RABBITS ON THE ROOF AND KOEK KOEKS IN THE KITCHEN

My friend Eleanor and I were off to Reitz to have a few days of art tuition with my first art teacher Denis Hilton Lees. Denis first taught me down on the West Coast some years ago and after a stint of five years in Taiwan teaching English, settled here in this farming town in the Free State of South Africa.

Along the road I tried to tell Eleanor about Denis and his family but in the end it was better to wait for her to find out herself. We arrived at around twelve to Denis striding to open the gate with a wide grin on his face. He ushered us through clucking Koek Koek hens to the kitchen where I introduced Eleanor to Laura and young Jessica and Benjamin amidst a few hens drawn in by the excitement!

Koek Koeks were bred in 1960 at the Potschefstroom Agricultural College by Chris Marais as dual purpose birds for laying and meat. They are easy to sex having distinctive marks.

The breed is in great demand and Laura breeds them, a clutch of eggs beneath the hen in the bathroom were due to hatch at any moment.

With wine and coffee for Eleanor, we repaired to the studio, an old double garage open to the elements with the valley and the town far below. A chicken run with rabbits hopping around was next door with beehives in the rear. Denis’s paintings and paraphernalia adorns the walls, music plays and we were into art talk immediately.

I had made my famous chicken liver terrine and brought bread and cheese and after a while we moved outside in the good weather to have a light meal next to the garden nursery that Laura has developed.

After lunch it was straight to work. Eleanor had brought a photograph copy of Table Mountain as seen from Blouberg Strand across Table Bay that she was keen to paint on a fairly large canvas. In next to no time Denis had persuaded her against copying it, to give it her own twist and Eleanor’s journey had begun.

I am busy trying to put onto canvas what it is like to be a writer and had done a canvas with him last time depicting the flight of ideas. Now I wished to express the loneliness of the writer. I described my idea and Denis just muttered “Crazy lady!”

Later we went off to Absolute B & B with a warm welcome from Johan and Marinda whom I knew, returning later for more art and the evening meal. I had cooked Babotie, a Cape Malay dish of mincemeat and mild curry and other spices with rice.

The Malay people were brought to the Cape as slaves to work on the new farms of the Dutch required to grow food for their ships plying to and fro from the Dutch East Indies. These people brought with them the spices of the east and their cuisine.

A bredie is a casserole of lamb pieces braised with onion and garlic and spices such as cinnamon and bay leaves layered with typically tomatoes or green beans but I chose to do it with butternut squash.

The following morning we were greeted by the news of little Koek Koeks having hatched except for one that was battling valiantly to peck its way out despite being the wrong way round. The hen had neglected to turn the egg. Laura helped by cracking the shell but left the sac as if she tore that, the chick would die. The little thing battled on and was finally out, very weak but with careful nursing recovered. Jessica has a name for each of the hens and the rooster.

Back to work with Benjamin’s drums beating out a rhythm accompanying us. The paintings progressed until a great noise on the roof distracted us. The rabbits had climbed up and were running up and down! Then Denis put on some music, electing a piano symphony and the whole flock of Koek Koeks rushed in to stand listening to the music!

This reminded me of a time when I was in Zimbabwe at the Victoria Falls. There was a new shopping centre near the falls and a restaurant with a stage where a band was playing live music. A small breeding herd of elephant were drawn to the music and stood feeding whilst they listened!

Driving down to the famous bridge the traffic came to a standstill while an enormous bull elephant made his way down the road ignoring the pesky motors and the bustle of cross border people until he found his path leading off the tar down to the forest! Lord of all he surveyed!

Our time flew by with the paintings emerging and Denis being Denis, a marvelous natural teacher and raconteur, until Eleanor asked him to help her with a painting she had in mind that featured a jar. So we had a lesson of how to draw an accurate elipse! Now I had only ever passed South African Standard Eight with arithmetic, never mind maths! Eleanor remarked that Denis taught us in half an hour what would have taken a week in University – she should know as she is a career headmistress! Wonder upon wonders this blonde head managed to understand the concept at least!

