Posts
Just a short one today. Most of the things I write about take a good few pages but today I read something that, despite the circumstances that led to it coming to my attention, struck me as somewhat hilarious.
Cancer has become a red hot topic in my family over the last year, what with four people within the family circle having been badly stricken. In a recent discussion (conducted by mail) with someone, I was informed that, among other things, one should consume copious amounts of cruciferous vegetables. Now then, I pride myself on my vocabulary but let me tell you, this one had me nailed to the wall...oops...excuse me, I mean stumped. What the hell is a cruciferous vegetable? I'm not too sure, but I'll bet it was on the menu at the Last Supper...
Monday 20 September 2010
Friday 17 September 2010
Forgotten Places
Date: Sometime in Summer, 1998.
Place: Foothills of the Southern Drakensberg, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa.
One of the most unfortunate times in my working years to date has been the couple of years during which I was employed by a well-known chain of furniture retailers in SA. I had been in a dead-end job as a floor salesman in a hardware supply store, working for two miserly little rich boys from Johannesburg and hating every minute of it, when the furniture chain decided to open up an outlet in our beautiful little farming town. Had I possessed a crystal ball, I would have rather continued to enjoy being insulted or ignored by the super wealthy or assisting the super poor to count out the 23 screws they so desperately needed but could hardly afford. However, I didn't have any idea of what I was letting myself in for and assumed that anything would be better than working for the "white rat", as I remember thinking of the major partner.
I went along for an interview and soon thereafter I was informed that I had the job. It wasn't long before I realised that, as assistant manager, it was my job to drive a team of black ladies around the native reserves in the surrounding countryside and see to it that they fleeced as many ignorant, poor and needy people of whatever paltry amount of cash they possessed in exchange for second rate, crap furniture that would never last as long as the exhorbitant terms of credit to which they would unwittingly be coerced into putting their illegible scrawls to. In fact, the retelling of this part is making my blood boil already, so let me skip all that. It's a story on it's own and I will probably deal with it another day. Suffice it to say that I have an interest in history, geography, geology and archeaology that saved my sanity during those terrible two years that I worked for that den of thieves.
The reason these particular interests of mine came to the fore was that there was so much to be discovered out in the native reserves. Besides the traces of the original Bushmen that once inhabited the area there was evidence of stream beds that had had their courses altered by unknown hands, deserted and forgotted old sentinel posts of cut stone left over from the poor souls who did duty on the furthest reaches of the empire, and, if one knew what to look for, traces of old wagon routes winding their way steadily against the grain of nature over the green, endlessly rolling hills.
I had a wonderful rapport with the black people that worked in the shop. Most of them were well known to me through various other jobs I had had in the area, and my interest in them and the surrounding countryside, as well as a penchant for sharing jokes with them in their own language, must have endeared me to them, for they were different people once we were out and away from the young Afrikaner who was our mutual boss and the only other white man in the shop. From childhood I had had a very rudimentary grasp of the Zulu language, and these wonderful people loved to teach me what they called "real" Zulu and what I today would call "High Zulu". This fascinated me, for I already understood enough to understand most of what a white farmer would say to his farm workers in fluent enough Zulu to know that he was using a lot of slang and dialect (called Fanagalo in South Africa), but not enough to speak a clear and grammatically correct sentence myself. A very irritating and confining situation indeed. Today I have again forgotten most of what they taught me back then, but at the time I began to enjoy a reasonably good grasp of the language. I could never bring myself to speak it in the presence of my white friends, who could rattle it off so well and who would, I was sure, take every opportunity to belittle my attempts, yet out in the bush with those ladies and the poor rural dwellers, my reserve melted away and I would experiment with all and sundry.
On one particularly pleasant and sunny day, my ladies promised to show me something I hadn't seen before if we could stock up on supplies at one of the ubiquitous African trading stores along the way and stop for lunch while I explored. Of course, I readily agreed. What they eventually led me to was just up my alley. Leaving the dirt road with its ruts and boulders, we pulled into a patch of veldt and left the vehicle. A short walk into a stand of black wattle trees brought us to the ruins of a hand-built stone farmhouse. The roof was long since gone and the walls were now only knee-high. A large young tree was growing on the hearth where once, a hundred or more years ago, a young family of settlers may have warmed their hands before a blaze on a cold and snowy night. Out in the sparse forest with tangles of undergrowth that surrounded the old homestead, you could picture the green grass spread before the wide verandah whose foundations were so clearly visible in the patch of hard-packed, goat-trodden dirt before the gap in the wall that would have, once upon a time, been blocked by a solid, hand-made wooden door.
Standing in the ruins of that old settler's house on a bright sunny morning I enjoyed a moment of silence, contemplating the surroundings and trying to imagine the story lying dormant in the silent ruins. My gaggle of sales ladies had long since shed their company scarves and smart black company shoes and were sitting in a circle under a large tree in the corner of a small clearing that was probably the remains of a kitchen garden at the back of the old house. They chatted and giggled quietly among themselves as they passed a cooked chicken around, tearing hunks of meat off and wrapping them in a chunk of fresh white bread before stuffing the whole lot into their constantly jabbering mouths. I can still see the grease reflecting off their happy, round black faces as they enjoyed the break from the tyranny in the shop and the peaceful surroundings. I was standing to one side, my own shoes and socks and tie having been removed the moment we left the white people's town, and enjoying the long grass tickling my calves below the rolled up hems of my suit slacks. How ridiculous we must have seemed, us greedy whites out to rob the poor people of their bucks! I think one of the reasons they must have enjoyed me was my disregard for the whole comedy of dress. Our Führer back in the safety of his shop would have had a hernia if he knew what went on once we were out in the bush.
