The Wanawake save the day.
Gareth and I didn’t go to church this week. We had had three sleepless nights with Samuel’s teething and had woken up with headaches and a severe sense of humour failure that meant we just couldn’t face the three-hour Swahili marathon that is church; especially not with a grumpy Sam. So we stayed home. We went about our daily routine: first job was to get the goats out of the pen and tether them under a tree. Uh oh, Maziwa’s rope was fraying badly. As Gareth tried to pull her close to put another rope around her neck, it snapped and she ran loose! Oh no we will have to spend all day trying to catch her! Samuel was tired and getting grumpy so as Gareth kept an eye on Maziwa so she wouldn’t eat the fruit trees, I went to put Sam to bed. “Gareth!” I called from the other side of the house. “Yes?” answered Gareth suspiciously. “I’m afraid we have a lizard situation!” I yelled. Gareth came, nervously leaving an actually very well-behaved Maziwa untethered in the garden. There was a slimy black lizard in Samuel’s mosquito net. As Gareth set about getting rid of it, I took Samuel on the ‘walk of doom’ that means wandering aimlessly around the house with Sam on my back until he falls asleep. At home I would use a push-chair for this job and walk around the town but this is my local way! As I was wandering around I heard various shouts and yelps from Sam’s room. Sam fell asleep so I lay him on our bed and went to help Gareth. Sam woke up as soon as I put him down so I went back to him and decided that he could have his nap later! I was told by Gareth that although the lizard was still around, it had no tail anymore and was probably so annoyed that it wouldn’t come back.
“I want to go home.” I said quietly to Gareth. “I’m fed up of lizards and stubborn goats.”
“You mean you would rather have a pesky rabbit and some runaway guinea pigs?” Gareth enquired, remembering our rather cheeky pet rabbit, Moses (now living with my brother and his wife!)
“Fair point.” I admitted. “But, if we were in Cambridge and it was a lovely sunny Sunday afternoon there, I bet Richard and Joy would come round with Miranda, or your sister and her boys would pop round. I really wish we had some friends who would just pop by and say hello.” I dreamed.
The phone rang.
“Hello Bethan? It’s Alice [pastor’s wife and good friend]. You weren’t at church this morning so Mama Esther, Eliza and I are coming round.”
“It’s okay. See you soon.” I said, as if I had a choice in the matter.
The women came round half an hour later and I brought out some of my home-made brownies. We drank cold water and the women mused as to the make-up of the brownies and we just sat and chatted in a mixture of Swahili and English (sometimes it wasn’t clear which was which!) We shared stories and I showed them photos of my family and friends back home. I told them that I had just wished that we would have visitors and then there they were and what an answer to an un-uttered prayer they were! Mama Esther told me a little about the fact that she had come from Congo 13 years ago and hadn’t been able to go back and visit her family so she understood how I felt. Of course this humbled me because she had fled a war-zone and hadn’t gone back since, whereas I could come and go as I pleased.
The women then helped us catch Maziwa, who was calmly munching her way around our garden, which made Samuel laugh so much he got the hiccups! Three Ugandan women in their Sunday-best and Gareth in shorts and scruffy t-shirt chasing a galloping goat around the compound was fairly amusing, it has to be said! I put Sam down to help and he followed closely behind me, laughing all the while as we all darted this way and that! The pastor’s wife eventually rugby-tackled the goat by the front legs and we got her rope on again. The Wanawake left, with my grateful thanks for visiting, and Gareth and I were both in much better spirits.
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