A Charmed Life

My mother, Alice Jean Blankenship Edwards passed away suddenly August 12th at the age of 86.

One day she was well, and the next she was in the hospital in critical condition from a twisted bowel. Her doctor did surgery on her twice in as many days successfully untwisting her small intestine but she went into shock and did not recover. On Wednesday evening, August 7, she was at church looking at the new room where her Sunday school class would be held. (Her church had been going through a building program for a couple of years and finally had the new building built, something she was so excited about.) On Thursday the 8th her bowel twisted and she was hospitalized. On Friday and Saturday she underwent surgery. Sunday, August 11, her church worshiped in the new building for the first time while she lay sedated in the hospital and someone else taught her class for her. On Monday she passed away.

My sister and I recently went through and divided up some of her things when I was there visiting my 90 year old father, who is doing well, all things considered. Among other things, I got her charm bracelet.

Charm bracelets were popular in the 1950's. I remember them well from my 1960's childhood. Many on the mission in Nigeria where I grew up--both little girls and their mothers--had charm bracelets. I haven't see my mother wear hers in years and had all but forgotten she even had one. But looking at those charms, so many memories flooded back.

As you can tell from the picture, her bracelet was silver. She had a charm of a little wedding and engagement ring, representing that significant moment in her life. She and Daddy remained happily married 66 years until God called her home.

She had three little charms of children but she actually had four children, five counting her adopted Nigerian son. Perhaps the fourth charm (if it ever existed) dropped off and was lost. Her five children are all grown up now with children and grandchildren of their own.

Then there is a charm of Africa and one of a little ship. The ship has the words SS America on it--and then it all came back to me. Yes! That was the name of that ship we traveled to America from Europe on the last time we came back. I was only 10 years old but I remember it well. What an adventure that ship was! It had a large dining room with wonderful food, little round windows from our cabin through which I could see the ocean, shops, and even a movie theatre! What a treat for a family who had just spent three years where electricity and running water were luxuries.

The bracelet has other charms on it too--an RN symbol, and charms from some of the countries we visited on our way to and from Nigeria, like Dutch shoes and a mug from Germany.

My mother had a charmed life and thanks to the home she and Daddy provided for my siblings and me, I have had a charmed life too.

*For any who might be interested, my book, The Whisper of the Palms is based on my mother and father's lives.

Christmas Memories

A friend on Facebook posted this question today: Which gift do you remember most from your childhood?

And I was taken back …

Christmas 1964, maybe it was. We lived in the house at the bottom of the hill on the Ogbomoso station so that places this memory in either 1963 or 1964 but since I remember it so clearly, I will go with 1964 when I was six instead of the year before when I was only five. That year, I got the grandest of presents!

I was used to getting one gift from Santa and maybe a couple more wrapped under the tree. The wrapped gifts usually came from my family's trip to the Kingsway store in Ibadan so I sometimes had at least an idea of what those gifts might be. But the gift from Santa was usually only one gift (often a baby doll or stuffed animal) that sat unwrapped on a couch next to a stocking filled with candy and small toys. That gift, I now know was often purchased ahead while my parents were in the US and carefully brought to Nigeria in the packed barrels. But that year …

On that Christmas morning, my gift, or rather our gifts because they were joint gifts to my two sisters and me, were spread out all over the living room. The room was filled to the brim with new things for us! And what were these abundant gifts?

My father, with the help of the hospital carpenter, had built out of lightweight wood, plywood perhaps, a toy refrigerator, stove / oven, and mini kitchen cabinet. My parents had brought a set of plastic dishes with them from the US and those were laid out--dishes, silverware, and pots and pans. To top it off, my mother has sewn mini dishtowels, pot holders, and aprons for us. 

My childhood eyes burst with amazement as I scanned the room and then walked all around it looking from one thing to another. Later when we had this all set up in our shared bedroom with our dolls that we already owned, sitting in little chairs in this play kitchen, I felt like I lived in a playland of my very own! 

School Days

"School days, school days! Dear old golden rule days. Reading and writing and 'rithmatic …"

It's that time of year again. The new school year is starting all over America. That means I will start back to work again, since I am employed as a substitute teacher in a Christian school system. I am available for work three days a week in high school and middle school at Christian Academy of Louisville, and Christian Academy of Indiana. I love my work. We have nice kids at Christian Academy and I enjoy interacting with them. 

