Marvellous May

The advent of May heralded a new normal, a good settling into routine and the chance for many celebrations.

The three teachers in the house worked intensively with online teaching and pre-recorded lessons. Jonny and Adele began their days with lessons starting at 6.30 am before moving on in the afternoon to prepping for the next batch. For Angie, hours were spent sitting in front of a computer screen, answering queries from students, liaising and meeting online with colleagues or marking assignments. The latter proved to be an absolute nightmare: multiple documents needed to be opened or downloaded, then deciphered. Work was submitted upside down, sideways, out of focus or illegibly faint. What could have taken a minute or two 'in real life' could take up to 10 minutes onscreen, especially when marking maths. How the children expected their teachers to understand their work when questions were not numbered, ot submitted haphazardly in any sort of random order, was a mystery...

Online teaching, was, however, fun in many ways. Individual 'chats' or actual calls with children, helping them with completing or managing their assignments, were very rewarding, albeit not sustainable in real life. Having spent half an hour working through a variety of problems with one child gave me pause for thought: doing that with every pupil would mean a 10 hour working day just on conversations... Some wonderful work was submitted and parents, too, gave feedback on the lessons. Indeed, my Year 2 RE lessons were some of the best planned and most satisfying, for both my pupils and me, which I have delivered for a long time.

There were many benefits to working at home: most of all, the opportunity to be flexible. So lunch breaks were taken sitting on the patio; a cycle ride before work was possible, or a  midday dog walk; and there were many opportunities to take a brief break and then return, refreshed, to a very challenging work situation.

When not working, we took advantage of the weather, which was tremendous: no rainfall at all during the whole month meant clear, sunny mornings, beautiful cliff walks and stunning flowers.

Shopping became a rare occurrence: we ordered online and ventured out only every ten to fourteen days, early in the morning before the queues started. A new rhythm to life...

Two birthdays - Richard's and Adele's - were celebrated in style with, firstly, drinks with Nicky and Richard over the fence, complete with birthday banner, and then, for Adele, a special meal. Pizza night, with the discovery of gluten-free pizza bases. The end of the month saw the first couple of barbecues - happily, we had unwittingly asked Nicky and Richard over on Nicky's birthday, spending a lovely evening together.

May saw us move out of lockdown: May 3rd, in fact, was the first day with no new Covid-19 cases on the island and by May 27th there were no active cases at all. (Nicky kept notes of all the data in her diary, updating it every day as numbers of active cases dropped.) We moved from total lockdown, where we were allowed out only for essential, infrequent shopping, medical visits, and a maximum of two hours of exercise, first to four hours of exercise and then the possibility of 'bubbling' with another household, where we were allowed to meet up in each others' homes without having to maintain any kind of distance from one another. After that, we were allowed to 'bubble' with two other households as well... and then: no bubbles at all, but unlimited meetings with any one else as long as we maintained a metre distance in our homes and gardens and two metres in public places, gathering in groups of any size up to a maximum of 30. Non-essential shops and businesses prepared to open, and schools were given permission to return after the half term break. But that is next month's story....

March Mayhem

The rain continued on into March. The rain continues on into March. The rain will very likely, most probably, perhaps certainly, continue on into March.

Four storms within a couple of weeks, dumping copious amounts of water onto our tiny rock of granite stuck in the English Channel. The peak was during the night of March 4th, where we awoke the following day to flooding.

My commute - normally 25 minutes - took 50, as I had to turn back twice before finding a lane which was not barred by a deep pond. (I may have stopped for a few minutes to photograph and film. Who wouldn't?) The first one, at the bottom of Donkey Hill, was a flooded valley, water stretching up across the fields as far as the eye could see. There was a handy abreveur situated there, manfully doing its best to channel water safely into an underground douit, but it was outclassed. The water was so deep that I didn't dare expose the electrics on the bicycle. I did, eventually, sail through a relatively shallow puddle, holding my breath and coasting across gently. To have turned around would have added yet another ten minute ride.

Meanwhile, at home, the flooded vege patch/firewood stack had spread all the way across the far side of the garden, the patio around the shed boasting an inch of water. The ground had been soggy for weeks but this was the last straw. Or the last few hundred gallons, I suppose. There was absolutely nowhere for the water to drain and it was, in any case, being topped up by water flowing from the (slightly higher) field next door.

