In Venezuela, people used to say that if you got to 50 and you could count your true friends on the fingers of one hand, then you were a lucky person. And so I am, even though the Grim Reaper has claimed so many in the past two years.
I have just watched Casa de Areia (The House of Sand, directed by Andrucha Waddington) and now I can't sleep for all the recurring images of longing and dunes.
So back to the biography of Raymond Carver that I'm reading. And maybe a bit of Breaking Bad and then it will be time for breakfast. In Holland that tends to revolve around coffee and gingerbread and brown bread and butter with chocolate specks.
A new ambulance for the little village where I live finally arrived on Saturday. I see its photo outside Mossuril Hospital and it feels strange not to be there; and stranger still not to have been there when its Mercedes engine swept uphill to the blue and white building where I have been so many times. The new chariot is a gift from the Meander Medical Centre in Holland and it was really needed.
My next project will be to restart Teran Foundation's internet cafe (after the computers burned out some months ago on a super-surge of electrical current). And next after that we will be kick-starting a chain of fish farms. It feels bizarre to be sitting high up in a stately old house in northern Europe working out the logistics of just how deep to dig the fish ponds, and just how much powdered lime to scatter in them to keep the leeches away. I am wondering which fingerlings will do best behind the beach so far away in northern Mozambique. And I'm remembering a sort of horror documentary about fish-farming in Tanzania. And I'm glad that the new fish farms will be dug out of the existing shallow lagoons that the local salt-producers use to water their salt pans and they will be like extensions of the sea and not the home of lurking monsters!
Updates on Lisa's new books, Teran Foundation development projects, journalism, travel writing and life in Mozambique. | New book coming out 2024 |
Monday 19 November 2012
Saturday 17 November 2012
Monday 12 November 2012
Is splitting a humming bird in two, Playing with Fire?
I never thought that publishing something of my own on the internet would give me food for thought, but it does and it has. So I have divided this Humming Bird story, splitting it in half at what seems to be a natural break. I notice a lot of readers see this blog, so if anyone has an opinion about this, I'd be interested to know it. The second half is now called 'Playing with Fire'.
As opposed to playing with fire, here, at least, I have ceased to live on the edge. I walked a bit around Amsterdam today, ignoring the chill wind and heavy sky. I like wandering around the city centre because it is the only city centre in the world that I don't get lost in. I could say that I don't have any sense of direction, but that isn't quite true. I often feel convinced that I know the way to wherever even though I hardly ever do. But then, some years ago, on doctor's orders, I had to take some exercise. That was a very scary thought for someone whose only sport is Shove Ha'penny - which requires nothing more energetic than the measured movement of one finger tip. Urged on by my partner (who believes that running is the cure for practically every disease under the sun) I compromised and took to walking. And I walked up and down beside and around the canals of Amsterdam. Some of these are so long that pedestrians should get prizes for touching either end. And some are so pretty they don't seem real. And some are so littered that I think the moorhens who nest on municipal rafts on them must be genetically modified to feast on pollution.
Back when I started patrolling this city, I think I walked further than my doctor could have possibly envisaged because I got very very lost. Sometimes, in some parts of Amsterdam, a person can wait for three hours for a taxi to pass by, I know because I am that person. Long ago, in the days before mobile phones were an integral part of mankind, one could get stranded in places. I am very used to being stranded. When I was a little child, my sister Lali and I used to play a game called 'Let's Get Lost'. This consisted of riding our bikes around London until we had absolutely no idea where we were and then having to find our way back home. Maybe, the reason why I quite like being lost is because it reminds me of Lali. Or maybe it feels like doing something naughty as the first step of running away.
I liked running away too, more as an adult than a child, Well, to return to my subject: Amsterdam became familiar to me in a way no other city has. I recognise more than trees and shrubs here. I recognise buildings, doorways, churches, certain balconies, certain squares, bridges, alleways, shops, fire stations, police stations and much more. it surprises and pleases me that so late in my life I have finally found signposts in an urban setting. Everywhere else, I can only ever find my way around by memorizing plants. In London, paris, New York, madrid and everywhere else, I follow trees and bushes, hedges and flower beds, window boxes and tubs. In Amsterdam, I used to find my way from vine to vine and creeper to creeper, notching up hollyhocks along the way. Now, when I stroll around, I notice the trees that I used to rely on to get around but I don't need them. I know my way now from the Dam to the Leidseplein, and from the Museumplein to the Albertcuyp Market and out to the Central Station and back via any choice of streets. I can find my way home from anywhere on the central grid. I hadn't realised it until this particular visit: but I am no longer the topographically-challenged person I used to be.
The Dutch Police are pretty mean about giving lifts or even proper directions to stranded tourists. I tried a few police stations during my city learning curve. Once, I practically collapsed over their counter but there was still no way they were going to help. Most of my encounters with the police worldwide have been when officers from this or that Force have kindly escorted me back home or helped me find whatever hotel I'd booked into and then lost. Most policemen, even in rough countries, have been pretty nice about it. If you check into, let us say, Hotel A, leaving your passport at reception and your luggage in your room, it is not easy to then check into Hotel B without said passport or any luggage. Up until now, I think I've made more friends on the street tracking down those elusive hotels when I was lost than I have at parties. So it feels strange now to go shopping and just shop and return; or to go for a short walk and get back within the hour.
Now I don't know if it is old age or introspection but my not getting lost is as intentional now as getting lost used to be back in the good old days. I am not ready to put this to the test yet in London or anywhere else, but maybe next year I will.
Meanwhile, here is the segmented humming bird open for comment. The 2nd title is printed in a bold font so for those who wish to scroll down: you can find the break without needing to re-read the text.
He
Came to me Like a Humming Bird
Whenever I escaped from the village, I liked
pretending to be an islander; wandering around raising white dust as I visited
the almost empty markets and the yellow arcade by the Government Residence. I
used to explore the fortress, the ruined palaces where entire colonies of
refugees were living, and the ladies section of the Green Mosque. I
criss-crossed the cluttered, shady alleyways that traversed from shore to
shore, stepping over women and children, cooking pots, bundles of ragged laundry,
and piles of scavenged firewood. When the tide was out, the beaches were
teeming with waders gathering shellfish and crabs.
From the crenulated parapet, I could see the
fringe of mangroves of our village. That ancient platform studded with rusty
canons pointing out to sea was the only deserted part of the Stone City. The
rest was crawling with islanders and refugees alike. Mothers carried babies
strapped to their backs with cotton wraps; but other people also carried what
was left of grown men and women strapped to their backs like giant babies. My
Cousin Sergio said they were the remains of people who had stepped on
landmines, but when I asked him what a landmine was, he shrugged and said,
“We don’t talk about that.’’
