Through puberty and beyond

 

Baobab tree near Victoria Falls

Little progress has been made in planning our 2012 trip to southern Africa.  We learned that we need to book our camps and activities in the Victoria Falls area by this coming May.  Following the big annual "Indaba" (travel industry conference) in South Africa, it is quite possible that new rates will come into effect, so we can lock in current rates by confirming our reservations with a 20% deposit.  Airline bookings can't be confirmed until 300 days in advance of our departure, so that means we must make hard decisions and pay for airfares in cold hard cash by September this year. South African Airways are currently promoting return airfares from the U.S. east coast to Johannesburg of US$1,030.  These are similar to fares we paid in 1996!

Typical highway road sign in Zimbabwe

Jan and I will find it hard to wait.  We have been to the Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, region a number of times over the last 14 years and we feel a powerful compulsion to return. Adding the proposed visit to Makololo Camp in Hwange National Park just makes the anticipation greater.  We've just received our new issue of Travel Africa magazine.  That will whet our appetites even more. http://www.travelafricamag.com/

Through puberty and beyond.

From our first day at Muir College my brother and I were asked if we were going to play rugby.  My glib answer was “sure,” even though I had no idea how it was played.  All students were required to participate in extra-curricular activities and there was a generous selection from which to choose.  The big winter sport was rugby and over 90% of students played.  In our American Elementary School environment, sporting activities were not organized for youth in the 1950s.  At Muir College, as in most South African schools, sports and athletic games began at the age of eight years. These included rugby, cricket (summer), tennis, swimming, field hockey, and athletics (track and field). 

Competition was at the core of both academics and sports and the emphasis was always on the “team.”  There were basically four “teams” in our school. Every student at Muir was assigned membership in a “house.” A modern day analogy could be drawn by comparing Harry Potter’s induction at Hogwarts into the house of Gryffindor, instead of Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin.  Muir College is not a school of magic and wizardry but it is developed from old British academic traditions, in many ways similar to those fictionalized by J.K Rowling.  Our four houses were, Sutherland, Dugmore, MacDonald,    and Innes. 

I was assigned to Sutherland House, although the ritual did not include a talking hat.  Membership in this house bound me and my brother to all Sutherland House members throughout the entire school, no matter what grade or age they would be.  Points were awarded over the course of the academic year for both academic achievement and sporting achievements.  Points accumulated by Sutherland and other houses were tallied and counted toward winning the highest points at the end of the year. This system gave every single student the ability to contribute points in helping their house compete.  For example, at our annual track meet, relay teams were “house teams.” If the team I was on came second or third in a relay event, points were added to Sutherland House scores.  Even though I didn’t come first or win an individual event myself, there was a strong incentive for me to participate and contribute to my overall team.

The day always began with assembly.  Students lined up in single file according to their grade level and walked into the main hall or, during summer (weather permitting) assembly might be held outside in the “quadrangle.”  The principal and all teachers would stand in front of us and after leading us in a brief prayer Skilly would make announcements of important schedule changes, events of note, or students’ awards or achievements.  We could always tell when there was going to be bad news or some disciplinary issue to be brought up as Skilly’s eyebrows would seem to bristle more than usual.  Assembly only took a few minutes, after which we would be dismissed and walk to our first class in single file. As the quad was surrounded on three sides by classrooms, we usually only had a short way to go.

Students who required discipline for which a verbal scolding or extra homework was inadequate might be sent to the principal’s office for “cuts.” Skilly would administer several hard strikes across the buttocks with a cane as the guilty students would bend at right angles with hands gripping the edge of the headmaster’s desk. The most severe punishment was six cuts.  We found out pretty quickly what “getting six” meant. I was basically an obedient and well-conforming boy and over the course of my five and a half years at Muir I never  qualified for “six” although “four” was administered a couple of times.

