Various Homes 10: From a Canine Perspective
By Uchi Golden Labrador
Mzuzu, Malawi 1970
It’s a good life being man’s best friend.
I spend my days in the garden, stretched out on the grass, dozing in the shade of a jacaranda tree. My youth is well behind me, and I’m content in my twilight years. Thankfully, I’m still able to enjoy a huge platter of rice and meat after nine holes on the golf course. Here I stroll at a sedate pace and certainly don’t go rushing off into each thicket at lightning speed to follow the scent of a rabbit. I leave these youthful exploits to Shandy who is still a headstrong puppy. She has much to learn.
Although somewhat stiff in the pins and with a tendency to fart uncontrollably, I’m capable of work. My position is Protector of the Latest Addition – that’s Paddy and Sue’s new-born son. I guard the infant in his mosquito-net-covered pram. Nothing and no one will get past me. I may be snoring, but I’ve still got an eye open.
Paddy and I have been together since I left my mother and siblings. I was a couple of months old and the belle of the litter with my soft golden coat and sparkly brown eyes. My lengthy pedigree shows that both my parents were aristocratic. I may have become portly, but with my statuesque bearing and fine set of teeth I’m still an intimidating presence.
Paddy and I hit it off right from the start. We soon became best mates who were rarely apart. When I was a whelp and couldn’t walk long distances, I lay over his shoulders with my paws in the pockets of his bush jacket. He had a Vespa to get around and I fitted perfectly on the running board. My ears streamed out in the wind and my nose caught whiffs of exciting smells.
Canines mature much faster than humans. At a year old I was fully grown and could more than match Paddy in speed and stamina, although he was over twenty years my senior. We both have excellent communication skills. Paddy understands the sounds I make to show I am excited, enjoying myself, needing attention, or sensing danger. He speaks to me, but also uses hand signals, which I was quick to learn.
As I lie stretched out on the grass, I reminisce on the adventures we had together, many of which involved duck shooting. As soon as Paddy picked up his gun I knew there would be fun. Most of us Labradors can learn to retrieve birds – our soft mouths make that easy. I learned to retrieve from a helicopter! Not many dogs can do that. I sat on the running board of a bright red, dinky, bell-shaped chopper. Inside, Paddy held a rope attached to my harness. When Paddy shot a flying bird, the helicopter, whose pilot fortunately knew what he was doing, swooped down and hovered above the surface. With a quiver of excitement, I would leap into the water and swim to get the bird. Getting back on the chopper’s running board was the difficult part – I would scramble and Paddy would pull. Sometimes I thought he was going to fall into the water, but he never did. As Paddy only ate ducks if they were soft and young, mostly the birds were cooked up for me. Delicious.
Only once did Paddy abandon me. He left me at his mother’s farm and expected me to stay there, living in the same house as three bull terriers. Not only were these animals smelly and unfriendly, they were stupid, ugly, and untrained. I lasted one day with that lot, before eating a good dinner and sneaking away from the farm to find Paddy. I won’t go into details of the ten terrible days that I spent walking back to the place where we had last lived. My amazing instinct told me which way to travel but it was the scariest time. Each night I needed to hide. I could not sleep. I was terrified that a lion or hyena would come near enough to pick up my scent. I was more dead than alive when I arrived at the pontoon on our river. The pontoon guys recognised me as I had crossed many times, and they knew Paddy had been looking for me. It seemed hours before I heard his voice and felt his arms lift me up. All I could do was give the smallest wag of my tail. Once the ticks were pulled off and the vet had stitched my cuts and put me on a drip, I felt some strength returning, but what really set me right was what Paddy brought out of his deep freeze. I made up for ten days without food.
Instead of going back to those miserable bull terriers, I became a student. Sitting on the front seat of a bright red sports car I travelled from Zambia to Pietermaritzburg in South Africa. I will admit that I didn’t learn much that was useful to me in the lecture halls, but I made many friends, especially in the canteen’s kitchen. They always had tasty titbits for me. It took three years for Paddy to get the piece of paper he needed from the university. During that time I ate too much and did little exercise, which didn’t do my figure any good.
