Zambezi Kiwi

It had been a long 36 hours. I’d just completely two back-to-back ten hour flights solo parenting. The kids had only slept about four hours each, and we were running (literally) on pure adrenaline. Every person who saw us had either given me a pitying look, or outright asked if they could help.

We were on our way back to Victoria Falls after a wonderful six week stint in New Zealand seeing family and friends, while enjoying the ease of first-world life. I was in Johannesburg Airport, a mere three hours away from the thing my heart longed for most; a shower.

Seeing my beloved husband was next on the list, but I’ll be honest, at that point the shower outranked him.

We had made it through the six-hour layover and it was time to head to our gate. A kind American lady called Lyn had took my carry-on luggage for us, while I herded the children in the right direction. Despite the winter cold I was sweating with the effort of herding the kids, whose movements were, by now, completely bypassing their brains.

Ah well, I thought, I’ve been sweating since I left New Zealand. What difference does it make? Besides, that shower is so close now.

As the boarding call went out another kind Zimbabwean lady watched our bags so I could take the kids to the toilet. It was necessary to avoid the travesty of Fast Jet’s rather well-used loos on the hour-and-a-half flight. Toilet run completed, we jumped on the bus to get to our plane.

“Mum” Kepler did his “I feel awkward” whisper.

“Yes,” I replied.

“I need to pee.”

My heart-rate skyrocketed.

“I literally just took you.”

“I know. But I’m busting.”

“Well, what do you want me to do now? We can’t get off the bus, you’re going to have to wait until we get on the plane.”

“MUM!” The awkwardness turned to tears and arguments. For the next five minutes Kepler accused me of all sorts of parental abuse for not miraculously finding him a toilet on the bus, while Ella decided to turn gymnast, climbing the seats and bags. More sweating while my body tried to manage two over-exerted children at once.

I briefly wondered if I shouldn’t start sobbing out loud, just to see what impact it would have on the kids, but it didn’t feel appropriate.

We made it onto the plane in one piece, and Kepler made a dash for the loos while I shouted instructions about not touching anything, and Ella began climbing the back of the airplane chairs. The pitying looks were now laced with annoyance. I scrambled to belt my kids into position for take off, and frantically looked for distractions.

“Ok kids, who wants to draw?”

“ME!”

“Alright take this (the sick bag, because I’d forgotten to get their drawing books out of the overhead lockers…), and here is a pen each (because I forgot to take out their pretty colour pens…). Draw me a dog”

I sat back and breathed the peace in deeply. For all two of those seconds I felt like a parenting genius. Then I realized the kids were fighting while I inadvertently dozed off. Elodie, feeling the need to exert her dominance as the youngest child, had scribbled all over Kepler’s perfectly formed dog, thereby wrecking it so that hers could be the best. The rest of the flight was spent inventing animals to draw so that it took them longer, and trying to keep their pens on their own papers.

At long, long last the call for descent came.

“Mama, need to go potty,” came a little voice immediately after it.

“Oh Ella! I took you just before we flew!”

“Need to go potty.”

“Can you wait?”

Silence.

“Mama, need to go potty.”

We did a quick dash to the loos, and I held Ella carefully over the toilet without letting her legs or bottom touch. I was feeling quite proud of the effort until my foot started to feel warm. I looked down and realised Ella was peeing on the toilet seat, which was spilling over onto my foot.

Typical. So far, she had spilled chicken tangine over my shirt on the first flight and hot chocolate over my jeans on the second flight. I suppose tradition called for a spillage on this flight. Of course, I had been in the same clothes without a shower for almost 38 hours, manhandling children to and from potties at an alarming rate, and somehow misplaced my deodorant, so it’s fair to say I would have been feeling slimy and stinky even without her help.

We took our seats in time for the decent, and at that point I realised Ella had also wet her pants. I knew this because I could feel it soaking into my jeans and warming my thigh.

At long, long, long, long last the plane wheels hit the tarmac and we were home. Another helpful fellow passenger volunteered to carry bags and push trollies to get me through immigration, and finally, I was looking into the tear-filled eyes of my beloved and holding him. It was a golden moment, tainted only by the slight fear of how I might smell.

We jumped in our Land Cruiser to head home, and Will asked how I was feeling.

“Gross. I just want a shower and bed,” I said, smiling at him and knowing my heart’s desires would soon be fulfilled.

“Oh,” he said, looking a little awkward, “there’s a power cut.”

For a moment, the implications didn’t register. After all I was sleep-deprived and fresh from the functional first-world. I continued smiling blandly at him while the cogs in my head whirred uselessly.

He looked at me uneasily.

“You could wash off in the pool?”

Understanding dawned. No power meant no pump to push water through our pipes, and that meant…I could hardly believe the thought as it pushed its way into my brain…It meant no shower.

I had literally just pulled off one of the greatest mothering feats of all time; two back-to-back long haul flights across the planet, followed by a six hour lay over and one final flight, with two children five and under, ALONE, and I had no way to wash away the trauma – physical and emotional – of the past day and a half.

Tears were not sufficient, so I prayed for a miracle.

There was nothing my beloved could do about the situation except suggest the freezing cold winter’s pool again once we were home. I went to the shower and prayed for a miracle again, but nothing happened.

So to the pool I went, in the middle of winter, with shampoo pre-rubbed into my dry hair and soap clutched in my hand, hoping I wouldn’t fall asleep in the middle of the process.

And, strangely enough, I got that miracle. It wasn’t the one I was hoping for, of course. But it was there nonetheless. Because once the tangine was rubbed off my stomach, the hot chocolate no longer coated my thigh, and my foot was scrubbed free of pee, I looked up at our garden canopy and realised I was smiling.

Well, I remember thinking, at least it makes for a good story.

It was the perfect African welcome home.

This blog was originally written in May 2022.