Memories

I worked at Williamson Diamonds from 1956-1959 as a HMS Plant operator under foremen Hank Van Vegan, Franko Corsi, and Joe Snjeder.

I suppose many of the old timers have caught the Spirit Express in the intervening years. I personally loved Mwadui and was there when Princess Margaret paid her visit.

I was also present when Dr Williamson died and went to his funeral. I was going out with the docs Physio, Francis! at the time.

Gay Du Toit Mine Superintendent passed away in January. His brother Paul lives at Sedgefield in the Garden route. Gay wrote an article on Mwadui which was published in the Mine & Quarry Engineering Magazine this year in April, May, and June.

Schalk Bestbier Plant Mech foreman passed away in Somerset West a few years ago. Jackie Bestbier lives in a complex in Somerset West.

Dr Gerryts, Mwadui Chief Geologist retired to Somerset West. He wrote an Article in the Indiaque Diamond Magazine. A copy is in my possession.

Jack & Eileen Foster Buhemba Manager retired to a retirement village in Somerset West.

Charles (Carl) Otrasek Pilot Plant foreman lives with his wife Bronya in a retirement complex in Harare.

Len & Ben Solomon ex Security Dept Len retired with his wife to Hermanus. Ben passed away in Gordons Bay several years ago

Jan Botha Blacksmith shop Mwadui. Retired to UK, however he passed away this year while on holiday in South Africa.

Annaliese Van Buren Single Qts Managers daughter married a DeBeers consulting geologist.

Can you tell me where I may be able to acquire some of the books written about old doc?

I left Mwadui when I was 9 years old, but what was given to me in those years is something that will follow me, always....you can add Freud, Jung, Nitche and a dash of Gesthalt in there to explain...... but it doesn't tell you who I am.

You need to know what I thought of Stephen Johnson ....the headmasters son!! What I felt when Jacqueline Ferris left.....I never understood why.....and then when they came back, the reason my parents got mad when my brothers and I stripped the Guava tree of all its fruit.....only it wasn't ours ...it belonged to the Jolliffes, When I saw my father hold a baby lion whose mother had been shot by poachers.....crying.....knowing the chances of it surviving was......I don't know ... I was a child.........didn't know..........I didn't understand. Aunty Nancy Simpson and that .."bloody Parrott" I think my mother was ashamed!!!

I remember the golf club, swimming......Oh lord.....the swimming .....diving for spoons, dads and the lads golf , sailing at songwa....Mum working at the police station....Ian Burgess playing golf with Dad.......I think I remember Mum turning up Father Brannigans shorts......only he forgot that his underwear was longer than the present trend for short "shorts" and modelled them for us. Oh what mischief we did!!!

My life is full, I'm a nurse I love the people I'm with I have a daughter I was told I would never have......but why do | remember Mwadui? Why do I remember swimming for spoons, putting itching powder in Father Brannigans shorts, No 1 dam , mrs mlani, Fabritzio Larrussi, Marlene, Joanna Jolliffe.....and all of the Burgess's..........Michael on the flight home back to ? the UK ? I kissed him ..he said he had webbed fingers!!! and showed me ... and yet I had never noticed We were so close...perhaps it is time and understanding that makes us realise what is important ,and what is not...perhaps it is youth that strips away the falseness of the life around us and enables us to see what is and can be ......as we grow older the sharpness of our childhood blurs the reasoning of age, all I know is that I was happy, beyond contentment, and that here is a part of me that will always be in Mwadui

I have been in every corner of this world, yet I have never chosen to go home....Yes home.....Perhaps I am afraid....I don't know Maybe I'm searching for something that never existed in the first place I just hope that somewhere out there someone remembers as I do and carries it on

Hello Stuart

Over the weekend I was showing my 80 yr old father (Ted) how searches worked on the internet. As an example I typed in Mwadui ... and hey presto!!
The reason I used Mwadui was that my parents were there from 1952 until 1964. I was born there in September 1957 and my sister in April 1956.
Ted was very impressed that in a few short moments we were reading the recent exploits of some of the families we knew so long ago.
We are the Seall family; we lived in Hopley number 27 or 25 (the nearest house to the security compound), ... very close to you. Ted was an engineer and originally worked in the security compound installing and maintaining the plant. In later years he became a teacher in the Technical Training School.