Once we got back to Zambia, Paddy picked up his gun and our life of adventure began once more. He and a friend decided they wanted to walk the Zambezi river, from its source to Victoria Falls. Of course, I went too. I wore a jacket with pockets to carry my blanket, food and bowl. I had never done this before but if Paddy could carry his blanket and food then I could too. For the first few days we walked. I found following a small river very boring. When the river got bigger we were lucky to get rides on boats. There I dozed in the sun and enjoyed titbits from passengers, but even this was tedious after a few days. Then we struck lucky. Paddy met the Provincial Commissioner and he invited us all to stay. It was Christmas, so you can imagine what goodies there were to eat. We even went on a duck shoot and I was able to show those fancy dogs what I could do. I was quite the celebrity. That was my last big adventure. After being an important guest at Paddy and Sue’s wedding (with a vast pink bow around my neck) we all travelled to Malawi. I have been here for almost three years and live comfortably. I wander down to the clubhouse where I often find Paddy. Everyone knows me, so I’m one of the crowd.
Various Homes 9: two short stays
We moved from the mountainous Vipya area into Mzuzu town, first to a friend’s house while he was on a month’s leave, and later to a cottage. Both stays were short but memorable.
The battle against insects, whether they fly, crawl or jump, is endless in Africa. In Malawi, malaria was a constant threat. We took prophylactics and endured their side effects, slept under nets, and sprayed regularly but still treated any fever as possible malaria. We dipped or powdered pets to deter ticks and fleas, and scrubbed kitchen cupboards searching for those hard cases, or oothecae, of cockroach eggs.
Cockroaches, who have had over 300 million years to perfect their way of living, had a firm hold on our friend’s house. Going into the kitchen at night, seeing the surfaces covered with the creatures and watching them twitch their antennae before scuttling into hiding, was an unsettling spectacle. For me, once was enough. If I got up at night needing a glass of water, I went to the kitchen door, flicked on the light switch, and walked into the sitting room. After a few breaths, while gazing through the window into the night, I went into the kitchen. Not a cockroach in sight. It was easy to pretend they had never been there.
The move to the cottage was during the early part of the rainy season when heavy downpours are common. Arriving back at the house during one of these storms, I dashed from my car with a raincoat over my head and went in through the only door. I was inside no more than a few minutes before preparing to make the return sprint to the car. As I opened the door and lifted my foot, I looked down. There, stretched out on the small porch, sheltering from the rain, was a Gaboon viper – the most beautiful of the viper family but the most deadly. I could only stop and gaze in awe as it lay motionless, displaying its geometric patterns and shimmering purple-brown colouring.
Whether I had stepped over the snake on my way into the house, I do not know. They are sleepy creatures and slow to strike, so perhaps I had, but I wasn’t going to risk it a second time. Quickly closing the door, I retreated into the house to wait for the rain to stop and the snake to leave its refuge.
Photographs from the internet
Various Homes 8: First Conjugal Home
Two weeks after getting married, I went to live on the Vipya, a plateau on the western edge of Lake Nyasa, near Mzuzu, Malawi’s northern capital. Much of this highland area was planted to pine, but there were sections of natural rainforest and rolling grassland. In the late 1940s, one small area had been planted with tung trees, grown for oil used to manufacture industrial paints. Lusungazi Tung Estate was where Paddy and I lived for six months in 1968. By then, synthetic materials had replaced tung oil, so the estate was no longer functioning, but the trees and a house remained.
Built as the manager’s residence, the house was positioned on a ridge to give a panorama of the surrounding Vipya. On many days the view was obscured by a shroud of chiperoni mist that enveloped the peaks and valleys, bringing cold, damp weather. Fortunately, the spacious house had been designed for all temperatures. Both the sitting room and the bedrooms had brick-lined fireplaces, where, on chilly days, we burnt fallen branches of tung wood. In the hot weather, we flung open the outside doors and windows and sipped sundowners on the verandah.
I enjoyed the short time I lived in the Vipya house, but it did present challenges. Paddy spent much time working in the far north of the country. I was alone most weeks, apart from an affectionate Labrador and a firry kitten, as there was only one house at Lusungazi. To get to my nearest neighbours was a half-hour’s drive on a rough gravel road. There was no mains electricity, just an aged and unreliable Lister generator. Mostly, I made do with a hissing Tilly lamp, which cast ghostly moving shadows as it swung on its hinged metal handle. There was a kerosene fridge and a wood-fired Dover stove. Once mastered and if kept well maintained, these utilitarian domestic devices worked effectively.
