Do they still have those jotter exercise books? I ask because Ive just reminded myself of an incident that occurred in my matric year at the turn of the century. One of my ex-school mates (we later re-christened him Jotter) found his cravings for the holy herb too intense and destroyed vast sections of his Afrikaans Begripstoets jotter book to control the yearning. Before I proceed, and because I have an eight year old boy to serve as a good role-model to, I want to make it clear that I do not puff on slowboats. Never have and never will! Moving right along. On that particular day we had bunked school (as we normally did on a Friday or when there was a beauty pageant which needed attending in the township) and were now all sitting forlonly outside the Sphumelele Hall at KwaMakhutha. This state of dejection could itself be traced to a lack of the R5 entrance fee which would have made us part of the audience inside the hall cheering loudly the contestants of the Miss Razzmatazz beauty contest (Razzmatazz being the name of a fleet of taxis belonging to a local taxi boss that were popular in those days). Ask even the most novice smoker of the holy herb and they will tell you that in the absence of rizzler, telephone (directory) paper is your next best bet. Now approach any intermediate smoker of inkantini for advice on what to do if both these forms of wrapping paper are not readily available and they will tell you that a green leaf - provided you possess the basics of loading a pipe - will also most certainly do the trick. Not this fellow. Preambling his actions with Hhey fusegi, intombi yami ila ngaphakathi ehholo iyamodela kodwa mina ngikhamise la ngaphandle anginanyuku...argha awuthi ngivele ngizibhemele inkantini okungcono kukhulunywe ukuthi ngizifantelwe islayi (my girlfriend is one of the participants at this pageant and yet I cant even watch her because I am broke. Let me rather get goofed and forget about my worries), he proceeded to extract from his Ginger Bhagwandas plastic packet a variety of school exercise books among which could be counted the ill-fated Afrikaans Taal & Begripstoets jotter. He casually tore off a section of the front of the jotter and proceeded to roll multiple joints of the already crushed weed. Asibheme bafwethu, ipage le jotter lithambe kabi, liyafana nje nefoni paper, futhi wena Comfort (ekhomba mina ngamehlo) ungalokhu ufaka umbono ophashile la ngoba okokuqala nje awubhemi, futhi uhlala emandiyeni eSiphingo ubuye ukujombe umthetho wamantaliyane. Futh iyobe ingisiza kuphi nje leyo bhekripstutsi ngoba kukhulunywa isiZulu eToyota moto-sembula la elathi ithayima elidala lizongifaka khona uma sengiqede isigele (Let us smoke gents, who cares about Afrikaans anyway because at the Toyota motor assembly plant where my uncle promised to find me a job they communicate in isiZulu). We all laughed and the smokers smoked. Jotter, as he became known from that moment forth, later set the remainder of the begripstoets jotter on fire. We laughed again. I am not sure if his uncle ever delivered on his promise of getting Jotter a job at Toyota moto-sembula. I last saw him when I matriculated from Strelitzia Secondary in 2000.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 11:43:13 +0000
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