Tale guide

A new Dawn

The bushman and his Ann of Africa returned to Africa after their sojourn in the old country proved one winter too many. As mentioned before, there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the English in general nor the Welsh, for that matter. It was just that the bushman and Annie found it difficult to relate. A bit like a bushman out of the bush, if you get my drift.

But the excursion and the Covid pandemic lockdown combined to drive the bushman to the written word which gave rise to the publication of a crime thriller entitled ‘Illegal Tender’ and another bucket list item ticked off! So, I guess a lot of good came from the trip to the old country, even if it didn’t quite work out as expected.

They had a great time visiting the families and grandkids in particular and enjoyed the seaside villages with their pre-war piers, fish and chips, tenpin bowling, trampolines, Blackpool and adventure parks. The political antics in Downing street with Bojo and the boys were a laugh a minute and often put the old ‘comrades’ back home to shame. The bushman and Annie were not too taken with the average 4-degree temperature and snowstorms that periodically swept down from the North Sea and Russia. The national health service didn’t help much either as they weren’t able to provide much support if any, when required. Most importantly, they missed the sun and the sea and the songs and whistles of the myriad of birds that occupy the African bush, not to mention the challenges that confront ordinary everyday efforts to obtain a driver’s licence or identity card, navigate the potholes and prepare food on an open fire again.

The splash pool at their new cottage, overlooking the beach on the East coast of South Africa had been leaking and as water is a threatened commodity, they had to call in the troops to ‘effect essential repairs’ as Inspector Clouseau would have put it. However, one early morning, as they sipped their coffee on the ‘kondi’ (another euphemistically superior English colonial word for porch), just as the sunrise painted its breath-taking brilliance across the seaborne horizon, Ann of Africa announced that she had taken an executive decision. A facelift, in the place of essential repairs, was called for!

The temperature was 32 in the shade and humidity sky high as the workmen went about their tasks. The windows and doors of the house were shut tight in an attempt to keep the fine concrete and fibreglass dust from getting to us. Through the expansive glass windows. I watched an African workman using an angle grinder to shave off a slice of a paving stone as they diligently went about laying a new surround. Clouds of fine concrete dust enveloped his slender figure and billowed around his head as it blew across the garden, enveloped his fellow artisans, and spewed into the atmosphere. Like all the seven of his colleagues and two supervisors, the fellow was barefooted, wore a faded pair of old jeans, a short-sleeved T-shirt, and a well-worn cap. Not a face mask, glasses (safety or otherwise), a glove or helmet in sight, which was what really caught my attention and took me back to not so long ago in England.

It was with somewhat of a wry smile that I recalled seeing a similar operation being conducted on a building site in Chester not eight months prior. But the scene there was considerably different. For starters and notwithstanding that the Englishmen were busy building a double story house, there were only two of them and as far as I could tell, no supervisor!

Dressed in safety overalls under fluorescent yellow reflective jackets, each man sported a dust mask worn under a set of large white Perspex goggles and a bright red helmet. The chap with the angle grinder in this instance, also wore a pair of high visibility gloves. The comparison certainly challenged the mind. Had the English become soft, overbearingly mollycoddled by their legislation or trade unions against the rough and toughness of their African counterparts? Probably not. I guess there is logic in introducing some basic rules for personal safety although maybe the UK example is a tad over the top while conversely, the African approach requires the introduction of some precautions at least. Notwithstanding, placing the two pictures side by side, does make for a comical image.

Haibo!

On a similar tack, the African east coast has had some pretty fearsome torrential rain these past couple of months causing localised flooding and general disruption. In Durban, not so long back, the main southbound highway, which passes relatively close to the ocean, was transformed into a raging river making it impassable.  On day two of the catastrophe, which saw huge sea-going containers floating, at will, out of the harbour’s container yard in the heart of Durban, a huge bull shark was seen swimming around on the Amanzimtoti village intersection, South of the city, trying to decide whether to go North, South or East.

Of course, lest we forget that South Africans are having to face their fair share of global catastrophes on top of a daily serving of Government incompetence primarily in the form of a breakdown in electricity supply, which our illustrious leaders cavalierly label “load shedding”. It was in this turmoil that the bushman was sent down to the corner shop for some bread and milk.

Torrential rain had fallen heavily over the previous week. The bushman drove along the secondary road to an intersection where the incoming road connects with the highway, and which normally is controlled by a set of traffic lights. The intersection lies at the bottom of a slope which lends itself to becoming a torrent when it rains.

Over the previous week or so, the constant flow of water had broken much of the surface tar in the middle of the intersection and a couple of pretty ugly potholes had developed, necessitating the need for drivers to find a way around them for fear of losing a tyre or even a wheelrim in an unintended encounter at speed. Of course, drivers unfamiliar with the terrain were most at risk because the rainwater lying across the road has a most evil tendency of disguising the potholes from their unsuspecting victims.

But on this occasion the rain had abated, and the traffic lights were off. To the bushman’s surprise, he found the local council’s road maintenance team had arrived en force to make ‘essential repairs!’ Surprise because normally it could take many months before the council would have enough money and resource available to fix the problem. It had not been the first time that a passing vagrant was seen carefully filling the gaping potholes with bricks in an attempt to reduce the risk of an expensive blowout and then approach the drivers of the passing vehicles and ask for a couple of coins for his philanthropic endeavours.

We lost a very good friend in the midst of our travels back and forth and the problem with losing someone who was a part of one’s everyday life for a great many years, is that the loss is relived every day thereafter when sublime situations are encountered to which he would have had a response that attracted a laugh or a smile.

Barry Woan was one of those one-of-a-kind characters who was bigger and louder and funnier than anyone you could ever wish to meet. Despite both mental and physical war wounds, Big B was never anything else than “top of the pops!”.

We celebrated our birthdays together. We took team Smelly Fingers to Kariba, St Lucia, Zambezi, Okavango, and so many other exotic places as we worked hard at becoming a drinking team with a fishing problem.

He would facetime the bushman and his Anthea every single day throughout their stay in England to find out what was up and to exchange tales of the African ‘disaster’ in his inimitable and highly entertaining manner.

So, whenever they encounter a typical African experience in their daily lives, memories of him rush to the fore and never cease to raise a smile with a hint of sadness.

The former honourable President Zuma is still living his good years in his palace in Zululand. He continues to fight the country’s legal system in a never-say-die battle to avoid having the day in court he has been earnestly asking for ever since the Gupta’s left for Dubai. And you will never guess whose paying for both his lifestyle and his legal costs?

One does wonder where the trillions of stolen treasury has found its way to.

The once world class electricity supply commission, Eskom, continues to collapse with the latest casualty being none other than the CEO sent by government to sort it out. Seems like he told government that their ideas won’t work and in fact haven’t worked for close of 27 years!

There are so many more anecdotes to share but for now ‘tis enough.

Cheers from the bush.