Every Once in A While

If you’ve read any of my blogs on parenting, you’ll know I find it challenging.  I really just have no idea what I’m doing.  Most days,  I am pretty convinced my kids will need years of therapy to recover from my well meaning but inept mothering.   On my worst days, I think I am making all the right moves for my kids to turn to drugs and promiscuous sex and eating disorders and eventually land in juvi.   But every once in a while something happens and I think I can’t be doing everything wrong.

The other night, Tanya was over for dinner after having been out of town for a whole week.  Now, Tanya is first and foremost my friend, but I am forced to share her with every member of my family because she holds a very particularly special place in each of their hearts. What this results in is that when she comes to our house, the minute she walks in the door, words and stories tumble out of our mouths, bumping and jostling each other in the race to reach her first. 

This night, after 15 minutes of this conversational chaos at dinner, we decide that it will work much better if each person has some time to tell Tanya something about their week.   I go first, and then Bill.  Bill begins to tell her about going to the release of Myesha Jenkins' 2^nd book of poetry at Darkies Café.   In amidst the who was there, what we ate, whom we talked to, what the format was, Bill told Tanya about how when Myesha that night had read the title poem from her book, Dreams of Flight, he had turned to me and asked, “Does this capture what you are feeling exactly?”  

At that moment in Bill’s story, Alexander had wandered over and was coincidentally (or not) standing right next to my copy of Dreams of Flight.  “Let’s hear it,” I say, “Alexander, bring that book over. Read the last poem.”  Now if you know my boy, that is a bold thing to ask of him.   But he is as eager as all of us to be in the glow of Tanya’s attention and so opens the book and reads the short poem. He reads it well, with assurance, in his fine public speaking voice, as if he had been practicing .

And blam, that is the start of it, a poetry slam breaks out at our dining room table. 

After Alexander read that one, Bill takes the book and reads one that especially speaks to him, one that could have been written about him.   It tells of fathers who know how to plait their daughter’s hair and make spaghetti  bolognaise and know what time school starts.   Alexander, being very much Alexander, then pronounces that the poems are all free verse and that free verse is too easy, at which point he digs out some non-free verse poems he had written in Grade 6 and proceeds to read them all to us, deserved pride tingeing his voice. 

Quince, meanwhile, has been flipping through Myesha’s book and  is desperate to have her turn to be in the spotlight.  She stands up and reads us the ones she has selected, including a lovely one about feeling safe while wearing an older brother’s shirt.   And then, Quince, being who she is, quickly composes her own poem, and we gladly (me, glowing a little) listen to her read that one too. 

Feeling the magic, Quince suggests that we make every Sunday poetry night in our house.  Moreover, she declares that every Saturday she will spend time writing poetry to read at Sunday night poetry night.  Now I know how magic works – you cannot schedule it.  You must just recognize it when it comes and be grateful that it has chosen to visit.   But I also know that magic visits when certain things come together. In this case, I know part is Tanya’s presence, as she always brings out some magic in our family, and also part is the gift of Myesha’s beautiful, accessible poems.  And though I don’t know what it is, I can’t help but think somewhere along the way I did something right that set the stage for my family to spontaneously create a night of poetry.  It is rare, but I am feeling a momentary pride in my parenting.   Feels nice.

Wild Dog Chase

We race along the washboard road in the predawn darkness.  Salani, our ranger and driver, takes the bumps at speed, rattling our teeth, jarring our bones. Our speed turns the cold night air into a biting wind.  We put on all our layers and pull the blankets tight up to our chins. The wind gets into my inner ears and they throb.   The prize is worth it. We are on the hunt for wild dogs, spotted less than an hour earlier along one of the park roads.

To  the uniformed, wild dogs may not sound very exciting but they are endangered and rare, only 400 in South Africa and only 130 in all of Kruger National Park.   They have a reputation, undeserved, for being cruel and indiscriminate killers so farmers and early colonial game administrators called for their extermination. That and habitat lost have diminished the population to dangerously low numbers.   Fortunately, now there are measures in place to protect them and reintroduce them back into some game parks.  We have seen them only in a breeding program and so are thrilled at the thought of seeing them in their natural habitat.

As we speed along, the eastern sky begins to lighten and color.   The marula trees are stark but lovely, silhouetted black against the brightening horizon, seashell pink and butter yellow.  

 The colors which had drained from the earth the night before begin slowly seeping back in but early-morning pale and thin.   An soft mist hangs in the air compounding the effect.  The grasses appear silver, only the barest of yellows and greens showing through.  The rich oranges, reds and golds still sleep, waiting to come out, till the sun is higher, warmer. 

Salani is single-minded in his mission so we don’t slow even when we come across a small herd of elephants.  We pause, but only just, when we spot the impressive bull a 100 meters later.  Despite our unusual speed, the dimwitted francolins still believe they can outrun us. They sprint ahead of our vehicle, dodging left and right, sure that even if they can’t outrun us, they can out maneuver us.  Finally, they give up, veering off into the bush or taking flight, angrily chirping a warning.  