There never seemed to be enough reasons for me
to keep sailing to Ilha. Sometimes I’d spoil things at home and then blame it
on the rats just so Ma would have to replace whatever it was, or get it mended,
and she’d ask me if I could bear to
sail over again to buy a new one or
get the old one repaired. That way (and once even burning my hand so I could go
to the hospital) I managed to get away quite a lot.
The only problem was that I found Cousin Sergio
annoying on the ferry crossings. He had always teased me a bit as part of the
fun we had together, but after I became a woman, I stopped liking it. I felt
rushes of anger whenever he pinched my arms or ogled my breasts. He kept
inventing opportunities to touch me. He’d hold onto me as I got on and off the
dhow; and he’d brush his hand against my head scarf - accidentally on purpose -
every time he lowered the sail to punt our dhow to the beach. His touch made me
feel queasy and I began to like the idea of marrying him less and less. But I
didn’t actually decide not to until I
met the stranger I was destined to marry: that is, until I met Evan Garcia.
The day I met him, I was on Ilha sitting under
a banyan tree by the empty petrol pump by the new bridge to the mainland. It was
where the taxis had arrived and departed before the War. And then it was where
the convoys of trucks arrived from Out There. Because soldiers and bandits
alike robbed and hi-jacked solitary cars and harassed the convoys, sometimes,
no trucks arrived. Then I could only sit and imagine their arrival with nothing
to distract me from my fantasy except for the black and white crows that
scoured the beaches.
But sometimes a convoy did come in when I was
there and then I liked to sit and watch the flow of passengers with all their
bundles and sacks and animals and suitcases and bags because they seemed to
have such an exciting life compared to mine.
There would be soldiers coming home on leave
and refugees with sunken eyes and spindly legs. I imagined they came from all
the places I had learned about at school: places such as Nampula and Monapo,
Beira and Nacala, Pemba and Quelimane. They were always covered in dust from
head to toe, but to my young eyes that dust was just powdered glamour. Although
they were dark and light-skinned, Indian, Macua, Chinese, and Akunha; the one thing they all had in
common was their relief at having arrived safely. If any of them happened to
greet me, then I felt almost as though I too had travelled from afar, or that I
was on the brink of an adventure. Ma and Father didn’t know that I spent my
time hanging around the old taxi stop. Instinctively, I knew that neither of
them would approve, so I didn’t tell them.
Luckily, I was free to wander on my own on my
visits to Ilha. Cousin Sergio, my betrothed, would have certainly accompanied
me if he could have. But, thank God, he had to stay on board to look after the
family ferry. On arrival, after securing the boat and leaving Cousins Sergio
and Talady with a heap of instructions, Father and Uncle Felis always went straight
into the Green Mosque. After that, they always went to the house of their
friend, Senhor Abdul Kassan, to drink
home-made gin, and pick over the latest events and scandals in the Province. Ma
called those meetings ‘Parliamentary Sessions’ because Father and his cronies
acted as though Ilha was still the country’s capital and as though they were
the Government’s Ministers solving all the problems from the trades unions’
disputes to the shortages, Health and Education. One subject they never discussed
was the War. Like mentioning Uncle Felis’ son who ran away, the subject was
taboo.
Meanwhile, on arrival, I would hurry away to
meander up and down the island’s three avenues, always gravitating towards the
old taxi stop. So there I was sitting alone in a crowd, feeling bored and
restless on that morning of October 1986, until, at eight forty-five, a new
convoy pulled up in a cloud of dust.
I had heard it coming for the past ten minutes.
Even before the trucks began to rattle single file across the bridge, there
were shouts and hurrahs from the beaches of both Jambezi and Ilha to herald
their arrival. A new convoy meant new supplies of everything from Malawian
sugar to penicillin, cigarettes, bread-flour, petrol, bicycle tyres, potatoes,
nails, candles, fishing line, and even tins of things like sardines and tomato
paste which our Cuban and Russian allies sold on the side.
There was a light breeze blowing across from
the rocky beach towards the bridge but the sun was already scorching. A young
gull was drifting on a current of air. I stopped to watch it, envying its
ability to glide. The air was fragrant with jasmine from the garden of the
little mosque on the rocks and frangipani from the cemetery behind me. The new
convoy was relatively small. It was headed by a battered military lorry full of
civilians. There were only seven trucks in all, each laden with goods and
topped with dozens of passengers clinging to the tarpaulin ropes as thickly as
flies on a plate of pudding.
All around me, women and girls converged to
sell cups of water, donuts, coconut buns, bananas, guavas, little grilled fish
on sticks, and quarter-litre gin bottles filled with gritty maheu. From all three roads that sliced
up the island, people were running towards the incoming trucks. There were
parents hoping to see their children, and children hoping to see their parents.
The Indian shopkeepers and their assistants were running as though it was
Sports Day at school to get to the goods that would be for sale before anyone
else. And the black marketers, (who were both Indian and Macua) were running
too; and because they were mostly younger and fitter, they reached the trucks
before the shopkeepers; so there was a lot of pushing and shouting.
I was sitting on a big rock set back a little
way from the road. It was opposite where the third truck in the convoy was churning
up an extra cloud of dust. Watching it was better than any newsreel: as though
by magic, the usually quiet island was a dissected termite hill. Passengers
literally spilled off the trucks, jumping on top of each other, falling in a
heap in their haste, and then running in every direction. Somewhere a child was
crying. Car horns were blaring, and drivers and sellers were shouting their
wares.
“Sugar! Sugar! Sugar!’’
“Gasoline! Gas-o-leen!’’
“You want it, we’ve got it!’’
“First come first serve!’’
“Get your money out: cash only’’
In unison, three boys with unruly hair jumped
off the side of the third truck beside me. They were dressed very smartly and
had high-soled running shoes that they never sell on the central market because
only Akunhas have such shoes. With
amazing efficiency, they gathered together a pile of boxes which they divided
up, loading them so high they could not see where they were walking and despite
that, they trotted off into the crowd managing all the while not to fall over.
Once they were out of sight, I concentrated on a chocolate blancmange mother
and her skinny daughter.
The mother got stuck climbing down and yelled, wobbling,
until she was helped off the ropes by a young man who seemed to be the
conductor. She made a great to-do about unloading her two knobbly sacks which
she handled as though they were as fragile as eggshells. Several Indian traders
literally pulled her over to them, knocking her head-wrap askew in their haste.
I wondered what she had brought in those bumpy sacks that could be of so much
interest. Other passengers jumped and climbed down from all sides, blocking my
view while kicking and elbowing each other and apologising all the while to no
one and everyone.