I have always loved school. When I was an early elementary student (2nd-3rd grade) I attended school in a one-room school in the garage of the home of the teacher. That teacher, a missionary in Nigeria, like my parents, taught all grades from 1st - 4th for the missionary-kids who lived in the town of Ogbomoso. I don't know how she managed, but she did. I have such fond memories of those years in my life. 

In the 4th grade, my mom taught me and my other 4th grade friends. We had an unusually large class that year as mk classes went. We had 5 in our class, three girls and two boys. The girls made a mural on one wall out of construction paper cut-outs. We had grass across the width of that wall and spent any extra time we had all year making things to place on the grass, like flowers, an apple tree with apples, lady bugs on the flower leaves, worms in the grass, clouds in the sky, a large sun at one end, etc. Making that mural is one of my fondest memories.


As school starts again for the students I will encounter, as well as my own grandchild, I find myself praying that their childhood school memories will be good ones too.

Welcome Fall!

It's still pretty warm at my house but it's feeling like fall just the same. The temps have dipped a few times and will continue to do so in the days to come. Some of the leaves are starting to turn colors--looking out the window in front of my writing desk, I see the sun streaking through
yellow leaves on the tree across the street. And in order to see that tree, I must look past a small red maple in my own yard that is now a purplish-red.

I have always loved the fall. Even as a child growing up in a land that did not have fall as we know it, I loved it! Nigeria, the land of my birth and childhood, had only two seasons which most closely resemble late spring and late summer. But even back then, fall intrigued me. I remember looking at a Highlights magazine one fall in my house in Ogbomoso. I flipped pages and looked at one fall scene after another--bright orange pumpkins, corn stacks in a field with a fence around it, a black sky with a full harvest moon.

One autumn in my childhood my family traveled back to Ogbomoso after dark. The road we were on dipped into a valley just as a full moon was coming up. The face in the moon made it almost look like a Jack O' Lantern. Ever after that, my family called that spot on that road, "Jack O' Lantern Valley"

By the time I was in high school, my family had moved back to the states and those West Virginia high school days taught me to love football in the fall too.

These days when autumn creeps in, even as I say good bye to the carefree summer and get back into the busy schedule that fall brings to me, a part-time employee of the school system, I can't help but feel a since of excitement that comes with crisp Friday football games, hot apple cider, bright foliage, and the need to pull jackets back out of the closet.

Today's post is a repost from July, 2012. It was written by guest blogger Jane Ray Garrison, author of the "Tragedy's Ark"

Firecrackers and Mother’s Blue Dress

            Fireworks were a big deal in Nigeria. Every Christmas the stores offered a wide assortment of beautifully boxed Japanese explosives. Like sushi, their presentation – before being ignited was part of the experience. Picture a sturdily constructed red box with brightly wrapped objects of interesting shapes and sizes artfully arranged within its borders, and you will understand why many of the missionary kids, including our brother Chris, loved to receive fireworks as Christmas gifts. Of course, if we were going to celebrate the fourth of July, American style, such boxes had to be saved a long time, making the eventual show all the more spectacular.

One year, the hospital side of the Ogbomosho mission’s Fourth of July party was to be held at Rose Cottage, the home of nurse, Amanda Tinkle, whose huge body frame was matched only by her love for children. Hot dogs, marshmallows and a softball game would culminate with a grand fireworks display conducted in the center of the cottage’s roundabout. 

Rose Cottage was one of the few early mission houses left standing even in those days. Typical to its time, the steps leading up to its screened-in-porch were accented on either side by wide concrete banisters. The mothers would sit on the screened-in porch in rattan chairs, the smaller children would sit on the steps, but the older children would stand on the banisters feeling powerful and quite grown-up. The men were naturally in the roundabout hovering over the various colorful packages that each had come equipped to explode. 

