An African Journey - 2

My Mother's 'Life' continues....

Kay was having quite a lot of trouble with the 'boys', about a dozen from Tabora who had been engaged by her husband Donald for farm work. I don't think they had much experience, and they were certainly not at all willing to work the tractor and start ploughing. The key of the tractor had been lost, they said. I spent a lot of time below the edge of the valley where there was a large flower bed in which Kay was successfully growing carnations. My job was to de-bud the carnations, and they were then picked and taken down to Kongwa and sold. 

Kay thought we ought to make a cake for Sunday tea when the new arrivals would be with us, so we got together the necessary ingredients and made a splendid fruit cake. The kitchen was an open banda with a section for a store with a wire netting to keep the dogs out. We put the cake in the store but the dogs found it in the night and ate the lot - so no cake for the visitors. Kay had two large dogs, one a ridgeback. They used to walk up behind Richard and rest their chin on his head which annoyed him very much. They were good watch dogs for Kay living on her own so far from any other Europeans. Long letters would arrive from Donald giving her instructions about the farm and what the boys were to do.

 

We must have stayed ten days or so with Kay and we thoroughly enjoyed the farm and the primitive life we led. Kay went down to Kongwa once a week and we all piled into the lorry with the carnations and any other produce Kay had for sale and made the journey down to Kongwa. We could see the bulldozers working out on the land by the clouds of dust they created. 

Kay was allowed the use of a house which belonged I think to two nursing sisters. While we were at Kongwa the plough had opened up a moles' nest and the boys had been given two moles which pleased them very much. We put them in a debi with lots of leaves which we were told they ate, and these we added to our luggage as the boys were determined to keep their 'pets'. We put them in our bedroom at Kongwa and Jonathan and Richard filled the tin up with leaves for the moles to eat. When we got up in the morning the moles had climbed on the pile of leaves and escaped and we couldn't find them anywhere. We had to leave a note for the owners of the bungalow telling them about the escaped moles. Kay drove us down to Gulu station and we caught the train for Dar. We got to Dar on the Friday morning intending staying with the Biggs for the weekend and then moving over to Zanzibar for a few days. Unfortunately there had been a mix up with our 'plane bookings and the only flight seats available were for the afternoon we arrived in Dar, and there were no others until several days later. I decided that we had best fly that afternoon, which rather upset Elizabeth for she had arranged a drinks party for us that evening.

We flew to Zanzibar and were met by Eileen Wheatley who had arranged for us to stay at the UMCA Mission with Miss McKerrogher. She was extremely kind and Eileen took us out to the beaches and we had a most enjoyable few days in Zanzibar before flying over to Tanga to stay with the Bartletts. Bwana Bartlett was now working for the Tanganyika Sisal Estates and had a lovely....

....German house called Geiglitz some miles out of Tanga. Marjory Robertson was living with him but her divorce had come through and they would shortly be married.

The first evening we went down to Tanga for a sundowner and I met a number of old friends and we had an enjoyable evening. The next day Marjory decided we would take a picnic up to the Agricultural Station in the Usumbaras, and we set off in the car with an African driver and climbed up into the hills.

Amani was a research station for the Agricultural Department and there were a number of houses and offices and we picnicked on the verandah of one of the houses. In the middle of lunch Marjory yelled out that she had broken a tooth on a chicken bone, and she was in a great state about this as it was a front tooth and she said she couldn't possibly be married with a front tooth missing. We drove back to the farm and Bwana Bartlett said that Marjory had better fly to Nairobi to get her tooth fixed. We left by 'plane the next day for Mombasa as Dad had by this time got a bungalow for us and our loads had arrived from Dar. Dad met us at the airport and took us to a bungalow in Cliffe Avenue which was very ancient and riddled with white ants. When I got out of the bath one evening I put my hand on the wall and realised that it was just about to collapse.