And then, standing alone in the middle of the
lumpy tarpaulin while all around below him a hundred fingers unpicked its ropes
to release its load, I saw him. He had long smooth limbs and a shine on his
skin as fine as the bowls of polished ebony that the itinerant sculptors make. And
he was young, but, I reckoned, already eight or ten years older than me. His
nose had been broken long since and mended crooked; and I wondered what
misfortune had caused it. And he had gazelle-eyes with lashes so long they
seemed hardly able to stay up above them, curling down and then rising again. His
mouth was wide and his lips were full. I watched him gaze across the bound
canvas tarpaulin as though searching for something he’d lost. Just watching
him, every part of my body began to tingle. And just as suddenly, I ceased to
feel restless because I knew that I’d found what I was looking for.
Like a humming bird, he darted downwards into a
dip in the canvas so that he was momentarily gone from my sight. A tight knot
formed in my chest, stealing my breath. I begged the Ancestors to intercede for
me: I must not lose him.
They didn´t let me down: having found what he
had been searching for, he surfaced above the edge of the load again, smiling
happily and holding up the ten metical coin he must have dropped. He had long
sensitive fingers with the flattened ends of a drummer. His face was high above
the level of mine, his eyes shone; there was a small scar on the bridge of his
nose. His teeth were like polished ivory with a gap on the right-hand side and
one slightly crooked tooth beside it.
Then he saw me and grinned. I wanted to climb
inside his mouth and be swallowed by him. I smiled back, happy that he had
found his coin, happy to be near him, happy to have found him. He sprang over
the side and bounced off the ropes with the agility of a monkey. Landing at my
feet, he bowed to me and said,
“Evan Garcia, born in Monapo, at your service’’
I lowered my eyes and bowed my head, and then I
looked up and stared right under his curling lashes,
“Nina Ussene, born in Cabaceira Grande’’
“Nina Ussene, as you
see, I’m a rich man. I have this ten-
metical coin, won’t you
make a wish and share it with
me?’’
He held out his hand to help me up from the
stone. As I gripped his proffered fingers, I found the answer to the questions
that had been troubling me all year since I came of age. What does it mean to
be in love? What does it feel like? How can I get it? Where can I find it? Love
was the touch of his fingers on my palm. Love was to be near him, to share not
just his proffered coin, but for the two of us to share our lives.
[The end
and maybe
a new start? ]
Playing with Fire
The Golden
Anchor would set sail at 2 p.m., she always did. Father was very strict
about it. During the four hours and thirteen minutes that Evan Garcia and I
shared on island, we managed to fit in an entire courtship. We strolled through
Ilha as though in a trance. I was vaguely aware of people staring at us, but I
didn’t care. I knew that when I got home, news of my walking with a stranger
would have arrived before me on the gossip tom-tom; yet I did nothing to stop
it.
Nothing mattered anymore except to stay with Evan
Garcia, born in Monapo. To which end, I released myself from my engagement to my
Cousin Sergio, and distanced myself entirely from my family’s preparations for
our wedding. Furthermore, I rejoiced that in the corner of Ma’s mud hut, beside
my sleeping mat, the tartan suitcase with my trousseau was waiting so
conveniently for me. Whatever new life awaited me would certainly be easier
with my supplies.
Thus, while I wandered around Ilha entranced
and in love, I was also plotting exactly how to elope together with my tartan
suitcase. Actually sneaking away from our hut would be the easiest part,
because girls didn’t elope from our village so no one would suspect me. Even if
I dragged my trousseau down to the beach, Ma and my sisters would just be glad
that I was finally taking a proper interest in it. No one would imagine that
I’d be running away. With everything a girl could want, why would I want to leave?
And yet sleeping at home felt like lying
under a heavy stone. Just being there made me feel crushed. I tried to explain
this to Ma once, but she shushed me and made me a herbal tea that knocked me
out completely. There was no room in our village for discontent; and thus, I
felt, no place in it for me.
The siri siri plant creeps all over the
mangrove’s floor and tiny pink flowers bloom between its fat stems. Every day,
those flowers are drowned by the tide and yet they survive until one of us
walks on them, bruising their pink petals to purple. Evan told me that I was as
pretty as a siri siri flower. Soon after he said it, I thought: ‘my family are
the fisherman’s feet treading on me and bruising my petals’.
Looking back, I think maybe I should have felt
some remorse for the hurt and loss of face I was to cause to Sergio, my
childhood sweetheart; and for the insult and loss of face to Uncle Felis and
the rest of our family. But I blush to say that I felt none at all. What they would see as my jilting
(and betraying) my cousin, and insulting our village; I saw differently. From
spiralling down into a kind of madness, I had found an escape. Evan was the current of air upon which I
could glide away. I toyed with the idea of declaring my change of heart, but I
had to dismiss it: because my family could forgive many things, but no one in
the village could forgive a suitor the almost unpardonable sin of hailing from
beyond its boundaries.
Evan came from ‘Out There’, from Monapo, which
is over one hundred kilometres away. His family was unknown to our family; his Ancestors
were not buried within walking distance of our sacred baobab tree. So, just like
talking about Uncle Felis’ son who ran away, and talking about the War: for me to
marry Evan Garcia was also taboo.
Despite the indecent speed with which I began
to plot my Cousin Sergio’s betrayal, shame was far from my thoughts. I was glad
that the gods had smiled on me and allowed me to find this new man from among
so many others. Meanwhile, the logistics of how to elope nagged and snagged but,
as my Aunt Aziza used to say: the fruit of the baobab often falls far from the
tree. Dozens of different plans sprung to mind but the only viable one seemed
to be to leave my village that same night.
I’d ‘borrow’ Father’s canoe and paddle away because
there could never be a wedding in the village for me and Evan Garcia; and within
minutes of his jumping off that truck, I couldn’t contemplate my life without
him. Thinking about my father, I wondered what would upset him most: my leaving,
or my letting him down? My leaving, or my taking his boat?
On the flat roof of the fortress, on top of the
world, my new love and I wove between the canons on the empty parapet. We gazed
out towards my home beach. He told me about his job at the cotton factory in
Monapo, his drums, and his hut with a tangle of night-scented jasmine that
covered one side of it. He’d wanted us to stick to the town square to protect
my reputation, but I told him not to worry. I told myself that I’d go home and
face the accusations that had surely preceded me; and I’d pretend to be
penitent so that I could smuggle my suitcase out of our hut. And I had to get
the Eide pocket money I’d been saving
up for years and years. Half of it had gone to the Sorceress to help her cast
her spells, but the other half was hidden in a piece of plastic bag under my
mat. I’d get my things and be gone before anyone suspected me of such folly.