My neighbour, Dear Nicky Next Door, started pumping out her well in the hope that the ground water would then flow into it. Richard went out and bought a pump, dug a trench and sank it into the ground. (We have great plans to dig a soakaway so that we are more prepared next time and can start to pump water before it gets to surface aka crisis level.) It took a couple of days, but the level in the flower beds started to subside, the water disappearing although the soil was still soggy. I fear for my little apple tree... the camellias, the pittosporum and the hydrangeas... but will just have to Wait And See.

We had a slight 'discussion' as to whether the dehumidifier, or leaving the shed wide open to the drying wind, was the best way of drying out the shed before it started to rot. Compromised for a bit of both.

Then we paused, and waited for the rain to stop.

Meanwhile, at school... parents' evenings looming; parents taking their children out of school on holiday, with an hour's notice, in one case; parents voicing their opinions. Sometimes, all those years of professional training and experience, not to mention successfully parenting two wonderful human beings, seems irrelevant and I obviously (in some quarters) really do not have anything to say about how A Particular Child is best taught. Hmmm.

March mayhem? Indeed. But 'in like a lion, out like a lamb'. Spring is most definitely coming as flowers start to erupt on the grassy banks. Celandines flood yellow everywhere I look; primroses stud the banks; violets hide in the hedgerows.

Then, of course, the mayhem rapidly accelerated as Covid-19 took over. Have documented thoughts elsewhere, but by the end of the month we were almost self-isolating, with a lockdown imposed by Guernsey. Not to mention Jonny and Adele occupying our newly-created tiny 'guest wing'. I'm quite proud of the lovely little suite of rooms I have created...

So, here we are. The days are getting longer - in many ways. The sun is brighter: and we try to stay bright, trusting that God will bring about great good and His glory in an overwhelmed, panic-stricken, helpless world.

Last days...

We spend our last days quietly, in talking, reading, discussing car repairs at great length and in admirable detail. My heart gladdens at these discussions: how thankful I am that Jonny has his dad’s expertise to draw on, along with Byron’s supportive presence just a short distance away. This is in Tanzanian terms: over one and a half hours’ drive on the other side of Arusha. At home in Guernsey, anything more than 15 or 20 minutes seems like a long safari – how quickly we adjust.

A nearby lodge – Rivertrees, the last convenient tourist stop before Kilimanjaro Airport – is a pleasant venue for an afternoon drink by the river. We marvel at the trees – huge figs sending their aerial roots down in search of water. I spot a ‘first’ – a black-backed shrike, its astonishingly bright red eye peeping out from the bushes next to us.

And, of course, there is the swimming pool. Bees perch busily on the lane dividers, some unwittingly taking dives into the water, swimming furiously to safety. Scarlet dragonflies swoop and dive across the surface, hitting it with a smack before zooming on. European rollers perch atop the tennis court fence, four of them, evenly spaced, waiting for the insects thrown up by the newly cut grass. Wahlberg’s eagles soar and call, settling in the fig near the entrance to the school. Mount Meru plays peek-a-bo behind clouds, thermals constantly forming and re-forming.

Half a dozen arrow-marked babblers invade the garden, chit-chattering, hopping around, venturing at times onto the verandah and into the living room. A couple of immature birds constantly ask for food, jumping on the others. Mouse-birds congregate on a young muringa tree, stripping the new young shoots. It’s a good thing that the muringa grows so quickly...

From the verandah early in the morning we watch a pair of white-browed coucals ponderously flapping on and off the hedge, catching insects and, in one lucky instance, a small toad which has unwarily ventured out on to the grass. Variable sunbirds, with their iridescent green caps and bright crimson breasts, flit around the acacia branches while a fiscal shrike constantly swaps between the lawn and the verandah roof. Never have I seen one for so long at such close quarters. To cap it all, we spot a tiny wren-like bird in the bougainvillea hedge: an African penduline tit. A first.

The birds have been fantastic – so many, such variety all in one place, up-country and dry country birds all in one environment. This, we think, is what Paradise will be like...

