Patricia Scobie - A Baboon in the Bedroom: Across Africa in a Land Rover called Stan

A Baboon in
the Bedroom

Across Africa in a Land
Rover called Stan

Patricia Scobie

with Claire Scobie

Copyright Patricia Scobie, 2017

Patricia Scobie has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

ISBN: 978-0-6480763-1-5 (eBook)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of the copyright holder.

Produced for Patricia Scobie by

Longueville Media

PO Box 205 Haberfield

Australia NSW 2045

www.longmedia.com.au

An imprint of Wordstruck.

www.wordstruck.com.au

www.clairescobie.com

@clairescobie

Patricia Scobie was born in England in 1939 and educated at Surbiton High School for Girls. She obtained a Diploma in Catering and Dietetics in 1960 and worked as a hospital dietitian before marrying her husband, Tony, and having their three children, Jane, Sarah and Claire. Patricia went on to teach Catering and Nutrition at Oxford Polytechnic (now Oxford Brookes University). After studying in the evenings, she obtained a PhD in Nutrition and moved to the University of Surrey as a lecturer in the Department of Catering Management, where she worked for six years before leaving for Africa. She has been a keen gardener, traveller and journal-writer all her life. A Baboon in the Bedroom is her second book.

Claire Scobie is the award-winning author of Last Seen in Lhasa and The Pagoda Tree , published by Unbound in the UK in 2017. She has lived and worked in the UK, India and now Sydney. She writes for numerous publications, mentors writers, and runs writing courses in Australia, Asia and the UK. Through her consultancy, Wordstruck, Claire advises companies and leaders on how to harness the power of storytelling as an effective communication tool in business. In 2013, she completed a Doctorate in Creative Arts at Western Sydney University. For more information, visit her websites:
www.clairescobie.com and www.wordstruck.com.au.

After many years reporting on the politics of African countries, I never thought I would fall for a travelogue from the continent. But I did. This book is tremendous full of love, family and adventure.

Mark Doyle
former BBC Africa Correspondent

To Tony, whose enthusiasm and organisation made it all happen.

Begin at the beginningand go on till
you come to the end: then stop.

Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland

Contents

Marseilles Tunisia Algeria Niger

Benin Nigeria Cameroon

Central African Republic Zaire Uganda

Kenya Tanzania Malawi Zambia

Zimbabwe Lesotho South Africa

Prologue

by Claire Scobie

When most eighteen-year-olds leave home, their parents wave them goodbye, go back inside and wonder what they are going to do next. In my case, it was the other way round.

At the age of fifty-two, my parents, who had barely spent a night under canvas, set off on the most amazing adventure of their lives. On 16 December 1990, when the Gulf War was about to erupt and no one knew how Western travellers would be treated or if borders would close, they set off. My dad, driven by a spirit of adventure and abundant curiosity, couldnt wait for the journey to begin.

Tony was a consummate organiser and list-maker. To make this trip happen, he took early retirement from the company where hed worked for thirty years and bought a brand new Land Rover Defender, registration number H291 XHM. My parents nicknamed the vehicle Stan and would spend many years in his company.

They had waited until I and my two older sisters, Jane and Sarah, had grown up. They thought they could wave goodbye to us, the boxer dog, Bess, and my grandmother, Trilly, without any worries. How wrong they were. It doesnt matter how far you travel, or how remote, you can never truly leave your family behind.

In 1990, mobile phones were as large as bricks; email barely existed and as for Internet cafs, forget it. During their travels, my mum, Patricia, who prefers to be known as Wink, kept a journal written on an almost daily basis. Like an old-fashioned scrapbook, beer mats, photos, receipts and menus are stuck amongst the almost illegible writing. In contrast, my dad recorded only distances and costs in his small, lined logbook. Between them, they captured a world that cannot be re-visited; a world that no longer exists.

Theirs was a journey with maps and a compass. Contact back home relied on out-of-date letters picked up at a Poste Restante a post office that held mail for travellers and the occasional long-distance phone call. This journey took place during a window of opportunity that has since closed. War, terrorism and rebellion mean many places have changed beyond recognition and many of the countries on this classic trans-African route Algeria, the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) and parts of Kenya are now too dangerous for travellers.

While many of us think our family stories are worth sharing, this one seemed too good to keep to ourselves. My parents inspired my own journeys and the books that have come out of them, but this story is Mums. So, over to Wink as she recounts in her words the journey that began it all: from London to Cape Town in a rather special Land Rover called Stan.

Here begins the journey of Tony and Wink

as they set off across Africa

Crossing

the

Sahara

Marseilles Tunisia Algeria Niger

Camping wild on
Christmas Day

Christmas Eve, 1990. We had little idea of what was going on in the world beyond the desert. What we did know was that America had given Saddam Hussein a deadline to withdraw his troops from Kuwait or face the consequences; US warships were gathering in the Mediterranean. While the world waited to see who would make the first move, we were camping wild for the first time in the Sahara. No Holiday Inns here. No signs to the nearest campground. Only utter silence.

We had pulled off the road up a track to a pumping station, a lone building connected to an oil pipe underground. There was no one in it but somehow being close to this building seemed a little more comforting than being in the desert, with absolutely no one and nothing around us. It was time for our first, rather nervous night camping in Stan and we were in bed by 9.30 p.m.

When wed talked about off-road camping amidst the familiar surroundings of Barnes in southwest London, it had seemed exciting. The truth was, I couldnt imagine it. I couldnt imagine being somewhere this remote, in such a vast featureless landscape. No birds, no wind, no traffic, no aircraft.

The Sahara covers nine million square kilometres, thats 31 per cent of Africa and as large as mainland America. As I lay there, trying to get comfortable on the mattress inside Stan and staring up at the roof, I didnt think Id ever sleep. But it was soon 5 a.m. We rolled over for a few more minutes, only to wake in full sunshine two hours later.

It took twenty-five minutes to stow away the bedding (we timed it, and we did get quicker) and move off again. We passed sand dunes, rough grass and the occasional oasis with small groups of sheep and goats. Then the landscape became completely arid, devoid of people and vegetation. The traffic was light and the only other travellers we saw were a group of twenty or so Italians on motorbikes, plus several supply vehicles for the group.