My mother Monty had various secretarial positions on the mine including the Geology department and the Police department.

From your age you were probably in the same class at school as my sister Sue. You mention that your neighbours were the Carters, my sisters "best" friend was Linda Carter.

From the time and effort you have made to produce the website the memories of Mwadui still mean a lot to you. I think the memories mean a lot to all of us who grew up there. I cannot think of better place to spend a childhood.

Some of my memories include making and flying kites from the bamboo on the golf course, jumping off the school bus and then throwing stones at it (I once threw a stone through one of the windows), waiting for trains to arrive and getting a ride on the footplate, the kids bar at the club plus all the other memories other people have mentioned about the swimming pool and the weather.

I was lucky enough to be able to arrange a trip back in May 1997 and have lots of photos and some video footage.

I went with Kay Berry (nee Needham, the Needham family were there 1953-1962 father Ken, mother Jill, sister Heather).

One evening in the pub Kay and I were reminiscing about Mwadui. I at the time worked for a cargo airline that had regular flights via Nairobi and Entebbe, after a few drinks we made a pact that we would return.

I contacted the Tanzanian High Commission in London to see if it was possible to make a visit. They said yes and gave me all the details of John Acland, the Managing Director after a few faxes had gone backwards and forwards we were on our way to Mwadui on a DC10 Cargo aircraft via Dubai, Entebbe and Nairobi.
Because there are no immigration staff in Mwadui the only flights there are internal so after a couple of days in Nairobi we flew to Dar and then up to Mwadui landing on the old runway after doing a complete circuit of the township. Since then the runway has been dug up and the flights go to Shinyanga.

We were there for four days, unfortunately John Acland was off on a business trip as we arrived so we only met at the airport however everyone else made us very welcome and we were lent a Suziki jeep to use as we pleased.

I was very surprised to see how much of the infrastructure was still standing, everything was still there, the big school, the little school, the big pool, the club, the post office, the duka, the church, the mosque, Songwa almost everything. The only disappointing and sad sight was the cemetery. Apparently a sluice dam had flooded and the waste covered the cemetery demolishing most of the headstones and making a mess of the whole area. Money has not been spent to try and make any repairs even though Dr Williamson's grave stands the the middle.

I am sure you and other Mwadui'ites would like to see the photos. My wife and I are just mastering some basic skills of website building (have just completed bregorreyglens.co.uk) so if its ok with you we would like to build a site with recent photos and the old photos using your guest book for visitors to sign.

This e-mail is getting much longer than intended so had better start winding up, if you want to contact me please do.

13 Crawford Gardens
Horsham
West Sussex
RH13 5AZ
01403 269038

Since everyone seems to mention the pool I have attached a couple of pictures taken in May 1997. (Thats me in one of the pictures - the water is a lot murkier than it used to be)

Brgds

David Seall

ps I am married to Alison and have one son Freddie aged 11.

Many thanks to David for this letter, the photos and the video he sent me of his re-visit to Mwadui! I know David is putting together a site which will have many more photos of the Mwadui trip so watch out.

"What would you say if we moved to a place called Mwadui, asked my father, there's a mine up there called Williamson's Diamonds Ltd." He wanted to involve me in a major decision.

"Where is it?" We were driving back from Oyster Bay, father at the wheel, the setting sun in our eyes and warm on our salty skins. It felt good after fighting the white horses of the Indian Ocean.

"It's up near Lake Victoria, about a hundred and fifty miles south-east of Mwanza."

I shrugged: "OK", I said, realizing how keen he was about it - and that we were going to go there anyway! I felt a bit indifferent: I had settled quite well in Dar, but maybe a move upcountry was going to be exciting. Little did I know Mwadui was going to be a prelude to another of the happiest periods in my life.

At the end of those holidays I took the train back to Soni and left my parents to pack up. Father was going to go first, followed by my mother, and finally me. My last holidays in Dar were dreary. Father wasn't there, the house, empty. Few belongings remained. The oil paintings were gone, so too my spear gun, flippers and goggles, the books I was collecting, and our souvenirs. The stark light from the naked light bulb contrasted with the black sky outside, the dim streets and the yellowish light of the Indians' verandahs opposite. I had few clothes to change and used parts of my school uniform a lot. Mother had stayed behind to supervise the last details. The letters we received from dad in Mwadui, however, were enthusiastic.

