Donkeyshott & Xuitlacoche

P.O. Box 9010 Nairobi. 27/765 Darling Mom and Dad, Just a quick not to give you the latest on Andy , who is much better. His leg is still not in plaster, as the wound at the back of his heel (1) has not healed completely, and naturally, a plaster can't go on a half healed wound. He has a half cast, to keep his leg rigid, but it is kept on with crepe bandages and cotton wool. He is very chirpy, and full of energy, even crawls on his hands and knees all over the bed when I am not watching. As I said in my last letter, the bone did not have to be set, as it was in position, it is really more of a crack than a break, I think. Tomorrow I am going to the hospital again, and we will see if it is possible to put the plaster on yet! I haven't been at school all this week and won't be back till Thursday. We have altered our plans a little. To and Chris and Phil are going down by car [to Mombassa ] on Saturday, as planned, but I will follow on Monday or Tuesday night, with Andy, by ...

M.A. HALL FRANKENWALD, WITWATERSRAND UNIVERSITY, JOHANNESBURG S.A. MR & MRS J. F. HALL c/o STANDARD BANK 9 NORTHUMBERLAN AVE, LONDON WC2 ENGLAND 20th March 1963 Dear Dad and Nola, Well I'm as happy as could be. Eve is back with me again. It was such a surprise. The most wonderful I've ever had. She did say on my last visit that there was a chance of coming out on the 14th. I told her not to bank on it, but nevertheless I found I was building up a lot of hope. With 9 days in hand I immediately began renovating the flat furiously. Then on Monday night I phoned the Anglican priest who has been visiting Eve and he told me there was no hope. I was terribly disappointed and of course doubly surprised when I got off the Highlands North bus on Tuesday evening - to find Eve waiting for me. She was given a train ticket to Jhb, then took a taxi home. Phil just said 'Mom', ran straight to Eve, and happily accepted she was home - few questions asked. But only today would he leav...

Edward Grey fishing in Hampshire (from Punch) Extracts: "I cannot give a fair presentaion of the events that led to the War, prolonged in its duration, and aggravated and extended in its desolation, without a candid picture of the personalities who controlled and directed these events. Their charachteristics were responsible for much that happened - for better or for worse. It is a mistaken view to assume that its episodes were entirely due to fundamental causes which could not be averted, and that they were not precipitated or postponed by the intervention of personality. The appearance of one dominating individual in a critical position at a decisive moment has often generated the course of events for years and even generations. A gifted and resolute person has often postponed for centuries a catastrophe which appeared imminent and which, but for him would have befallen. On the other hand a weak or hesitant person has invited or expidited calamity which but for him might never ...

Department of Economics, University Dar-es-Salaam PO Box 35045 23/10/75 Dear Eve and Tony - Joe posted your letter on and it was grand to hear from you after our long lapse into silence.; and here I am in your hunting ground, doing a visiting lecturer spell, teaching underdevelopment theory, in an underdeveloped country at last. The Academic Life has its perks, and this is one of the most rewarding. I am here for 4 months, by arrangement through the Inter -University Council, and half has gone by: Due back in Britain mid-December, though after a short spell in LM, hoorah, hoorah; propose to leave here by abt Dec. , though I'm hurtling through a tightly packed course, trying to do in 3 and a half months what I do in the UK in 3 terms. Students are very intelligent, off the mark like silver bullets, though I fear me they are hurtling towards high posts in the bureaucracy. Some are radicalised for as long as they remain on The Hill, where debate is relatively free and promotion and jo...

7/4/68 P.O. Box 1068, Arusha Dear Mom and Dad, Thanks for both your letters - I'm so glad you're on a diet, Dad, I know how tough it is but it is so much healthier not to be overweight. All my life I've envied people who eat as much as they like and not get fat, and I have always wished I could take after you Mom! But I take after Dad and I have to watch my weight constantly. I only keep slim (NOT thin) when I cut out all the bread and potatoes and sometimes I just drool at the thought of a fat meat sandwich...salad's good for you, but there is something so terribly unsubstantial about it! Poor Dad - but think of me, your soul mate, 6000 miles away. I'm trying hard to get To to lose some weight, he weighs 210 lbs at the moment and I know that John and Nola are going to disapprove of his excess - but he loves food as much as you do, Dad and I'm just not getting anywhere with my anti-fat campaign. To is having the expected trouble - they're messing him around ...

Darling Andy and Chris, I've just finished the letter to Granny and Grandpa , and no its your turn. Dad is downstairs, sorting out papers while he watches the telly, and I am sitting in your study room, my papers spread out all over your table. It's a lot more comfortable than mine! Though the blank white wall on the other side of the window is a bit dreary....still nothing to take away concentration. I suppose Martin and Nicky slept in your beds. Martin (who's about 6 months younger than you, I think) is almost as tall as Felicity, so suffered from your problem in the bed! Luckily, he said, he sleeps curled up. Patrick is sweet, has a sunny personality (if that doesn't sound too pukey). Martin's sports mad. Dad says he told him he wanted to be a professional golfer - yet another in the Hall family! Felicity isn't any different from last year, obviously her usual pleasant self - and David now has a bushy beard and didn't wear any particularly startlin...

