The Donkey and Her Girl

The Donkey and her Girl

She came from up north, Bolagatanga. Dad saw her wandering with her mother, and bought her to bring home in the landrover. He got in late, covered in red dust, and left her in the back of the car until morning. We knew, and prowled around at first light, peering in the windows until she cried out in her big lonely voice. We were trying not to wake our exhausted father, but he couldn’t sleep through that. Besides, he didn’t want any more urine in the car. So he got up, opened the dusty back door and half lifted out this young, frightened grey donkey, to whom I became passionately attached, immediately. Warding off the attentions of the younger children, putting a rope collar around her neck, and running to fetch a bucket of water, we named her Susannah, and started the long journey of learning to care for a member of the equine race.

September 8th, 1968

It’s been a wonderful day today, really tremendous. When I woke up I wondered what was going to happen. Then a surge of excitement went through me. Of course, Dad was supposed to have come home last night and he had promised to try and bring home a donkey for us. A whole donkey!

I tugged anxiously at the bottom of the mosquito net that for once was still tucked under the mattress. Ducking through the small hole I had made, I hurried down the length of the verandah, collecting the boys on my way out to the garage. It couldn’t have been more than six o’clock and Mum and Dad were still dead to the world. A fresh coolness met us as we pattered outside, and the birds were in full swing with their morning chorus. Under the aluminium roof of the rough but efficient carport was the landrover. It was covered in mud. The day before my missionary father had gone up to Bawku on a book selling trip. He had come back very late at night and at the moment was just surfacing from a dead sleep. Had he got a donkey? We tried to peer through the window. Would he never come? We couldn’t disturb him as he was pretty exhausted. At last, he and Mum appeared and Daddy stood chatting to her about the trip. Why do people deliberately aggravate you and talk about trivial things such as how many books have been sold? We hardly dared to burst out the question. Finally I could leave it no longer. “Did you get a donkey?” Dad looked at me and smiled. I’m as tense as a rabbit.

Dad went to the back of the landrover and shot back the bolts. With mounting excitement we watched as Dad leapt up and started untrussing her legs and head. He started to take her out backwards but a slender foot caught in the large gap made by letting the tailboard down, and there was a struggle. But presently she was out and she stood still among us, shaking her head, glad to get out of the cramped quarters. We stood awed for a while, and then Dad found himself bombarded with questions. Is he a boy or a girl? How old is she? Where did you get her?

She is ten months old and had been found wandering around the large border village with her mother, feeding on the tough grass on the roadsides and being sworn at by drivers in a hurry. She is exquisitely beautiful, a delicate fawn colour nicely setting off the black cross on her shoulders. Her lovely soft ears have delicate markings on them and they make a crackling noise like cardboard when she shakes her head.

“What will you call her?” Dad asked after a while. This was fresh food for our thoughts.

“Susannah!” Mum and I declared, almost at the same moment. We laughed, so that settles that.

Then we set off to take Susannah for a walk so she could see around and not get lost. Barefoot and still in our pyjamas, we set off. Mum went inside to see to breakfast, and Dad went to get dressed.

First we just wandered around and then Susannah decided to set off west towards the old deserted men’s quarters. It was alright for a while but then she turned south and started going past line one and two. She was off to find her Mum. We were getting a bit worried. We started using low persuasive voices, which I maintained was much better than force. With gentle loving pushes we succeeded in turning her until we were travelling in a north westerly direction. But she kept going! Dilemma! Stuart ran back to get Dad. At last we exerted enough force to stop her and amongst the ruins of old mud huts, Dad found us. We poured out our woes. With a grim little smile he took hold of the flimsy rope halter around Susannah’s neck and started putting on pressure. We cried out in horror. I mean, you can’t choke the poor thing, can you? After some hesitation, Susannah realised she was no longer master of the situation and came with us. Not willingly, it is true, but she came. We were nearly home when at last Susannah said she wouldn’t go any further and Dad was scared to get really violent for fear of what we would do to him. I ran home for a bowl of salt and Dad got Susannah along another 20 yards. I suppose the restraining influence had left. Susannah didn’t even lip the salt. She had never seen anything like it before. Slowly, painfully, with gentle shoves, we at last brought her in and tied her to a stout neem tree.

Then we had to go in and get dressed. After breakfast I found an old hair brush and set to on Susannah’s rough coat. She wouldn’t drink water so Mum advised we mix up a half a bucket of powdered milk. She drank the lot, the fussy thing. I hunted out an old stiff brush of mine and began grooming her, pointing out to Lester and Stuart certain parts of her anatomy. “This is her shoulder,” I said, slapping a very small one. “And this is her front leg”. The boys nodded wisely.

After a few days we allowed Susannah to roam freely and she soon got into trouble. When she first found the fowl house and started eating the cracked corn there, we were anxious. Daddy said the corn would swell in her belly if she drank water too soon, and kill her. We tried to find out by asking everyone we met, but it was Pastor Sanna, who was a Mossi with filed teeth from Upper Volta, who knew about donkeys. He advised us to soak guinea corn (red millet) so that the grain was already swollen, and to add salt. We often did this but eventually came to the conclusion that cracked maize could not harm her. If it was not cracked we would soon draw her away from the bin. Aunty Sybil Gibbons also had chooks, and she did not want Susannah eating her corn. As time went on she and Susannah became bitter enemies. Another thing they came to loggerheads about was pineapples. Aunty Sybil had a great many pineapples growing behind her house and every now and then Susannah would appear and take great bites out of the ripening pineapples. Then Aunty Sybil would come rushing out and shout horribly at her. Susannah would twitch her ears, kick up her heels and go galloping off. She also ravaged our own pineapples growing way down the back. But this was much later.

