe down with a damp cloth will clean interior and exterior walls, floors and ceilings. The shower is a plastic nook, but a decent size, taking up at least half of the bathroom.

As you can imagine, this is a huge adjustment.  We've always lived in brick and mortar houses, differing only in size and roof types (tin, slate, thatch.  3 or 5 bedrooms, 1 or 2 lounges, single or double story.) But we've also always lived in established towns or cities with a growing family.  Now we are pioneers in a mining town and the boys have grown and flown.  Darby & Joan enter a new era.

On an intellectual level, I get this, I really do.  It has everything we need and is plenty big enough for our rather simple lifestyle.  A large outdoor living area is planned, thus the box is purely for sleeping, showering and privacy.  Anything bigger would be a complete waste of space.  We can lock up and go; the unit seals like a dream, therefore it will be very energy efficient at keeping dust out and chilled air in.  Arguably its construction footprint is better than a plastered, painted, brick and mortar house would be, especially in this neck of the woods.  What more could we want?

Meanwhile, I’ll get cracking on planting a vegetable patch and establishing the garden.  Perhaps that’ll pacify the tiny inner voice questioning the weirdness of calling this soul-less plastic box ‘home’.

Felines and Meat Free Mondays

Watching the cats turn their noses up at their breakfast this morning started an esoteric train of thought.

First reaction, of course, was the usual hurt a mother feels when her family rejects her love offering of food.  For goodness sake, it's a perfectly acceptable high end range of dry cat food and they are both very healthy as a result.  Yes, I've realised that they don't like the Gourmet Feast flavour and aren't mad about Ocean Fish either, leaving them with Chicken, Hearty Beef and Deep Sea Delights, carefully rotated so that they don't eat the same flavour day in and day out.

But Egg's pointedly averted face, as she sat upright and indignant 3 metres away from the bowl, refusing to tuck in, was an insult and she got a dressing down for it as well.  "You may well be tired of Chicken, but they don't do a Sparrow flavour yet!" I cried in exasperation.  

Hold on, now there's a thought.  Neither of the cats will touch any fresh fish, chicken or meat tidbits occasionally shared with them, although the water poured off a tin of tuna goes down well.  So why assume that they like chicken, beef or fish flavoured biscuits?  It's perfectly obvious that Egg, the hunter, would like a wildbird flavour - Bronze Mannikin, Crested Barbet, Laughing Dove, Bulbul...as for Speckle, if she were human she'd be a hippy, wearing flowers in her hair, long floaty skirts and sandals, skipping through the meadows stopping to greet the sun and stroke a rabbit or two.  Vegetarian, that's her.

The marketing guru's at Hill's and Purina need to get on this right away. Vegetarian cat food, Catnip flavour.  If her reaction to that is anything like the insane way she attacks the infused scratching post, she'd adore Meat Free Mondays, a la catnip.  My father, very definitely a non-cat person, watching her frenzied antics one day expressed his disapproval of the feeding of what he termed 'drugs' to her.

It may be in bad taste to have a colourful photo of a beautiful Golden Tailed Woodpecker on a pack of cat food (and who would eat one to define the taste?) but since the customer is always right, and the cat is after all the end user, why not offer them a taste they'd prefer?  Perhaps bunny huggers would be less sensitive about Rat or Hadeda flavours?  (Still got that taste testing issue though)

Why stop at cats?  Dogs deserve a preferred seasoning as well.  And they stoop to the lowest possible level, sniffing and gulping down truly disgusting items (I won't send you off to the bathroom retching and heaving with a description, but you've all seen the sort of things that dogs stick their snout into and slurp up with relish).  Now that taste development job comes with an enormous pay package and benefits!

WHEN HEAVY METAL MEETS HYENA

So when my firstborn got the most fabulous job, flying charter planes in and out of luxury Lowveld lodges, we chuckled.

