Some readers may be dismayed or even shocked by my unorthodox approach to motherhood, shocked by the risks, the dangers, the daring that Ronit was exposed to, especially in Morocco. But others may be inspired by knowing that motherhood need not be the end to travel and adventure, may find the adventures and experiences described here a way of opening the gates to their own promises of adventure. If its true that appetite comes with eating, perhaps the tastes experienced here will develop into a wondrous appetite.
Travelling today, in many ways, is easier than when I did it. The possibility is greater now than it has ever been. As Hilary, the renowned mountain climber said, “the greatest loss is not taking the adventure.” I hope this book inspires you to take it, or at the very least to participate in the journey of someone who did.
One
Travels in the Womb
“I’m taking Ronit to Morocco for a year,” I announced with measured composure, and then held my breath, fingers strangling the telephone receiver, grateful that I was in London and my former husband, Shimon, in Montreal.
“You’re doing what?” Shimon hurled at me, his voice hurtling across the Atlantic and exploding with disbelief and outrage.
As my eyes squeezed shut against the sting of his disapproval, and my ear numbed as though struck, I was suddenly reminded of another voice on the telephone, fifteen years before, using those exact words, “You’re doing what?”, in that exact tone. I was very young then and in the last stages of pregnancy with Ronit. The doctor had instructed me to phone him as soon as the contractions began, day or night. But I kept delaying the call. I was feeling dislocated, fearful, having returned home to Montreal only weeks earlier after a long, wonderful absence travelling the world, because I needed somewhere to have a baby. The problem was I didn’t want to have a baby and dreaded going to the hospital, knowing that once there, I would have no choice. Finally, just after midnight, I phoned the doctor, compounding my fear of the hospital with that of waking him.
“My contractions have begun,” I announced brightly, belying my multiple anxieties. I could hear his yawn.
“How long apart are they?” He sighed sleepily, and I could tell he was pondering the perversity of yet another female who insisted on giving birth in the middle of the night.
“They’re coming every few minutes.” Suddenly he was wide awake.
“What are you doing?” His voice was shrill and I detected an edge of alarm.
“I’m going to have a shower and go to bed.”
“You’re doing what?” he rasped, spitting that same disbelief and outrage in those same words. I repeated my agenda with dwindling confidence. “You’re getting into a taxi and going to the hospital, pronto, right away. I’ll meet you there.” He hung up.
Shimon and I couldn’t afford a taxi, so with heavy heart I woke my father and he drove us to the hospital. An hour later Ronit was born.
Now, fifteen years later, Shimon’s voice had that same resolute quality the doctor’s had all those years ago, and I shuddered at the recollection, my resolve threatened.
“You’re not taking Ronit to Morocco.”
“Why not?”
“Why not? I can’t believe you’re asking that. It’s suicidal, that’s why not.”
He proceeded to recite a litany of disasters involving people we knew; friends robbed of everything, money, clothes, tickets, passports, everything; a close friend imprisoned for months in a filthy cell; female friends, especially vulnerable, harassed and pursued to the point of despair; police extracting bribes; and drugs, drugs and more drugs; the list was endless and accurate.
“And you ask why not? If you want to get yourself killed, that’s your business, but what do you have against Ronit? You’re supposed to be her mother.… And what about school?”
“School’s no problem,” I said quickly, grateful to circumvent the heavier issues. “She’s a year ahead anyway. I’ll just take her out for a year. They’re used to that in London,” I improvised. “It’s no problem.”
“It’s no problem? It’s nothing but problems.” I could feel his frustration, his exasperation at having no control over my decisions and his daughter’s life.
“How about if I take her to Morocco for six months and you take her to Canada for six months,” I offered.
“I don’t even want to discuss it. If you take her to Morocco, I’m cutting off my support cheques.” With that he hung up.
But stopping Ronit’s meagre support cheques was hardly a deterrent. It would just mean adding waitress work to my supply teaching to earn extra money, and hitchhiking instead of taking buses and trains to conserve it. It would make things a lot more difficult for us — not really what Shimon wanted, but he had to do something to express his opposition.
I understood his worry. Shimon had never been to Morocco. The sinister stories he heard had fermented in his imagination until Morocco became one gigantic tale of horror, peopled by dark lean men with alligator jaws who snapped up foolish ladies like me for breakfast, saving the succulent ones, like Ronit, for dessert. It loomed like some faceless monster with a terrible heart, unpredictable, unknowable. It was different for me. I had been to Morocco. It was not a life-threatening experience. But I knew it would be impossible to convince Shimon of that. I remembered the terrible fear my parents suffered when I was in Northern Ireland and the Canadian press reported incident after incident of shootings and bombings. They begged me to return, fearing for my life. It was impossible to convince them that I was in no danger; that despite the bombings and shootings, life was entirely ordinary; that imagining the horrors in Northern Ireland was far worse than being there; that life endured with stubborn normality behind the headlines and horror stories. But that was no consolation for Shimon. For him only the dangers were real, and I was being an irresponsible mother by exposing Ronit to them.
I did not accept the charge of irresponsible mother, although I knew a good case could be made to support it. As a matter of fact it would be possible to argue that my being a mother was one long series of irresponsible behaviour, and that this Moroccan trip was only one more irresponsibility in a long list which began with Ronit’s conception.
Ronit was conceived while Shimon and I were hitch-hiking from East Africa to South Africa. Shimon was South African. We had met in Israel and married so that he could obtain leave from the army, which had exhausted him. With borrowed money we flew from Tel Aviv to Nairobi to visit Shimon’s sister and then hitchhiked the vast distance to Johannesburg to visit the rest of his family. At that time hitchhiking was the only means of travelling by land. There was no public transportation. Actually there were no roads, only dirt tracks riddled with ridges and potholes. The journey was difficult, bumping through areas where the tsetse fly had wiped out human life with sleeping sickness and the only visible homo sapiens were fierce-looking nomads, seven feet tall, draped in blankets and beads, wandering with spears and cows. For days on end there was nowhere to buy food or find a bed. Not surprisingly, when we reached the civilisation of Dadoma, Tanganyika, (now Tanzania), we splurged on the luxuries of Hotel Dadoma. These included a bedroom with a four-poster bed, silk sheets and a mosquito net.
The contrast with nights spent cramped in vehicles or on the floors of wooden shacks was so intoxicating that I became pregnant. However, this fact did not reveal itself to me until we reached Johannesburg, two and a half months later. Meanwhile, secretly, tenaciously, the child in my womb clung to life. Ronit’s survival was nothing short of a miracle.
Outside