Soon, my musings were interrupted by the sound of goats and their little bells tinkling as they moved through the bush towards where we were holed up. I must mention that the ladies always steered me toward these sort of places, for they knew they were guaranteed an hour or two of peace while I explored and ruminated on the past. When the goats and their ancient minder broke through into the patchy clearing around the ruins, I seized the moment and called out to the old goatherd. By the look of him, he could well have been around when this place was still a working farm! After a few attempts at picking his knowledge of the surroundings, and his vigourous denials of any wrong-doing (a common enough reaction of old black people to young white men in those days) I realised that I wasn't getting through to him. My favourite saleslady, whose Zulu name meant "We give thanks!", saw my difficulties and came over to assure him that this uMlungu (white man) only wanted to know if he had any interesting stories to tell about the ruins. Once the old fellow realised that he had nothing to fear, he indicated somewhere over his shoulder, saying the whites that had lived here had come from there. "From the town?" I asked him, frowning because I knew that the town was younger than these ruins. "No no," he replied, "somewhere else, much further away." I asked if he knew them. "No," he replied, "but my grandfather did. They came here on a wagon and built this house, and my grandfather lived here and worked for them when he was a little boy."
"A wagon?" I asked, raising my eyebrows. "Yes," replied he, "come, I will show you."
Huh? I was beginning to quiver with excitement. For all I knew, this was a story well known to the local whites, but I had never heard it. I followed the old chap through some bush, passing a very thick clump of bright coloured flowers along the way. As I slowed to admire the flowers, trailing a finger over the bright peach petals, he looked over his shoulder and saw what I was doing. Turning, he came back to me and said, "This was where they got their water from." I looked at the clump of flowers and wondered if he was a bit nutty. He leaned forward and ripped a large clump of the beautiful flowers out of the earth. Standing there in front of me, hidden by the tangle of foliage, were the walls of an old well. It was not very deep and completely dry, and I assume that although time had filled it in considerably, there was still a source of water somewhere below the layers of sand, for the flowers were certainly thriving. We continued for a short while, threading our way through patchy trees and occasionally having to step over the last row or two of an old stone wall, until we came to a bright green patch of grass, not more than about ten metres by five. On one side of the little clearing was a massive shrub, of the kind one would find in a suburban garden, but about ten times bigger and bushier. Sticking out from one side was an ancient-looking piece of solid wood, and on closer inspection I discovered that it was the drawbar of a wagon. Not only that, the rest of the wagon was still attached to it! With my heart pounding in excitement, I spent the rest of the afternoon freeing the old wagon from the overgrown bush which had grown next to it and finally hid it from casual eyes. The ladies laughed at my antics, cheering me on from the shade at the other end of the clearing, to which they had moved themselves in order to view the mad uMlungu with his passion for rotting relics.
The old man helped me a bit at first, but soon he had to go. Before he left I asked him what had happened to the family, if they had moved to the town when it was eventually founded. "No," he told me, "they left before that."
"Where to?" A shrug of the shoulders. "Why?" Another shrug. "What was their name?" A blank look. I realised that I was getting nowhere and gave up. After I thanked him and he gave me the customary courteous best wishes, he gathered up his scattered goats from where they were decimating the flora and wandered off into the bush without a backward glance. I remember wondering how much untold history he was taking with him as he vanished from sight. There were many such experiences during those times. I promised myself I would go back one day in the far future and tell the tale of those forgotten people who settled out there in the middle of nowhere in the harsh mountian winters where not even the native tribes were tempted to settle permanently, 'til they were forced there by internal wars or colonial plans. I was loathe to uncover these sort of finds to anybody back in the village, for somehow I believed that they were secrets that belonged to me and the uncaring natives that lived on in these areas, but there was one old gentleman back in the village who shared my passions and who was well-versed in the history of the area and who I trusted with some of my finds. He cast light on some but not all of these mysteries for me, and had indeed combed much of the countryside in his younger days and seen some of my "discoveries" for himself. I never asked him why nothing much was made of these old sites, but I think in retrospect that he was much like myself. He too preferred to keep these things to himself. To me the old wagon was far more glorious in its original setting than it would have been in the little local musuem, glanced at by the uncaring eyes of bored tourists passing through the region for a day. To my mind, it was better off standing there where its owner had last parked it, waiting for the day when it would be pulled out and hooked up to a team of oxen again, ready to take its family of pioneers further along the trail of hope.
When I finally left that little outpost in the middle of nowhere, the sudden African dusk had fallen and my white shirt was stained with green plant juices and smears of red soil. I had reconstructed the layout of the original homestead and its surrounds in my mind by allowing my imagination to form the missing walls, channels, ditches, trails, etc. and encouraged by the little finds along the way that confirmed my thoughts. The little nicks and tears in my smart "work" trousers meant that I would have to buy new ones, and the dirt under my nails would need much scrubbing to remove it in time for work the next day. The spineless (morally and physically) oaf that we slaved for would still be sitting in the brightly lit cavern of a shop, hiding behind locked plate glass doors in the silent and deserted little town, desperately awaiting a non-existent last hopeful who wanted a new lounge suite and preparing his tirade for us when we arrived with less than the expected tally of new credit victims. We laughed that idea off and passed by three of our favourite regulars on the way home. These were very rich black businessman who laughed at the furniture chains attempts to enslave them in never-ending credit. When they or one of their numerous wives wanted something, they would whip out great wads of cash from a deep pocket and pay cash on the spot. Sometimes, such as this evening in particular, they would even buy something that they didn't really want, just to silence the protests of my crew. I wonder just what kind of deals our intrepid sales ladies did actually get up to? Anyway, two of these gentlemen made some very large purchases, and one of them insisted that we sample the quality of our own chipboard-and-cheap-veneer dining room suite while wife number one served us supper. Yet another entertaining experience for another time! By the time we got home, bypassing the shop and the nazi in it to go to our warm beds and sweet dreams, I had a full stomach and many thoughts and memories to ponder and preserve for the future.
