Good Morning Log 4 comments

14 Mar 2006 @ 14:11, by Nigella Wraye Good Morning, Bonjour M’s M’me, Morni Morni Bwana/Doena, Dumela Ra/Ma -- that’s Anglais, Franglais, Chinanje, and Tswana Being the eldest child of a family deep in the bush with no modern inventions, apart from a black Ford for the most varied type of bush roads possible, did make lifestyle restrictions. Learning to speak the local dialect, one of three in the country, was top priority for all concerned. They tell me I was first to master it 2 going on 3. According to speech experts this is still apparent due to effect on vocal chord formation. By 5, I had three modes of transport, a big tricycle all the way from Big Smoke, a highly prized second hand dark maroon bicycle and a white donkey called Mary. Donkeys were used a lot. There was a herd on the farm. Father had them to go on safari into the interiors to check livestock herds and such. In many cases he was the first white person these remote (no roads) villagers would have seen. He travelled with a team of 13 donkeys, and several black veterinary assistants including cook and manservant on these 2/3 week “ulendos”. No telephones, or radio nor wireless which was at home, and too big to put on a donkey. The donkeys were used as pack animals and would have to have been guarded well at night by the herdboys and assistant veterinary officers from lion and leopard, not mention the occasional elephant or croc if by a river. Aged 3/4, Father (a Japanese POW at 20) took me alone with him in the Ford on an expedition to the Lintipe River. The houseboys looked after me. Father and I shared a big light green Hemingway type tent of sturdy wooden poles with newels, camp beds, table and chairs, a big paraffin lamp and mosquito nets. Outside a large fire was kept by the entourage close to the large white enamel basin for bathing and teeth cleaning. As was the custom, at night the bed with white sheets and blankets was folded down on one side neatly for turning in. The next day to some excitement evidence of spoor surrounding the tent showed a visitation by some large cats. Aged 6/7 we moved closer to civilisation in the Southern Province just 15 miles from the nearest town with not only post office and dentist, but also a school and some tarmac roads. Mary the donkey came with us and a new second hand bike plus a horse became, together with the vehicles made ourselves from farm scraps and later banned as too dangerous, the next modes of transport. These soon included the famous grey Massey Ferguson 1100, a work horse of the world, which was taken out for a drive when all adults retired after lunch in the heat of the day, by being nice pie to the Head Capito in charge and in language. Soon we graduated to the 2 wheel drive Landrover, then finally the family car by which time we had our first party line telephone system and home made electricity at night only (still with paraffin fridge and wood stove) aged 10. (I did not take a driving test until 30, with my own first modern mode of transport in Botswana, a white mini with Pink Floyd stereo which amongst other things took me to various weekend assignments of the fashion kind). Along with the family car, came aeroplanes to school and back in another country. I was given the choice of aeroplanes either 7,000 miles away or 300, and conscientiously chose the latter. A good choice, for the mode of transport here for netball matches in the bush with the black girls’ mission schools, was the back of a very large light blue lorry truck. Singing all the way there and back at the tops of our voices: it was completely open to the world driven by two or three equally happy nuns, just like all the refugee war films, always lorries loaded with people. Then through local war at 15 ¾ the second encountered (first age 10), unilateral declaration of independence, the 7,000 mile away school loomed. It was reached finally by slow boat via the East coast of Africa. At some point before this, we did take a cattle sledge over the cobbled streets of Madeira. Again even earlier, aged 1½ on the Isle of St Helena when calling by boat out to join Father in what is called the Heart of Africa (the people are renowned above all others in the continent for friendliness and pleasant disposition) I remember travelling in an ancient charabanc up steep mountain sides to visit the last exile home of Napoleon Bonaparte. His bedroom was painted dark green; it had a fireplace and a window looking out over the verdant valley. The loom of the Big Smoke and Civilisation from the boat through the fog at 16 was somewhat mitigated by white Courrege boots and the Rolling Stones Little Red Rooster via personal transistor radio and TV but not totally. My former school mates’ siblings were fighting a bush war against Russians on one side and Cubans the other. Somehow the bush had educated my tastes into couturier style albeit again second hand but at odds with Afghan sheepskin coats and a language with incomprehensible accenting not to mention anything else but it did aid my fashion model shows and design work in London and Zurich for several years. During the first serious recovery time, I met my Man, also eldest, when answering an ad in the local paper for a French speaking waitress in Cornwall. Two weeks later he proposed and we were ensconced in his 2 year hand-rebuilt French restaurant terraced house building overlooking the harbour and quayside. He was originally from S E Asia, 2 parts Sephardic, 1 Buddhist and 1 Catholic, via India and Pakistan in the Second World War. His school was the Himalayas, from which he ran away twice, the second time changing his name for the army (signals) at 17½. His Big Smoke about 21, was in the music business playing tenor sax and writing arrangements for the great and good of that time. We were/are big big chums but he stays in CA. I have two great step sons. For me this was/is a big continuity, although our time together ended when he 50, went to a Buddhist monastery in Srilanka, asking me 26, too, which I couldn’t. Instead I read up on it, honing the 5 years’ gleaning from him in preparation for his return. The rest as they say is history. Nw: 9th March 2006, Big Smoke

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14 Mar 2006 @ 14:30 by swanny : Strange...
I was thinkin...
somehow I can't find this anywhere in the script...
You come out of blue sky then I see...

This is quite an old school beginning...

yet perhaps extremely appropriate for the

mad and current reality.

The new Jungle of sorts.

Much something here...then

perhaps as exotic as Africa itself

It is Africa yes???

Thankyou

ed  

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