mind the cobra on the verandah

- A tale of mothering in Africa.

This is what being an (accidental) mother in Africa has taught me:

- There will be snakes and they will be of the deadly poisonous variety.
- You can't rely on a (pirated) DVD to keep your child away from your snake-infested jungle of a garden because there's probably a power cut.
- Your child will learn to munch stalks of the local brand of clover, yanked out of said snake-infested garden by the handful. You will vaguely wonder about toxiplasmosis. Because you didn't properly listen to your mother when she spelt out the perils of creature-peed-on weeds back in your sedate childhood but the bits you can remember sounded scary, you will decide not to Google it. You will tell yourself that clover -- known in my part of Africa as donkey weed -- must have some vitamins in it. Also, it's one way of getting greens down him. For free.
- You will not weigh up the merits of brown/white/wholemeal/sesame-seed-speckled bread as your glamourous friends in functioning Western countries do. After several years of food shortages, you will just be glad there is some bread to buy. The amazing thing is that your child will never notice the cardboard taste (while you will reminisce ruefully about your days on the rue Brancion, just down from the Boulangerie Poulain).
- Boys will make do with mud if they haven't got Nintendos (much cheaper). And sticks and stones and lizards' legs and wasp stings. Just about everything Health and Safety would ban anywhere else.
- You can bath your child in a baby bath 'til he is...well, probably geriatric. Actually, you yourself are still bathing in a plastic baby tub (the one your mother-in-law gave you when you were first pregnant) at the ripe old age of 38. One baby bath = 3 saucepans of hot water. You won't have the patience (or the gas) to heat any more.