We pull alongside game vehicles coming from the direction we are going.  In rapid Tsonga, Salani exchanges information with the other rangers.  No one has seen the dogs.   The sun has now come up fully above the horizon, big and yellow and hot. Only the warmth doesn’t reach us, we still huddle beneath our blankets.

By now our pace has slowed.  Salani says he thinks we’ve gone too far, so we double back.  As he drives, he hangs out his window looking for tracks but with no luck.  The urgency is gone.

I know when Salani slows, and cuts the engine at a herd of impala he has given up the hunt.  Without speaking we all adjust our expectations and settle in for what is before us.  Cameras and binoculars come out.   We watch the long horned male in his sisyphusian  task of keeping his herd of 100 females and off-spring in a manageable area, circling, snorting, corralling.  We watch the young ones leap and kick up their heels.   The wind gone and the sun higher, our blankets come off.   In silence, we drink in the beauty of what has been given us instead.

Evening Game Drive

“September, October is the best time to come to Kruger,” Salani, our ranger tells us.  But we are here now, in April, when the animals hide deep in the long grass.  I don’t mind though.  I am no longer so greedy for sightings of the big five, to see lion with a fresh kill, mothers with newborn babies.   I am happy just to be out in the breezy, warm afternoon sun, driving again through the South African bush.

An hour into the drive, the sun is on its way down, lending her brilliance to the land, coaxing the gold from the long autumn grasses, lighting the rose tips like thousands of tiny flames.   The air is soft, warm, and full of bush smells.   Grass and dust, musky and animal, wild mint and light flower perfume.  When we dip steeply into a riverbed crossing, the temperature drops noticeably and the sharp scent of water and rocks fills our nostrils.   As we climb back up, the engine rumbles low like a lion’s soft warning roar.  Warm air and earthy grass smells envelop us again, and the engine’s growl  is drowned out by the clicking of crickets.  

Animal sightings are few on this trip.  Someone in our party, eager to see something, cries out, “Stop, what is that over there.  Oh, never mind. . . it is just a tree stump.”  It won’t be the last time one of us, our eyes straining to be the first to spot something, calls out excitedly  for us to look – what moments before had surely been an animal is now a rock, a fallen tree, a bush in shadow.  

And then my favorite part.  We stop for sundowners in an open field.   Glass of wine in hand, I can walk out into the grasses, immersed in the smells and sounds and feel.  The sun, though very low now, is still warm on our skin, no need for a jacket yet.  But, anticipating, I can feel the first faint licks of evening’s chill on my bare arms.   

Back driving, the sunset does not disappoint.  It is everything you want, lasting over half an hour.   Gold and pink with rays shooting up; you expect to see Jesus rising like in a religious painting.   Then red and slate grey clouds, and finally that deep blue with a sliver of rose where the sun has dropped deep below the horizon.   Only once the sun is truly gone do I need to slip on my jacket.

Then the spotlight comes out. Salani sweeps it back and forth, up in the trees, down to the grass, tracing the contours of the landscape with his light.   We marvel at his skill when he stops, puts the vehicle in reverse and shines the light high in a bush, pointing out a small lime green chameleon.   During my first couple of night game drives, I used to will the sweeping light to catch yellow leopard eyes, revealing that elusive night animal, tucked in the crook of a tree.  Now, as we drive, I am content to feel the changing air, smell the nighttime scents, watch the stars appear one by one and then thousands suddenly all at once. 

So I am surprised by how much my heart quickens when white breast glowing in the spotlight is a stock still Giant Eagle Owl perched on a tree branch.   We watch her as she slowly swivels her large head to look behind and then back to us. 

When Salani moves the light off the owl, puts the Land Cruiser in gear and we drive away,  I’m full.  The rest of the drive washes over me.   I feel blessed to have once again witnessed the ordinary and extraordinary of the bush transforming from day to night.

Coming Home From Kruger

Crazy I know - I spend two days in Kruger yet what do I post? A short video of cows. What can I say? I like cows. And this sighting completely cheered me on our overly long drive home.

Whipping along this country road we see up ahead a commotion. The entire northbound lane is taken up by this long procession of cows. We estimate 400. Babies, moms, steers, every color a cow can be, horns growing every which way. Bill is not very impressed by their udders (no comment) so he guesses not milking cows.

Every 50 meters or so is a herder with a long stick keeping them orderly- for the most part. But some of the cows have crossed over the road onto our side and are contentedly having a graze. Those cows following think grazing is a good idea and the line veers over across both lanes to the tasty grass. There is a bit of a stoppage until the herders get the unruly cows back on track.

Bringing up the rear of the procession is a bakkie, man hanging out the window waving at us like King of the Parade. More likely the farmer thanking us for our patience.

In this little clip, not particularly well shot because I was driving at the same time with cows all around (very safe I know), you'll see the camera dip down and get a nice shot of the steering wheel. This is when a rogue cow crossed right in front of me. All very exciting.