That night things were going as expected, with the pajama-clad youngsters hitting each other with sparklers while our mothers chatted amicably. Every now and then, a loud cry would erupt from the little one’s cluster, and we would see the corresponding mom glare at the other child’s mother before quickly jerking her own child away from the duel. But mostly, our attention was focused on the roundabout and the beautiful sprays of green, red, and blue that shot across the sky with lightening speed. We looked in awe when one father held a Roman candle high above his head, and shrieked with delight when another dad lit a string of firecrackers. But the bottle rockets were the undisputed favorite of all! For these, our mother left the shelter of the screened-in porch and with two small children on either side, snuggled down on steps for a full, bigger-than-life view of the entertainment…and this is where I can’t remember. I can’t remember if it was Daddy or some other man who set the rocket in the glass coke bottle and lit it before quickly stepping out of the way.

But something went dreadfully wrong. Instead of shooting up into the sky, the shower of colorful sparks headed right into the small audience sitting on the higher spot. I pressed my body against the screen, hoping that it would bear my weight and that I wouldn’t fall backwards into something like the flowerpot. However, from my vantage point, I could see that not everyone was so lucky. In fact, I could tell that our mother, in her favorite blue dress, was a target just waiting to be hit. Sure enough, before I could even assimilate this information, her dress was ignited into brilliant golden flames that lapped and swirled amongst the ample folds of the garment’s full cut. Before anyone knew what was happening, all “so many hundred” pounds of Aunt Tink were on top of our mom rolling her over and over on the graveled driveway. Mother yelling all the time; “Leave me alone! Leave me alone!”

The near catastrophe called a halt to the fireworks display and we were soon all heading for home – Mother with a giant hole in her dress, the rest of us with downtrodden spirits and un-ignited fireworks under our arms. Sensing the gloom, I felt honor bound to do something to make things better. So, as we walked up our driveway, I sided up to Mother and put my arm around her. 

“Momma,” I said, “Aren’t you grateful for Aunt Tink’s saving your life?” You don’t seem happy.”  

Mother looked away. “Humph,” she said. “Amanda Tinkle didn’t save my life. She just rolled me around in the gravel.”

I didn’t reply. Even then, I knew this was just a show of spunk – a part of my mother, who had fiery red hair and a temper to match. At this point, there would be no convincing her of the peril she had just escaped. Instead, I rubbed a scuffed place on her elbow and silently wondered if she would ever know how glad I was that Aunt Tink did save her life!

Life as I Knew It

Driver Ants- Part 2

I shared my last blog post with fellow MK's (missionary kids, now adults). Their responses were varied and quite interesting. In today's blog I had planned to tell of other animals encounters but will save those stories for another time. Instead, today, I will share my MK friends' comments about their memories of driver ants.

CP: "I, too, used to play with driver ants! It was certainly risky business!! I would even pick them up right behind their heads, hold them up and listen for the hiss, then drop them down into the line of their ant-friends and watch the line go crazy and swarm all over the place! Then, they would calm down again and re-form their orderly line. I, too, heard the baby-eating stories. And my brother's crib stood in saucers, but I think they were filled with water."

RS: "I have heard the house story except in the version I heard the family moved out until the ants left."

JDM: "I think there should be a distinction between driver ants' 'marching' and 'driving'.  When they are moving neatly in a single, massive line, as you have described, they are "marching;" that is, they are simply getting from one place to the next. When they are 'driving' (i.e., looking for prey/food), they are not in a neat line, but are scattered over a large area by the millions, it seems. In that case, they would cover a large area of our back yard, for example, at the same time. In the story you gave about the residents of the house stepping over the ants, the ants would have been 'marching'.  If 'driving', it would not have been possible to step anywhere without being in ants and the ants would have cleaned the place out, so to speak."

PG: "I believe it was either Thomas Bowen or William Clark (both early Baptist missionaries to Nigeria) who wrote of the driver ants and said that they were actually welcomed when they swept through a house, because they would, as JDM said, clean out a house of roaches, mice, etc.
Driver ants have a distinctive smell, and if you have once learned that smell, you will instantly recognize it when you smell it again, even after an absence of many years." 

LJ: "The ant story is credible. But, the children weren't eaten, they died from all the bites/stings. My sister sat on a mound once...bad news!"