Dear Granny and Grandpa, How is Golfe Juan? Delhi, as usual, is stinking hot..(i hope you don't mind me typing to you but I want to practice.) Yesterday Dad left for Chattisghar, a small town in South India, and unfortunately he will be away, for the third time in a row, for his birthday.. Delhi I find quite a boring place, I am afraid to say, but I suppose I haven't seen all the sights yet. On Wednesday we went and had a look at a Drum set as we (Andy and myself) intend to buy it. It was quite a good Drum set but it needed quite a lot of odd jobs done on it. We now have joined a swimming pool and go regularly to swim and it is one of the few places in Delhi where one can get pastries, which of course we eat everyday. School is fine and we have already broken up and we will start school again on 8 July. We are going on holiday to "Nainital" which is a resort in the foothills of the Himalayas. We will probably say there fo...

[29th March, 1966] dear garnny iandgetting fing on mywork . and i have got for stars. thnkyou for the sweets lots of love my daddya alsways does tricks and he gives us helicopters to bed ihavgovt a bookabuot that sam i am that sam i am i do not like that sam iam and on another page i will read it to you do you like green eggs and ham and another page i do not like them sam i am . ido not like green eggs and ham that awl of this lett er p h philip hall

From M. A. Hall Frankenwald, c/0 University of the Witwitisrand Johannesburg AFRIQUE DU SUD Mr and Mrs R. Steinhardt 9 Rue Roger Bacon PARIS 17 FRANCE 8th March, 1963 Dear Mom and Richard, I have just sent you a telegram to say that the appeal failed for Eve and the other three. But, you know, all the lawyers told us there was not much chance of anything being taken off the sentence. I did hope hard, of course, but it is just as well it's over and we know where we stand. We set so little store by it that we expected the disappointments. The day before yesterday a Sunday Times reporter went up to Pietersburg and was shown around the prison. The reporter, Margaret Smith, whom we know fairly well, got permission to do a story on the women's section. Yesterday she was able to give me quite a detailed account of regulations and routine. She saw Eve and the other three sitting with the rest of the women in a sort of sewing room where they do crochet work all day. They gave her a big ...

Last night I dreamed I missed the plane to go somewhere and so I had to get there somehow and I picked up a red cushion, as you would a float in a swimming pool, and flew behind the large plane on a cushion. Before the plane landed I veered off and came to Earth near our house. It had large glass windows. I was with my children and we looked out and through the windows I saw how the sky darkened and an vast inky tornado touched the Earth on the other side of town. Tornado, I shouted. My children had turned into my brothers. What shall we do, hide under the stairs? I am getting out of here, said Andy, and we all agreed. And then I woke up and the emotions of the dream were flowing through me and the traces of old states of being surfaced almost like fragrances. So ephemeral. And my eyes stretched wide and I repeated to myself over and over again: Don't forget, don't forget, don't forget, don't forget. Don't forget, don't forget, don't forget, don't f...

Photo by N.P.

Efren Bata Reyes: The King of pool Pool is very popular in the Philippines and the top player in the world at the moment is a Filipino called Efren “Bata” Reyes. Well, when I was 8 or 9 when I started playing pool. My cousin played pool and after school he used to come into school to pick me up and take me to a place we called St. Elizabeth. At first I just watched him and his friends and then one day he let me try and I got interested. I’ve been spellbound by pool since that day. We always played pool after school - 4 or 5 times a week. He taught me to play. He started to teach me from the the first moment he saw me pick up a pool cue because he could see that I had talent. He helped me to build and improve my game. In my country there are lots of places you can play pool on the streets under the awnings of street stores. And you can play in bars and malls. The best place to play pool is in a bar because the pool table is better than the table in the stree...

Last night we watched a film about the Mexican revolution starring Pedro Infante and my wife explained a little about what was going on to our teenage children: "Unfortunately, during the Mexican revolution, our family was on the wrong side. They had land and haciendas and property and the poor people, especially the peasants, were terribly exploited. The poor decided to fight for their rights to the land and to a decent life. "The revolutionaries were not saints; they were rough and ready, uncultured people. They regarded refinement and books as the mark of the bourgeoisie. My great grandfather was a headmaster, but lived on the hacienda my great-grandmother inherited. When the revolutionaries came they didn't kill him. They left him weeping, surrounded by his burned books. "Of course your family were Mexicans, like everyone else, but they thought they were apart - that they were special. They should have identified with the majority, but didn't." *...