We prepare to go home with full hearts, countless happy memories, relationships renewed... and an inordinate number of tsetse fly and midge bites, with the odd small mosquito bite to add in to the mix.

Africa.

And then, it was time to leave. It had been the most incredibly relaxing time, our days filled with reading, swimming and enjoying the bird life.

Yesterday it had rained. Good African rain, first a drizzle then, under a black sky, a heavy downpour. The thunderous noise of raindrops hitting the tin roof brought back memories...

The air was fresh, the soil damp, the atmosphere calm.

Today, a cloudy morning gave way to sunshine. A last swim, while Jonny took his car to have new rear shock absorbers fitted - a somewhat stressful process, in that the wrong type had been ordered and so Jonny had to go back later. #nothingstraightforwardinAfrica

Packed up. Emma's house, where we had been staying, cleaned. A last lunch at Rivertrees Country Inn, on the way to the airport. So relaxed.

I thought I was ready to go home, back to 'normal' life. End of holidays.

But I wasn't. Oh, I had had a great holiday and felt ready for work, but I wasn't ready to leave Jonny and Adele.

Goodbyes could not be lingering. Quick hugs, then we were in the hot queue to get in to Kilimanjaro Airport and then through the long check-in and immigration process. Only an hour from start to finish.

The goodbyes were bad enough... but I was unprepared for what happened as I walked out of the terminal building to cross the tarmac towards the plane. I was overwhelmed by tears. Throwing myself down to claw at the ground, screaming to stay, suddenly seemed like an option.

I didn't, of course. I struggled to contain my tears, dutifully climbing on to the plane, quietly weeping unobtrusively as we took off past Kilimanjaro, the two peaks of Kibo and Mawenzi soaring above the clouds.

I don't understand why my heart is breaking again.

Back at Usa

Then, the next day, after a last swim in the pool: time to go back home. Only a scant three hour drive, mostly on tarmac, negotiating Arusha’s busy roads to emerge on the road to Dar-es-Salaam which goes straight through Usa River.

The grounds of Kennedy House International School are like an oasis. Turning off the main road onto a bumpy track, negotiating picky-piccy motorcycles, cars and trucks with inches to spare before driving out of the town. We return on 1^st January, Tuesday: so it is still market day. Women sit at the side of the road with piles of tomatoes carefully arranged on sacking mats; tins of beans wait to be bought; bananas, pineapples, potatoes, oranges... a plethora of vegetables.

Some of the shops are shut, including Supafast Internet. But otherwise, it could be any other day in Africa.

We leave the noise behind. The enormous gates slide open and we are once again inside a little oasis. Huge grounds, a full–length circular running track, a 25m swimming pool, silky oaks and fig trees gracing the compound.

Jonny and Adele’s house is a welcome haven: simply yet comfortably built, Adele manages their home with flair. We remember how filtering water was the norm; adjusting to power surges and low water pressure not uncommon.  We unpack from the safari, washing dust and smoke out of clothes and bedding, all the while thankful for safe travel and another exciting adventure.

The swimming pool has been a welcome ‘cooling off’ point. The birds – Wahlberg’s eagles soar over the playing field or perch in the tree by Jonny’s house; a  white-browed coucal and speckled mousebirds swoop across the lawn; black-faced Baglafecht’s weavers fly busily in and out of their nests hanging from the acacia tree; arrow-marked babblers chattering companionably together in the hedge. Fork-tailed drongos call long and loudly in the early morning as I sit on the verandah, feet tucked up on a huge African sofa made of roughly-hewn branches.

We watch the film of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society: jarring on many levels, not least that none of it was filmed on Guernsey and the scenery, to us, seems false. Yet it gives snippets of understanding the horror of life in Occupied Guernsey during World War 2 and is a delightful story of relationships developed and restored.

I find myself homesick.

It is wonderful to be here. The weather alone – the bright hot African sun, the heaviness of an approaching rainstorm, the violence of the rain itself flooding fiercely down -  this, in itself, if wonderfully reminiscent. I find myself remembering dark skies heralding the rain, a vivid picture of a life formerly lived, singly, in Western Kenya; sunshiny days filled with the delighted laughter of small children; the uniquely evocative, dust-settling smell of huge raindrops  on hot earth. This is worth travelling thousands of miles for.

