Nina and Camile

Fashion dolls Nina and Camile in their finished outfits.

Knitted hats, tops, skirt, and pants.

My eighteen inch fashion doll Nina is presenting various sizes of needles. From fifteen to triple zero! Since I have started to work on the Bear project at the end of February I have had little time to work on doll clothes, though I had ordered all sorts of fine yarn. Today I finished Nina's black pants and reworked Camile's seafoam green hat. It is rather difficult to get used to working with size zero and smaller needles again after so many Bears that require size seven.

Yesterday was a full day. After the rainbow Bears were finished I decided to give the dolls a couple of hours. Another hour went to the mop, the vacuum cleaner, and the dustcloth. The afternoon was dedicated to the new movie "Sex and the City." Then I spent an hour reading and sipping coffee at the Barnes and Noble Cafe. A leisurely walk home, then a short drive to the Green Planet Yarn shop and two hours of Bear knitting. Late dinner, the news on TV, a few more pages of reading. Since midnight I have been yawning. I guess it's time to go to bed.

Bears Number 66,67,68,69,70, 71

Thank You, Ladies!

On Tuesday I took forty Bears to my Memoir Writing Group and all found sponsors. We had a wonderful time discussing knitting, color selection, and the Mother Bear Project. After I added up the donations from family members and friends I saw that I have the three dollars for all but the last ten of one hundred Bears. And I am just now knitting Bear number seventy.

I am going to try to post the photographs all at once. Since the final blog never looks the same as the preview I have no idea how the pictures will show up.

My heartfelt thank you to everybody in the group who donated to this project and to those who couldn't be here but promised to contribute or have already done so. I feel very fortunate to have such a good circle of friends who look patiently at my pictures and who let me talk on and on about the Mother Bear Project, about the children in Africa, about Bears and Bears and Bears.

Thank you.

Yes We Can

Did you think I would take a picture of my midnight madness? Well, I couldn’t then, not at one thirty in the morning. I don’t like flash photography. I don’t own horsehair. I have other plans for the snipped ends and I need my comforter. But mostly I didn’t want to dwell on the negative any longer. A dark frame of mind needs to be left behind. Yes, reference to Bear sixty-seven’s positioning in the photograph is intended!

Six hours of sleep, a little patience, and a trip to my fluff provider solved the problem. Just a little insight here: The Bear in the photograph seems to “heal his own wound” by pricking himself in the paw with the needle that eventually makes him whole. And if more symbolism is needed, the dark frame touches the hero’s image and the cloud of poly-fil. Indeed, the picture revolves around a triad of interconnected/interactive pieces: Encouragement, self-determination, and a little help from a shopping cart full of good will and proper stuffing.

Of course I had always wanted to use Mr. Mandela’s image in a very important shot. I did not ever intend to connect my hero with a mediocre case of need. Poly-fil was not on my list of situations that require the presence of a strong yet forgiving mind. Neither does Poly-fil fit the bill when I think of the slogan “Yes We Can.” Some might even see this whole scene as “over the top.” If my concept of connecting fluff with a mountain of clichés and condensing the principles of nation building into a question of horsehair vs. polyester stuffing offend anybody, I sincerely apologize. I am an artist and sometimes I feel that life is too grand to be discussed unfiltered. My method of filtration is to reduce it to a fairytale. At best I gain a metaphor in my search. If the worst happens, if I’ve missed the mark, I hope I have learned a lesson. Before I hit the delete button I promise myself to try again: “By Any Means Necessary!"

I'm Out of Stuffing

Has anybody else ever run out of polyester Bear stuffing in the middle of the night? This is terrible. The left leg of Bear number sixty-seven is too thin because I had to push half of its muscle power into his lopsided belly, and now I can’t close him up because I have no more stuffing. I have hunted through the pile of bags in the spare room – nothing.

Am I addicted to Bear making? It feels like an addiction when breathing speeds up and outrage over lack of stuffing makes me pace the living room floor. If I smoked I would go to an all-night convenience store to fill the need. Unfortunately there are no all-night polyester stuffing stores. And no substitutes. I guess batting won’t do. Who wants a layered Bear? I have no horsehair in the house. Oops, I guess that was used in the “olden days” to fill mattresses, not Bears. What about cotton balls? I think they clump. I could slice a pillow open. My down comforter?

It is now one thirty in the morning and I have obsessed over this way too long. As a last resort I could steal stuffing from Bear number sixty-eight’s head, but that might make his eyes cave in and his mouth pucker up. I could use some of the snipped-off yarn ends that I have saved to prove a point. I forgot what the point was, but I would hate to have pink or lime green pieces eventually work themselves out of a rainbow Bear. No need to confuse a child with neon-bright fake polyester.

Go to bed I say, and shop for a bag of stuffing in the morning. Bear sixty-six is patiently standing by, waiting to be featured in a yet to be written story. I think I’ll just post the photo of him coming out of the red overland truck. Now there’s a substitute if I’ve ever seen one. The truck is an old Barbie bus that I picked up at a garage sale for a dollar, spray-painted it, and used it in a Christmas display a few years back. It is full of tiny dolls and ornaments and miniature dishes, all of which I had to take out to make an attempt to squeeze a couple of sleepy Bears into it. But I like the way it looks and shooting it from overhead almost works. It's all make-believe anyway. Only the Bears are real. At least the ones that are properly stuffed.

