Sustainable Living

So we thought it was time to take them out of their comfort zone and expose them to the famous South African ‘Garden Route’, a lush stretch of forests, lakes and beaches, with lots of monkeys, spiders, baboons and whales thrown in.

It was a long 15-hour drive. The children surpassed themselves by expressing their hunger even before they had got into in the car. The plaintive question ‘are we nearly there yet’ emanated from behind us with reassuring frequency. As Muslims, we are meant to ‘practise and promote patience’ – we certainly got a lot of opportunity for practice on that trip. We were stopped twice by the ubiquitous traffic police, who had been tasked with preventing swine fever from crossing the country. ‘I guess we don’t need to ask you if you are carrying pork,’ they said. I guess not.

We finally arrived at our destination. I had booked it a few weeks previously, after about 5 minutes research on the internet, and wasn’t too sure what we would find. All I knew was that we were going to be ‘eco-tourists’ living in a tree house. Asim started getting very stressed as we arrived. How would we get up? How would we get down? When we arrived at reception, I asked if we would get the room key. ‘Where you are going’, explained the lady sweetly, ‘you won’t need keys’. I started to get concerned. In Johannesburg, I have around 70 keys, an electric fence, an electrically operated gate, an alarm, beams across the garden…and now I wasn’t even going to get one little key?

She took us through the woods, past some horses and down a tiny path: there was our tree house. It had forest on two sides and the other sides had a view of open fields for miles. All very picturesque – until we checked out the bathroom. Like most people, we like our privacy, and as Muslims we are particularly obsessive about it! Yet in the bathroom the walls only went halfway up: the rest was exposed to the forest, with bits of tree and various living creatures coming in through the open spaces. It is very disconcerting brushing your teeth with a massive spider staring at you a few centimeters away on a branch, whilst a cockroach climbs up through the floorboards. There were no windows in the bedroom, no washing machine, no dishwasher, no television, no internet connection, and no flush on the toilet – a testing time for all of us in different ways!

We had a few different experiences upon venturing out. One day we ‘grown-ups’ went zipping through the forest with our 8-year old Safiyya on a series of army-style aerial slides; Asim and Amaani stayed behind with a group of people who officially had jobs to do but unofficially spent their time making paper aeroplanes for our kids. Separately, we met a weaver on our travels, who helped all three children make handbags from scraps of wool: Dad got a bit concerned to see his son proudly making a handbag but was utterly powerless to change Asim’s mind.

Another day, we went for an impromptu walk by our treehouse, traipsing for several hours through the jungle, equipped with all the essentials you might expect: one paper aeroplane (Asim), two handwoven handbags (Asim and Amaani), one Blackberry (Dad) and one bottle of water (Mum, of course). Safiyya was not impressed. ‘I’m never ever going to take my children here when I grow up’ she announced. Amaani disagreed, although added that she would cuddle the kids if a baboon appeared, which I thought was quite considerate. Asim was too busy looking for baboon droppings to participate in the conversation. Alhamdulillah (thanks be to God) Asim did not spot any baboons and Dad only found out about the poisonous spiders in the woods after we returned.

By the time our little holiday was ending, all the children had decided they wanted to live in the treehouse for ever. I wasn’t so sure. It certainly helped us to eat more simply, reduce waste and re-use whatever we could. Living in harmony with the environment made us realize how little we normally see of God’s smaller creatures. I remain an active advocate of sustainable ‘fair trade’ tourism. Yet there is only so much pasta with tomato sauce one can eat, and personally I prefer nature to be ever so slightly further away.

Fortunately, children are fickle creatures. We drove onwards to Cape Town, meeting up with some old friends from the UK (the husband was known by Asim as Uncle Freezer, despite repeatedly telling him the name was Reza) and their kids. Within hours the children were asking: ‘Can we stay here forever?’

Perhaps one day they will learn nothing lasts forever - not even uncles called Freezer.

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