More so, the time spent with Jonny and Adele, marvelling at how well-settled and adapted they are. Jonny’s ability to instantly establish rapport with the (many) policemen who stop us on the road: their response makes it look as if they are old friends, greetings so friendly that it seems almost abnormal. Where have you come from? Where are you going? Why? What will you do there? Happy New Year! I am again reminded of how important relationship is in Africa.

Adele’s creative gifting in establishing a wonderful little home, mastering the intricacies of shopping with ease and adapting to the challenges of unreliable internet, low – or no – water pressure, intermittent power cuts...

And, both of them, still highly dedicated, extremely hard-working teachers. I wonder if the children they teach and the colleagues they work with know how fortunate they are?

Lake Manyara

From Tarangire, we made our way through a tropical rainstorm - heavy, brief, refreshing - towards Lake Manyara, stopping to buy a small gas stove on a cylinder before arriving at Migombani Camp.

Stop at Mto wa Mbuu for a gas stove

Drying the bedding after the enroute rain

Morning at Migombani

Our tent just visible in the right of the picture

 Perched on the side of a hill overlooking the lake, the camp is one of the best we have ever stayed at. Lush green Kikuyu grass to pitch a tent on, super clean toilets and wash places in makuti bandas and an infinity pool with the most beautiful view across the Rift Valley.

Swimming as bee-eaters dived to collect water from the surface, African pied wagtails chattering along the edge, while black kites, tawny eagles, augur buzzards and vultures took turns at soaring above our heads, using the thermals which kicked through the site every few minutes.

Quiet, relaxed, a place to unwind after hours of driving...and play countless games of Monopoly Deal...

The stay at Migombani has been wonderful: what’s not to like about the peace of the campsite perched on a hill, views of Lake Manyara from the infinity pool? It has been a welcome respite from the constant bumping on the dusty roads of Tarangire.

The lush green kikuyu grass is thick and springy, providing the ideal surface for pitching tents and lying underneath Jonny’s car to check out the mechanics...

Adele and I find excitement of a different kind. As I open my tiny, carry-on suitcase, a small, grey, rather elegant mouse scuttters into hiding beneath the clothes. Ah.

We had heard mouse-like sounds in Tarangire, but we realise that this mouse had travelled all the way from Usa River with us. There had been a mouse in the house we were staying in, evident by the hole chewed in a cotton bag and the droppings it consequently left on the sofa. Where I thought it had disappeared into some convenient hole in the wall, it had found refuge instead in the suitcase and come along with us. Some hitchhiker. Slowly unearthing it – eventually found hiding in a shoe – it hopped out and dashed to the shrubbery. Our gift to Migombani.

After that, time to relax: swimming; endless games of Monopoly Deal; gazing down at Lake Manyara. We meet a super-friendly, young German couple, Christians working for Help for the Maasai, a small German-run charity. The expat world is small: they have mutual acquaintances in common with Jonny and Adele. They run an orphanage, he on the technical side (with an outstanding devotion to all things Toyota and extensive knowledge of planes, trains and automobiles) and she an accountant. We enjoy their conversation.

 It is New Year’s Eve, so there is dinner at tables set under the stars, with a variety of expatriates, all working in different sectors of industry and aid in and around Arusha. As well as Dirk and Sarah, there is a South African couple working in tourism and conservation; a semi-retired Swede, looking for investment and business opportunities; two Dutch men who work for a company producing airport security doors; and a sweet young French couple, with Moroccan/Madagascaran ancestry, working for the French embassy and teaching in Kampala. An interesting evening...

Christmas!!

The days here in the tropics have blurred together. For me, Northern Hemisphere born and bred, despite many, many warm Christmases, Christmas in my mind and heart is cold and crisp.

Yet Christmas comes. Our Christ-birth celebration comes regardless.

So our day is filled with love and laughter. We cook and clean up, organise and arrange. Byron carefully prepared a suckling pig, roasting it on a spit for Christmas dinner.