Evan didn’t want me to do it. (Kiss me, my
love, and then let your lips graze over me). He wanted to come to our village
and ask Father for my hand. Well, I explained to Evan how unwelcome he’d be in
my home because my hand had already been given to the son of my father’s best friend.
Sitting high up the wall of the fortress with the breeze in our faces, despite
my best efforts, Evan tried to persuade me to wait until we could have the
blessing of my parents ‘because’ he said, ‘an unblessed marriage is a great
burden to carry through life’.
We stayed at loggerheads over it and then like
two mules refusing to give way, we had our first argument just before we
parted,
“Nina, dear Nina, it is wrong to run
away. You don’t know me. Monapo is another world and I have only a tiny mud hut
far from the town. You might not like it. You don’t know my family yet. You
might not like them. We must wait. It is the only way.’’
“Evan, I will run away! And I do
know Monapo: I went there long ago when my sister fell over the side of our
boat and broke her arm. We went to Monapo for an X-ray and then we went up the
hill to the town. So I have seen it
and I like it.
I want to live in another world. I live in a huge mud hut that I
hate; I will love your tiny hut because it is yours.
I’ll make it a fine home for us and
our children. I’ll plant papaya trees and a mango tree and a coconut palm
beside it. And I will bring seeds from home to make a vegetable garden with
good things to eat. I will make your jasmine spread further to wrap us in its
fragrance.
And I will not need to be near to a
town because I will be near to you.’’
He shook his head and narrowed his huge, limpid
eyes. He licked the corner of his lips (lick mine). Taking his fingers, I
played with them, running my fingertips along the inside of his wrists as
lightly as spiders. He gulped, swallowing back his words as I dived in again,
“I don’t know your family: but I
will honour and respect them because they are your family. A girl must always
leave home to marry. Of course I’d prefer a blessing; but I know that not
having it is the price I will have to pay for marrying you.’’
“Nina, it is wrong to run away. You
must stop it. Don’t you see? You are headstrong and wild and we must wait’’
“I’ve been waiting for you, Evan
Garcia. I am headstrong and wild: that is who I am; and my heart tells me to do
this. I will come to you at dawn. The roads are not safe, as you know, so I
will borrow Father’s dug-out canoe and paddle across the water to Jambezi.’’
“No and no! I don’t want you to run
such dangers. Nina, I don’t want it’’
He is stronger than me, but I am the more
stubborn. I repeated over and over again that I would meet him on the beach by
such and such a tree. He closed his eyes and turned away from me, but I went
on,
“We cannot meet on Ilha because I
have too much family here; and the bridge will be closed at night; and I am
underage; and the soldiers will stop us in the morning.’’
Wonder widened Evan’s eyes while he listened to
me with a mixture of anger, fear, and desire. I had done my utmost to hypnotise
him and caress him into submission, but he snatched his hands from mine and
told me firmly,
“Nina Ussene, such a plan is
madness. How can you paddle so far in the dark? How can you disobey your
parents and incur their wrath and the wrath of your Ancestors?
It is not safe at Jambezi. You are
safe from the War in your village, but there is no such safety in Monapo. We
can only return with a convoy and there will be no convoy for days. That means
we would have to sleep rough in the bush beyond Jambezi. What will we eat? How
will we protect ourselves from the bandits who roam the beach? ’’
I tried to jump in again, but he had the
talking stick and he held me back,
“Nina Ussene, stop it! You are a
rich girl now. With me, you will be poor. You don’t know what you are saying!
It must stop and I must prove my worth to your father. So we must wait.’’
From the way he lowered his long lashes and
stared at his feet, I knew that what he was saying was not what he really wanted.
I found the chink between the two stances and rammed in my wedge,
“Evan Garcia, my husband-to be, I
could paddle to Lungá if need be to be with you. I must disobey my parents
because they are blind to what is in my heart.’’
What did I care about anything else? His touch could calm or excite me
at just the right time. I believed that
the Ancestors were guiding me in that joint venture. Although I will leave the
sphere of their graves, their spirits will stay with me wherever I go. I had
heard that indeed it was not safe in Jambezi: so we´d have to be careful. I'd take some food with me and I
already had a sharp knife in my trousseau with which my new partner would
protect us from bandits. As to whether there would be enough food: we wouldn´t
feel hunger for many days because we would feast on each other.
We didn´t touch then but I drove my future
husband wild with lust. I made him writhe as though in pain. And that was only
fair because the ache inside me was so great that it was all I could do to stop
myself from pulling him to me, inside me; and holding him there forever.
Once I had got him fit to burst, I explained
how the very safety of my village was smothering me. Desire had tamped my voice
to a hoarse whisper so he had to strain to hear me. He leaned forwards and I
inhaled his breath. I wondered how it would feel to lick his eyelids. There
were tiny white threads caught in his lashes, so he looked like a child who’d
been playing under a kapok tree. And if he licked me, I wondered, what would
his spit taste of?
A vein was throbbing in his temple drumming
from him to me as I told him that although I might seem rich to him, everything
inside me was fighting against what I had: so I was poor. But he kept telling
me how poor he was, as though I was deaf and hadn´t heard him properly the
first time. Then we both skirted around our mutual arousal, each trying to
douse the flames with paltry leaves. Every time we looked back into each other’s
eyes, we fanned a forest fire and flames leapt out and burnt us. I remembered
how once, on purpose, I’d scalded my hand with boiling water so as to wangle
another trip to Ilha. I remembered how much it had hurt.
As we argued, waves of heat rolled over us from
the fires we had kindled and we scalded each other with words that hurt. (‘’Maybe you don’t love me’’. ‘’Maybe you
don’t care.’’ ‘’If you are afraid....’’). Torn between desire, love and wanting
to do what was right, Evan didn’t stand a chance. With nothing to lose, I kept scoring points,
rattling off facts and figures to confuse him.
Below us and beyond, Cousin Sergio had raised the Golden Anchor’s mast. As I negotiated a
narrow stairway past the old dungeons, I reminded my new fiancé that The Elders always said that
the greatest wealth is our children.
“So, Evan Garcia, give me as many
babies as you can. ’’
(Do it now, my love, and never stop).
At one point, I pushed him against a greenish wall, lost in frenzy. He pulled
me along towards the gate. The more he resisted me, the more I loved him. I
knew that I had to convince him in the few minutes left before our boat set
sail. So I trotted
beside him, pleading,
“Trust me, my darling, as I trust you: I know
what I am saying. With this War, even though no one speaks of it here, it seems that no one knows
what will happen.
Out There, the fighting never seems
to end and it could come any day to our village. I will run away from my family
but I will not run away from life. Chance only knocks once on our door, Evan
Garcia. It is knocking now on mine.’’
