falling stars.

so there he was. standing there with a blank face and an armful of stars.

a pile of them lay at his feet.

what the hell, i must have muttered.

we stared at each other and before either of us could take a breath, he dropped them.

little crashing bells and splinters of glass and ice. slow motion like in the movies.

so i straightened him up and left him, blank faced and silent, hands in his pockets (if he'd had any) staring down at the pile of fallen stars around his feet.

you see, i was going to do it the other way around. ya know, standing there, bending down to collect an armful of the sparkly maasai stars for you. until first born walked in and poked his nose into this odd little creative endeavour.

he said, ag no ma. it should go the other way. it's better.

i think he's right. yeah.

toodely toot y'all...bises X.X.X. oh. sparkly starry ones. x j

manda channel situation

(last born boogy boarding, pangani. 2009)

presently, i feel like the time when i thought it was a good idea to body surf across the manda channel, (between lamu and manda islands)...towed by a dhow. i desperately clung onto a rope, stoically rubbing up the finest finger blisters that side of the equator, as the dhow caught the thrifty kazi kazi winds winging their way down from mogadishu. the time when i nearly drowned. and if i hadn't drowned (or hadn't had drowned) i would've surely been sucked out to sea by the nasty undercurrents of that particular channel if i hadn't had water pedalled so furiously. so bloody magnificently. i tell you.

the fear of being sucked out to sea is an old one. it's a dreamed one. a real one.

i am away now. for a month. arusha - zanzibar - dar es salaam - lusaka - joberg - durban - joberg - lusaka - dar - pangani - arusha.

the chances of things going wrong are enormous.

the chances of things going right are slim.

my bets are on the latter. risky but damned fine.

isn't it miraculous when your luggage arrives the other end?

i think so.

a wood man in africa: 6th december 2009:

here he is, the little wooden man. so jaunty like, on top of my piano.

nothing chistmassy about him. he has no idea.

i might try to blog somewhere along the line.

here i go, inshallah, zig zagging 'cross east and south of the continent.

so, toodely y'all. toodely (bravely waving a hankey in the wind)

bises X.X.X. torn, stormy ones x j