The days of our lives

One of the joys of living abroad are the occasional letters (or even better, packages) from South Africa. Our parochial little letterbox has taken on monumental significance for Maya, whose interest in it causes her, most uncharacteristically, daily to lug out a heavy stool to enable her to reach the lid and probe its contents. In fact, she begged Willem for weeks to help her build a new, better, more interesting letterbox, which he has since done; however, her attempts to get me to help her decorate it in paint and mosaic have been less successful (especially since I started working), so to date the old, boring, white one still stands. Our respective parents – and also, most memorably, my grandmother – are very good at enclosing letters to the children, illustrated most entertainingly, and which Maya now reads on her own, much to my pride. My offspring generally consider the drawings quite marvellous, being considerably better than they themselves are capable of producing; although I suspect one of these days Maya is going to give the aged ancestors a run for their money as she is developing into quite the little artist, and has set up one corner of her room as an arts and crafts nook, complete with all the tools of that delightful trade.

Max also enjoys drawing, and we are instructed to pin up his scribbles on his bedroom wall to be admired by everyone. Maya has taken it upon herself to teach him to draw a person, which he now does: or rather, he draws an weird squiggly circle with spiky appendages which I am told are legs and arms, and equally squiggly markings for eyes etc), and he is very proud of himself. And the figure is always pink. Max – possibly in reverence to his sister, not least because she teaches him to draw – is going through a very pink phase, and everything he draws is pink, and he insists on using only the pink plate and mug at home and at school. He also loves to dress up in Maya’s pink fairy dresses, although he gets most annoyed when he trips over the long flowing skirts while whizzing around on his scooter or clambering on the jungle gym. Only then does he deign to swap the ballgown for a more practical pair of shorts. And should anyone dare call him a girl – well! The reaction is instant, with the offender (and anyone else within 100 metres) being informed with much fervour and stamping of feet that Max is NOT a girl, he is a BOY because he has a PENIS! (The word ‘penis’ usually echoes piercingly through the playground/shop/dinner party; and I have no doubt he’d demonstrate the fact if his mother would only let him.) But I digress – we were talking about drawing. Under the house we have an concrete-floored carport where Willem parks his motorbike and where the children keep a box of large coloured pavement chalks for their artwork – it is the only place where they are welcome to draw on the walls and floors. During a recent rainstorm they went down there and drew an enormous rainbow on the floor (with the colours even in the correct order) – the result was very pretty and it was a lovely way to pass the time in (relative) peace and harmony, with the cool rain falling softly on all sides and the grey skies making the rainbow look even brighter. It was especially lovely when a real rainbow followed the shower, much to their delight.

Maya is eventually settling in at school after finally having found a friend in her class. The friend, Imogen, is a quiet little soul with big eyes, and she came to play last Friday, which caused a night of sleepless excitement for Maya on Thursday, and provided enough of an incentive to get my daughter to tidy her excruciatingly messy bedroom for once. (A Virgo she is not.) Imogen’s mother informs me that her child has also struggled to make friends, and so I suppose it is not surprising that the two little social wallflowers managed to find each other. They now send each other affectionate letters and little gifts (pens, stickers) every day, and although I sometimes have to work hard to get Maya to reply to letters from people in SA, she requires no encouragement for the tomes she sends Imogen, spangled with stars and hearts and passionate professions of love and lifelong devotion.

So the children are happy, and their school routine is settling down nicely. Maya has started ballet lessons again, and Max is very upset that he can’t go too, but since most preschooler activities in this part of the world are scheduled for the mornings or early afternoons before I finish work, he will just have to wait till he gets to school before starting any extramurals, ballet or otherwise. Maya wanted to start music lessons, which are offered at her school, but unfortunately musical instruments are hugely expensive here – a piano is completely unaffordable – so she will have to wait till she’s older, and perhaps we can make a plan for her to use the school’s piano to practise on, or buy a small keyboard or something.

