Changing continents

For the first couple of days we ate bread and jam until I could muster up courage to go out of the secure compound we were temporarily staying in. The children are learning key phrases like: ‘we hold hands in South Africa’ (as opposed to running on ahead) which came in useful as I attempted to cross 6 lanes of traffic with them on foot to get a few basic supplies. Safiyya (8) is finding the racial mix unusual – in the compound, she has observed that the children are mainly white but the adults who are working around the compound mainly black, and doesn’t understand what is going on. Asim (4) just identifies people as brown, yellow or even green, depending on what clothing they are wearing. The children have all noticed that all adults – whatever the colour - seem to genuinely like children here, and they have thrived on the attention! Our best (and only) friend at this time was the maid for the compound, and she fortunately didn’t seem to mind the endless stream of colouring pictures and home-made cards that came her way.

After a week, my husband needed to travel to China, and I tried to be positive, at least in front of the children! I took the children to the main zoo, and they were ecstatic to see lions, tigers and baboons ambling around in grassy open spaces that closely resembled the rest of the surrounding landscape that we were walking in. Amaani (3) had been told by various nursery friends in England that lions were going to want to eat her, so she was understandably not very keen initially, but her enthusiasm grew once she realised they had an alternative diet. Safiyya avidly read all the information provided about the various species, appreciated that their homeland was in Africa and severely tested my knowledge about the entire food chain in the process.

Then we moved into our house and my new role is caretaker of the 72 keys we have received from the landlord. This number was reduced slightly when we moved in, as Amaani instantly found a convenient little hole in a wall to post several vital keys through. We were then forced to explain to the landlord that, despite having retained some keys for literally only 5 minutes, we had already managed to lose them. We now have potentially another 69 keys to lose: ‘toddler heaven’, as one friend described it! At night, we lock ourselves into the ‘haven’, a corridor with the three family bedrooms in. I understand there are problems if you are locked inside the haven and then you lose that particular key, so I am just praying that Amaani keeps well away from that one.

Getting mail is complicated here, complicated by the children more than anything. We have a key for our Post Office box, which is one of a hundred PO Boxes sitting in the middle of a car park. I have managed to pick up the incoming mail, only for Amaani to instantly post it back through the main post box. Then we have to pay a visit to the very understanding post office lady and retrieve it. I do wonder how much patience the adults here will have with these children – an infinite amount is preferable! The children and I have been trying to make sure we comply with local etiquette, like tipping the security attendants at the car park. Consequently, the first time we went to get the post, Safiyya handed over two coins and we all piled back into the car. I was a bit concerned when the security guard came over, rejecting our tip – apparently we had tipped him 2 Jiao , which is helpful if you are in China but not highly useful in South Africa.

It is winter time but, in the daytime, the sun is shining and the weather is warm. Asim is perplexed by this, as he was just getting to grips with the idea of seasons and we left the UK in the summer. Now every day he updates his calendar with the day, the date, and a little snowman representing winter, accepting that certain things in life really make very little sense at all when you are four. Asim is generally content with the new life we are making here, as he has his immediate family around him and, unlike Amaani, he has a nursery place to look forward to. Safiyya is busy communicating with her old friends through writing, as we are still waiting for the telephone company-which enjoys a monopoly- to find time to give us a proper line to the outside world. And Amaani keeps asking ‘what house are we going to live in tomorrow?’ and goes around with her little suitcase - just in case it is time to move again.

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