A Fortnight on the Coast

This visit to Kenya, I have spent 2 weeks in Mombasa and its environs – most of it out in the field.  I have visited schools in the crowded areas near to the city, and visited schools out in the far reaches of Kilifi county.

The town schools are the usual blend of sandy playgrounds and mango trees, in the midst of high density housing, small shops  and urban agriculture – wherever there is a space, you can see maize growing, poking its way up between the weeds and the garbage – and no doubt, sewage. The schools are amazing places on the whole – enrolment is often in excess of 1000 kids and classes of 60 are common.  The usual glassless windows are ever-present and when it rains hard, it is impossible to hear anything.  Fortunately, the rain is often short lived with gaps of relative calm in between the showers.

The country schools are my favourite – often big classes but not always big schools – only one stream per class.  The ever present mango trees provide shade for classes and meetings, and I am sure, food for the children in the mango season.  Most classrooms are constructed of blocks, but there are some which are still mud and wood.  Some of the classrooms don’t have doors and the window holes are not barred, so teachers find keeping their materials safe a huge challenge. Some classes are held under trees, because there are not enough classrooms, and as usual, the early years classes are left out when it comes to provision of space.  In other schools, the enrolment is double what the classroom space allows, and so there is a double shift - one class comes till 1 and the other works from 1 till 6 – 2 teachers, but only one classroom.

In most schools, the older learners are at school till at least 4, but in one school in the Rubai area, I saw children coming back into class as we left at 4.30.  They are Gr 8s who will sit exams this year, and the children come back to work till 6.30 or 7.00 – sometimes with a teacher and sometimes on their own.  The school has electricity, and most of their homes don’t.

To get to Rubai, you go out on the Nairobi road, dicing with death with the huge lorries carrying shipping containers to and from the Port and to and from Nairobi, and then turn off into gentler, more forgiving dirt roads.  All around are the “shambas” – small farms with their patchwork of maize and vegetables, the mango trees and the palms.  These produce coconuts or palm oil, depending on whether they are tapped or not.  Most of the trees have footholds cut into them.  And there are always the animals – goats roaming freely and cows tied to stakes so they can graze.

I ’ve experienced the rain for the first time.  We had two days of heavy rain – both on days we were travelling to Malindi,  which made roads difficult to navigate – even on the tar road.  The Big Rains have come with a vengeance this year, leaving roads potholed and eaten away at the edges.  It’s even worse in town where there is so much traffic and it is pointless fixing the poitholes till the rains have stopped.  I got wet many times – but the rain is warm and so is the air, so you dry quickly, without getting cold.

The trip up the coast to Malindi was amazing – the road follows the coast and every now and then there are tantalising glimpses of the sea.  You cross the big “creeks” where the rivers come into the sea, and drive across coastal flood plains.  All along the way you see signs to hotels and resorts – Sea Breezes, The Palms and Sea View abound.  We stayed in a Sea View in Malindi  - quite adequate but an African vision of what a luxury hotel is – outdated décor, showers that work or don’t according to their mood, and a “menu” phoned through from the bar – chicken, steak or fish with chips, chapatti (like roti) or ugali (like stywe pap.) 

The seafood in Malindi is wonderful and all harvested fresh from the surrounding coast – delicious prawns, smoked sailfish and crab.  And the grilled red snapper was delicious at the beachfront “I love pizza” restaurant we ate at.

Coast people are warm and friendly, spending a lot of time on “people” things – greeting, “appreciating” everything done by anyone, discussing and making sure everyone’s point of view is heard.  It takes a LONG time and trainings are quite long and drawn out – but it seems to be working.

Despite a terrible, recurring bout of tummy troubles and the dreadful loos in some of the schools, I had a wonderful time on the coast and can’t wait to return.

And the rain came down ......

We set off for Auckland on a sunny-ish Sunday afternoon, looking forward to time seeing some of the sights of the big city with our good friends, Richard and Vanessa. By the time we'd completed the two and a half hour drive, the clouds had drawn in and by the middle of the night, it was bucketing down.  And now, a week later, it's bucketing down again.

We spent our time in Auckland chatting, drinking coffee in coffee shops in shopping malls, and going on an intrepid adventure on State Highway 1 to the Kauri Museum near Dargaville about two and a half hours north of Auckland.  The rain lifted briefly and we braved it up One Tree Hill to look over a windswept city.  It was so windy, I thought Vanessa might blow away.

