The buzzing of the bees, the paper trees and the big rock candy mountain

Yesterday, after school, we were heading back to our recently revamped rustic rondavel when our taxi hit a swarm of bees that were on the move. We weren't going very fast, what with the bumps and stones and potholes and all, so a whole bunch of bees buzzed in at Theo’s window, past me in the middle and out at the drivers side. The taxi came to a screeching halt and Theo and the driver jumped out waving their hands around their heads. This encouraged a couple of bees to dive down Theo’s shirt, making him jump around even more vigorously until he eventually got stung. The incident led to a new fascinating discovery which I shall share.

It seems that bees have a special place in Xhosa culture. I bet you didn't know that if bees decide to enter your house and make a nest, you are not allowed to remove them, harm them or smoke them out. In fact, the visiting bees are actually your ancestors making a house call and the only way to make them leave, is to kill a cow.

I’m getting to know the Ngidi family through school since Mrs Ngidi is a teacher while her husband is our contracted taxi driver. He is one of the few people around here who farm their land and they are one of the more respectable wealthier families in the area. Their 2 sons have been to college and their daughter is in Grade 3 and has the most confident voice in the whole school. Mrs Ngidi is a Christian, as is her daughter, Viwe, but her husband is more old school Xhosa and follows traditional ways, as do their sons. Mr Ngidi talks to his ancestors at his kraal whenever a decision needs to be made but he is a bit sceptical about some of the powers of the amaqiga (sangoma). For instance, he doubts that a person can be made invisible so as to avoid being hit by bullets as was reported on the radio recently. Anyway, some time ago, some bees entered the Ngidi home and decided to make a nest in their couch right in the middle of the lounge. The couch was carried outside and a structure was erected above it to protect it from the rain. Two years later, Mr Ngidi, decided he wanted his couch back so the local elders were called in and of course a cow was slaughtered. The elders spoke to the bees, who listened, and after the conversation, the bees (their father’s father’s father) buzzed off and all was well. The ancestors were happy to see that a cow was slaughtered in their honour and left the family in peace.

Bees found in nature are regular bees and are not your reincarnated uncle. Some small boys bravely collect honey from natural bee hives by covering a arm and hand in a plastic bag and with a balaclava pulled over their head, they help themselves to chunks of honey comb. I like the fact that inadvertently, the bees are protected around here, but I just wish more farmers would plant vegetables and give the bees something more than wild cherry guava trees to pollinate.

my beaded shell window thingie

my decorative door thingie

my beaded curtain thingie

 

As to our recently revamped rustic rondavel, I've been in a bit of a creative mood lately and besides moving furniture around, I've created some dangly thingies to hang in front of the tiny window as well as another threaded bamboo thingie to hang in the doorway. It’s pretty to look at and I'm proud of my handy work although it hasn't kept my ancestors out of our mud hut. They have tracked me down here in Transkei and if slaughtering a whole herd of cattle will get rid of them, I’m game. You see, my ancestors have taken the form of mozzies and I suspect they are here to stay, whispering sweet nothing in my ear until I answer them or go dilly.

As the Stomach Turns (If you can remember which TV programme that line comes from, you’ve scored Brownie points)


Our daily life here in Qolora is not that different to life back in Cape Town, well other than logistics and a few finer details like earth, wind, fire and water. Otherwise life here is pretty similar to being in the concrete jungle. For instance, on washing days my UDD (underarm dingle dangle) flaps around vigorously as I manually spin my very upmarket Sputnik washing machine through its wash and rinse cycle. The makeshift table which develops a life of its own when the Sputnik is in full swing, tries desperately to worm its way down the hill in pursuit of the goats, with me in tow. To stabilize everything, I have to pin the table down with my foot, hold the machine in place with my left hand and spin like mad with the right. I get an upper body workout without having to fork out gym fees. I don’t mind carrying pots of boiling water and traipsing back and forth to the garden tap and in fact I consider myself lucky that I don’t have to hunch over a bucket or make a fire to boil the water.

We also have baking days. How else do you think we get bread? As long as it’s not windy, we can fire up Theo’s “boer maak ‘n plan” oven. He gave a 25 litre thinners drum a facelift by cutting the lid off to become to door which we open or close with a pair of pliers. He rammed a wire rack inside and tada. He makes a fire underneath, adds extra coals on top and our oven is set to go. So long as it’s not too windy so that the coals blow away. On those days Theo cooks pap or flapjacks inside. I’ve even baked biscuits and an end of the month version of lasagne using macaroni and soya in our eye level oven. We save a fortune on oven cleaner!!

The upside of living in our cosy rondavel is that there’s no major housework to do. There is a downside to living in one room though. Being woken up at 3 in the morning by a roving beam of light sweeping across the room similar to a police raid, can be disturbing. When Theo wakes up in the middle of the night he tiptoes to the kitchen corner so as not to wake me and with his head torch on full beam, he scans the shelves looking for ingredients to cook dishes such as curry afval. The first time the swooping lights woke me, I ducked my head under the blankets, fearing the inevitable. We all know the aliens will arrive some day and I thought this was it. The body snatchers were hovered above our hut scanning for my perfect vessel to be beamed up and used for reproduction and probably they’d stick probes with flashing lights up my bum. But then the smell of Theo’s afval wafted up my nostrils and I knew I still had more time on Earth before I was needed elsewhere.

