Ouma en oupa sit op die stoep

Ouma en oupa sit op die stoep


We have become grandparents. I don’t feel any different, just very excited. The bundles of joy, note I used the plural, are the tiniest, cutest, most perfect little twins on this earth. Unfortunately they live across the ocean in the faraway country of Japan so I have to go googoo gaga over the airwaves. Thank goodness for technology which enables us to see them and watch them grow. Kyro and Aoi are keeping me updated from Japan. Kyro read up about every aspect of every stage of Aoi’s pregnancy and before her first trimester was over he informed us that babies can communicate from a very young age and that he planned to teach them to sign so that he can understand their needs and requests. Marine is waving on the one photo so I guess she was saying “hi granny, look, I’m even cuter than a panda bear. I have long fingers so I’ll soon be able to use chopsticks to eat my rice for breakfast.” Sky has a good set of lungs on her as I heard in the video clip while she got her first bath so I guess she’s gonna be communicating verbally instead. I could have them mixed up already in fact I wonder how their parents can tell them apart. I would love to visit them sometime in the future but I think only once they are past the jelly stage and I can play with them. Perhaps they will come out here for a visit and I will teach them how to be a South African and eat mielie pap, rip meat off the bone and sing Sarie Marais. Maybe they will even want to go hare hunting with Theo on the airstrip at night. Maybe not. Theo really did try it once but he can home hareless. His own hair (all 16 of them) had a slight wave though since it was a windy night.

We recently made a trip into East London for a long weekend to skype Kyro and his new family. Funny how after 3 months of living here in the village, you’d think I’d enjoy seeing a bit of the rest of world. Well, I haven’t missed the traffic, the shops or the people all doing those things which city people do. And when we returned I felt a sense of belonging as we neared our new home at Qolora Village. We bought some lettuce and cabbage seedlings to plant in Theo’s slow growing vegetable garden. He had planted beans, spinach, and carrots from seeds and they were all coming along ever so slowly in his organic garden. The potatoes were doing the best and were up to the second tyre. Anyway someone, I assume one of the woman who occasionally slap mud on a roof to fix a leak or mop the shower floor, must have gone into the garden to take their wheelbarrow. Problem is they left the damn gate open and not only did the chickens have a feast but so did a damn donkey. Not a single blade of anything green is left. Theo will have to start all over again.

Oh well, it looks another month of mielie pap, afval and Theo’s imagination.

Three Blind Mice (a couple of spiders and a magic broom)

Today I facebooked a friend who lives in the north and was reminded how diverse South Africa is. Being a Capetonian, I broadly refer to any province north of the Cape as “The North”, a place where elephants and lions roam the bushveld. Three years ago, before exploring “The Great North”, (which I then called the Transvaal, (and there I go giving my age away) I imagined it as a countryside infested with mine dumps and the leaders of SA business. I thought the Kruger Park was a little camped off area somewhere near Joburg which you could drive through for the day and spot a leopard or a rhino the same way our family used to drive through High Noon Reserve in the Cape searching for Springbok or a lonely Ostrich.



After contacting my friend I smile to myself. I will always associate Joe and Jonelle with the bushveld since we met them during our Field Guide Course which we did together “Up North”. The one month course was extremely educational and gave me insight about nature and during this time got to view and study many wild animals. I finish typing the message to her and lie back on my bed to watch two huge spiders scurrying along the beams which hold up our grass roof. This about encompasses the total of my wild life viewing here in Qolora Village. Well, besides the big spiders, there is a mouse who has recently moved into our rondaval but who I’ve only seen once. It was not a cute little 3cm field mouse that dashed across the floor either. He was bigger and blacker and has managed to eat the food out of the mouse and escape unharmed. I hope I don’t put a shirt on one day to find my boob sticking out of a gaping hole where he’s gnawed off the fabric to make a nest for a family of 20 in my clothing cupboard.



Rather than game viewing, I am learning some fascinating things about the Xhosa people here in rural Transkei. For instance, yesterday Mandisa told me about her neighbour’s problem with bees. Apparently a swarm of bees moved into their house. The local medicine women (probably the same ones we saw flapping their arms around on the hillside last week) were summoned to do their thing at the bee infested house. After their visit, the bees duly left. The family were so happy that they decided to slaughter a cow and have a big celebration and a chat with their ancestors. The Xhosa people have a very high regard for the spirit world and confer with their ancestors about all important matters. Being a Christian Xhosa definitely does not exempt you from such beliefs as one must always please the ancestors to ensure good fortune. I’ve thought about it and to me it’s much the same as you or I would occasionally talk to a deceased loved one. They just take the whole business more seriously. Modern man lives in a world engulfed in superficial crap where it’s each man for himself whereas I think the Xhosa people here in rural Transkei have a simpler, slow evolving lifestyle therefore their old beliefs still carry weight and haven’t been thrown away in exchange for vanity and power.



As a white person, I must say I do find some of their customs rather strange yet very intriguing. A custom which is still practised here which I confirmed with the locals is the broom and boobjob thing they do. Apparently, when a young girl starts showing signs of puberty and her breasts start appearing, she has to have them swept. An aunt or grandmother will take her outside before sunrise and using a straw broom, will brush her naked breasts to prevent them from growing too big too quickly. So there you go girls, if you are worried about ending up with an uncomfortable double D bra size and you happen to be outside in the garden blowing a troublesome wart to the moon, you can just as well grab the garden broom to brush your boobs and see what happens. Mmmmm, I wonder how loudly the Xhosa locals would laugh if I told them that many white don’t walk under ladders, open umbrellas indoors and have a thing about salt.



So, on that note if Theo can’t catch our resident mouse I might have to spit in a bowl and stir in some powdered tree bark, sprinkle in some sugar and leave an inviting Hansel and Gretel trail to the door as I exit backwards for the mouse to follow me out and the spirits to not follow me in. If that doesn’t work I’ll have to ask the medicine women in white to come do their magic here before the mouse extends his family to an uncomfortable size. I haven’t got a cow to slaughter afterwards to celebrate but I do have a few sheets of rice paper which I still have left over from our Japanese food stash and which I’m still trying to figure out how to wrap tripe in. If that doesn’t work, I’ll have a Savanna, it might be dry but I can drink it.