Monday, April 10, 2006
Loitering in Leiden
Back in Holland the overwhelming warm ‘welcome home’ compensates the cold (a bit:-) We just enjoyed the quiche our neighbours put in the fridge, and decided to keep blogging for the people back home and far-away friends & family. ‘Back home’ is a complicated concept. When we’re here, back home is there, when we’re there, back home is here. Anyway, there’ll be a new post & picture approximately once a week.
Einstein:
The relativity of the fat ass.
Buying ladies underwear in Botswana is an adventure in itself. It seems simple: go to a shop, grab a value pack of knickers that has your size stamped on it, and pay.
When you come to the cashier, she measures you with her eyes. She asks suspiciously:
“Is this for you?”
“Yes.”
“You know it’s big?”
“Thanks, it’s my size.”
“You know it’s BIG?”
“Oh, it’ll fit.”
Looking doubtful she allows you to pay. Having second thoughts you have a look at it before you leave the shop. Out comes an oversized family party tent. Don’t worry about the size of your ass; it just depends on where you are.
Buying ladies underwear in Botswana is an adventure in itself. It seems simple: go to a shop, grab a value pack of knickers that has your size stamped on it, and pay.
When you come to the cashier, she measures you with her eyes. She asks suspiciously:
“Is this for you?”
“Yes.”
“You know it’s big?”
“Thanks, it’s my size.”
“You know it’s BIG?”
“Oh, it’ll fit.”
Looking doubtful she allows you to pay. Having second thoughts you have a look at it before you leave the shop. Out comes an oversized family party tent. Don’t worry about the size of your ass; it just depends on where you are.
Seswaa or the Goat’s Fate
As our faithful readers already know, Bram and Pangaman bought and slaughtered the party goat. The two happy hunters rented space at the butchers to keep the goat cool. The next day Bram had an outing planned for Maud: get a bucket full of entrails from the butcher to put into Pelo’s freezer. This kept Maud busy sticking her head out of the car window as far as possible without being decapitated by the acacia’s.
On party day early in the morning Bram organized another nice trip: pick up Pangaman (quite sleepy because he’d been at a funeral all night), go to the butcher, have the goat sawn to seswaa-pieces, and use our beautiful bakkie to bring the mutilated corpse to the Sunset Bar.
While the guys were sawing, Bram happily walked out with the head in a bucket (“it’s a delicacy”), and put it in the car. Maud decided to take a chance with the acacia’s, and took refuge on the roof until the corpse was offloaded.
Everyone said it was a long time ago since they had such marvelous seswaa.
On party day early in the morning Bram organized another nice trip: pick up Pangaman (quite sleepy because he’d been at a funeral all night), go to the butcher, have the goat sawn to seswaa-pieces, and use our beautiful bakkie to bring the mutilated corpse to the Sunset Bar.
While the guys were sawing, Bram happily walked out with the head in a bucket (“it’s a delicacy”), and put it in the car. Maud decided to take a chance with the acacia’s, and took refuge on the roof until the corpse was offloaded.
Everyone said it was a long time ago since they had such marvelous seswaa.
Organize, darling, organize
It’s the day after: we’re happy and crashed out. Happy because in the end all went well. Crashed out because it was an a-fubar* party…
Picture this:
You’re having your party at a bar - that takes care of drinks & music, you suppose. The bar owner has a ‘very experienced’ girl who’ll organize the food (meaning shopping & cooking). Plates, pots, etcetera will be available. You’ve organized it, you think, but, you didn’t reckon with nafi’s**.
After almost daily checking you discover the evening before that there’s no stock in the drinks-department of the bar. Feeling a bit suspicious you decide to borrow the wholesale card and organize the drinks yourself.
When you bring the drinks in the wee hours of the party-morning you discover there’s no cooking going on, and nothing has been purchased, except for the shopping list they gave you. Mayonaise, oil, and spices – that makes an interesting dinner… Fortunately you made a back-up plan after the drinks-disaster: speed-order the paletshe and salads in ‘your’ Mochudi-restaurant. The Nna-ladies did an abfab last minute job!
By than you decide to back-up everything anyway. Pelo saved our asses by lending us plates, pots etcetera. Our other heroes are Panga-seswaa-man and the baker, who proudly handed over Bram’s beautiful birthday cake right on time.
* almost fucked up beyond all repair
** no ambition fuckall interest
Picture this:
You’re having your party at a bar - that takes care of drinks & music, you suppose. The bar owner has a ‘very experienced’ girl who’ll organize the food (meaning shopping & cooking). Plates, pots, etcetera will be available. You’ve organized it, you think, but, you didn’t reckon with nafi’s**.
After almost daily checking you discover the evening before that there’s no stock in the drinks-department of the bar. Feeling a bit suspicious you decide to borrow the wholesale card and organize the drinks yourself.
When you bring the drinks in the wee hours of the party-morning you discover there’s no cooking going on, and nothing has been purchased, except for the shopping list they gave you. Mayonaise, oil, and spices – that makes an interesting dinner… Fortunately you made a back-up plan after the drinks-disaster: speed-order the paletshe and salads in ‘your’ Mochudi-restaurant. The Nna-ladies did an abfab last minute job!
By than you decide to back-up everything anyway. Pelo saved our asses by lending us plates, pots etcetera. Our other heroes are Panga-seswaa-man and the baker, who proudly handed over Bram’s beautiful birthday cake right on time.
* almost fucked up beyond all repair
** no ambition fuckall interest
Golden boys
Everyone who wasn’t there: thanks a lot for the B-Day blog comments, e- and snail-mails, sms’s, phone calls, and presents!!!