Back home in Tauranga we had a brief dry morning and got all the washing dry while keeping an eye on the sky, but since then it's been pretty wet! On the news tonight we heard there had been 225mm in 2 days.  Last night Nic had to go out to a school dance and there was flooding all over the town. Some roads were closed, one of her colleagues had their house flooded up above step level.

The rain is relentless - huge downpours with wind at times and some thunder and lightning  but mostly just sheets and sheets of rain.  It feels like the sort of rain we get at home during a thunderstorm - but here it goes on and on, day after day and it doesn't end and then dry up.

Nic says it often goes on for 2 or 3 days and you just get used to it. When she moved to NZ Ray told her that it rained for 2 weeks and she was really glad that he had remembered wrong!

Emily has been a bit wild and we realised that she was suffering from cabin fever, so Nic dressed her in her "silly Billy's" which are waterproof dungarees and her rain jacket and off she went, crawling across the grass, playing with the ball and the cat. Lovely!

Rain should clear tomorrow and we hope to see some blue sky again.

Pointed hills and postboxes

My cousin Felicity is writing a series of posts all starting with letters of the alphabet. I'm not planning to go through the alphabet but a drive yesterday gave me the idea for this post and I liked the alliteration ......

This time round we are not doing any real sightseeing, but spending most of our time close to home in Tauranga, getting to see as much of Nic, Ray and of course, Emily as possible. So the sights we are seing are closer to home - when we go for a walk, when we drive out to where Pete is fishing and when we drive around be ause Em has fallen asleep in the car and needs to be given as much chance to sleep as possible.

Yesterday we drove home from Bethlehem where we had lunch by a very long and circuitous route - via a country road called Poripori Rd.  It took us deep into the countryside behind and above Tauranga where the suburbs give way to lifestyle sections ( what we would call smallholdings) and these lifestyle sections give way to farms.  We saw sheep - lots of sheep - and grazing land and orchards.  Post boxes are clustered at the end of roads, bright and plastic, ready to receive their mail from the rural mail vans. Post in the town is delivered by bicycle but out in the rural areas a post van fetches and delivers mail. Beehives, each in a different, faded color are piled on top of each other like blocks of flats, and everywhere, amongst the trees, you see the exotic looking tree ferns.

But to get to the pointy hills - this time I have been struck by the sharpness of the hills and valleys - flying from Auckland I noticed how steep and sharp the topography is. Hills have sharp edges, valleys and ridges slope suddenly down from sudden outcrops and everything looks defined. I think about the rolling hills of the Midlands and around Ixopo and I realize how much older South Africa is geologically - the hills have had time to smooth and become more rounded in a way the countryside here hasn't - this is a much newer country.

To use that awful trendy word - the New Zealand countryside is edgier than the part of South Africa where I live.

So - pointy hills and postboxes - and I look forward to more drives to see some more of them.

The end of summer

Daylight saving ended today inNew Zealand. We went to bed at the normal time, but when we woke up it was an hour later than we felt it ought to be. The clock next to our bed said the "normal" time but the cell phones had changed themselves to an hour later .

Strangely, it has suddenly got cold.  Yesterday it rained and was freezing and in the afternoon there was a sudden cold shower - they had forecast hail, but that was it - slushy rain. We slept with duvets last night for the first time and Mo, Nic and Ray's cat, was in her element - she snuggled up in bed with us and then when we got up to play with Emily, she snuggled up in Nic's bed.  The sun shone today but there was an icy wind, and when we walked around the Mount, it was quite chilly - until the exertion kicked in!

Em had freezing little feet and we had to put socks and slippers on her and went and bought her some sneakers to wear to Daycare in the mornings.

From Facebook I see that the first snow has fallen on the Berg, and talking to Kevin, we see him bundled up and chilly.  So the socks we collected for Maundy Thursday will benefit someone from Springs of Hope this winter.  Rod says there are about 10 dozen pairs, so there will be some warm feet in Sobantu.

So summer is over and we wonder what climate change will bring us this winter.

A week with Emily

We arrived at Tauranga airport just over a week ago to be met by Nic, Ray and Emily - smaller in real life than I expected her to be from seeing her on Skype, shy of us as we expected, and even more beautiful than we expected.