Evan was still not convinced when I bid
farewell and left him
My grandfather used to say that
sometimes what looks like the wrong thing is the right thing to do if your heart
promises to you that it’s the truth. My heart has promised it as I promise now
to you, Evan Garcia. So wait for me at dawn and I will come.’’
Without giving him time to reply, I ran to the
beach, vaulted over the low wall and ran through the shallows to the Golden Anchor. As we set sail, Cousin Sergio
was in an intuitive sulk. I chatted with him to camouflage my new love. During
the entire voyage home, I talked to Sergio but my thoughts were all with Evan.
Evan Garcia and I had held hands but we had not
kissed or touched each other in the places where lovers touch. I wished we had;
why hadn’t we? I had known him for four hours and thirteen minutes only; and I
did not know a single member of his family. Four hours: we could have made a
baby in that time: we could have become each other’s blood family. I wished we
had. Why hadn’t we?
If my family or any of my friends had known
what I intended to do, they would have said that I was mad or possessed by a
demon. They would have tied me to a tree to protect me because nobody in their
right mind disobeyed or disrespected their family. Well, maybe I was mad, and
even if I was possessed by a demon, it was a demon that gave me the gift of
love: and what greater gift is there?
Saturday 10 November 2012
He Came to me Like a Humming Bird, a new short story
He
Came to me Like a Humming Bird
Whenever I escaped from the village, I liked
pretending to be an islander; wandering around raising white dust as I visited
the almost empty markets and the yellow arcade by the Government Residence. I
used to explore the fortress, the ruined palaces where entire colonies of
refugees were living, and the ladies section of the Green Mosque. I
criss-crossed the cluttered, shady alleyways that traversed from shore to
shore, stepping over women and children, cooking pots, bundles of ragged laundry,
and piles of scavenged firewood. When the tide was out, the beaches were
teeming with waders gathering shellfish and crabs.
From the crenulated parapet, I could see the
fringe of mangroves of our village. That ancient platform studded with rusty
canons pointing out to sea was the only deserted part of the Stone City. The
rest was crawling with islanders and refugees alike. Mothers carried babies
strapped to their backs with cotton wraps; but other people also carried what
was left of grown men and women strapped to their backs like giant babies. My
Cousin Sergio said they were the remains of people who had stepped on
landmines, but when I asked him what a landmine was, he shrugged and said,
“We don’t talk about that.’’
There never seemed to be enough reasons for me
to keep sailing to Ilha. Sometimes I’d spoil things at home and then blame it
on the rats just so Ma would have to replace whatever it was, or get it mended,
and she’d ask me if I could bear to
sail over again to buy a new one or
get the old one repaired. That way (and once even burning my hand so I could go
to the hospital) I managed to get away quite a lot.
The only problem was that I found Cousin Sergio
annoying on the ferry crossings. He had always teased me a bit as part of the
fun we had together, but after I became a woman, I stopped liking it. I felt
rushes of anger whenever he pinched my arms or ogled my breasts. He kept
inventing opportunites to touch me. He’d hold onto me as I got on and off the
dhow; and he’d brush his hand against my head scarf - accidentally on purpose -
every time he lowered the sail to punt our dhow to the beach. His touch made me
feel queasy and I began to like the idea of marrying him less and less. But I
didn’t actually decide not to until I
met the stranger I was destined to marry: that is, until I met Evan Garcia.
The day I met him, I was on Ilha sitting under
a banyan tree by the empty petrol pump by the new bridge to the mainland. It
was where the taxis had arrived and departed before the War. And then it was
where the convoys of trucks arrived from Out There. Because soldiers and
bandits alike robbed and hi-jacked solitary cars and harassed the convoys,
sometimes, no trucks arrived. Then I could only sit and imagine their arrival
with nothing to distract me from my fantasy except for the black and white
crows that scoured the beaches.
But sometimes a convoy did come in when I was
there and then I liked to sit and watch the flow of passengers with all their
bundles and sacks and animals and suitcases and bags because they seemed to
have such an exciting life compared to mine.
There would be soldiers coming home on leave
and refugees with sunken eyes and spindly legs. I imagined they came from all
the places I had learned about at school: places such as Nampula and Monapo,
Beira and Nacala, Pemba and Quelimane. They were always covered in dust from
head to toe, but to my young eyes that dust was just powdered glamour. Although
they were dark-and light-skinned, Indian, Macua, Chinese, and Akunha; the one thing they all had in
common was their relief at having arrived safely. If any of them happened to
greet me, then I felt almost as though I too had travelled from afar, or that I
was on the brink of an adventure. Ma and Father didn’t know that I spent my
time hanging around the old taxi stop. Instinctively, I knew that neither of
them would approve, so I didn’t tell them.
Luckily, I was free to wander on my own on my
visits to Ilha. Cousin Sergio, my betrothed, would have certainly accompanied
me if he could have. But, thank God, he had to stay on board to look after the
family ferry. On arrival, after securing the boat and leaving Cousins Sergio
and Talady with a heap of instructions, Father and Uncle Felis always went straight
into the Green Mosque. After that, they always went to the house of their
friend, Senhor Abdul Kassan, to drink
home-made gin, and pick over the latest events and scandals in the Province. Ma
called those meetings ‘Parliamentary Sessions’ because Father and his cronies
acted as though Ilha was still the country’s capital and as though they were
the Government’s Ministers solving all the problems from the trades unions’
disputes to the shortages, Health and Education. One subject they never discussed
was the War. Like mentioning Uncle Felis’ son who ran away, the subject was
taboo.
Meanwhile, on arrival, I would hurry away to
meander up and down the island’s three avenues, always gravitating towards the
old taxi stop. So there I was sitting alone in a crowd, feeling bored and
restless on that morning of October 1986, until, at eight forty-five, a new
convoy pulled up in a cloud of dust.
I had heard it coming for the past ten minutes.
Even before the trucks began to rattle single file across the bridge, there
were shouts and hurrahs from the beaches of both Jambezi and Ilha to herald
their arrival. A new convoy meant new supplies of everything from Malawian
sugar to penicillin, cigarettes, bread-flour, petrol, bicycle tyres, potatoes,
nails, candles, fishing line, and even tins of things like sardines and tomato
paste which our Cuban and Russian allies sold on the side.
There was a light breeze blowing across from
the rocky beach towards the bridge but the sun was already scorching. A young gull
was drifting on a current of air. I stopped to watch it, envying its ability to
glide. The air was fragrant with jasmine from the garden of the little mosque
on the rocks and frangipani from the cemetery behind me. The new convoy was
relatively small. It was headed by a battered military lorry full of civilians.
There were only seven trucks in all, each laden with goods and topped with
dozens of passengers clinging to the tarpaulin ropes as thickly as flies on a
plate of pudding.
