Hayestack

The English service at the ELCIN Church begins at 7am or sometime thereafter. Linda, Georgina and I arrived at 7am with Nico and Margaarith in their Toyota 4 by 4. Nico and Margaarith are an elderly, Dutch couple who have finished one 2 year stint with VSO and have extended for a further 18 months. Nico is a biologist and can tell you which snakes and spiders are poisonous. This can be useful to some but not so much to people like me who work on the principle that all snakes and spiders are poisonous. This is akin to the HIV principle of “If in doubt don’t do it”. I am very abstemious when it comes to snakes and spiders, and dogs, if it comes to that.

Once in the church Nico took out his organ and erected it facing the pews in the chancel. Nico is big in the church and without his organ the congregation would have to sing “a capella” (without hats). We sit on one of the pews at the front. There are a handful of people behind us.

“Don’t worry,” Margaarith reassures me,” the pews will be full once we start”. She is either over optimistic or believes in miracles.

The church was as empty and as reverberant as a large warehouse. We faced a huge mural painted in bold colours seemingly executed by a class of above averagely artistic 9 year olds, telling the gospel from Adam and Eve to the Resurrection. One stood amazed how the whole Bible could be condensed onto one wall.

A face appeared at the doorway at the front of the church. Then the rest of a man emerged. H e was tall, thin and wore a black coat that nearly touched his toes. The most astounding part of his wardrobe, however, was his long, white shoes. He looked like a vampire who had been to a disco all night. He shrugged his shoulders and Margaarith nodded as if giving her approval that it was safe to start. The acoustics of the building were such that they succeeded in mixing all the ministers’ words into one incomprehensible blur. The words that stood more chance of being understood occurred at the beginning of sentence since the minister’s voice trailed off at the end allowing his words to escape and evaporate towards the roof. This was accompanied with much gesticulation as if signing to crazy deaf people at the back of the church. Nico warmed up his organ and we had a hymn. I think it was in Africaans as it looked like dyslexic German (or even Dutch), but I wasn’t sure. At any rate, I contorted my mouth into all sorts of impossible shapes to try and approximate the sound, if not the meaning. I could have been singing the telephone directory for all I knew except that I recognised the word “God” mentioned twice so it may have been the telephone directory for the Vatican.

The acoustics deceived me into thinking that only Margaarith and I were singing. It was then that I had an unusual feeling of being watched. I glanced behind and, to my astonishment, saw that the church was packed behind me. They stood stock still and made no sound. The effect was eerie. Some responses followed and, for a moment, I was back in an English Parish Church, except the sun was shining outside.

We sang a song in the local language, Rutwangalli. Still no-one sang. It later transpired that it was in the wrong local language.

“These hymns are rubbish”, Margaarith suddenly announced in disgust. I had to agree. “Who chose them?” I asked. “I did,” she replied. I had to admire her candour. “They wouldn’t sing them in Holland,” she continued. “Especially if they’re in Rutwangali,” I thought but kept it to myself.

The Old Testament and Gospels were read. Then came the best song, the words of which show a distinctly Calvinist influence. I was so delighted here are the first 2 verses:

Work, for the night is coming,

Work through the morning hours.

Work while the dew is sparking (sic),

Work ‘mid the springing flowers.

Work when the days grow brighter,

Work in the glowing sun,

Work for the night is coming,

When man’s work is done.

Work for the night is coming,

Work through the sunny noon

Fill brightest hours with labour

Rest cones sure and soon.

Give every flying minute

Something to keep in store,

Work for the night is coming,

When man works no more.

One particularly intriguing line occurred in the fourth verse. We were exhorted to:

Work for daylight flies.

This was a new concept for me as my predilection is to swat them, night-time ones, too, if it came to that. I, for one was exhausted after all that work.

At last some meat. It was time for the sermon. I assumed the most comfortable posture possible on that hard, wooden pew and waited expectantly. Would it be 15 minutes, 30, an hour? An hour might be a bit much when we could only make out one word in ten, so we prayed for 15. Our prayers were answered and in abundance. The minister stopped at three. Alleluia.

“He hasn’t prepared anything this week”, Margaarith whispered in my ear.

“You surprise me”, I thought, joyfully.

