55) Getting to Know Our New Home
Now that we had water at last we could get busy cleaning up the house properly. It was a big job because it had been empty for so long but we had staff and soon we were unpacked and settled in. Then it was time to get the boys ready for boarding school. They needed new uniforms and as boarders they needed a lot more things than they had needed as day scholars. Their new schools were Umtali Junior School for Dominic and Umtali Boys High School for Jonathan, both good schools with good reputations. By then the Campbell-Howard children, Melinda, Clyde, Luanne and Brett were at these schools and so they did have some friends there to start them off. The Boys High School was very close to the Mozambique border and during the war terrorists had fired mortar bombs from across the border into the town and the boy’s hostel and the playing fields took a few direct hits. Seeing how close my boys were going to be living to the border I was very grateful that the war was over.
I think that there was about three weeks before school started so the boys had some time to get to know their new home and to explore the area. We liked to take the dogs for a walk around the property and sometimes the dogs would go for a walk on their own. The Vumba was home to the Samango Monkeys who were unique to the area and they would come close to the house to take fruit from the citrus trees or the passion fruit vines that grew in wild profusion all over the place, and the dogs would go wild, barking madly and chasing them away. We tried to stop the dogs going too far from the house but sometimes they were gone before we realised it and we could hear them barking at the far end of the property and usually they would eventually get fed up of the game and come home. But as the place had been unoccupied for such a long time some of the local people had taken the opportunity to hunt for food there and they had set up snares to catch monkeys, buck or wild pigs and other smaller animals such as rabbits. There were still lots of snares around the place and sometimes the dogs would get caught up in them. Cindy was fine, her obedience training with a choke chain had trained her to sit still when she felt a tightening around her neck so when she was caught in a snare she would sit down and bark as loud as she could until we realised her problem and come and set her free. Rocky was a different matter, he had had some training but was much more excitable than Cindy so when he got caught he would panic and bark and pull and we would have to rush out to release him before he did himself some damage. Fortunately he was a big strong dog and most of the snares were not big enough to harm him, but if he had been left there for a long time I don’t suppose it would have been good. Cindy also loved to chase the wild pigs. A couple of times she got very close to them and came home with nasty gashes where they had attached her but she never seemed to learn so both dogs had to be kept locked inside the house when we were not at home.
Beside the monkeys and the wild pigs we also had mice. They were field mice that had moved in when the last occupants had moved out, and Jonny assured me that they were “just field mice” but I was not impressed. If they were field mice what were they doing in my house and why didn’t they just go back and live in the fields. They made a nest in my sewing draw and I got a horrid fright when looking for something and found a draw full of mice. They got in everywhere, the kitchen, the lounge, the bedrooms all over the place and I hated them, but I felt very sorry for poor Dominic, he had the worst experience. He had hung his parka on a hook in the study and when he put it on one cold day, he pulled the hood over his head and out fell a nest of tiny pink mice. Not a very pleasant experience I am sure. I don’t like to think of myself as the stereotype silly female frightened by a little mouse but I must admit I did not like them but the funniest thing was Rocky’s reaction to them. Don’t forget he was a great big Doberman, who chased monkeys and wild pigs but when he saw a mouse he did not know what to do about it. We were never sure if he felt that he had an unfair advantage over them because of his size or wether he was just afraid of them but when he saw one in the kitchen he would bolt out of there as fast as he could go. I don’t think Cindy was much better, she would just ignore them and go and get into her bed. I don’t know why our dogs were such a couple of wets.
Not long after we moved in the Campbell-Howard kids came to stay for the weekend. They enjoyed our new home and had lots of fun there. I remember so clearly Clyde riding Jonathan’s bicycle down the hill to the house. It was a very steep hill and only a dirt road and tree roots were showing through in a number of places. He took the bike up to the top of the hill and rode down hell for leather. Jonathan shouted, “Be careful of the roots” but he was too late. Clyde hit a root at a fair speed and he went flying in one direction and the bike in another. In yet another direction went Clyde’s glasses. I remember thinking that his mother must have given him a hard time for breaking his classes at some time because he seemed to change direction mid air and leap towards his specs and catch them before they hit the ground. He was not too seriously hurt but had lots of cuts, scratches and bruises but his glasses were safe and that was his main concern.