As I had arrived at Muir in late July, the rugby season was almost at an end.  I would take part in practices only in the following February.  As I would turn 13 in early February I would be eligible to play for the Under 13 age group. With only about 400 students, Muir was not a big school and there would be three Under 13 teams, U13A, U13B, & C.  With 15 players on a team, that meant that about 45 to 50 boys would represent the school against other schools in the Eastern Province area.  We would compete against 11 other schools.  Many were similar in size but there were a few very big schools, such as Grey College in Port Elizabeth, who would field eight or ten teams in any one age group.  So when we would play against Grey College our U13A team might play against the Grey U13B or C teams and our U13B’s might go up against their U13E or F teams.  These competitions had been evolved over the years, so generally high school and primary schools teams would be fairly challenged at competitive levels.

Under 14 Rugby team  I am 3rd from left, back row.

I was a skinny 13 year old, about 5 ft. 9 inches tall and weighing in at about 120 pounds, with little or no sports experience, when I began to take part in the sport of rugby.  All of the other boys had been playing the game since from primary school at about eight years old.  It took me a month or so to learn the tactics of the game but I settled into the full contact part very quickly.  The most difficult adjustment for me was my complete lack of stamina and shortness of breath.  The game was played at a non-stop pace for a 30 minute half with a five minute rest period, followed by  another 30 minutes of continuous play.  The other boys willingly guided me and I caught on fairly quickly.  After the first few inter-school matches I found myself a permanent member of the U13B team.  Over the next few years at the high School level and on into the University level, I grew to love rugby and had many enjoyable experiences playing it.  I was never an outstanding athlete, but I wasn’t bad either.  As a 17 year old “senior” in my last year of High School I was a solid player on the High School 2^nd team, or “2^nd XV” and I loved every minute of it.

Academically I was never outstanding, but I wasn’t bad either.  Our teachers were good; some were very good. Fifty years later it is hard to single out one or two teachers but I know they would all have been more than satisfied with my performance if I had applied myself a little more.  In any event I was able to go on to University and eventually earned a bachelor’s degree.  So I say – good for my Muir College teaching staff – you did it! I was one of 35 students who graduated from the school in December 1961.  Most went into military service; some went to work in apprenticeships in local industry. A minority went on to further their educations in some of the fine universities in South Africa.

Now, writing this some fifty years after my high school graduation, I know that the disciplined, collegial and very structured environment of Muir College was important in my life for another reason which I did not realize for many, many years.  At home my mother’s alcoholism began to reveal itself when I was 13 years old. Home was often a very stressful and difficult place to be.  My many friends and their families, and varied interests in school activities provided a solid refuge for some troubling teenage years. 

But more about those things in my next chapter, wherein I will discuss friendships, camping, and some interesting travels.

Muir College Crest

Learning to spell - and other distractions

Visiting Wankie Game Reserve in 1975

My first visit to Hwange Game Reserve was in 1967. I was an entomologist in the Tsetse Control division of the Department of Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis Control, which was part of the Department of Veterinary Services of the Rhodesian (now Zimbabwean) Government. Formerly called "Wankie," this game reserve was established in1928 under the supervision of a 22 year old conservation-minded young man named Ted Davison.  It was to become one of the finest Game Reserves in Africa. Davison's classic book "Wankie:The Story of a Great Game Reserve" was, for many decades, the definitive read for anyone interested in development of Africa's wildlife resources. 


The 14,600 sq.km. (5,637 sq. mile) park is the largest reserve in Zimbabwe.  It has been, perhaps, most noted for it's large population of elephant; drawn here by a series of watering holes established by Davison in the 1930s and 1940s. The western edge of the park is the border of Botswana and the vegetation transitions into the Kalahari desert there. 

Main Camp, Hwange Game Reserve, 1985

The prospect of returning to this unique wildlife preserve is causing me some excitement and that will build over the next 18 months.