Williamson's Diamonds provided free medical care, and it was excellent. It had its own hospital run by English doctors, surgeons and a psychiatrist, Mr. N. All medical needs outside Mwadui were also paid for by the company as were also half of the school fees. Transport to and from school was free. This was only natural: The company had its own planes flying employees to Nairobi and Dar twice a week!

It also had its own cattle, regularly inspected by vets, for its employees consumption. And they delivered milk to your doorstep! It was in bottles with a an alluminium foil cap with the cream collecting at the top. He wrote how delicious it was. What a change this was from the watered milk in Buhemba brought by old men wrapped in blankets who argued fiercely about its quality! We certainly did not have to bother about boiling this milk. Little did we know that in time we were going to go back to just that! When this happened, however, I was to love and appreciate it, as it was part of the life I enjoyed most.

My last holidays in Dar came to an end. Again, the train chuffed up the U, and three months later, down again. This time I stayed with our friends, the G, and forced them to do some extra shopping. Three days later, they took me to Dar airport and there was my transport home: a good old Dakota proudly pointing its silvery nose up to the sky.

I had never been in one of them before, only seen them land and take off at the foot of Lucy's Folly in Musoma. The pilots that had come to lunch at our house had said how safe these planes were: They could glide if the engines failed, but of course that was only a remote possibility. Sure enough the Dakota never caused any trouble for the whole time father worked for Williamson's Diamonds. It was the other four-engined plane, the DC-4 that gave us some exciting moments on a couple of occasions!

I climbed up the swaying steps and entered the dim fuselage. The tail rested on a small wheel so that inside you had to climb to find a seat. Finally strapped in, I watched the port propeller jerk half a circle and stop, again, then a belch of azure smoke blown back into nothing, a sudden roar and the propeller disappeared. Only a faint yellow circle remained in mid-air, described by the tips of the three blades.

Shuddering, the Dakota crawled to one end of the runway, its wings occasionally bouncing, the ailerons moving up and down as though it were stretching before flapping into the sky. At the end of the runway we stopped, as if to reconsider. The port engine became less noisy while the starboard side revved hard. Then that idled and the pilot gunned the port engine. Again the ailerons flexed, limbering up. Everything was being gone over as though for a final, irrevocable decision.

Then, as the decision is made, the point of no return is reached, with a start one forces one's muscles into action, I was gently pushed back into my seat and we rolled. Faster and faster until I felt raised forward: The tail had come up and we were running on the front wheels. The grass beside the tarmac was now a blur, like when we chased zebras on the plains. Then, like pulling metal from a magnet, I felt the plane break free from the grip of mother earth and we were climbing.

As we banked, I looked down on the dollhouse terminal, the little aircraft, the matchbox cars, Africans on bicycles, black crows flying below us. In the distance a thin white line kept the blue ocean from the acres of regimented coconut trees. A black ship, a tiny white lateen sail ... Another prelude ...

We were sandwiched between two layers of tumbling, rolling, cottony clouds, ourselves and the blue sky. Then the sky cleared and we lost altitude. It was the rainy season. Below us the twin ruts of a bush road, covered in water, glistened in the sun like railway tracks. In some areas, water, life, flooded the plain, grass growing above it as in a rice paddy. The sun shimmered here too, as if from huge metal sheeting. Native huts inside green enclosures appeared, some of the enclosures also flooded and sparkling, white light from a diamond facet.

The people we flew over had survived millennia of a hard land, hostile nature, disease: a life in which violence and death were commonplace. Encapsulated by generations, molded hard and resistant by the land for aeons, theirs are qualities that need to be searched for, dug for, brought out, worked, shaped until they shine with the light of their own individuality.

Baobab trees appeared, dotting the plain. Black and white, brown and rufous, humped cattle below plodded home in spear-head formation. On a bush track an African pedalled a black bicycle.