Another day had passed. How I wish I could have that particular one over...
Place: Foothills of the Southern Drakensberg, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa.
One of the most unfortunate times in my working years to date has been the couple of years during which I was employed by a well-known chain of furniture retailers in SA. I had been in a dead-end job as a floor salesman in a hardware supply store, working for two miserly little rich boys from Johannesburg and hating every minute of it, when the furniture chain decided to open up an outlet in our beautiful little farming town. Had I possessed a crystal ball, I would have rather continued to enjoy being insulted or ignored by the super wealthy or assisting the super poor to count out the 23 screws they so desperately needed but could hardly afford. However, I didn't have any idea of what I was letting myself in for and assumed that anything would be better than working for the "white rat", as I remember thinking of the major partner.
I went along for an interview and soon thereafter I was informed that I had the job. It wasn't long before I realised that, as assistant manager, it was my job to drive a team of black ladies around the native reserves in the surrounding countryside and see to it that they fleeced as many ignorant, poor and needy people of whatever paltry amount of cash they possessed in exchange for second rate, crap furniture that would never last as long as the exhorbitant terms of credit to which they would unwittingly be coerced into putting their illegible scrawls to. In fact, the retelling of this part is making my blood boil already, so let me skip all that. It's a story on it's own and I will probably deal with it another day. Suffice it to say that I have an interest in history, geography, geology and archeaology that saved my sanity during those terrible two years that I worked for that den of thieves.
The reason these particular interests of mine came to the fore was that there was so much to be discovered out in the native reserves. Besides the traces of the original Bushmen that once inhabited the area there was evidence of stream beds that had had their courses altered by unknown hands, deserted and forgotted old sentinel posts of cut stone left over from the poor souls who did duty on the furthest reaches of the empire, and, if one knew what to look for, traces of old wagon routes winding their way steadily against the grain of nature over the green, endlessly rolling hills.
I had a wonderful rapport with the black people that worked in the shop. Most of them were well known to me through various other jobs I had had in the area, and my interest in them and the surrounding countryside, as well as a penchant for sharing jokes with them in their own language, must have endeared me to them, for they were different people once we were out and away from the young Afrikaner who was our mutual boss and the only other white man in the shop. From childhood I had had a very rudimentary grasp of the Zulu language, and these wonderful people loved to teach me what they called "real" Zulu and what I today would call "High Zulu". This fascinated me, for I already understood enough to understand most of what a white farmer would say to his farm workers in fluent enough Zulu to know that he was using a lot of slang and dialect (called Fanagalo in South Africa), but not enough to speak a clear and grammatically correct sentence myself. A very irritating and confining situation indeed. Today I have again forgotten most of what they taught me back then, but at the time I began to enjoy a reasonably good grasp of the language. I could never bring myself to speak it in the presence of my white friends, who could rattle it off so well and who would, I was sure, take every opportunity to belittle my attempts, yet out in the bush with those ladies and the poor rural dwellers, my reserve melted away and I would experiment with all and sundry.
On one particularly pleasant and sunny day, my ladies promised to show me something I hadn't seen before if we could stock up on supplies at one of the ubiquitous African trading stores along the way and stop for lunch while I explored. Of course, I readily agreed. What they eventually led me to was just up my alley. Leaving the dirt road with its ruts and boulders, we pulled into a patch of veldt and left the vehicle. A short walk into a stand of black wattle trees brought us to the ruins of a hand-built stone farmhouse. The roof was long since gone and the walls were now only knee-high. A large young tree was growing on the hearth where once, a hundred or more years ago, a young family of settlers may have warmed their hands before a blaze on a cold and snowy night. Out in the sparse forest with tangles of undergrowth that surrounded the old homestead, you could picture the green grass spread before the wide verandah whose foundations were so clearly visible in the patch of hard-packed, goat-trodden dirt before the gap in the wall that would have, once upon a time, been blocked by a solid, hand-made wooden door.
Standing in the ruins of that old settler's house on a bright sunny morning I enjoyed a moment of silence, contemplating the surroundings and trying to imagine the story lying dormant in the silent ruins. My gaggle of sales ladies had long since shed their company scarves and smart black company shoes and were sitting in a circle under a large tree in the corner of a small clearing that was probably the remains of a kitchen garden at the back of the old house. They chatted and giggled quietly among themselves as they passed a cooked chicken around, tearing hunks of meat off and wrapping them in a chunk of fresh white bread before stuffing the whole lot into their constantly jabbering mouths. I can still see the grease reflecting off their happy, round black faces as they enjoyed the break from the tyranny in the shop and the peaceful surroundings. I was standing to one side, my own shoes and socks and tie having been removed the moment we left the white people's town, and enjoying the long grass tickling my calves below the rolled up hems of my suit slacks. How ridiculous we must have seemed, us greedy whites out to rob the poor people of their bucks! I think one of the reasons they must have enjoyed me was my disregard for the whole comedy of dress. Our Führer back in the safety of his shop would have had a hernia if he knew what went on once we were out in the bush.