AL: "Daddy was about to preach at a little church in the bush. He was standing outside to get some fresh air before going into the stifling building. Someone yelled and pointed that he was standing in a bed of those driver ants. In an instant they had striped his clothes off and were throwing water on him to remove the ants. The same happened to my brother when he was about 3. A Nigerian friend just dunked him into a big cold pot of water. I remember my brother screaming like crazy! Both had some bad bites! "

GL: "Here's a real life story. We were staying at Frances Jones awaiting the birth of my 2nd brother in Jan 1950. Another brother & I were walking to a neighbor's house on our own.  He stepped in driver ants & started howling-and the neighbor girls came running out, sized up the situation, pulled off his clothes & de-anted him. Very clear memory! We called all black ants traveling in formation 'drivers' in my memory."

JG: "Brought back many memories. I always blamed my 'poor sleepers'on that baby story. No way was I ever going to let a baby cry itself to sleep because our version of the story included the grim surprise of the parents waking to a baby bed of bones!"

Life as I knew It

“And God made the beasts of the earth after their kind…and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good.” Genesis 1:25

Growing up in the tropics, I had so many animal experiences! We had pets there that we could never have in the U. S. like a monkey and a talking parrot. But in addition, I and my friends had encounters and experiences with other creatures of all sorts. In this two-part blog post, I will share some of the adventures I grew up thinking were common place.

Driver ants were a special type of ant that surfaced a few times a year. When they did they marched single-file across large areas of land, moving with determination, as they migrated from one spot to another for days at a time before disappearing into the ground again. These were nothing to mess with. They had large pinchers and would attack in mass if you got in the way of their march. They were known to devour small animals and missionaries often put the legs of their baby’s crib in cups of kerosene to prevent the ants from climbing up and biting the babies while they slept. I and other MK’s heard horror stories of babies being eaten during the night by these ants, but as an adult, I ponder the truth of such stories.

We learned that we could stand a few feet away from the ants and stir their single-file line with a stick and watch them scramble. Invariably, the ants would find their way back and resume their single-file marching within mere seconds. It was fascinating to watch. I heard they were following a scent and could always find their way back in line.

Another story I was told, that I believe to be true, was that one of the mission houses was built over the site where the ants always marched at a time when the ants were not marching. So the builders did not realize their mistake. When the ants came out of the ground and started their march, they went right through the house. The family occupying it, tried in vain to keep them out. Giving up, in surrender, they ended up simply leaving their front and back doors open for the few days a year allowing the ants to march right through the home, stepping over them and carefully avoiding them as they went about their daily business.

Life as I Knew It

Driving on the Left Side of the Road-Part 2

By: Jayne Garrison

All is going as planned when suddenly, Baby Noel awakens. She is either hot, hungry or wet, but our baby-sitting skills extend no farther than dipping her pacifier into a European alcohol based tonic that is suppose to take the colic away. Barbra leans over the back seat administering this aid several times, but it doesn’t work; Baby Noel keeps crying.

“You’re going to have to trade places and do this for a while,” she commands. I dutifully obey, switching places and taking over the pacifier routine. Carefully, I dip the pacifier into the bottle of liquid and poke it into the baby’s mouth. Baby Noel cries. Once again, I dip and poke, but still Baby Noel cries. By this time, her cries have aroused the attention of our audience.

“You should not let the baby cry,” they admonish in unison while pointing fingers toward Barbra, whom they have identified as the eldest and thus in charge.

“It is very bad,” one of them chides.

“Aw, be quiet,” Barbra shouts to the cloud of annoying advice that is steadily rising above the baby’s cries.

Chris, eager to help, leans out the window with a stick that he has somehow smuggled into the car with him and makes wide sweeping gestures toward the on-lookers. “Go, go,” he says. “Go away.”

The sound of his childish voice repeating this phrase in a perfect African accent suddenly awakens the senses of my big sister. “Oh, no, Chris,” she yells realizing things have gotten out of hand.

I know exactly what she is thinking. We are missionary children. We have been taught to always treat the people of our adopted homeland with courtesy and love, because we are here to help and love. We also know that Nigerians are notorious tattle-tellers and will not hesitate to report our poor behavior to our parents. With prizes on the horizons it would never do for Mother and Daddy to learn about this.  

“Stop it, Chris.  Stop it at once,” Barbara demands again.

But even as she reprimands, she is driving. Driving. Driving. Suddenly, she stops as if coming to a real halt.

“They're coming!” She shouts.