“The worst one yet,” was the general consensus in the car afterwards. It was pretty dire, I had to admit, though hugely amusing. What I could not poke fun at, however, was the sincerity and hard work of those struggling against great odds to make their worship meaningful. The mountain they had to climb, however, seemed truly daunting. If nothing else it would be a testament to Man’s persistence against impossible odds. Their main handicap it seemed to me was a complete lack of spiritual leadership. I have been only once to this church so my judgement may be a little hasty and unfair. The minister seemed nice enough and well-meaning. But there lurks in the back of my mind the uncharitable suspicion that he had been the seminary cleaner when the degrees had been given out and he somehow joined the wrong queue. This, it was pointed out to me, could not have been true as the church had not been cleaned for weeks. May God forgive me.

This will probably be a short entry as I shall probably fall asleep over my computer. The reason is simple. Throughout every night we are subjected to the deafening cacophony of a hundred Baskerville hounds seemingly baying for our blood. The effect is spine-chillingly awful. It can start with one puppy spluttering over a chicken bone and within seconds the whole of Rundu resounds to the howls of huge packs of pseudo wolves. They snarl and threaten each other. “You want a piece of me, you come and get me”. And they often do. One place for carving each other up seems to be just outside our bedroom window, and given the fact that there is no glass in it, just fine mosquito net and a few slats, a savage fight can sound alarmingly near. I have not dared put on the light in case they are actually in the bedroom.

Almost as annoying is the irritation felt at seeing these very same dogs the next morning stretched out under a shady tree snoozing the daylight hours away so that they can stop us sleeping at night. Rose took us on a tour of Rundu in her car. We passed many dozing dogs. “Swerve to the left,” I urged as we approached one, but Rose could not be prevailed upon to decrease the dog population by a measly one. Neither should revenge tempt you to give a dozing dog a hefty kick up the north pole. This is rabies country, after all. Let sleeping dogs lie. What puzzles me, though, is, if Africans are prepared to eat dog, then why are there still so many of them around? They are a good source of nutrients and they probably taste as good as a steak. Eat more dog is what I say.

Then the cocks start crowing. Don’t believe these creatures only crow at dawn. I can personally vouch for the fact that, given half a chance they will crow all through the night. There is a cock a few houses away. Its call is answered by one a quarter of a mile down the road, then by one a quarter of a mile further on and so on until the sound of the cock reached Windhoek seven hundred miles away. Georgina assures me that when her grandfather kept cocks he would put them overnight in a coop where the ceiling was so low the cocks couldn’t stretch out their necks to crow. Ignore the connotations of medieval torture. This sounds like a good idea.

In the rare and, oh so brief, moments of silence in the night I can hear something prowling in the garden. It sounds as if it has the weight and dimensions of a gorilla. It can’t be John the gardener as he only comes on Mondays and Thursdays. What it is and what it’s doing I do not and don’t wish to know. Besides, Georgina is safely between me and the window, so I snuggle down under my mosquito net choosing to ignore that a rampant primate would make short work of a flimsy bit of lace.

A new horror has emerged to destroy any chance of a goodnight’s sleep. Yesterday, a couple were married next door. Part of the tradition is to ensure that anyone within a one mile radius gets no sleep that night. They easily achieve this with what sounds like a hundred African drummers a choir of a thousand well versed in African chants and excessively loud ululations. You have to remember that our windows are neither double nor even single glazed. This facilitates the sounds travelling directly from their drums and voices to our ears with no let or hindrance. After 2 hours your brain begins to throb. After 4 you are on the verge of insanity. After 6, your thoughts turn to bloody murder. Each of our gardens in this part of town has a large and substantial air raid shelter plonked in the middle of it to protect the population against Angolan shelling during the regional uprising a few years ago. Contrary to popular belief, they were not shelling Namibia for helping their enemies in the war but, I believe, to stop the nightly cacophony of dogs, cocks and weddings. Unfortunately, they did not succeed.

If you go further north than Rundu you will find yourself in Angola. This is not to be advised as Angola is still covered in landmines. At any rate you would first have to negotiate the hippo and crocodile infested Okavango River. Only yesterday I was told of a girl who went walking along the river bank and was never seen again. The police were called and they concluded she was taken by crocodile. They will grab a limb, drag you into deep water, barrel roll until you are helpless or drowned, then devour you. The thing to do, apparently, and I will perfect this technique, is to cling onto the croc so that you spin with it, meanwhile sticking your fingers into its eyes. If it does not release you, lift up its tongue so that water enters its lungs and is in danger of drowning. If you have the presence of mind to do this you will survive with just a bitten limb. However, I know of only one instance when this technique has been successful. So, I suppose the moral has to be don’t go near crocodile rivers and banks. Unfortunately for us the Okavango is a prime site for recreation and pleasure. Only the other day we watched a sensational African sunset whilst walking along the river bank.Fortunately we saw no crocodiles.

