Chapter 12
Holiday
Our moving has come only days before our holiday at home. We arranged only our furniture, checked what would be needed from home and made preparations to leave.
Our new neighbours – our former ones, better to say, from the high-rise – have come in May, they would not be able to have their holiday before November. They asked us to take their daughter with us home. It has been a big responsibility, but we did not sense it then. Well, at last all went well, but we could have had a lot of troubles with some bad luck.
Our flight has been booked through Rome and John agreed to book tickets with a 5-day stay in Italy. I am ashamed to tell that on my first stay in Rome, as well as on my second one, I did not see tourist attractions of either the city or Vatican. Alas, I have not been alone, my programs have been influenced by my family. At the same time, I could learn well all the shops and department stores of the city.
Some of the sights of old Rome we have seen. But no gallery or museum saw us. And the same can be said about beaches. It was the beginning of August. Heat at that time is oppressive, on the streets only we were to be seen, no sane person wanted to die from stroke. But my wife’s appetite for Italian goods has been bottomless.
It was a fine experience to board the plane of our own national airlines, to hear our language spoken and to see the small "Macko” (bear) cheese in all snacks packages. For four weeks we would be home.
It was an evening flight and on the arrival we have been met by dr Hamid and his fiancee. The brother-in-law of my wife, L., has not been there. The young doctors and the small girl in our care spent the night with us.
The next morning we delivered the girl to her grandparents, and at least this job has been done. We had an offer from my sister-in-law to take their summer house as long as we need it. It has been finished during our stay in Africa, but it had been in construction for already four years, we knew it well. It has been situated near the southern shore of a lake not far from the capital, but to beach it was about ten minutes by foot. We rejected with thanks, but at least agreed to spend there some days the next week.
My wife has found an elderly teacher to deal with my son before he would sit for examinations of third grade subjects. She got a small sum for that, but she said, it was a pleasure to teach him. He sat for the exam all right.
We had to visit all our relatives. First of all – it goes without saying – the parents of my wife. Before we left for Africa, the owner of the house, where they were living, had sold half of the site, going out on road, to a cooperative to build a house. First thing to do for the new owners was to close water supply to the old couple. My father-in-law, who had installed the facility 20 years before from road to house, had to do it again from another mains. Being 77, he became ill of hard work. He has just been freshly released from hospital.
Anywhere we took visits, we had to speak about our life in that far-away land. L. especially enjoyed our story about fleas. He has not seen a flea in his life and he would be glad to visit us there. We settled this topic, that we would prepay for their tickets and they would return it in our currency.
When we visited my sister and his husband, she told us news about the site and house owned by my mother and her brother until the deaths of both, inherited by the two of us and the daughter of my uncle.
She said, our cousin wanted to sell the house and her share of the site. If we bought it, we could sell it together in one package. I have not been able to promise anything, but she asked me to reject selling my share separately. We agreed. Had I seen into the future, I would have signed an agreement with both my sister and our cousin. Lack of it would cause me a lot of troubles.
I visited my workplace and found all unchanged. Only rumours have been spread about a possible restructuring of the trust. Before return to Africa – "home” as we both said with my wife accidentally – I invited my colleagues for a dinner in a small sub-terrain restaurant.