Sure enough, Mother and Daddy are making their way across the street, arms laden with packages and baskets of goods. Quickly, we all jump into our proper places in the back of the car, squeezing uncomfortably between Chris and the carry cot. Mother and Daddy look happy and relaxed, their hour away from us having been a brief respite from ordinary routine. Not surprisingly, Mother goes straight for her crying infant.

“Couldn’t you have picked her up?” She asks wiping the drool from Baby Noel’s red face. “I left a bottle for her right here. And my goodness, she’s all wet.”

Barbra and I look at each other sheepishly. Chris nonchalantly tosses his stick out the window. We are all quiet while awaiting the verdict. Has news of our driving drifted beyond the parking lot? Did someone report our rudeness? Could Mother have heard the baby crying from across the street? But it seems we are not to worry. Mother is actually glad that Baby Noel is so happy to see her and reaches for our prizes with a smile on her face. There is a Match Box car for Chris and the promised stack of British comics for Barbra and me. We reach for them excitedly, quickly recognizing our favorites and putting them on top. We are elated. Our world is perfect. We think a child could not ask for more than to drive and receive comics all in one day.

 

I don’t realize it at the time, but years later, I will look back on these shopping trips with wonder. Was the world really safer then, or did our ignorance of the common- sense rules that we live by today, actually shield us from the danger that was awaiting in the wings?  My children are grown now, but neither was ever left in the car while I shopped. As for playing behind the wheel? Perhaps one could describe my children’s early driving as “playing,” but even that was not started without a license. 

There is only one aspect of these childhood memories that is remotely recognizable today, and that is the pleasure of a good magazine or newspaper. For these things, I find I am still willing to give up an afternoon and work. Of course, driving to that job is no longer quite the thrill that it once was, and staying on the left side of the road, is out of the question.

Life as I Knew It

Driving on the Left Side of the Road- Part 1

By: Jayne Garrison

Shopping at Kingsway in Lagos, Nigeria during the 50’s was an exciting event for missionary kids, because the success of the trip totally depended upon the recent shipload of goods. The goal was to get there as soon as possible after the month’s shipment had arrived. Nothing felt worse than to run into a friend with some coveted item, only to discover that you were too late to get it.

Naturally, our interests were varied. Mother focused on food. In the Common Wealth years, this was a matter of finding those products which could somehow stand in for substitutes in our American diets. For instance, hot, brown mustard from the Netherlands worked almost as well on hot dogs as the pretty yellow stuff we ate in the States, and dehydrated shrimp chips could be fried into beautiful crispy curls that reminded us of potato chips. Later, labels familiar to our mother such as Betty Crocker and Kraft began to sporadically appear on the shelves, making our early arrival to the shops all the more important.

Beyond foods, however, merchandise was more obscure. No telling when an interesting toy or European garment of some sort might show up. Often, these were beyond our missionary budget, so my sister Barbara and I hoped for little things like china figurines, pretty handkerchiefs, colored pencils, plastic combs or wonderful soaps in interesting shapes---all things that the Europeans were great at producing in those days.

There was one thing we could absolutely depend upon, that my sister and I grew to dearly love---the British comics. These were not like their American cousins, the comic book, which our parents didn’t approve of. British comics were small newspapers full of comic- strip style stories that were almost always dramatic and usually part of a continuing series so that one looked forward to each issue with high expectancy. For a stack of these, we were even willing to baby-sit our youngest sister, Baby Noel, while Mother and Daddy shopped.

We were too young to be left at home alone and so our baby sitting took place in the parked car on the water front with Baby Noel in a carry cot and our two-year-old brother, Chris, bouncing up and down on the seat beside her. None of us would be leaving the car during this time, not even to stretch our legs, because the minute Mother and Daddy disappeared, we became an island in a sea of on-lookers who would want to touch us, play with us, and ply us for money, and while we were not afraid of them, we also knew we did not have the skills to safely maneuver through the crowd. Not that this cramped our style inside the car. As soon as we were on our own, we immediately sprang into action. It was time to drive.

 

The air was now filled with the high pitched sound of our voices arguing over who was first. I can still hear it today.

“You drove last. It’s my turn.”

“No, it’s mine. Remember, you had your chance when Daddy went to the post office.”

Finally, by some quirk of luck, I succeed in convincing my older sister that I should be the driver and take my place behind the wheel. Barbra has reluctantly taken the front passenger seat.

