A Little Woodpecker

Birds can be teachers too

I grew up on a small farm outside Pretoria. My father wasn't a farmer, and worked for a salary for the government. On weekends he worked very hard to better the property. My mother loved gardening. She had a huge garden with every kind of plant growing there. Over the years it changed from roses to storm lilies, to hydrangeas, etc, but the guinea fowl were always there ... them and the two cranes that roamed free in the garden. Later my father also added two beautiful golden pheasants, and even with the dogs around, they were happy and contented.

Perhaps my love for birds started there. They give so much joy and they always seem to be happy. On the farm where I live now we see wild geese every day, as well as hadidas, ibis, and even peacocks. Sparrows and finches sometimes fly into my kitchen to steal sugar or whatever they can find to nibble. I love it although they do make a mess sometimes.

One day, when I was still a child, I came upon a woodpecker whose leg was broken, and it's possible that his wing was also broken because he couldn't get up from the ground. I picked up the fluttering bird, and took it home, sure that I could heal him. I prayed to God that the bird be healed, but no matter how I tried, the woodpecker didn't react, he had given up on his tiny life. Eventually the light in his eyes dimmed and he died without making a sound as if he had expected this all along and accepted his fate.

I remember how strange it felt to see a living thing die even if it was a very tiny little life. There was this one moment when I knew it was all over and I couldn't save him. So I watched, and cried, and thought it was all so unfair. He was beautiful and happy that morning and it suddenly ended here.

I put him in an old shoe box and lined it with cotton wool covered with soft cloth, and I thought to myself: Why am I doing this? He doesn't feel anything anymore. But I still did it, and wondered how will I die one day? Will I too so quietly accept my death? Will I be put in a wooden box with soft coverings, or will I die somewhere where no one even knows about it like so many animals do?

For many years afterwards I often thought of the little woodpecker. The memory faded eventually until this country was turned around in 1994. From then on until today there were continuous reports of my people being murdered inthe most gruesome ways on farms and in the cities, especially old people and children. There was nothing quiet and accepting about it, and some of them I knew very well. Death suddenly had a very ugly face, one that brought naked fear to the foreground.

People in our cities live in constant fear of their lives – all the cities – those who can afford it, lock themselves in their small prisons at night. No one is safe.

No matter how bad our life might be, how hard or how troublesome, we all want to live, even under bad circumstances. We don't want to give up this life, and when we have to go, we put up a fight. We will do anything to stay alive, and then someone comes along and end the life you've been protecting for so many years.

One cannot always live in fear, but most of the time you can see the danger although not always prevent it. Living in fear was not intended by the Almighty, it is just something that happens mostly through bad people. In an acute situation fear is something that binds your spirit, it paralyses the senses. But as time goes by and you are still alive under bad circumstances, it doesn't make your spine tingle anymore, but it is still there and you have to deal with it.

We should be able to live normal lives like God intended us to do. Other people should not be a threat to anyone, but they are. We warn our children to be careful, and still they get raped or abducted. All the warnings in the world will never change bad people into good ones.

The little woodpecker didn't live in constant fear of his enemies. He had lived the days given to him to the full, and when he died, he accepted it. That is the way it should be, because that was the way it was intended.

Take care of yourself and live the life given to you to the full.

Freeing Art and Soul

I could always paint. Since I can remember I drew pictures and always got good reaction. My goal was to become a renowned artist (I was 15 for Pete's sake!), someone like Michelangelo (please don't laugh) for whom the world would have great respect and admiration.

But when you marry, you shouldn't have any great expectations from life. That is where it ends for you – actually, when you have children, and I had five. I stopped painting because of the mess when little people also want to paint. I married an author and he got me into writing novels which I did for many, many years, but my first love was always painting.

When we got married, my husband used to brag about his very "talented" wife, and he nagged me to draw other people's children, but after a while his compliments became stale. He was driving me towards something I refused to do ... drawing other people's children. Just pencil sketches, but that was what he saw as the ultimate in talent.

