– 6:27 am
I am recapping from seat 5A on a Brussels airline heading to Douala, Cameroon. From the corner of my eye, the aisle is silent but busy with people. Most of them head down into their boarding passes, and only looking up to find their seat numbers. The sun is bleeding in from the window on my left. It’s quite the picture.
My alarm went off at 3:30 am and I’ve been up ever since. Addison Lee bailed on me this morning. Not only did the driver not turn up without notice or warning, but they also charged me for the service they didn’t provide. I’ll have that fight when I get back. I don’t want to start today with a quibble.
Fortunately for me, I have a heroine by my side in your mother. Without asking, she was intuitively on Uber during my frustratingly unproductive conversation with Addison Lee’s customer support. Given our home address, I was fortunate she could find a taxi. I popped out to flag it down before he could get lost on our road (as they all seem to do).
07:06 – The plane is taking off. A man’s just been yelled at to “SIT DOWN” as he walked up to the hostess while we were still in “take-off” mode with the seatbelt signs brightly on. I’m trying to hold in the giggle. Sloppy dude. Sloppy.
Anyway, I threw both my “Africa bags” in the booth of the electric crowd carrier, an extended kiss goodbye to your teary-eyed mother and off into the Benz “bus”.
You are probably wondering what an “Africa bag” is. By my definition, it’s any large luggage, rigid and flexible enough to overpack and ram things in. It ranges from cheap to moderately priced. Inexpensive enough, such that there is neither regret nor disbelief when it comes out damaged at Baggage Claim. You should see how the cargo loaders fling them around. It’s luggage assault. My Eastpaks will be unrecognizable by the time I get back.
My black driver, late 30s or early 40s, had Captial FM on. “It’s the Weekender”, I heard the host say. With the near-miss I just had with not finding transport to the airport, I wasn’t about to complain about loud Techno that early in the morning.
He also seemed to whisper throughout the short conversation we had about electric cars. I couldn’t hear a thing. So for the most part, I responded with “yeah” and “Mmm”. It wasn’t a chatty ride. No complaints though from this sleep-deprived passenger either.
07:46 – Just landed in Brussels. It’s 08:46 here. O’look, it’s snowing! I’m going to get my shit together, text your mother and find my connecting flight. Brb.
I had to complete a Passenger Locator Form at baggage drop. Urgh! Another document to complete. Thank you, COVID! Your mother would’ve had this done before arriving at the airport though. She’s meticulous with travel paperwork.
From there, I went through Security without further fuss and grabbed a watered-down coffee an Americano at the lounge. I had a second one on the flight and here we are, at another lounge in Brussels. I just had a fascinating chat with an older gentleman who has a son a few years older than me. His business card says he’s the Founder and Co-President of the Africa Research Excellence Fund (AREF). I just intro’d him to your mother via email. Hopefully, their lines of work can intersect somehow to mutual benefit.
Plenty has changed since my last entry. At this point, you are days beyond 21 weeks old and kicking, quite literally. You are no longer shy about making your presence felt. I’ve felt it to know. You won’t sit still. Those may be my genes.
We had a scan last week and the sonographer said you were in “perfect health”. I’ve attended a few and been emotional on all occasions. It kills me your grandmother can’t witness this. This was her dream, not mine. She didn’t wish for anything else but to see my children. I can barely contain the desolation.
Other than that, your host is doing an outstanding job at keeping you safe and healthy. For a time, she had some pain around her lower back, and walking hurt her hips and pelvis. But Bruno (her PT), has been doing an even better job at keeping her pain-free.
Sometimes she has to hold my hand up a flight of stairs or pause to catch her breath but we’re told this is to be expected. I cannot overstate the amount of work she is putting in to ensure your wellbeing. When it comes to your health, you owe her a great deal. She’s risen to every challenge, sometimes with tears but risen nonetheless, face to face and eye to eye.
I do boxing chants when she has her hooded robe on in the mornings, “Ali, Ali, Ali”. It’s to let her know I’m in her corner, coaching and cheering her on.
