squirrel for supper

"Mum, Audrey has eaten the squirrel," he says.

We have black squirrels in our garden. To be honest, I don't like seeing them there. The cats try to kill them and they're mamba-prey (ie mamba-magnets). I'd rather the squirrels were in somebody else's avocado tree.

My son learns a lot from his Shona friends. Vocabulary, for example. Audrey, Sam and I went walking last night as the power cut deepened. The moon was rising, oversized in a blue-satin sky as only an African moon can be.

"Look, Mai Sammy," Audrey said. "It's mwedzi." One more word to chalk up, for me and for Sam.

He picks up good manners too. Audrey and he collect firewood for me, late in the afternoon when the sun has dried the branches. "She'll make a good daughter-in-law," Mai Bruce laughs. Shona culture advises that couples marry vematongo (from the same 'ruins', the same place). How does that work when you both come from the same geographical area but you're black and white, I wonder?

Another thing he's picking up is what Audrey calls Shona medicine. This morning Sam took me to see a tiny weed with a pink stalk. "You use it when you have a sore eye," he said, showing me the milky sap that prickled from where he'd pulled it off at ground-level. "Gogo (granny) uses it," Audrey said proudly.

Feeling virtuous I led her to our aloe vera. I've used the jelly-like sap on burns before. "This is a good plant too, isn't it, Audrey?" She sniffed. "For chicks, yes," she said. She meant the feathered kind: huku.

He's learning good things, then. Still, squirrel and sadza for supper makes me feel rather squeamish.