Hwange elephant - August 1996

After spending three nights at Imbabala Camp, the African Bush Camps trip outline reads as follows:

 After an early morning activity and brunch, you will depart at 1100hrs to Victoria Falls Airport.
You will be driven east back to Victoria Falls airport, where you will meet your Sefofane Air pilot for your flight to Little Makalolo Camp, Hwange. The flight takes 1 hour, and you land at Makalolo Airstrip situated deep within the park on a private concession.



Little Makalolo, situated in a remote and private concession within the vast Hwange National Park, is one of the few camps built within the Park. Hwange is legendary for its wonderful array of wildlife, particularly the massive herds of elephant and buffalo, and summer sees the large antelope herds migrate onto the plains, closely followed by large predators.

The camp is built on the ground, providing panoramic unique views over the Little Somavundlha Pan with its excellent concentrations of wildlife. Accommodation consists of 6, comfortable tented rooms with en-suite facilities as well as an outdoor shower for those who enjoy showering under the stars. The lighting in the rooms is battery-powered so there is peace and quiet in camp, allowing one to listen to the sounds of the bushveld instead.

The main area has a lounge, pub, plunge pool and dining area where delicious meals are served. While the emphasis is on game drives, night drives and guided walks, well-situated hides or raised viewing platforms provide the ideal manner to while away the lazy midday hours, watching wildlife come down to the waterholes to drink.

There are a number of shallow pans spread throughout the Park, around which wildlife congregates, making for excellent and reliable game viewing. During summer plains game migrate onto the plains, closely followed by their predators. Elephant, Cape buffalo, sable, roan, southern giraffe, blue wildebeest, impala and sometimes even gemsbok (oryx) can be seen here.


This Park is one of the best for predators - lion, leopard, wild dog and cheetah are regularly sighted, along with the smaller African wildcat, serval, honey badger, civet and spotted hyena.

Bird life in the area is prolific, with more than 400 species found, and varied as species frequent teak woodlands as well as those more typical of the drier Kalahari being present.

3 nights at Little Makalolo Camp in a twin bedded tent, with en suite facilities, on an all inclusive basis.

 

Learning to spell - and other distractions

Muir College School Crest

 

My brother John and I had completed 6^th grade at C.A. Donehoo Elementary school in Gadsden, Alabama before traveling to South Africa.  Now, suitably outfitted in our new school uniforms we were to enter Standard 5 at Muir College Boys High School.  In South Africa schooling begins as Kindergarten I (KG 1), followed by KG II, then Standard 1, Std. 2 and so on.  So the seventh year of one’s schooling is Standard V (5). Eventually, in theory, we would finish High School by successfully completing the academic requirements of Standard X (10).  We would then have “matriculated” and moved on to higher education at a University.  In effect, because the U.S. school year ends in June each year and the South African school system ends in December, we would skip half a year, going from Grade 6 to a half year into Grade 7. 

Academic standards between the two school systems were not all that different.  I mostly remember having to catch up with a new history curriculum.  The settlement of the Cape Colony by the Dutch in the 1600s had not been a part of our history lessons in the 6^th grade in Alabama. The names Bartholomew Diaz, Simon Van Der Stel and Jan Van Riebeeck were unfamiliar to us.  A higher standard was demanded in English a stronger emphasis on written essays and reports.  Correct grammar, spelling and punctuation were required, without compromise.  Many words were spelled differently.  Neighbor, labor and just about all words ending in “or” were now to be spelled the old English way; Neighbour, labour, favour, vigour, etc. The transition in Math was not difficult.  In Social Studies we lost a little in the geography of Africa and the United Kingdom but had the upper hand on North American topics.  Generally speaking we were able to fall into the new system pretty easily and it didn’t take long to begin to catch up.

In 1956 South Africa there were two official languages taught in schools; English and Afrikaans.  In English schools Afrikaans was taught as a second language and vice versa in Afrikaans schools.  Afrikaans was derived from the old language spoken by the early Dutch settlers and farmers (“boers”).  A requirement for graduating (or Matriculation) was competence in two languages.  As our parents did not anticipate being in South Africa for more than my dad’s three year contract period we were advised to take Latin classes, knowing that Afrikaans wouldn’t transfer very well to any other country, if and when we were to move again.  So Latin was our second language and we would begin taking Latin in Standard VI.