Family Fest

Over the last three months more than half of the Bears I knitted found sponsors in family and friends; even my two ex-husbands and my ex-brother-in-law sponsored a Bear each. Yesterday we had another family fest (we celebrated spring birthdays, mother’s day, father’s day, and “everybody’s day”) and I had brought along a bag full of Bears and asked those whom I hadn’t seen in a while to consider sponsorship.

“Amy from the Mother Bear Project wants me to take a few pictures,” I said. In general I leave the photographing of family events to the younger generations now and concentrate on talking, eating, and laughing. I remember a time when small children danced in front of the camera, posing without being asked. I also remember a time when our teenagers would hide their faces behind their hands if I tried to take pictures of them. And now we older folks tend to shy away from being immortalized while our lips are decorated with stray bean sprouts or because the hand of time has painted a few extra lines on our foreheads. I personally tear up all images that zoom in on my upper arms. But Bears seem to make everybody happy and I was glad that my camera was there to be aimed at a few sponsors.

Tomorrow I will try this “public exposure thing” on my memoir writers’ group and then I will crawl back to my solitary nest and knit some more.

Zwanga

Early in the morning a dust cloud rolled closer and closer to the truck with its load of sleeping Bears and when it stopped Zwanga the mechanic emerged from its center, untied his toolbox from the backseat of the motorcycle, crawled under the truck and pointed a flashlight into the dark mass of twisted wiring and tubing.

Pearl Nobuntu who had slept sitting up in the driver’s seat, rubbed her eyes and listened to the mechanic’s curses for a moment; then she slid out of the cabin and greeted him with a whispered,
“Not in front of the Bears’ you wouldn’t want their first African words to be swearwords.”

She was speaking to a pair of splattered tennis shoes and the legs of stained and torn overalls, but when he heard her voice Zwanga rolled into the open from underneath the engine and looked up at her stately figure.

“Oh, don’t worry so much Pearl; they’ll learn plenty of proper words when they get to the school.” With a quizzical look at her tent-like skirt he continued, “Have you been underneath this truck? Have you ever been attacked by loose pieces of metal and leaking hoses? By dangling wires? Have you tried to turn rusted bolts?” He sat up, then raised his body to its full height and finished his rant, “If you haven’t, then don’t tell me to be quiet.”

“I didn’t mean for you to be quiet, just choose your words more carefully.”

“Oh dear, I don’t seem to be able to find Miss Nobuntu’s pfffft, because black motor grease decorates the underside of this truck. Ah, here is a nice sharp edge; I must get out of its way before it caresses me. Please, whatever you do, lovely automobile, don’t drip oil into my eyes. If I can’t see I can’t fix you?”

As quickly as Zwanga’s temper had flared it subsided, and he laughed. “Good morning Pearl! I hope your night was not too uncomfortable.”

By now a pair of eyes watched from the window and waking up noises could be heard from the interior of the truck.

“Good morning to you, Bears.” Zwanga said in a loud voice, “One of you come out here and get the bread and thermos of tea from the backpack on the motorcycle.”

“It’s a lovely morning,” Pearl Nobuntu chirped, “let’s have tea before you fix the truck.

Zwanga looked at her and for a moment he regretted his disorderly attire and the axle grease that had invaded the crevices of his large hands during many years of coaxing life from old vehicles. “I better get to work before the wilderness wakes,” he said, “but you and the Bears enjoy your breakfast.”

Miss Nobuntu was disappointed. She liked his company. The Bears could take care of themselves for a while she thought as she followed the mechanic to the other side of the truck. “I’ll stay here with you,” she said, “somebody has to protect your skinny old legs from wild beasts.”

Disguising Writer's Block

Why does it take me so long to imagine the details of the Rainbow Nation? I know that I have to allow my mind to roam for a few days before a story develops, but I had a good shot at it when I came upon Pearl Nobuntu. Nobuntu is a Zulu name; it means “Mother of Human Kindness.” Maybe I tried too hard to portray human kindness. What makes creativity retreat into its shell like a startled turtle? I never call it writer’s block; I give my inabilities metaphorical excuses and in this case I used a simile.

Actually the growth of Pearl Nobuntu’s story was stunted by an email from a friend. I plan to take thirty Bears to one of my groups next week to solicit sponsorships and this friend is part of the group. In his email he let me know that he won’t be able to join us and he asked that I save a Bear for him. Immediately I envisioned a Bear dressed in dark blue, sitting at a desk, writing a memoir. Well, it took all day, but by six last night I finished knitting him. A ferocious wind blew him over several times while I tried to take his picture. It is the same wind that sent smoke from the Santa Cruz Mountains all over my neighborhood yesterday morning. Even now, in the middle of the night, I can hear it whipping tree branches against the side of the house. The sound of the wind makes me uneasy and I turn the television up, which prevents me from thinking. And so this new Bear will be number sixty-five because none of the rainbow Bears are finished. He will go into the world without a story, but he will have a true storyteller as sponsor.

