App Addiction

I have an IPhone! I need never be alone or bored again! As I gleefully shopped, blogged, composed, kindled, emailed and practised Spanish, I realised I need never leave my bed again except to pee! I am learning to tweet, whilst waiting for someone to bid on the game I'm selling on eBay listening to Seattle public radio! Amazing.

By Oxcart To California and Other Tall Tales

I am in bed with a cold. I have hosted this particular virus for over a week, and am sick of it.  Of course, I am jolly lucky to have the opportunity to stay in bed, but what's to be done with it?

Play with my new iphone. Curiously, when it comes to technology, inheritance laws go into reverse.  This slick, black piece of wizardry belonged to my youngest daughter, Hannah, who in keeping with an old family tradition, handed down her old phone to her father when she upgraded.  Her father couldn't get his head round it, so I blagged it off him (another old family tradition) and after removing chess, rail, and news apps, thoughtfully uploaded by H, I have made it my own.  So, from my bed, I have ordered groceries, brushed up my Spanish (on habla espanol... pero no mucho) composed three fifths of a poem, started a short story, watched Earthflight on iplayer and listened to an audiobook entitled,'By Oxcart To California'. Five minutes into it, and you know why it's free, but as a student of American history, it had its charms.

I recall a story, which could be true, told by our driver en route from Fairbanks, Alaska, to the nearest bit of The Arctic Circle with a 'You Are Here' plaque for tourists.  I am British, brought up without central heating, raised to tough it out, but I am wiser than I look, and would not willingly submit to an Alaskan winter. So, the tale goes, there was this old-timer, who'd logged and panned and hunted since the '50's (1950's) and would, come autumn, take up his post atop his shack, and shoot a moose that he'd then butcher and store for winter sustenance.  Then one Christmas, a year or so ago, his grandson visited with his Gameboy.  Gramps takes to this Gameboy like a duck to water, and as his family was about to leave, says, 'I've had it with this life, for God's sake, get me out of here.'  He now resides in 'Dunhunting' a Seniors facility in downtown Fairbanks.

This is as it was told to me, as true as that.

Finally, sometime around noon, the iphone began to pall, and I reached for my laptop. Scrolling down the list of bookmarks, I discovered this blog. Refusing to worry about the last time I'd made an entry, I started to idle with blogspot, punching the 'Next Blog' tag hundreds of times. Well, what an insight into the human condition! Babies, rock bands, polemicists, recipes, quiltmakers, ancestry-seekers and a run of much the same in Portuguese.  I amused myself for hours.  That the Atlantan Freemans started out as Toothaks was the most memorable piece of stuff (evidently, as it's the only bit I remember), but I did find a few interesting botanical blogs to which I hope to return.

Happy New Year!

First things first - Rosie called me today to ask me where
blue and red Pingu were (DVD's) AND that she's now wearing 
big girl knickers!  WOW!! Conversation with a two year 
old, who is mastering the art at an amazing rate, is sheer 
joy - particularly to grandma!


Good to talk to Ray yesterday. Now speeding out of Omaha, 
Nebraska on his way to Chicago, Illinois he has spent two 
days with John Onumbu and his family. We met John, a HUGE 
Nigerian student, hot from Port Harcort, in September 
1980.  He needed digs, and we, down to one income with a 
new baby to care for, needed his rent! 


John filled our small house with life and colour. I 
remember especially the lime-green shirt with a peacock 
motif that he wore on arrival. I also remember realising 
at once what a mistake it was to cook spaghetti for his 
first meal with us!  John was kindly, gracious and 
immense. He quickly became part of our family - watching 
in fascination as Ray cleaned house, changed baby and did 
the washing. I believe I managed to persuade him that it 
was NOT unmanly to do such things.  My powers of 
persuasion must have been sufficient, for he has stayed 
married to his American wife Linda for more than twenty 
years!


With John began a love affair with Africa that was to 
bring about many changes in my life decades later.


Anywhere In The World, This Is Your Home


Technically, my first trip to Africa was the belly dancing 
escapade across Sinai, but the Bedhouin who escorted us 
kept, with very good reason, themselves to themselves, so 
I feel no particular attachment to the place.  (Well apart 
from the awesome day spent on Mt Sinai. I found a cleft in 
a rock and sat there imagining Moses petitioning God to 
allow him to see His face...See Exodus 33 v 22 )  We were 
privilidged to meet their families on one occasion.  The 
wives and children must have been utterly bemused at the 
strange customs of these white women; nevertheless they 
taught us one of their dances and sold us beads...


I became Nomantombi Mlombile's adopted daughter in August 
2002.  I was a Global Teacher, funded by the UK Gov't 
Millenium Commission to go to the village of Lower Kroza 
(Eastern Cape, RSA)to help the staff of the 
school 'implement the School Development Plan' - a task 
which was the most surreal enterprise I have ever 
undertaken. Nomantombi, the elderly widow of an Archdeacon 
in the Anglican Church, and owner of the most secure Kraal 
in the village, had been persuaded to host me.


I will describe a typical day on the Kraal on another 
occasion, for now I want to record here my love for and 
gratitude to this remarkable woman.


I had noticed that she regularly took meals into the 
rondavel (my room was in a large five bedroomed 'flat 
house' ie not round... )One day she told me the story of 
the man in the rondavel, 'the son of my oldest brother' - 
he was dying of AIDS and he needed to go to the hospital 
in Kokstaad. I insisted she take 100 Rand for a private 
taxi (about £10 then) so that she could visit him. Within 
a week, he had died.  I was enormously impressed by her 
courage; South Africa was in denial then about the AIDS 
epidemic because of the shame attached to the disease. 
Even to the extent that her nephew's death certificate 
listed, 'natural causes' as the reason for his death.


For ten pounds, I bought the loyalty and love of 
Nontomole's entire family.  Her sons and daughters are 
professional people - teachers, administrators a doctor 
and an airline pilot, but they have welcomed and treated 
me and my family with great warmth.  On the last day of my 
assignment, Mama took me round the entire kraal, walking 
me through every room in every house and said, 'Wherever 
you are, anywhere in the world, this is your home.'