Eleanor has retired and is savouring her new found freedom by embarking on new interests and volunteering for new projects. She is at present revamping the library of a nearby school and has discovered a treasure of old books some of which have early South African history. I can’t wait to accompany her and get my nose into them!

Finally the day came before we were due to depart and photos were duly taken – see below with all Denis’s details for those in SA who would be interested.

Denis Hilton Lees www.denishiltonlees.com email artontap@gmail.com

THE CHURCH IN THE COCONUT FOREST

Jose, our caretaker, has worked for us for many years. He started as a young hopeful dressed in white who came seeking work. Now he is married with three children the latest of which, a girl, I was privileged to name. In the early days when we were establishing a garden I was determined to have a flame tree, of medium height they offer shade and have bracts of scarlet flowers in the summer. It took a few years for the tree to flower and that coincided with the birth of this baby. I asked Jose what ‘flame’ was in Tonga and he replied “Nelo”. That is the name I bestowed upon his little daughter and he and his wife loved it.

Jose shyly asked me if I would attend his church on Sunday set deep among the coconut palms. We drove some 5 kilometres from Tofo then tuned into the thick sand track that winds through the palm trees. I pulled up at Jose’s village. His family have owned this ground for generations. Grass huts are scattered here and there and Jose’s new house of brick built the Portuguese way with a square design, stands on a rise. Unfortunately it has lost its roof due to the severe cyclone earlier in the year. The church is unfinished with a corrugated iron roof. A generator is humming and Jose’s little son comes running to take my hand and we enter the church. The little church was packed with women sitting on mats on the one side with the children and men on benches on the other. The walls are still bare cement with open windows. Within you can see that the corrugated iron of the roof has some old rusted sheets and some new. At the end is a raised stage or podium with a concrete altar, a simple cloth and cross. Plastic chairs are lined behind it for the preachers and one clearly for me with a bench on the side for Jose and two female members of the congregation. The priest, a large elderly man whose white robes are threadbare signaled everyone to rise as we entered. I was ushered up to my seat on the podium, greeted by the priest with a smile and a hand shake. At his right sat three very well suited gentlemen. Drums rolled – yes an electric band, hence the generator! The music was on, the rhythm had them all on their feet dancing and singing including the preachers. By dancing I mean standing in one place but letting the body MOVE! I was ushered to my seat up there and Jose immediately moved to the edge of the podium conducting! He has a lovely voice and it was at its full resonance. Very reminiscent of the American Pentecostal churches. Then the first of the suited gentleman took to the stand and read from Isiah. Thereafter he began his sermon interspersed with many Amens and Hallelujahs echoed with much enthusiasm by the congregation. Full of passion and fire and much gesticulation! The language was Tonga whose people have lived along the Zambezi for eons, some of them obviously migrated south east to the coast. The old priest occasionally had something to say but it was the three suits that alternated with sermons. In between the tempo of the music would increase and then Jose leapt from the podium and grabbed a local home made drum and my! did he get that rhythm out of the drum! Then the old priest bid me to stand and Jose leapt up again to tell me I had to tell the people my name. This I did and was enveloped in the robes of the old man with a huge hug. Everyone clapped and shouted Hallelujah! We had arrived at 10.30 and the service had already been going since 9. In between all the action I glanced through the open windows to cassava fields beneath the palms, sand, sand and more sand with straggly bushes here and there. Small tethered goats nibbled at the sparse vegetation and little black pigs rooted beneath the palms. A little before twelve one of the women on the podium who had occasionally read from her Bible, also verses from Isiah, knelt with two other women with their heads against the centre pole. The tall suit lad his hands on each in turn praying loudly whilst the children began to circle and dance to the music. One by one the rest of the congregation joined them until only I and the old priest were left on the podium. The temp rose to a crescendo and then it was over. But no, there was more to come. Now a group formed a semi circle at the foot of the podium and the tall suit conducted what I took to be the National Anthem but may have been one the Freedom songs of the colonial period. The woman who sat next to me had returned to her place and turned to me and said in English “We will die in Mozambique is the song.” With many thank you speeches to the three suits and hand shaking and finally a blessing from the old priest the service was over. Jose and I mingled with his family, the new baby Nelo is a chubby little thing and his daughter of 7 years stunning. She is on the list at the local school for advancement being a very intelligent child. She will be eligible for attending the private school on a bursary. We made our way along the sand path to pay our respects to Jose’s grandmother, sitting flat on a cloth outside her house. Ancient is not the word but she smiled toothlessly and clasped my hand. Another world this, a far cry from the madding crowd in Johannesburg, a different form of worship but as my grandmother would quote from the good book . . . “In My house there are many mansions.”

