The Restory Retreat Centre

  I take Steven,  the builder, back home,  his bicycle  on the back of the bakkie. He says  when he is working late, his sister worries. She’s concerned  that he might have been injured during the day. That he has fallen off the scaffolding. When we stop at his house,  his goats and their babies  recognize his voice. In the fading light they come to him.

Photograph by George Angus We hear the beginning. And see the end. Only occasionally do we witness the middle where everything happens.   It starts with worn-out pick up lines, shaken by the dozen out of a box: “Hi gorgeous! How was heaven when you left it?” “Well, here I am. What are your other two wishes?” “Aside from being sexy, what else do you do for a living?”   On and on, right under our window. Up to a point where we lean out and shout: “Please! Enough already!”   The end is messier. No, really. Like in dirty. Where you can only explain it as a mixup of vowels and bowels. Poetry in motion of sorts, I guess.   You are lucky if you catch him in the middle. Unaware, totally taken up by being smitten.  Leaning against the love of his life, his soulmate, his purpose for living. Whispering short affectionate phrases, staring into the eyes staring, nibbling on a beautiful forehead.   What puzzles us is how he knows there is love to be found in the bakkie m...

Vuzi, one of the cattle herders working for our landlord Johan, wants a TV cabinet. Actually, in his words, he needs it. “OK Vuzi, what must it look like?” “No, you are the carpenter, you must make me one.” “I cannot make you one if I don’t know what you have in mind.” “It must be a TV cabinet.” “Yes I know Vuzi, but do you only want your TV in that cabinet, or are you going to put other stuff in there as well? You must make me a drawing. It can be very basic, just so that I can see what you want.” A week later he returns with the drawing on a small piece of paper. There are no measurements or dimensions. The television obviously has centre stage, but there must also be room for his “cloth” speakers (apparently they are upholstered with material) on the sides, his dvd’s on a shelf at the top and the amplifier on a shelf at the bottom. “Thank you Vuzi. How big is your TV? And the size of your speakers and amplifier?” “It is a big TV. And the speakers are also big.” “OK,...

Source: Wikipedia  There is a Hadeda Ibis nest on one of the branches of the American Ash where I park my bakkie. I wasn’t aware that the female has been busy hatching eggs for the last couple of days, constantly sitting in that one spot. It was only when I took workers home on Tuesday that I saw the results of my unfortunate parking spot. My windscreen reminded me of those old aerial pictures of bombing raids during World War II.    I was in a hurry and because I was only going to travel on a dirt road I did not bother cleaning my window. Let me put it this way, it’s not easy finding your way looking through the remnants of Hadeda meals. Going past Zaaihoek dam I had a view through the clues of Saturday’s menu. Coming back the sun sat at an angle so at times   I had to lower my head and look through the small opening of what was left of a Hadeda’s Sunday and Monday, only to quickly return to that Saturday spot at the curves in the road. Firs...

In South Africa we call a small pickup a “bakkie”. It is an Afrikaans word that actually means a small bowl. You’ll give milk to a kitten or a puppy in a “bakkie”. How exactly it came to be used for this type of vehicle I don’t know. In our country with its 11 official languages, we borrow and mingle. Some words we don’t translate. We just use them “voetstoots”. As is. So, whether you’re English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa, you’ll call any small pickup more or less up to a one tunner a bakkie. Thereafter it is a truck or a lorry. Were you to emigrate to another country you might find fairly similar vehicles, but you would miss using the word. There’s just nothing like a bakkie. And among bakkies there are Bakkies. Legends. You can get them only second hand. Or steal them. They’ve earned their reputation through years of use and reliability.  Driving one of them you get used to people walking around them, admiring them, kicking one of the tyres saying: “They don’t make them like...