Amie in Africa Box Set 1

by Lucinda E Clarke

  “I gave them to Pretty. They were really too good to throw in the bin,” Amie replied.

  “See! It’s an excellent way to build up your wardrobe, burn something and it’s yours!” exclaimed Diana. “They think we have an unending supply of money, and you proved this to Pretty since you just went out and bought more shirts. If she thinks she’ll lose money by spoiling your clothes, she’ll stop.” Diana was right.

  “Oh, and if you find food is disappearing, take the cost out of her wages as well. Another trick is to notice what you don’t use very often. You’ll notice it gets pushed right to the back of the shelf, and if you don’t say anything, then it walks out the door.”

  Amie turned red, but said nothing. She was learning fast. It seemed the stricter you were with workers, the better they performed, and Jonathon agreed the same principle worked with the labourers he’d hired to build the plant. Somehow, if you were seen as too kind, thoughtful and considerate, then everyone took advantage of you.

  Amie wasn’t happy with this state of affairs. She had no desire to be slightly aloof and tough with Pretty, but if it stopped her stealing and wrecking their clothing then maybe it was worth it.

  At first, she had a lot less to do with William, the gardener. He was always busy out of doors whenever Amie went in and out of the house, but she suspected he sat down and did nothing the moment she disappeared from view. She took to making a list of things for him to do on the two days a week he came to work, and insisted she inspect everything before he left for the day. She discovered instructions were taken quite literally; for example, she told him to water the lawn every afternoon, and he did, even when it was raining. Amie couldn’t believe her eyes, and rushed outside to stop him.

  “You say water lawn,” he grumbled.

  “Not when it’s raining!” shrieked Amie. “Are you stupid or what?” She paused, horrified at what she’d said, but William didn’t reply. Amie turned and walked back into the house, hoping there wouldn’t be any repercussions. Perhaps he’d not understood her. She could only hope his English wasn’t that good.

  Amie had to admit that she really enjoyed having all the housework done for her. It was not something she’d ever really liked doing, it was just one of those things which had to be done. When she wrote and told Sam about having help in the house, she didn’t mention how much she paid Pretty. Already, Amie was beginning to realise it was going to be difficult to explain just how different things were; you had to experience it to really understand.

  She fell into the routine of playing tennis two mornings a week, sitting and chatting with the other women and reading books borrowed from the small library at the Club. But after a few months, Amie began to get bored. As Diana had warned, Jonathon worked very long hours and was usually exhausted by the time he got home late at night. Amie tried to talk to him about his work, but he was not forthcoming, except to give her the impression that anything that could go wrong would go wrong.

  Several other members of the company had arrived by now, but they were all single men who stayed together in apartments in the centre of town, and Amie only got to meet them briefly. She swam every day in the pool, although on the days the gardener worked, she waited until he had left, since she was uncomfortable with the way William looked at her in her bikini.

  Initially, she had been keen to use the video camera, and took it to the Club one day to record for the family. However, several of the other members warned her not to be seen with it in public, as the authorities took a dim view of cameras, and if she was caught filming a ‘sensitive’ location, she could get into trouble. For the moment, Amie confined her filming to the house, the garden and the Club.

  While out shopping one day in the mall, she saw a computer for sale and on impulse went in and bought it. Much to her amazement, it was one of the latest models with a large memory and a CD drive, so now she had something to play her music on. She was also thrilled to discover the shop could order in more tape for her camera, and put in an order there and then.

  There were limited Internet facilities in Togodo, and Jonathon and Amie didn’t even have a telephone in the house. Everyone had a mobile phone however, which were commonly referred to as cell phones. There were three cell phone companies with offices in the capital and they vied with each other for custom. If there was one thing the Africans loved, it was to talk. It seemed even the most poverty-stricken people somehow managed to possess a phone and they could be seen pulling them out of their pockets, bras and knickers to answer the calls they received. Even Pretty had a cell phone, though, as Diana remarked, it was most unlikely that it had been bought at the store. Cell phones were top of the list when it came to robberies and muggings. Even if they were blocked, there were plenty of small workshops in the shack lands where enterprising young scoundrels could quickly convert them and insert a stolen SIM card.

  Once Amie realised that she could buy a data package to put in her phone, she was able to use it as a modem, plug it into her computer and connect to the Internet. She activated Skype and was able to call home. Not too often, as the data was expensive, but at least she could keep in touch more regularly. Not one of the letters she’d sent to the family ever arrived.

  At last, she was back in touch with the outside world, and she sent dozens of emails to friends and relatives telling them about her new life.

  She logged on to her page on Facebook and added more information and a few pictures she had taken with her mobile phone. It felt so good to be connected to home and friends, and it lessened the isolation and the feeling she was completely out of touch with the rest of the planet.

  On impulse, she went online one day, ordered an editing package from London and waited excitedly for it to arrive. She knew she was taking a chance, as no outgoing mail had succeeded, but maybe it would work better the other way round? The post took almost ten weeks, but eventually Amie received a notice in her mailbox there was a parcel to collect at the post office.