This was the son who spent several formative teen years wearing black, etched a tattoo of the Grim Reaper on his arm, installed a lip stud, listened (if that is the word used to describe an auditory assault, screeched through ear buds) to Heavy Metal and declared himself a Satanist.

His gap year was spent working in a music store, waist length hair tied back (he did NOT appreciate his father’s comment that he looked just like his mother!) cuddling toilets in dodgy nightclubs all over the East Rand and boasting about the day he would be a Captain on British Airways or SAA, ponytail protruding beneath his Pilot’s peaked cap, a trail of “hosties” and assorted female passengers following him like love struck ducklings…

This was not the son to call upon when Parktown Prawns appeared in the lounge, enormous rain spiders clung to the curtains or the Guinea Pig fell ill and had to be put down.  Animals, reptiles, birds, wildlife in any form evoked not a trace of interest from him.  For that, we had The Catcher  - junior son, who made it his purpose in life to rescue any and all forms of non-human life, whether assistance was required or not.  Fortunately, killing with kindness and love is not yet a crime on the statute books, so the long list of unfortunates who met a rather unexpected and early demise, usually while minding their own business, cannot legally be held against him.

Back to son senior, who spent much of those formative years arguing with me about switching lights and appliances off, especially during the bad old blackout days in Jozi 2008.  Of course, as know-it-all teenagers are wont to be, he was right – the few kilowatts of energy we were saving by turning off the geysers and pool pump weren’t making Eskom jump for joy.  But equally, he refused to acknowledge the principal of using less, let alone recycling and the other eco friendly habits I tried hard to batter into them.

So his first ‘proper’ flying job is totally wasted on him!  Living in, and flying around, the luxury lodges in the Sabi Sands and adjoining reserves for someone who pointedly slept in the car on oh so many Pilanesberg Game Reserve trips?  He is not worthy, especially when these five star lodges include the pilot in guest game drives and I get numerous photo’s messaged to me – leopards on the ground with a kill, wild dog, jumbo in the garden, vine snake on the fence…

Oh, how he loves to regale us with stories of the Honey Badger running past him (twice – second time for the camera!) while he sat peacefully on the crew quarters veranda.   And the time a lioness strolled onto the runway as he was pulling the plane out of the hangar.  But on Thursday, he topped it all with a scary adventure and now I can understand why he has settled into bush life so well – banging heads in a mosh pit has nothing on this morning’s escapade!  He is extreme living, adrenaline flowing like a frisky volcano.

First a snap of a hyena is What’s App’d (is that a real phrase?)  - with the plane’s wingtip clearly visible as the beast rounds a wooden fence.

Skulking onto the tarmac.... 

A jovial exchange of banter between us begins, until senior son, realizing that his mother is not suitably awestruck by his narrow escape, follows up with a slamdunk photo of the plane, cable ripped out.

Crikey, who knew a hyena would fancy a bit of cable for brunch...

Oh.  He wasn't joking.  The hyena DID eat the plane.  After passing within 2m of Keith and placing itself between him and the car.  A staring contest ensued (oh, how well we remember those evil death stares from the teenage decade) which the hyena eventually lost.  I told you the boy has the stare from hell.

Fortunately, intent on his daily iron supplement, the hyena ignored my beloved child long enough for him to make a rapid dash to the vehicle and grab his phone to snap some pictures. 

Otherwise, this story would still be in pieces, like my son.  (as as soon as I can get the photo's off my phone and onto my computer, they'll be loaded, I promise)

A Jungle Fairytale

“Freaaack” resounded through the jungle, bouncing off rocks and boulders, whistling past sensitive eardrums, causing ears to prick and twitch.

Job done, Harry the Hadeda Ibis laboriously launched his heavy body from the top of the pine tree and flapped his wings lugubriously, aiming for a pocket of trees some distance away.  The great news had to be shared throughout the forest as soon as possible, and he was just the bird for the job.  His raucous, jarring call, sounding like a very rude exclamation, was sure to get the attention of all. 