At first we housed Susannah in an old disused chook house, behind our house. Later the carpenter came and built her a little aluminium clad house. It had a dirt floor and a gap of 18 inches below the walls. It was across the road from the teaks, in an old fenced vege garden the Francis’ had had before us. We pulled up some of the ten foot high grass and laid it in her house. After the rice was cut we would use some of that straw instead.

Every now and then we would go down to the Dobo, the village near us that was mostly made up of ex leprosy patients who could make a living by fishing the Oti River. Mum and Dad would visit “the old dears” who were practically helpless without fingers or toes. They liked to see the children, so we all went on a Sunday afternoon. Now we were further along the river bank and Susannah would not cross the stepping stones. As we disappeared from sight between the round mud huts, she brayed dismally for us. They had heard her raucous braying on a still day, as we could hear their drums at night. They had never seen her though, and wondered what the strange call was. We glanced back anxiously, only to see her being swamped by a sea of little black bodies, who, however, kept their distance. She laid back her ears and looked mean, then she ignored them while waiting for us. They were astonished to see this animal, who had featured in their latest legends.

Before we had Susannah for many weeks we worked out that pulling on her rope halter around her neck with all our strength, did not hurt her at all, and giving a hard shove from behind was necessary for getting anywhere. And we soon began administering severe beatings, usually on her rump, which grew as hard and tough as hippo hide. Some of Susannah’s many wackings were to get her away from the soap. Whenever we bathed her (about once every two months), she would seize the slightest chance to lick at the soap, as a sort of compensation for the water dripping off her, which she hated. We had to tie her up as short as possible. Soon a frequent cry went up when she found the bathroom. She would creep in and lick the cake of soap at the hand basin. No matter how many thrashings we gave her with the knotted end of the rope or a stick she would always come back. She would come straight from the chookhouse and leave a horrid corny mess on the soap, unless she took it with her. If she was startled by our violent reactions she wouldn’t be able to spit it out in time, she sucked it like a lolly. She would drink a great deal of water after a corn and soap feast.

When she was young she used to come to the kitchen window and poke her nose in with all sorts of speech sounds, asking nicely. She soon learned that Mummy would give her scraps and talk back in the donkey human dialect.

One day Daddy put little Stuart on her back. We watched eagerly and I tried to lead her along, but she seemed more interested in grass than in carrying someone on her back for the first time. Each Sunday afternoon it is our custom to go for a walk. When Stuart grew tired, Mummy would carry him a little way, but when she put him down, Susannah behaved really badly towards him. She was deeply jealous of him and would try to kick him away from Mummy. She would gallop up to him, swerve suddenly and lash out at him with her heels. Sometimes a wicked hoof would catch him and he would cry. Then she would try to knock him over with her nose and trample on him. She never succeeded in doing this, however, and she received many beatings from myself and Lester. When we finally screened the house the jealousy stopped, because she no longer interacted with Mummy at the kitchen window. When she ate Dad’s pawpaw seedlings, snapping off the tender tops, he got us some rope. We were dismayed! Take away her freedom! We complained bitterly. Soon, however, things settled down.

In the mornings I would walk over to her shed and as soon as I was near enough, began calling and talking love nonsence to her. She always began braying at six o’clock and continued to let out a mournful roar every twenty minutes until she was let out. No wonder no one could stay in the Francis house for long. Then I unbolted the door and slipped on her rope halter which had reposed during the night on the low roof of her shed. We went slowly along the little path with the super hot chillie bushes. I allowed her to roam a little and fed the rabbits in their cage and attended to the turkeys. Have you ever seen a turkey pullet? They are the prettiest little bits of yellow fluff with black legs and when the mother turkey is calling them all together, she sounds like a little silver bell.

The jobs done, we would have to tie her up until school was over. To get her there we would beat her and push her. She would call after lunch, with no shade or water sometimes, but we had to stay in until 4 o’clock siesta was over. Then we took her for fome exercise. We usually went to the cows where I had made friends. I had made “friends” with the cows and would go inside the yard to pet them and talk nonsence into their astonished ears. There was Daisy, Saturn, Furry, Penelope and the heifers. These four red heifers were very fierce and I kept well away from them. They were a very good breed from Pong Tamale, different from the others, who only gave a pint of milk per day. But for one reason or another, the cows hated Susannah.

In the wet season the flies increase by millions and all but cover the animals. These flies have a very bad bite, as I knew from experience, although they are not the tsetse fly. So the Fulani cow herd lights little fires and tethers the animals near the smoke, they crowd around to gain relief.

We had to light one for Susannah, of course, and then set off for a walk and drag her away from the comforting smoke, and it was better once we were moving. When she tried to share the cows’ fires, however, they drove her away. When she got home, she would sand by the copper where the fire was heating our bathwater, singeing her eyelashes to naught, and sometimes burning her nose. She was allowed free, and later on in the day she was able to crunch corn and browse in the grass. When she was tied up and theflies were tormenting her, she would weave back and forth, straining to get away, and trampling the grass into the mud, she would leave a bare patch there for weeks.

