Laurie finding his feet...as a foal

I watch children here they are taken along by their mothers but generally ignored – swaddled to their body or they work helping to collect grass or firewood.  But they have many playmates and form mini tribes.  Laurie is greatly missing his friends and to some degree structure.  Since we set sail nearly 6 weeks ago most days he asks ‘When are we going back to Oxford?’  Now I think of if he is more attached to ‘nork’ his comfort blanket than usual.  And his thumb sucking looks so out of place in a country where ‘good water’ is very scarce and hands are something to be feared and only shaken tentatively if the occasions demands.

Wild, free living is something most unusual and indeed seems to go against modern parenting where circumstance and our inner world dictates that ‘control’ and ‘order’ are the preferred modes of operation. Dominik describes his preferred style of parenting as having ‘a foal at foot’.  Of course this is a privilege… a foal in the office environment would just be a noise/trip hazard!

I worry that Laurie doesn’t find my foot fall that engaging, though we have wonderful moments such as peeling carrots together or planting a mini herb garden and then one time long water games while I painted in the bathroom or using charcoal to draw an army of ants on the wooden table at the main house.   (Or our  glorious 'off the hook' day in Pemba...mentioned in another blog scribble.) But perhaps that’s the point to share wonderful moments and inbetween to learn to entertain yourself or the art of patience. 

Though being a foal at Daddy’s feet is very diverting…lying under the landrover with a large spanner, jangling around in the back of the landrover with rangers as they head  into deep forest, getting caked in mud while fishing and much else on the dangerous spectrum.

Thieves whip the rug from under my feet but strangely it enabled me to stand firmer

I had my phone stolen on the road into Mareja...my little black, highly potent coping mechanism.  In fact it had its first real test, to give me a sense of safety, let alone....control, access to friends, means to record our experience. 

Stolen on the road at one of our veggie stops were we collected Antonio, I got out and pushed through the encasement of people around our car to greet him.  My closest friend at Mareja if you can define friendship through time spent silently and happy in each others company cooking. He is the serene elderly cook and he makes everything better.

How foolish, so very pleased to see him.  A bit like Jenga it took a fundamental block out of my psyche and the not entirely robustly constructed sanity above was rocked profoundly.  But then it couldn't be, I had to get a grip there was no back up plan....well not the kind I knew.  D rang an elder to find out if they had contacts in that village and we offered a reward.

But do you know what, apart from that one terrifying black night it was probably the best thing that has happened to me in a long time... I had to look outwards and engage more fully. 

It was a very strange process reprogramming myself to a smart-phone-less existence, the phone twitch one develops becomes an unconditional response...a swipe, tap to just check up on the world of techno communication drags ones in to a subculture so engrained that reality is only ever filtered through the screen.  But I am sure you know this.  It has made me want to have phone free hours or even days to prevent the full on addiction taking hold again. 

A few snaps of activities made easier without a phone...not Great art but small art and progress!

 

From 5 star to 0 stars

actually D admitted it may even get minus star rating... His house in Pemba.

Last night we stayed at his friends Isabel and Roco's wonderful house on the beach with air conditioning, a view on to the Indian ocean and breakfast on our terrace of fresh papaya.  Without question a 5 star experience and a moment to take a deep breath.

We were meant to go to Mareja today but D embarked on getting a new driving license which required a medical check in one place, photo in another and so on. I went shopping and discovered the new supermarket with all sorts on dark packed shelves particularly rows of mysterious biscuits but a small meat counter and even a freezer cabinet with chips in.  But then we embarked on buying fresh veg the traditional way were you haggle in the street, with a balance....it took ages, the mosquitoes came out and then the sun began to dip in the sky it sets at 5pm as its winter here. So we sidled to Ds house it was too late for the long bush drive.

His house is situated bang opposite the hospital, with a wall of bourgonvilla separating us visually but not from the particularly fat mosquitoes who have easy access through the many holes in the decaying metal nets on the windows.  There have been moments in its life.when the house had  running water, a fridge, an almost functioning cooker and the odd painting and cupboard of out of place crystal made it feel loved.  But that moment has passed.  Now there is no running water or fridge or cooker and the paintings just hint at better times. 

Water is extracted for a hole below the kitchen, in a cupboard and at a strange angle in the dark.  The homemade bucket doesn't sink so it needs poking with  stick.  The bathroom has a large bucket for the loo water and I use a metal cup to scoop and wash my hands...how was I to know that the little sink was no longer connected so water cascaded onto my feet?  My heart sank to the doldrums of '0' rating but the mosquitoes leapt with joy a new pool of water to attract yet more friends to share our house.

5 years later...with a 6 week detour via malaria, Germany and Kenya

Almost 5 years to the day since I set foot in Mozambique and in that time I have climbed my own inselberg. But the last ascent has had its own nokes and crannies.

Letting my house for two months involved processing piles of life clutter that seemed to replicate like cockroaches just as I had exterminated one another family scurried into view. I held a community fundraising event 3 days before vacating my house. Which at times felt like a self made mountain. But it truly illuminated the value of communities and all my closest friends and neighbours baked, helped, gave in support of mareja. Nick Cope, the fantastic children's singer, was the highlight with little people voting with their feet for him and for elephants. The event over and more piles redistributed and somehow the house cleansed and made less lived in. We leave and say goodbye to our home for 2 months and L leaves school, nursery, friends and his beloved toys (neatly in boxes)....quite a thing for a just 4 year old,