What a week it has been!  Emily is a delight - she has a wonderful little character all of her own - very determined, very confident, very stubborn and so loving I just want to melt when she holds her little arms up to me.

Day 1 and 2 she wasn't well and she spent most of her birthday party grizzling - especially when another babba was in her swing! Nic was chagrined, I  think - especially when she wouldn't go to sleep in her normal, relaxed way. (She still doesn't.) Our first day she stayed home with us because she had a cold - which we picked up, not being used to little ones and their germs. But despite her sniffles and her clinging to me and not wanting Granpa to hold her, we had a lovely day together.

And the days have got better and better. She's not keen on going to sleep in case she misses something, but the rest of the time she is a delight! She "talks" all the time and not just noises, real words and even sentences.  This morning I'm quite sure she told grandpa to take her to the lounge to play - the imperious forefinger pointed down the passage and she said "Bubby go there" - sure its not just my imagination.

She's developed 2 new words - Mummy, which she says with great deliberateness and such feeling, much to the delight of her mom, who melts! - and Bubby, which is what she calls her grandpa. I don't have a real name yet although she sometimes calls me Mum. Hopefully Granny will come, but grandpa is definitely Bubby.

She also needs to hear something just once to repeat and remember it - I have a picture of Winnie the Pooh on my nightie and we told her it was PoohBear. Now she whispers "Poo ba" every morning when she gets into bed with me.  But also recognizes Pooh on her stokies and swimming towel.

She's also done some more "big girl" things - her car seat now faces forward and she doesn't yell in the car any more. We had to change it around in the parking garage at the Mall because she yelled so much when we tried to put her back in to it.   She is standing up with really great balance and has taken a couple of steps.  She still finds crawling much quicker, though.  She stands up from her couch and tries to walk, but gets too excited - clapping for herself and telling us all to clap too.  She continues to enjoy gardening with her mum, but has eaten a handful of soil when mum wasn't watching. She's learnt to "high five" with Grandpa and does it to everyone - little starfish hand out and a loud "figh" when she wants us to play along. She's also had a tantrum or two when she didn't want to do things, and has become a bit of a tyrant at times - her "staff" are all ready to run around her and do her bidding though, so not much need for tantrums.

All in all, she has stolen our hearts away - a smile as she comes to play with us in our bed in the morning and that's me gone for the day!

An other 5 weeks to go thank goodness!

Memories of Mulgrave

My grandparents lived in Mooi River for much of their married lives - firstly in a huge red-brick house called Riverview, next to the Primary School, and then, when they retired, in a small house in Fife Street which they called Mulgrave, after one of their English country homes - I can't remember which side of the family had a home of that name.

It was a strange little house - two bedrooms off a small living/dining room, and a small vestibule off the living room which led to a bathroom and a tiny kitchen.  It was on a big, rambling piece of land - with a garden full of fruit trees, strange little miniature may hedges, paths, rockeries, a huge pergola with a catawba grape vine over it, topiary bushes and wonderful small, secret lawns which were a child's delight.

Over the years, the house was added onto - a big, cement floored room off the verandah, where my mom and dad always slept was added, and later, a pantry, loo and a strange, long room called the "gallery" which had fibre-glass type sliding windows and was so cold and damp that I don't remember anyone ever sleeping in it; and later still, part of the front verandah was enclosed and the outside room incorporated into the house. It was always a quirky, inconvenient little house, even when it had been "improved" but it held a really special lpace in the heart of the grandchildren who had a chance to visit and stay.

My grandfather died when I was tiny, only months after moving into the house, and Grannymama lived on in the house - mostly alone - for nearly 40 years.  Aunt Bridget, one of my dad's sisters spent every evening with Grannymama, but had her own home nearby.  When Grannymama died at the ripe old age of 97, Aunt Val, another of Dad's sisters bought the house from the estate and moved most of her accumulated "stuff" into it, on top of most of grannymama's stuff.  By this stage, Aunt Bridget lived across the road, and when she died, her house was packed up and all her "stuff" was moved to Mulgrave where it remained, unpacked, for the next 10 years.  When Aunt Val died, she left the house and all its contents to my sister, Jen.  Not only was Jen her god-daughter, but she and her husband, Les, were so good to Aunt Val in her last year.  So Jen ended up sorting the lifetime accumulations of 3 old ladies.

