Sheep and moving to Tristan

It’s that time of the night again and Caitlin is once again on the phone to her dad – discussions again centering around the sheep, whether it will be a ‘girl’ sheep or not, and whether it is actually a good idea to dye the sheep pink (Caitlin is concerned that the sheep’s mother will be cross with it for dying its coat ….)

What these conversations are showing me though, is just how much my daughter misses her dad and just how important he is in her life.  I’ve been battling with the concept of allowing my child (whom no one can look after like me – with apologies to Erik ) to go so far away from me for more than 3 months.  Realising how much Caitlin misses her dad’s input into her life on a daily basis doesn’t make the decision any easier to swallow, but it does convince me that this is exactly what both of them need.

She is so excited at the idea of going to school on the island for a while and seeing her friend Ryan (who was born four weeks after her and with whom she was the greatest of friends when they were both babies).  I am comforted by the thought that she will be with her Muddish and Fardi (god mother and father on Tristan) and surrounded by the largest group of babysitters ever gathered together in one place.  The thought that she will have the experience of unprecedented freedom, of a welcome into every home and that she will come back to South Africa calling everyone ‘Tiddy’ or “Buddy’ makes me smile… I just wish I wasn’t going to miss her so very, very much!

Communicating with Tristan

It’s been far, far too long since I’ve written – life has, for the most part, been a bit complicated over the last three years, and I have been living back in South Africa since early 2008.

Erik, however, has been travelling backward and forward between the island since then, leaving our now 5 year old daughter, Caitlin, with me.  I’m listening to them at the moment having the most bizarre conversation I’ve ever heard – Caitlin is telling her dad he needs a hearing aid because he cannot hear a thing she is saying.  They are talking over one another with Caitlin asking her dad how big a sheep’s ‘poops’ are, and him answering that the feet are not too big, or that the ears are big enough for the sheep to hear!  Erik is, of course, trying to convince us that the problems with his hearing are related to the quality of the phone line, but Caitlin and I are more and more convinced it’s more about his auditory abilities than bad phone lines.

Caitlin is very keen on the idea of going back to Tristan with Erik in September so she can go and see her birth place and get to know the amazing people who welcomed us into their homes.  Most of the discussions around the impeding move are around the sheep Erik has promised Caitlin she will get when she comes to Tristan – currently, they are discussing whether it would be possible to dye the sheep pink so she can easily identify it among the other sheep.  Sadly, Erik is actually serious about this and even suggests that I contact my cousin who is a vet in order to identify the best way to go about dying the poor animal.

While the conversation continues around ‘excuse me’ and ‘I must have a pig and you must have a sheep’ I’m going to end off and take  Caitlin to bed… we may be in South Africa, but we miss Tristan every day.