We learned from Eggy that all clothes including socks and underwear had to be ironed because there is a fly indigenous to Sub Equatorial Africa, that lays eggs in drying clothing so the eggs can hatch out onto your skin where worms (I think they were hook worms I can't really remember) will grow in you (yuk), there were many times when I felt it best not to wear any clothesat all, I didn't trust the ironing remedy and I knew that the worms couldn't get me if I ran around naked. Eggy had to convince me that there were worse things that could get me if I ran around naked all the time and that it would certainly be worse if something crawled in my bum so I shouldn't worry as she ironed and made sure my clothes were safe.

We learned that the Bougainvillea bush, as beautiful as it is, is a hiding place specifically designed for the deadly Gaboon Viper, one of the most poisonous snakes in Africa; the Gaboon viper can unhook its lower jaw and after it has bitten and poisoned you it can open its mouth, swallow you whole from the head down and digest you so that you will never be seen again. The reason why they favour the Bougainvillea bush is because the dead dried flowers take on exactly the shape of the diamond pattern of the snake so the camouflage for the snake is near perfect. Consider that our entire garden (it was huge) was surrounded by Bougainvillea bushes concealing deadly vipers just biding their time to leap out and attack us.

We were instructed never to climb the Mango trees, because Black Mambas were waiting in hiding to bite us and choke the life out of us. We were told not to walk in the veld because all manner of snakes were hiding behind trees, with the express aim of ending our very young and innocent lives.

Needless to say we were constantly running madly through and hiding in the Bougainvillea bushes and the only thing that ever got us were the thorns, these thorns were very long and sharp and if you got one in your foot it felt as though a Gaboon viper had bitten you, I had some very nasty shocks at times.

Mango trees were one of our favorite climbing frames but because of Eggy's advice, my mother was very contradictory about us climbing the Mango trees. As Zambia is situated just below the equator the climate is not seasonal, they just have a dry and a wet season, with the result that crops grow most of the year round because of very steady temperatures. The Mango and other fruit trees in the garden were nearly permanently in fruit.Mommy loved Mango's and when she wanted to see if the Mango's (we had two varieties in the garden) were getting ripe, she would tell us to go and see if the Mango's were getting ripe, now she knew that at 3 and 4 foot tall respectively, we were not going to be able to reach a Mango from the ground to test if it was ripe, we would have to climb the tree. This is where the contradiction came about. We would pipe up "but we are not allowed to climb the trees because of the Black Mamba's" and she would respond "well it's alright, just as long as you are careful". So in ripening Mango and Mango season were allowed to climb the Mango trees, which was pretty much eight months of the year; just as long as we were careful and looked out for the Black Mambas.

As for the veld, beyond our back garden was open veld, across the road was open veld. There was no keeping us out of the veld, nothing that was going to stop us from picking Flame Lillies and teasing giant man eating Army Ants, observing stick insects and toads, the veld was our schoolyard and our playground and I know that even though Eggy had warned us against going to those places, she was delighted that we had become African enough to not be afraid and want to learn and know about even the darkest places in Africa.