Being a rebel by nature I flatly refused, and we had enormous rows about it, so much so that I completely stopped painting for about thirty years. I only used my talent when absolutely necessary like designing a book cover or a letterhead, something that had to do with our small publishing business.

After four decades my sister came to live in my part of the country, the Western Cape, and also found a house to rent among the beautiful hills surrounding the towering cliffs of the Swartberge. She isn't a great artist, but she paints interesting, fascinating subjects and loves doing it. She also has no boundaries like I have and she is free to paint whatever she wants.

After all these dead years she inspired me again to paint. For the first time in my life I tried my hand on portraits and I liked it – paintings, not drawings.

Here is one of my first granddaughter wearing her favourite colourful wig.

We went to the beach and I painted one where my daughter tried to get irritating sand off her little one.

I like these because I proved to myself that I can still paint, even portraits, and I could still be an artist. It was in me and had not disappeared.

Another year went by and my sister and I frequently visited a restaurant about 20 km on the road to Montagu. If you ever come to South Africa, visit that restaurant. The food is good and the service excellent. But I'm wandering from what I want to tell you.

In this restaurant we found a small art gallery and the lady said we could bring our paintings as well. She sells every single one she takes in. Now this is what I'm going to do. I will paint what I want, like my sister, and feel free again.

Well, that's what I thought.

I told my husband what I was planning to do, and what did he say? "You should draw people's children. They will pay you for it and you can make a little money."

I said: "I won't do it."

"You can make money."

"Did I say anything about making money?"

He was getting peeved, but I flatly refused to do what he wanted and there is a very good reason for my refusal.

In my imagination I see a girl growing up on a dusty farm, far from real civilization. She has this very special talent for painting which can bring her so much joy, but she is doomed to make pencil drawings of her uncle Ned or aunt Julie or little Johnny with his freckles ... because she will never be allowed to grow. She is surrounded by people without vision. Their horizon is very close to home. She could have spread her wings had she not been tied to a dusty, dead tree. As time goes by she will bury her dreams in the dust and sand and when she is old and her hand not so steady anymore, she will remember and cry at night for what she could have been.

I don't want to become that. I will paint what I like and hopefully like what I paint. I will be myself and chase whatever dreams are left to chase.

You do the same.

School is "Fun"

The very first thing I remember about school is that I didn't want to be there. On the thirty first of December I turned five but the little country school needed another teacher and to get that they also needed another pupil. That is why I was in school barely after I turned five.

Everything was alright in the beginning. We had an enormous teacher, Miss Van Niekerk, who also became friends with my parents. I suppose it wasn't just because of everything that had happened between me and the teacher. My older sister was also in the same school.

Then came the Easter holiday – only ten days, mind – and our cousins came to visit. I couldn't concentrate on anything. My mind was continually at home with them. So on the second day I decided I'd rather be at home than with Miss Van Niekerk.

During the first break I packed my schoolbag and left. No one saw me leaving because I climbed through the fence at the back and walked home – something like two kilometers. My mother wasn't pleased to see me, but she called the school to tell them I was safe at home. She also decided I was still too young for school.

The next year I was back, and I had no excuse to slip through the back fence to go home. But I was older then and a little smarter. Teachers, I discovered, had eyes in the back of their heads just like my mother, but teachers were also notoriously unfair. They also had favourites, and looking back now I would say I wasn't Miss Van Niekerk's favourite.

There was a little boy with me in the same class, Sakkie. Now Sakkie wasn't the sharpest pencil in the school, and he was extremely restless ... restless being a very forgiving term for his tricks. He was looking for trouble and as I was sitting just across the aisle from him, he targeted me.

"This means war!"

When Miss Van Niekerk wasn't looking, he threw all sorts of things at me. He took my lunch, took my eraser and kept it for himself, and so forth. While he was doing his best to make me angry, I was planning to get back at him. The straw that broke the camel's back though, was when Sakkie took my colouring pencils and snapped two of them.

