Around two years after leaving Dubai my husband was offered a job in Benin, West Africa.

By this time the children were becoming teenagers. They wanted to hang about and drink cider with their friends. Did they want to come and live in a remote part of Africa? A cement works was being built mainly to supply neighbouring Nigeria. (My husband was an engineer.) We studied a school atlas to discover where Benin was. It used to be called Dahomey and was an ex-French colony. Reputably the home of the Amazons the female warriors that cut off their right breasts in order to fire arrows more effectively. We noticed that a red line traversed the Sahara Desert and I said rather whimsically, ‘hey, if you come to Africa, we will drive along that red line. It will be an adventure.’

The children came to Africa and we all learnt so much.

Africa was a conundrum. It was like nowhere else that I had been. Africa has had few invasions, especially west Africa. They have just followed their lives, living mainly on food they have produced, and following a traditional way of life. Christianity had an influence as did the slave trade.

What to do with five children in the middle of the African bush? We explored the bush surrounding us and came across a minority tribe. The headman welcomed us and produced a bottle of Cinzano saved for special visitors. At that time, there was a commercial saying ‘Cinzano is…’ and showed ultimate sophistication.  I thought ‘Cinzano has no idea where it is.’

We were adopted by this tribe. The women were tattooed across their breasts to their waists in blue indigo in heirogliphics.  Apparently, this was their family tree. The slave traders thought they were diseased and did not take them.

Meanwhile, I had arrived in Africa as a trained nurse with little knowledge. There was a Danish doctor with a surgery full of Danish drugs who had a nervous breakdown and took to drink and left, I was asked to take over, well, I nearly had a nervous breakdown and took to drink too. I refused to be paid because I was worried that I might kill someone off. Luckily, I had all my text books including Manson’s Tropical diseases. Mainly, I had to treat malaria. The next most popular thing was gonorrhoea. Most of my patients were Belgian workers who had lived in the Congo and slept with guns under their pillows.  They would get drunk every week-end and slice each other with broken glass, I would patch them up on Monday. These Belgians had secondary African families who I also looked after.

We were in Benin for three years. It was so memorable. Africa had imbued us. We would never forget it. We didn’t understand it. There was the voodoo that was a mystery, people died because of it, but believing in the power of the spirits of the nature around you is not a bad thing.

Finally, we drove back along that red line crossing the Sahara., My husband rebuilt an old work’s Land Rover. I had thought of the idea, but had not a clue as how to execute it. He made it happen. (It must be love)