As dusk came on I would lead her to her shed. Sometimes she would have a stubborn fit, and we either beat her or enticed her with sugar or salt. Then I would give her an affectionate good night and a kiss. Before leaving I would go out and bolt the door and hang up the halter. And so the weeks merged into months. Mother said I grew as stubborn as a mule, but that is no where near as ornery as a teenage jenny.

We took correspondence course for school work, and we learnt music from Daddy. One of the pieces we had to learn was “Oh Susannah, don’t cry for me” which his Dad would Jazz up in a blues sort of piano way. But the one that took our fancy most was “Susyanna, susyanna, down where the watermelons grow.” I sang it from the big neem tree and one day I called her, Susanna, Susanna and she lifted her head, glanced at me, and continued her grazing. I was delighted, she knew her name. I raced off to tell the rest of the family.

Sometimes we went to Kpandai, seven miles away, and there we would market and visit the two Swiss sisters, Rosali Bartchi and Berthe Gerber. They coped with 300 patients a day in the little backward clinic there. We needed a doctor, oh we needed a doctor, and we believed God would answer our prayers. Of course a doctor wouldn’t be able to help the girls have abortions when they needed them, they go to the village midwife for that, and she sends them back to our clinic for repair and antibiotics. Sometimes they die from dirty instruments, a piece of fencing wire or a stick, and a perforated cervix can make them bleed to death, the European nurses can’t always arrange a blood transfusion. I suppose if we had barefoot doctors here they would have some training in sterility, but it may still be illegal to abort the women, even when they are pregnant as a result of rape.

One day we were walking down the yam farm road, and she was left behind, tearing at the grass. Suddenly she became aware of our absence and cantered after us. As she flashed past she lifted her nose, pricked her ears, and turned her head to look back at us jubilantly. We yelled and raced after her, I tore along at her side, trying to pull her up.

One day Daddy decided that we should send Susannah away. She had been getting into over much mischief lately, and he was worried about Stuart being kicked in the head. We were to send her to Zambo, a Mossi man and his ancient relative. Zambo was short and stocky, a fine Christian and an excellent farmer. In his country north of Bolagatanga there were many donkeys. They usually had a short life. We agreed, reluctantly, and the next day we led her down the hill. A little while later we saw her being led by the old man. The rope was now tied around her foot so she could not but follow. She looked completely cowed and we were horrified. I approached Daddy rather firmly and asked him when we could have Susannah back. Daddy snorted,”Don’t be silly,” he said. “She’s only been gone a couple of days.” A week later Susannah came back and for a day or two she was very meek. Every now and then after that we would send her down to old Orovagadoo, who was her master. She was always very pleased to see us whenever we went to visit her. Zambo’s hut was situated right near Boulder Creek, but further down from where we used to picnic with the crocodiles.

The time came for our annual holidays at the seaside. Our parents planned to leave Susannah with Pastor Yelyeore Sanna at Kpandai, another Mossi man, who knew me well, and thought I should marry his son John. Ruth had been my best friend in Kpandai, and her younger brother Samuel was also a possible husband.

One morning I led her up top and hung around waiting for the lorry to go. It was before breakfast and I felt sicker and sicker as the time for the lorry to depart came nearer. I had to keep blinking back the tears as she was loaded with much shouting and fright. Daddy, coming suddenly upon us, exclaimed at my face. “What’s the matter dear?” he asked. I could hardly answer, but Dad, sensing the trouble, told us all to hop in the car. Then we drove after the lorry, and I saw Susannah established in her new home. I did not allow the thought of her to spoil my holiday. After three weeks we came back and stopped for a while at the Kpandai. I ran straight for the Bible School, calling “Susannah, Susannah!” and she brayed twice in reply and nearly broke the rope as the Africans laughed themselves to tears. Next day, she was brought home.

A year later and Susannah’s behaviour had deteriorated. I always spent my afternoons following Susannah to make sure she didn’t get into any trouble. One Sunday afternoon we went into Kpandai. While we were away she chewed through her rope and entered the house through the open screen door of the sitting room. She went into the kitchen and smashed two jars of freshly made syrup and also several empty jars in getting the bread tin down from the cupboard. She ate half a loaf before Aunty Erinna found her and shooed her out.

Although we treated this as a joke, Mum and Dad were not at all pleased about it. Aunty Erinna was a refugee who had escaped from the MauMau. She lived in the Francis house and dealt with the Bible Correspondence courses. She was a kind old lady with a little asthma and a gift for talking. She would be rather lonely, no doubt. She would come over of a morning and talk through the window to Mummy, who was trying to run the schoolroom. Why didn’t she ask Erinna to be the teacher? She was clearly qualified and had the time. She was another enemy of Susannah, who had eaten her buttercups. These cheery yellow flowers were the product of a creeper which grew in an old tree stump. It turns out it is the kuzu vine which makes a tea to help alcoholics reduce their intake, though I didn’t know that till later

Another time we went to Tamale and were not back until 11 pm. We had tethered Susannah by tying two lengths of telegraph wire to her halter and leaving a half buried bucket of water near by. We did this because she generally tipped her water over as soon as she got it. We tied her up at 4.30am and she broke free at breakfast time. Oh, the young pawpaws that lost their tops, the buttercups that lost their heads and the pineapples that lost their centres that day! Earlier in the morning Aunty Erina Foster had tied her with a bit of string to the rest house garage pole (where there was no feed), but an hour later she had vanished. We did not laugh this time. We were horrified when Susannah came trotting up in the bright gentle moonlight to greet us.