Working on the Rainbow Nation

Before I can take a picture of the first Rainbow Nation Bear

I have to come up with a background and some kind of prop.

I've "unfolded" my futon in the living room to have more

space for spreading out the pieces. The kitchen table

is already covered with yarn.

One Project Done

Tyana checks out the new shirt

Time to Look Back. Time for Updates

This is Fred lounging on my bed when he was younger

My imaginary shrink – did I ever tell you that his name is Carl Gustav Steinfeld – he tells me that it is time to look back.

“If you are a writer obsessed with images and phrases, with movies playing in your brain all day, you sometimes bore people with repetition. Just because you still dwell on a scene doesn’t mean others are equally as interested in it after hearing about it a couple of times. You might want to go over your blog entries and make sure you are not repeating rants. On the other hand there are facts that need updating. If you have written about something in progress you eventually have to bring it to a conclusion or at least keep us current. For instance, what happened to Fred the cat?”

“Fred is quite happy with his new parents,” I answer. “But one never knows, I still might become his foster mother if they get tired of taking care of him. I bought a carrier and a couple of cans of tuna, just in case. But I won’t take my curtains down and hide my plants unless he sits at my doorstep again and gets ready to inspect my house.”

“What else?” Dr. Steinfeld wants to know.

“I looked back over my blog entries and saw that I had mentioned Lorna’s pink sock yarn on February 27 without assigning a project to it. The yarn appears just recently, again, in a picture about finishing Tyana’s wardrobe for our Alaska trip. I finished the white shirt, but maybe I should be realistic and put away some of these projects until fall.”

“Good idea.”

“Oh, and by the way, I mentioned the TV Converter Box Coupon Program. I received a coupon for $40.00 in April along with a list of participating retailers in my area. But it doesn’t always pay to be an early bird. The coupon has an expiration date; it is only valid for three months. And they say it cannot be replaced. The signal conversion doesn’t start until next year.”

“Anything that might be of interest to potential readers?”

“On Tuesday, March 11, I quoted from the Mother Bear Project website that 25,900 Bears had been sent out so far. Yesterday, May 22, the counter said: To date 28,500 bears have been sent to children affected by HIV/AIDS.”

“Two-thousand-six-hundred more bears. Wonderful!!”

“I also saw that my first story about Bears didn’t come until March 29, when I wrote “Magic Happens,” about the five Blues Brothers. It confirms my theory that writing takes a lot of time and that most of that time is spent staring at the alder tree on the lawn across the street.

“Any other thoughts?”

“Yes. One. I probably wrote about it before – sorry if this is a repeat – I can’t remember, and I’m too much in a hurry to check. Every morning when I walk the trail I see mothers jogging, pushing baby strollers ahead of them. I put myself in the children’s position, mentally; once I even crouched down to get the physical effect of low-to- the-ground exposure, except I can’t compare my observations with the impact on children who have no database to draw from. Are small children trusting? Are they easily scared? Does landscape impress them? Do they miss their mothers because they can’t see them? And I wonder, how do they feel when a walker passes with a large dog on a leash? Or when a cyclist races downhill toward them? Or when they lose their pacifiers while Mama’s eyes are fixed on the distant image of her once girlish figure? Or when the sun makes them sneeze? Or when the cover over the stroller disorients them? Wouldn’t it be better if strollers pointed toward the parent? They did when my children were small. I think they were adjustable so you could use them either way, forward or back. I remember taking my son to the park, chatting with him while he giggled and pounded his “dashboard” with a toy.

Anyway, I am obsessed with this shortcoming of modern strollers. I want to write to manufacturers. I want to talk to mothers about it. But I think I am the only one who complains and I am almost seventy years old. What do I know of modern life? I wouldn’t even talk on a cell phone if I had a child with me while I’m walking the trail.”

Dr. Steinfeld gives me ‘the end’ signal, cutting his imaginary throat with an imaginary finger. “Yes, we all know, you become an old person when it suits you. It’s your cover when you cry over the news, because you see children enduring adult wars or other kinds of adult abuse. You push your “I’m too old for this” idea when you know you are right but think that nobody listens to you. I call it self-pity and I like you a lot more when you go out there and “talk sense” into the subject of your disapproval. When you ignore your age and jump over a ditch. Well, that was a bad example. You hurt your knee then, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did. But it wasn’t because I am old or pretend to be old. I was stupid and miscalculated the distance. And now that you have agitated me, I have to go and knit a Rainbow Nation Bear. It calms me, because it makes me feel that I am participating in an anti-war, anti-abuse, anti-ignorance project. Shrinks can be so annoying.”

Rainbow Nation

While our little storytellers and their counselor were asleep in their tents, another group of Bears huddled together under the beautiful South African night sky. Their overland truck had developed a problem the driver was not able to fix, and they had to wait until morning for help.

“Pffft,” she had complained to the mechanic who answered her call. “It went pfffft. And then it stopped.”

