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7 quick takes
- Good morning! How are you? Hartmut is at work, Sophie is listening to an
audiobook, Doris is making a puzzle, and I am just back from a long walk of
loops in the garden. While I walked, I listened to a podcast about different
generations and their attitude towards climate change. It was interesting but
not very uplifting, so now I’ll try to write a blog with happy memories to lift
my mood. That’s an attitude in itself I guess…
- Not too far from our house is a small wildlife reserve. They had organised a
bird watching weekend and because the girls are pretty obsessed, and dragging
me along in their hobby, we booked. It was great. Together with a guide and a
small group of fellow fanatics we walked through the park to search feathered
friends. I don’t think that the birds got the memo about the weekend, because
not many showed themselves, but it was exciting nonetheless. We saw a few
‘lifers’ (that’s twitcher's language for seeing a bird for the first time since
you started recording them) and a bird that Sophie had wanted to see for
forever, so she deemed it a success. We didn’t only see birds but also some
pretty big animals. Seeing game from a car when you are on safari is really
exciting, but there is something magical about it when you walk through a park,
and you hear a twitch of a branch, see something moving in the bushes or just
sense that there is another being watching you. While we walked we saw
antelopes, zebras, wildebeest and even a giraffe. So exciting!
- ‘Let’s leave the road and find a dry path through the forest.’ the ranger
suggests. It’s been raining almost non-stop and the roads are wet and
slippery. We have been walking for a while, navigating past puddles and
semi-lakes on the road when we are stopping at a particularly large patch of
water. We cannot see the end, and we all agree that it’s probably better to
find an alternative route. At first, it goes well. We jump from dry patch to
dry patch, navigate in big and small bends and curves around large puddles and
keep somewhat dry. But once we are in the middle of the forest, we lose hope.
It starts to rain, there is water all around us and most of us have gotten wet
feet already anyway. Instead of navigating around the water, we try to find the
shortest route through the water. The girls love it. They have given up jumping
around the puddles a long time ago and walk straight through the water,
claiming that they are water birds. I can’t see a path or a clear area anywhere
and ask the ranger if he knows where we are. ‘I do’ he says confidently. I
wonder if he really knows it or if it is a small lie, because in Malawian
culture, a small lie is permitted if it means that you can avoid disappointing
someone with bad news. We walk for a long time when we finally reach a path.
‘We need to go left here’ the ranger says. ‘From here it’s not far to the
base.’ I am relieved because the girls are getting tired. We walk down the path
until we see something we recognise, and it’s not the base but an observation
deck at a small lake. Now it’s getting obvious that even the ranger had no clue
where we were because what we are seeing is exactly the opposite direction of
where he said we were going. We decide to walk to the observation deck while
Hartmut and someone else get the cars from the base so that we don’t need
to walk all the way back. Sophie beams ‘this was a very, very cool adventure.’
And all the birds that we spot from the observation deck are a cherry on that
adventurous cake.
- ‘Yeah, well done! You can do it!’ and ‘That was so much better than
yesterday!’ The girls are encouraging their growing rooster while he attempts
to show off his roosterly skills. He does it often, but not always with great
success. Young roosters remind me of teenage boys, when they are in that
awkward phase when their voice seems to have an own agenda. The crow will start
loud and confident but suddenly stop, or end in what sounds more like a cough
than anything else. But he is learning, and with the encouragement of the
girls, he will soon be able to charm all the hens of the neighbourhood.
Hopefully he won’t be as eager as our last rooster. He was so excited to crow
that he never seemed to sleep, which caused us to lose sleep too.
- When you pitch a tent in the wettest week of the season, you can definitely
test it well. After sleeping in the tent for a week, we can say that it’s
perfectly waterproof, except for when you don’t close the zip completely. In
that case you get a lot of water in the tent. We’ll never do that again. But
besides that, it was great and if it was up to the girls, we would move into
the tent full time.
- It was my mother-in-law’s birthday last week, and one of the things we
always do when someone in our family has a birthday is bake cake. But that was
challenging on the day itself as we didn’t have electricity. We decided to do
it the next day but as power didn’t return, and I could not take the generator
outside because it was raining almost non-stop, I told the girls that we would
have to wait and do it the next day. But the girls have grown up with this kind
of challenges and are not easily defeated. ‘Why don’t we do it like you used to
do on the lodge? Why don’t you boil a cake?’ The girls were right. At the lodge,
we never had power and before Hartmut build the oven, I used to steam cakes. So
that’s what we did. We made a steamed pineapple-cherry cake and celebrated.
While I am writing this, electricity left the house again. It doesn’t care that
I have bread dough raising and ready to bake. I am tempted to steam my bread,
but first I’ll wait a bit to see if it decides to come back
- Hmm, I didn’t think that I had much to say when I started writing, but I
think I was wrong. Well done when you made it all the way down here. I wish you
a happy week, and when you are Dutch and going to vote this week, vote with
your heart and not with your hate.