Looking back, I found the transition to an all boys school system to be pretty easy.  We made friends easily.  Our southern accents were obviously a conversation starter but within about six months we had just about lost any outward evidence of our American origins.  (At home our diet still consisted of fried chicken, black eyed- peas and other traditional southern delicacies.)  The Muir uniforms in winter consisted of grey slacks, black leather shoes, white shirts with school tie and a blazer with dark blue vertical stripes with thin white and lighter blue stripes.  It was distinctive and a much better colour combination than many of the other school uniforms in the area.  In summer, we would wear cooler dark blue shorts with knee high socks that required elastic garters to hold them up.  There was also a “beany” cap required for younger students when walking to and from school or when wearing school attire in public.

Dr. Thomas Muir - 1914

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I mentioned the history of Muir College in an earlier blog.  There was a very strong feeling of history and tradition here, which was evident from the old buildings and many historic plaques on the walls of the main assembly hall.  The school had, after all, been established in Uitenhage 134 years before, in 1822, as the “English Free School.” 1822 to 1830 was a period of widespread chaos and destruction in the eastern and central parts of southern Africa, brought about by the expansion of the Zulu State under their powerful ruler, Shaka.  Putting this into even sharper historical context, it was only in1831 that Charles Darwin began his voyage on HMS Beagle to South America and the Galapagos Islands.  Slavery would be abolished in the British Empire in 1833.

My next blog will discuss school activities, competition and maintenance of one’s self-esteem in the decade of the 1950s.

 

Leaving civilization

Dreaming On

We've received a proposal from Chris Worden of African Bush Camps.  It describes in mouth-watering detail an eight-night safari experience in the Victoria Falls, Upper Zambezi and Hwange National Park.  If we could afford it today, we would be leaving almost immediately.  The following extract describes only the first two days.  

Jan at the falls - March 2001

Tuesday 17^th July, 2011:  After breakfast Safari Club will transfer you to Johannesburg Airport, where you will check in and connect to your British Airways/Comair flight 6285, to Victoria Falls, departing Johannesburg at 1125hrs, arriving Victoria Falls at 1310hrs. 

Here you will be met by Wild Horizons Safaris and transferred to The Elephant Camp, situated only 15 minutes from Victoria Falls Airport and 10 minutes from Victoria Falls village and the Victoria Falls themselves.

Riding an Elephant in August - the dry season

March 2001 - in the rainy season

The tented suites are all equipped with indoor and outdoor showers, huge baths, private lounges, mini bar and tea/coffee stations, overhead fans plus air conditioning and are all mosquito proofed.

The Elephant Camp overlooks a waterhole that is fed by natural streams in the rainy season that rush down to meet the Masuwe River, and the Zambezi gorges below the Victoria Falls.

Bush walks and birding for guests supply boundless photographic opportunities in addition to the variety of activities that are available in Victoria Falls.

Interaction with the resident Elephants and Elephant back safaris are a unique attraction of this camp.

Managing the Elephant Camp is Jonathan Elway, who has 21 years experience in the tourism industry. 

The views from the elephant camp towards the spray of the Victoria Falls are breathtaking!

2 nights at The Elephant Camp, in a twin bedded room, with en suite facilities, on a fully inclusive basis.

These photos from our previous visits to Victoria Falls and Elephant Camp may put this whole mouth-watering reference above into better perspective.

Leaving Civilization

Let me recap my historical origins prior to stepping on African soil in Port Elizabeth in July 1956.

Indigenous peoples inhabited the Gadsden, Alabama, area for thousands of years and the agrarian Mississippian culture lived here from 1000 to 1600 AD.  The French first settled in the Mobile region in 1702 and knew the local tribe as the Alibamon. The Spanish Hernando DeSoto expedition of 1540 described the Alibamo tribe of the area.