Now, sometimes men smirk when they hear a woman describe a noise made by an automobile. I should know. Many years ago I tried to describe a sound that, as I found out later, was caused by a metal container clinging to the underside of my car. I tell you, it isn’t easy to imitate the clinks and clanks and boing-boings of an excited tin can that hoped to be on the way to a wedding, but was mistakenly captured by an old sedan speeding toward a grocery store. Yes, I understand, most men would have recognized the “alien to a car” sound, and would immediately have suspected an empty tomato soup can. Well, hurray for men!!!

But back to our driver, Pearl Nobuntu.

“Pffft,” she had blown a spray of spit into the evening air. “It went pffft. And then it stopped.” After she had nodded several times to the bad news, “nobody can come to fix until tomorrow,” she flipped her cell phone shut, stuck it into the wide pocket of her bush colored skirt, broadened her face into a smile and clapped her hands together.

“Bears! Beeears! Back on the truck. Can you hear the elephants? They’re hungry. They like to munch on little Bears.”

Pearl Nobuntu knew how to keep a close watch on a group of rambunctious Bears; she had once been a safari guide, shielding adventure-crazy families from hippo attacks and lecturing them on the dangers of sunburns. Her grateful customers had rewarded her with her favorite sweets, Swiss chocolates and apricot jelly tarts, until eventually she had grown too large to guarantee speedy and safe retreats from roaring lions and hissing snakes. Since the beginning of this year she escorted new Bears to small villages and remote camps where sick or abandoned children celebrated their arrival. Yes, Pearl Nobuntu found much joy in showing these newcomers her homeland. And because she was such a kind person she was loved by everybody. Even the man who listened to her spirited “pffft” that had traveled via radio wave across the bush to his tiny repair shop, even he respected this woman and did not ridicule her for her lack of automotive know-how.

In the bed of the overland truck, she distributed bottled water and emergency crackers to the Bears who called themselves the Rainbow Nation. They had taken this name earlier in the day when, by chance, they had met a Bear with a large colorful sign. Of course they had no idea that they were face to face with Bear number fifty-one, in search of a mystery Baobab. Fifty-one told them about Bishop Desmond Tutu whose description of South Africa as a rainbow nation had found its place in history when President Nelson Mandela wove it into his inaugural speech on May 10, 1994. Bear fifty-one’s sign was filled with the words that would be this group’s introduction to the heart of South Africa. They read it in unison:

“Each one of us is intimately attached to the soil of this beautiful country.
Each time one of us touches the soil of this land,
we feel a sense of personal renewal.”

Then Bear fifty-one turned the sign and let them read the part about the rainbow nation:

“We enter into a covenant that we shall build the society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity – a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.”

Pearl Nobuntu had chuckled at their serious faces. “Good words,” she had said, “but we still have quite a ways to go.”

And now, in the darkness of the night, as she covered the Bears with blankets that had been stowed away behind her seat in the truck for just such an emergency, she smiled at the group of youngsters with the lofty name and whispered,

“Good night little Rainbow Nation.”

Pockets Full of Stories

I just wanted to point out that the Bears who were in the

story-telling class all have either one or two pockets.

Their counselor told them to catch all the stories their friends

told and "put them in their pockets for a rainy day."

Group Photo

Bears number fifty-seven to sixty-four

Time Out

2008 at home - Getting ready for the Alaska Cruise

2007 Santa Cruz, California - Guarding lunch

2006 Germany - It is raining at the castle in Dilsberg

2005 Germany - Visiting the Teddybear Museum in Munich

2004 England - Teddybear attached to backpack

What to wear?

I have decided to interrupt my Bear knitting project one day a week in order to get my own Bear ready for the late June Alaska Cruise. Every time I go on a trip she gets a few new outfits. This time I am working on a white knitted t-shirt, a dress, a sweater, two pairs of play pants, pink sweats, and something made of pink sock yarn to be decided later.

Tyana J LittleString has been my travel companion since 2004 when she clung to my backpack while I walked across England along Hadrian's Wall. Since then she has been on many trips with me.

The Story of the Little Bug

Bear sixty-four reads the words on his piece of paper

Number sixty-four was a shy little Bear and when it was her turn to tell a story she said she didn’t know how.

“I don’t have good words,” she said.

“What words do you have?”

She pulled a folded piece of paper from the back pocket of her shorts and read: “bug….tree…dirt.” Then she frowned and said nothing for a while. Finally she let out a deep sigh and said, “wiggle. That’s all I have.”

“Where did you get those words from?”

“My Mother Bear left them on her desk. She always wrote down words. She taught me how to read. Do you have a pen?”

The counselor pulled one from his shirt pocket and handed it to sixty-four. “Did you remember another word?”

“No.” She scribbled little exes across a word on the piece of paper. “I can’t read this one.”

“Can you make a story with the other ones?”

She smiled and nodded her head.

“Once upon a time there was a little bug. He lived on a tree with his mother. One morning when he woke up his mother was gone. The little bug was very sad. But then his mother came back and he was happy. She had just gone out to get breakfast. A week later she was gone again and the little bug cried. But soon she came back and dried his tears. She had just gone out to get him a new coat. When he woke up the third time by himself he was very upset, but he thought that she would be back before lunch and he didn’t even cry. By the time it started to get dark and she still wasn’t back, he got worried. Maybe she had fallen out of the tree and had broken a leg. He wiggled down the tree trunk and it took a long time before his feet touched the ground. As soon as he landed in the dirt he heard his mother call him from the tree and he had to climb all the way back up. She kissed him and told him never to leave the tree again. The end.”

