Bartholomew's boundaries

We have had several close encounters between the baboon, our dogs and Maverick, the male cat. I am quite happy to have Bartholomew outside our compound but on four occasions he has been inside our compound, sitting in one of the trees over our tents.

The first time this happened we were still in bed when we heard our German Shepherd, Madonna, barking. We leapt out of bed and saw Madonna charging towards Bartholomew. Luckily, Bartholomew got a fright, jumped out of the tree that he was in, fled towards the compound fence and only stopped when he felt that he was a safe distance from Madonna. He then turned and eyed out this strange creature that had run at him and it took a bit of persuading to get him to leave the compound.

The same thing happened 3 days later. This time it was Maverick’s turn to chase Bartholomew. Chris ran out, stick in hand, just in time to see Maverick running after Bartholomew with his hair on end, looking very fierce.

Luckily for us, Bartholomew does not seem to be aggressive in any way. If he was he could very easily have killed any one of our animals. Instead we continue to be a source of great amusement and entertainment for him. On most mornings he sits on one of the 4 huge rocks overlooking our compound, watching us while we do our exercises in the morning or in one of the trees close to our shower area where he is able to look across to Mvimwa Island (Fisherman’s Island). But we are still very careful with him and always make sure to chase him out of our compound so that he knows where his boundaries are.

Bartholomew on his rock.

Dance like no-one is watching you

Last Saturday we held a party for all the staff from Lupita Island. Chris and I are the first Foreigners to ever live on the Island and this was the main purpose for the party. Everyone was so excited and the staff spent days discussing what would be served and where the party would be held.

After much organization, the party was held in a dusty courtyard, surrounded on all 4 sides by houses. Someone had strung up some brightly coloured, flashing lights across the centre of the courtyard and on one of the walls of the houses. Mika, the welding fundi, was the D.J. and music was blaring forth from the 2 huge speakers as we were led into the courtyard.

We were taken to the seats of honour at an old, wooden table and only once we had received our drinks was the bar officially open. We had bought 2 goats and some extra goat meat for the occasion. This was grilled and handed around to everyone. Once again, it was only after Chris and I had been served our food that dinner was served to everyone else. It was really quite delicious.

After a short speech from Chris and an even shorted speech from me (it had to be in Swahili of course), Chris and I opened the dance floor and the party began in full. It was so wonderful to see everyone thoroughly enjoying themselves.

I once read a list of 10 things that one should do while alive and one of them was: DANCE AS IF NO-ONE IS WATCHING YOU. Well we all did and it was such fun. I can highly recommend it.