“Everyone ready?” I call out behind me.

I grab hold of the wheel as I simultaneously flick the blinkers and punch all the buttons within reach. We are on our way to an imaginary destination. Of course, we have not been left the keys. But the on-lookers surrounding our car don’t know this and are very uncomfortable with the idea of me behind the wheel.

“Don’t forget to drive on the left side of the road,” Barbra calls out mimicking our mother’s warnings to Daddy.

“You should not be playing with the motor,” a beggar with a twisted leg says.

“It is very dangerous,” chimes in another. 

The on-lookers are pressing in close, actually hanging into the windows, but we pay no mind as we fly down our imaginary street en route to visit an imaginary friend before shopping at the imaginary market. 

 

Life as I Knew It

The Ethiope River

 

I never lived in Eku, Nigeria and only visited once or twice but I still have an incredible memory of the Ethiope River near Eku. On one of the visits my father and another missionary man, whom I can't recall, took me up river so I could swim back down river.

The place we entered was only about a five minute swim from the pier but it seemed to take forever to get there. We drove for something like ten minutes then parked the car and walked a small path for probably another five or ten minutes. At long last, we came to the river. From the bank we could see the other side. Even as an eight or nine year old it did not look too far to swim. My dad put goggles, flippers, and a snorkel on me. The other missionary went in 1st, then me, and my dad last, swimming behind me. What happened next was like a visit to Disney World to me. At the time I had never been to Disney or any place like it but this experience was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

What appeared to me to be a short, easy swim to the other bank suddenly seemed wild, challenging, exciting, and even scary. I kept my eyes under the water with my mask on and in an instant the ground below me dropped what seemed to be a mile. I don’t really know how deep it was but it was clear to my young eyes that it was deeper than anyplace I'd ever swam before. It felt like I was swimming from the top of one underwater mountain to another as I swam from that shore line to a sand dune a short distance away. The river floor below was alive too! There was grass swaying and fish swimming everywhere. I understood why my dad wanted to be behind me and didn’t want me swimming this part of the river by myself. And I was really glad he was there!

Very soon the three of us were on the sand dune resting. I sat there in utter amazement and wonder at what I had just seen. Then we set out again and swam to the pier which seemed to be just around the corner. The river floor below me in this part was much more shallow, brown in color from the sand, less green and not so alive.

Life as I Knew It

CJ Caboodle

Once upon a time in the jungles of Africa, a hunter by the name of John did something hunters should never do. He fired his weapon before actually seeing the animal he was firing upon. John saw some trees limbs moving and shot his gun. After all, he was in the depths of the jungle; the movement could not be anything but a ferocious animal, right? Wrong.

After firing the gun, John heard a thud when the animal hit the ground. But as he approached, it became clear that the animal (or at least the animal that was still living) was not ferocious at all. There on the ground before him lay the body of a dead monkey and with her a tiny newborn monkey, clung to his mother for dear life.

John felt terrible! He picked up the baby monkey and brought him home where he cared for him like a baby, feeding him through a bottle until the little guy was strong enough to eat solid food. Then he called his friend, Cecil Roberson.

Cecil was “Uncle Cecil” to me. He was one of my missionary uncles. At the time I knew him and his wife, “Aunt Marie” their children were grown and had moved on. Since my real grandparents were half a world away, Uncle Cecil and Aunt Marie became like adopted grandparents to me.

John asked Cecil if he knew a family that might want a pet monkey. Uncle Cecil thought of my family with our four children. When he called my dad to see if we wanted the monkey, he said he already had a cage too and if we would take the monkey, he could make a trip our way bringing the monkey, and cage – the whole caboodle to us. My dad named our pet Cecil John Caboodle, but we called him CJ.

CJ was different from most pet monkeys. He lived in a cage in our back yard, yes, but unlike other pet monkeys who had to stay in their cage or they would escape; CJ could be let out to play with us. We did this almost daily. In fact, CJ was a bit of an escape artist. He managed to pick lock after lock of his cage. I assume his tiny finger would fit in the key hole and he just manipulated it until it came open. Once, my father even placed a combination lock on the cage. CJ managed to open it as well.