One of the other Bears complained. “That wasn’t a real story. It didn’t have a moral.”

“I don’t know what a moral is,” said Bear number sixty-four.

“Never mind,” said the counselor, “I think you told a very good first story. Now let’s put up the tents and get ready for the night. Tomorrow I will teach you all a few new words.”

Humble Happens

“I can’t draw,” said Bear number sixty-three.

“Do you have a story to share?” the counselor wanted to know.

“Maybe. I’m not sure it’s a good one, though. I don’t have a picture of it.

“Don’t worry about the picture. Just tell your story.”

Number sixty-three took a deep breath and began:

Humble Happens.

When Andile the dikdik was one year old his parents had taught him all they knew. He had learned to find nourishment in the bush, had learned to shelter for the night, had learned to avoid hunters, had learned to scent-mark his territory. He was fully grown and ready to leave home.

Andile was a rather good-looking animal. A white ring surrounded his large, dark eyes; his small horns were almost hidden in a tuft of hair; his mother was especially proud of her son’s soft brownish coat and his elegant legs. He enjoyed daily outings into the forest, galloping quite a distance, looking for berries to eat and most days he came home tired and happy.

“I am the best hunter of wild berries,” he would say, but sometimes he was so proud of his accomplishments that he forgot to watch out for enemies. And there were plenty of those: hyenas, jackals, wild dogs, monitor lizards, eagles, pythons, lions, cheetahs, and men who would sell his thin legs and feet to be made into jewelry and his hide to be sewn into beautiful suede gloves.

No wonder his mother was concerned about his future when it was time for him to be on his own. “I wish he were a bit more humble,” she said to her husband, “bragging can be dangerous. Bragging tends to make you careless.”

Andile heard her last words. Being a curious young dikdik he wondered what his mother meant. When night fell he took off to visit Nokhanyo the owl. Her name meant “Mother of Enlightenment” and the question in the young dikdik’s mind could only be resolved by Nokhanyo’s wisdom.

When he reached the owl’s tree he asked into the darkness, “What is humble? Teach me about humble, please.”

“Humble isn’t. Humble happens,” said the owl. “It happens when you have hurt your best friend and he loves you anyway. It happens in the rainy season when you rescue a fellow creature. It happens when you share your berries with your mate.”

“Does humble hurt?”

“When you first feel it, it might hurt a little, but then it makes you smile. You think you are real small and real tall at the same time. I think the real small comes from being such a tiny part of the universe. The real tall is because it happened to YOU. It is an honor to feel humble.

“Will I know when humble happens to me?”

“Of course you will,” said Nokhanyo. “Your heart opens and you want to hug everybody.”

“What was your best humble?” Andile wanted to know.

“Well,” said the owl, “it happened some time ago. I was very sick; I think I was going blind, and I sat on a log feeling sorry for myself. The great father turned on the evening lights but I could barely see them flicker. A unicorn had just given birth and everybody gathered around her and the little one, just as we did when you were born. I flew over to the nest, weak and with pain in my eyes. I squinted to see the baby. Suddenly he opened his eyes. They were the color of the lagoon. A mixture of blue and green and gray. I started to cry and the tears washed away my pain. All I wanted to do was to look into the eyes of the baby unicorn. That was my deepest humble ever.”

Andile thought that this was a wonderful story and he couldn’t wait to encounter his very first humble. “Thank you,” he said to the owl and went home. The next morning he kissed his mother and father good-by and followed the scent of the rain into his new life.


The Bears sat quietly after number sixty-three had finished his story. Then, suddenly, they all talked at the same time. The counselor did not interrupt them; he understood that right then they would learn more from each other than from his lecture.

I think some day he might look back on this moment and tell a new generation of Bears that this was one of his favorite humbles.

Kudu and Tickbird

Bear number sixty-two tells the tale of Kudu and Tickbird.

After the counselor was finished with his lesson he asked for volunteers to tell their stories. The Bear way in back, the one who had calmed down the group earlier with a whispered "be nice," raised his hand and said he knew a good story.

"Bear number sixty-two, let's hear what you have to say. Everybody else, please sit quietly and pay attention to your brother."

And so Bear sixty-two came to the front with his big drawing pad and began:

Grandfather Mhambi walked slowly, searching for the watering hole, often turning his head to see if predators were following, wondering if his feet took him in the right direction. Since his friends had decided that he was no longer the most important kudu in the group, he traveled alone. He had mated with many females in his life and had fathered beautiful calves, but now that his hearing was no longer keen and his eyes could not spot dangers looming by the thornbushes, he was a burden to the herd of bachelors that roamed the edge of the woodlands. Grandfather Mhambi thought that this was unfair and though he tried not to feel sorry for himself, he spent a great amount of time looking for a companion.

“At least one creature must like me,” he said to himself whenever the distance blurred in the hot sun or the sounds of the night became unreadable noises to him.

After wandering alone for some time he made a sign and stuck it to one of his long spiral horns.

