We need her

One of my friends, with whom I was closest to after the birth of my first two daughters, use to joke about our crazy lives. Plunging head first into motherhood for the first and the second times is probably the biggest challenge anyone could face. (Having more children is a pinch after that adjustment). Her favorite thing to say (and I remember the setting: it would often be when we were dressing children after having taken them for a swim at the local pool. The little children would be hungry, tired. You’d try to strap one into the pram with food before dressing the second one. You’d feel like you were in a worm canning factory) was,

“My life is a mess! My children are maniacs!”. She’d then laugh as she did an impersonation of a person nolonger able to speak. 

This morning when I read about Jane Goodall’s visit to Melbourne: “Heed wake-up call for world: Jane Goodall has a simple label for the state of the Earth, a mess” my train of thought touched down upon my friend’s rant, “my life is a mess”.

Jane Goodall says the world is a mess! My life is a mess! (It is). 

That’s why I need Jane Goodall.

She has come to Melbourne, with a purpose. She visited our wonderful gorilla enclosure at the Melbourne Zoo to raise awareness that recycling mobile phones could save gorilla habitat in the Congo. A metal used in their construction is mined there. 

And that’s why we need Jane Goodall.

It seems simple. But it takes someone like Jane Goodall, who can think across economic, cultural and political divides, and the mess of daily life to make these connections. And suggest solutions. Little by little we might be able to unravel the mess.

Fruits of our labour

We have moved house. For eighteen months we have been building an environmentally friendly home. It has two twenty thousand litre water tanks buried underground (in Australia we are in drought). We have enough solar panels to be either electrically neutral or contribute to the grid. Our house design was audited by Going Solar before construction to ensure we had incorporated energy saving technology and know-how. We have LED down lights and other energy saving globes throughout and the house design is solar passive. In other words we have double glazed windows everywhere, and the house is orientated to the north with large eaves to allow winter sun in to warm our travertine-covered concrete slab but to block out the sun’s direct rays in summer.

But the thing I’m appreciating most is the new kitchen. My daughters love it too, all four of them. The most dramatic appreciation has been shown by Emma. She has developed an interest in cooking since we have moved. She has been riding her bike down to the shops to pick up packet cake mixes. She whips these up independently or with her friends. Twice she has made biscuits by herself from scratch (asking for help at strategic moments only). Its only a matter of time before she’ll be able to make family meals. I have a plan to teach her something simple (like tacos) to begin with. I think its worth harnessing this newly developed enjoyment of working in the kitchen. The best bit about it is: the kitchen is big enough for both of us to be working at the same time, with enough room for Sally to be doing her homework on the bench!