Presents under the tree; gin and tonics are the drink of the day; friends come. We feast and celebrate, singing carols and our own version of The Twelve Days of Christmas:
On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love sent to Me: 
Twelve sisal ornaments
Eleven presents opened
Ten carols a-playing
Nine teas are brewing
Eight beers are chilling
Seven gin and tonics
Six guests arrivi ng
Five kind Bordens
Four Pollards here
Three sleeping dogs
Two string guitars and 
One pig roasting merrily on a spit!

The day is warm and gentle. Time to sit, relax, chat.

And keep turning and turning the spit.

Christmas peace

Dawn scrambles rapidly into the sky. The southern hemisphere sunset the previous night had arrived with astonishing rapidity, a fiscal shrike shrieking a defiant rebuke as darkness fell. Sunrise, too, accelerated its arrival. By 7am the sun was already high, as if it was midday already.

Christmas Eve. No dark days or cold weather. This is Christmas in Africa.

This is not the first time we have celebrated Christmas together. In Loita, certainly, more than once.

We prepare gently. Lisa and I drive to the shop - just 40 minutes, on a dirt track so worn away by the rains, that in places it is in danger of disappearing. An augur buzzard soars overhead, awaiting our return perched on a fence post beside the road. We catch up with each other, relishing the chance to have this uninterrupted time.

At home, we all hang out together: playing Monopoly Deal, snoozing in the shade, sharing washing up - seemingly endless, with 9 of us; a walk through the coffee plantation and up in to the forest .

Christmas conversations.

A shared meal, a Czechoslovakian tradition of eating crackers with honey for the sweetness of the year, walnuts for the bitter. Reflecting with enormous gratitude on the tremendous goodness of God. We laugh, remembering Christmases past, shared memories bubbling into conversation. Many years of lives shared.

The evening winds gently into a star-studded night, Orion soaring across the sky, a herald of the season. The moon clambers up, until the night is bright as day.

Christmas calm.

Usa River. Arusha. Monduli.

December 19^th – 20^th.

Finally – our departure date had arrived. Our petsitters – Sherri and Gerri Gallant, from Prince Edward Island, Canada – had arrived safely, been introduced to Pickle and our lovely neighbour Nicky  and were safely established at home.

I had rushed off to school in the early morning, seeing my class off into assembly and the end of term house music competition before jumping into Nicky’s car to get to the airport. All rather a rush, but, thankfully, not panicked as sometimes it has been. I had been assembling our packing for a couple of months and, in the end, it was just a matter of carefully putting everything into a suitcase and a couple of bags – all meticulously weighed and measured to comply with airline rules.

We were off to Gatwick, resigned to a coach trip to Heathrow after our Gatwick flight had been cancelled and changed to Heathrow. That change, which had been a minor annoyance, proved to be a major blessing after Gatwick airport was closed shortly after we left. A drone had invaded the airspace and caused major disruption to flights, many of which were cancelled.  We would not have been where we are now....

...in Usa River, Tanzania! Our Qatar Airline flight took us first to Doha (Airbus 330, good entertainment and food, relatively comfortable seats) and then, after a short transit time in the large, state of the art terminal, on to Kilimanjaro Airport outside Arusha (Airbus 320, no entertainment, less good food and more uncomfortable seating – we were tired by that time).

A relief to get out of the plane, successfully obtain our tourist visas and endure immigration (passports checked, photos and fingerprints taken – I wasn’t very good at the latter so Tanzania now has 3 sets of my left hand) to then find Jonny waiting for us outside.

Back in Africa. Familiar yet unfamiliar – it had been nearly four decades since either of us had travelled the road from the airport towards Arusha. Tiny shops and ‘hotellis’ lining the highway, the bright orangey-red of the flamboyant trees – yes, their name IS flamboyant, or Delonix Regia officially and, in Tanzania, the ‘Christmas tree’. Other names include flame tree and royal Poinciana.

Over Kenya, looking north towards the Highlands.

Descending over Arusha

Another wonderfully red tree is the Erythrina family. Erythrina Lysistemon, Erythrina abyssinica, often referred to, vaguely, as the Lucky Bean tree. Over 100 varieties around the world...It is the trees and plants which fascinate, along with the bird life.