Our friends the Halls came to visit another weekend. Unfortunately they had left the letter I had sent them with our address at home. They did not even have our phone number with them. Wendy thought that she could remember some of the instructions in the letter and they did have a hard time finding us. They arrived rather late, I can’t remember how they found their way but they were all singing a song that they had made up on the way. “Icky Ticky Tumba we are in the Vumba and we are lost, we are lost.” We had a real fun weekend with Wendy, Stuart and their four boys. The youngest, Andrew decided that he did not want to eat any thing, so we spent the whole weekend trying to tempt him with something that he might like. We tried everything but to no avail. We told him he could have anything he wanted, he asked if we had hamburgers, we had to admit that we didn’t. He asked if we had meat pies again we had to admit we didn’t. He went through a whole list of things and always the answer was “No”. Eventually he asked “Do you have frankfurters?” We were overjoyed “Yes. yes yes” we shouted and he answered “I just wanted to know” Later we went into Umtali and called into a café for a meal Andrew asked if they had Spaghetti Bolognaise. Wendy who was naturally concerned that he had not eaten could not wait to order it for him but he did not want to give up the fight so easily and so he would only allow her to order Spaghetti Bolognaise without the Spaghetti. So for a long time after that whenever we had Spaghetti Bolognaise we always asked with or without the Spaghetti?
When we had been there about three weeks it was time for the boys to go to school and for me to start running the local store with Laura MacGiles. It was a good thing that I had the store to go to as with the boys at school all week and Jonny out at work all day I would have been pretty lonely. A couple called Anne and Dennis owned the store; I don’t remember their surname. Anne had been a nurse before marrying Dennis and she ran a free clinic at her back door for the Africans in the area. It was a long way to town and during the terrorist war it had been a very dangerous journey so she would diagnose and treat their minor ailments. She did not charge them anything and supplied bandages and medicines herself. She once told me that some of her medicine she got from the vet. She said that a lot of medicines used in veterinary practices were the same as used in human practices, but the dosage was different of course. She knew what she was doing so would get her drugs much cheaper and so was able to treat many more people. Can you imagine that being possible these days? But she worked very hard for her patients and gave them an excellent service when there was just no other service available. She knew her limitations and would send them off to town if something was beyond her ability. Luckily for us (and for the patients too I suppose) she did not expect us to carry on with the clinic while she was away but for the first week or so we did have quite a lot of people asking when the clinic would be open again.
Before we could take over the store we had to do a stock take. The arrangement was that we would count all the stock and value it. Then when Anne and Dennis got back we would count the stock again and we would settle up the difference. Meanwhile we would order and pay for all the stock we needed and keep all the takings for ourselves. A pretty fair arrangement we all thought, except of course it meant that we had to do two stock takes and I have never met anyone yet who enjoys doing stock taking.
I think that there was about three weeks before school started so the boys had some time to get to know their new home and to explore the area. We liked to take the dogs for a walk around the property and sometimes the dogs would go for a walk on their own. The Vumba was home to the Samango Monkeys who were unique to the area and they would come close to the house to take fruit from the citrus trees or the passion fruit vines that grew in wild profusion all over the place, and the dogs would go wild, barking madly and chasing them away. We tried to stop the dogs going too far from the house but sometimes they were gone before we realised it and we could hear them barking at the far end of the property and usually they would eventually get fed up of the game and come home. But as the place had been unoccupied for such a long time some of the local people had taken the opportunity to hunt for food there and they had set up snares to catch monkeys, buck or wild pigs and other smaller animals such as rabbits. There were still lots of snares around the place and sometimes the dogs would get caught up in them. Cindy was fine, her obedience training with a choke chain had trained her to sit still when she felt a tightening around her neck so when she was caught in a snare she would sit down and bark as loud as she could until we realised her problem and come and set her free. Rocky was a different matter, he had had some training but was much more excitable than Cindy so when he got caught he would panic and bark and pull and we would have to rush out to release him before he did himself some damage. Fortunately he was a big strong dog and most of the snares were not big enough to harm him, but if he had been left there for a long time I don’t suppose it would have been good. Cindy also loved to chase the wild pigs. A couple of times she got very close to them and came home with nasty gashes where they had attached her but she never seemed to learn so both dogs had to be kept locked inside the house when we were not at home.