OF CHILDREN, DREAMS AND MORE

I left school when I was sixteen, was expected to go to work, earn my living and start paying back my parents for raising me. Thereafter I was to marry well. End of story. Well it did not happen like that and after sailing to the UK and becoming an air hostess in the second intake of British European Airways that subsequently became British Overseas Airways and metamorphosed into British Airways, I loved the life and stayed there for two years. Finally I returned to South Africa and had a lump in my throat when the silhouette of Table Mountain rose from the Atlantic to welcome me and other returning South Africans.

 

I had lost a love and married by the time I was twenty one with my first child on the way. That was my daughter and a boy arrived some eighteen months later. I dreamt of the boy being a doctor. It never occurred to me that the world was moving on in spite of the fact that women had won the vote quite a long time ago, to dream of what my daughter would become. Then I had a niece and a nephew. It was not my prerogative to dream of their path in life although I saw a lot of them in their early years.

 

I married again and had a laat lammetjie – late lamb as we say in South Africa, a son,and decided he would be a civil engineer. Well as they say the best laid plans of mice and men!  Life moved on and my world turned upside down several times but I somehow survived.  

My daughter married a horseman and he became the under manager on a thoroughbred stud farm. My sister’s children were still very young and we would all spend a lot of time on the farm. My sons had taken paths I had never envisaged. The older one was studying to become an accountant, a surprising choice with a creative parent but obviously that gene did not transfer to him. Later he married and had a blonde little girl who is now grown up, doing a post graduate course at university and next year is off to Aspen where she will work on the slopes and then tour South America. I must admit I could not imagine what she would end up doing when she was younger. However she is an amazing artist so some of the old block has rubbed off.  

My niece began dancing during her teens and performed at the Opera house in Cape Town and finally at Sun City near Johannesburg amongst other venues. She continued after school taking a path that neither I nor my sister had envisaged until her knees took strain and she veered off into another direction.  I well remember having a family party at the farm and this little girl was reluctant to leave the fun and go to bed in the little guest cottage. “Come!” I enticed her, holding her hand and skipping. “We will take the short cut over the paddock! Here we go! Tip Toe through the tulips!” The child looked at me in amazement; looked at the green grass then stamped her little foot. “Aunty Mols there ARE no tulips!”

Her brother also took an unexpected path when he began driving horse trucks and when in the UK actually drove for the Prince of Wales! Trucking became his life whilst his passion for hunting has landed him in the Karoo owning a game farm!

My daughter had four children and we dragged them through Southern Africa while we researched material for our guide books, Discovering Botswana, Discovering Namibia and Discovering Zambia.  The children turned out no worse for wear in fact today have a lust for travel! They have displayed tenacity in life that I hope has come from our travels. Now grown up and scattered throughout South Africa they have all sorts of strengths and weakness, ambition and creativity not to forget loyalty and love.

My youngest son chose to be an electrician and moved on to IT. Thank heavens for that as he can guide me through the intricacies of the internet and Amazon etc.  He lives in Johannesburg with his wife so that I am able to spend a lot of time with his boy of eleven and a girl of four who are giving me loads of pleasure enjoying them just as they are. The boy is riding well, carrying on the family tradition of its affiliation to horses and the girl – well when they are that age they already know how to wind their fathers and uncles around their little fingers. This time I am making no predictions!

Below is my painting of my niece dancing the Flamenco!