In their little garden surrounding their house on the school compound, Jonny has created a beautiful space filled with flowers and trees. In less than eighteen months, pawpaw trees are several feet tall, bananas towering up to the roof. The veranda is surrounded with bird of paradise, canna lilies, protea; the flowerbeds full of bright  blooms, most familiar; a lemon geranium in a large clay pot scents the air.

Mount Meru towering above the house.

Mount Kilimanjaro in the distant haze.

We sit, rediscovering birds with delight. A vulture soars high above us, Mount Meru peeping hazily out of the clouds – it is the short rainy season and it has recently rained. A pair of Wahlberg’s eagles sit in the tall silky oak – Grevillea robusta, we remember – calling a distinctive chittering to each other. Reichenhow’s weavers flit busily in and out of their complicated nests. A small sunbird dives in and out of the bougainvillea; a white-browed coucal flaps lazily over the hedge. We hear a boo-boo shrike’s echoing call; the red-chested cuckoo calls, “It will rain! It will rain!” Von Der Dekkens hornbill; lilac-breasted roller; fiscal shrike; speckled mousebirds, surprisingly large... so many dry-country species dear to our hearts, every one with an associated memory....

Arrow Marked Babblers

Wahlberg's Eagles

The school is lovely: well-built brick buildings with a huge amount of space for the children to play. Simple classrooms. A  wonderful, wooden-floored library, with nooks for reading in. A soft play room full of bean bags for romping on. Tree house, jungle gym, ropes and slide. A good-sized swimming pool, warm in the hot sun.

We sing along with George Ezra...”I am riding shotgun, underneath the hot sun...”

It is good to be here.

We had a day at Jonny and Adele's house, then it was time to make our way to Byron and Lisa's house for Christmas.

Leaving Usa River to drive through Arusha, making our way through the sea of vehicles which Jonny navigates with calm efficiency as motorbikes pass us on all sides, weaving in and out of traffic with inches to spare, we head out for a few days with the Bordens.

Monduli Mountain

The start of the coffee farm

Arriving at Byron and Lisa's home on Monduli Estate outside Arusha is like coming home. Wherever she lives, Lisa creates beauty. African artefacts nestle next to hand-created azure pottery, David Shepherd animal prints with local art.

Her Christmas tree is a sisal branch, adorned with beaded ornaments, made by a bead project in the Loita Hills in Kenya. Also once the Bordens' home.

Nativity sets and a Swedish Christmas star reminds of Christmas. Adele and I contribute pepparkakor, traditional Swedish spicy biscuits, my own Christmas tradition.

This home is an African oasis. Perched on the side of a hill, the garden is filled with bougainvillea and hisbiscus, sisal and all manner of lilies. Lavender lines the paths, scenting the air along with the purple, mauve and white blossoms of the yesterday, today and tomorrow bush. All so, so familiar.

We rejoice in decades of deep and valued friendship; of shared experiences, memories bubbling up one after the other. Lives joined despite years and thousand miles of separation.

We talk, too, of this: of the disconnect between who we were, and are, and of how the places we live affect our identity. Of the feeling of desperately wanting to feel at home in close community, to feel at peace with who we are, where we are. Of how, at the deepest level, this craving stems from God and can only be truly satisfied in relationship with God.

Complicated.

Meanwhile, we enjoy the peace of this place, the beauty of the physical and the emotional reconnection with such dear friends.

Birds delight. Flycatchers perch on a branch in front of us. Yellow-vented bulbuls fly between bushes. At a sudden sound, a flock of speckled mousebirds skeeter from a bush to swoop across the lawn. Reichenhows weavers come to the bird table.

We walk through the coffee plantation, bushes just over flowering, the faint scent of the blossoms still lingering on the air. An African black kite soars overhead, wheeling and diving the thermals with precision as it journeys beside our path.

Sundowner drives up the hill give us views across the Rift Valley - Lake Manyara, Serengeti lie beyond the folded hills. Mount Meru hides in clouds; terraced fields stretch out; acacia thorn trees are dotted wherever we look.

Monduli on the left and Mount Meru behind the tree.

Contentment.