Then we make a QUICK stop in Germany enroute for a lovely family party. The day we actually leave and struggle out of the house with 3 large suitcases, 2 small and 2 backpacks, D started to feel unwell. My refusal to fly from stansted saw us hit the rail network via St pancreas via Brussels via cologne and two taxis. Perhaps this didn't help his condition. He had brought malaria with him from his recent return from Moz. But that was only the tip of that development. The standard medication recommended by my doctor, based on the miracle plant Artemesian, turned out not to work, then a German doctor recommended malarone...a whole 6 weeks later we arrived in Nairobi and a friend very cleverly spotted Ds reduced manner and frame and insisted he see the revered specialist Dr Saio. He uncovered a stubborn and persistent case of the life treathening illness and we learned a lot about the latest recommended treatment. P. Falcipricum is partially resistant to coartem the plant based cure and Ds missing spleen didn't help fight those weasley parasites. He was given a double dose of synthetic Artemesian and malarone and it worked. Big relief. (Though the patient carried on peppering medication with beers, hard to imagine what he was thinking but of course malaria does make you go a bit wacko.)

Anyway the mountain was nearly over having arrived in Kenya. We only had a visa to sort. They have changed the mozambiquain rules and you now have to obtain them outside the country.  This particular mountain, the visa mountain, may make you want to jump... So in brief 3 visits to the embassy, $215 and 13 days later we get the visas. However the delay was filled with extraordinary sights... Zebras at breakfast, Lamu green turtle hatching and its old city coral walls, giraffes against the horizon. And Laurie learned the delights of hotel service and one morning slipped out to order 3 waffles and a hot chocolate!

So yesterday we arrived in Pemba 5 years after my last trip before I became pregnant. And much had kept me away... With my new head and heart as a mother and sensitised perspective on risk....the need for working vehicles, the lack of medical care, the intense Poaching crisis, isolation, new dengue fever out break, hotspot for malaria, Laurie's penicillin allergy...

It's familiarity was very welcoming, the stale sweet smells and bright glare of the Indian ocean. Dust, fumes and familiar faces. All strangely comforting But also the  stark changes of development such as scattering of many windowed concrete facades fuelled by the gas find and nearly all stopped in their tracks by the project being halted. A town hoping for change but rather like a butterfly with only half a wing emerging from the dried crysalis.

But this is only the beginning tomorrow we head to mareja.

Laurie was hit on the nose by a baby elephant

...he really was! We were at David Sheldricks fantastic elephant orphanage in Nairobi for the hour display, when the babies are given their morning bottle and brought into a wallow. Laurie put his hand under the wire to grab a piece of foliage that they were being fed and the little snouted big eared gambling youngsters wandered around with many keepers very calm and tame. When they occasionally came close enough we could stroke their  funny dry leathery skin and L found his moment to offer up his twig to one. In fact this young male was eating a nice Handful of grass but L kept offering him his prize twig. Then the young male suddenly looked at L and swung his small trunk up and bopped him on the nose. The shock was great and L cried loudly. The collective very large audience weren't quite sure what to do. But a young female Ellie did...she marched over and took Laurie's twig from his hand.. He was delighted and encouraged enough to stop crying. And I have chosen her as my adopted elephant!

2 moments and narrowly escape prison

The first was at Frankfurt airport when at the security check a uniformed man steps forward, says something and escorts D to one side...Laurie and I have already spied a play area and are on the front foot when I catch sight of the uniform out of the corner of my eye.  I double back leaving L exploring a space ship....'What is it?' I ask in a special trying to sound level voice.  'Oh my bag has tested positive for explosives.'  We all stay calm, despite being late for our plane as usual.  Other uniformed types gather...until finally we unearth a branding tool his mother had popped in his bag as a present for someone at Mareja.  (It is for branding belongings not people by the way.)

The second moment was at Nairobi airport.  Again Laurie and I were hurtling towards our taxi driver who was holding out one of those wonderful signs with your name emblazoned, that make you feel on top of life/welcomed/generally loved.  And D is dawdling having taken his shoes off and enjoying a post flight fag.  Then again I see the tell tale twinkle of uniform, this time a policewoman holding D quite aggressively by the arm.  It turned out he was smoking in a no smoking area...outside the airport entrance but apparently marked.  He was not having any of it and went in with heavy sarcasm...which turned out not to be a good idea.  I go up with a large smile and try to defuse the situation and to assure her he is not a no-shoed vagrant!

The winged words float load and clear.  "I am arresting your husband." After much bobbing on my part I mention that I will pay a fine.  It doesn't seem to register then our taxi driver gets involved and says I must give her the money very subtly.  Eventually after much complaining about D's attitude I hand over a bunch of KES.

Not the best start to our travels.  But at least there wasn't yet another detour...via prison.

Our first community fund-raising event went with a song and a jig thanks to the wonderful Nick Cope

It really felt as though my community in west oxford, far, far from the damp forest of Northern Mozambique and the onslaught of elephant poaching, made a bridge and reached out to Mareja and its community. 

There was a delicious and burgeoning home made cake store run by Joyce, Annabel led adult and children animal yoga, Kelly provided a creative elephant mask making session with lots of sparkle, Maureen and Aylse sold high-end second-hand items, Dominik organised 'pin the tail on the elephant', Donate sold our new t-shirts and then the star of the event Nick Cope appeared. 

Nick performed for us in aid of our work, a hugely generous and wonderful act.  He is rather like a pied piper and suddenly children appeared followed by their parents.  Soon the hall was humming and children jigging and singing along...what colour is your t-shirt?, did-dig-dig like a mole, applause for the dinosaurs!

We made a clear profit of £700 and all money raised goes directly to our anti-poaching work, with no overheads.  The current priorities are to buy new long-range radios, new boots for the 4 new rangers, night-vision goggles.

An enormous thank you to all who helped and came along.  I hope to hold another event in early December.