Condensed milk critters et al

My first job as a pre-teen was at my great uncle's shop. Each Saturday we (my sister and I) would arrive at Hillestads and take up our position behind the ladys section of the store. Hillestads  sold everything from a watering can to a few farming tools to the silky undies and massive bloomers that was my area of expertise. I think my sister had been promoted to measuring out bags of nails etc while I navigated the intricacies of bloomers. The temperatures in Zululand at 7.30 am were hovering around the 30 degree C (90 degree F) and got steadily hotter as the day wore on. Coins and notes that had been stashed in shoes and bras had started the day out as pristine methods of payment and arrived in my cringing fingers as soggy, smelly, and disgusting pieces of trade. I would gingerly take the note trying to use the least amount of finger tip as possible. Work out the exchange and change and hand over the balance to the customer. There were ladies who had babies strapped to their back with an impelego (African baby wrap) and who slung their breast over their shoulder and into the child's mouth while they shopped. Yes really. Goods were wrapped in brown paper and handed over to the overburdened mother. She often had a woven basket on her head and the parcel would join the dozens of other similar packets. This mother would have left her home at the crack of pre-dawn and walked for miles to clamber aboard a creaking, rattling bus to town. Washesha bus service was supposed to inspire the belief that the trip would be speedy (Washesha meaning speed) but the goat tracks the bus travelled along were not meant for speed or comfort. By the time she reached my counter, she would be incandescent with sweat, no doubt hungry and tired, but she would smile, put her hands to her forehead and bow to me in gratitude. Bow to me? A  ten year old girl that only had to walk five minutes to get to work. And before that I had eaten a hearty breakfast all no doubt while I complained to anyone that would listen that life was hard. My Zulu lady would then find a spot of shade on the sidewalk along with others of her ilk and talk about visiting the "city" of Empangeni. She would shuffle her few remaining coins in a square of cloth and decide what else she should buy. Often the basket balanced on her head would have been replaced by a 20 litres of oil (5 gallons) and she would carry the basket in one hand, perfectly balanced and ready for the long trek home. Me? I counted the money Uncle Treve gave me for my work and decided if I wanted to buy a Girls Only magazine from Bozas Tea Room, or a couple of cans of condensed milk. One to slurp and another to turn into caramel. As I matured I preferred the comics and loved the smell of them and the amazing pictures. Fashion and later featuring singers of that era. With never a thought for the Zulu lady and her burdens, I would flop on my bed at home and consider myself industrious and hard working. Yes, I have balance things on my head to carry them from place to place but never a 20 litre drum for which I am sure my chiropractor is grateful. 

I am a water snake. Well as far as the Chinese zodiac is concerned with character traits of wisdom, intuition, calmness, strategic planning and being insightful. My husband was a Golden rabbit, my children are metal rooster (Nix) water dog (Ang) wood tiger (Sean) and fire dragon (Chad). And this year is the Fire Horse. A whole farmyard of animals. I am fortunate to live in New Zealand where we have three new year's to inspire me to make positive changes. On 2nd January I noticed lots of joggers and cyclists on the road, but 6 weeks in, the numbers have reduced and the feeling is much more relaxed. People seem happy to give up their resolutions and go back to the status quo. With the Chinese new year this last week people are more inclined to let life do its own thing and trust that the Fire Horse will supply all the change and growth that they need. What is the better attitude? Beating ourselves up with guilt for not living up to our resolutions or being a passive passenger in what the year has to offer. I will be a calm and strategic snake, waiting for my chance to strike. The lucky golden cat will wave me onwards to the height of success. My success being to survive this year with better health and less creaks in my bones. By the time Matariki (Maori New Year) comes around I will be pleased to take stock of my progress, honour those I love and be more insightful of what I should try next. Luckily I am more into my Matariki changes than taking up jogging. I can do genealogy in the comfort of my home and check on the information I have already accumulated. The Pearson family had three sons die at the Somme in World War 1 and I am adding their army records to their files as my nod to Matariki. Their mother gave birth to 9 children. The aforementioned three boys died in 1916 and that left her with one surviving son and one daughter who lived to adulthood. For those doing the maths that means that four children did not grow to be adults. Tomorrow is my daughter, Colette's 46th birthday. I wonder sometimes what she would have been like if she had survived? She was born in the year of the Metal Monkey. Intelligent and quick witted and very confident as well as having diverse talents. She was the only one of our children to have green eyes and it's true, her eyes never missed a thing. The Chinese zodiac says careers that would suit her are teaching or marketing. She kind of sounds a bit like me, without the sneaky snakey things to slow her down. She would have been awesome as an adult daughter. 

Scientists studied the mating habits of birds and wondered if they were to embellish the males with feathery hats, would the female birds take notice? Each male was given a hat of different coloured or shaped plumage. Darwin suggested it was the women fowls who had the power to make the choice. And yes, the plumed male birds did get the girls. Clothes maketh the man? But the funny part of this story was the turkeys. Male turkeys were presented with a taxidermied female turkey. And the males loved it in more ways than one. The scientists then removed bits of the stuffed turkey, taking off wings and limbs and feathers and the boy turkeys were still swarming around the girl turkey. Until all that was left was a stuffed head on a stick. You would think by now the male turkeys would figure out that this was not a viable mate, but no. Stuffed turkey head on a stick was apparently the girlfriend to have in turkeyland. We are inundated with African praying mantis at our house. They have invaded New Zealand and are slowly making our indigenous mantis in danger of extinction. .How do you discriminate between the two types? The New Zealand ones have blue dots on their front mandibles and their sexual partners do not eat them after procreating. The African ones do eat off the male's heads. A bit of a surprise to our NZ mantis population. And sadly the males who are having their heads chomped do not pass on the message. Being an island nation we have to preserve our local fauna against these invaders. Behind our house is a gully that has a small stream running through it. In this stream are koura (small crayfish) or planifrons. They are fished using a stick and a piece of string. But beware, they are protected and under no circumstances are the mama koura with berries allowed to be harvested. Maybe I should use a few African mantis as bait for the crayfish? Nah, there isn't enough meat on a koura to make it worth my while. But then again it's not just the small critters that become endangered. I remember as a child my father telling us about the discovery of a Coelacanthe off the Comoros islands. This strange  fish with fins that looked like arms and legs had lived 66 million years ago and then went extinct. Except, spoiler alert here, fishermen were still fishing them up from the depths of the sea. They had no idea that these ugly fish were significant until one day someone decided to investigate. It was the equivalent of the Loch Ness monster to us folks in Africa. (there are two colonies of Coelacanthe .. one off Africa and one off Indonesia) Anyhow, Marjorie Courtney-Latimer was presented with a recently dead specimen off Knysna in 1938 and she made a sketch of it and then sent it to Professor JLB Smith who identified it. He decided it had swum from the warmer seas of the North and that is where the real colony of Coelacanthe were to be found. 104 meters off Sodwana, a colony were found almost 80 years later. Sodwana is close to where we spent many holidays and in some small twist of fate, Knysna was where my husband spent his holidays.