Nine-year-old Court fi shing in Mozambique


There is nothing like travel for teaching your children about the world. Three mothers gave their children a lesson they will never forget


compared to his own London private


Louisiana Lush chose post-war Mozambique for some mother-son time with Court, 9


I


am passionate about travel. I have travelled extensively all my life, initially as a child to follow my father’s career as an oil man, and later as an adult to advance my own as a


development professional. I love travelling for two reasons. First, I fi nd encountering people from other cultures fascinating, and all the more so when you are working with them on a common task rather than just observing them as a tourist. Second, I love the physical act of travelling – some basic human instinct in me fi nds the complicated task of moving around the planet deeply fulfi lling.


As my three children lead a London life with a smattering of Devon thrown in, I am obsessed with how to make them understand what it means to explore the world. Two years ago, I took my daughter, then eight, to Rajasthan; and earlier this year, I took my son, aged nine, to Mozambique. Mozambique is a challenging country for a


child. It is extremely poor – a legacy of a vicious, decades-long war with South Africa. It faces all the usual development problems – low literacy, a vast, sparsely-populated hinterland and dependence on agriculture and mining industries. But it is also one of the countries in Africa that investors are positive about and, starting from a low base, its economy is now growing and the vibe is positive. We started our holiday on the beach near


Maputo, the capital. From an unpretentious hotel, we explored surrounding villages and wandered completely undisturbed along miles of deserted beaches. The nearby Maputo Reserve is one of the only places in the world where it is possible to spot elephants and whales in the same day. Highlights were fi shing off the beach, wading back to our hotel by moonlight – as the spring tide had come in too far – and the dazzling fl ight across Maputo bay. We also visited a small school which consisted of a hut with two classrooms and a teacher. I asked my son what he thought about the school


school and he said the best thing was the loos. This seemed unlikely given the state of them. But when pressed, the thing he really liked was that, because the loos were in a separate shack across a sandy patch of playground, it meant that every time you needed the loo you got to go outside. How diff erent it seemed to him from his cramped and over sanitised London existence.


From Maputo, we fl ew inland to the Gorongosa


Nature Reserve – a stunning million-acre wilderness, in which wildlife destroyed during the war, is now being slowly restocked. We stayed in the sole camp of only eight tents. It was not a safari experience where animals leap across every spare patch of land. We saw inevitable antelope and warthogs but no “big fi ve”. There was incredible birdlife. Court spent many a happy hour exploring termite hills and learning to spit antelope droppings at high speed and over great distances! He also became the hero of the camp when the corkscrew was lost and he produced his Swiss Army penknife. Mozambique is not promoting itself as a family


holiday destination. There were no kids’ clubs, banana boats or special meals. What we did get was a glimpse of how a country picks itself up and starts again, against all the odds. I think my son learned to see the people of Mozambique not as victims or passive recipients of Western largesse, but as individuals with whom he could enjoy common bonds – kicking a football around, enjoying the sunshine and marvelling at the extraordinary beauty of the world around them.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84