Then in the distance, huge, flat mounds of sand appeared: Mwadui. We flew over it and I caught my first glimpse of widely spaced out houses, red-tiled roofs half hidden among leafy trees, white bougainvillea up the sides of houses, flame trees in the drives. A wide open green space in the middle marked the undulating golf course, and at the bottom of it, a blue swimming pool. Next to the pool, long legs in short white skirts, bending, stretching, running in murram tennis courts ignored the Dakota as it banked and prepared for its run-in.

The airstrip was bound by a wire fence, but this did not keep out the Thomson's gazelles. They only stopped browsing as we came down. A male took a few steps away, briskly wagged its bushy black tail against its white rump, the sidelong black stripe between rufous-brown back and white belly, and presented its proud profile to us, curving black horns, dark eyes on white rings, black tear line.

The Dakota's wheels struck bare earth and sent up clouds of red dust. It bounced once, rumbled on, and slowly the tail settled down, tilting you back in your seat. At the end of the strip the plane turned, while I watched the Tommies, and made its way to the single hangar.

I placed my bathing costume in the towel and rolled them up, took out my bicycle and on flip-flops pedalled to the pool. A group of teen-agers horse-played on the grass. One, stoop-shouldered, with the streamlined body of a swimmer, round face and mouth, short sandy hair over laughing, cat-like green eyes tried to pull a girl's bikini off and was promptly chased and kicked for his pains. This was M L, Saints boy and Kenya swimming champion who upheld la gloire of his French parents equally well in the boxing ring, on the rugger pitch, and in cross-country running.

A girl padded up to the drinks kiosk, a towel round her middle. Straight, raven-black hair flowed over richly tanned, olive-skinned shoulders. Long eyelashes covered almond-shaped Spanish eyes - and hid an impish twinkle that would burst into a wide, white smile, mingling mischief and gaiety, and betraying first impressions from the madonna-like face. A small scar attracted attention to full, soft lips. She had that tiny bit of extra weight on her that was only too pleasing to the eye. L C combined all the qualities of an Italian girl born and growing in East Africa. Unaffected, she expressed her feelings unreservedly and simply in her nightingale's voice traced with a Kenya accent.

"Ti sei fatto desiderare!" She once greeted me as I walked past at the beginning of some holidays. L's latin features reflected the warm character of our people. Her liveliness, joy of living, openness seemed to be enriched with the sun, the grass on her bare feet, the carefree life of Africa. L went to Kenya High, over the hill from Saint Mary's School in Nairobi.

"Ooow-Youw". A curly blonde in a black bathing suit had stolen up to M and pinched him hard on the side, evening up with him for something, at last. M jumped - and landed squarely on L who thumped him hard on the arm. "Ow, ow, ow" he stumbled off sideways holding his right arm, face screwed up in pain.

The blonde's flashing blue eyes, gleamed satisfaction as she sat down primly, her lissom body straight. She had a peaches and honey complexion on a good-looking face, and a forthright expression. On her thigh, puckered skin, the size of a coin, marked the spot where she had had a skin graft. Her fair Scot's skin tanned only slightly to a golden hue. L was a young lady, her quite manners came naturally to her, as did her gentle humour. She balanced reservedness and respect for others with openness. L went to Loreto Convent, three hundred yards from Saints. The last I heard of her, she had joined the police in Scotland.

Another curly head appeared, dark, unruly hair, dried in the sun and wind. Beneath that, rascally dark eyes burned like live coals accompanied by a toothy grin. In contrast to this irreverent expression was a very military-looking chin. ("Fred") also had the wiry body of a swimming champion. The strong, quiet type, he was immensely successful with the girls - and mad keen on flying. He obtained his P.P.L. (Private Pilot's Licence) as soon as he turned eighteen and when he finished school went to Italy to join the Air Force.

Fred was popular with everyone, in his quiet way he easily made friends. I don't think he ever got into a fight and I never saw him drunk, which says a lot in the drinking East African society.

He sometimes let himself go, though. D T had lent us his blue, open-top Land-Rover once. That's when Fred's instincts came out. Wheels skidding, churning up the dust, he sent the Land-Rover spinning as I hung on for dear life.