Large wildlife had long since disappeared from the area, but small creatures made their presence felt. The house had been unoccupied by humans for long enough for rats to make it their home. Termites devoured the base of the wooden door frames, tiny ants smothered any food left unsealed, and armies of biting black marching ants were an unpleasant hazard. Snakes – green, black, large, small – invaded, and flies and mosquitoes were ever-present. All part of the experience of living in rural Africa!
It was a bat in the bedroom that I found less able to tolerate. By day, it hung upside down, well out of reach, but it came to life at night. I was determined to catch it, and after numerous attempts, managed to get it to cling onto a tennis racquet. As it folded its wings, I gripped it firmly in my hand. As I had never held a bat, I had a good look at it. Nestled in the fur between its ears was a spider with a large, bright orange bulbous body.
I had met the grey-haired Danish government veterinary officer when I took the kitten for a rabies inoculation. I thought he would be interested to see the parasitic spider, so I put the bat in a box and drove into town. With Danish politeness, the vet stopped what he was doing when he saw me.
‘Good morning, Sue. Come in. How can I help you?’
‘I’ve brought something to show you. It’s a bat with a parasitic spider on its head.’
As I opened the box, the bat escaped and flew around the office in a panic. A couple of assistants were called in, and eventually they recaptured the creature. The vet held it firmly in his hand.
‘Now what is the problem?’ he asked.
‘Look between its ears. It has a spider living there.’
He peered closely through thick glasses. ‘Yes. I see it. What is it you want me to do? Is it the spider or the bat you want to keep?’
Suddenly I realized how insignificant my bat and its spider were to him. He was the only qualified vet for a vast area. There was an outbreak of foot and mouth in the village cattle herds. He had real problems to deal with, and here was this woman bringing in a pet bat, or was it a pet spider?
‘Oh, no.’ I stammered, ’just let the bat go free.’ He stepped outside the door and did just that. ‘I’m sorry to have worried you. Goodbye.’
I fled with the empty cardboard box and my embarrassment. I heard laughter.
Returning to a Previous Home
Late in the 1960s, just married, I went to live in Malawi. It is a country difficult not to enjoy. The people are welcoming and the scenery, in much of this small slender land with its vast Rift Valley lake extending along most of the east and a high plateaux rising up from it, magnificent. I left Malawi after living there for six years, and have only been back on a couple of brief visits, and never to Mzuzu, where we first lived and where my eldest son was born. On my way from Lundazi to Livingstonia I revisited the town.
Having crossed the South Vipya range with its wooded peaks and bare granite domes shrouded in deep mist, I arrived in Mzuzu early afternoon, with time to explore the town I lived in 45 years ago. Yes, it has grown. There are many more people, plenty of vehicles on the roads and new buildings, including the vast blue-glass Reserve Bank and Shoprite – a South African supermarket chain. But basically the town is the same, very provincial looking for the capital of the north of the country. I was easily able to orientate myself, finding the house I lived in, the 9-hole golf course where I spent many happy hours and St John’s hospital, where Richy was born. The small primary school I had run, had moved site and is now a large primary and secondary school, still private. The afternoon was a sentimental journey which I ended by climbing out of the town on the Nkata Bay road and finding Pine Tree Guest house. Here, after a welcome cleansing shower I watched the sun set behind the Vipya and ate some lake fish, sitting next to the fire. I was thankful I had remembered that Mzuzu is cold in the winter and had some warm clothes, including bed socks.
St John’s hospital
The next morning, after breakfast in the sunshine, I set off for Livingstonia. I didn’t travel fast, the diplomatic words of my son still in my mind, “Driving in Malawi is a pleasure. You cannot go fast as there are so many people on the road.” How right he was. There was not much motor traffic, but bicycles and people travelling on foot were in abundance. They seemed unaware of vehicles. Bicycles were liable to wobble as the vehicle went by, and people to turn around and step further onto the road.
Ekwendeni, just outside Mzuzu was not as I remembered it. For reasons I can’t recollect, in the 1970s Indian people were not allowed to live or work in Mzuzu so I used to go regularly to Ekwendeni to buy fabric and sewing items from the shops there. These were run by large, fierce Indian women, who shouted orders to their quivering minions and pulled out bolts of cloth, proudly displaying rolls of fat on their bare arms and midriffs, as well as gold jewelry that certainly wasn’t from Africa. Perhaps these ladies are still there trading in their colourful shops, but I didn’t see any saris as I drove slowly along the M1 which bisects the town.