All around me, women and girls converged to
sell cups of water, donuts, coconut buns, bananas, guavas, little grilled fish
on sticks, and quarter-litre gin bottles filled with gritty maheu. From all three roads that sliced
up the island, people were running towards the incoming trucks. There were
parents hoping to see their children, and children hoping to see their parents.
The Indian shopkeepers and their assistants were running as though it was
Sports Day at school to get to the goods that would be for sale before anyone else.
And the black marketers, (who were both Indian and Macua) were running too; and
because they were mostly younger and fitter, they reached the trucks before the
shopkeepers; so there was a lot of pushing and shouting.
I was sitting on a big rock set back a little
way from the road. It was opposite where the third truck in the convoy was
churning up an extra cloud of dust. Watching it was better than any newsreel:
as though by magic, the usually quiet island was a dissected termite hill.
Passengers literally spilled off the trucks, jumping on top of each other,
falling in a heap in their haste, and then running in every direction.
Somewhere a child was crying. Car horns were blaring, and drivers and sellers
were shouting their wares.
“Sugar! Sugar! Sugar!’’
“Gasoline! Gas-o-leen!’’
“You want it, we’ve got it!’’
“First come first serve!’’
“Get your money out: cash only’’
In unison, three boys with unruly hair jumped
off the side of the third truck beside me. They were dressed very smartly and
had high-soled running shoes that they never sell on the central market because
only Akunhas have such shoes. With
amazing efficiency, they gathered together a pile of boxes which they divided
up, loading them so high they could not see where they were walking and despite
that, they trotted off into the crowd managing all the while not to fall over.
Once they were out of sight, I concentrated on a chocolate blancmange mother
and her skinny daughter.
The mother got stuck climbing down and yelled, wobbling,
until she was helped off the ropes by a young man who seemed to be the
conductor. She made a great to-do about unloading her two knobbly sacks which
she handled as though they were as fragile as eggshells. Several Indian traders
literally pulled her over to them, knocking her head-wrap askew in their haste.
I wondered what she had brought in those bumpy sacks that could be of so much interest.
Other passengers jumped and climbed down from all sides, blocking my view while
kicking and elbowing each other and apologising all the while to no one and
everyone.
And then, standing alone in the middle of the
lumpy tarpaulin while all around below him a hundred fingers unpicked its ropes
to release its load, I saw him. He had long smooth limbs and a shine on his
skin as fine as the bowls of polished ebony that the itinerant sculptors make. And
he was young, but, I reckoned, already eight or ten years older than me. His
nose had been broken long since and mended crooked; and I wondered what
misfortune had caused it. And he had gazelle-eyes with lashes so long they
seemed hardly able to stay up above them, curling down and then rising again.
His mouth was wide and his lips were full. I watched him gaze across the bound
canvas tarpaulin as though searching for something he’d lost. Just watching
him, every part of my body began to tingle. And just as suddenly, I ceased to
feel restless because I knew that I’d found what I was looking for.
Like a humming bird, he darted downwards into a
dip in the canvas so that he was momentarily gone from my sight. A tight knot
formed in my chest, stealing my breath. I begged the Ancestors to intercede for
me: I must not lose him.
They didn´t let me down: having found what he
had been searching for, he surfaced above the edge of the load again, smiling
happily and holding up the ten metical coin he must have dropped. He had long
sensitive fingers with the flattened ends of a drummer. His face was high above
the level of mine, his eyes shone; there was a small scar on the bridge of his
nose. His teeth were like polished ivory with a gap on the right-hand side and
one slightly crooked tooth beside it.
Then he saw me and grinned. I wanted to climb
inside his mouth and be swallowed by him. I smiled back, happy that he had
found his coin, happy to be near him, happy to have found him. He sprang over
the side and bounced off the ropes with the agility of a monkey. Landing at my
feet, he bowed to me and said,
“Evan Garcia, born in Monapo, at your
service’’
I lowered my eyes and bowed my head, and then I
looked up and stared right under his curling lashes,
“Nina Ussene, born in Cabaceira Grande’’
“Nina Ussene, as you
see, I’m a rich man. I have this ten-
metical coin, won’t you
make a wish and share it with
me?’’
He held out his hand to help me up from the
stone. As I gripped his proffered fingers, I found the answer to the questions
that had been troubling me all year since I came of age. What does it mean to
be in love? What does it feel like? How can I get it? Where can I find it? Love
was the touch of his fingers on my palm. Love was to be near him, to share not
just his proffered coin, but for the two of us to share our lives.
The Golden
Anchor would set sail at 2 p.m., she always did. Father was very strict
about it. During the four hours and thirteen minutes that Evan and I shared on
island, we managed to fit in an entire courtship. We strolled through Ilha as
though in a trance. I was vaguely aware of people staring at us, but I didn’t
care. I knew that when I got home, news of my walking with a stranger would
have arrived before me on the gossip tom-tom; yet I did nothing to stop it.
Nothing mattered anymore except to stay with
Evan Garcia, born in Monapo. To which end, I released myself from my engagement
to Sergio, and distanced myself entirely from my family’s preparations for our
wedding. Furthermore, I rejoiced that in the corner of Ma’s mud hut, beside my
sleeping mat, the tartan suitcase with my trousseau was waiting so conveniently
for me. Whatever new life awaited me would certainly be easier with my
supplies.
Thus, while I wandered around Ilha entranced
and in love, I was also plotting exactly how to elope together with my tartan
suitcase. Actually sneaking away from our hut would be the easiest part,
because girls didn’t elope from our village so no one would suspect me. Even if
I dragged my trousseau down to the beach, Ma and my sisters would just be glad
that I was finally taking a proper interest in it. No one would imagine that
I’d be running away. With everything a girl could want, why would I want to leave?
And yet sleeping at home felt like lying
under a heavy stone. Just being there made me feel crushed. I tried to explain
this to Ma once, but she shushed me and made me a herbal tea that knocked me
out completely. There was no room in our village for discontent; and thus, I
felt, no place in it for me.
The siri siri plant creeps all over the
mangrove’s floor and tiny pink flowers bloom between its fat stems. Every day,
those flowers are drowned by the tide and yet they survive until one of us
walks on them, bruising their pink petals to purple. Evan told me that I was as
pretty as a siri siri flower. Soon after he said it, I thought: ‘my family are
the fisherman’s feet treading on me and bruising my petals’.
Looking back, I think maybe I should have felt
some remorse for the hurt and loss of face I was to cause to Sergio, my
childhood sweetheart; and for the insult and loss of face to Uncle Felis and
the rest of our family. But I blush to say that I felt none at all. What they would see as my jilting
(and betraying) my cousin, and insulting our village; I saw differently. From
spiralling down into a kind of madness, I had found an escape. Evan was the current of air upon which I
could glide away. I toyed with the idea of declaring my change of heart, but I
had to dismiss it: because my family could forgive many things, but no one in
the village could forgive a suitor the almost unpardonable sin of hailing from
beyond its boundaries.