Beside the monkeys and the wild pigs we also had mice. They were field mice that had moved in when the last occupants had moved out, and Jonny assured me that they were “just field mice” but I was not impressed. If they were field mice what were they doing in my house and why didn’t they just go back and live in the fields. They made a nest in my sewing draw and I got a horrid fright when looking for something and found a draw full of mice. They got in everywhere, the kitchen, the lounge, the bedrooms all over the place and I hated them, but I felt very sorry for poor Dominic, he had the worst experience. He had hung his parka on a hook in the study and when he put it on one cold day, he pulled the hood over his head and out fell a nest of tiny pink mice. Not a very pleasant experience I am sure. I don’t like to think of myself as the stereotype silly female frightened by a little mouse but I must admit I did not like them but the funniest thing was Rocky’s reaction to them. Don’t forget he was a great big Doberman, who chased monkeys and wild pigs but when he saw a mouse he did not know what to do about it. We were never sure if he felt that he had an unfair advantage over them because of his size or wether he was just afraid of them but when he saw one in the kitchen he would bolt out of there as fast as he could go. I don’t think Cindy was much better, she would just ignore them and go and get into her bed. I don’t know why our dogs were such a couple of wets.
Not long after we moved in the Campbell-Howard kids came to stay for the weekend. They enjoyed our new home and had lots of fun there. I remember so clearly Clyde riding Jonathan’s bicycle down the hill to the house. It was a very steep hill and only a dirt road and tree roots were showing through in a number of places. He took the bike up to the top of the hill and rode down hell for leather. Jonathan shouted, “Be careful of the roots” but he was too late. Clyde hit a root at a fair speed and he went flying in one direction and the bike in another. In yet another direction went Clyde’s glasses. I remember thinking that his mother must have given him a hard time for breaking his classes at some time because he seemed to change direction mid air and leap towards his specs and catch them before they hit the ground. He was not too seriously hurt but had lots of cuts, scratches and bruises but his glasses were safe and that was his main concern.
Our friends the Halls came to visit another weekend. Unfortunately they had left the letter I had sent them with our address at home. They did not even have our phone number with them. Wendy thought that she could remember some of the instructions in the letter and they did have a hard time finding us. They arrived rather late, I can’t remember how they found their way but they were all singing a song that they had made up on the way. “Icky Ticky Tumba we are in the Vumba and we are lost, we are lost.” We had a real fun weekend with Wendy, Stuart and their four boys. The youngest, Andrew decided that he did not want to eat any thing, so we spent the whole weekend trying to tempt him with something that he might like. We tried everything but to no avail. We told him he could have anything he wanted, he asked if we had hamburgers, we had to admit that we didn’t. He asked if we had meat pies again we had to admit we didn’t. He went through a whole list of things and always the answer was “No”. Eventually he asked “Do you have frankfurters?” We were overjoyed “Yes. yes yes” we shouted and he answered “I just wanted to know” Later we went into Umtali and called into a café for a meal Andrew asked if they had Spaghetti Bolognaise. Wendy who was naturally concerned that he had not eaten could not wait to order it for him but he did not want to give up the fight so easily and so he would only allow her to order Spaghetti Bolognaise without the Spaghetti. So for a long time after that whenever we had Spaghetti Bolognaise we always asked with or without the Spaghetti?
When we had been there about three weeks it was time for the boys to go to school and for me to start running the local store with Laura MacGiles. It was a good thing that I had the store to go to as with the boys at school all week and Jonny out at work all day I would have been pretty lonely. A couple called Anne and Dennis owned the store; I don’t remember their surname. Anne had been a nurse before marrying Dennis and she ran a free clinic at her back door for the Africans in the area. It was a long way to town and during the terrorist war it had been a very dangerous journey so she would diagnose and treat their minor ailments. She did not charge them anything and supplied bandages and medicines herself. She once told me that some of her medicine she got from the vet. She said that a lot of medicines used in veterinary practices were the same as used in human practices, but the dosage was different of course. She knew what she was doing so would get her drugs much cheaper and so was able to treat many more people. Can you imagine that being possible these days? But she worked very hard for her patients and gave them an excellent service when there was just no other service available. She knew her limitations and would send them off to town if something was beyond her ability. Luckily for us (and for the patients too I suppose) she did not expect us to carry on with the clinic while she was away but for the first week or so we did have quite a lot of people asking when the clinic would be open again.
Before we could take over the store we had to do a stock take. The arrangement was that we would count all the stock and value it. Then when Anne and Dennis got back we would count the stock again and we would settle up the difference. Meanwhile we would order and pay for all the stock we needed and keep all the takings for ourselves. A pretty fair arrangement we all thought, except of course it meant that we had to do two stock takes and I have never met anyone yet who enjoys doing stock taking.
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