The peat bog soldiers Take Five Blue Rondo a la Turk My favourite things Barefoot Boy Stand up and Fight King Kong overture It ain't necessarily so La mauvaise reputation Blue Monk Walkin' Le Chant de Partisan Andante 5th movement Symphony 25 Symphony No 1 We will all go together when we go Which side are you on? Le bourgoise Don't think twice Rambler, gambler Turn, turn, turn

Gulmarg: Photo by sunstone For months Mom and Dad had travelled and worked in hot and poverty blasted parts of India and then, for a fortnight or so, they came home to write up project reports and the Oxfam Newsletter. They really needed a break. The discomfort of the heat in New Delhi was compounded by the irritation caused by dust storms which left a fine red powder caked onto the window screens. The grit also got into your hair, your mouth and sometimes your eyes. The decision was taken to fly to Sri Nagar and then get a ride up to Gulmarg ...In fact Sri Nagar climbs up to meet your plane, you hardly descend down to it at all. It's like landing on a shelf. It is quite cold there and the town smells of woodsmoke. In the shops they sell silver plated hand warmers, which, in fact, are miniature braziers. You place a few live coals inside them and then put the hand warmer in your pocket. We go to carpet factories to admire the tight weave of Kashmiri carpets: 250 stitches to...

Lesser Tanzanian Bushbaby by Hilltoppoo Someone from the countryside was selling a young bushbaby in a corner of Dar-es-Salaam market. Mom was smitten and bought it. We were surprised: "Let's see this creature, sweet enough to melt Mom's resolve." "Look." she said, and in her palm sat a grey furry ball with a delicate nose, pointed ears and a long tail. Mom held her arm out and the bundle sat up and, rocking slightly, walked up to her shoulders. The bushbaby clutched at Mom's hair with tapering fingers, swung around and planted its feet in the nape of her neck, riding her like a jockey - tail in the air. "It's been doing this all the way home," said Mom smiling. Now the bushbaby climbed up onto Mom's head, leaned over, grabbed the thick frame of her glasses and swung down to stand on her nose. It looked around at all of us for a moment. Mom laughed, we joined in and the bushbaby lost its footing, dangled and fell to the ground. The b...

Photo by casual Chin 1972 Eve Hall, c/o 4b Theododende Str. 8 Munich 90 Tony Hall c/o Oxfam PO Box 40680 Nairobi Kenya My Darling, Today all going well, you’ll be going to Nairobi . I wonder how you have coped, my love, and what you have done with all our dependants, like our Bushy [our bushbaby, Ed.] ? I’m longing for a letter from you to hear about it, you must be panting still. Did Rosita deliver the letter and sweater? Did you get my express letter? By the time you get this one we’ll be off to the Austrian Alps and all. I don’t know the address, and we’ll only be there for 12 days, so just keep writing to Munich , love, and hopefully a nice big heap of letters will be there to greet me. Actually, I’m dying for a letter from you, it’s a week since the kids brought the last one. But I know how wildly busy you must have been, love and I guess that in any case, you’ve been going out quite a bit to do the farewell thing. Here we’ve been fairly busy too – during the week, we’ve been vi...

Silvio Rodriguez (Photographer?) Playa Giron Compañeros poetas, tomando en cuenta los últimos sucesos en la poesía, quisiera preguntar – me urge – , ¿Qué tipo de adjetivos se deben usar para hacer el poema de un barco, sin que se haga sentimental, fuera de la vanguardia, o evidente panfleto, si debo usar palabras como Flota Cubana de Pesca, y Playa Girón? Compañeros de música, tomando en cuenta esas politonales y audaces canciones, quisiera preguntar – me urge – , ¿Qué tipo de armonía se debe usar para hacer la canción de este barco con hombres de poca niñez, hombres y solamente, hombres sobre cubierta? Hombres negros y rojos y azules, los hombres que pueblan el Playa Girón. Compañeros de historia, tomando en cuenta lo impacable que debe ser la verdad, quisiera preguntar – me urge tanto- , ¿Qué debiera decir? ¿Qué fronteras debo respetar? Si alguien roba comida y después da la vida, ¿Qué hacer? ¿Hasta dónde debemos practicar las verdades? ¿Hasta dónde sabemos...

Lake Nakuru: photograph by Gareth Codd Escaping this bardo. What wonderfully whole and rich lives we lead in sleep, how wonderfully whole we are with each three dimensional unit of dream meaning following another in a succession that is so superior, in many ways, to the superficiality of waking consciousness. If only we could preserve this holistic reverie when conscious and communicate this daydream of love and gratitude to our dearest ones, how like music it is, how intoxicating it is and will be for the future generations who will finally be fully human. What is the poverty of thinking in the penumbral, the casual and associative trippery of being awake, when being awake is to be one eyed, with one hemisphere left comatose, supine. Either that or the slow and partial reconstruction of complete apprehension where being and existence run up against each other in a book: a slow reconstruction, Ulysses perhaps when the unconscious joins of the conscious are exposed in an orgy of cross r...