Later when my family moved to Buhemba again, I had to spend two or three days in Mwadui, waiting for the plane to Buhemba. I used to stay at Fred's or at M

There was a time at Saints when many of us had white rats as pets. They were snow white with bright, pink eyes, and long sinewy tails. They fit snugly in the breast pocket of your khaki shirt. And that's where many of us kept them!

I had trained them well. They were free to roam over and inside my desk when there were no teachers around but a tap of the finger would send them scurrying up my arm, onto my shoulder and down into the breast pocket. Inside, they did a tumble-turn and a little nose, short whiskers, white fluff and a pair of pink eyes peered over the top. We kept them inside our lockers, in four gallon tins cut in half and strewn with shredded toilette paper. You had to change the paper frequently as it tended to smell.

Terms at all of the Nairobi schools tended to start and end at about the same time, so that L, Liz, Fred, M, myself and all the rest would travel backwards and forwards on the same plane. That term I had my white rats dutifully hiding in my breast pocket as I cleared customs and went through passport control in Nairobi. In the plane, however, I decided to show them around. It was the Dakota, so there was not much room, but a bunch of kids still gathered round. With everyone handling them and having a go at sending the rats running into their pockets the inevitable happened: The rats escaped.

Off they scurried with us in pursuit. They could not but panic with noisy kids chasing them inside a roaring airplane. We scattered, looking for them among the seats, the passengers' legs, up and down the fuselage. We excused ourselves in our best schoolboy manners as we grabbed for them among feet, stuck our heads under seats, stretched our arms among stockinged legs, crawled on hands and feet in front of sitting ladies.

"What's going on?" He later told my father that he had noticed something wrong when there seemed to be serious weight displacement inside the airplane.

A male passenger, knee-high buff stockings and khaki shorts, removed his pipe from his mouth and placidly informed the pilot there were rats running around in his aircraft.

By this time we had recovered one of the two. The pilot was a veteran East African and knew me. He made a beeline for me.

"It's OK, I said before he opened his mouth, I've caught him now". I held up the sniffing whiskers, the round pink eyes and the inquisitive little, white head. He nodded and turned on his heel back to the cockpit. The moment the door closed we were up and chasing the other rat again. Fortunately, we soon caught him, too, and quickly sat down.

"Your son's rats ... in my plane..." I think he had problems keeping a straight face. Father still laughs about it now.

Looking at photographs of the time, I wonder at some of our expressions. Standing next to Fred as he plays with my snake, Dan's Landy behind us, I have the same roguish expression as Fred's. I have seen it in other teenagers, always in photographs. We did not notice it as such at the time, neither do I remember it. It is only in our photographs that I find it. It's a knavish look, full of black humour. I am not sure what it indicates.

At the kiosk Ray joined the group. Thick-set, square face, short curly hair, Ray was a born fighter and a loyal friend. He was studying at a naval college in England in what appeared to be one of the rougher parts of port towns. Hard as he was he would have given up anything for a friend. His parents brought him and the numerous other children in the family up tough. A razor strap hung in their living room. I discovered what it was displayed for one day when Ray's little brothers and sisters had been particularly noisy. Their father decided he had had enough. They shot past me in the living room shrieking and laughing, "The strap's coming, the strap's coming." They were sturdy little toddlers, running around barefoot, and the dirtier they were the merrier they seemed, obviously enjoying rough and tumble games. They certainly seemed to be treating the strap as some kind of game rather than punishment, even though Ray's father chased them through the living room with thunder on his face!

Razor straps seemed to have other uses in East Africa. MM told us once how his brother had cut their

In ones and twos the Mwadui teenagers were all gathering around the kiosk, flicking towels at each other, ordering Cokes, Fantas, Seven Ups and sandwiches. The three beautiful C sisters, A, Land J- the latter was to turn into one of the loveliest girls I have known, looking much like Jacqueline Bisset - immediately became a prime target for the lads' ribbing.

D T vainly tried to get a serious discussion going on whether demonstrations should be allowed. D was a civil engineering student in England around the mid-sixties when there was social ferment in Europe.

D K was saying that up in her girls' school in Limuru, in the Kenya Highlands , they had to get up at six and go down to the pool. Before plunging in they had to break a thin layer of ice.

