Take your children to Africa and you’ll have more than just a holiday, says Richard Trillo, you’ll have a full-on adventure – with warm welcomes, fun and games, and masses of young would-be friends at every turn.
.jpg "Image") We have taken the children to East Africa many times. Alex was four and David just five months old when we flew into Nairobi one Christmas Eve and set off for the Maasai Mara reserve, rather too late in the day, in a very dodgy Suzuki jeep. Although the baby was strapped tightly into the car seat we’d brought with us, and Alex spent most of the 12-hour journey asleep, their parents (Teresa and I) were all too wide awake as we negotiated the dark and partly flooded route, arriving at our lodge at 3am on Christmas morning. Happily a multi-cultural Father Christmas was there too, in the shape of the Kikuyu manager kitted out in traditional Maasai dress and false Santa beard, dispensing gifts to the under-twelves at Christmas dinner the next day. Other hotel staff we met on that trip got a little too carried away in their enthusiasm for mucking about with Alex – one waiter almost lost his job when he got into a water pistol fight on the lawn.
Beyond the effusive welcomes, there are adventures to be had in Africa with your kids that you and they will never forget. As soon as they were old enough, I began taking the children individually on short Rough Guide research trips. When he was ten, Alex and I experienced a ferry trip in the Cape Verde islands that felt less like a sea crossing than an hour-long ride at Alton Towers – without the safety harnesses. In a very short span of time, the mood on the converted tug went from “Isn’t this fun!” to “Just hold on… it’s going to be okay”. By the time we thumped into the dock at Porto Novo, my hands ached from clinging to the rails and hanging onto Alex as both of us parted company with the deck on every terrifying pitch.
Three days later, thanks to the gentle determination of our guide, we scaled the highest peak on the islands, the volcano Mount Fogo, and perched for a few minutes on the crater rim, 3000 metres above the Atlantic, before triumphantly bounding down the 45-degree scree slope and stumbling, exhausted, into the village bar for an impromptu jam session from the village band. On the desert island of Boa Vista, Alex had a go at driving the jeep on his own – the track across the plain had no other cars on it. And on every island, in every little town, we’d get out the football and boot it about until a game started. On the remote island of Brava, Alex’s footballing skills drew the attention of a six-year old, Manuel, who followed him everywhere and to whom we posted a football when we got home.
Mali was a revelation for middle son David. The trip went like clockwork, oiled by the charm effect of the mini-tourist with his little backpack. Old men stooped to welcome him, women would ask him when he would be available as a future husband. And every child was thrilled to shake hands with a visitor their own size, a child toubab the like of whom they’d never seen before. In one town, a crowd of mosque school beggar boys jostled to watch us eat at a fly-blown restaurant. Islamic schools are home to thousands of boys whose parents can’t afford to keep them, and twice a day they’re turned out to prowl the streets with their begging bowls. We asked the manager for a huge bowl of couscous, and David served them lunch – an uncomfortable and salutary experience for us that went down a storm with the boys.
African children grow up fast, or not at all. Ask how many children someone has – a good and common question – and the reply can throw you the first time it goes something like: “I have eight children, six are living”. As soon as toddlers can walk you’ll see them out and about with older brothers and sisters. By the time a girl is five or six, she will be a carer for a younger sibling for most of the day, often carrying the youngster on her back in a cloth wrapper as she goes about her chores. Travellers often encounter “big” sisters like this at roadside food stalls. While the boys may be hurling themselves at a rag football, chasing a bicycle wheel rim through the dust or playing the game of pebbles and holes found throughout the continent, their sisters are already supporting the family – being full-time nannies, selling oranges, carrying water. In Africa, children are your home helps, your employees, your pension. They are your economic future and also a spiritual future – a kind of guarantee of life after death.
African children make a huge impression on first-time visitors – there are so many of them and they sometimes appear to inhabit a society of their own. But it can be hard to square what may look like casual neglect – bare feet, infections, schooling for the privileged only, child labour – with the evident affection you’ll see displayed every day. Children bear the brunt of poverty, yet when sharing food from communal bowls older people always retire first, and the youngest children always scrape the bowl.
African attitudes to visiting children are always warm and enthusiastic and there’s nothing to stop you taking yours anywhere, so long as you, and they, are flexible and reasonably confident.
So, the best advice for travelling with your children in Africa? First, if you let them use the video camera, give them a crash course in holding the thing still. Next, take an inflatable football and a small pump – impromptu games will take place wherever you go. As you travel, give away all the Lego figures you brought with you (and all but one set of clothes); drink as much water as you can (purified with iodine drops if you can’t get bottled); smother yourself with Deet mosquito repellant at 6pm every day; wear a hat and sunscreen all the time; and never, ever run out of toilet paper.
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