Zambo had moved two miles into the bush, out the back of the clean workers quarters and every now and then we would take Susannah out there. She was becoming more and more unruly. Though we now had a fenced in lawn in front of the house, she still managed occasionally to get through the gates and into bathroom for the soap. Perhaps she needed a salt lick.

There were scoldings for me. What made me so furious was the fact that whenever Daddy scolded me the boys said nothing, but whenever strangers came and asked about or perhaps praised our fine donkey, and I spoke of her as my donkey, the boys would firmly correct me to our donkey. It is true that Lester sometimes helped me but never when calling me because of trouble, then it was always “Joy, your donkey is in the bathroom,etc”.

Once we were visited by two young teachers. As I was struggling with Suzy one morning in one of her stubborn fits, Uncle John passed and asked if he could help. “Give her a push” I panted. “Well,” he said doubtfully, looking at her back legs. “It’s all right, she won’t kick,” I assured him. Little did I know. As he got behind her she suddenly lashed out and got him fair and square on his long bony legs. I was horrified and apologies flowed freely. Quite pink, I gave Susannah a good thrashing and got her moving. I didn’t trust her after that.

When Dad got angry about the trouble she was causing, we tried to clinch down on her movements. When Dad came down late from the office with the news that Susannah was doing her beat around the leprosarium, we decided to go and get her. Equipped with snake boots, lantern and snake stick, we plodded up top. Susannah was pulling half heartedly at the grass around the big tanks and we set off to drag her home. We were almost half way when she began to play up. I clung to her halter as she reared and skitted sideways, swinging me around with her. I gave a little terrified scream as I felt my foot landing on the soft giving substance of a long thin brown snake. It struck futilely at the leather of my boots again. I jumped away like a scared rat and the snake slid away into the darkness. Susannah quieted and we kept going, my heart still fluttering. Then Susannah played up again. This time, a sudden jerk of her head freed it of the halter, and she was off. We gave chase, stopping every now and then, to hear Susannah crashing through the bush. She was heading back up top. We were nervous as snakes are much more likely to be in the bush than on the road. But a pile of steaming dung kept us going until we could neither see nor hear any further trace of her.

One day an old Moslem friend Alhaji Adamou, one of the Gonja chiefs, offered to buy Susannah when the time came for us to go on furlough. I was horrified, the boys less so, when Daddy agreed. So one day I bravely dedicated her to God. “She’ll be yours,” I prayed. “I know You will always look after her.” I wondered if I could go with Susannah to look after her, perhaps marrying Alhaji’s son when Mum and Dad returned to Australia. But I felt we would be treated cruelly, like pets.

We had a sandpit, about 8’ by 5’. One day we dug the sand out and Chemba the mason came and built up the sides to about 4’ to make a swimming pool. The rock bottom was ledged and uneven and he came back later to smooth it over. Mother was tired of our swimming clothes becoming threadbare. A section of the wall was left down because Mummy, watching from the kitchen window, decided we had better wait until we were older before we had the swimming pool at its greatest depth. She was afraid we might drown. When it was built up properly we got an inner tube with many patches on it to float in. Susannah often came to drink while we were splashing and she was horrified by this strange black thing and backed away whenever we came near her with it. One day we went down to the freshly burnt bush and covered ourselves with soot from the partly burned bark. When Mother saw us, she was dismayed, but Susannah was terrified of these strange black creatures who’s voices she knew but who’s black faces with white rings around the eyes were out of this world. She would not let us come near her and Mummy had to put her to bed while we had several baths to get clean.

The time came for Susannah to be broken in. Mother, after several failures which I had to unpick, made a simple bitless bridle of woven straps and disused window blind lining. I had read in several books on horses that gentleness and kindness would always win the day, but it didn’t with Susannah. If I didn’t haul with all my might on the reigns, she just continued grazing or walked up to the chook house, brushing me off at the narrow door like a fly. She would then commence munching corn. As I rode through the hedge and over the ditch, I would tug desperately at the reins, turning her head until it touched her shoulder, where my knees gripped desperately, but she walked firmly on to the chook house, her head in the opposite direction. I tried leading her up the hill and riding her along the cow path, but no, she wanted to go home to the corn and the soap, in spite of severe beatings inflicted. I remember one occasion when walking up under the mangoes. Susannah, frisky and bad tempered, was behaving in a very finicky way, and suddenly reared up, banging my head. Tears of pain came to my eyes and turning in hysterical rage, I began slapping her over her sensitive nose. She leaped and ducked to get away but I clung to her halter like a leach. At last I was tired and I dragged her on. Presently she gave my leg a shy nip. I turned suddenly and she reared back, expecting more blows. What I would give to have her back again. How differently I would treat her. Are not the saddest words in the English language “too late”?

