I am Toni, the diminutive,
well-adored wife of Andre` and the mother of his four children, (not ‘kids’.)
We have on our hands a very possible ‘uprising’. How do I survive? How can
you? - that is the question.
Well, to state the obvious - you’d have to be ME surviving
MY children’s uprising in the wake of a short holiday to Guyana from St. Lucia
for this piece to have any real significance for you, but what the heck! Let’s
go.
First of all our ‘lambs’ Adrian, Alex, Anthony and li’l Sophie had not even
the slightest desire to spend ten days of their Easter break in Guyana.
Guyana?
They
remember me telling them some time ago of mammoth-mosquitoes in Guyana and
of too many run-down buildings!!! Perhaps for them the only terrific thing about Guyana
is that Mom & Dad fell in love there! True, Guyana is ‘The Land of Many Waters’ - not the beautiful blue-green waters of the islands - rather, a curious brown.
The questions were legion.
“Does anyone know how goes it on the technical scene?” my teen-ager asks. “Do SOME
of the homes have electricity, Mom?”
“What on earth will we do for FUN??!!”
quickly follows from my little girl.
I could only pray that there would be
something there in Guyana
to keep them from wishing death upon us all.
So, off we went, compliments
of BWEE, early Friday 7th April. It was an unkind 4:30 a.m. when we
piled into an 8-seaterbus bound for Castries
and our ‘bird’- on time, I might add - headed for the South American skies.
Let's back-up a bit.
You see my children, my lambs, could only survive the
air-conditioning, the queuing, the armpit searches and everywhere-else-decent security searches, the woe-fully inadequate in-flight snacks, the zero entertainment (apart from the
very pretty lady demonstrating for the umpteenth time the safety &
emergency drill), the ear-popping-descents, and more (oh help us) more queuing upon arriving at our destination largely because there is the “Toni Factor”. Yep, Me!
A full month or so before we left,
I began ‘listing’ everything, even considering the various ‘what-ifs’. I made seperate lists for each young one and even for ‘Andy‘ & I (The ultimate Stage Director if you will.)
It went something like this (roughly):
Just for the journey there for my boys and Sophie (in each carry-on bag):
a.
Activity book or ‘Gameboy’ or reading book
b.
Crayons & pencils.
c.
Sandwiches & slices of pizza-homemade, Grannymade
d. Juices & water.
e. Chewing gum & cotton balls.
(Our oldest son Adrian
insisted on his mp3 player versus the written page. Surprise,
surprise.)
Do I need to say why the
‘chewing gum and the cotton balls’? The other items are quite
standard I think. but a pack of ‘BUBBLICIOUS’ in each young one’s back-pack along with trusty cotton balls for those nasty ear-popping experiences are absolute gotta-have. (You
don’t want to be going through that experience unequipped thousands of feet in the air with four children in tow!)
Absolutely not!
Suffice it to say, our nearly 12 hour
trip from teeny- tiny St. Lucia to the largely unknown Guyana (unknown to our edgy little traveling crew) was made sooooo much easy because of my tireless planning and re-planning and the paying of attention to those tiny little, but very necessary, details.
I’d like to imagine that
all moms of lambs will try to avoid in-flight toilet duties (it's cramped up there)
and realize they must command their young ones to visit the
‘necessary room’ before the plane leaves the ground! And before it leaves you.
"Off you go my darlings. Off to the you-know-where to do you-know-what. Hurry along. Hurry Up!" And
now mommy’s mind is at ease just as with each of their bladders. Ahhhh! Feels so much better.
So my lists, my paying attention to those necessary things,
paid off quite nicely for me. Got through this day without screams, whips or belts. And isn't that the way we want it always. My husband says that
no one could pull such things off like I do. But of course,
no one knows my lambs like I do!
I do think I did pretty ok
– all of my plaits stayed put all through the day (unlike the little lady’s in
the illustration.) All my Andy had to do was take care of the official stuff. This
little woman took care of setting the stage just…so.
Come to think of it
though….. there‘s one, just one scene I couldn’t have planned for. The one where ALL four of my lambs tell me they do not want to
return to St.Lucia, our home, after ten God-directed
days in Guyana.
Who would’ve known? Huh!! But I thank You Father. What a beautiful time we all had. Click Here To See Andre's Blog on Our Trek From St. Lucia to Guyana.
TONI KLIEN
RYO Women
Perfect For The Next Trip!