Mosquitoes
What about the mosquitoes and spiders, a young father asked. We are touring a unique and revolutionary school in Bali, called The Green School. Adam and Ruth Guthrie, friends from Berry, (who carry my maiden name and to whom I feel a kinship) send their daughter Rose here. It is set in acres of tropical greenery, with many substantial structures of bamboo, including an assembly room, classrooms, reception and dining areas, on the banks of the ???? River. To get to it you must cross a bridge of great beauty, also bamboo, called the Kul Kul Bridge. The school intends to be self sufficient in energy and food, and they are well on their way to being so. 329 students who represent 37 different countries, attend here, many from the USA, Australia and the East. Twenty per cent of the students are local Balinese on scholarships, and the local community can collect clean water from here, their children are also taught English, as a contribution. I wonder how Joshua would have fared here? This is self motivated learning, from age 4 to 18. I think not - Joshua discovered the power of education age 18, during a gap year in the USA, after graduating from a very expensive private school in Sydney with fairly ordinary results for someone who was exceptionally bright.
The young father asking the question was from Serbia, there with his wife and their blonde son, aged about seven. The tour leader gave an informed and reassuring answer regarding the mosquitoes, and then said, "What spiders?" He confidently informed her that he and his wife had seen a 'very large spider' and enquired 'how do you protect the children?' She said she had not seen many spiders in Bali, and of those, none were poisonous. I had to choke back my laughter, but managed to say "For real spiders, you need to go to Africa. Or Australia".
I thought about Africa and the spiders. I wondered about my mother, a young lass from the north of England, going to Africa after the war, to seek a new life in a land of sunshine with Dad, and my sister, her baby daughter. What did SHE think about the spiders? What did Gerald's Mum think about the spiders, when his Dad put her and their five children on a train to Northern Rhodesia - the heart of Africa, and a place that was known for its copper, wild animals, and wild black people?
Both of our mothers had only ever lived in towns or cities before. Mom Groom - Freda - was born in Africa in Bloemfontein, her mother Laura was English, and came to Africa as a young girl with her parents in the 1890's. What did SHE think about spiders? I met both women when I was fourteen and Gerald and I began dating. Laura (Grandma Longhurst) was famous for telling fortunes with uncanny accuracy - even the nuns and Fr. Claude lined up at the Catholic Fete each year and crossed her palm with silver. Freda never visited England, but in the way of many in those years, referred nostalgically to England as 'home', pored over months old English magazines, planted English hollyhocks and roses in her garden, and hung her walls with classic English prints of horses and hounds and crumbling castles.
My mother grew up in poverty in West Hartlepool, dusted with coal and the smog and grime from the steel works. My father lived a few doors down from my mother, in Mozart Street, and was delivered by my Mother's Grandmother, Ellen. My mother was delivered by my Father's Mother, also Ellen, and from these two strong women, who were the midwives and the 'layers out of the dead' - I get my second name.
This short span of family history, therefore, reveals intrepid women. Women of strength and courage who were able to work hard and consistently, faraway from the comfort and familiarity of home and family. What did these women discover in the middle of Africa? Old photographs reveal handsome, smiling people, dressed for parties, standing outside churches, holding babies, watering gardens, often with hands shielding their eyes from the sun. The burning African sun on my mother's pale English flesh - how hot must it have been for a young 'English Flower' as my Dad called sometimes called my Mom, "Hello Flower!" How many spiders, rats, monkeys, snakes, insects, mosquitoes, scorpions, armies of ants, rain storms, dust storms, language difficulties, cultural differences, uprisings, mud rushes, shortages of food and petrol, a 6 week turnaround of mail into and out of the country, tropical diseases, political struggles, torrential rains, endless droughts, burglaries, assailants, attackers, wild animals, car accidents, illnesses, corruption, violence, wars, births and deaths and fears did these women face? With young families, a shortage of money, no means of leaving and husbands who worked at dangerous jobs hundreds of feet underground, working in shifts around the clock, seven days a week, no telephones and no transport - how did they survive? Not only survive, but THRIVE. What was it, what did these women have, not only our mothers, but all of those women there, in the middle of the bush, striving to make a life? And what did this kind of growing up contribute to us as adults?
So touring a wonderful educational facility in beautiful, tropical Bali in 2014 and to hear someone raise spiders as a possible reason for not sending a child to an extraordinary place of learning is for me, ridiculous. And an insult to the resilience of our children. Why would we present our children with a world filled with things to fear, a world of limitations?
I am grateful for my adventurous parents, and particularly for the strong women who have been the backbone of our families.
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