The ‘A’ of South Africa

For Jenny’s Alphabet Thursday, I am going to write my thoughts on bits and bobs and how it was for me, during my almost fifty years spent in South Africa. 

These are my ‘A’ memories, opinions and views on a time during a much loved childhood and beyond!   Some things may not be ax– actly as others see them.

Africa, Animals, Ants, Antelope, Aloe, Apple and ‘Ag Pleez Deddy!’ words and music by Jeremy Taylor

“Above and Around are also A words; memories of the skies above and the air around us, when you know that you can be in no other place on earth.”

When you feel so small, and are so small in Africa.

And no more fitting a place to start than with ants.  How small must they feel!

Ants as we knew them;  ants were facinating and kept us playing outside for hours.  Following a long column of ants that was headed by a leader, who knew where she was going, yes,  she, the female worker.  We would put an obstacle in the way to confuse them but after a little scuffle about, the next chosen leader would soon head off and find the others up ahead.

When we played at farm yards with Dinky Cars, we dreamed of being able to herd a column of ants into a field we had created, to keep them there as our livestock.  Fun!  They felt so trapped and ran in all directions at once; they didn’t hear our squeals of terror as we ran too, because ants have no ears .  So the plan didn’t work and we went back to plastic cows and sheep!

You can find any amount of web sites telling you how to kill ants, but hardly any that tell you that ants are  actually great environmentalists.  

       Aloes, a species of plant that grows everywhere  in South Africa. 

There are many of the family hanging on by a thread, it’s so dry; and others flourishing even in the wild.  Built for survival!

The aloe family were my Mothers saviour, when gardens were dry.   Her other crutch when the drought dragged on for months and months, was, ‘build a rockery’.  And aloes love that, it’s a natural habitat of theirs! 

This brings ‘vygies’ to mind, many variations, which lent that splash of colour to the dry earth, and made her happy.  Hose pipe bans and watering restrictions saw the ground crack in the searing heat. 

When the Jakaranda trees in Gezina, Pretoria killed her lawn, because the the sunshine just  never got through the deep shade; The Aloe came to the rescue again!  They are perfectly happy in the shade as well.

  Apple- It has to be ‘Golden Delicious’

A fruit that I remember from my youth; an apple you can sink your teeth into and get a ‘result’, a sweet juicy mouthful.

They are apparently not native to Africa, but were brought in from America in 1880’s.

An apple that stands out from the crowd, beacons me as I walk by.

 

A is for Ag Pleez Deddy” by Jeremy Taylor. 

Also known as “The Ballad of the Southern Suburbs.”, a skit on the way children spoke in school.  Every South African that lived there in those years still knows the words.

A hit song in South Africa in 1960’s, which sold more records than any of Elvis Presley’s singles at the time.  But banned from all radio networks by the then ruling political party; because we were not allowed to laugh at ourselves.