The Lyndi Tree. JA Ginn Fourie
know if John got any at all, he doesn’t remember and maybe that’s why he continued to smoke until recently?
When Ian comes back from boarding school, and we tell him the story, he reassures us,
“When you are older, you can get baptised, and all your sins will be forgiven.”
We are unsure of what sin and baptise mean, so he takes us to the dam nearby and demonstrates; putting one hand on my forehead and the other in the small of my back, he says,
“I now baptise you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost”. Then he says,
“Bend your knees” and dunks me over backwards, until I think I’m drowning! I struggle to get back on my feet, spluttering and gasping for breath, but at the same time, I feel so much better. I think this must be the way out of all the sinning and hopefully the hidings! John declines a further demonstration on himself and trusts my assessment with a chuckle.
James is born in Ficksburg when I am eight years old, soon after we had moved again. This time to a farm called Beginsel, on the banks of the Caledon River in the Orange Free State. Fouriesburg is the nearest town about 45 minutes away. John and I are constant companions - there are no others of interest in my life on this isolated, beautiful farm. By now, I know not to play with the kaffirs. Ian is far away at boarding school near Heidelberg, and David and James are too young to play with us. I must look after them sometimes to make sure that they don’t fall down the lavatory pit, or into the dip tank or drown in the river - what a nuisance they are.
We play by the willow-lined Caledon river with sprawling lucerne lands on its banks, we practise circus stunts on Daddy’s polo ponies and hike in the mountains. I recall no fear of anyone or anything. We eat fruit, nuts and of course all the other bounties of Mommy’s vegetable garden, kitchen and pantry. Our days are one long holiday and our nights' such sleepy bliss under the thatched roof of the cut-stone rondavels that group around to form our home. Often our lullaby is the Sotho ululations from across the river, beseeching the rain goddess to shower us with rain and I imagine other blessings.
On Saturdays, Mommy calls us all for Sabbath school, at about nine o’clock as there is no church nearby. The Sabbath School Lesson Quarterly, Bibles and Hymnals are passed around. The Lesson Quarterly has structured readings and bible verses to substantiate the theme for each day during the week. Mommy plays the piano, and we sit in a circle to sing our favourite hymns, open with prayer and then either Daddy or Mommy read from the Sunday to Friday lessons. Those of us who can read, look up the texts and read them out loud when it is our turn.
“I don’t feel like Sabbath School today,” I venture one day. “It is so boring I am going to play with the kittens.”
“Oh no - you are not,” says Mommy. “You can play with them all week, This day is the Sabbath Day, and God asks us to keep it holy. We keep it Holy by doing what he asks us to do.”
I idly wonder where in the Bible He asks us to sit through a boring read every Saturday. Later I discover that my friends at school in Fouriesburg go to the big cut-stone Dutch Reformed Church on Sundays and sing similar hymns and pray similar prayers only all in Afrikaans. They argue with me about why I have ‘church’ on Saturdays and ask their parents why they go to church on Sundays. I feel embarrassed because they giggle and say,
,,Julle is snaaks”- “You are funny.”
(Afrikaans quotation by convention uses the first quotation mark as above, and second quotation as English standard.)
We have neighbours who are Afrikaners, and I understand early in my life that they are not to be trusted although I don’t remember anyone saying so. They don’t have the same values as us English I hear from Mommy. We don’t get to see them very much, although we listen in to their telephone conversations on the shared telephone line after we learn to speak Afrikaans. I have little to do with the Basotho who come to buy mealie-meal and goods at Daddy’s trading store. They too are different. By now I know why we are not supposed to mix with them or eat their food without being told. There is one new reason though - I am a girl, and it is dangerous!
John, Ginny, Ian, Viccie, David (with Boxer), James, and Bill
On the other hand, when John and I ride into the Lesotho mountains, the Basotho are always friendly and willing to share conversation and their food with us, just like at Mapoteng and the amaXhosa had been long ago at Dallas.
When I am ten years old, in 1955, Daddy becomes very ill with kidney-stones. Mommy drives him and my younger brothers to Johannesburg, where Daddy is admitted to the hospital. Ian is at Sedaven, an Adventist boarding school in the Transvaal about an hour south of Johannesburg. John, Petro our cousin, and I have been booked into the local weekly boarding school in Fouriesburg; where y Afrikaans is the language spoken. Granny and Grandpa Hartley had moved to Beginsel at the same time we did and live in one of the Rondavels. Granny Hartley takes us to school on the first day and drops us at the school first, then drops our suitcases at the hostels. Everything is so strange and different, and I want to cry and go home to Mommy.
„Bly jy in die koshuis?“ - “Do you stay in the hostel?” is the first question asked by my teacher and classmates. I must learn Afrikaans fast! John is fortunate enough to have our cousin Petro Jonker, who is half Afrikaans, and an English-speaking classmate Arthur Macaskill as backstop, but Arthur doesn’t stay in the hostel, so doesn’t have to endure the taunts of, bleddie Rooinekke - bloody Rednecks2, and the fights that are inevitable power struggles at the hostel.
John and Arthur remain lifelong friends.
I have never been to school before, but since I can read and write, I am placed into Standard three (Grade five) and John into Standard four. Although Daddy recovers and returns home, within a month, life has changed for me. I am shy and don’t quite fit in at school; ’n plaasjaap - a farm girl, that doesn’t know about the seemingly sophisticated life and scandals of a small town.
One day, during my first year at Fouriesburg school, my best friend Lynette gives me some yellow powder to throw at the boy who sits behind me, because he sometimes pulls my hair and calls me names. So, the next time he does it, I throw the powder at him. He sets up a huge fuss, screaming and crying. At first the teacher is puzzled and then angry when he tells his side of the story,
„Jy kon sy öe verniel het, vir die res van sy lewe!“- “You could have damaged his eyes for life!” she yells at me.
When I say that my friend had given me the powder and I didn’t know it was mustard, Lynette denies knowing anything about it and Teacher sends me to the principal.
How could my best friend do that to me? I am alone, betrayed and uncomfortable. A feeling that stays with me, although there are so many beautiful hours spent at Lynette’s home. I love her, her mother and sister Marie, who is in John’s class, but have no way of processing this hurt.
Reflecting on this incident highlights that it probably reinforced my sense that Afrikaners can not be trusted. I forgot all about it until recently, and now I wonder how these dear friends are doing? I also regret the childhood impressions that lingered so long.
We spend each week at school, and on Friday afternoons, the five-ton Magiris Deutz lorry comes to fetch us after loading up goods at the station. A Basotho man named Daniel drives, and we sit in the cab with him, bumping our way over the 24 miles to the farm. John has fluent conversations with Daniel in Sotho, to which Petro and I are not privy. We often tuck into a loaf of dry but fresh white bread meant for the store on our way home. Sometimes in the rainy season the Caledon river floods. John declares over the phone that he will not stay at the hostel over weekends under any circumstances! The drift is impassable, so Daddy sends the horses with their groom for us to ride over the mountains. In the dark and rain the sure-footed ponies take us over hazardous terrain. I would have been terrified if I had been able to see the sheer cliffs and deep valleys