Today, the Thai Prime Minister had agreed to introduce a ban on ivory trading.  International pressure had built up to a powerful head of steam - the final straw was when a collective of actors and film stars threw their make up into the ring, refusing to make any more movies until the creepy little corner pharmacies closed down.

Not, the minister thought, that she was too worried about a shortage of Merchant and Ivory films in her local DVD store, but when Jean Claude van Damme, the ‘muscles from Brussels’ locked the door to his private gym, and announced that he was going to stop training and set his car on autopilot, continuously revolving slowly around the infamous golden arches of the drive thru burger joint, eating to bursting point, she knew that the time for action had come.

The idea of his taut and oiled torso stretched over a belly bulging with fat and the emergence of moobs on what was, in her eyes, perfection, brought her to tears and action faster than the thousands of smelly greenies camped on her lawn. Chanting bunny huggers she could ignore, but Claude...

Meanwhile, the jungle drums boomed the happy news, finally reaching the somewhat oversized ears of Nelly, matriarch of the hidden herd.  The very last elephants in Africa had fled into hiding some time ago, fearing for their tusks and their lives.  Of course, as time went on, the absence of the herds was noted in the jungle – trees sprang up and grew unchecked, and the sun loving grass under the canopy shrivelled and died for lack of light. 

Marula’s dropped from the trees and lay on the ground, rotting.  The glut of fermented fruit turned entire troops of baboons, gorillas and chimps into alcoholics, and let me tell you, the sight of a hung over Silverback, wearing the babelaas from hell, is not a pretty one.  Baby apes were neglected, ungroomed and hungry, as their parents lolled about on the branches in drunken stupors, or worse, made complete idiots of themselves trying to dance on the treetops, or brawling in the clearings.

Dung Beetles, bereft of the nutritious meals left for them by Nelly and her cohorts, resorted to munching monkey pellets.  Unfortunately, the poor Dung Beetle actually needed the special nelle-phant mix;  ape pooh, rich in the fermented fructose processed from the glut of marulas, upset the little beetle’s sensitive digestion, and was, in fact, totally useless for laying her eggs in – without the binding benefits of grass, the sloppy remains just didn’t do the job, and the eggs rotted away. 

Worse than overgrown trees, no grass, drunken monkeys and mountains of sewerage left lying about, with no beetles to roll it away, was the water situation.  The sweet little Suni antelope really needed Nelly and her crew to gash away at the mud and sand, drawing the underground water to the surface.

Once the big ou’s had their fill, she was able to tiptoe down and delicately sip at the moisture left for her.  Now, she was so thirsty, her beautiful eyes were unable to produce any tears to roll gently down her petite cheeks.

Nelly stared thoughtfully across the treetops.  The long reaches of her memory banks dimly recalled the path home, to the luscious palm trees that she loved to push over and the crunchy long grass that always got stuck in her teeth.

Should she lead the family home after all this time?  What if the bush telegraph was slow to reach the greedy butchers who caused all the trouble?  Lovingly, she looked over at Keyring, the newest member of the herd.  Just two days old, still wobbly on his pink pads, her heart would break if anything happened to him...

Suddenly, her olfactory sensors recalled the sweet smell of marulas, and her gastric juices rumbled in her tummy.  “Pack your trunks, we’re going home,” she announced.  Proving that the  popular Facebook page, Mums who do Wine is right after all - an old girl will go anywhere for a tipple or two.

This piece contains many deliberate (and some not-so-deliberate!) mistakes, put in specially to challenge the younger reader.  And note that Roger the Rhino and his relatives chose to remain in the witness protection scheme – a ban on Rhino horn based medication is not on the cards yet.)

First published in Live Lightly Times Vol 3 Issue 2 April 2013)

Fawlty Towers...alive and well in Zombe!

The atmospheric and intriguing facade

Terribly tatty and absolutely adorable – these were my initial thoughts as we tumbled out of the double cab at Masongola Hotel in Zombe, Malawi.

“Built in 1886” the signboards proudly proclaimed, and I was hooked. 