Evan came from ‘Out There’, from Monapo, which
is over one hundred kilometres away. His family was unknown to our family; his
Ancestors were not buried within walking distance of our sacred baobab tree.
So, just like talking about Uncle Felis’ son who ran away, and talking about the
War: for me to marry Evan Garcia was also taboo.
Despite the indecent speed with which I began
to plot my Cousin Sergio’s betrayal, shame was far from my thoughts. I was glad
that the gods had smiled on me and allowed me to find this new man from among
so many others. Meanwhile, the logistics of how to elope nagged and snagged but,
as my Aunt Aziza used to say: the fruit of the baobab often falls far from the
tree. Dozens of different plans sprung to mind but the only viable one seemed
to be to leave my village that same night. I’d ‘borrow’ Father’s canoe and
paddle away because there could never be a wedding in the village for me and
Evan Garcia; and within minutes of his jumping off that truck, I couldn’t
contemplate my life without him. Thinking about my father, I wondered what
would upset him most: my leaving, or my letting him down? My leaving, or my
taking his boat?
On the flat roof of the fortress, on top of the
world, my new love and I wove between the canons on the empty parapet. We gazed
out towards my home beach. He told me about his job at the cotton factory in
Monapo, his drums, and his hut with a tangle of night-scented jasmine that
covered one side of it. He’d wanted us to stick to the town square to protect
my reputation, but I told him not to worry. I told myself that I’d go home and
face the accusations that had surely preceded me; and I’d pretend to be
penitent so that I could smuggle my suitcase out of our hut. And I had to get
the Eide pocket money I’d been saving
up for years and years. Half of it had gone to the Sorceress to help her cast
her spells, but the other half was hidden in a piece of plastic bag under my
mat. I’d get my things and be gone before anyone suspected me of such folly.
Evan didn’t want me to do it. (Kiss me, my
love, and then let your lips graze over me). He wanted to come to our village
and ask Father for my hand. Well, I explained to Evan how unwelcome he’d be in
my home because my hand had already been given to the son of my father’s best friend.
Sitting high up the wall of the fortress with the breeze in our faces, despite
my best efforts, Evan tried to persuade me to wait until we could have the
blessing of my parents ‘because’ he said, ‘an unblessed marriage is a great
burden to carry through life’.
We stayed at loggerheads over it and then like
two mules refusing to give way, we had our first argument just before we
parted,
“Nina, dear Nina, it is wrong to run
away. You don’t know me. Monapo is another world and I have only a tiny mud hut
far from the town. You might not like it. You don’t know my family yet. You
might not like them. We must wait. It is the only way.’’
“Evan, I will run away! And I do
know Monapo: I went there long ago when my sister fell over the side of our
boat and broke her arm. We went to Monapo for an X-ray and then we went up the
hill to the town. So I have seen it
and I like it.
I want to live in another world. I live in a huge mud hut that I
hate; I will love your tiny hut because it is yours.
I’ll make it a fine home for us and
our children. I’ll plant papaya trees and a mango tree and a coconut palm
beside it. And I will bring seeds from home to make a vegetable garden with
good things to eat. I will make your jasmine spread further to wrap us in its
fragrance.
And I will not need to be near to a
town because I will be near to you.’’
He shook his head and narrowed his huge, limpid
eyes. He licked the corner of his lips (lick mine). Taking his fingers, I
played with them, running my fingertips along the inside of his wrists as
lightly as spiders. He gulped, swallowing back his words as I dived in again,
“I don’t know your family: but I
will honour and respect them because they are your family. A girl must always
leave home to marry. Of course I’d prefer a blessing; but I know that not
having it is the price I will have to pay for marrying you.’’
“Nina, it is wrong to run away. You
must stop it. Don’t you see? You are headstrong and wild and we must wait’’
“I’ve been waiting for you, Evan
Garcia. I am headstrong and wild: that is who I am; and my heart tells me to do
this. I will come to you at dawn. The roads are not safe, as you know, so I
will borrow Father’s dug-out canoe and paddle across the water to Jambezi.’’
“No and no! I don’t want you to run
such dangers. Nina, I don’t want it’’
He is stronger than me, but I am the more
stubborn. I repeated over and over again that I would meet him on the beach by
such and such a tree. He closed his eyes and turned away from me, but I went
on,
“We cannot meet on Ilha because I
have too much family here; and the bridge will be closed at night; and I am
underage; and the soldiers will stop us in the morning.’’
Wonder widened Evan’s eyes while he listened to
me with a mixture of anger, fear,, and desire. I had done my utmost to
hypnotise him and caress him into submission, but he snatched his hands from
mine and told me firmly,
“Nina Ussene, such a plan is
madness. How can you paddle so far in the dark? How can you disobey your
parents and incur their wrath and the wrath of your Ancestors?
It is not safe at Jambezi. You are
safe from the War in your village, but there is no such safety in Monapo. We
can only return with a convoy and there will be no convoy for days. That means
we would have to sleep rough in the bush beyond Jambezi. What will we eat? How
will we protect ourselves from the bandits who roam the beach? ’’
I tried to jump in again, but he had the
talking stick and he held me back,
“Nina Ussene, stop it! You are a
rich girl now. With me, you will be poor. You don’t know what you are saying!
It must stop and I must prove my worth to your father. So we must wait.’’
From the way he lowered his long lashes and
stared at his feet, I knew that what he was saying was not what he really
wanted. I found the chink between the two stances and rammed in my wedge,
“Evan Garcia, my husband-to be, I
could paddle to Lungá if need be to be with you. I must disobey my parents
because they are blind to what is in my heart.’’
What did I care about anything else? His touch could calm or excite me
at just the right time. I believed that
the Ancestors were guiding me in that joint venture. Although I will leave the
sphere of their graves, their spirits will stay with me wherever I go. I had
heard that indeed it was not safe in Jambezi: so we´d have to be careful. I'd take some food with me and I
already had a sharp knife in my trousseau with which my new partner would
protect us from bandits. As to whether there would be enough food: we wouldn´t
feel hunger for many days because we would feast on each other.
We didn´t touch then but I drove my future
husband wild with lust. I made him writhe as though in pain. And that was only
fair because the ache inside me was so great that it was all I could do to stop
myself from pulling him to me, inside me; and holding him there forever.