Our first guests brought Bram’s snail-mail, so we could put on the cd Paul sent from Scotland immediately. We listened, chatted, and were flabbergasted it seemed to happen after all.
What almost went fubar came out as a nice, mellow madala-party, with a few guys who remembered Bram’s wild 25th-party in Serowe. Seeing the mountain of leftover beers, the guys aren’t that wild anymore, but their stories about their golden days get wilder every year. Interesting (this is a Maud-observation): if you say it’s enlightening to get to know the man behind your man, the guys immediately say they’re just trying to overbid each others war stories…
Not that it was total oldies; the old warriors brought in some young adults also (their kids), to add djive to the party.
Fafyoif!
Our first guests brought Bram’s snail-mail, so we could put on the cd Paul sent from Scotland immediately. We listened, chatted, and were flabbergasted it seemed to happen after all.
What almost went fubar came out as a nice, mellow madala-party, with a few guys who remembered Bram’s wild 25th-party in Serowe. Seeing the mountain of leftover beers, the guys aren’t that wild anymore, but their stories about their golden days get wilder every year. Interesting (this is a Maud-observation): if you say it’s enlightening to get to know the man behind your man, the guys immediately say they’re just trying to overbid each others war stories…
Not that it was total oldies; the old warriors brought in some young adults also (their kids), to add djive to the party.
Fafyoif!
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Lady Grey
our Pretoria-branch will post a picture later
When Maud asked Nick 'What's the most beautiful spot in South-Africa?' he said 'Lady Grey, where my mom grew up on the family-farm'. Saturday morning he took Gerhard and Maud over there, while Bram had to stay back home and prepare his lectures. After tannie Elsa installed Bram & laptop safely in the sunroom, we were on our way.
The trip itself, up to the Lesotho-border, where the really high, fierce mountains start, is magnificent. As Nick promised, you don't see Lady Grey until you almost enter the village, because it's build between two mountains. We start our tour with a little village-sightseeing on our way to the dam. Driving through an almost Austria-like wood we reach the dam, build where two mountains meet. The water splashes down lavishly over the high, high wall. I almost can't believe in winter you can climb to the top over the side of the waterfall. Right now you would be washed away immediately.
It's too cold to swim, but we fool around in the shallow part of the water anyway before we master the top. Walking over the dam-wall the calm lake and the force of the water splashing down is unbelievable. The high, green valley goes into Lesotho, and Maud decides she must definitely do another horseback-trip with Bram over there.
Back in the village lunch is a good excuse to explore the nicely restored old hotel. Refreshed we start our village-tour. Lady Grey is very different from the other small Oostkaap-villages. Thanks to its beauty the exodus of youngster to town is compensated by town-people who want to escape Big City.
We end our tour with a visit to the graveyard to bring flowers for Nick's granny, and to the church where his parents married. Next to the church is a small museum. We phone the caretaker because we want to see the clothes Nick's granny made for the museum. Maud has never been in one of those village-museums, and is fascinated by the collection and the caretaker, who knows the history of almost all the items on display and every person in the many pictures.
We drive on to the family-farm. Over the tar road out of the village, which immediately disappears between the mountains. At the spot where the train used to stop to pick up the milk, we turn onto the dirt road, up, down, up, down, until we see a valley. At the foot of the mountain in front of us we can see the ruins of the huge farmhouse. The mountain and the valley are even more beautiful as they looked on the pictures Maud has seen. On this point of no return we return to Jamestown, where we find Bram, very happy with the work he has done and the coffee & goodies tannie Elsa spoiled him with.
When Maud asked Nick 'What's the most beautiful spot in South-Africa?' he said 'Lady Grey, where my mom grew up on the family-farm'. Saturday morning he took Gerhard and Maud over there, while Bram had to stay back home and prepare his lectures. After tannie Elsa installed Bram & laptop safely in the sunroom, we were on our way.
The trip itself, up to the Lesotho-border, where the really high, fierce mountains start, is magnificent. As Nick promised, you don't see Lady Grey until you almost enter the village, because it's build between two mountains. We start our tour with a little village-sightseeing on our way to the dam. Driving through an almost Austria-like wood we reach the dam, build where two mountains meet. The water splashes down lavishly over the high, high wall. I almost can't believe in winter you can climb to the top over the side of the waterfall. Right now you would be washed away immediately.
It's too cold to swim, but we fool around in the shallow part of the water anyway before we master the top. Walking over the dam-wall the calm lake and the force of the water splashing down is unbelievable. The high, green valley goes into Lesotho, and Maud decides she must definitely do another horseback-trip with Bram over there.
Back in the village lunch is a good excuse to explore the nicely restored old hotel. Refreshed we start our village-tour. Lady Grey is very different from the other small Oostkaap-villages. Thanks to its beauty the exodus of youngster to town is compensated by town-people who want to escape Big City.
We end our tour with a visit to the graveyard to bring flowers for Nick's granny, and to the church where his parents married. Next to the church is a small museum. We phone the caretaker because we want to see the clothes Nick's granny made for the museum. Maud has never been in one of those village-museums, and is fascinated by the collection and the caretaker, who knows the history of almost all the items on display and every person in the many pictures.
We drive on to the family-farm. Over the tar road out of the village, which immediately disappears between the mountains. At the spot where the train used to stop to pick up the milk, we turn onto the dirt road, up, down, up, down, until we see a valley. At the foot of the mountain in front of us we can see the ruins of the huge farmhouse. The mountain and the valley are even more beautiful as they looked on the pictures Maud has seen. On this point of no return we return to Jamestown, where we find Bram, very happy with the work he has done and the coffee & goodies tannie Elsa spoiled him with.
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