Welcome to Hotel Masongola

Ignoring the mutters from my husband, Alan, about investigating the few other adjacent lodges before we committed ourselves, I insisted firmly that THIS was the place.  After all, it was built in 1886, how often did we have the chance to sleep in a 127 year-old establishment?  This was History with a capital H!

The warning signs were there, of course.  The overly delighted staff overjoyed at someone – anyone - arriving through the gates, eagerly up-selling us an executive double room with breakfast for $50.  

Accommodation secured, we requested a liquid reward, well earned after travelling the challenging road between Blantyre and Zombe.

Torrential ‘white out’ rain enroute made the Seychelles monsoons we’d experienced resemble an English Lake District drizzle, turning the monstrous dirt road into a squelching morass of mud which proved a challenge for our 4x4 bakkie more accustomed to the dry sandy potholes of Tete.

The duty manager proudly led us to Sir Harry’s bar – “named for Sir Harry, you know.”

Sir Harry's Bar

The bar, situated in one of the two imposing (ok, rickety and vintage) towers was disappointingly modern - 70’s melamine, fake oak veneered with a small television screen broadcasting a scratchy picture.

But it was the shelves behind the bar which stopped us mid entry.  Images of a Cold War Soviet hotel sprang to mind, but ‘nah’, I told myself.  ‘They store their stock elsewhere for security.’ 

Chirpily, we asked for a single G n T and a Carlsberg Gold beer.  “Sorry,” the answer came back.

No Carlsberg.  No gin.  No tonic.  But hey, we’re experienced travellers of Africa, our back-up plan – a glass of wine, perhaps?

Oh, joy, the barman nodded his head!   Then he pulled a shabby box from under the counter.  Feeling rather faint by now, and studiously ignoring the waggling eyebrows and rolling eyes from behind me, I confidently placed an order for two glasses.  With ice. Please.

Oh dear.  No ice.  Eish.

Still blinkered to Alan’s burning death stare, the next request was to view our room while clutching glasses of wine tasting remarkably like Gluhwein – due either to the temperature, or perhaps a spicy stickiness developed with age?

Striding along the corridor, impervious to the whimpering and pleading to “look at another lodge, please, before we unpack,” I felt sure that finally, our historical experience was about to flourish. 

Sadly, though clean and neat, Room 43 matched the bar for dreary Soviet 70’s decor.

Investigating the bathroom revealed one threadbare towel, no soap and a toilet roll tenaciously clinging to its last 4 squares of paper, while my dearest one bellowed from the bedroom that a courtesy tea service was all very well, but surely they could run to more than a kettle, a single cup and one teabag in an ‘executive’ double room?

But the giggles really began when we opened the cupboard hoping to stash our computers away.

It was difficult to find shelf room amid the empty plastic bottles, used bar of soap and an unopened triple pack of condoms!

We composed ourselves and requested another towel, cup and an extra teabag from reception on our way to dinner.

The impressive menu offered lots of options, and we decided to forgo starters and get stuck into substantial sounding mains.  But Fawlty Towers struck again about 20 minutes later, when the waitress returned to advise that spaghetti with Thai vegetables was unavailable.

Frenzied questioning revealed that no pasta was to be had, and actually, despite the many items on the menu, our choice was really between beef stew and chicken escallops.  Both meals were fresh and tasty though, and our good cheer returned.

Rather taken aback when the bill was brought abruptly to the table, Alan’s enquiry as to dessert was met with an emphatic “No!”  Pushed, the waitron admitted that she could possibly rustle up a banana.  No, not fried or prepared in any way, just a banana off the tree. 

Hotel Masongola gave us one of the best laughs we've had in a long while. 

On one hand - our expectation of a formerly magnificent and historic residence, and on the other, the realities of obtaining supplies in modern day Malawi.  Despite the shortcomings, however, the hotel offered a welcoming and friendly staff along with basic and clean accommodation set in magnificently maintained grounds.  The meals were simple, tasty and well cooked. 