I had been born and raised in the city of Gadsden. In 1956 it was not considered a big city having a population, as I recall, of about 70,000.  The first white settlement in the area was reputedly a house built in about 1825.  After 1840 the first survey of land was made and the first steamboat arrived on the Coosa River from Mobile, on the Gulf of Mexico, in 1845.  The new “town” was named Gadsden in honor of Colonel James Gadsden of South Carolina who, a few years later, would gain notoriety for his part, as American Ambassador to Mexico, in the Gadsden Purchase.  The Gadsden Purchase was the final acquisition of territory from Mexico by the United States in 1854 and comprised an area about the size of Scotland across southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico.

It should be noted that Col. Gadsden was an extremely vocal supporter of the practice and continuation of slavery.  The State of Alabama was to gain statehood in 1819 although it seceded from the union in 1861 at the start of the American Civil War.  Also noteworthy is that Alabama created a public school system only during the years of reconstruction which followed the end of the war in 1865.  It was during those post Civil War years that the Ku Klux Klan would gain enormous influence.

“After the Civil War, the state was still chiefly agricultural, with an economy tied to cotton.  Planters resisted working with free labor during Reconstruction and sought to re-establish controls over freedmen.  In the early years the Ku Klux Klan had numerous independent chapters in Alabama that attacked freedmen and other Republicans.  After it was suppressed, insurgent whites organized paramilitary groups, such as the Red Shirts and White League, which acted more openly to suppress black voting.  After regaining power by the late 1870s, in the last decade of the nineteenth century, white Democrats passed electoral laws and constitutional amendments to disfranchise most blacks and many poor whites.  Having regained power in the state legislature, Democrats passed Jim Crow laws, including racial segregation in public facilities, to restore white supremacy.” (Source:  Wikipedia)

I mention these historical facts to put my new home region and school system into perspective.  We were thought to be going back in time, to settle in a third world country, which would almost certainly be backward in technology and education.  My parents clearly did not think this way, but many of our family back home certainly did.   From the moment we set sail to cross the Atlantic, they were counting the days until we would return and reestablish ourselves in civilization once more.  That my father would take his young wife and three small children into such an uncertain and unsafe environment was disgraceful.

My brother and I would be attending an all boys High School, Muir College Boys High School, which was first established in 1822 as the “English Free School,” in the town of Uitenhage; established 18 years earlier on April 25, 1804 (41 Years before naming of the new town of Gadsden).  It was in the town of Uitenhage (pronounced U-tin-hāge) that the Goodyear Tire Company had built a manufacturing plant in 1948, and where my dad would become the Production Director for the company.  

More on these topics in my next post.   

  

Africa is a very big place! 6,812 miles from Cape Town to Cairo.

 

On the subject of travel

The challenge of planning a trip to Africa is in deciding what to leave out - not what to include. 

We are18 months away from fulfilling our desires to return to Africa and our initial hope was that we could include four nights in one of those very special camps in the Okavango Delta of Botswana. The good folks at Travel Beyond (http://travelbeyond.com) gave us an estimate which turned out to be $6,400 per person for four nights and that includes flights in and out (of Maun or Kasane), all meals, game drives etc.  That is way out of our budget. We have done 15- 17 day tours of other areas of southern Africa for that amount of money.  The worst thing is that, because we would have a child or children with us, under the age of 12, we would have to pay an extra $500 per day to reserve our own 4WD vehicle for game drives.

So - on to Plan B.  This morning we talked, via Skype) with Chris Worden of African Bush Camps.  (http://www.bushcamps.com/)  Chris lives and works from the town of Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe.  ABC's core business is safari marketing, consulting and sales. Quite simply they focus on planning and arranging tailor-made safaris in Africa for independent travellers and small groups. 

