Today I want to talk to you about my foundation. The things that formed the earliest building blocks of my being, and that are still my go-to references for how to act, to respond and the moral thing to do.

For this, we are going to take the long way round by starting with what a Boer is. I think that for many of you this will be an unfamiliar term, and for those of you who know it, you likely have a single connotation – the perpetrators of Apartheid. This is not a political post, although I can’t promise that it won’t show up in #anotherstory – so I will simply tell you, and leave it up to you as to what you think it means by the end.

To understand the true meaning of the term when someone who identifies as a Boer uses it, we must return to 1820-30 at the end of the World – the Cape of Good Hope. By this time, the British were in charge, having had possession finally affirmed by the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814. Several groups of then-still Dutch colonists took umbrage, for a variety of reasons which all ultimately come down to not wanting to live under British hegemony. Many people today, even within South Africa, tend to confuse Afrikaners with Boers. We are only 1 of 4 main subsets of Afrikaners¹ – those who claim Afrikaans as their home language. In the case of an individual, ‘self-identification’ does play a part, as some Afrikaans speakers chose to refer to themselves as Boers based on belief system, while there are some who technically Boers, will avoid the term and refer to themselves only as Afrikaners or South Africans due to personal and societal beliefs surrounding the Boers during the Apartheid era.

Ok, enough with the historical digression, and on with the story. My family is likely descended from the Potgieter, Uys and Maritz treks, as our roots are across the old provinces of the Orange Free State, Cape and Transvaal. Under the new division that would be the Northern Cape, Freestate and Gauteng. ² My great-great-great-grandmother was born during the Trek. [Family history, and we had a full genealogy and historical family tree done about 20 years ago. Our earliest ancestor in South Africa was a German sailor who landed in the Cape in 1683, 30 years after the founding of the way station)

I was born in 1972 in Bloemfontein – and spent my early years on my grand-parents farm in the Northern Cape, about 150 km from Kimberley. I had a proper ‘plaaskind’* upbringing, and I have come to love my hard-soled ‘African’ feet – I will never have them soft – the soles were hardened walking barefoot on dirt paths, strewn with little rocks, and the only thing that could pierce it was a camel thorn, from the time I learnt to walk. Boere, and white Afrikaners in general are known for showing up barefoot, or taking off their shoes at every opportunity – a favourite English South African joke of mine: “Brian, is your buddy Koos coming to the braai? Ja man, I couldn’t not invite him. Ok, but just be sure to let him know we wear shoes in this house!”. And who could ever forget our intrepid Zola who ran barefoot in the now infamous 1984 Olympics 3000m!

In 1979, my mom met my step-dad and we moved to Johannesburg (Gauteng). To understand what happens now, I have to explain a bit about my step-dad. He was the son of a British employee of Esso, the petroleum company, who I believe also worked for the British colonial government at some point. Step-grandpa was Irish, and had married and upper-middleclass young English lady from London sometime in the late 1930’s. By the time my mom met him, the family had lived in Kenya (where he and his 2 brothers spent their childhood and early teenage years) and then migrated to South Africa, where they attended the best British Public schools [if you are American, read Private school] in Johannesburg. My mom barely spoke English (and my brother and I spoke none) – and step-dad barely understood Afrikaans, being part of the then-still considered superior British South African societal Group. My first Christmas in Johannesburg, spent at his parents house will forever be marked by his father, Uncle Jerry, screaming at us – 7 and 5 years old – to “NOT SPEAK THAT BLOODY LANGUAGE IN MY HOUSE” – the ‘Bloody Language’ being Afrikaans, our mother tongue.

Overnight, my home-language became English – although my mom did insist that we were schooled in Afrikaans, and my childhood became schizophrenic.

During the school year, I would be going to school in Afrikaans – in the city – immersed in an Afrikaans world (a Cape Dutch world), while going home to an English speaking house where it was made clear that Afrikaans was inferior, not to be spoken – and that my English had to improve. My home life was filled with Beano, Tin-Tin, a Readers Digest subscription – and a full set of Encyclopaedia Britannica’s as well as Joe Cocker and Clannad. [By the time I was 8 my spoken English was still spotty, but I could read it fluently, due to a comic book series that published the text in both languages.] My school days full of Afrikaner history, world history, Breyten Breytenbach, Daleen Matthee, the great Afrikaans poets – of whom Antjie Krog will always be my favourite, an Afrikaans ONLY school library, which seemed to go on forever, patriotic songs and culture – and a detailed understanding of how the British empire oppressed and abused us for over 250 years. I still struggle to this day with the English language terminology such as verbs, nouns etc and their meaning, as I learnt these things in Afrikaans! Growing up in the city did give me something though that many of my Boere-peers did not have – I never could understand Apartheid. My second mother was Sesotho, and did all the things a mother should while my own worked long hours. My playmates were all colours as we lived in a poor ‘border’ neighbourhood, and the strict pass-laws were disappearing. But all my schoolmates were white, Afrikaans only. My mother trusted our safety to the drivers of their business – Zulu, Xhosa and Sotho – but only white men and women could teach me.