Soon, my musings were interrupted by the sound of goats and their little bells tinkling as they moved through the bush towards where we were holed up. I must mention that the ladies always steered me toward these sort of places, for they knew they were guaranteed an hour or two of peace while I explored and ruminated on the past. When the goats and their ancient minder broke through into the patchy clearing around the ruins, I seized the moment and called out to the old goatherd. By the look of him, he could well have been around when this place was still a working farm! After a few attempts at picking his knowledge of the surroundings, and his vigourous denials of any wrong-doing (a common enough reaction of old black people to young white men in those days) I realised that I wasn't getting through to him. My favourite saleslady, whose Zulu name meant "We give thanks!", saw my difficulties and came over to assure him that this uMlungu (white man) only wanted to know if he had any interesting stories to tell about the ruins. Once the old fellow realised that he had nothing to fear, he indicated somewhere over his shoulder, saying the whites that had lived here had come from there. "From the town?" I asked him, frowning because I knew that the town was younger than these ruins. "No no," he replied, "somewhere else, much further away." I asked if he knew them. "No," he replied, "but my grandfather did. They came here on a wagon and built this house, and my grandfather lived here and worked for them when he was a little boy."
"A wagon?" I asked, raising my eyebrows. "Yes," replied he, "come, I will show you."
Huh? I was beginning to quiver with excitement. For all I knew, this was a story well known to the local whites, but I had never heard it. I followed the old chap through some bush, passing a very thick clump of bright coloured flowers along the way. As I slowed to admire the flowers, trailing a finger over the bright peach petals, he looked over his shoulder and saw what I was doing. Turning, he came back to me and said, "This was where they got their water from." I looked at the clump of flowers and wondered if he was a bit nutty. He leaned forward and ripped a large clump of the beautiful flowers out of the earth. Standing there in front of me, hidden by the tangle of foliage, were the walls of an old well. It was not very deep and completely dry, and I assume that although time had filled it in considerably, there was still a source of water somewhere below the layers of sand, for the flowers were certainly thriving. We continued for a short while, threading our way through patchy trees and occasionally having to step over the last row or two of an old stone wall, until we came to a bright green patch of grass, not more than about ten metres by five. On one side of the little clearing was a massive shrub, of the kind one would find in a suburban garden, but about ten times bigger and bushier. Sticking out from one side was an ancient-looking piece of solid wood, and on closer inspection I discovered that it was the drawbar of a wagon. Not only that, the rest of the wagon was still attached to it! With my heart pounding in excitement, I spent the rest of the afternoon freeing the old wagon from the overgrown bush which had grown next to it and finally hid it from casual eyes. The ladies laughed at my antics, cheering me on from the shade at the other end of the clearing, to which they had moved themselves in order to view the mad uMlungu with his passion for rotting relics.
The old man helped me a bit at first, but soon he had to go. Before he left I asked him what had happened to the family, if they had moved to the town when it was eventually founded. "No," he told me, "they left before that."
"Where to?" A shrug of the shoulders. "Why?" Another shrug. "What was their name?" A blank look. I realised that I was getting nowhere and gave up. After I thanked him and he gave me the customary courteous best wishes, he gathered up his scattered goats from where they were decimating the flora and wandered off into the bush without a backward glance. I remember wondering how much untold history he was taking with him as he vanished from sight. There were many such experiences during those times. I promised myself I would go back one day in the far future and tell the tale of those forgotten people who settled out there in the middle of nowhere in the harsh mountian winters where not even the native tribes were tempted to settle permanently, 'til they were forced there by internal wars or colonial plans. I was loathe to uncover these sort of finds to anybody back in the village, for somehow I believed that they were secrets that belonged to me and the uncaring natives that lived on in these areas, but there was one old gentleman back in the village who shared my passions and who was well-versed in the history of the area and who I trusted with some of my finds. He cast light on some but not all of these mysteries for me, and had indeed combed much of the countryside in his younger days and seen some of my "discoveries" for himself. I never asked him why nothing much was made of these old sites, but I think in retrospect that he was much like myself. He too preferred to keep these things to himself. To me the old wagon was far more glorious in its original setting than it would have been in the little local musuem, glanced at by the uncaring eyes of bored tourists passing through the region for a day. To my mind, it was better off standing there where its owner had last parked it, waiting for the day when it would be pulled out and hooked up to a team of oxen again, ready to take its family of pioneers further along the trail of hope.