All was not cruelty and hard blows, however. One Sunday we went down to the Dobo in the old blue bus. At least, we walked with Susannah, and Mumand Dad and the baby came later. When it was time to go home Dad persuaded us to ride. “Susannah will gallop” he said. Doubtfully we clambered into the back and peered through the dusty windows. Daddy started the engine and we went slowly forward. We had given him instructions to stop at the little mango tree (a point about half way down the road), if she didn’t come after us. She didn’t look as if she would. She continued eating at the edge of the road, but as Daddy gathered speed she suddenly lifted her head, pricked her ears and came tearing after us. Head down, her legs working like pistons, she raced forward. We cheered, passing the little mango tree unnoticed. Up at the curve in the road skirting the big yam farm, she tired and fell into a trot. We roared at Dad to let us out. He roared back saying she still had plenty of go in her. And so it appeared. She presently came charging after us again for another mile, and when we were finally put down at the church, we crowded around our race donkey, patting her heaving sides and exclaiming.

One day Daddy found her in the enclosure and tried to get her out. She was mortally afraid of Dad as he was the only one who could really control her. Susannah lashed at him, very narrowly missing, and galloped towards the fence and sailed over. We were astonished. Susannah had never attempted anything broarder than a ditch or higher than a log. Another time Susannah found the remains of an old dry fish by the river and started crunching it up. What kind of a donkey was this? Who liked fish and chewed holes in wet sheets and burnt her mouth sucking boiling clothes just to get a taste of soap?

* * *

Mummy was expecting another baby. We were delighted, but Susannah’s stays at Zambo’s became longer and closer together. We didn’t really like her to stay there. Old Voragadoo tied the rope around her foot which soon wore away the skin and made it raw. The grass was tough and sharp and Susannah grew a little thin on it. We weren’t allowed to take her corn because the men would have kept it for themselves and thought it wasted on an animal. We visited every Saturday. As we got near and passed through the yam and cassava farms and rice fields, we struck up “Susyanna”. She would greet us with a mournful bray. We would give her a lump or two of sugar and brush her with my old hair brush, before tramping two or so miles back again. There was a lot of talk between Lester and me. One day at home, having asked Mummy when we could bring Susannah back, she spilt the beans.

“We don’t think you should bring her back at all,” she said. I was outraged and reported the matter the very next Saturday as we walked along the hot dusty road. “ It means,” I said furiously, “that Daddy has been trying to sell her, behind our backs.” Lester was speechless and we stumped along in silence. Once Mummy came with us, driving the car to a creek midway between Zambo’s farm and the leprosarium, which also marked the end of the leprosarium property. (I don’t know who owned it, I always thought WEC did). She walked the rest, agreed that Susannah was a bit thin, but utterly refused to let us bring her home. We had untied her to bring her out of the bush for Mummy to inspect, but evidently we did not retie her properly. She suddenly galloped after us as we walked away and in spite of frequent pleas to take Susannah back, Mummy put her foot down with a firm hand, and sent me back with her. I did but it was found that she had dropped her halter so I went back to find it. Mounting my bike left on the side of the road, bumped back with it, and then found in horror that it had fallen off. I stared in desperation at Zambo, holding Susannah. “You had better go back for it, “ He said firmly in Hausa. Wearily I mounted my bike again. The bulldozer had been along recently, leaving a corrugated surface on the rough track. At last the halter was returned and I rode after the others.

• * * *

Conference time came. Every year the WEC missionaries of Ghana gather here at the Leprosarium for a time of prayer and discussion for about a fortnight. Some sleep in Kpandai and come out every day with the school run bus. We all have a happy time of jokes and laughter. One of the ladys, Aunty Betty Singleton, asked after Susannah, and was disappointed when we told her that she was at Peter’s (Zambo). She obtained father’s consent to bring her home, until it was time for Mummy to have her baby and we drove in the white VW to Kumasi for 8 hours.

One night in our borrowed bungalow and Daddy drove Mummy to the hospital and an Aunty Elizabeth came to keep an eye on us. Actually, she slept. So did we, as it was past midnight. In the gray dawn of July 1969, our father stretched himself out across the foot of the boys’ beds. At once the conclusion hit me. The baby was born! I got up and tiptoed past the bed full of snorers, and peered in at Mummy and Daddy’s room. Yes, Aunt Elizabeth was there. I tiptoed back.

The boys were now awake and blinking sleepily at Dad. “Has the baby come?’ I hissed excitedly at Dad. “Yes,” nodded Dad. “Is it a boy or a girl?” “A boy”. “Oh”, my eyes filled with tears. “But I wanted a little girl” I whispered stupidly. How foolish I was. How I love my little brother Daryl Neil, who was born on the day white man first landed on the moon, (Dogon sharmans had been there before). As Mum laboured, Dad held the radio to his ear, turned very low, and listened to the real man in the moon speaking. Daryl Neil, named after Neil Armstrong and Dad’s brother in law, Neil Oxenberry, was 10lb, 14 ozs. We all adored him.

When we got back to Oti, sad news reached us. A man, out shooting one night, mistook Susannah for an antelope, and lodged several pieces of lead or nail in her side ribs. Daddy certainly let us bring her home and it was with great rejoicing that we brought her home. The wounds were by no means mortal, but very painful for a week of two. Zambo visited one day. He seemed very disturbed about the fact of her being shot. He told us there was a search being undertaken for the man who had been so careless. He had to return Susannah to us in a poor state and with no money to offer. But she grew better and became lively and frisky.