But no worries, CJ never left our yard. We think he was afraid of the bush, after all he had never known anything but humans. He was one of us. And oh the fun we had with him! I remember sitting on a tree limb with CJ on another limb and telling him to jump to me. I learned the hard way that a monkey, even a small monkey, jumps with considerable force. The first time CJ jumped to me, I fell backwards onto the ground and had the wind knocked out of me. After that, I made sure there was also a branch behind my back to stabilize me. There is nothing quite like having a tiny monkey jump into your open arms from ten feet away. He always landed with his little arms open clinging to my shirt.

Sometimes CJ was trouble though. Sometimes he got into our house and raided my mothers costume jewelry. He especially liked her earrings which he put in his mouth. Did you know that monkeys have pouches on either side of their mouths? They put food in these pouches to save and eat later. I guess CJ thought my mom’s earrings were food. We would have to hold him down and pry open his mouth to retrieve the jewelry. And CJ loved to chase the cats. We had two cats who were both afraid of CJ. I have eaten many a dinner to the sound of animals running across the tin roof above me. First would come the sound of a scamper and then another scamper followed by CJ’s paws sort of lopping across. My dad would roll his eyes and say, “CJ got out of his cage again. After dinner one of you kids has to catch him and put him up for the night.”

My childhood was a rare treasure indeed!

 

Through my Kitchen Window

 

Last Thursday about mid day, I went outside to eat lunch on the patio. My sixteen year old son joined me. We chatted and laughed – had a delightful time – until it started to rain. With the first drop, he announced that he was going inside. I teased him about being afraid of a few raindrops, reminding him that as a child I used to play in the rain. I said I was going to finish my lunch and then look at the garden. He laughed at me for staying out in the rain and ran back inside, taking his plate with him.

It was only sprinkling so I finished my food and then headed to the garden on the side of the yard. But I was distracted along the way by a long vine type weed growing along the house in the rock landscaping. I stopped to pull it. As I did, I stepped back into a hole my dogs had dug, twisting and as it turns out, breaking my foot as I fell.

There I was on the ground in pain, unable to get up and raindrops falling on me. I called my son’s name but he didn’t hear me since he was inside. So I began to scoot on my butt to the door. It seemed to be miles and miles away and I was making slow, painful, progress, when my son opened the backdoor. Surprised to see me on the ground, he said he knew something must have happened for me to still be outside in the rain, no matter how much I liked rain. He helped me inside where I called my husband to tell him the news.

Now I’m laid up. I’m not supposed to put any weight on it for two weeks. I grew tired of watching TV after just a couple of days and pulled out a sketch pad I haven’t opened in years. I like to draw, I just never make the time for it. So, these weeks off my feet, I’m enjoying sketching. The two I am posting are from my childhood. One is my childhood home in Nigeria. I had a parrot hanging on the front porch, a monkey in a cage in the back, and a guava orchard in the back where I spent endless hours climbing the trees in search of the perfect guava. The stones around my driveway were white and flat. I used to lay my head on them and watch the clouds drift by. The second picture is of the chapel at the boarding school. It was such a beautiful structure.

Yesterday, my son saw me sitting on my bed sketching away. He sat down at the foot of my bed in disbelief saying, “Mom, I didn’t know you draw?”

I replied, “You know how your sister is an amazing artist?” He nodded. I continued, “Well, I’m the gene pool. It’s just that my talent is rusty and was never developed like hers was when she majored in it in college.” He laughed.

It’s a pleasant way to spend hours that could otherwise become very boring.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas in Ogbomosho

 

Ogbomosho, Nigeria is the town I grew up in. Christmases there were so special. Nigeria is a country on the coast of West Africa just beneath the Sahara Desert. Christmas in Nigeria comes in the middle of the dry season in a special part of the dry season known as Harmattan.

Wikipedia defines Harmattan like this: The Harmattan is a dry and dusty West African trade wind. It blows south from the Sahara into the Gulf of Guinea between the end of November and the middle of March. Humidity can drop to as low as 15 percent. In some countries in West Africa, the heavy amount of dust in the air can severely limit visibility and block the sun for several days, comparable to a heavy fog.