When I finally left that little outpost in the middle of nowhere, the sudden African dusk had fallen and my white shirt was stained with green plant juices and smears of red soil. I had reconstructed the layout of the original homestead and its surrounds in my mind by allowing my imagination to form the missing walls, channels, ditches, trails, etc. and encouraged by the little finds along the way that confirmed my thoughts. The little nicks and tears in my smart "work" trousers meant that I would have to buy new ones, and the dirt under my nails would need much scrubbing to remove it in time for work the next day. The spineless (morally and physically) oaf that we slaved for would still be sitting in the brightly lit cavern of a shop, hiding behind locked plate glass doors in the silent and deserted little town, desperately awaiting a non-existent last hopeful who wanted a new lounge suite and preparing his tirade for us when we arrived with less than the expected tally of new credit victims. We laughed that idea off and passed by three of our favourite regulars on the way home. These were very rich black businessman who laughed at the furniture chains attempts to enslave them in never-ending credit. When they or one of their numerous wives wanted something, they would whip out great wads of cash from a deep pocket and pay cash on the spot. Sometimes, such as this evening in particular, they would even buy something that they didn't really want, just to silence the protests of my crew. I wonder just what kind of deals our intrepid sales ladies did actually get up to? Anyway, two of these gentlemen made some very large purchases, and one of them insisted that we sample the quality of our own chipboard-and-cheap-veneer dining room suite while wife number one served us supper. Yet another entertaining experience for another time! By the time we got home, bypassing the shop and the nazi in it to go to our warm beds and sweet dreams, I had a full stomach and many thoughts and memories to ponder and preserve for the future.
Another day had passed. How I wish I could have that particular one over...
Tuesday 14 September 2010
Who to support?
More unbelievable happenings in Switzerland! A few days ago, the sight of heavily armed SWAT police on the front page of the daily rag caught my attention. Wondering if there had been a bomb threat at one of the countries most beloved shrines to Swissdom, such as the Lindt & Sprüngli chocolate factory on the shores of lake Zürich for example, I picked up the paper for an idle read. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that thousands of specialist police were hunting a 67 year old pensioner from the town of Biel! Apparently, he'd been served an eviction notice, as his unpaid bills were about to be settled by the forced sale of his house. This didn't sit too well with the old chap, so he lay in waiting for the police. When they arrived he opened fire, shooting an officer in the face (wounded, not killed). This kind of thing simply doesn't happen in Switzerland, and the response was overwhelming. Despite the hundreds of specialists that were soon surrounding his house, the doughty old fellow slipped out of the building, gave them all the dodge, and then....now get this....slipped past them again and returned to the house after they'd searched it and missed him! Ha! Mad and bloodthirsty as he is, you have to give this old bugger credit. Currently they're still searching for him with infra-red cameras on aircraft, dogs, helicopter teams, all the various so-called special units of the army, police, etc. but having slipped out of the house yet again he doesn't appear ready to give himself up yet.
Wonder if he'll be quietly whisked off by army intelligence or something after they finally do catch him and be given a job training the half-wits who were supposed to catch him? His name is Peter Kneubühl (pronounced "K-noi-boo-l"). Google him. It's quite a hoot how he's been evading everyone, even though I do hope he gets caught dead or alive quite soon. It wouldn't do to have someone running around armed and dangerous who hasn't got anything to lose anymore.
The lingering thought on that one is: Do not piss off little old Swiss men! They might just turn out to be little Matt Damons from the Bourne Identity series, and then you're up sh#t creek.
On a similar but lighter note, I was standing on the terrace of my office block in a busy suburb on the outskirts of Zürich the other day, smoking a cigarette and admiring the view over the very busy main route leading into the centre of town. It's quite at odds with the surroundings, actually. On our side of the road you have various office blocks, industrial buildings and workshops. On the other side you have assorted building suppliers, construction companies, etc. In the middle of all this, directly in front of my block, is a lone field. To the right of it runs a major river, and the backdrop is formed by a lush forest rising up the slopes of a small hill. I always enjoy observing the lovely natural scenery set right amidst all the hum of modern day life. For me a particularly Swiss characteristic. So there I was, admiring the neat piles of freshly cut hay that the wizened old farmer had left after mowing the field the previous day. The sun was just coming up, the mist lingering in wisps over the river. The traffic hadn't yet begun to evolve into the interminable, crawling monster that it becomes everyday between 07h00 and 09h00, so I was able to notice the high-pitched whine of a "Töffli" or "Moffa", pronounced "Derflie" and "Mauffa", and referring to a moped. This is a common means of transport over here for 14 - 15 year olds and ancient old men. I looked down and saw the farmer toodling along the pavement on his old Moffa and did a double take. He had a shotgun slung over his back!
I watched with interest as he bounced down off the pavement, crossed the still-quiet main road, jolted up onto the other pavement and entered the short grass of the newly-mown field. Leaving the moped at the edge of the field, he unstrapped his shotgun and rammed one up the breech. I was fascinated. I am a member of my local shooting club, and bought my first rifle here over the counter in a second hand shop, but even so, you can't just walk around with a loaded shotgun in public....or can you? What the hell was this old bloke up to? He headed up to the nearest pile of hay with no attempt at stealth and simply let rip, BAM! From the other side of the haystack rose a cloud of crows, and all around the grass rippled as a myriad small creatures went scuttling for cover. Without a backward glance, he headed over to the next haystack and let rip, BAM! This time a crow or two crashed squawking to the ground and I saw him turn something over in the grass with his boot. The process was repeated a few times, with much the same results. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I like the freedom they allow themselves over here. It contrasts so strongly with all the over-regulation of day-to-day life and because of this it really jumps out at one. I know a farmer back home in SA would be doing much the same thing, but he would be on a farm the size of the whole of Zürich Canton (province), with not a soul in the vicinity. Here this occurs practically in the middle of the city. Eccentric, strange, but heartening to know that despite all the many restrictions on daily life, a farmer still has the right to strut about his land firing his shotgun at the local pests. Or does he? Maybe it was K-noi-boo-l warming up for The Showdown At The Biel Corral...
PS. I noticed the next day that the crows were standing very far apart from one another in the field. Who says birds are stupid?