The months went by, Daryl grew up, began crawling, stood up and began walking. One day as he played busily in the dirt, I rode past, and Susannah, coming out of the chook shed at that moment, started to chase me. She passed Daryl and lashed playfully out at him, knocking him over. White to the lips, Lester and I immediately broke into apologies and explanations. Susannah didn’t mean to do it, she was only playing, she was frisky from eating corn, she hadn’t done it out of spite. Once we gave her some rolled oats. They were so stale they were unfit for human consumption, but did they make her frisky! She was being very bad nowadays, nipping me at every chance, lashing out at strangers, banging her head on some bony projection of my anatomy and generally behaving very badly. We discussed this, and presently arrived at the conclusion that she needed a mate. We urged Daddy to take her up north for a few weeks and pay someone to look after her as she mated. But the time never came. Many days Susanna would run away. We would let her off of an afternoon. Just when we thought she was busy eating either grass or corn and turned our energies to other subjects, she would wander up the hill in her search for a mate and sometimes get into trouble. Often we could not find her and she spent the night out. The pawpaws in the box by the stairs of Daddy’s office continually suffered, and he got cross, so we tried to clamp down on Susannah’s wild roaming.

Those pawpaws carry many memories for me. Waiting around of a Sunday afternoon for Dad or Mum to finish the Bible study and come for a walk, Susannah would sidle up to the box while we bent back our spines, staring skywards, sprawling over Susannah’s back. She would edge over to the box, and suddenly,Yum! Another pawpaw lost its head. Hearing the crunching, we would unbend ourselves with undignified haste and set about slapping her nose until she reared and plunged. One morning at about half past six the watchman came hurrying down the hill and told Daddy she was strangling up Top. Dad woke me some time later. He had been up and found that Susannah had caught her halter on the electric saw in the carpenter’s shop but was far from choking. Another time the watchman came to tell us a sick cow was roaming about. He heard very little Hausa and conveyed his message with signs and by breathing heavily and hoarsely in a way that Dad thought was a cow’s breathing. As I was interested in animals and wished to become a vet, Dad let me come up too. The “sick cow” was Susannah. The hoarse breathing was an imitation of her braying.

One night at about 10 o’clock, just as Mum and Dad were going to bed and the lights were out, Susannah let out several mournful brays. Dad decided to see what was the matter, so he put on his boots and took a torch. When he was half way down the path she was kicking the aluminium sides and he suddenly saw a mass of driver ants. These ferocious black creatures march in a long line, sometimes for miles, and have an uncanny tendency to crawl all over you without you feeling it before they bite. Half inch soldiers rank the long lines and quite often a long tunnel is built over the busy scavengers. They will eat anything, alive or dead. If they move into your house, you’ve got to move out until they have finished eating everything that is edible. Daddy made a dash over the heaving mass of ants and tugged at the stiff bolt. At last it opened. Susannah came tearing out and together they raced back to our house. They both came into the verandah and at once Mummy and I began to pick off the ants that were burrowing into their hides. Then we found her rope and tied her up over by the chook house. The next day we spread fresh ash around her house and we had no more trouble from driver ants.

Whenever Susannah was a bit off colour with tummy trouble, she would eat a little charcoal and would soon be better. I remember a time when she was slightly indisposed like this. It was raining hard and conscious lest in her weakened condition she should catch cold, I brought her into the verandah. When, however, Mummy shooed her into the garage, we all shrieked indignantly, though the garage was no wetter than the verandah.

Oh the memories! How can I write them all down? From the very first Susannah had a habit of sucking someone’s hand, making it all slimy and wet. Anyone would do, but if we had been giving her sugar or salt she would almost swallow our hands. On such occasions, it was a very painful procedure to withdraw it. Whenever we had to give Susannah some worm medicine (horrible green stuff, usually) two or three men would come down from Up Top to help. This is how they did it. One man would seize one back leg and stretch it out behind her so she could not move. Then I would grab her head and shove it upwards until the animal health man could push the bottle half down her neck. Once she broke the bottle and what a mess! Broken glass and ghastly coloured medicine everywhere. I don’t think Susannah had more than a few small cuts in her mouth. Wherever the medicine spilt would be a horrid green stain for months afterwards even in the dirt. Susannah would generally feel pretty lousy for the rest of the day and it was pretty dangerous for her to be in the sun. At intervals I would get Susannah a mac-lick, a vitamised salty block that, however, soon lost its novelty. It was some time before Daryl was born that Susannah became rather floppy and weak. When next the animal health man came out (he was not a vet), Daddy asked him to look at Susannah. He did so and decided she had swollen sides (Burkitt’s lymphoma?) and needed an injection. A little later he and several men from Up Top arrived. Susannah was in the fenced lawn enclosure. We approached her and she showed some spirit at the appearance of strangers. Daddy grabbed her back leg and I clung to her head. The men stood watching helplessly. The animal health man held the thick heavy needle within a couple of feet of Susannah’s rump, and then, ker-hump, it was in. The fellow proceeded to fit the syringe to it when she lashed out with her free leg. All would have been well if a rather senseless fellow, Kodjo the driver, anxious to be of aid, hadn’t grabbed it. Down she went on the side of the needle. It must have hurt. She got up and the rest of the injection was given. Mummy and the boys and everyone else were shrieking with laughter, especially when daddy seized one of Kodjo’s legs and tried to grab the other in “horseplay”. “See,” he roared, “You can stand up with no legs.” Everyone was convulsed.