The lesson learned?  History is usually better as inky scribbles on paper, fleshed out in glorious Technicolor in the mind.  Matching these imaginings with real life service is hard to do.

The somewhat disturbing contents of the wardrobe, in situ

HAPPY ENDINGS

When we were little girls, we loved fairy tales – they always had a happy ending.  And the baddies got their just desserts.  What a wonderful thrill that gave us!  We dressed up and re-enacted the stories, always wanting to be the Princess or the hero.  Younger siblings were bullied or bribed to take on the dastardly roles.

Is it any wonder then that as we enter womanhood, and go out into the world - armed with our vivid dreams of castles, knights, flowing gowns, magic kisses - our reptilian brain, guide to relationships, men and children,  whispers sibilantly deep inside us?  Reminding us of the romantic tales that once held us in thrall.  Of proud ladies, intelligent and brave, yet ready to instantly melt into the arms of a handsome knight willing to die for our favour.

What we didn't realise, as we soaked up and sighed over the stories, is that the books filed under F for Fiction, Fables, or Fairy tales contained thousands of words dreamed up in the authors fantasy world.  They may have been set long, long ago, but little fact, historical or otherwise, came between a writer and her tale.

Happy endings are not assured, and indeed, if we had every wish and dream granted, is that really going to give us the best ending?  We learn and grow more from struggle and strife, than nonchalantly accepting only good things. Real life, the one we’re in right now, dishes out plenty of blows and disappointments, shocks and surprises. 

Look back at your past.  With the healing of time and distance, which memories and experiences are the ones that stand out as milestones?

There are plenty of good ones, of course.  Happy holiday moments, births, weddings, graduations.  Something as simple as a Saturday night spent alone, learning how to set up your first music system, blowing the electricity as you put your fingers too deeply into a plug socket, then the incredible satisfaction as you lie on the rug, enjoying a glass of wine, listening to Billy Joel on your very own, self-installed hifi?  (Laugh all you like, I was SO empowered by that experience!)

What about the not so good ones, like a divorce?  Failing to earn your degree? Or a business partnership bitterly falling apart?  Retrenchment, losing money in an investment, heartbreak and disastrous love affairs?  Being the unpopular kid at school, object of derision and scorn? 

Perhaps your real life is closer to a manic funfair ride of always playing catch up.  You’re the lynchpin central to the nauseating rides whirling madly around you, stretched like an octopus in all directions, keeping the family, home and marriage together.  

How sad then, to discover that magazine editors insist on pieces with upbeat endings, that uplift and cheer.  Of course, inspiration and encouragement are essential, and they are part of the magic world we enter when we snuggle up to read our favourite mag.

But is this real life? More to the point, is this a life that you can recognise as being yours?  

Creating a Kitchen Garden out of Sand and Tobacco Dust

We are so lucky to live in Africa - the real Africa, far from the cosmopolitan cities of South Africa, in deepest, darkest, hot and dusty Tete, Northern Mozambique.

'Why?' you might ask. Simple - the limited availability of food.  Particularly fruit and vegetables (I'm less fussed about the narrow meat, fish and chicken options).

With energy sapping hot temperatures, averaging 36 deg C (so the official stats cite, but we easily measure in the early 40's, and it is not uncommon for the mines to shut down and pull the miners off shift when it reaches 50 deg C) and high rainfall in summer, to exceedingly dry winters (which I'm sure are worse.  The dust is indescribable - fine and all-encompassing, not dissimilar to living in a cement factory, I'd imagine) and a 'milder' 28 deg C average, crisp, fresh produce is hard to find.

I want a variety of VEGETABLES!
The local market, always entertaining and interesting (I'll take some pics and post them at another time) has many stalls, all selling the same produce - tiny, dark skinned potatoes, a few sweet potatoes are on display as well, some chunky orange carrots, lots of plum shaped tomatoes, small red onions,  larger brown onions, miniscular thin skinned green peppers, cabbages, okra and something which looks like kale, untried by us so far.  

