elevision

Yesterday I modified our television so that the sound came out the front instead of heading out the sides (patent pending). Abbey helpfully added a trunk! Maybe we've been here too long...we're starting to see elephants. Bridie calls it an elevision. Abbey calls it a telephant. Clare, wisely, just watches it (we suspect she's afraid it will charge).

Grant

Egg Allergy

Last week I was cooking supper and a happy gaggle of children were watching from the doorway. This is quite common and I love giving the children a taste of this and a sniff of that. I was attempting to construct lentil burgers (I still cook like a hippy) and had added the onion and spices. I needed to add a couple of eggs but I stopped. I couldn’t.

I found it impossible to add eggs to my meal when I knew the children would LOVE an egg in their diet. We find catering a real balancing act. We try to be generous with our groceries but we can’t, and shouldn’t, supply too much. The children’s diets here are very limited and we are trying to expand the variety of foods available by growing a range seedlings and giving them to children and Mama’s to grow in their gardens. It is also a harsh truth that almost all the staff have only recently received their wage for February (all donations would be gratefully received!). This has the effect of radically simplifying everyone’s diet. We want to be sensitive to all of this but we also want our children to have good nutrition (sometimes we smuggle our groceries back to the house at night).

I gave the audience to my cooking show a whiff of the lentil burger mixture then waited until they had run off before adding the eggs.

Grant

In Tents

In the holidays we went to a backpackers called Small World and we got to watch the olympics. At night we slept in the tent. On Friday night we watched a movie up a tree…well not really up a tree but in a fort up in the branches of a tree.

Bridie

Nelson

 

On Tuesday we went to visit Nelson’s house. Nelson has a few children and a nice wife. They all live in a tiny room with no bathroom or kitchen but he was building a toilet. When Nelson was a child he lived at MRCH and he was sponsored by a man in Launceston!

When we were talking to Nelson loads of kids crowded outside trying to see us because I don’t think some of them had seen a white person before. Some looked very scared!  

Clare

Names

Africans have some of the best names in the world. We cannot believe some of the names we've found. The children are often named by what's happening around them when they are born. One person we met is called Anyway. He was probably named this because it was a difficult birth, and his mother thought 'Anyway, I have my child.' Some other interesting names include Blessing, and his sister More Blessing. There's also Lovemore and his sister Loveness. Some names are taken from famous people like Mona Lisa, Beyonce and Cleopatra. We think most names are qualities that the parents hope the child will have like Behave, Clever, Patience, Knowledge and Smart. Here's a few other great names: Manager, Lethargy, Blessed, Astonishment and Pretty.

Abigail (which means "Father's joy"!)

Rhino Chaser

This is Charles. Charles spends his day guarding some white rhinos against poachers. Rhino horns fetch ridiculous prices on the kooky medicine black market. When Zimbabwe's economy tanked the incidence of poaching skyrocketed. 

The rhinos are most active at night (when Charles is sleeping) so each morning Charles tracks them. At times the rhinos leave the reserve, walking straight through the fence. In the last week Charles has has to track and herd the rhino for up to 30 km outside the reserve. He does it all on foot.

Other than stout walking gear, Charles is kitted out with a semi-automatic weapon and has a mandate to use it against would-be poachers. His life must be a weird mix of serenity and stress.

Elephants

We stood right in front of a gigantic grey elephant. It was extremely exciting. One of the guides asked whether we wanted to ride an elephant. Dad and I really wanted to go but Mum, Abbey and Bridie were not so sure. After a while they agreed. I was slowly lifted off the ground onto the bony, calm elephant. It had humungous feet and was very tall. It walked very quietly and I felt it’s scratchy skin on my legs. It slowly plodded over the hard ground, went over the dusty road, past the floppy trees and past a few smaller animals. Eventually we came back to where we had started and the elephant slowly lowered itself to the ground. As I hopped off I looked into her intelligent eyes and wished I could ride again.

Clare