One afternoon we went for a picnic down at the pump house. We walked along the edge of the lake for a few yards until we came to Kodjo’s tomato farm. Tomatoes grew (one on every square yard of the ground) here in season, but there were none now or Susannah would have eaten them. We found a high rock and clambered up. Suzy wandered away to chomp the grass. Presently she stood still and stared very hard at a nearby rock. Her ears were pricked forward and she was listening intently. “Look,” said Dad. “What’s she staring at?” “It looks like a goanna,” he added. “Yes,” hissed Mum. “See those birds in the bush there?” We saw. They were fluttering away, as if in terror, for they kept trying to come back, but were forced to keep their distance. Susannah turned and quietly walked away. Presently we saw the long lump on the rock slide into the water and swim along the bank towards us. “It’s a crocodile,” gasped Dad. We strained our eyes in the dusk. Another log like shape put from the bank. My, we were pleased we were on a high rock. At last they swam away and in the gathering twilight we hurried up the cliff after Susannah.

She was put down before my sister was born at the Seventh Day Adventist hospital in Mpraeso, where the rain forest breeds huge snails in brown zebra stripe, and the diamond mines are hidden away.

Susannah was blinded by a mosquito virus, we were leaving to return to Australia and Dad made the hard decision. It was kinder for her to be shot and buried, than to be given to the village chief, to enhance his prestige, in a tribe where the care of donkeys was unknown. I fled in grief and outrage, to a remote corner of my territory, and climbed a friendly mango tree (one without the red tree ants that weave a nest of leaves) where I stayed for some hours. Mum knew what I went through, but she was powerless, as always, to go against her husband. He was terminating his relationship with Africa, taking it hard that he was a hardworking but now obsolete colonial advisor, his redundancy challenged his need for control and he gained a reputation as a slave driver. In country emptied by slavers, where I grew up amidst the ruins of traditional dwellings, the people gone or sick with leprosy, everyone trying to grow their own food, sometimes Dad could magically produce a bumper maize crop or surplus rice! A real experiment on the wetlands of the Oti creek.

Susannah’s death was a last statement of white manhood, he was able to order her death, burial (they couldn’t even eat my now healthy pet, although she was young enough and corn fed, only three years old, Dad thought it was important they not eat her as they had consumed his trophys , the great rock pythons x3 that trapped themselves in our chookhouse.) And perhaps her bones are resting peacefully, but I doubt it, not in meat starved Africa. In one brutal show of strength, he broke my equine bonded heart.

Where was Zambo? After the powerhouse fire he disappeared we though perhaps home again to northern Ougadougou, deemed aliens by Ghana edict, tens of thousands of people from another land had to uproot and go “home” if they could. Dad did everything he could to assist these valuable Christian workers to stay in Ghana with their young families, but the word of a white man was no longer law, in fact discarded, like a worn out plough.

I remember Pastor Sana Yelyeore coming to Oti River especially, on his little step through Honda. (Ma could no longer sit on the back) to say goodbye to us. Ma Sana (Somlabere) and the children John Ruth Samuel had already gone by mammy lorry home to Ougadougou, that always was before Upper (Haute) Volta and French speaking, alien to us brits. Pastor Sana had teeth filed to a point and would have known something of the teachings of Malidoma, or at least Samuel would. Thank god he gave up the betel nut because red stained filed teeth really give me the creeps and he was our first house boy in Kpandai. He put away his first wife when he became a Christian, and she went willingly home to her family for a second marriage perhaps. Somlabere bore him 11 children, the first two died in drought stricken Haute Volta as the Sahara came south and desert winds brought radiation , and the last one was called Pauline after my Mum, when she was born later.

Pastor Sana tried to speak to me in Mossi, he was master of 12 languages. I had an injunction to forget the ones I knew,

And I looked at you in silence with the troubled eyes of the non comprehending, myopic, you switched to English so I could hear you, and wished me well in my life. I wanted to say, well how will I find you, how will you know when it is time for me to marry? But my father was there, hovering uneasily and I never saw my tribal father again.

There have been many further demonstrations of Dad’s unilateral decision making style which came down from the Normans 1000 years ago via London and the cockneys, and backed by 17th century nonconformist protestant zeal, had made it through 3 generations in Australia right to the heart and lungs of the white Volta in darkest Africa, north of the kingdom of the Ashanti, it was a wonder they and the Gonja had anyone left to rule; they sent maybe a million people across the borders to poorer more desperate countries. I hope Abina survived she was the last house girl, a beautiful bronze Bassari or remnant Ome, a matriarchal tribe, now mainly in the Togo mountains visible to the east of Oti River, perhaps she walked with her bundle and a cousin or two on her back, I don’t think she married Kodjo or Zambo, Christian bachelors she was introduced to, in fact I think Zambo raped her but then he disappeared properly and I don’t think she was pregnant. Her relative came with her one day when we were selling our belongings and she said to Abina, where was the instrument she thought had been used by the white women encumbered by so many fat babies? And Abina went and found it, because we were going to take them all home, knitting hadn’t really taken off among the bible school wives, who preferred village tailors and lengths of bright cotton. And so the wicked old lady left immediately with the number 5 stainless steel knitting needle, and mother nearly didn’t notice except I cried out, how much will you pay, and she had to make a ridiculous ploy at getting money from a completely penniless old sharman to whom the girls came when they were in trouble.

