Five things you don't know about me

Hum... Nancy tagged me with the five things meme. It's been around a while, so she cleverly tags people with a specific theme (and writes some biscuit recipes in the process).

So, what five things do people not know about me - related to learning?

1. My daughter is crazy about capoiera, a Brazilian martial art, and married to Contra Mestre Parente in capoeira. To rise through the ranks in capoeira you not only have to be able to move your body in harmony and in competition with your opponent, you also have to be as good at the berimbao and the music as you are in physical moves. And you have to be able to be able to play equally well with people who are not as technically accomplished as you. I'll never forget watching one of the grand Masters from Brazil telling a very impressive player that he wouldn't get his next belt because he didn't know how to play with someone less good than him.

2. I have been really irresponsible in my life. For example, I used to be crazy about scuba diving when I was in my late teens. I jumped into waves crashing onto cliffs because I counted the one (it was the fifth) that dragged you out with the current instead of smashing you onto the rocks. I dived on mooring where there were tiger sharks and my diving mentor-partner, Conway Plough, lost his leg to one. Looking back on some of my experiences I feel enormously humbled for experiencing those times and still being alive  to tell the tale. I learned there is a lot of luck to life. 

3. I once pee-ed in the desert in front of a busload of people. I was travelling by bus between the Red Sea hills and Kassala in Sudan. It was a day-long long journey and I couldn't hold it in any longer. I told the driver my daughter needed the toilet. He stopped and I stepped out into the desert. No matter how far I walked across the hot, flat sand I could still see all the bus passengers who had moved across to the same side of the bus to stare at me.  Eventually I gave in, and with my backside exposed to the spectators, pulled down my trousers and just went. Just as I was finishing I heard the bus driver running behind me. "You forgot this" he said, handing me a plastic container of water. Everyone clapped. I got back in the bus and ten minutes later we stopped at an oasis where all the ladies got out of the bus, went to the other side of the dune, and crouched with their long dresses to do their  business. I learned there are good reasons for wearing a long dress when travelling in the desert.

4. Also in Sudan, in 1987, I was looking for Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim who I wanted to represent for an event on Women's day in Leicester, UK. The idea was to represent a woman we admired - and she was the first woman to become Member of Parliament in Sudan and had fought hard for women's rights. Her husband had been tortured when she and he would not co-operate with Al-Numairi, the Sudanese ruler who had taken control of Sudan in a coup d'état in 1969. I learned that Fatima Ibrahim lived in the old part of Khartoum and started my search for her in a customary street breakfast café. A man offered to take me to her and I happily got into the car with him to go and meet her. But first, he said, he should show me the sights of Sudan so he took me (and my daughter) to Khartoum Zoo and other similar tourist attractions. After a while I realised that he was actually trying to prevent me from meeting her. When I insisted, he told me that he had arranged for me to meet his sister instead. She would introduce me to Sara Al-Madhi, the one of Sadig Al-Mahdi's two wives. He was the Prime Minister and from one of the most distinguished political and religious families in Sudan. So we went back to his house where I met my guide's sister, a member of Al-Mahdi's government. We drank tea in the family compound, a young Black slave boy scampered in the background, afraid of the White people. The sister gave me a lovely massage and waxed my legs (a practice I had already experienced in my travels in Sudan) before taking me to one part of the Palace where I was given the position of honorary man in order to fulfil my quest of finding out about Fatima Ibrahim. It turned out that Sara Mahdi was in hospital and other members of the government/family were going to talk to me. The main figure was the Minister of Foreign Affairs (I think). In perfect and eloquent English, in his robes and cross-legged on cushions, he quickly assured me that a nice English woman like me did not want to know Fatima Ibrahim and that Al Mahdi was very favourable to women's rights. With that out of the way he wanted to talk about English literature, of which he was far more knowledgeable than me. Finally he suggested that he extend my visa so I could go hunting in the game reserve of Sudan. "I thought that was illegal" I said naively. "Don't worry," he smiled "We do it." I declined both the offer to extend my visa and to go hunting and was taken back to my host's house, where they had generously taken my daughter out to the Khartoum Funfair for the evening.  That was just one incident where I learned how unpredictable the small things in life can be.

5. I harbour fantasies of becoming a domestic goddess and an author of erotic novels, but I've learned that I can't do everything.

Keeping with the idea of a specific theme, I'm going to tag people for things we don't know about something specific: João Aldeia for Setúbal secrets, Blogzira for foreigners in Portugal, James Kariuki for e-learning in Africa, Magda Balica for education in Romenia, Mónica André for the blogging world in Portugal.

Comments

[Mónica]

I'm always trying to get around unnoticed and you just framed me ;-)

Have to get back on that between Lisbon and Guimarães :-D

Big 2007 Kiss

[Beverly Trayner]

Good! I'm glad I caught you.

Ano Novo Kiss for you too.

[lucy blogzira]

i now have a delightful image of you peeing in the desert. brill.
oh go on then... I'll give it a go. happy new year, by the way... we got back from ingerlund and I'm still in my new year blue funk. xxx ;)

[Beverly Trayner]

i guess peeing in the desert is one way to be remembered!!

happy new year for you too and can't wait for next walk.