Week 22 SOUTH AFRICAN LITERATURE?

 

Hollow City

On our way back from Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens in Capetown, I decided to concentrate on Afrikaans literature for at least the next 12 months – and this is in my mind a very broad concept. It includes translations from other languages into my mother tongue; and it includes literature that originated on this huge continent called Africa. And it includes legal literature.

And I am going for it. Having said that, I am also writing notes on my iPad of the literature I am reading.

Here is a list of literature I have compiled in the meantime:

1.   HOLLOW CITY by Tim Haynes and photographer David Edwards. I found it to be brutally honest, that is both the write-up and the images. Moving and disturbing all at the same time. This is my city that I know very well. When I was a young law-student at the erstwhile Rand Afrikaans University, I was doubling up as chauffer for the South African Airways [as it was then known] and as such I got to know this city and surrounds very intimately. And has changed but completely and it hard to say and even harder for me to admit that these changes were not for the better, in stead it has deteriorated dramatically and I have to admit, against my will, that it is murderous and rapacious den of vice. And there are still wonderful people in their trying their level best to improve life deep inside the city: people like Tim and Dave.

 

A Home on Vorster Street 

2.   A HOME ON VORSTER STREET deur Razina Theba. A very brave lady this. In light of her being of Indian origins, and South African, she writes with an honesty that is sobering and enlightening.It is appalling what happened to them and that it was meted out by a supposedly Christian Government of pre-1994. Her parents succeeded to raise their children fairly normal in abnormal circumstances – I salute them and I salute you.

 

3.   RACCONTEUR ROAD Shots into Africa by Obie Oberholzer; a photographic essay of my country. I take only five pages every now and again to read it and I read the photographs as well. How do I read a photograph? With my magnifying glass; then I take my time to scour it up and down and left to right and diagonally bottom left to top right and bottom right to top left – slowly and deliberately and just looking at the detail.

 

4.   VREEMDE STORIES UIT AFRIKA [Foreign Stories from Africa] by Johann Lemmer who live in the Groot Marico district. That is the habitat of Charles Herman Bosman – the doyen of the veld and stories of that area and era. Johann Lemmer was also a sculptor in his own right and I saw his sculpture of ANNA KROTOA.

 

5.   DINK VERDER [THINK AGAIN – a very loose translation] by Hibbe Van  Der Veen who lives in Kempton Park Gauteng. One thing is for sure and that is that he does not aspire to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for literature at all. He writes short “stories” and he just dots down his thoughts as and when it strikes him.

 

6.   Citizenship rights in Africa: http://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/

 

7.   The South African Government White Paper on International Migration:  http://www.dha.gov.za/WhitePaperonInternationalMigration-20170602.pdf

 

8.   GOD EN WETENSKAP EN ONS WAT GLO [GOD AND THE SCIENCES AND WHAT WE BELIEVE] by Prof. Isak Du Plessis. I’ve read it years ago and am due to read again.

 

9.   THE PROMISE by Damon Galgut the 2021 Booker Prize winner. It is due to be read again.

 

10.       A SHORT HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA by Gail Nattrass.

 

11.       COUNTRY OF MY SKULL by Antjie Krog. Due to be read again.

 

12.       NERVOUS  CONDITIONS by Tsitsi Dangarembga. Due to be read again.

  

13.       DIE MOOISTE MEISIE IN GENUA Ilja Leonard Pfeijfer translated by Advocate Fanie Olivier during 2019. I only purchased it yesterday [22 June 2023].

 

Kuier in 'n plaaskombuis

14.       KUIER IN 'N PLAASKOMBUIS resepte en stories van gister [Short visit to a farm kitchen, recipes of yesterday] by Nico MOOLMAN. He tells me that he wrote it for his children and then only afterwards started publishing it.

This list is not complete and I am working on it.

What do you read at the moment? And what do you intend to read for the next 12 months?

Please write me your story: neelscoertse@wirelessza.co.za

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Week 21 DONKEYS

Plumtree, Zimbabwe

Donkeys.

Donkeys

Strange animals those things and yet so useful and …

My late dad used to tell the story that only the very poor people, during the Poor White Problem in South Africa, had donkeys. And they had.

Early 2017 I visited our gardener in Zimbabwe to find out for myself how he is doing; the rumours I heard were that he was suffering from epilepsy and that is serious.

Some years prior to him “retiring” to his home “town” in Zim, he was severely assaulted by a vicious man with a brick; that brick struck Leonard on the left side of his head and caused a lot of traumas. He was hospitalised for one night and was discharged on the pretext of being drunk and the wounds were not too severe. I am not a medical expert at all, but my take on it, is that the mere fact that he was struck with a brick on his head, warranted extra caution from the medical specialist examining him; I hasten to add that it was on a Friday night that he was injured and that it is the normal time for this to happen. And these medical specialists are probable traumatised themselves.

We got to hear of this incident the Saturday morning and we immediately went to the Hospital and found him on the pavement. He was dying, so it seemed to me.

Well, he underwent brain surgery at the Johannesburg Hospital and he mended satisfactorily.

Then he got seriously ill and once again I took him to another hospital and they saved his life.

His brother took him back to Gwamagwama in the South West of Zimbabwe; that is deep rural.

The people have cell phones and TV’s all connected and charged with solar power. But there were elderly Black people who never saw a white person in person at all. My presence caused a stir. As we were driving past, you could hear the excited shouts: “Mlungu. Mlungu.” They would jump up and down, arms and hands waving excitedly and them shouting “Mlungu.”

His brother, Norman told me afterwards, that he reached celebrity status in his village for hosting a Mlungu; he was even enjoying eating groundnuts that were specially prepared for him. Norman had to show the visitors, who all came from far to listen to this story first hand, where the Mlungu sat down and where the shells of the groundnuts were “stored.” He was an instant celebrity for hosting me at his homestead.   

And I found donkey-carts as a common way of transporting goods and people.

Modes of Transport in Zim

I want to take you on a journey thru that deep rural part of Zimbabwe called Gwamagwama; will go into a kitchen and we will listen to Bollywood music deep inside the South West of Zimbabwe where they have telephone poles and telephone wires without the service to use telephones; there is better and more reliable connection with internet than non-existing telephones. They charge their phones and TVs using solar power and solar technology while they roast the groundnuts in tin cans over a log-fire in a mud-hut with a thatch roof.

Gwamagwama Zim

Please write me a letter at neelscoertse@wirelessza.co.za 

 

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