  When she arrived, the queue, if you could call it that, stretched out of the building and round the corner, and it took the best part of the morning to fight her way to the counter and hand over the slip of paper. The clerk looked at it for a long time and then shrugged his shoulders.

  “Not here,” he said, guessing correctly that Amie spoke English.

  “But this was in my post box. It must be here,” she protested.

  The clerk waved her to the other end of the post office. He seemed to be indicating another window at the far end.

  Amie sighed and moved over, preparing to fight her way through to the second counter. No one else seemed to be in the slightest hurry; they seemed quite content to wait all day.

  When she finally reached the front of the line, she handed over the paper to the clerk, who scratched his head and stood picking his nose. He stared at Amie for several seconds then slowly and reluctantly turned and disappeared into a back room.

  Amie stood and waited, how could it take this long to find one parcel?

  Eventually he returned, carrying a box partly covered in brown paper. “What is this?” he asked.

  Amie thought quickly; how could she explain an editing package? “It’s a computer game,” she replied.

  The clerk stared at her for a while then announced. “You must pay for it.”

  “But why …?” began Amie, then collected herself. “How much?” she asked.

  “Three hundred and twenty dollars,” said the clerk. It was an exorbitant amount, but Amie had learned not to argue. It was more than two month’s wages for someone like Pretty, and she doubted if one cent would find its way into the revenue service. But when in Rome …

  Reluctantly, feeling her anger bubble up inside her, she counted out the money and handed it over.

  The clerk didn’t hand over the parcel immediately, but sat gazing at it for several more moments. Amie began to worry he might change his mind, or was he deciding to try and charge her more? Finally, he half flung the parcel over the counter and Am
ie only just managed to catch it before it fell onto the floor.

  The next few days were spent getting to grips with the editing package. Amie had spent time after hours in the edit suite at work, and together with her training at college, was quite pleased with her first attempt at putting together a video. She had recorded scenes around the house, including Pretty who was more than a little petrified. Goodness, thought Amie, the family will think I beat her, she looks so scared. She filmed the gardens and the pool, but took care to show William only in the far distance. The garden was also a good backdrop to show the colourful birds and insects that seemed to be everywhere.

  Amie smiled to herself as the camera followed a large spider running along the edge of the pool. Sam would have a fit when she watched that! Amie herself could hardly believe that only a few weeks ago she had shrieked and grabbed Jonathon’s arm when she saw her first large lizard outside the lounge doors. When she’d spied her first snake, she had panicked and run into the house closed all the doors and windows and climbed up onto the dining room table. Pretty stared at her in disgust, or amazement, Amie wasn’t sure which.

  Admittedly, it helped when Diana took her to what Togodo was proud to call its National History Museum. It had two small rooms with glass cages, holding a moth-eaten collection of stuffed, dead animals. There was not much to learn from those, but there was a brightly coloured chart on the wall showing the most common snakes found in Togodo. Amie took a surreptitious shot of the chart with her mobile phone and studied it carefully at home. She was now fairly sure she could tell the poisonous snakes from the harmless ones, though she would never willingly get too close to any of them.

  Her first video also included scenes from the Club, a few sentences from some of the people Amie had come to know, and a few extra shots of the mall and the suburbs she had taken from inside the car. She had not forgotten the warnings about ‘sensitive areas.’ But she reasoned there was nothing sensitive about a suburban street and her house, and the people at the Club didn’t mind. It’s not as if she was filming the palace, the airport or the army station just outside town.

  She had recorded her own voice, although there was a lot of background interference and she added music to the completed programme. She didn’t think it was too appropriate, but they had only brought a few music CDs with them, and it was better than nothing; better than silence. She recorded the whole programme onto a disk and parcelled it up to send home. Once again, she stood in the sweltering crowds at the post office.

  The clerk behind the counter wasn’t any friendlier than the one she’d first encountered, and he insisted on opening the package and peering inside. He frowned when he saw the DVD inside.

  “It’s a computer game,” said Amie, hoping against hope the computer sitting in front of the clerk wasn’t geared up to playing DVDs, but that was unlikely. After several minutes the clerk decided to allow it to be sent in the mail, and charged her fifty dollars for the postage, although the stamps he placed on the envelope only added up to five dollars.

  Amie was about to protest, then thought better of it. The envelope was not sealed properly, but before she could point this out, he threw the package into a large basket behind him and turned to the next customer.

  If it ever arrives, it will be a miracle, thought Amie, as she pushed her way out of the post office. Thank heavens I kept a copy!

  That night, she could have kicked herself as Jonathon expressed surprise that she’d not thought to put the disk in with the company post. Nothing ever went astray as they used an international courier service. Oh well, she thought, if it doesn’t arrive in a few weeks, I’ll copy it and send it home again through the office.

  Amie went down with a bug. It was unlike any bug she’d ever had before. Her head ached, her feet ached and all points in between ached as well. She was running a high fever, hardly had the energy to crawl out of bed and when she tried to stand up, she felt so dizzy she keeled over. Luckily, she went down with whatever it was on a Sunday afternoon when Jonathon was home. He phoned the Carstens.