“Free Ride,” the sign said. Mhambi hoped to find an animal that would climb his back and direct him toward the watering hole.

As soon as he left the shelter of trees he saw a snake winding across the sand.

“Excuse me, young lady,” he said, “wouldn’t you like to get out of the hot sand and ride on my back?”

“Sure,” the snake answered and climbed up Grandfather Mhambi’s left hind leg. But as soon as she was halfway up she couldn’t resist the urge to dart a spray of poison into his flesh.

“Ouch,” said the kudu and shook the snake off. “Go away; you are not worthy of my companionship.”

For a while he felt the sting and limped, but he was a big kudu and soon the poison left his system.

At midday he paused in his journey and nibbled on a wild watermelon. He heard a giggle from behind a bush but couldn’t tell who was hiding there.

“Hello,” he said, lowering his head to see better. “I am Grandfather Mhambi, and I wonder if you would like a ride to the watering hole?”

When he saw the hyena jump out of the thicket he tried to pull back, but it was too late; the little rascal jumped right into the fringe of hair under his chin and clung to it with all his might.

“I’ll go with you,” giggled the hyena. Then he bit Mhambi in the chin and Grandfather had to shake his head back and forth until the hyena flew off and landed back in the bush.

“Shame on you,” the kudu said. “Don’t you know it’s impolite to bite an old grandfather?”

He wandered off, still shaking his head and the fringe under his chin.

Soon he tired and stopped to take a rest. When a kudu stands still he is very difficult to spot because he looks like a piece of the earth. Grandfather resembled a mount of dry sand, littered with twisted branches; on one of the branches a sign was stuck that said “Free Ride.”

A tickbird, who had just been evicted by his former host for being too noisy, landed on one of Grandfather Mhambi’s horns and looked in surprise at the sign. “How can that be?” she tweeted. “How can a hill give a ride? Hoe can it move?”

Grandfather Mhambi woke to the excited tweet that seemed to come from his horns. A bit groggy from his nap in the hot sun, he was not very patient with the intruder.

“Who are you?” he wanted to know as he rose and straightened his legs, “I only give rides to friendly creatures. And speak up. I’m hard of hearing.”

The tickbird, surprised when the hill lifted and moved her higher into the air, answered with a shriek, “Oh dear mountain, please take me with you. I promise I won’t be any trouble.”

Grandfather was pleased to meet such a polite stranger. But he had learned his lesson and continued his demands.

“Come down and let me take a look at you.”

The little tickbird stretched her wings and fluttered around the mountain.

“My name is Lungile,” she introduced herself and when she saw that the mountain had long legs and a fringe of hair under the chin, and long spiral horns, she said, “You are a kudu. You are Grandfather Mhambi, the lonely traveler. My mother told me you were old and full of parasites. She said we would make a good team. I’ll be your guide if you promise to let me stay with you for the rest of my life.”

“I promise to keep you as long as you don’t poison my legs or pull out the hairs on my chin,” said Grandfather Mhambi. “Now, let’s go to the watering hole.”

He took down the “Free Ride” sign and told his new friend to make herself comfortable on his back. And though he had trouble seeing the little bird when she danced in front of him and barely felt her probing beak when she pried ticks from his back, he could count on Lungile to alert him to the danger of hunters with her shrill voice. And, of course, Lungile the tickbird was blissfully happy to have found such a strong friend and nourishing food source.

Heat Wave

The newest Bear owes most of his body to my four and a half hour “sit-in” at my local, air-conditioned Barnes and Noble store. I live in a mobile home, the long, singlewide kind with metal siding that pretends to be an oven during a heat wave. It began to do that at ten yesterday morning and by eleven I decided to run away.

Local news had reported the opening of designated “cooling centers” in the area, but I prefer the Mall. Community centers and senior centers attract people who want to talk about the hot weather and all I want to do is knit. And think. And read.

I like this particular Mall. It usually is quiet and eventless. But I remember last year’s hot spell when people sat on the ground, along walls, everywhere they could find an empty spot, and so I came early yesterday, planning to occupy an overstuffed chair inside the bookstore for most of the afternoon. My plan worked. I bought the newest Time Magazine, lined up water bottle and knitting bag in front of me, preparing for the long haul. I was the third person arriving in the sitting area. The other two were young men, one engrossed in a pictorial novel, the other in a book of cartoons.

Eventually the place filled with overheated shoppers and the Barnes and Noble reading police interrupted her bookcase dusting duties to make her obligatory rounds.

“Excuse me Sir, are you o.k.?”

The young man lifted a sleepy head from his Manga novel and nodded, “Yes.”

“We don’t allow sleeping in the store,” she explained.

This caused me to make some noise turning the page of my Time Magazine. Just in case knitting isn’t allowed either. In my mind I prepared a defense speech that would include the dollar amount of my yearly book purchases at Barnes and Noble and a calculated look of indignation. I am an old person, I would tell her, and doesn’t that give me the right to air-conditioning? I might faint, you know, if you chase me into the hot outdoor afternoon. But the young woman picked up books that other sitters had left behind and then returned to her dusting without paying attention to me.