Before boarding a plane to… just about anywhere now, you have to prove you don’t have COVID-19, with a negative test result. For Cameroon, I need a negative PCR test result, also known as a Fit to Fly certificate. I did the test in Kingston on Friday after work. Your mother came with, not only for the company but to ensure I was taking the right test. I listen to her on these matters.
Rather telepathically, we decided to grab a burger after. We walked to a place called Smok’d in Kingston. The burgers were good but honestly, we make better ones at home. Between mouthfuls, we talked about a natural birth versus a Caesarean. My ignorant perspective was, “Why would anyone want a natural birth?” It sounds agonizing. And I struggle to see the upside.
Reading the article your mother sent me later that evening, the body apparently learns from the first experience and is better equipped during the second coming (if you are insane enough to have more children).
C-sections seemed ill-advised and riskier. If I recall correctly, it read as though, a natural birth second time round from a C-section for the first birth, was more susceptible to complications. Caesareans were generally for people who medically couldn’t have the baby naturally. The matter is currently unsettled but I told your mother it’s (her body and thus) a personal decision. I will support either. However, given what I now know, I would lean towards a natural birth in lieu of a Caesarean.
13:24 – After “technical delays” and seemingly much ado about nothing, we’ve now been in the air for about twenty or so mins. I’d be drunk by now if I obliged to every booze offer from the hostesses. They put up this pleasant but astonished smile every time I decline and opt for water instead. Wine gives me headaches and coffees are a no-no beyond midday. I’ve also been given a landing form to fill which I better do before returning to this. Brb.
Liza’s birthday is March 10, her father’s the day after. So on March 8, we touched down in Venice. The trip marked your first holiday, your first time on a plane, a speed boat and a gondola. We’d never been either so it was the first time for the trio.
It’s a very unique city, built entirely on water. It takes time to wrap your head around the fact the primary mode of travel is by boat. You don’t have bus stops, you have boat stops. But all of that is probably normal to those who live here. As a consequence, the pace to life is a lot lot slower. And that is a great thing while on holiday.
Outside our hotel window, across a tiny canal, was a construction site, a renovation of sorts. I found myself thinking about how long it took to assemble all those raw materials by boat. Probably forever.
There are several monuments that speak to the city’s expansive history. The castles were stood up by wealthy families who had gondoliers to take them around. The colours the gondoliers wore was ID to say what house (or family) they came from. That’s the overly simplistic version, for dummies.
Turns out that buying a canoe doesn’t make you a gondolier. Each gondola takes about a year to build from scratch and entirely by hand. Only two places make them, all within Venice. It’s “unauthorized” if not from either of these places. The gondolier requires training for equally as long and needs to pass an exam set by the controlling body. A gondola can stay within a family, passed down from father to son across generations.
Our gondolier – and I will go further to say we had the best one – spoke of the job with so much pride, refusing to ever do anything else. He was joyous about being the first of his bloodline to become a gondolier. He bought his gondola off a retiring gondolier on the cheap and is paying it off slowly, at Venice pace.
We got to hear fascinating short stories paddling up to every landmark, key facts about every monument as he kicked from wall to wall with elegance, poise and extreme precision, never hitting another gondola, even around seemingly impossible bends and corners.
For such a small city, there are apparently over 400 bridges in Venice. But I can see how they got to that count. Some of them are no more than a couple of meters long. The word bridge is used very loosely here. Coupled with the stench of the canals made for a fun and memorable birthday activity.
I had breakfast once, on the first morning, to see if it was delicious enough to forego my fast. For the remainder of the holiday, I merely kept Liza company while she had breakfast. I regimented to a plain black coffee.
We walked a lot, from one end to the other. She’d be exhausted at the end of the day but thankfully without pain. We had some truly fantastic meals. The best of which was a six to eight-course set at Wisteria. It was by miles the best food we’ve had this year, or since Croatia which was about 6 months ago. Exceptional!