*****
For me, going to Livingstonia was like going to Timbuktu: one of those almost mythical places that I’ve known and read about but never quite got to. Livingstonia is 900 metres above Lake Malawi, accessed by foot or road up a very rough track of 15 kilometers and 20 hair-pin bends. I had travelled, but never driven, the road as it used to be the route to Karonga in the far north of Malawi. I balked at driving it this time and waited while a driver walked down to take me up. Peter arrived looking fresh after his walk. He stared hard at the car tyres, “They need air. We do not want a puncture on the way.” Where, I thought were we going to get air. I knew there were no fuel stations in the area. We went a few kilometers along the road and turned down a track with a sign to Chitimba Lodge. There we found a workshop and the tyres were soon the required pressure making Peter much happier. I was reminded that, many years ago when on a driving trip in Mali, we had had to turn back when comparatively near Timbuktu because of a lack of tyres.
The car, with its power steering and modern suspension, made light of the sharp bends and deep ruts, unlike the hard sprung Land Rover of my previous trips. In those pre-seatbelt days, I used to brace myself with feet on the dashboard and hands clutching the sides of the seat while my expert-driver husband reversed to negotiate the corners. This time I was able to enjoy the views, but was also very aware on the vertical drops off the edge. There was little space to spare.
A Bit of History
In 1875, after reading about David Livingstone’s travels in this area, Robert Laws, a Scottish doctor joined the Free Church of Scotland mission station on the shores of Lake Nyasa (Malawi). It did not thrive as many died of fever. Although people didn’t know that it was mosquitoes that carried the malaria they knew that the sickness was worse in low lying wet areas. Robert Laws decided to move the mission to the top of the escarpment overlooking the Nyika and high above the lakeshore. Back in Scotland, Laws did an engineering degree and returned to build the road up the escarpment and to lay out a township with tree-lined roads, a hospital, nursing college, sawmill, brickworks, telegraph system and a cathedral.
Anything not produced at the mission was carried up by foot or bullock cart. The mission today, with its locally made red-brick buildings and houses with wide verandahs, is just as planned and built by Robert Laws. Clean water is abundant from fast flowing streams and he built a canal to the township from which water is still piped to the buildings. Laws built the first known hydro-electric power plant, using the force of the waterfall, but this no longer operates.
School at Livingstonia
When Laws left Livingstonia after 52 years, there were 700 primary and secondary schools (teaching theology, carpentry and medicine) established in the area, 60,000 people had accepted Christianity and 13 African pastors had been ordained. At that time people came from as far away as South Africa to attend school at Livingstonia. Many of these students went on to become leaders in various fields in their own countries. Laws dreamed of setting up a university at the mission, but this only happened recently when the cloistered colonnades of the secondary school became a university.
After I had completed my workshop with teachers at Livingstonia, Peter drove me down the escarpment. We went a different route, travelling along the base of the lofty Nyika Plateau and coming out on the M1 at Phwezi, less than a 100 km from Mzuzu. On the way we passed an elderly man walking with a stick, accompanied by his wife. Peter said he knew the couple and we should give them a lift. The old man said he was 82 and they were going to Phwezi to visit family. They had walked from Livingstonia (as there are no buses) and had left the previous day, sleeping in a village on the way. The journey, which took us a couple of hours, would have taken them 2 days. The old man spoke good English. He had been at school at Livingstonia and although he only went to Std 6, he told me that the education was very good then. He had made his living as a carpenter.
I spent another night in Mzuzu on the road back to Zambia and would have liked to have stayed longer. Being there brought back memories of things forgotten: my very Irish friend with whom I played golf, the children I had got to know so well as their teacher (I later attended one of their weddings in Yorkshire), the parents I used to drink beer with late into the night, the dedication of the nuns at St. John’s hospital (there are none there now), trout fishing in the remote Nyika only weeks before Richy was born and hours and hours in a Land Rover on bumpy gravel roads. Land Rover back was a common, and painful, complaint. Finally I remembered, as I looked into the golf club house, that I had produced a play there. It was called ‘A Month of Sundays’ and was a very amateur production, but the audience was indulgent and we had lots of fun putting it together.
Youthful days!
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