I don’t even sit that long on an airplane without stretching, without getting up to go to the restroom. But then, on an airplane nobody would plop down in my seat as soon as I got out of it. I saw a few shoppers eyeing us, waiting for an empty spot. Two young girls were sitting on the floor. The Manga reader closed his eyes again. An older woman made a few groaning sounds and sank deeper into her overstuffed chair. The young woman next to me, sitting on a hard wooden chair, shifted her weight and rubbed her back. My Bear was growing while I read Time Magazine from beginning to end.

Though I am not done with the storytellers yet, I had decided to begin the next group of Bears. The Rainbow Parade. I had brought small, neatly rolled balls of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple and used the colors at random. When I was almost at the end of the last leg – it was almost four o’clock - I decided it was time to stick my face into the Safeway freezer for a while, maybe get some ice cream. For a moment I wondered if my legs were still working. Wouldn’t it be embarrassing if I got up and sagged to the floor like an empty sack? I stashed my belongings into my knitting bag and edged forward in the chair. A man with a big stack of books in his arms watched from a few feet away. As soon as I stood up he moved closer. By the time I reached the door and looked back he had made himself comfortable in the chair and had begun to read.

Later, at home, I tried to finish the Bear, but the stitches would not come off my bamboo needles. And so I turned my fan on full blast, aimed it at the computer and played solitaire until it was time for the news on TV. Now it is after midnight and it is still too hot to knit. I guess tomorrow I will go to a “cooling center” until it is time to join the other knitters at the Green Planet Yarn Shop.

Make a Child Happy

“Another thing, you don’t coax a child away from another Bear. I thought your Mother Bears taught you that. Never walk up to a child who already has her own bear and offer to tell her a better story or sing a better song or tell her that you can giver her a better hug. Look at this little girl; she is still sad. Now she has to decide who will be her best friend. Luckily she has a twin sister, and the matter can be resolved, I hope, without more tears.”

Number sixty nodded a big “I’m sorry” toward the counselor who only had one more thing to say for now. “Remember, you are here to make a child happy.”

Stories of the Past and Stories of the Now

Bear number sixty-one and his friend

Bear number sixty brings out the book

“You,” the counselor pointed at number sixty,” you were not supposed to bring the book out yet. It is the greatest storybook we have on the bus, and I will read it to you soon, but first you have to practice telling your own stories. There have been storytellers for thousands of years and the history of Africa lives on in their masterpieces. But…..” he paused for effect, “who will tell the NOW? Who will tell the future? Bears have to be able to make their own stories from the world around them. What would you do if you came upon a lonely child on the road and you didn’t carry a book with you? How would you make the child feel better if you couldn’t make her laugh with your very own hyena tale or dik-dik adventure or snake hiss scare?”

Bear Number Sixty-one Makes a Friend

Bear number sixty-one makes a friend

For a while some of the others tried to listen in on Bear number fifty-nine’s whispers, but soon he sat up and said, “Go find your own stories.”

“We don’t need your story,” said Bear sixty, “I found a book on the bus that has much better stories. They are President Mandela’s favorites.”

I think “smug” is the word that best describes number sixty at that moment and the counselor knew he had to say something before an argument would start between the Bears.

The counselors had agreed among themselves a long time ago that in Bear training there was no room for competition. Competition was probably good for business and sports events and maybe even for deciding who should be president, but, as an old Mother Bear had said at a picnic once, “A Bear is a Bear is a Bear.” “Equal opportunities for equal gifts,” she had added when asked what she meant.

All Bears had the same powers when it came to making a child happy. Sure, some had eyes that sat a bit crooked in their faces, or their lips were slanted unevenly, or one of their stitches had loosened, but they were all best friends. They knew how to hug, how to tell stories, how to wipe a child’s tears, how to listen. And they all tended to sneeze when a leaf tickled their noses.

While the counselor, who was himself quite young, thought of the many Bears he had trained, a bit of a commotion broke out near the video machine. Bear number sixty-one had just met a sad little girl and was about to give her a hug when sixty started to read aloud from the book he carried around.

“There was once a mantis who tried to catch the moon,” he said and looked to see if the little girl paid attention to him.

Once Upon a Time

Bear number fifty-nine tells a story

Give Them a Hug

The counselor told the Bears that they would be playing a game; then he pushed a button to begin the video.

“Until now you have only seen children from afar,” he said, “but soon you will be best friends. Watch the children jump out of the machine and come to you. What do you do?”

“Give them a hug,” number sixty said without hesitation.

“Very good.”

Number sixty beamed with pride. “That’s what Bears do. We hug.”

“What else do Bears do?” The counselor looked from the group of wide-eyed Bears to the group of wide-eyed children. “Come on, you know what else you’re supposed to do.”

Number fifty-nine, who was usually very shy, raised his hand.

“Yes?”

“We tell stories.”

“Show me.”

Number fifty-nine hugged one of the children, made it comfortable on a blanket, then he snuggled up to it and whispered, “Once upon a time…….”

The Storytellers

“Listen to me!”

The counselor stood in the front of the bus, addressing the Bears. At first his voice only reached the first few rows because the group was very noisy. Some shouted. Some giggled. Some sang songs. Everybody was excited about meeting the children soon.

“Listen to me!” he said again. A little louder this time. With a little more force.