I will write about this separately because that is it’s own story entirely. I can say though that I got a contradicting message around this as well on the farm – until I was 12, my best friend was the daughter of my Oupa’s foreman. She never went to school, never learnt to read and write, we spent all our time together and dreamt all the dreams young girls dream. At the age of 12, it was time for her to go to work, helping around the house. And suddenly, we couldn’t be friends anymore – which was made clear, never said, but understood in a hundred little ways, by all the adults around of all races. Today, I can understand this intellectually, but my heart still cries and will never understand.

During the school holidays (about 4 months of the year all included), we would be off to the farm. To the world of the Boer, where my Oupa (grandfather) would complain that our Afrikaans was starting to sound like the Dutch – he did not like the city accent – and that we had gotten ‘soft’ in the 2-3 months we had been away. Were we had our own sheep to raise – a yearling lamb every year – and our own jobs to do, including helping Ouma (grandma) catch, slaughter and pluck the Sunday lunch chicken, herd sheep – desperately wanting to help with seasonal sheering but being too small, to unpractised, milking cows – and the best part – feeding orphaned calves with the bottle in the evenings!

Waking up at 4am because I did not want to miss that first ride of the day with Oupa – he would leave at 5 every morning, after a quick breakfast of coffee and toast, to ride (in a bakkie***, not on a horse) the camps – visiting each of his herds, riding the fences and checking for jackals, sign of jackrabbits – a pest – and generally surveying his domain. And in this time, my Oupa, who never set foot in a church to the best of my knowledge (marriage, baptism and death covered it for him) would speak to G_D. Mostly he would talk about rain, calving season and good prices at the market. I never once heard him ask for anything, I never once heard him complain or rail at the heavens. What I got from this was a simple approach to faith that I hold to this day – Jesus was for the children, we pray to Him when we are little, and always with Liewe (my dear) Jesus. G_D and a direct conversation was for grown-ups. He is a trusted and respected friend, someone you can tell all your stories to, your troubles and your joys. The other solid pillar of his unintended teachings was a bone-deep understanding that the Israelites (he was very Old Testament) are G_D’s chosen people. And whatever else we did in life, we must never forget that – they are the First, to be respected, supported and emulated in every way. I never saw my Oupa ‘pray’ – but every morning he would have a conversation.

From my Ouma, I good a foundation in practical Calvinist Protestantism, delivered between hard work and ginger cookies, in the form of biblical sayings: “G_D helps those who help themselves“; “Don’t hide your light under a bushel – you must use the talents G_D gave you, but remember “Don’t blow your own trumpet“. A lot of old Testament scripture flowed throughout the day’s conversation – but never as a religious instruction. Just as a simple fact of life. One of my best memories was the day that while walking down to the small prickly pear orchard, she had to use her handy shovel to behead a Pofadder – accompanied by ‘Vat So Satan!’ – Take that Satan – and we believed she had dealt with the Devil! These snakes are an infestation in that region, and are incredibly dangerous. In those days, when the nearest doctor would take about an hour to reach you in perfect conditions, and anti-venom was a luxury you did not just have on hand, a bite could be a death sentence for a child, especially in the case of a larger specimen. Luckily they are sluggish, and a little awareness, and a well-placed spade thrust does the job adequately.

My Oupa, on these early morning journeys, gave me a deep love for my Volk (Nation), my history and my language. And always coupled with an unbridled distaste for ‘Die Engelse’ ** and what they had done to us. To his dying day he considered city-Afrikaners in general, and the Cape Dutch in particular to be traitors to the Volk for accepting the English.

My Ouma taught me to rely on myself, my own efforts. To thank G_D for the gifts he had given me, and that it was my duty to use them. Not to complain – because we are given what we are given based on our strength and ability to bear it. To be ruthless in the protection of mine, and tender in my care for living things.

Those 4 months every year for 16 years made me the person I am. Everything else is incidental.

1. Personal notes: * plaaskind literally translates to Farm child, but the use carries a number of inherent connotations. ** Die Engelse – The English. In this particular context and circumstance, you can insert the historical group your people take the most umbrage to, and you will understand pretty much exactly what it means. It is important to note the for my grandfather, this was not learnt but lived history as he was born in 1921. He refused to participate in any way in the South African assistance to the Allies in WWII for one reason – the British were running it – and he had lost family during Kitchener’s Scorched Earth policy, only 20 years before his birth. *** a bakkie is the South African term, from Afrikaans for a utility vehicle. Pick-up in America, or a small lorry in England, ute in Australia. In South Africa, it refers to a small, most often uncovered, single cab working vehicle, around the size of a car. 2, Footnotes: 1. Afrikaners are those who speak Afrikaans as a home language. We can identify 4 major groups by ancestry and history in South Africa: a.  The Cape Dutch and the Boers b. ‘Die Volkie’ or Cape Coloureds c. The ‘Slamaaiers’ or Cape Malays –  ↩︎     2, Provinces ↩︎