Rhodesian schools were based on the Scottish system, because the Scottish education system was deemed to be one of the best. Also, David Livingstone, the early explorer was Scottish. We has to learn a language, either French of Afrikaans. The headmaster, who was also my teacher, reckoned that my Afrikaans was pretty poor. 'Jeeves' Hogard thought I should get some extra study in Afrikaans. Dad had an Afrikaans man working in his office. His name was Reddelinghuis. He had a small holding outside of Salisbury. It was virtually a farm, a he used to grow tobacco and other crops there and he had cows.
My dad came up with the solution to stay with Reddelinghuis. for a week. I was duly dropped off at his farmhouse. In the house was Mrs Reddelinghuis whom I remember as a large, overweight Afrikaans woman with the sweetest nature. She was grossly overweight. The fat on her legs wads like in rolls to my thirteen-year-old eyes. The flesh above the knees would hang down over the bottom part in a big shape. She had a daughter who was similarly sharper at eighteen. Her son's shape was reasonable.
I could not understand a word they were saying. They used to serve biltong as a side dish to the main meal, which was inevitably mealie pap and gravy. One day I heard a lot of screaming and I went to see what was going on. The woman was cleaning out her son's room and he had a rod with a hook on it. The hook had gone through her finger. They had to cut the hook part off and shove the hook all the back though the finger.
Another night Mr Reddelinghuis came in and said there was a bush fire threatening his tobacco. We would all have to go and fight it. We ended up being driven a couple of miles into the bush on the back of the truck. There were several Africans with us. We hopped out of the truck and that was the first time I saw Africans hitting the base of the fire with branches of trees. The fires would go up in the air and go out as they were separated from their fuel source. I had just been wandering around in a distracted state of mind and got lost. I found myself surrounded by flames at least twenty feet high.
You could find an exit path by walking on the parts where the ground had already been burnt. I was totally on my own and didn't actually know what I ought to have been doing. Then I heard voices and managed to join up with them. I must have wandered no more than one hundred metres or so. I don't think the others ever realised I had been surrounded by flames.
The Reddelinghuis's were very strict Dutch Reformed Church. They would sell tea or coffee at local agricultural shows. I offered to make signs for the stall, because it was just a bunch of tables, nothing to tell you where you were or what was going on. I bought unbleached calico, called kaffir sheeting. I wrote coffee and tea in English.
That was a similar situation to when an aunt and uncle invited me to stay for a couple of weeks in Mozambique. I spoke no Portuguese. My mother spoke Portuguese. Again, Katrina was raising funds for her church, which must have been a catholic church. She suggested I paint a sign for their stand. She wrote it out on some paper and handed it to me. I got myself some unbleached calico and paint and started to put on the letters. Some Portuguese youth, at least I thought they were, came and stood around me. On reflection, they must have been Rhodesians. They were taking the Mickey out of me because they could not speak Portuguese and they thought I was Portuguese. They started making jokes about me, and when I had had enough, I looked them I the eye and said I speak English as well as you do. In hindsight, I would have found out why they were there and seen if I could join them.
I once joined up with people like that. I was staying in the Estoril campsite in Beira when I was 18. The beach was a kilometre long and then if you were looking toward the sea, the campsite was behind you. On the right was a pavilion where you could get food and they played music. In front of the pavilion was a wreck. People would walk though it as the waves used to crash against it. The waves were dangerous. I settled on the beach feeling alone. I had taken three weeks leave from my new job and drove down to Mozambique in my new Volkswagen. I had never driven any distance on my own before. I'd set off from home at six in the morning, stopped in Umtali for a cup of coffee, and set out full of enthusiasm to drive to Mozambique. Umtali was on the border with Mozambique. As soon as I left it, I was in Mozambique and had to go through customs and immigration. I cleared customs easily. It had cost me a week's wages to get the triptik, enabling me to take my vehicle into a foreign country.
I drove thought he forest, which was on fire, smoke blowing everywhere. The road was ten-foot tarmac with sheer edges. It was very hard on steering track rods. The Portuguese army knew about these steep edges and used to drive playing chicken, which meant they would hold the middle of the road and force you to get off. It was very dangerous. If you just touched the edge, you would go off into the bush. The Portuguese vehicles were Unimogs, big jeeps. They played this game all the way down to Beira.
The first moment you know you're on the plunge flats is when your car drops down suddenly. Every time you came down, you thought that was the end of your shock absorbers.
I made my way to the aunt and uncles household. I was offered prawns that had been cooked whole. One of the women ate a whole prawn including the head and legs. I felt sick watching that.
When I went down to the beach, I noticed some young people fifty metres behind me and fifty metres to my right. I joined up with them as a gatecrasher. It wasn't easy to leave and join up with them again as I would have been spotted as an outsider, so I just stayed with them.
Later, I went up to the pavilion and ordered per-peri prawns to give them a try, and loved them.
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