“Before you become a friend I want you to look at a video I’ve brought along. It will teach you what a friend is supposed to do.”

A groan rumbled through the seats and ended up as a laugh in the aisle, close to the front row. But most Bears, being the gentle things they are, didn’t want to upset the young counselor who seemed so sure of his task, and one of them, standing way in back of the bus, put his hand on top of the shoulder of the Bear in front of him and whispered something. Whatever the whisper was, it moved forward the same way the groan had spread and soon the bus was as quiet as a bus on a bumpy dirt road could be.

The counselor told the driver to pull over into the shade of a few trees. He appointed Bears number fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine, and sixty to be his helpers. They carried the equipment out of the bus and set it up on the ground. The rest of the Bears sat on the ground to watch.

And then the lecture began.

More Bears in the Window

Bears in the Window

These are cut-outs of the first forty-one Bears.

I've lined them up in my living room window.

Tomorrow I will make cut-outs of the next nineteen.

Just Documenting Progress

Nelson is Reciting Facts About South Africa

Nelson Returns

"Forty-four million people live in South Africa
The capitals of South Africa are Pretoria, Cape Town, and Bloemfountein
South Africa is a Parliamentary Republic
South Africa officially uses eleven languages
The currency of South Africa is the “rand”
The President of South Africa is Thabo Mbeki
Archbishop Desmond Tutu calls South Africa the “Rainbow Nation.”
The most famous person in South Africa is Nelson Mandela
My Mother Bear named me Nelson because President Mandela is her hero.
The Sagole Baobab is the biggest tree in South Africa. "

Nelson had returned. He looked proud and his voice sounded happy as he stood against the wall reciting facts he had learned about South Africa.

“Nelson, you’re back.”

“Where did you learn all that stuff?”

“Where were you?”

“Did you find a Baobab?”

“Why are you carrying that big map?”


“The map covered a trap door and when it opened I slid into an underground museum. I learned a lot in the museum, about history and about the animals and plants that live and grow here. I always thought that the Baobab had leaves and white blossoms, but most of the time it is bare. Some Baobab trees are so big you can live in them.”

“Are you gonna live in one?” Bear number fifty-five was awake now and she was surprised to see the others standing around. “What happens to us now?”

Nelson thanked the Bear girls for watching over the luggage. “At least we have our bags,” he said, “and if you want to we can all go together to find a Baobab and live in it.”

“But we were supposed to make friends with children in South Africa,” somebody pointed out.

“We can still make friends.” Nelson was practical. He didn’t want them to worry about the future. “When we get settled in our Baobab we’ll invite children to visit with us. They’ll become our friends.”

He looked around, looked at the group, looked outside. Even though it had gotten dark he repeated what everybody had been saying all day,

“It’s time to go.”

They nodded and he continued, “ If we really want to have an adventure we have to leave the airport before somebody comes looking for us.”

They piled all their belongings on top of the shopping cart and Nelson told Bear number fifty-four to sit on top. Then they left. A daring bunch of young Bears with big hearts and little knowledge of the world, ready to explore the home of the mighty Baobab. And we wouldn’t see them for quite a while after that.

Where are We Going?

What they found when they came to the lounge from which they had left before noon, were two little Bear girls sleeping on the floor, resting their heads on their backpacks.

Bear fifty-two was very impatient. “Wake up,” he said in a loud voice. “Wake up! It’s time to go!”

“Where are we going?” one of the sleepy Bears wanted to know after she sat up and rubbed her eyes.

“Yeah! Where are we going?” Bear fifty-four was still standing on one foot even though the floor in the airport hall was not hot at all. “I don’t see any counselors.”

The Tiny Tree

“You have to look at the little tree before we go.”

“What tree?”

Fifty-four led them to a shoot that barely stuck out of the sand. “You think it’s a Baobab?”

“Could be. It has a trunk. But it doesn’t have anything else.”

Fifty-three wiggled it a bit and when it didn’t pull out of the sand he said, “It has roots.”

“But even if it is a Baobab, I don’t think it’s the kind of Baobab Nelson is looking for. Let’s go. It’s time to go.”

They lined up on each side of Bear fifty-four; he put his arms around their necks so he could hobble between them. He barely touched the ground with the toes of his left foot. After they returned to the big bush Bear fifty-three climbed on top again to locate the airport. By the time they reached the street, late afternoon had turned into early evening, and they had little hope left finding the counselors still waiting for them.

Bear Foot in the Sand

In their haste to get away from the unfamiliar golden object they ran too far south of the big bush. Instead of being able to spot the road that leads to the airport, they found a narrow, sandy tongue that cut into the dry grass. They heard a voice and then they saw Bear fifty-four waving. He stood in the sand – on one foot.

“What are you still doing here?”

Bear fifty-four had traveled along the street, going east for a while, until he realized he wouldn’t find Nelson in traffic. That’s when he had decided to cross over into the sand.

“I burned my foot in the hot sand,” he said, looking a little as if he wanted to cry.

“This sand isn’t hot,” remarked Bear fifty-two. “Let’s go. We’ve got to hurry back to the others.”

“It was hot when I got here. Look! Blisters!"