Writing a blog is a healthy thing, but it can also become me-centred. That’s why I left it for a week. Everybody knows that if you’re speaking to me and I’m bored in the first sentence, I switch off and I don’t hear you. I think my droning on of late started to bore me. Hence the time off to live life.
Here is a shearing collage of 2012. Yesterday the wool was baled and today we transport our wool to the auction.
Happy Thursday all.
I’m so hormonal today that I could easily have side swiped a few dumb asses on the side of the head…a number of times.
Breathe in and breathe out.
Koek! Vrek! “Jy is die domste drol….fok off!”
On a good note, I bought a darling little dress today for R400. When I got to the till, the cashier must have seen ,my limp hair, my wrinkled tired looking face and thought “shame, let me cheer this bag lady up”.
Guess what? She told me the dress was marked down to 250 good South African Rond! So, of course I did what any girl worth her salt would do….I bought this beautiful summer-ry, yellow and white striped scarf with the balance of the money.
What does it mean? I got the scarf for free! Of COURSE I did!
That cheered me up a little. Still…doesn’t vapourise the daily dimwits I deal with periodically.
Anyway, off to a Stud sale tomorrow. Stud, as in cattle and sheep, and not Stud, as in Earings!
laters baby…..
I forgot to mention that this past Monday I made another labour run to the local Hospital.
My Ironing lady runs breathlessly into my framing room, “We have a problem”.
“Yes”, I reply annoyed at the interruption.
“My sister’s about to have a baby and the ambulance hasn’t arrived yet. Please take her into town.”
So off I dashed, pregnant fairy groaning on the backseat. I arrived at the hospital at 9-30am. When I arrived home, Noza walked into my framing room at about 10am and told me the baby had just been born and it was a little girl. We arrived in the nick of time. Don’t think I could have coped with a birth on my back seat.
But I have vowed to my staff that when we get back from Jozi, I’m organising a sex talk on the farm to re-educate and remind everyone to u-condomize .We’re having a baby a week on this farm. Born to unwed young mothers.
I’ll organise the talk but the rest is up to them.
Living in a busy farming community means you are busy most weekends and sometimes during the week too.
This last Sunday John and I had nothing on and we braaied with the kids.We sat in the sun drinking our white wine spritzers and had a right old jolly good time. What bliss..to just stare at a point over my standard roses and not make small talk. Actually while I was staring blankly something did register in my brain to plant some more shrubs in the one flower bed. Am I good at gardening? I dunno? But I enjoy it and Zizile does a mighty fine job of listening to my instructions.
Yesterday I got a frantic phone call while I was in town from Thembisa. She phoned to tell me that she had to run up the farm road as her sister had gone into labour and was busy giving birth. So there this young girl was, lying on the gravel, grass and stones giving birth to her 3rd child. No help or drugs. Anyway John sent a truck straight away and she was whisked through to the local hospital. I’m presuming with baby and umbilical chord in hand…. They are both fine and the baby was a girl. The mother is not married and this is her third child in about 5 years. Hopefully the labour might cause her to think twice before allowing a man entry again!
It worries me so much when I see these kids running around sans a father. Every time a baby is born it puts such financial pressure on the rest of the family. The irony is, that this woman has never worked and she manages to bring up 3 kids with help from her family. She isn’t the only one that’s done that. The sense of family among Xhosa people is phenomenal and so strong.
The joys of farm life.
I took this photo on Sunday in front of the peach blossoms to celebrate Spring:
The difference with living on a farm and living in town…
Living on a farm:
Living in town:
Blogging began as a way for me to just speak. Nothing else. A little platform to voice a thought, opinion or record something.
I enjoy reading other blogs. I don’t always have the time to read other blogs. I admittedly always make time to read the Reluctant Mom’s Blog though. She has a refreshing way at looking at things. She’s not scared to have an opinion. Her world in the suburbs of Cape Town is a world apart from mine here on the farm. But intrinsically we have lots of things in common. Like loving the husband, kids and most things a thirty-something South African woman, would find important. I do admire most, her zero tolerance for bullshit. A most commendable trait in anybody. http://reluctantmom.wordpress.com/
So, as I mentioned earlier, blogging became a way for voicing and recording. Life on a farm in post Apartheid South Africa has changed greatly from life on a farm during Apartheid. With fundamental things, like housing and salaries. But fundamentally, on our farm, the respect is still there.
My matric class was the last only white matric class in our school. They had started integrating all kids that year. I’m writing this matter of factly, because how do you begin to apologise for a whole body of ignoramuses that made descisions before I was born. I’m envious of our kids. They have the opportunity to go to school with all colour groups and become colour blind. In our part of the world it is disrespectful to not respect the different cultures. If someone is black, they’re black, and they have a heap of traditions that go with it. Like amakweta’s. Like circumcision. A huge deal for a Xhosa boy. So it’s not a simple case of not seeing colour but rather respecting the package that comes with it.
People look at my magnificent view from my verandah and comment that I must really appreciate this. I do. I really do. I appreciate it every day. It’s just that sometimes it’s difficult to stop and smell the roses when you’re in a rush in the mornings with the school run, bags to pack, framing, admin and books to do and staff to organise. It’s not that slow-paced, methodical life you may think we have on the farm. Well not for us. Not for John and I and the kids. There’s always something going on, something to do and somewhere to be. In fact it’s sometimes downright hectic.
