Dawn had only just begun streaking its fingers across the eastern sky, tinting it in shades of rose and gold, when I was woken by an indignant squawk that was not part of the joyous birdsong outside.
Baby was awake and not at all happy. The makeshift nappy had done its job overnight and was now smelly, sodden and cold.
The night before I had noticed a stone double laundry trough attached to the back wall of the ablution block. This is where I now headed, squirming infant under arm and fresh towel over shoulder. The sinks worked well as stand-in nursery furniture. I stripped the wet clothing off the baby in one while I ran warm water into the other. Then with the little one calmly ensconced in his bath I washed his clothes and bedding in the other.
The two men, the camp caretakers, who lived in hut number six were already up and about their daily chores. They had stoked the communal fire in its halved forty four gallon drum near the northern fence and set on it the enormous battered aluminium kettle of water that used to simmer all of every day, providing piping hot water for all. They were sweeping the ashes of the previous night’s cooking fires from the communal cooking area - a ground-level, brick-paved circle about two metres in diameter around which people (particularly those staying in the huts) would set up their chairs each evening to cook, chat, eat and relax - dop in hand - under the star-speckled sky.
Later that morning we returned to Phalaborwa and collected the missing suitcase.
We spent a few more nights at Balule then moved to Skukuza via Maroela where the baby mastered the art of sitting, ably assisted by his Ouma who used her large brown leather handbag as a back rest.
The week passed until all too soon it was time for me and the little one to return home. We found ourselves standing outside the airstrip building at Skukuza. Several other people were also waiting there including a khaki clad, pith helmeted couple from the States and a woman dressed from scarf-swathed head to stilleto-sandalled toe in leopard skin print. The Skukuza airstrip of course served the private game reserves as well as the Kruger Park, which accounted for some of the more expensively eccentric outfits on show.
Suddenly my Dad nudged me and nodded meaningfully towards a tall man standing a little way off chatting to an attractive blonde woman. My Mom simultaneously hissed a warning at us to not look now, to not stare.
Just then the plane thundered into view and all further speech was doomed to go unheard under the din of its engines.
After last minute kisses, hugs, thanks and a surreptitiously wiped tear or two we climbed aboard and settled into our seat.
The tall man (he who was not to be stared at) was seated across the aisle and one row ahead of us. As we took off he turned and smiled our way. The baby beamed back. The man asked if he might hold the little chap and held his arms out. The baby, clearly smitten, needed no second invitation and launched himself onto the man’s lap where he stayed for the rest of the flight.
The man jiggled his knee and crooned and hummed “If I were a richman, deedle deedle dum”. He waggled his eyebrows and chortled delightedly when the little hands reaching out actually managed to grab hold of them a couple of times. The eyebrows were not all that hard to catch, truth to tell. They were rather spectacular eyebrows and in a way were the man’s trademark feature.
When we landed in Johannesburg the man insisted on carrying the baby off the plane. Chacma was waiting in the arrivals hall. The baby, fickle little fellow, happily held out his arms to his Daddy and the man handed him over. Before I could introduce the man to Chacma, he had wished us well and walked briskly out to the car park.
Here is a photograph of the man. I wonder who among you will be the first to recognise and name him?
