As we grow older, we tend to whinge about the good ol’ days.
Last weekend was no different for me and several visitors arriving from Pretoria.
We all gathered for a venison barbeque at a lodge on the northern fringes of Bela-Bela.
The real purpose of the gathering is something I choose to keep personal and private, and ask you dear readers to respect this decision.
I drove to the lodge in the company of my relative, Greg, to prepare the groundwork for the arrival of the visitors from Gauteng.
As soon as the visitors arrived, we were more than ready with roasted venison, wors, pap and gravy.
The loads of beer was kept ice-cold in a huge cooler provided by my favourite laaitie (little brother), Jacob. His peers call him “Mujuku”.
Businessman Selby “Legerby” Moima also backed me up in many ways than one.
Fellow journalist Dithako, my friends Laurence, Maphefo and Dibeng, arrived bumper-to-bumper in two vehicles.
Food was served and the time of beer guzzling came at dusk, with the sounds of birds and other wildlife creating a relaxed atmosphere.
The talk about the good ol’ days started, with both Laurence and Dithako reminiscing about one huge protest march targeted on the erstwhile Bophuthatswana administration.
In jest, Dithako described how he provided “leadership” by showing the homeland’s police a clean pair of heels.
The discussion went down memory lane to the time when both Laurence and Dithako were students at Ngaka Maseko Secondary School in the Pretoria township of Mabopane.
At secondary school there was a dispute between students and the headmaster, over the collection of funds for the fixing of the perimeter fencing.
Laurence disclosed how Dithako was at the forefront of students’ schoolyard unrest, until the much-feared Bophuthatswana cops were summoned to arrest him and several other “klipgooiers”
(stone-throwers).
At that point Dithako took over the discussion, narrowing his eyes before suggesting how he — among other luminaries such as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Steve Biko and Robert Sobukwe — is a former political prisoner.
“Political prisoner” for a night in a township police station holding cell!
I also had my own Struggle “credentials” to share, like the time I delivered a paper at the University of Vienna in Austria.
In delivering the paper, I mentioned how during my own student days I used to throw stones at police and army patrols.
At the end of the delivery of my paper, a South African academic in the Diaspora asked me whereabout in Pretoria did I throw stones.
When I said it was in the Pretoria township of Soshanguve, the academic winked and said I used to throw stones at him, for he was one of the wide-eyed troopies dispatched to patrol the
townships.
Small world, ain’t it?
— The BEAT
