THE ORIOLE. Just the other day i was sitting on the front porch with Oom Saggiespraat, talking about this and that in general and nothing much in particular, when he sighed the way he always does before saying, “ja, die boere darem.” Now this was not much of a statement as far as statements go and basically it said nothing at all. In fact all it meant was ‘Oh these boere you know!’ Now for those of you who have no working knowledge of the Afrikaans language the word boere was just another way of saying farmers. For some reason or another that sigh of his refused to slip away in my mind and suddenly it pushed away my other gripes, such as that old taxman and the leaking cistern up in the roof. It was like a Ridgeback who had locked his jaws onto a piece of biltong and refused to let go. However though, old Saggiespraat was still busy talking and i was unable to pull apart the Ridgeback’s jaws and at the same time contribute meaningfully to the conversation. Look, you must understand it is not difficult to add my own sighs, nods and tsk-tsk’s to the old man’s conversation, but i had to concentrate to add the right sigh after his tsk-tsk, otherwise he was bound to get suspicious, and then he would want to know what was wrong with me. Furthermore just the right ja-nee had to be interjected at the right moment in this conversation, a conversation that would make no sense to anyone below the age of seventy. Those of you who are still wondering what Saggiespraat means let me spill the old can of beans before we continue. It means to whisper, nothing more and nothing less and that is exactly how he got that name. Everything was said in a whisper, which made conversation difficult at times but it was also kind of funny, seeing that he was christened with the name of Gerhardus. What made it so ironic was the fact that the ‘hard’ part in the middle of his name actually meant loud. Anyway, so you see i had to keep my wits about me, and it was only after the old man had donned his hat and shuffled off out of my yard, that i could pour myself a descent mug of coffee and tackle that old Ridgeback problem. At last i was able to retrieve that bone and i started mauling on it myself. You see this little four letter word originated in the Netherlands, where they called a farmer a boer. Now the first settlers at the Cape in the sixteen hundreds were of course farmers. They were enticed to settle here with that old dangling carrot promising free farms for all, an offer which i don’t mind saying so, was grabbed up the way a pensioner grabs up special offers on pensioners day. Over time French and German settlers, who had a little hiccup with the way the church interpreted their Bibles for them, joined the Dutch and a single language, unique to South Africa was born. Not to be outdone the Portuguese, Cape Malays, Mauritians and a few others jumped in while the going was good and added a few words of their own to what was to become the youngest, newest language in the world. Suddenly the old Afrikaners, who were so proud of their new status, what with being the youngest language and all, tried to force most other fellows sharing the country with them to read and write in Afrikaans. Now some fellows did not take kindly to this, in fact it caused deadly umbrage with them and they started playing truant from these classes. Some of these fellows were so upset that they were even known to chuck the odd stone or two around at anyone within distance. Things changed so rapidly that pretty soon the little four letter word boer changed completely from its original meaning. All of a sudden these blokes called every person who had the complexion of a Norwegian fresh out of his six sunless months, a boer. By now there were eight million Afrikaans speakers and not every one of them was a farmer, so boer became an all inclusive four letter word meant to be an insult to the old lighter shade of pale crowd. I lost track of my thoughts because old Medisynebal De Kok, walked down my garden path and started to chew the fat with me at the gate. Medisynebal’s father was originally saddled with this moniker, due partly to the fact that he knew a boereraad or cure to every malady known and unknown to man, and of course partly to this incredibly hard, ball shaped stomach of his leading the way, with him following. In all other aspects he was perfectly well built. When his son was born the little man was called little Medisynebal and when the old man fell away he shouldered full responsibility for the old man’s name. For the uninitiated a medicine ball was large and heavy leather ball that was used in physiotherapy and in physical training at school. With Medisynebal finally gone i went back to the porch, poured some fresh boeretroos and went back to my thoughts. Now where was i? Oh yes, not everyone was a farmer. You see not all the old Afrikaner boere treated these fellows who worked for them in the Christian way. They were of the opinion that these blokes had to be handled like they would their oxen. You see if you feel sorry for your old ox and you padded the yoke so that it was nice and soft, then that old ox will just stand there and look at you. Try as you might it just won’t get stuck in and pull the load. It had to feel that yoke, and a lashing or two with the sweep was just what it needed to get going. Not that they only gave their workers a lashing or two, far from it! Their Big Book instructed them to lay into their naughty sons with that old rod as well. “Spare the rod and spoil the child”, one often heard them exclaim at the church bazaar where they were hanging out around the braai area, with three or four sheep slowly sizzling on the spit over the coals. It was one of those rare cloudless windless days here in the Eastern Cape and i was at the pannekoek and koeksuster stand, laying my hands on some of those sticky delights the tannies were so good in making. Now these old boere asked no questions when it came to taking money, in fact at times i have noticed them raking the buckaroos in from the very blokes that they had been calling names during the week. On bazaar day any and all money was good money the old boerejood always said. It was on that occasion that i heard this big brawny bloke with the short haircut remark to one of the tannies that he now had to spend his profits on building houses for his workers. It was one of the first times i heard a farmer talk about profits. Usually all i heard were complaints about the weather and his workers. Sometimes the crops failed because of drought and at other times it was the great flood which washed crops away. They were forever complaining about farming being a bottomless pit that sucked up all their money but yet all were driving the old Mercedes around town. Come December time you would find the whole bunch trekking down to Hartenbos where they had a holiday home. Medisynebal came back from wherever he was and interrupted my thoughts for the second time that day. Oh yes. So all across the country we were suddenly being called boere and everybody suffered under the wrath of the young ones who had never even suffered under that old system called apartheid. The ones who really suffered were now all in high governmental positions, earning the old buckaroos faster than they could spend it. The young ones were born in a free country but they were the ones running around like chickens whose heads had been chopped off, all the while complaining of everything under the sun. This made me think of the time after the Anglo Boer War. Afrikaners across the country blamed every English speaker for murdering their womenfolk and children, and even today i know of some young upstarts in the far North who cannot and won’t speak ‘Brits’ as they call it. With the passing decades the Old Ones fanned the flames of hatred into every new generation and the same was happening today. The Old Ones keep on reminding the young ones of the injustices of the past. Forgiveness is not forthcoming and the chasm between the wrong and the wronged is ever widening but hopefully so is the number of young ones who listen to the old ones. I sighed and got up to pour another coffee from the enamel pot steeping on the old stove. By now the stuff was as black as the insides of a dog and strong enough to kill off the wood borer tunnelling quietly through the lounge floor and any vermin found around the house. So here we were, with the old history once again repeating itself in this young country of ours and suddenly my mood was as black as the coffee in the pot. The victor takes all and the looser must be seen to suffer. The wrongs of the past will be held up to our faces and the sins of our forefathers will be used as an excuse to lay that old stick into the boer. Damn old Saggiespraat! Why did he choose this beautiful morning to sit and whisper his one word sentences so mournfully on my stoep? I stirred an extra spoon of sugar into the cup to calm my nerves and took my black mood in tow, retreating to the porch. Sipping my coffee i listened to the beautiful notes of the shy Oriole high up in my White Stinkwood tree. The clear mellifluous notes descended on all living in my street. There and then i tossed the old bone that Saggiespraat had left so unasked away. That is the luxury that old people have. I don’t have to draw a conclusion, I don’t have to come up with a solution and i sure as God made little apples of all kinds, did not have to struggle any further with the old boere. I have gnawed the bone for a bit and that was it. There is no moral to the story except that the Oriole sings over all of us. He is a shy bird, hiding in the crown of trees but his voice is clear and if you care stop and listen you cannot help but be carried along on its beautiful notes.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 08:45:40 +0000
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