We spent many holidays at Mulgrave as kids - notably a week in January every year.  Jen and I got to sleep in one of the rooms off the living room, and our great delight in the morning was to sit on the end of Grannymama's bed, eat 1 Marie biscuit each out of her special tin, and play a game where we tried to catch her toes under the blanket - she was of the "austere grandmamma" type.  Evenings were not such fun - after a "supper" of scrambled egg and toast with jam OR butter (not both) we would be sent to bed while the "grown-ups" had "spots" and a more interesting supper.  We would lie in bed listening to the talking and laughing, and not allowed to join in - even when we were teenagers.  We would kiss the "grown ups" goodnight, and be roughly patted on the back by the maiden aunts and told to "Sleep tight, don't let the bugs bite - Har!har!har!" and then off through the green and white striped plastic door curtains, not to be heard or even seen till the next morning.

My favourite time was the afternoons when all the adults would have a rest and we were banished to the garden.  This was never a hardship for me - I loved the garden, even in the middle of winter, and I especially loved the small cardboard suitcase of toys were allowed to take outside to play with.  In it was a miniature white glass tea-set, a set of ivory elephants from India in varying sizes, strange tin cars and dolls, and tiny cloth dolls.  As I grew older, the musty books, with their cloth covers and yellowed, soft, powdery pages attracted me and I would spend hours in the gallery, choosing a book to read under the bushes.

Grannymama made wonderful preserves from the fruit in the garden and I remember the treat it was to go into the storeroom with her and choose a new bottle of marmalade or jam.  The best treat was being allowed to lick the underside of the wax plug poured over the jam to keep it good.

Dinner was always at lunch time and we would set the gate-leg table - opening the table, getting the silver table-napkin rings from the drawer on the side, getting out the heavy, solid silver cutlery and cruet, along with the wooden pepper grinder (long before they became fashionable) and then carrying through the thick, blue bargain-basement crockery.

We had a few holidays on our own at Mulgrave while Grannymama was visiting her family in England.  I remember Aunty Hazel, Uncle Graham and Penny coming to spend a few nights with us. It was midwinter and bitterly cold - so cold we put orange juice in the plastic cups from the thermos flask out in the garden and it froze solid overnight.  Dad and Uncle Graham slept on blow up mattresses in the living room, and Uncle Graham's had a leak and went down all through the night.  The highlight of that holiday was a trip to Giant's Castle - Dad and Uncle Graham climbed, and we paddled in the freezing water and had a picnic.

Another vivid memory is walking up the hill to where the Police Station is now, and looking across to Giant's Castle.  Dad had set off to climb it with a friend, and at a specified time he sent us a morse code message using a mirror - such an excitement.

"Out" trips from Mulgrave included a visit every January to a huge (well, it seemed huge) grove of oak trees to listen to the Christmas beetles (cicadas), and driving out to Rosetta to the piece of land we owned on the Little Mooi River.  We planted hundreds of pine trees on the very sloping plot, but never lived there.  Sometimes, our Boulanger cousins would come with us, and we would count the cars of different colours coming towards us - the road we went on was the main road to Johannesburg, and there was frequently a whole line!!! of cars on it.  The plot was called Brown Brooks - partly because of the peaty-brown water flowing under the willow trees, but mostly because both my Grandpa and one of my cousins slipped the first time they visited - my granpa's long white pants were definitely "brown brooks."

When Jen inherited the house, she kept it for a while as a holiday home, and we spent some wonderful weekends there, away from our busy lives.  When she needed to rent the house, we helped clear it - Jen is amazingly generous and gave away all the furniture - on condition we took what was inside!  So we have some lovely pieces of furniture in our home - and also many fascinating reminders of life in a less throwaway time - button hooks, chipped and mended jugs, scales, books, and the family Christening Robe which was in one of the trunks.

And now Mulgrave is sold, and Jen has had to say a final "Goodbye." She and her kids went to Mulgrave for Christmas and had a picnic in the garden and mostly empty house.  When they came back last weekend from clearing up, they brought us one last gift - a plum tree grown from the plums we loved eating on summer afternoons.  We've planted it where we can see it from our verandah - so every spring and summer, Mulgrave will live on in our home.

The end of an era - but what memories we have.