Our rondavel roof is propped up with a centre pole (which is actually off centre) but unfortunately it’s too gnarly to wrap my limber self around for pole dancing. I’d consider climbing it and doing a swan dive onto our wobbly bed if the woodwork was not so rickety. Someone has mounted a ceiling fan (which is not connected to electricity) in the most peculiar way up at the top of said pole. I’m not sure which came first - the fan or the pole but the intriguing device will never serve to cool anyone down. I’m posting a picture of it.

Most days we can collect water down at the garden tap and we’ve run a 40 m cable from across the way for electricity so what can I say, we’re pretty comfortable.

Now I’m off to mix some dugga from mud and water as I’ve seen the mammas doing around here. That’s how you repair a leaking grass roof it seems and ours drips when it rains. Oh well at least we wont have to budget for handyman call out fees.

Lately there are just not enough hours in a day to get to everything but I’m as happy as a tick on a cow.

Hey Diddle Diddle, The Cow Jumped Over The Moon

Hey Diddle Diddle, The Cow Jumped Over The Moon



Life here is different to city life in so many different ways. For instance, in the city when your neighbours’ dog continually poops on your lawn, there are a number of ways to deal with these unwanted deposits. If, after politely asking your neighbour to keep their dog on a lease while you grind your teeth with a smile fixed across your botoxed face and the problem persists well then, how you tackle the problem depends on your character I suppose. I saw a movie about a guy who got so irritated by his neighbours’ dog continually pooping on his lawn that he marched over, dropped his pants and promptly took a dump right there in the middle of his neighbours front lawn in broad daylight. Hilarious movie but I wouldn’t suggest it as a solution unless you don’t mind running the risk of being locked up for indecent exposure or have to spend afternoons with a room full of other people who can’t cope with traffic and find it necessary to drive around with a baseball bat under their seat or others who put their fist through their TV because the bokke aren’t awarded their 4 points when Scalk Burger dives for the tryline and the referee calls foul.

Here in our little rondavel in Transkei, life is quite different and there isn’t much to get you riled up. Yesterday morning we opened our door and much to my delight, a steaming cow patty lay deposited on our doorstep, putting any city door to door delivery to shame. This was not left by 12 year old pranksters bearing gifts in a burning brown paper bag who ring your doorbell before dashing to hide in the bushes, giggling like a bunch of school girls as you hastily tramp out the fire and in the process squash turd all over your shoes. No siree, this was left by the unperplexed grass recycling cattle who roam around here as freely as they would like before sauntering down to the beach to laze in the sun and chew the cud while contemplating life as a fish. At first I was a bit nervous walking past these animals and gave them a wide birth while trying to scrutinize the dangly bits between their legs to check whether I was passing a cow or a bull. They all have horns you see and don’t look much like the fat spotted black and white Dairybelle milk supply cows you pass when you feel like taking a drive through the countryside around Cape Town on a Sunday afternoon if you’re tired of walking around the mall looking for new things to spend your pay cheque on after you’ve paid all your bills and there might be a few pennies left over. I soon realised these cattle weren’t concerned by my presence and barely noticed me nervously hanging up the washing 2 metres from them. * Note to Mom: I use pegs these days since I don’t fancy picking up clothes with hoof prints all over them.

Being recalled from dreamland at 5 a.m. by a cow scratching itself against your rondavel door as they try to remove the pesky ticks or a crunching sound under the window of grass being mowed with their molars is better than being woken up by police sirens screaming down the road. The free contributions which they leave around our home is most welcome towards building up our compost heap which Theo plans to put in our veggie garden.

Alternately, Theo glibly suggested that I could spread it over the rondavel floor. I sweep our cow dung floor regularly and I have noticed that lots of little grass bits seem to work themselves loose on the surface but I have absolutely no intention of getting down on my hands and knees, boobs swinging freely to polish our floor by adding fresh coatings of dung as Theo smart arsely suggested.

City people drive BMW’s to flaunt their wealth whereas the Xhosa people here in Transkei show their status by the amount of cattle they own so a Porsche would have as much value as a pair of eyebrow tweezers over here and anyway you wouldn’t get very far negotiating the dongas in the roads. Cattle are used for Labola when a man wants to marry so naturally the more cattle he has the happier he is. Cattle are also sacrificed on special occasions so if a man is prepared to offer one of his cows towards an important event like a wedding or a funeral it elevates his importance in the village much like a city man inviting his friends and family to a braai to celebrate his promotion at his work place, the only difference being the size of the braai grid.