Our first impression of Rundu was that it was built on a beach and was designed by a recalcitrant class of “A” level geometry students (ie. It has form, but no meaning). It is a town of right angles. Go north and you will reach the river (watch out for the crocs). Go east/west and you are parallel to the river. It has recently developed from a one horse to a two horse town. Soon, due to road development between Namibia and Angola it will be a town of a herd of stallions. At the moment it is building a new shopping mall. Though this will in no way rival Lakeside or Bluewater, it does have its own escalator. At the moment the locals step on and off gingerly as though they may be consumed by the monstrous machine. Soon they will be blasé about new technology and become just another westernised town. But, maybe their destiny will be different. Cuba and China helped Namibia a great deal to achieve independence, no doubt by selling them arms. There is a large Cuban presence in the hospitals and Chinese presence in diamond production and retail. The sad fact is that Chinese companies bring in Chinese workers. They do not employ Namibian workers who would improve the Namibian economy. I would not wish to see another Tiananmen Square in the centre of Windhoek nor Rundu. Hopefully, the Namibians are cagey enough to use communist money to develop their country, and ultimately, to retain human rights and the rule of law to join the roll call of truly civilised Nations.

Our journey from Windhoek ended as we approached the Ministry of Education compound. An armed guard at the entrance held up his hand for our vehicle to stop. We carried on regardless. Bullet in the head time, I thought. But the driver stopped and we completed our journey. The Deputy Minister of Education had expressly awaited our arrival. We were suitably impressed. Ignatius, a Zimbabwean from Birmingham instinctively furnished expected diplomatic niceties. Everyone was honoured and praised a couple of times if not more, and we were allowed to leave.

Exhausted, we arrived at our new home for the next two years. It was a large, low bungalow, surrounded by a sandy beach boasting a huge cactus, mango tree and exotic plants with profuse exotic flowers. Surely this would have been paradise had it not been for the air-raid shelter planted ominously in the centre of the garden. Rundu had been bombarded by Angolan rebels several years ago. The cold rains of Britain seemed a whole world away.

We were greeted by Linda and Rose, surely two of the nicest people in the whole wide world. They made us feel at home and were generous to a fault. This was now our home and we should make it so. Linda, from Lowestoft and older than us, was an amalgam of Gloriana and Ellen Orford, at once benign authority and caring mother. Educated, articulate and with her ear constantly to the ground, she proved an invaluable source of wisdom and knowledge. Rose, the enchantingly lyrical maid of Limerick, instantly brought to mind the Loughs of Yeats and Innisfree. Irish hospitality is legendary and Rose was truly and unashamedly Irish, thank God.

The established volunteers had organised a dinner at the lodge overlooking the Okavango River. There would be mosquitoes so we should wear Deet, the latest essential in fashion accessories. The meal was a delicious, meaty blur but we walked there and back without being mugged or eaten alive by mosquitoes. Life was so much more relaxed here. We felt at home.

By the end of the week’s training session in Windhoek everyone was anxious to reach their placement and start doing their bit for Namibia. Some were staying in Windhoek but most were going to see the real Africa up north. The details of where we would all be living were sketchy at best. Georgina and I knew, for example, that we would be sharing a house with established volunteers, Linda and Rose, and new girl, Karin, who is Dutch and makes her name sound like “Garry”. Other knew precious little. Alison, for example was told by the previous volunteer that she would have a mattress under the desk in her office in the middle of nowhere. He didn’t seem to be joking, she told me with alarm. When pressed about other aspects of the placement he was either non-committal or avoided the question altogether. This inevitably raised concern and not a little anxiety. His claims that he enjoyed the job were less than convincing. Nevertheless, Alison, to her credit, determined to carry on manfully (or should it be womanfully) and is now, no doubt snug on her mattress under the desk in her office in the middle of nowhere.

It is not that she came totally unequipped. Her former colleagues had had a whip around and bought her a very smart jungle hat which to my mind bore a striking resemblance to a female version of the old colonial pith helmet. It led me to wonder if her colleagues, in giving Alison this elegant and, moreover, useful gift, they weren’t actually taking it (the pith, that is).