Backed by Christian authority, Dad gave away his younger daughter’s baby and she believed it was her own stupid fault. Both daughters and one son have been driven from their church with great bitterness and profound unlove. We continue our victimisation in adult life and lay ourselves down as the ultimate sacrifice. As daughters of our mother we are very prone to laying ourselves aside in relationships, although we are both quite fertile. And we cultivate a sick passivity that allows others to use, drain and over run us. We have no templates for crafting successful marriages, because we broke them all. Other than a vague story about listening to God’s voice during our quiet time. Of course we found other scriptures and practises and we seemed particularly adverse to being the sort of women they idealised for us.

We have no defences against opportunistic strangers but are open to all the world in a sort of ecstasy of self abnegation. The counsellors we consult beseech us to pay attention to our boundaries and personal security. But we go through life in blind faith in the goodness of god and his created beings. We are white creoles and forever strangers in a strange land. There may be sovereignty in our identity, although great grandma Hearn/McRae said her mother was a Giacomelli royalty, exciled to England. Perhaps she was, but my poor german grandmother would take to her bed for days after a visit from her mother in law, who only ever made extended visits to one of her 12 children, and left when she had eaten them out of house and home. Mum can remember that she was awfully fat and they had to wait on her hand and foot.

A donkey in Ghana at that time was like a horse in Burkina Faso even now, an animal for a king. I knew and took royal priviledge in showing the Africans how to do it in a constant series of failure and comical error that was a tremendous lot like successful degradation ceremonies I read about in boarding schools. Heathfield High School was a little savage, and not as kind as the tolerant Ghanians. I thought that I should set a standard of care and dialogue that perhaps I only realised because I was Australian, and prevented from making close connections after we moved to Oti River, I became the sole script writer and was stripped of my tribe and given younger brothers to educate. Eventually I read the Narnia series, which has real dialogue between animals and humans. The dominant culture was abusive of animals and I hoped to start a one woman animal rights society based on my care of the donkey as a unique outcome in African soil, unfortunately we became mutually abusive. Somehow I was isolated from the delegated helpers who were supposed to know but perhaps they didn’t, and we didn’t like how they did it any way, we just wanted our own donkey back. I was consistently prevented from spending time with them or learning how to manage an unusual animal who had not come this far because of the Tsetse fly and the other diseases such as River Blindness. But the Mossi had come this far south, and were able to keep her although without the fodder she had become used to. I didn’t think they were any good at donkey care and I refused to learn from them. I had learned to scorn the teachers I could have had, and so entered a long period of martyrdom and victimhood. Abuse of animals was the starting point, perhaps taking over from her early owners, who may have been slavers. I didn’t get much past that, and the gospel of Joy was not heard and deaf ears were turned. Because I couldn’t control her I was despised and made to feel a failure on many occasions, although I embraced my donkey mission with a passion not since found. Somehow Dad found himself boxed in and Susanna had to go. A blind animal always arouses intense pity and horror less we share the same fate, and you can’t give an impure animal to a chief. A savage rebuttal of a strange racial and animal experiment, worthy of all the mind games of the 50s. But it finally cost him too much and he went home with his white manhood punctured and exhausted.

o * * * * *

And so back to my 12 year old self, all I could describe of our departure from Oti River, just three weeks after my grandpa’s death.

Mum and Dad were moving about, I thought sleepily. Then a pang of excitement went through me as I remembered. Without further ceremony I leapt out of bed, something out of the ordinary in its briskness. It was quite dark except for the glimmering light from a kerosene lamp that had just been lit. I dressed with trembling fingers. Today was D-Day. We were blasting off for the moon, er, not quite, but we were starting the long trip from Ghana to Australia today. For over ten years we had lived in Northern Ghana as WEC missionaries and now we were going back again. I was supposed to become a missionary for white High School. This was certainly an event to break the monotony of our lives.

I stripped my bed of the worn, battered sheets that had served for years (they were staying behind) and hunted about the floor for odds and ends. It seemed only a few minutes since I had fallen into bed some hours before, after making innumerable trips up road to Aunty Pris’s with things to go in her storeroom to be sold or given away. My long white legs ached with weariness, but I wouldn’t be properly rested for a long time yet. It was a long two hours of trussing and buckling cases, loading onto the ute and drinking quick cups of black tea and filling of flasks and wrapping of scones and home made bread that would get us through to Kumasi in 8 or 10 hours.

It was 5 o’clock and the grey light was making torches and lamps unnecessary. The Singletons, Aunty Betty and Uncle Norm, Aunty Janet and Aunty Pris, and Stephan who was coming with us to Kpandai. We bowed our heads and Uncle Norman prayed to the great god to keep us on our long journey. Aunty Betty wept a little but recovered by the end. Then there were good byes. Mum kissed the ladies, and Dad shook hands all round. Then, in the grey light of early morning, amidst the first sleepy astonished gobbling of the few remaining turkeys, we drove off.