Quite frankly, when I saw that ABC has permanent staff in Victoria Falls, Kariba and other locations in nearby Zambia, as well as offices in the UK, I was anxious to talk with them.  My Sunday email was answered promptly by Monday morning. When I described our objectives to Chris, he immediately gave us some great ideas on how to plan a tour of the Victoria Falls area, staying at kid-friendly bush camps.  I have been to Victoria Falls many, many, times, so to talk to someone who could update me on current conditions and facilities was a relief.

Taking refreshments at Makalolo Plains Camp

 

 We asked about Elephant Camp and Imbabala Safari Camp on the Zambezi River. Chris confirmed that these camps had upgraded since we last visited and were still reasonably priced, high quality, camps.  He then suggested we consider Makalolo Plains or Little Makalolo Camps in the Hwange Game Reserve.  So we threw together a tentative passenger list and slightly more positive dates and emailed him.  By tomorrow we will have a budget cost for the first nine days of our Zimbabwe Tour. 

 

On the subject of travel - generally

A few final recollections from my pre-Africa youth concerns the whole subject of travel.  Few southerners in the first half of the 20^th century and before (1865 to 1950s) ventured far from home.  Heaven forbid it would be necessary to go north of the Mason-Dixon Line.  The movement of new industry into the southern states slowly began to change the “bunker” mentality that had lingered since the defeat and surrender of General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox. 

When my dad was 22 years old and had been a tire builder for four years he was sent to Sweden as part of a team of trainers to help start up a new Goodyear tire plant near Stockholm. So in 1938 he crossed the Atlantic and worked for a year in an instructor’s role.  He made friends with yankees and foreigners and saw quite a bit of Europe, getting around by train.  Before going back to the USA, he was in Berlin in 1939 when Americans in Europe were advised to leave in expectation of the conflict that was just months away. 

My dad (left) with friends in Copenhagen, 1939

  

He boarded the first available train and headed home, getting a berth on a steamer out of France.  So he had a taste of the outside world, unlike most of his contemporaries.  In the years after I was born in 1944 my dad would have two weeks of vacation every year.  My parents could only afford to go on vacation every other year, and we would load the car to drive to south Alabama or on to St. Petersburg, Florida. It was a two-day journey each way. Of course the Interstate Highway system had not been thought of at the time, though it was possible that President Eisenhower had plans for such a system all along.

I vividly remember the narrow paved roads from Gadsden into south Alabama along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Early on when I was about two or three, we stayed in a very “modest” (could also be described as run-down) cabin along a waterway in Gulf Shores. Of course there was an outhouse in the back. Meals were cooked on a two-burner, Coleman, portable gas stove. My dad had rented a small boat and outboard motor and would take his boys out fishing.  At a very early age I became familiar with baiting hooks and taking fish off the line.  Looking over the sand dunes we could see the tops of ships passing by along the Inland Waterway.

The roads through the rolling wooded hills were dotted with old farmhouses, and large barns with advertising on the roofs. Pecan orchards were common along the way and, of course the ubiquitous Burma Shave signs offered some humor.  We drove with the windows wide open because there was no air-conditioning. Tourist stops along the way would advertise two-headed snakes and five-legged alligators. Dad would let us tell him where to turn at road junctions, so we would learn to read the highway maps and watch for highway signs. If there was any uncertainty he would wait until we studied the map and then follow our recommendation on which way to go. My interest in and love of maps would continue throughout my life. 

For a couple of those vacations we stayed at the same motel on the shore of the Gulf in St. Petersburg. On our final trip, in 1954, we stayed in a two story home for several days.  It was a modern home with wood-paneling throughout and we could see the ocean from our upstairs bedroom.  The main feature was the hidden storage spaces behind the wall panels upstairs. Our young imaginations ran wild as we found new hiding places and explored their secrets.  Silver Springs, Florida, was a memorable stop over one year. We visited an alligator farm and saw Manatees in the clear springs for the first time.  It was the first time I was exposed to the animal kingdom in earnest, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

Nine months after this vacation, in March 1955, we welcomed the arrival of my young brother David who was to accompany us on our journey to the Dark Continent at the tender age of one year.