There is a famous Xhosa story which I don’t think many white people know about involving a mass suicide and which according to the internet leaves much room for debate as to the role of the British in the event. It all started right here in Qolora village 150 years ago. In 1857 a young simple girl named Nongqwuse was told by her uncle, Mhlakaza, (who was bitter about being given the boot after many years of helping a missionary named Merriman with translation) to go to the fields near the Gxarha River to chase the birds away from the fruit trees. There in a pool, the spirits communicated with her and gave her a message which led to the downfall of the whole Xhosa tribe. They told her to tell the king that he must order everyone to kill all their cattle and burn all their fields and if they followed this advice, the British who were annihilating the Xhosa people for the past 6 years, would disappear into the sea and the Xhosa people would rise again. The Xhosa people had suffered badly over the past 6 years and to make matters worse the British had brought in their own cattle which carried a disastrous lung disease which was spreading. The people were desperate and the king gave the order and between 300 000 to 400 000 cattle were slaughtered and all the crops were burnt. Nongqwuse’s prediction didn’t materialize but instead the Xhosa nation suffered a horrific loss as 40 000 people died of starvation in a short time, the most ever recorded in history.

The British whisked Nongqwuse off to Robben Island where she spent many years but eventually returned and was buried at the Glenshaw farm, which is somewhere around here, in 1897.

So on that poignant history note, I’m off to find the spade to collect more cow dung for Theo’s veggie garden.

Black Magic Woman

Black Magic Woman

We have moved around 3 times since coming to Qolora village.  Initially, we stayed for about 5 days at the first place which was at the awesome open field/braai spots but there wasn’t any water there (well ok there was a river mouth within walking distance) but we were a bit far from the village and we weren’t really getting to meet the locals by living on the outskirts of town.   Except one night when we got a bit spooked by three Xhosa women who could have put a spell on me.  Picture this, dusk settled over the deserted valley.  The wind pumped at a hectic speed strong enough to blow dogs down the hillside and even the cows hooked their horns into the bushes to keep from lifting off the ground and flying off.  We stayed inside while the caravan rocked and swayed.  Then we heard a faint drumming coming from across the river.  Earlier that day we had seen 3 Xhosa ladies dressed to the nines in their traditional outfits, the one woman was kitted out in a crisp white wrap around dress with a matching turban like headgear wrapped a half a meter above her head.  They spent a few hours across the field from where we were camped and I was dying to know what they were up to.  They walked around waving their arms in the air, shaking their sticks at invisible things and seemed to be anointing spirits in the way a priest performing an exorcist does in those PG18 movies when some poor child raised by obsessively religious parents living in a wooden double storey house with long creaky passages needs to be saved from evil demons who take over the child’s body and write coded messages across her stomach and spin her head around 360 degrees before making her vomit green stuff 6 metres across the room. But I digress.  These women blowing around on the field, flaying their arms and chanting, reminded me of something ominous is all I mean.  Then later when the sun slipped behind the hill, the women disappeared and that’s when the drumming started.  It beat rhythmically throughout the whole night while we lay there wondering whether there were people with sticks through their noses dancing around a big black pot suspended over a fire  and if so what was inside the pot?  Then we wondered how far away from us this scene was taking place.  It was pitch dark outside, and the howling wind and the beating drums were our only company in the dead of the night.  At 3am I eventually must have dozed off, deciding that if anyone wanted to cut out my kidneys for a ritual sacrifice there was nothing I could do about it.  The next morning we awoke and the landscape was still the same.  The wind had died and birds sang their morning song in the bushes, although how they managed to still have feathers and not look like pink crinkly naked newborn chicks after that wind sure beats me. Much to my relief, no dead goats’ heads dotted the field and no evil spirits evoked by the Xhosa women had entered my body through my nostrils while I slept.  We did find out a few days later that the women were indeed traditional healers but the night time drumming remained a mystery to us.          

Soon after, we moved from the field to a stunning little enclosure under lush vegetation behind one of the white peoples’ holiday houses.  There are about 20 such houses here, probably of which 5 are permanent residents. Anyway we loved our little Jamaican campsite under the palm trees, 5 meters from a quiet, pristine beach where Theo started catching fish more regularly and which tasted awesome.  Problem there was once again no water but we also were still not part of the village yet.  My idea of having the children visit me to help them with homework and practise their English would probably not likely happen if were settled in the “white” part of town.  We had asked the chief if we could move into the rondavels which we spotted when we first arrived in town but in Africa things happen at their own pace and we were still waiting for their response.  Eventually, after another meeting with the sub chief (the big chief had died the week before we arrived so that also left the villages with more important decisions to make than finding a home for us) we were given the go-ahead.  We could move into a rondavel and have free electricity in exchange for teaching at the school.  I was happy to pack up and move again, having just gotten my strength back after being down for 9 days with tick bite fever. It was my 3^rd time in 3 years and someone had told me that if I pushed through without antibiotics my body would fight it off for good.  I bravely sweated out a continuous headache, aching body and insides that felt like perhaps those women on the hill had removed my kidneys when I wasn’t looking.  You do think of strange things in the middle of the night when you become a bit delirious after 9 consecutive restless nights.       

So finally it was off to the rondavels which offered loads of potential in the way of getting involved in helping the villagers.  We spent two days moving into our wonderful hut with cow dung floors, grass roof and tiny windows overlooking the village on the one side and more open fields on the other.  The water pipe has burst but eventually we will get water but we have electricity, cellphone reception, some furniture and we are in the heart of things.  This is home.