And against this backdrop, we celebrated Christmas. My father used to say he liked the fact that Christmas came in the middle of Harmattan. In America everything was stark, cold, and dreary with the trees bare and the air full of winter’s chill and in the middle of this otherwise dreary time, Christians celebrate the birth of the Savior with ornamented and brightly lit Christmas trees, gifts, good food, and Christmas cheer. Likewise in Nigeria, when the world is dry and dusty, all the leaves and grass are a dreary brown, Christians are celebrating the joyous birth of their Savior with songs and good cheer. The celebration in both countries injects cheer in an otherwise dreary season and proves that our joy over Christ is not based on our circumstances.

I loved the Christmases of my childhood! They were unique and wonderful. A missionary kid friend of mine, Peter Gilliland, has written a short memoir about his childhood memories of Christmas in Ogbomosho which I will post in two parts over the next few weeks. His memories are so similar to mine since we were both blessed to spend our childhoods in the 50’s and 60’s in the same wonderful town – Ogbomosho, Nigeria or as the Nigerians write it, Ogbomoso. (Their “s” is pronounced like an “sh”.)

On a humorous note, when I was a baby, I had very thin wispy blonde hair. During the Harmattan season the static electricity from the dry blowing air caused my hair to stand on end most of the time and my family fondly called me “Harriet the Harmattan cat” because my hair looked like the hair on the back of cats when they arch in fear or anger.

 

A Cheery Countenance

Today's post is a memoir written by a fellow MK, Ron Wasson.

The Child Was Happy

Growing up in Nigeria, parents had little choices as where to buy “Western” toys for their children. They were simply hard to come by. But every so often, when parents ventured to the city for supplies, they would stock up on toys to be used throughout the year for the upcoming birthdays, Christmas or other special occasions where a toy would brighten up a child. One toy that was among the favorites for children was the Matchbox cars that were made in England. They were called Matchbox because they came in a box the size of a small matchbox that would slide open just like a real matchbox to reveal the priceless treasure inside. The child was happy. 

Each toy was made of metal and with exact precision to its larger counterpart but to a much smaller scale. There were not just cars, but trucks, trains, cranes, motorcycles, buses, police cars, ambulances, anything that was manufactured on the larger scale was reproduced on the smaller scale and with much detail. With so many different models to choose from, collecting became a hobby and each child longed for a new and different toy to collect. At times, a child would end up with two of a kind or one he/she no longer wanted so trading became a very common practice. The child was happy.

But what made the Matchbox toys so popular was that because of the size, the child (and parent) could take it anywhere and be used to entertain the child, much to the delight of parents. Have an antsy child who could not sit still during the long church service? Then pull out one of his favorites and let his imagination take over. (only one toy at a time as two or more would cause a major distraction!) The child was happy.

As for the child, the outdoors was the perfect environment for playing with the toys. Grass, rocks, dirt, mud, cement patio; whatever the condition was there was a toy made for the occasion. Countless of hours were spent playing outside with the toys.

Sometimes, other children would join and together the state of affairs would expand to the limits of each child’s imagination. Of course, this also meant a few would get lost never to be found again until perhaps a hard rain storm washed it to an area more visible and to be later found by a delighted little child. It didn’t even matter if by this time it had already begin to show signs of rust and discoloration or the wheels didn’t roll. It was once lost and now it was found. The child could now relate to the hymns that were sung in church about being lost and then found. That’s all that mattered. Life was easier to understand when the Matchbox toy was shared with it. And when the child couldn’t play outdoors, the Matchbox toys were just as easily adaptable for indoors where the hard floors, carpet, furniture, beds, etc. all provided a whole different environment for the child to unleash his/her imagination. Nothing better to entice a child to take rest time in the afternoon then to allow him/her to play quietly with one of the favorites until sleep conquered the imagination and the dreams took over. The child was happy.

I remember one Christmas; my parents struggled to find toys for us. It was during the civil war and imports to Nigeria were slowed if not stopped altogether. But with a little imagination and creativeness, a miniature outdoor world was transformed onto a piece of plywood. There were painted roads, little houses, trees, rocks, grass, even a lake (small mirror glued to the board). This tiny world was created with whatever was available and put together with abundant love and imagination but to us, it all was just like the real outdoors. It didn’t even matter that new Matchbox toys were not included, as we already had our own. All that was missing were children to bring to life this miniature world. It didn’t take too long before fantasy and imagination burst forth onto the special little world. The child was happy.