I like it like that. He who seeks rest finds boredom. He who seeks work finds rest. Dylan Thomas. and all that……..
Last night we had friends for dinner. I was a bit highly strung. Not about the dinner but more like a spillover from the very busy week I’ve had. It was nice to see them and just chill.
I know I keep harping on about this, but it’s hectic in my life. The lifting. My framing, John, Molly, Aidan, the books. Trying to diet. Trying to excercise. Fok it…. and still having to “you know”…. when all you want is a kiss and a cuddle and 300 thread count white percale pillow slip beneath your cheek. Cheerio ’til the morning dude.
Being Thursday morning, my morning to lift kids from the Boom-gate to the school, the kids happily filled me in on their snake story of two days ago. Apparently Aidan while on top of the jungle gym, spotted a Ringhals (Cobra) in the corner of the sand pit. He alerted the kids and teacher and they all ran for safety. The snake got away though.
That’s the thing about living in these parts. The snakes. We have puffadders, ringhals, Cape Cobra’s (very aggressive snakes), and night adders and the not so harmful skaap stekers.
My kids don’t play outside without some form of supervision. Be it me, John or a nanny.
In fact, last week, Molls and the nanny were sitting on the trampoline when I heard shouting. I ran outside to find Seko pointing at a snake, not 2 m from my child! We shouted for Lizzie, who is a ruthless snake killer of note, and she sorted the snake out. I know you shouldn’t kill snakes, but really, I have to, for my kids’ sakes.
So all’s well that ended well.
Here is a picture of the snake. Which was a night adder. Thank goodness not a puff adder!
Seriously, John is SO annoying and that is why I need my girlfriends to sit and bitch to. I tried to moan to him about last night and have a bit of a skiner(gossip) and he gets all quiet and disapproving. SO annoying. A girl would um and ah and nod at all the right places in the conversation. My friends wouldn’t judge at all and would understand that it’s anger of the moment and would think NOTHING of me speaking to the alleged person, as if nothing was wrong. Yes, you may say it’s too faced. I just say it’s a vent and a rant and rave about a particular incident.
If you live on a farm and get thrown constantly with a mixed bunch of women and don’t ever get annoyed, then you must be brain-dead. The worst is when someone arrives at a function in a bad mood. It filters through to the rest of us and really causes shite.
People sometimes drain me. And when John doesn’t want to be my “cat scratching post”, well then SHAME ON HIM!
The cheek of it….
I have 4 Xhosa ladies that work for me. Thembisa, also known as Tiffa, in the house and kitchen. There’s Nonkoliseko, an awesome Grandmother, whose chief job is to look after Molly, coz she’s cerebral palsy. Then there is Noza, who comes twice a week to do the washing and ironing, brasso-ing and polishing silver, washing windows. She is about 6 months pregnant, or as my Dad says, properly up the spout.
Lizzie is my lady in the garden. She is fairly oldish, comes in when she feels like it, 100% old school and barely speaks English, she rattles off in Xhosa and has the kindness and soul of a saint.A few days after my father-in-law died, John and I arrived home to find Lizzie huddled against the wall at about 7:30pm at night, in mid winter. When we asked why she was still here, she replied that she didn’t want to leave John’s mom on her own. My mom-in-law didn’t even know that she was still there. But that’s how we are on the farms. Generations growing up together. Lizzie’s parents and grandparents growing up in this area, watching John grow up in front of them playing with their kids. It’s family in every sense of the word.
Now, having all these helpers is awesome. I leave in the morning to go to work or do the school run and arrive home to a clean house and a meal of reis, vleis and aartappels on the table. But it also comes with its side shows.
For example buying bloody Boxer tobacco. Lizzie and Nonkoliseko, whom we affectionately call Seko, get the heebie jeebies if their tobacco runs out. So very few town runs are made without the request of Tobacco. It’s so annoying sometimes because not every shop sells it and one can only buy it at the cigarette counter, where there is invariably a queue. So with two kids clinging or running wild I have to stand in the bloody queue for tobacco. It’s not worth, not getting it. You know that saying, Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned? Well, it was invented with Xhosa women in mind. The cold shoulder, sulking and pure punishment is NOT worth it!
Seko, is a special person. I firmly believe that divine intervention sent her to us to look after Molly. She has 6 kids. 3 normal, 1 that walks on his hands and feet, 1 cerebral palsy and 1 child who died when he was young. She knows shit. She’s seen bad things and she JUST GETS ON WITH IT! Always has a smile on her face. In fact I think that, had she been born in different circumstances, she would probably be a CEO of a company. She has Mandela’s sunny, yet pragmatic disposition. I’ve told her, that she may never leave us. She finds this very funny and laughs her head off.
It’s important to respect each other on a farm. Read The Poisonwood Bible if you haven’t already. You know…… respect each others cultures and beliefs. At the end of the day I am the boss’ wife, but respect goes a long way. And a Xhosa woman has never-ending strength and abilities. She loves her children, she laughs a lot and she loves her family. There’s no sense of humour like that of a Xhosa woman….