So finding some mysterious looking squash / pumpkins for sale was a real treat.  Shaped like a hazelnut, smudgy green and yellow striped, about the size of a spanspek melon, it came home and was carefully dissected, steamed and eaten.  Good!

Of course, we could visit Caldo Verde, the vegetable warehouse down the road.  An industrial factory setting with an enormous walk in refrigerated area - complete bliss to linger in!  But shock horror when totting up the meticais damage - a basket of these designer (well, beetroot, pineapple, melon, pawpaw, baby carrots - all in their natural state, not cleaned, washed or sliced in anyway) items cost the equivalent of a slap up meal in a fancy restaurant.  With imported wine.  The high price of fresh produce imported from nearby Zimbabwe.  Delicious, but guilt over distance travelled to fork and cost sets in somewhere between stove and table!

To get back to why we consider ourselves lucky.  With no Woolies, my mini kitchen garden in White River or my favourite organic vegetable box from Fountains Farm, we are stuck with what we can find in the limited local market.  Which palls.  So, doing what desperate people have done for generations, and having no option but to start it ourselves from scratch, we are turning into self sufficient kitchen gardeners!

Silly things like bags or truckloads of manure, compost, potting or seedling soil don't exist here.  No Garden Pavilion, filled with tools, seedlings, saplings, herbs and arrays of fertilisers and soils exists in Tete. The earth here is pale yellow/grey sand, which sets rock hard in the cut up empty water bottles I recycled into pots for tomato seeds.  The seedlings didn't have a chance - the sand formed a concrete like crust on top.

A Compost Heap
Back to the drawing board, and starting at the bottom meant a compost heap.  Luckily, an optimistically built but empty brick flower bed was the perfect place to begin.

Our second stroke of luck is the off cuts from the MLT tobacco factory -  we can fill up a bakkie with the dried stems and assorted bits and pieces, which are apparently very nutritious for plant growth.  It's hard to believe that something which destroys lungs and lives actually fertilizes flowers and vegetables.  Better yet, they want us to take tons of it away, at no charge!

So with the dry, lifeless tobacco bits laid out on the bottom, and scouring around for more branches, the base of our heap is laid.  Now to persuade Sarita, with neither of us understanding a word the other says, that vegetable peelings, used coffee grounds and teabags, eggshells and the like, are to go into the bed and not into the general refuse hole.

Yes, that is a downer here - no municipal garbage collections, no recycling, just the good old hole in the ground and eventual burning.  Before you shoot me, I HAVE got about 500 empty plastic water bottles (no potable water here, and you really DON'T want to play with the piped water, promise!) that I just can't  throw away, but I am running out of alternative uses for them.  And without decent soil to fill the bottles, the plan to create a vertical garden using the bottles as herb planters won't get off the ground.  No matter how you look at it, the beginning of it all lies in compost.  Plain old muck.

We should now layer garden cuttings in the mix, but we don't have a garden to offer up cuttings!  First we need some good soil in which to plant grass runners we'll pull up from a friend's garden.  See, I told you this was hand to mouth. No garden centre here!  No instant lawn.  No garden, just sand and Baobabs with a few scratchy shrubs and things.

When the energy surge hits me, I head off into the bush and drag back dead bits for the heap, but a top up layer of fine tobacco dust is probably going to do far more to get it going.  

So, WHY are we so lucky?
Still not getting it?  The excitement and stimulation of making do, of "maaking 'n plan" is addictive!  Deciding that the veges sold in the local market are clear of any chemicals or modification, we are eating seasonal and organic.  And the seeds from pumpkins, tomatoes and melons are drying in the sun as I write.  They'll be packed away safely awaiting the first compost harvest.

It's very early days with the heap, and we're still not at first base with planting the vegetables in the recycled water bottles, but it's been a fun journey so far.

Now to research what fruit and vege's like a hot, dry climate with huge rain at times...