That was a clear declaration of war. Out of sheer desperation I kicked him on his shin. He gasped from pain and when he turned to me, I could see murder in his eyes. He didn't like to be thwarted, but he knew he couldn't do anything to me right there. When recess came I took my ruler in my hand ... just for in case. Teacher was just out of the classroom when he grabbed my pencils and started snapping them, all the time yelling at me that he will show me!

I was never someone to just let things go, and this destructive little boy needed to be taught a lesson. He was a little taller than me, but it didn't deter me at all. I forgot that Miss Van Niekerk was just outside the classroom, all I saw was this pestering boy who broke all my colouring pencils and simply wouldn't stop.

Without thinking I smacked him with the ruler on his butt as hard as I could. The little coward turned and ran, but he couldn't get out of the classroom because the teacher was blocking the door. She came back when the commotion started. So around and around we went through the room, him screaming at the top of his voice for someone to help him, and me with a develish determined look on my face I am sure.

Suddenly he tripped over a schoolbag and fell with his face on the edge of a table. He was really hurt. His screams brought on by me chasing him was nothing compared to those that followed. Before my eyes his lip started swelling. I was amazed at the speed at which it happened so I didn't see that Miss Van Niekerd moving towards me who was still holding the ruler in my hand and Sakkie yelling blue murder.

"What did you do!" Miss Van Niekerk asked me angrily.

"He wouldn't stop! He broke my colouring pencils, Miss!"

"He started it, dammit!"

But she wasn't listening. She saw trouble with Sakkie's parents and I was the cause of it. So I had to be disciplined ... and I was determined not to be. I turned and scurried around the nearest table with teacher on my heels. Fortunately her size made it difficult for her to move quickly and I was a thin, wiry chit of a girl – fast on her feet. Around and around went went, me always in front and her chasing after me.

"Stop running!" she eventually panted, completely out of breath, and holding onto the back of a chair.

I stopped and looked at her warily.

"He broke my colouring pencils ... " I repeated, but that didn't help.

I was sent to the headmaster and my parents were called, and I can't remember if I got a hiding, but what stayed with me all these years is that Sakkie got away scot-free for all the damage that he had done.

From that day forth I never trusted people again. If something can happen right in front of your eyes and you punish the victim, you are not to be trusted. And I was right in my assumption that no person is to be trusted. Today, in this country where anyone in the judicial system can be bribed, it is a good thing not to trust anyone.

The sad thing though is that a child has to learn that lesson at such a young age. It's no wonder we have such an uncaring society today. Situations like this leaves a deep imprint on any young mind, and perhaps teachers all over the world should remember that.

Fiery Fun

Kids will always find a way to be naughty, it just comes with the package.

I was about eleven years old and was very tight friends with the neighbour's son, Marcel, who was a year older than I was. We were always up to mischief when we were together, which was mostly on weekends.

This particular day was in the winter. The grass was dry, the trees had shed their leaves and a light breeze blew over the veld. Marcel and I were cold and we imagined that a small campfire would put some warmth into our cold bones.

Some of the dead trees had been cleared and thrown onto a heap, so there was enough dry wood for the fire. We found a piece of paper and some matches and we were set for the day.

Next to the heap of wood was a clearing where we planned to make our small fire. It was far away enough from anything that could catch fire and start to burn. Yes, we were careful, because growing up in an area where there was an abundance of dry grass in winter, taught us to be carefull. We lit the fire, fried some pieces of chicken that we got from the colonel's butler and talked about what we were going to do for the rest of that Saturday.

We had a few things in mind and soon we were bored with the fire and all charged up for adventure. Marcel stamped out the flames and coals and we left. We didn't realize that Mary-Anne, his little sister of five, had been watching us from the other side of the woodpile. Had we known, we would have done a better job of stamping out the burning wood, but we left and Mary-Anne stepped in. Later we tried to reconstruct how things happened that day, we realized that she had dragged a small, dry tree to the still hot embers and blew on the coals to catch fire.