  “Take her to the hospital,” advised Richard. “You don’t have a cat in hell’s chance of getting a doctor to come out. There’s a Dutch doctor there who speaks quite good English; if you’re lucky he’ll be on duty. Generally they’re quite efficient. Let us know if there is anything we can do to help.”

  With Richard’s directions in hand, Jonathon carried Amie to the car and drove to the clinic. It was the usual series of low-level buildings constructed in the by now familiar style of linked bungalows, with verandas running the full length down each side. Several patients were sitting out on the threadbare grass, many with drip poles next to them.

  Again, the difference between an African hospital and one at home in England was striking. However, inside, there was the usual hospital disinfectant smell and surprisingly, the place was spotlessly clean. Jonathon was told to bring Amie through and put her on one of the beds in the outpatient area.

  They didn’t have to wait long before an eager young black doctor arrived. He took Amie’s temperature, examined her eyes and then poked, prodded and peered closely at her feet and legs.

  Jonathon was about to object, what did Amie’s feet have to do with her illness? She ached all over, didn’t she?

  The doctor straightened up with a smile and sensing Jonathon’s anger, he pointed to a small raised swelling with a black dot in the centre, just above Amie’s ankle.

  “Tick bite,” he said. “She has tick bite fever. We can treat it with antibiotics and after two weeks she will be as good as new again.”

  Amie groaned. She could not imagine ever feeling well again; the small hammers inside her head had turned into wrecking balls and the world had taken on a fuzzy blurred vista. She just wanted to die, the pain was so fierce.

  But the young doctor was right. He may have looked sixteen, as Amie told Diana later, but it took him seconds to know what was wrong with her and prescribe the right stuff.

  Diana, who had come visiting with the usual bunch of grapes and rather ancient magazines, agreed. She entertained Amie with stories of friends who had gone back home from Africa, and then had weird symptoms. Most local British doctors were not familiar with foreign diseases, especially those found in Africa, and they scratched their heads trying to figure out what was wrong. Even batteries of tests didn’t help, unless you had some idea what bugs to test for. The best advice was to go for medical help in one of the big port areas, where foreign and weird diseases had been seen before.

  As its name suggested, tick bite fever is transferred from ticks, which are very common all over Africa and there are several varieties. Amie could easily have picked up a tick from tall grass, plants in the garden or even in the house, which had then fed on her and dropped off before she even had a chance to notice it.

  The doctor’s diagnosis turned out to be exactly right, and it took almost three weeks for Amie to even remotely feel her old self again.

  The highlights of Amie’s week were her visits to the school and orphanage. Several of the wives went every Wednesday and Friday morning and helped in the classrooms. A couple of them had taught back home in England and much of their time was spent helping and instructing the teachers.

  It fell to Amie to interact with the children, playing simple games with homemade equipment. She was amazed at the balls made from rolled-up tights, the cricket bats carved from old planks, and the doll’s houses made from old grocery boxes inhabited by clothes-peg dolls. It was a far cry from the high street toy shops and the toys Dean and Jade played with.

  The children were served breakfast at school. As Mrs Motswezi explained, even if the children had parents, many of them could not afford to feed their children. Amie watched as each class lined up one by one, to wash their hands carefully with soap before rinsing them off and drying them on a hand towel. Only then were they handed a plate and allowed to join the queue for their spoonful of maize meal porridge with a few vegetables.

  Once a week
, if there was meat available, the cooks made up a stew, though it looked to Amie as if they were using the offal and entrails, she’d seen in the meat market. The very thought of eating it made her stomach turn, but either the children were too hungry to care, or they didn’t expect anything else and were used to such fare.

  On each visit, Amie noticed that Angelina crept closer and closer until one day she finally gripped Amie’s skirt and refused to let go. When it was time to leave, she clutched the fabric even tighter and Mrs Motswezi had to pry the child’s fingers apart as Amie was getting into the car. Amie was almost in tears when they drove back out of the school gates.

  “It’s difficult not to get emotionally involved,” remarked Diana, as they turned the next corner.

  “I just want to pick her up, cuddle her and take her home,” said Amie.

  “She’s certainly taken a liking to you, but it wouldn’t be wise to encourage it.” Diana changed the subject. “Did you say you were getting a car?”

  “Yes. Jonathon found a small Fiat. It belonged to the Connor family, but they’re leaving to go on their next contract and I should get it in a few days. It’s a bit battered and bent, but the mileage is low and it seems to run well. I know we’ve been here almost seven months, but it takes a lot of courage to drive on these roads! I think I’m brave enough now.”

  “There’s nothing like having a bit of freedom.”

  “I’m not sure how far I’ll have the courage to drive in a place where no one obeys the rules of the roads.”

  “I think you’ve settled in very well, especially as this is your first overseas posting.”

  While Amie was pleased by the compliment, it gave her a shock to remember it seemed to be taken for granted that once you were overseas on a contract, then inevitably other contracts would follow, one after the other. Would she ever go back and pick up her old life where she had left off? A lifetime of travelling from one place to another – was she prepared for that?