“Here we are, the swimming pool. We will have tea here, before we go back to the lodge, yes?” Thabo does that, turns everything he says into a question.
“Can we swim, Thabo?” I ask.
“Ms Emily. This might not look like your swimming pool at home, but this is an African swimming pool, so yes, please swim, no?”
Mummy helps me into my costume, while daddy helps Thabo sets up our camp.
The water is cool and dark. The water steals the heat from my skin, and I feel awake and happy.
I’m lying on a canvas sun lounge under a pale umbrella next to the pool. Mummy and daddy sit in a breezy tent. They’re drinking tea and eating sandwiches. Thabo brings a small table over to where I am. He pours rooibos tea with lemon from an orange and red teapot.
“The hot tea will help you stay cool, by helping you sweat. And the sandwiches will wrestle your hunger, Ms Emily. Yes?”
“Thank you, Thabo.” I drink the tea, eat the sandwiches. The sun bakes the smell out of the sand. It smells of old stories and the dust in nanny’s attic. Something tickles my arm. It’s a dragonfly; a short string of coloured beads with needle legs and window wings.
“Good afternoon, I’m Lekgato,” says the dragonfly.
“Oh. Uh, hullo. I’m Emily.” I wanted to point out that dragonflies don’t talk but didn’t know if it is rude to say this to a dragonfly who clearly did.
“Wonderful place this pool,” he says.
“Yes,” I say. Lekgato falls silent as if he’s run out of things to say.
And then, “The animals made this swimming pool.”
“Oh,” I say.
“It was a long time ago. It hadn’t rained for a very long time. The plants had shrivelled to dust and trees cast shadows like black bones next to the bleached bones of the animals who’d died of thirst. Heat poured endlessly from the sun over the parched earth.
“One day Lion called an animal-wide council for that night. This had never happened before, but they were extraordinary times. They met just over there,” Lekgato points with his tail, “on that rock, below the cliff. Cheetah, Leopard, Jackal, Baboon and Hyena, who feared Lion less, stood at his feet. The antelopes stood with Elephant, over there, and the Zebra stood with the Giraffe and the other smaller animals over by the trees, ready to run if the hunters grew appetites.
“Lion sat hot and tired under the light of Lady-Moon.
“’Friends! Man-Sky has forgotten, for the longest time, to gather the clouds to water the land. If we do nothing, we will dry up like kola nuts. We must work together and dig a pool so deep and wide that we find the water that’s hiding beneath the ground from this heat.’”
“Lion raised his blistered paw, and asked ‘who’s with me?’
“Cheetah, Leopard, and Baboon raised their limbs. Elephant and the antelopes agreed, as did Zebra and Giraffe and everyone else. Except Hyena. He remained silent.
“’What about you, Hyena?’ growled Lion.
“Hyena looked around, shrugged. ‘Sure.’ He then lowered his head to hide his sly smile.
“They started digging the following night. Tusks and hooves and claws and nails and paws fought with the dry soil. They all worked night after night hunting for the reclusive water. All except Hyena, who did nothing but walk around, telling the others to do that, or this, or to stop doing this or that.
“After a week of digging, Lion confronted Hyena. ‘Hyena,’ he said, ‘why aren’t you helping? You gave your word, but you do not much of anything.’
“’What am I, a slave to my word? I changed my mind, and I refuse to ruin my nails,’ he giggled walking away.
“It was Zebra who found the water. He stood at the foot of the cliff when his hoof hit the spring. The spring gurgled and burbled and then spurt and showered, and all the water that had hidden from the heat spilled forth and filled this pool and then overflowed and ran dark rivulets over the chapped earth.
“And the animals drank and swam and celebrated. Hyena skulked away to bide his time. He came back the following night while the others slept. He drank his fill, and filled his pots, pleased with himself. And then, to be funny, he defecated at the water’s edge.
“The next morning the others were furious. Not only had Hyena broken his word, but he’d disrespected them. So, Lion went to Baboon and gave him his knotty walking stick. A long stick with a knot of wood for a head.
“’Baboon, I will entrust you to teach Hyena a lesson. Here is my stick. When Hyena comes down tonight, show him that he shares this world with us.’ Baboon agreed. He had an afternoon nap then stayed up late, hiding in the shadows of the acacia trees.
“When Hyena came to the water’s edge, just as he lowered his head to drink, Baboon jumped out of the shadows and walloped and thumped and hammered Hyena with that knotty stick and chased him from the pool.
“The next day, Lion rewarded Baboon for a job well done by giving him a home at the top of the cliff over the pool. If you listen you will sometimes hear him barking, ‘boggom, boggom.’
“And Hyena, to this day, still has the bruises from that night across his flanks and back, to remind him that he shares this world with others.”
“Emily, wake up, love. It’s getting late.” It’s mummy. Lekgato, the dragonfly must have started when she came over. Just then, a ‘boggom’ barks out from the top of the cliff over the pool. Mummy jumps.
“Don’t worry, mummy, it’s only Baboon,” I say. Thabo must have heard me because, in that moment, he stopped packing up the camp, looked over his shoulder at me and winked.
Love this story. Will be reading it to my kids tonight