Once I had got him fit to burst, I explained
how the very safety of my village was smothering me. Desire had tamped my voice
to a hoarse whisper so he had to strain to hear me. He leaned forwards and I
inhaled his breath. I wondered how it would feel to lick his eyelids. There
were tiny white threads caught in his lashes, so he looked like a child who’d
been playing under a kapok tree. And if he licked me, I wondered, what would
his spit taste of?
A vein was throbbing in his temple drumming
from him to me as I told him that although I might seem rich to him, everything
inside me was fighting against what I had: so I was poor. But he kept telling
me how poor he was, as though I was deaf and hadn´t heard him properly the
first time. Then we both skirted around our mutual arousal, each trying to
douse the flames with paltry leaves. Every time we looked back into each other’s
eyes, we fanned a forest fire and flames leapt out and burnt us. I remembered
how once, on purpose, I’d scalded my hand with boiling water so as to wangle
another trip to Ilha. I remembered how much it had hurt.
As we argued, waves of heat rolled over us from
the fires we had kindled and we scalded each other with words that hurt. (‘’Maybe you don’t love me’’. ‘’Maybe
you don’t care.’’ ‘’If you are afraid....’’). Torn between desire, love and
wanting to do what was right, Evan didn’t stand a chance. With nothing to lose, I kept scoring points,
rattling off facts and figures to confuse him.
Below us and beyond, Cousin Sergio had raised the Golden Anchor’s mast. As I negotiated a
narrow stairway past the old dungeons, I reminded my new fiancé that The Elders always said that
the greatest wealth is our children.
“So, Evan Garcia, give me as many
babies as you can. ’’
(Do it now, my love, and never stop).
At one point, I pushed him against a greenish wall, lost in frenzy. He pulled
me along towards the gate. The more he resisted me, the more I loved him. I
knew that I had to convince him in the few minutes left before our boat set
sail. So I trotted
beside him, pleading,
“Trust me, my darling, as I trust you: I know
what I am saying. With this War, even though no one speaks of it here, it seems that no one knows
what will happen.
Out There, the fighting never seems
to end and it could come any day to our village. I will run away from my family
but I will not run away from life. Chance only knocks once on our door, Evan
Garcia. It is knocking now on mine.’’
Evan was still not convinced when I bid
farewell and left him
My grandfather used to say that
sometimes what looks like the wrong thing is the right thing to do if your
heart promises to you that it’s the truth. My heart has promised it as I
promise now to you, Evan Garcia. So wait for me at dawn and I will come.’’
Without giving him time to reply, I ran to the
beach, vaulted over the low wall and ran through the shallows to the Golden Anchor. As we set sail, Cousin Sergio
was in an intuitive sulk. I chatted with him to camouflage my new love. During
the entire voyage home, I talked to Sergio but my thoughts were all with Evan.
Evan Garcia and I had held hands but we had not
kissed or touched each other in the places where lovers touch. I wished we had;
why hadn’t we? I had known him for four hours and thirteen minutes only; and I
did not know a single member of his family. Four hours: we could have made a
baby in that time: we could have become each other’s blood family. I wished we
had. Why hadn’t we?
If my family or any of my friends had known
what I intended to do, they would have said that I was mad or possessed by a
demon. They would have tied me to a tree to protect me because nobody in their
right mind disobeyed or disrespected their family. Well, maybe I was mad, and
even if I was possessed by a demon, it was a demon that gave me the gift of
love: and what greater gift is there?
Friday 9 November 2012
there is a change in the air
The last few days have been hectic but quite exciting. Now, just as I found a moment to update this blog, adding a new short story, I see that I am momentarily separated from the USB that contains the story in question, so that will have to wait. Mees found the perfect photo for my 'Watching the Rain ' story but that will have to wait as well.
In a few weeks time we'll be back in Mozambique, and then there are all sorts of new things coming up. I can't believe how many visitors we have had while we've been away. Well, they have all been ones we didn't meet, but they made it in absentia. Not many people actually get as far as Mossuril to visit us, but in the past couple of months, this has not been the case. It feels strange to be away while people from all over the world have trekked out to the egde of the Indian Ocean to see what we're doing and say hello. I hope it is an on-going trend and more people will follow when I am actually back.
Sometimes one becomes aware of impending Change as though it were a tangible object rather than an idea. I have been feeling a big change in the air for weeks now. Something is about to happen, to take off, and change my life: the feeling is definitely a good one. It is always easy, with hindsight, to re-write history and say, 'I knew that was going to happen'; so I'll go on record now, before the event, - whatever that event might be - and say I feel it coming. It is in the air. It makes me smile to myself as I walk around Amsterdam. What, I wonder, can it be?
My new short story: 'He Came to me like a Humming Bird' will be posted by tomorrow
In a few weeks time we'll be back in Mozambique, and then there are all sorts of new things coming up. I can't believe how many visitors we have had while we've been away. Well, they have all been ones we didn't meet, but they made it in absentia. Not many people actually get as far as Mossuril to visit us, but in the past couple of months, this has not been the case. It feels strange to be away while people from all over the world have trekked out to the egde of the Indian Ocean to see what we're doing and say hello. I hope it is an on-going trend and more people will follow when I am actually back.
Sometimes one becomes aware of impending Change as though it were a tangible object rather than an idea. I have been feeling a big change in the air for weeks now. Something is about to happen, to take off, and change my life: the feeling is definitely a good one. It is always easy, with hindsight, to re-write history and say, 'I knew that was going to happen'; so I'll go on record now, before the event, - whatever that event might be - and say I feel it coming. It is in the air. It makes me smile to myself as I walk around Amsterdam. What, I wonder, can it be?
My new short story: 'He Came to me like a Humming Bird' will be posted by tomorrow
Sunday 4 November 2012
These are family days. Lolly, my youngest daughter arrived today from Italy. And Charline, my stepdaughter who we have been nursing for the past three months after a car crash, walked this weekend without fdrutches for the first time and even danced again.
between such delights, I am still editing. I am on my third week of editing a short story trilogy: The Golden Anchor, He Came to me Like a Humming Bird, and The Wish. They are love stories set in Mossuril on the edge of the Indian Ocean and the main character is a girl, Nina, who feels unaccountably different and discontented until she falls in love and elopes.
I get up very early to get back to the task and I stay up late, addicted to honing and paring.
I see lots of people reading this blog and that makes me feel good.
More anon
between such delights, I am still editing. I am on my third week of editing a short story trilogy: The Golden Anchor, He Came to me Like a Humming Bird, and The Wish. They are love stories set in Mossuril on the edge of the Indian Ocean and the main character is a girl, Nina, who feels unaccountably different and discontented until she falls in love and elopes.
I get up very early to get back to the task and I stay up late, addicted to honing and paring.
I see lots of people reading this blog and that makes me feel good.
More anon
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