Wonder if he'll be quietly whisked off by army intelligence or something after they finally do catch him and be given a job training the half-wits who were supposed to catch him? His name is Peter Kneubühl (pronounced "K-noi-boo-l"). Google him. It's quite a hoot how he's been evading everyone, even though I do hope he gets caught dead or alive quite soon. It wouldn't do to have someone running around armed and dangerous who hasn't got anything to lose anymore.
The lingering thought on that one is: Do not piss off little old Swiss men! They might just turn out to be little Matt Damons from the Bourne Identity series, and then you're up sh#t creek.
On a similar but lighter note, I was standing on the terrace of my office block in a busy suburb on the outskirts of Zürich the other day, smoking a cigarette and admiring the view over the very busy main route leading into the centre of town. It's quite at odds with the surroundings, actually. On our side of the road you have various office blocks, industrial buildings and workshops. On the other side you have assorted building suppliers, construction companies, etc. In the middle of all this, directly in front of my block, is a lone field. To the right of it runs a major river, and the backdrop is formed by a lush forest rising up the slopes of a small hill. I always enjoy observing the lovely natural scenery set right amidst all the hum of modern day life. For me a particularly Swiss characteristic. So there I was, admiring the neat piles of freshly cut hay that the wizened old farmer had left after mowing the field the previous day. The sun was just coming up, the mist lingering in wisps over the river. The traffic hadn't yet begun to evolve into the interminable, crawling monster that it becomes everyday between 07h00 and 09h00, so I was able to notice the high-pitched whine of a "Töffli" or "Moffa", pronounced "Derflie" and "Mauffa", and referring to a moped. This is a common means of transport over here for 14 - 15 year olds and ancient old men. I looked down and saw the farmer toodling along the pavement on his old Moffa and did a double take. He had a shotgun slung over his back!
I watched with interest as he bounced down off the pavement, crossed the still-quiet main road, jolted up onto the other pavement and entered the short grass of the newly-mown field. Leaving the moped at the edge of the field, he unstrapped his shotgun and rammed one up the breech. I was fascinated. I am a member of my local shooting club, and bought my first rifle here over the counter in a second hand shop, but even so, you can't just walk around with a loaded shotgun in public....or can you? What the hell was this old bloke up to? He headed up to the nearest pile of hay with no attempt at stealth and simply let rip, BAM! From the other side of the haystack rose a cloud of crows, and all around the grass rippled as a myriad small creatures went scuttling for cover. Without a backward glance, he headed over to the next haystack and let rip, BAM! This time a crow or two crashed squawking to the ground and I saw him turn something over in the grass with his boot. The process was repeated a few times, with much the same results. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I like the freedom they allow themselves over here. It contrasts so strongly with all the over-regulation of day-to-day life and because of this it really jumps out at one. I know a farmer back home in SA would be doing much the same thing, but he would be on a farm the size of the whole of Zürich Canton (province), with not a soul in the vicinity. Here this occurs practically in the middle of the city. Eccentric, strange, but heartening to know that despite all the many restrictions on daily life, a farmer still has the right to strut about his land firing his shotgun at the local pests. Or does he? Maybe it was K-noi-boo-l warming up for The Showdown At The Biel Corral...
PS. I noticed the next day that the crows were standing very far apart from one another in the field. Who says birds are stupid?
Tuesday 7 September 2010
Surprise, surprise
I see from my stats that there has been a remarkable increase in my Swiss readership. I also see where most of the newcomers have accessed this blog from. Interesting. You lot should leave comments. I'm sure you have enough to say on those of my entries that deal with Switzerland and the Swiss. And if any of the other new readers from Switzerland are actually Swiss, well, please feel free to leave your comments in German. Myself and at least 80% of the other group I'm referring to above will have no trouble understanding and will welcome your input. It's only fun taking the mickey if someone else does it to you a bit too.
There's been a smaller yet noticeable increase in readership from the most remarkable places around the world as well, and considering how new, erratic, and sporadic this blog is, I am quite frankly well and truly surprised. Though if I look at how some of the readers accessed these pages, I have to admit that obviously not everyone's a true reader, or, more specifically, actually gives two sh*ts about this blog and the drivel they stumble across in it. Take for example the person who accessed from Rumania. The gateway was some unpronouncable search engine and the input that put them onto me was "I kan speak english". Huh? Later they hooked up with me again via "south africa visa live". Uh oh! Look out SA, looks like you're about to become the target of a new wave of immigrants.
Considering that over two hundred people have now either mistakenly stumbled upon, glanced over or actually read my suddenly inadequate-seeming bedtime stories, yet no one wants to get a google account so they can sign in and give me a bitchslap to the ear for expressing opinions they don't agree with, I have decided to play with one of the gadgets that is on offer, to wit: the poll on the top right below the title. It should be easier to get some feedback from that. Yes, yes, I too browse through many peoples idea of an interesting blog and hardly ever bother to sign on and comment, or even read more than half a single entry, but, oh well...
I can't get the bloody vote button and the little message to display in English, so to those of you who don't speak Kraut: "Abstimmen" means "Vote", and "Ergebnisse anzeigen" means "Display results". Actually, if you aren't able to work that out, you shouldn't be reading this blog...
