Early Memories - Vic Falls and Bulawayo

I'm seeing a therapist to try to work through the heavy emotional junk I carry around in my head. Independently of headbang8's comment on one of my earlier posts, she too mentioned that frequently the basis for self -loathing starts very young.

I only have very patchy memories of being very young - my soft toy collection, the house in the town of Victoria Falls with the bomb shelter in the garden where we lived until I was about 3, the old black gardener at that house who would chase me about the garden waving his walking stick, a car owned by some family friends, a neighbour's house that had a very shaded garden and a swing connected to a tall tree thus having a very long pendulum swing, the white steps of the Victoria Falls Hotel where my parents worked, being carried half asleep into the bomb shelter by a parent in the middle of the night to the sound of land mines exploding in the distance. My nanny, Otillia Mamoyo, is a protective presence near me during the day time. I remember a black dancer picking up a length of railway track with his teeth for the entertainment of tourists, his skin a smooth and shining black, his eyes and teeth stark white during the night time performance. I can remember the wetness all around me while visiting the rain forest opposite the gorge of the falls (pictured right). I think my father and older brother launched a wooden glider constructed from a kit over the falls, never to see it again. I have vaguer recollections of being in my pram, hating the restraints and fighting to get out of the pram because I wanted to walk around much to my mother's exasperation, which are my earliest recollections.

Memories from the Hebrew-English Nursery School I attended in Bulawayo, aged 4, are there too right next to the house near Llewellyn Barracks where my father worked after the hotel. At that house my dad built a large cement fish pond decorated around the edges with large rocks, eventually housing gold fish. He also built a large aviary where my brother kept a cockatiel who would draw blood by biting one whenever he was caught for veterinary inspection or when the aviary was to be cleaned. The garden contained 3 huge mulberry trees on which grew a feast of sweet delicious mulberrys. On summer afternoons my brother and I could spend hours picking and eating the delicious fruit off the trees. Mum would insist that we used old clothing since our afternoon's fruit feast would inevitably stain our clothes with purple mulberry blotches. Zookie, the family boxer dog and I would sometimes sleep under the hedge together during the hottest time of the day. He was a genius for finding cool snoozing spots. The gardener at this house, Justin, planted and maintained a large vegetable patch at the bottom of the garden under a lot of shade. He would invite me in to pick peas in the right season, shelling sweet scrumptious peas straight out of the pod on the plant. I think it was at this time that my brother and I would attend once weekly horse riding lessons at the local military stables. My brother rode and elegant grey and I got and old nag named Kitsaw. I can remember making a reasonably good rider with Kitsaw's only successful attempt to unseat me following a rather fast jump. The regimental mascot was a bad tempered little Shetland Pony who was stabled at the same place. It only took 2 unpleasant bites from the nasty little creature for me to stay well away from it.

I can't remember Otillia being around much during this period although I do remember her offering to crochet a blanket each for my brother and I. We were given the choice of any colour yarn we could find at the local shop. My brother picked a demure deep dark wine colour, almost purple. I selected the brightest pink I could find (the signs were there early!) In the end my blanket was a mix of the dark wine colour and vibrant pink. I loved that blanket and can remember it traveling with us to South Africa. I had it at least until age 13. Her face and the sound of her voice are still quite clear to me.

The last place we stayed in Bulawayo was a lovely house in the suburb of Kumalo North. I had a male Siamese cat which I named Woozle. This name perfectly described the whistling purring sound which he made when contented - and it suited him perfectly, though when asked to spell it for the vet during his first stitch-up, mum recalls me volunteering the spelling "wah oo oo zil" - I was all for straightforward spellings, I'm sure you'll agree. It all made perfect sense to me at the time, the adults would just have to get with the programme. Woozle was quite the tomcat. He would disappear for weeks on end then return in the middle of the night torn to shreds from fights from other toms. His favourite entry portal was my mother's bedroom window. The poor bedraggled thing would then make a beeline for my room, making sure to bleed thoroughly over both my parents asleep in their bed on his way to me. Ah yes. We attended many late night stitch-ups for my dear Woozle cat. Between his excursions were sojourns where I would pamper and love him and he would eat as much as possible while returning to health. He would keep his skills sharp by catching snakes, birds, lizards and rodents then bring them in to show me. He had a particular kind of meow when he was bringing me his prizes for admiration and approval. The best place for dining was under my bed, much to Otillia's horror since it fell to her to clean up dead half eaten snakes. I just couldn't fathom why there was so much fuss. He was a good cat for clearing out the snakes after all.

The cockatiel came with us from Llewellyn Barracks but escaped his cage at some point during our stay here. The garden was unremarkable although I had reached the height and agility to be able to climb all the trees and the roof of the house. The tree that extended over a busy road caused the most fuss although it was quite fun to watch the buses and trucks pass underneath little me. I would join Otillia and Justin our black servants at their midday meal - typically of sadza and gravy, occasionally with chomolia (a delicious African cabbage). Mom recalls Otillia being distressed that I wanted to sit on the ground and eat African food with them. Mom dismissed these worries and asked Otillia please to let me eat with them since I really wanted to. I would even eat with hands, African style, not with a spoon. It just tasted better that way! I had a circle of 5 other Jewish friends my age that lived nearby, whom I knew from nursery school. We attended the first year of school together at Carmel in Bulawayo. Our parents formed a lift club and occasionally I would spend an afternoon with my good friend RB. My mom drove a small black Mini and dad made an pretty good impressionist style oil painting of the front of the house as seen from the road. That painting somehow made it to South Africa with us when we moved.

It recall my early childhood as a happy time. These are most of my earliest memories and feelings. They set the scene in some way but I'm not sure how. There are some harder memories but I'll leave those for the next post.