The Trip

The Trip
Thursday, 21 August1997
index day 1 day 2, part 1
day 2, part 2 day 3 day 4

"...I am convinced that anyone who has owned a ridgeback...will not lightly want to be without one."
Major Hawley

Mr Carnegie's house

Mr Carnegie's car

The bees battleground

Mr Carnegie sharing ointment for the stings

Hope Fountain church

The church inside

The church porch

A promising day... we had ahead as we were going to visit Hope Fountain Mission Station. This is the place where Reverend Charles Daniel Helm arrived in 1875, not far from the kraal of the Matabele King Lobengula, where the city of Bulawayo was to be founded years later. Reverend Helm took with him ridged dogs, from the Swellendam district, to his new residence. They were Lorna and Powder, who took great part in the origin of today's breed.

Mike Carnegie is the descendent of one of the early missionaries at Hope Fountain, so he was the most suitable person to accompany us to the Mission Station. We met him at the Bulawayo Club, then he drove us to his house where he gave an interesting talk about the times when his grandfather David Carnegie came from Scotland to Hope Fountain in 1882. It is so grabbing to listen to people who are so rooted in their past which I also felt as mine in part as that was, to some extent, the past of our breed.

The bee attack...Then the day full of promises kept up to it with the bee attack! While Mr. Carnegie was still speaking in his garden a bee went buzzing around him, then slipped somewhere in his collar: Mr. Carnegie started to wave around his hands, trying to whack it: no hope, he was stung several times while some of us were also beating him with shawls and hands to help him. That was a signal for the whole swarm: they came quite angry to back up the first bee: everybody was then jumping, screaming, running, shaking heads, ruffling and trying to protect their hair where the bees seemed particularly eager to hide in. Finally we managed to make our miserable retreat into Mr. Carnegie's house, joined a while after by Amanda and Helle who had found a safe shelter in the car. As they told us it was somehow fun to watch all that mess around from a safe place...but the didn't know the promising day was not at its peak yet! In the house Mr. Carnegie offered ice cubes to all the people stung (luckily I wasn't) and after recomposing himself he carried on with his talk and showed us pictures of the old times. His speech set a very good background for our next visit at Hope Fountain Mission! We left the house peering out for the bees: they seemed to have gone so we ventured out! Poor us: they stroke again with a perfect ambush tecnique! We ran as fast as possible to the cars and managed to get in safely, but poor Amanda and Helle got in the car WITH the bees! It was their time to whack around and being stung. We were worried in case somebody was allergic but all went ok for everybody! The bees, Mr. Carnegie said, came from his neighbor but he couldn't figure out why there were so angry on that day apart from the fact that he had changed his hair lotion, grease or parfume (I am not sure) on that very morning. I hope somebody strongly suggested he should go back to his old one!

To Hope Fountain finally...In his Morris car from the '60s, Mr.Carnegie eventually drove us to Hope Fountain, the place where Rev.Charles Helm arrived in 1875. The original mission buildings had been burnt during the 1896 Rebellion, the first chiMurenga, so what we saw were not the original ones, but it seems that Helm also stayed in the new ones and with emotion I liked to think that perhaps my feet were stepping on the earth where he had walked many years ago ....with his dogs at his side...perhaps Lorna and Powder...

The mission church has a number of memorial tablets dedicated to the missionaries, with a brief biosketch of each including, of course, Mr and Mrs Helm, born Elizabeth von Puttkamer, and Mr and Mrs Carnegie.

The mission building is high on top of a hill with a good view of the surrounding land and facing the mission cemetery down below, where Mr and Mrs Helm rest in peace and Mr. Carnegie's family is buried. A touching encounter when reading the Helms' names on their grave, they came to life in my thoughts.

Back to Bulawayo...Then it was time to go back to Bulawayo where we said a thankful good bye to Mr. Carnegie ready to meet our next guest at lunch: Mr. Henry Sommer...but this is to be continued in the second part of this day on the trip.