It was in these last days in Windhoek that we met Namibia’s future top model. She was sure of this and, judging by her tall, slim body, air of grace and deportment I wouldn’t be surprised if she were right. Georgina and I were heading in the same direction as Albertina down one of the back streets towards the centre of Windhoek when she introduced herself. She was certainly more friendly than any supermodel I had read about. She was still in training so probably hadn’t done the module on surliness and phone throwing yet. We walked down Robert Mugabe Avenue and I had an overwhelming desire to spit, which is strange because I never feel that way when walking down Nelson Mandela Avenue. Mugabe apparently is regarded by many African leaders as a father figure for his role in helping his country achieve independence, but his present work of systematically destroying his own people seems to be strangely overlooked. Maybe Hitler would have been forgiven the holocaust had he won his war.

There wasn’t much room in the mini-bus when the six of us going to Rundu had piled in with our entire luggage. Georgina and I sat in the back, our journey made more interesting by the imminent collapse of the luggage stacked behind us. An unexpected zebra crossing, or wart hog, or ostrich could have caused an avalanche.

The seven hour journey from Windhoek took us through continuous scrub land, the tedium of which was alleviated at regular intervals by the small towns of Okahandja, Otjiwarongo, Otavi and Grootfontein. Try saying those after your third bottle of Windhoek Beer (or before it if it comes to that). The roads were metalled, straight and quiet, though not deserted. An occasional mountain would rear up in the distance then disappear. Hannah asked where the Red Line was. I said I knew a Red Lion in Shrewsbury but she was less than amused. Then we were upon it. Armed guards eyed us suspiciously. Beyond this was rabies country. As they let us through I made a mental note not to foam at the mouth on the way back.

We drew near to Rundu and the scenery began to change. There were more trees and groups of huts began to appear. These were mostly made of traditional materials, branches and thatch though here and there were shacks of corrugated iron to blot the landscape. Occasionally, an abandoned and rusting car with its wheels missing added an extra touch of western squalor. But that’s progress for you.

Eighteen of us are thrown together and have to get on. This is not difficult as everyone is either warm and friendly or just still on their best behaviour. The only other couple besides us are Rob and Kirsten. Still in their twenties and blessed with huge amounts of enthusiasm and energy (Oh to be young again) they have a great sense of humour (i.e. they laugh at my jokes, or at least are maybe just kind). Furthermore, they show great taste and judgment in their viewing habits since they too are fans of the West Wing. If you have not seen this programme you would not understand.

My regenerated sociability is helped by the fact that local TV is so poor. There are 2 channels. At any one time the choice is either a very poor substitute for Neighbours or a third rate American gangster movie. Turn on at 10pm, however, and you will catch the News telling exotic stories such as a man was killed by a hippo on the River Kavango. This hapless fisherman’s canoe was overturned by an emerging hippo and he disappeared beneath the murky depths without a trace. A witness saw everything. The other extraordinary thing, to British viewers, at least, was the appearance of the interviewer’s hand on screen. It straightened the witness’s tie and disappeared (much like the hippo, I suppose). The witness carried on talking regardless. The rest of the news was politics, lots of large men oozing sweat and self-importance looking as though they had consumed more than their share of the gross national product, shouting the odds against poor workers who had the temerity to suggest striking for a subsistence wage.

The best part of the news was the weather forecast. This held no novelty or anticipation as it was the same everyday and lasted for about 30 seconds. Even the presenter seemed bored with it and gabbled her lines shamelessly. It went like this:

“High clouds over the Cape; a light breeze from the south-west; central Namibia will be sunny and hot; very hot in the north.”

The best part came at the end when the presenter suddenly smiled and said, “And God bless you all this evening” as though she meant it. We felt truly blessed.

When you step into Joe’s Beer House you feel as though you are entering a Disney style theme park. Your mind is tricked into thinking you are in an African village with thatched roofs, a stream, pond and many nooks and crannies bedecked with bottles, barrels and other paraphernalia no self-respecting drinking hole would be without. All the new volunteers gathered here to socialise and to eat animals you would only find in a zoo at home. Zebra, ostrich, crocodile and antelope were all on the menu. You could try a chunk of each on a kebab. Some ate this and none died (apart from the animals). Feeling unadventurous that evening I ordered steak. It was the size of half a cow on my plate and it was absolutely delicious. Namibia is big on meat. It’s about all that grows in this desert land. I ate every bit, but some of the zoo animals were found to be chewy and left half eaten. The zebra, I’m told tasted like horse (why would that be?) so I suppose the ostrich tasted like chicken, the antelope like venison and the crocodile like crocodile. I’ll try eating the zoo and let you know. Talking about strange things to eat, Laura, our volunteer from Canada has two beloved dogs which she loves like children. She’s left them in the care of her tenants, who are hopefully not Koreans or other dog eaters. I mention this only because, apparently, they eat dog in Africa. Neighbours will ask departing volunteers if they can look after their pets when they go. This may not be out of affection for the animal but because they want to eat it. Laura’s dogs are poodles. I suppose they taste like dog with a hint of garlic? Maybe with a glass of nice red wine……..?

