It was the TokTokkies that initially drew us onto the koppie, the persistent “tok-tok, tok-tok” that reverberated down the valley and into the keen ears of three children begging for incident.
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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
Christine and Walter allowed us to swim in their blue plastic pool in the summer where Nicola and I played mermaids with our Barbies—mine had a purple tail and white crimped hair, just like Daryl Hannah from Splash. I had prawns for the first time at their house—I pretended like I knew what I was doing…
Its essence captured in the trees – great Oaks with strong, angular arms reaching over the streets from opposite sides to clasp hands, and Jacarandas (one right outside our house) spilling purple rain in spring – lauding over the love, laughter, hurt and heedlessness of the century past, and preceding millennia.
Immediately, I was taken back to family holidays in Underberg; my two younger brothers and best friend spending all of our pocket money on cream doughnuts shaped like eclairs from Spar and Dirkie, only sold at the NCD farmer’s store alongside gumboots and manure.
Why couldn’t they live close by? What did you think about it; that your maid’s family was so far away and she was taking care of you? The words that followed; I remember the look of shock on her face…
The blades twice the size of my arm, practically. Not delicate like the ones used by hairdressers—these were kitchen scissors with orange handles; sheers in my small-child hands. All the better to cut with. So, I cut—no mirror, just sheer intuition.
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It was to the backdrop of dust and fynbos that I was served my first vetkoek for breakfast (by a regte egte tannie nogal).
Hastily, we rushed into separate rooms to swap our formal kit for more comfortable party attire. I walked downstairs after finally accomplishing my feat of finishing a magician’s change of clothes, only to realise that I was in an empty apartment…
One day he came down the stairs carrying the little guy in his hands. With tears clouding his baby blues (he was at least thirteen), Ali told me that his hamster’s eye had popped out.
So when the power went out in our home in Croydon-near-the-power-station that one fateful day, we just sat. Waiting. For hours. Shaking our proverbial fists and swearing (non-proverbially) at Eskom for yet another unscheduled power cut. Six hours later…