We sit down on some concrete steps to turn my face into the South African flag.
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"I can only tell you things that happened as I saw them, and what the rest was about only Africa knows." – Oom Schalk Lourens
I was 13. It was the Rugby World Cup—the opening game at Ellis Park, in Johannesburg. South Africa vs Australia. Let me paint a picture…
There’s something; an obsession, a physical addiction—an unconditional love that a child has for a first home, be it house or country. Perhaps both. And the further removed one is, the rosier the shade.
She swishes over to Party Pink, hips swaying to the rhythm of her luminous pink hula skirt, “Hey girl, you wanna go to the parrrdeee?”
There was only one proviso with Inecto—never ever spill it. Like, ever. On your face, on your clothing and especially not on your boyfriend’s parents’ cream lounge carpet.
The hum of 9pm kicks in—a boiling kettle, the clatter of dishes in the sink, muted voices on the TV, an occasional dog. I click play.
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Mike’s Kitchen—a necessary rite of passage into the utopia of growing up, where you could stay up late, eat sweets all the time, watch too much TV, live at your friend’s house and never do any times tables.
It was a school day. We were at Stanger High, my dad (Mr Aitchison) was the principal and our English teacher was late for class.
Dan Lefoka stepped back. He bent down. Plunging his hand into the soil he pulled out a weed. He pulled out weed after weed, churning the earth with his fingers, humming as he worked.
Mark gets up from his desk and makes his way to the back of the classroom. He lifts the sash window, looks at suburban Stanger from the old-lounge-now-high-school, and shouts “Voetsek!”—and nothing, not even a pause. The dogs carry on barking. Mark walks back to his desk.