Both of them do take swimming lessons on a Saturday morning, though, which they love, and which is nice because there is no after-school rush and it is at a public indoor, heated swimming pool so we all get to have a lovely caper and swim after the lesson. It is great for Maya who is not wild about exercise that leaves her feeling hot and sweaty. The pool where the lessons are held is in the small town of Papakura, about 20 minutes’ drive south-east of Maraetai. The drive there is along narrow country roads, around hairpin bends and though acres of pasture, and is generally a pleasant way to spend part of the morning. The training pool is convenient in that the children have their lessons on either side, with lanes for adult swimmers in the middle. Chic-ching! So I also try to get in a few lengths while keeping a watchful eye on my children on either side of me. However, my plans went bung last week, when Max’s stupid idiot teacher let him go without warning and he sank, causing him to go into hysterics. It has set him back terribly and he has completely lost his confidence in himself, not to mention his trust in the dof teacher. So now I have to swim with them in the lesson because Max won’t go to her on his own, and he has subsequently been placed back in a less advanced class. I am so angry: it is an annoying waste of time and money, not to mention unnecessary and a great pity, since Max has always loved swimming and has never been afraid before. In fact, it has always been a joy to watch him, overcome with excitement and bouncing irrepressibly in the pool, so much so that his teacher couldn't get him to stand still for long enough to give him any instructions! It is very entertaining to watch, because he looks like a little, skinny, wet, blonde spinning top, shivering with excitement and cold, clutching his crotch with one hand and his pool noodle with the other, with enormous fly-eyes encased in blue goggles held in place by a permanent pearly grin. But now we have to get his confidence back before I have my spinning top back - and of course there goes my own half-hour of swimming time. (So much for losing those stubborn last five kgs.)

In the summer holidays I enrolled the offspring in a swimming school at another pool, this time in Howick (this city is just chock-a-block full of decent public amenities). This pool, in Lloyd Elsmore Park, is situated most agreeably in a large and lovely park, in which may also be found the Howick Historical Village. This museum is an open-air recreation of what life was like in this part of New Zealand when it was first settled by Europeans – specifically by a group of what they call the ‘Fencibles’ (from the world defensible): a group of soldiers in their thirties, no longer quite up to going to war, but still in good enough shape to defend New Zealand against the barbarous invading hordes ,whoever they might be. They were typically English- and Irishmen with young families who were promised a free house and pension by the British government if they did service in New Zealand for a number of years. But when the poor suckers arrived after a three-month sea voyage they discovered their promised houses had not yet been built, so they and their families were given a tent to live in, followed by a reed hut, and only later cottages, which were so tiny that by comparison I am quite the lady of the manor in my modest little rental. The Historical Village is a delightful place run entirely by volunteers, who dress up in the style of the day for the entertainment and edification of visitors, and tend gardens and veggie patches in the village so that the place looks entirely authentic and lived-in. There are tents and reed cottages as they must have been in the day, together with authentic restored cottages, hotels, bars, a farrier, church, school, dairy, etc which have been brought from all over the country – and even the Maori mail runner’s reed hut (this one a recreation, of course). The day we went, during the January school holidays, they happened to have a treasure hunt on for the children, and handed Maya a paper with clues that she had to find answers to and tick off, to get a prize (a ‘lolly’ – NZ for sweet) at the end. It took us the whole afternoon (Max fell asleep in his pram), and was great fun for Maya, not to mention an excellent way to get her to actually look at and appreciate cultural history. Usually she becomes quickly bored with all the ‘olden-day stuff’, but this time she was amazed and fascinated by how people lived in those times. Although I need no encouragement to enjoy history, I was impressed too, especially at how people managed to do so much with so little. It makes me realise how wasteful, consumerist and spoiled modern Western people are, and made me feel a little uncomfortable at how I occasionally complain about having given up a relatively luxurious, extravagant life in South Africa for a far leaner life here.

Strolling through the outdoor museum, under the spreading oak and pohutukawa trees, was an opportunity for reflection. I am grateful that we made this huge change in our lives, in part because I am learning how to live more conservatively, which is good in so many ways – I feel that I am living a more ecologically responsible and sustainable life – like the settlers, who used everything in their environment, even the ash from the fire (for soap and toothpaste, for example); I am also financially much more conservative, which is healthy, although not necessarily fun. I am also becoming a keener observer of primal aspects my own life (no doubt as the early settlers were too). In my case, this means noticing what things bother and stress me, about where in my body I hold tension, about what things feed my soul and what things drain me, and paying attention to these things rather than brushing them aside.

The irony of modern life is that it is meant to bring us additional opportunities for leisure, growth and personal improvement; yet it seldom does so. The irony of a simpler life is that the mundane struggle for existence should occupy every waking thought; yet it is usually in these periods of history that humankind has been at its most creative, reflective and ingenious. In my own life I am more confronted with odious toil than ever before (hell, I have a three year-old whose ball skills are impressive but whose use of the loo suggests that his aim has yet a long way to go); yet simultaneously I find more time to write, to exercise, to delight in play with my children, and to enjoy the aroma of a cup of coffee and the splendour of a sunset to a greater extent than I have done at any other time in my adult life.
So I reckon we'll visit the Historical Village again.
And Max will eventually get back into the pool without me and regain his bug-eyed grin.
And maybe I'll even get around to decorating our new letterbox with Maya before we move to the next house.
Dunno if I'll lose the five kilos though. Sigh...