C M, well-bred, attractive, with a typical 1960's hairstyle, had a sunny disposition. I developed a crush for her which, unfortunately, was never reciprocated. One day, she did, however, acknowledge all the different approaches I was desperately trying out on her:

One or two other teenagers held pieces of sandwiches up. African black kites swerved, plunged, talons outstretched, and took the bread from their hands. We often left bread on the short, green grass and watched them skim over the ground and wing back up, eating. Occasionally a girl shrieked: To our amusement, a kite had snatched her sandwich from her hand as she was talking.

At night the golf course came alive: Hares came out to nibble, jackals sniffed, the occasional hyena chased both, protected by the gloom.

I soon made friends. There was only a small crowd of teenagers in Mwadui so we all knew each other and stuck together. The pool was our main meeting point, but there were also lots of parties.

Parents would leave the house free and by eight o'clock we would be arriving, some driven in the back of Dan's blue Land-Rover, others brought by their parents. It was not advisable to walk about at night. Music, drinking, laughter always started the parties off well. The lads had bell-bottom trousers, wide belts, some with pointed boots, the girls wore mini-skirts. From one school holiday to the next they had changed to maxi-skirts, on to midis, then back to minis, thus generating amusement among older and crustier East Africans, and comments from them about civilised trappings and the fickleness of women.

It was the age of Twiggy, of long hair, hippies, marijuana, the Vietnam war. But only Twiggy, long hair and, thankfully to a lesser extent, marijuana came into our lives.

The parties in Mwadui frequently ended the same way. The initial merriment, gave way to dancing, everyone mingling and changing partners. As the evening wore on, a girl and a boy remained together longer in the slow dances, gently swaying in each other's arms, bodies pressed together, her face against his chest. Other couples eventually formed and sat down on armchairs, the sofa, or lay on the carpeted floor. Lights were discretely dimmed or turned off, only the light bulbs outside shedding some light. Cushions were pulled from armchairs as pairs made themselves comfortable on the floor.

"Christ, d'you want some ketchup on it?" P F, also a Saints boy, shattered romance. His older sister T, flowing blonde hair and wide blue eyes, was one of us at the party. The laughter died down and the teenagers went back to snogging. Nobody bothered to change the records. A cigarette glowed in the dark: Someone had been left out!

Mwadui had a club, a building with a vast dance floor and a stage at one end. It was almost entirely for whites and we used it for bingo, ping-pong and badminton tournaments, films, dances and plays.

The plays were normally riotous affairs, well in keeping with the East African colonial spirit. Craggy-faced World War II veterans, dressed as buxom red-lipped housewives, the thick powder unable to mask the pale blue of their beards in the deep tan, chased their drunken "husbands" brandishing brooms, hairy, bandy legs under red frocks. A tall, Scandinavian-type beauty flitted around as an angel, her white tutu conveniently exposing quite exceptional legs. The audience applauded with uproarious laughter.

The balls were more formal, very pleasant, but we enjoyed ourselves the most when the Scottish dances came on. As soon as the first notes blew out, rousing highland shrieks rent the air. Men bounced up waving both fists in the air, the occasional chair overturned, and we jumped on to the floor, dragging the few unwilling ones with us. Parallel lines, ten people deep formed as we held each other by the waist.

In unison, twice, from the knee, kick your right leg out: up down, up, down, left leg too, now; pause; one skip on; one skip back; on you stomp a few short steps and off you go again.

Breathlessly round the floor the lines advanced. Once round and the music ended, but on again it came to everyone's delight, while notes from the Scottish Highlands flowed through the high window panes and into the African night.

We teenagers hung together and sometimes decided to carry on the fun by ourselves towards the end of the ball. The club was next to the pool which was the obvious place to head for at one a.m.!

One particularly happy night, when we had all had a few drinks too many, we squeezed into a couple of cars, groaning and laughing at the tight fit. We managed to drive the fifty yards to the pool without mishap and tumbled out of the cars. Clothes were torn off, shoes sent flying and the pool erupted as a mass of wild kids plunged in. Tanned, taught bodies chased each other underwater, the child in us surfacing in the oldest continent.