PS. for David - Winhoek lager is fairly non-descript and has little taste (like most), but is eminently drinkable when very chilled on a hot day of which we are having many.  Give me real English ale for taste any day.  Joe’s beer house is worth a visit and a lot cheaper than the Magic Kingdom.

Hats off to VSO. They don’t send you out unprepared into the bush. They train you how to swat mosquitoes and wrestle with crocodiles first. Training takes place under a canopy out of doors. If you are unlucky the sun will slide around and strike you on the top of your head when you least expect it. A bottle of water within reach of your right hand is always essential. Snatch it up as soon as the first signs of dehydration appear.

The training sessions were an invaluable source of amusement. I shall never forget the sight of Daan, our esteemed leader, wrestling with a flip-chart page, that had been whipped up by the wind. Try as he might he could not keep it down. The persistent page kept flapping around even when Daan practically threw himself across it. Eventually somebody brought a large dollop of Blutak. Concentrating on what he was saying he proceeded to apply it a to the wrong plage. I am ashamed to say that I was too amused at the sight of Daan wrestling with the flip chart to help him out of his predicament. Shame on me.

The highlight of the week was, possibly, the “drop-off” exercise. We were to be abandoned in an obscure, if not dangerous part of Windhoek, be obliged to visit nearby organisations and take a taxi back to the VSO centre.

My group comprised Laura, Barbara and myself. We were dropped off in one of the coloured/black townships. Fortunately, Georgina and I had explored this area a couple of days previously so I knew roughly where we were.

Our first stop was at the Tabitha Church and Care Home. The Rev. Wilhelm Pieters, (or was it Pieter Wilhelms?) sat in his oversized leather chair, the lord of all he surveyed. Don’t get the wrong idea. This was a good man. Though he was the big chief of his area in the Evangelical Lutheran Church, a legacy of former German colonisation, he seemed dissatisfied that his work comprised mostly bureaucracy involved with the care home and social work.

“I want to get back to the people and get dirt under my fingernails”, he said. Given the state of local housing I didn’t think it would take him long.

The second organisation we had to visit was the NTA (National Training Authority). This taught plumbing, electric skills, brick-laying etc. In fact, the skills you can never find in the UK. I wondered what the call-out charge would be from Windhoek to London. Prohibitive, no doubt.

We bumped into the cook. Joseph, the Principal could not be found. She insisted on giving us a tour of the premises ending with the cafeteria which was her pride and joy. On our way out she suggested we pay our respects to the Principal before we left. The Principal was not to be found. The Administrative assistant insisted on giving us a tour of the offices. How could we refuse? They had some lovely offices, and the toilets were useful , but, as they say, when you’ve seen one office you’ve seen them all.

We stood by the side of the road waiting for a taxi. A red, battered , old banger slowly came to a halt in front of us. Maybe the engine had given up? Someone was sitting in the passenger seat. Thank goodness, it was already taken. We would wait for another. The passenger got in the back and the driver beckoned us inside. He intended us to share. This, no doubt, was part of the VSO Windhoek taxi experience. We determined to take it in our stride. Laura, taking advantage of Barbara’s and my state of shock, nipped in by the driver. I, in an uncharacteristic flash of chivalry, slid in next to the black man leaving Barbara only about 2 inches of seat. Barbara, who I’m sure would not be offended if I described her figure as less than twig-like, seemed reluctant to attempt the 2 inches and would only enter once I had squashed the stranger against the car door. The banger accelerated slowly. I wondered if it would ever reach a cruising speed. The roundabout occurred before I had a chance to find out. Turning right at junctions where you have to cross the flow of oncoming traffic produced the greatest adrenalin rush. It was a game of chance where our lives were the forfeit. The driver, no doubt had the accelerator nailed to the floor as cars hurtled towards us. The image of a white car closing on us at speed while our car struggles to gain momentum, is printed indelibly on my brain.