Oblivious of what was happening at the woodpile, we went to the river to build a raft. It was while we were busy there that we saw the smoke in the direction of the gum-tree wood. We abandoned our raft and ran back to the house to find out what was going on. The wind had picked up and by the time we reached the woodpile, it already had turned into an inferno.

Workers and farmers came in bakkies (small trucks), cars and on foot, carrying wet hessian bags. Suddenly the peace and quiet of the Saturday morning was gone. People were shouting and yelling, and against the background of the raging fire we could see them with sacks whack whacking at the fire, ever so often standing back from the singing heat. My father also arrived with his two farm-workers.

My heart was thumping in my chest. Was this what we and Marcel had caused? It was dreadful! How could it have happened? The flames were charging towards the two houses, one being surrounded by huge trees. There were pines among them, and we knew that the colonel's house was going to get burnt to the ground because of its thatched roof should it catch fire.

The smoke was thick and suffocating. Whole trees burned like torches, and nothing in the area was safe from the flames. So every living animal was taken down to the river for safety where the younger children of the workers had to keep them together.

Marcel and me were too small to fight such a raging fire, but we each picked up a wet sack and started to help extinguish the fire anyway. I could feel the intense heat against my skin and I really panicked. Fire isn't a polite thing, it wants to burn you. A few feet away I could see Marcel frantically trying to distinguish the flames, but it proved to be too much for him as well.

Then the wind changed direction and the next moment the flames were all around us. I heard myself scream from shock and fear.

Someone dragged me out of the flames and poured some water over my clothes.

"Go to the house!" Marcel's father yelled. "I'll deal with you two later!"

We dropped the sacks and slinked off to the house where Mary-Anne sat watching the fire with widened eyes. We joined her not knowing what the little pest had done.

Outside the fire jumped the road and was getting uncomfortably close to Uncle Huup's house. We could smell the acrid air, and the smoke burnt our lungs. The fire was getting much too close for comfort.

Aunt Ruth came into the room where we were.

"Go to the back of the house ... stay in the kitchen and don't go outside."

"Why don't we leave, Mother?" Marcel asked.

"We can't ... the roads are blocked by the fire. Now go to the kitchen!" She didn't wait to see what we do, but left quickly.

We ran to the kitchen where we stood by the window watching the fire outside. It was quite hot even at this distance. They had a huge back yard where there was nothing that could burn so it was safe there for the moment.

Suddenly there was shouting outside, and we saw people running past to the colonel's house. It was a very old building with a thatched roof ... and they had many valuable antiques inside although that wasn't something that had any meaning for me at that time.

We watched as the fire scorched its path down to the colonel's house, emitting smoke and ash and heat, and we remembered how hot it was.

After another very long hour the wind dropped without warning as though it was tired of cheering the fire on. The suffocating smoke still hung in the air, the ash still drifted down, but the roaring sound of the flames was somewhat subdued.

It was more than two hours later when uncle Huup returned and said: "We saved your father's house, Ruth. It was just the barn and two of the outbuildings that burnt down."

So it was over at last. Marcel and me sat on the doorstep of the kitchen, and didn't say much. One of the neighbours came to uncle Huup.

"Someone had made a fire by the woodpile and dragged a small tree into the flames. That is what started the fire."

We were on our feet, not thinking clearly.

"We didn't do that!" we exclaimed, admitting that we had made a fire close to dry wood.

Marcel's father turned to us.

"So you made a fire while the wind was blowing?"

"A small one, Father," Marcel said apologisingly. "We extinguished it before we left."

"So how did it start again?" He obviously didn't believe us.

And then we turned to Mary-Anne who looked as guilty as could be but kept quiet. To this day we both maintain that we had nothing to do with that raging fire, but still no one believes us. I don't know where Marcel is today and if he ever thinks of what happened then, but maybe he will read this and laugh about it, happy that we escaped back then with just a stern reprimand.