After a dip one normally took a shower. So into the girls' changing rooms we piled. We tried to all fit under one shower but that couldn't be managed, so heavy of heart we split into two cubicles. The water gushed down on heads and shoulders, tugging at our underpants. Screams, yelps, whoops, shrieks came from the ladies' showers that night. Under the water flimsy, white bras and panties became transparent; dark mounds showed through, epitomes of our deepest natures: primitive Africa. Perfectly round buttocks quivered, budding young breasts danced. We invaded each others' cubicle, Anne's black hair enveloping her white face, Ray skidding on the wet floor on his backside and banging against the wall.

The community in Mwadui was small and isolated in that arid region. Any titbit was worth gossiping about. People were certainly going to have a field-day at the Mwadui teenagers all having a shower together in the early morning hours - and we were going to be in for it from our folks!

We trooped out in our wet underwear. On the grass by the pool, separated from the invisible golf course by a white fence, a man in long trousers looked around.

"Have you seen Marcy?" He was middle-aged, looking a bit lost there in the dim light of a light bulb surrounded by moths. He looked us straight in the eye, his lined face impassive.

"We haven't seen anyone around here this evening and there isn't a Marcy in there with us," pointing at the showers.

"Oh." His eyes flickered over us, his mind probably beginning to register, his face showed puzzlement, he nodded his head.

We turned back into the showers and carried on where we had left off, leaving him under the stars.

Strangely, nobody said anything. Maybe word had not slipped out after all. None of us had recognized the man the evening before as being from Mwadui.

Normally, gossiping was the favourite pastime in the mine. As often happened, a wife would go to Europe for short periods while the husband stayed on to work. One evening a friend was left without cigarettes. He decided to go to the nearest African bar for them.

He walked into the noisy, beer smelling bar and came face to face with B.T., sitting with an African bibi on his lap. The whites of B.T.'s eyes showed wider - but only for an instant. He picked up the bibi, dumped her on the floor and said:

At Mwadui I learned how to make a different bird trap. It was the simplest of all: a wooden box with a twig holding it up at one end and a length of string tied to it. You placed bread crumbs under the box and ten yards away you sat still and waited. Birds soon fluttered down and pecked the bait around the box. Then, when that was finished, they drew closer to the box. Some were suspicious. They eyed this dark thing looming above them, twisting their head round, up, sideways. Some flew away, not risking it. Others were braver, hopped into the middle and that was when you pulled the string hard.

I used to let them fly around the house. They alighted on pelmets, on the backs of chairs, on armchairs. There were plenty of insects in the house to feed them but they were soon tame enough to eat the crumbs we fed them. Sooner or later, however, they flew out an open window, rather than shelter in our house.

Slowly driving the car around the perimeter road, four of us stalked oribi by night. Their eyes shone in the headlights before we saw their bodies. With the engine running low, the tyres crunching murram, we crept up to the blinded antelope. Facing us, ears straight up, body taught, it jerked its legs once in an intention movement to leap into the dark. Any closer and it would be gone.

"Ready, Hugo?" whispered M. I nodded. The car door was already open. Silently M and I stepped out: we were going to try to capture the oribi with our bare hands. At the last possible moment dashed ... and the antelope took off in the dark. We sprinted hard, hoping in its temporary blindenss, but were soon crashing clumsily in high grass.

It had been a hopeless venture from the start, but we were very fit and had to pit ourselves against nature. Life flowed in our veins.

We were never bored at night. Others went fishing for catfish at the refuse dams. They attracted the huge fish with fires on the banks. All the waste water from the households flowed into these dams.

"Don't use normal bait for these catfish, they told me once, use soap, that's what they're used to!"

The night before we left Mwadui to fly back to school there was always a party. As usual it ended late. Next day we had to be at the airport by six but we all used to get up at four to pack our trunks for the coming term! Then bleary-eyed we watched the headlights light up the grass beside the dirt roads until they swept past the iron fence of the aerodrome to show figures ambling towards the silvery shapes in the pre-dawn light. In groups we chatted, our sleepiness dissolving as the shrill, loud call of guinea fowl rent the stillness of the dawn.My thanks to Ugo for sending this writing and letting me use it on the site for others to share.