I can safely say that I have not been more intimate with anyone since I married Georgina 36 years ago. The G force produced by the car’s swerving around corners projected my body forcefully and irresistibly against that of the stranger. My hips were already pressing hard against Barbara’s. That wasn’t so bad. I knew Barbara slightly and she didn’t seem the sort to cry “rape” at the drop of a hat. What was the local word for “sorry” ? “Mpandu?” No, that meant “thankyou” in Rutwangali. I could hardly say that. Mercifully, the car stopped and the stranger got out. With relief, I moved across the seat, free of any ambiguous, and, I have to say, unintentional, physical contact. Barbara looked relieved as well.

Sitting that evening on the Ojari terrace overlooking Windhoek and sipping a bottle of Windhoek lager, I had to conclude that this drop-off exercise, fun though it was , proved inefficient as a means of “weeding out” the weakest volunteers. More effective would have been a “drop-off point in the middle of the Namib desert. The toughest would have survived and the rest would have 2 years to get to the airport before their visas ran out if not stung to death by scorpions before. VSO are too soft.

Rundu is right on the border with Angola.  We can clearly see it across the short stretch of the Kavango River.

The Otjari Hostel sits comfortably on a hill overlooking the modern city of Windhoek. It is blue sky city. The air is clean and the sun shines all day. But all is not well in paradise. The high metal railings and barbed wire that surround most properties, the security guards outside many shops, hostel alarms and warnings that the hostel was being targeted by criminals (there had been a break-in the previous week) would could have scared the living daylights out of any of us. We must walk to the shops in groups, treat every stranger as a potential mugger and question the motives of anyone who dareds to say hello. It would take a little while to relax and take the same precautions as if you were walking the street s of East London, though the British social security system denies London thieves the excuse of abject poverty. I may be stupid, but if I had to be mugged, and I never wish to be, I would rather the dreadful deed were done by someone trying to prevent his family from dying than by a drug-crazed yob who might blow it on the latest rap album or a gram of crack cocaine.

Early Sunday morning found us taking the guide book tour of the city. The streets were practically deserted and the few cars would toot their horns and wave at us. How friendly, I thought , and waved back. Obviously, anyone with half a brain cell would have realized that these were taxis touting for business.

Walking down Independence Avenue was like walking along the High Street of any Western city, smart shops, interspersed with older architecture and a few statues of former heroes long, and often deservedly, forgotten. But wait. Here’s an installation of old rocks. They are meteorites, part of a shower that hit the Namib desert millions of years ago. This is something that Oxford Street doesn’t have. Also, where on the Champs Elysées would you happen upon the fossilised head of an elephant set on a plinth to mark the place of an ancient elephant cemetery?

We climbed the hill to the Christus kirche and watched smartly dressed Germans carrying, not beach towels, but Bibles, walk soberly through the main door. The thought of an hour or so of unrelenting German at such an early time in the morning, admittedly broken up by a beautiful Bach chorale or two, was enough to stop us following them. Instead, we headed for the neighbouring Parliament Building and watched the many black lizards with spotted yellow heads sun themselves on the low walls.

By the fountain on the lush lawns the statue of Charlie Chaplin turned out not to be the British-born actor but one of the founding fathers of Namibia. Reassured by this, we headed down the hill towards the President’s house. This was a low, unassuming bungalow that might have belonged to your retired , admittedly well-heeled grandparents. It was here that Georgina was nearly shot as a potential insurgent. I’d always suspected she had a double life, a female James Bond, Jane Bond, I suppose. She couldn’t resist the impulse to cross the road and peer through the imposing gates like an innocent tourist.

She hadn’t reached the cats’ eyes in the middle of the road (if there had been any) when, “Hey, you” yelled a gruff voice. We spun around to see a sweating gorilla of a soldier pointing his submachine gun directly at Georgina. Had I been the slightest bit chivalrous or even had my wits about me I should have thrown myself between Georgina and the soldier to take the bullets. Fortunately, I was neither of these and stood frozen to the spot, my life flashing before my eyes. I’d just got to early adolescence when,

“I just wanted a peep through the gates,” I heard Georgina plead.

“You can’t do that,” said the soldier, eyeing her for grenades hidden beneath her clothing. Fortunately, her contours were such that they would immediately display the slightest unusual bump, though she may have successfully have concealed them about her upper person.

“It’s not like Buckingham Palace, then?”

The soldier looked bemused and grunted nervously, his trigger finger twitching uncontrollably.

Georgina inched carefully to the right side of the road, smiling in the most sincere way she knew how. The soldier’s gaze followed her every movement as we carefully progressed down the hill and moved out of the soldier’s range of vision.