Shouldn't be too hard for the South Africans, though I can't for the life of me remember what "vote" is in Afrikaans! These days I can hardly string a sentence together in that language, though if I see it I still understand. Funny how we all hated each other back in the days, and yet the minute a Saffer is overseas he latches onto Afrikaans as an means of fortifying his identity, even if back home he was such a Soutie (pronounced "soaty" for you non-South Africans) that he suffered from salt burns in his nether regions. Geez, how I can digress! Wonder if anyone is wondering what a Soutie is...
I suppose the time has come to be more regular on this blog, but I have to admit, the idea behind it was to get particularly memorable experiences from the quickly fading past as well as interesting tidbits of day-to-day life in a foreign country down on paper. I had also considered adding my tuppence worth on thoughts of the future. Hence the title. To simply write for the sake of writing would rob the meaning of this blog for me, and eventually make for ponderous reading for you excellent specimens that do actually read what's here. I must admit, it's a lot of fun once I get going, and there's certainly no dearth of humourous material in my everyday life here in Zirkus Schweiz, so perhaps it's just a lack of discipline?
We'll see...
There's been a smaller yet noticeable increase in readership from the most remarkable places around the world as well, and considering how new, erratic, and sporadic this blog is, I am quite frankly well and truly surprised. Though if I look at how some of the readers accessed these pages, I have to admit that obviously not everyone's a true reader, or, more specifically, actually gives two sh*ts about this blog and the drivel they stumble across in it. Take for example the person who accessed from Rumania. The gateway was some unpronouncable search engine and the input that put them onto me was "I kan speak english". Huh? Later they hooked up with me again via "south africa visa live". Uh oh! Look out SA, looks like you're about to become the target of a new wave of immigrants.
Considering that over two hundred people have now either mistakenly stumbled upon, glanced over or actually read my suddenly inadequate-seeming bedtime stories, yet no one wants to get a google account so they can sign in and give me a bitchslap to the ear for expressing opinions they don't agree with, I have decided to play with one of the gadgets that is on offer, to wit: the poll on the top right below the title. It should be easier to get some feedback from that. Yes, yes, I too browse through many peoples idea of an interesting blog and hardly ever bother to sign on and comment, or even read more than half a single entry, but, oh well...
I can't get the bloody vote button and the little message to display in English, so to those of you who don't speak Kraut: "Abstimmen" means "Vote", and "Ergebnisse anzeigen" means "Display results". Actually, if you aren't able to work that out, you shouldn't be reading this blog...
Shouldn't be too hard for the South Africans, though I can't for the life of me remember what "vote" is in Afrikaans! These days I can hardly string a sentence together in that language, though if I see it I still understand. Funny how we all hated each other back in the days, and yet the minute a Saffer is overseas he latches onto Afrikaans as an means of fortifying his identity, even if back home he was such a Soutie (pronounced "soaty" for you non-South Africans) that he suffered from salt burns in his nether regions. Geez, how I can digress! Wonder if anyone is wondering what a Soutie is...
I suppose the time has come to be more regular on this blog, but I have to admit, the idea behind it was to get particularly memorable experiences from the quickly fading past as well as interesting tidbits of day-to-day life in a foreign country down on paper. I had also considered adding my tuppence worth on thoughts of the future. Hence the title. To simply write for the sake of writing would rob the meaning of this blog for me, and eventually make for ponderous reading for you excellent specimens that do actually read what's here. I must admit, it's a lot of fun once I get going, and there's certainly no dearth of humourous material in my everyday life here in Zirkus Schweiz, so perhaps it's just a lack of discipline?
We'll see...
Monday 6 September 2010
Schwyzertüütch and English accents
I remember sitting in the Swiss Consulate in Johannesburg ten years ago. Accompanied by my wife, who had a smattering of high German and had lived and worked in Switzerland for two years after finishing high school, I was applying for an entry permit, one of the steps along the way to our exciting adventure. The wife didn't need one, being a dual citizen, but I was going to be subjected to the full scrutiny of the teutonic-minded burocrats serving their sentences in the fleshpots of Africa. I use the word fleshpot intentionally, out of deference to the surprising and remarkable attitude of certain people I have spoken to over here, who seem to assume that Africa = Free And Uninhibited Sex With Innocent Happy Natives. Of course, coming from there, I am only too aware of how extremely malignant sex in Africa can turn out to be (28'000'000 HIV cases in SA in...when was that conference in Geneva....2004 or so?!), so I must admit, I'm not very encouraging to those who wax lyrical about their upcoming conquests during their trip to the dark continent.
Anyway, to get back to the point, there I was, languishing in the waiting area after being politely and efficiently dealt with by a well-mannered young Swiss lady with a perfect command of the English language. My fears about going off into the blue yonder without a clue as to how I was going to communicate had been little allayed by my wife's assurances that one could get around with English in Switzerland, and that it wasn't all that hard to pick up the basics in German. The smiling clerk with her perfect English had certainly helped put me a bit more at ease with the course I was about to set my future on. Of course, while I was waiting for my documents (they printed them up and gave you the official stamp all on the same day!! Mind-blowing efficiency for lil ole South African me!) I happened to pick up a magazine to browse through. My fear of the unknown began nudging and poking at the fringes of my consciousness when I started flipping through the pages and saw that the articles were all written in German. This was nothing, however, to the fright I experienced when a perfectly normal looking lady of about fifty walked into the foyer and began addressing the nice young clerk in the most horrible gobbledy-gook I had ever heard. To make matters worse, the clerk simply smiled and began uttering similar sounding noises. Even though I'm normally very sensitive concerning things like staring, pointing, etc, I sat there, mouth hanging open and eyes bulging. Like good Swiss, they politely ignored me. To my untrained ears, their conversation sounded like the hawking, spitting and coughing of two drunken sailors from Glasgow, with a few nasal tones thrown in between grunts for good measure. I turned to my wife in horror, and discovered to my chagrin that she was having a good chuckle at this, my first introduction to "Schwyzertüütch", pronounced "Shweetserdooch" and meaning Swiss-German, or Swiss dialect. Looking back on the scene in later years, I realised that it was "Züritüütch", or Zürich dialect, that they were speaking, hence the extreme gutteral intonation, but at the time it was just plain scary!
The reason I thought of this is that today it occurred to me how normal all this now sounds. Pulled up at a red light at a busy intersection in rush hour Zürich, one can hear the somehow comforting sounds of the locals as their conversations drift through the open window, then suddenly the unutterably alien sound of English being tortured by the rolling, endless R's and drawn out A's of an American shoots through the familiar hum of good old homey Züritüütch and pearces one's eardrums like a lone ray of light in the retina at 05h00. No sooner have you identified the individual in the bright clothing and flashy sunglasses (even though it's quite overcast at the moment), than the awfully pompous sound of a pasty-faced little chap in a dark suit holding forth in the Queens English to his equally bland colleague drifts in from the opposite window as the pedestrians begin to cross. Only the instant burst of love and gratitude that you feel towards these people the moment you hear your beloved mother-tongue being used fluently and correctly in the midst of this foreign country stops you from wincing at the accents!
In fact, I remember hearing a strikingly dull and not at all intelligent sounding accent in the Glatt centre one day. As usual, the English jumps out at one, and you can't help but hear it due to the contrast with all the different accents and dialects going on around you in Swiss. After listening in for a sentence or two I turned to see if my wife was in the vicinity. The English was good, but the accent was terrible, and I wanted her opinion on where they came from. She, knowing my penchant for pronunciation, was one ahead of me. Seeing the questioning look of horror on my face, she silently mouthed the words, "South African". I closed my mouth and went about my business, suitably chastened. We all sound strange to one another, I've realised. It just took me a long time of not hearing other South Africans to realise that I actually don't speak God's own English...
Anyway, to get back to the point, there I was, languishing in the waiting area after being politely and efficiently dealt with by a well-mannered young Swiss lady with a perfect command of the English language. My fears about going off into the blue yonder without a clue as to how I was going to communicate had been little allayed by my wife's assurances that one could get around with English in Switzerland, and that it wasn't all that hard to pick up the basics in German. The smiling clerk with her perfect English had certainly helped put me a bit more at ease with the course I was about to set my future on. Of course, while I was waiting for my documents (they printed them up and gave you the official stamp all on the same day!! Mind-blowing efficiency for lil ole South African me!) I happened to pick up a magazine to browse through. My fear of the unknown began nudging and poking at the fringes of my consciousness when I started flipping through the pages and saw that the articles were all written in German. This was nothing, however, to the fright I experienced when a perfectly normal looking lady of about fifty walked into the foyer and began addressing the nice young clerk in the most horrible gobbledy-gook I had ever heard. To make matters worse, the clerk simply smiled and began uttering similar sounding noises. Even though I'm normally very sensitive concerning things like staring, pointing, etc, I sat there, mouth hanging open and eyes bulging. Like good Swiss, they politely ignored me. To my untrained ears, their conversation sounded like the hawking, spitting and coughing of two drunken sailors from Glasgow, with a few nasal tones thrown in between grunts for good measure. I turned to my wife in horror, and discovered to my chagrin that she was having a good chuckle at this, my first introduction to "Schwyzertüütch", pronounced "Shweetserdooch" and meaning Swiss-German, or Swiss dialect. Looking back on the scene in later years, I realised that it was "Züritüütch", or Zürich dialect, that they were speaking, hence the extreme gutteral intonation, but at the time it was just plain scary!
The reason I thought of this is that today it occurred to me how normal all this now sounds. Pulled up at a red light at a busy intersection in rush hour Zürich, one can hear the somehow comforting sounds of the locals as their conversations drift through the open window, then suddenly the unutterably alien sound of English being tortured by the rolling, endless R's and drawn out A's of an American shoots through the familiar hum of good old homey Züritüütch and pearces one's eardrums like a lone ray of light in the retina at 05h00. No sooner have you identified the individual in the bright clothing and flashy sunglasses (even though it's quite overcast at the moment), than the awfully pompous sound of a pasty-faced little chap in a dark suit holding forth in the Queens English to his equally bland colleague drifts in from the opposite window as the pedestrians begin to cross. Only the instant burst of love and gratitude that you feel towards these people the moment you hear your beloved mother-tongue being used fluently and correctly in the midst of this foreign country stops you from wincing at the accents!
In fact, I remember hearing a strikingly dull and not at all intelligent sounding accent in the Glatt centre one day. As usual, the English jumps out at one, and you can't help but hear it due to the contrast with all the different accents and dialects going on around you in Swiss. After listening in for a sentence or two I turned to see if my wife was in the vicinity. The English was good, but the accent was terrible, and I wanted her opinion on where they came from. She, knowing my penchant for pronunciation, was one ahead of me. Seeing the questioning look of horror on my face, she silently mouthed the words, "South African". I closed my mouth and went about my business, suitably chastened. We all sound strange to one another, I've realised. It just took me a long time of not hearing other South Africans to realise that I actually don't speak God's own English...
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