A Good Day

Today was a good day. Not an ordinary good day, which would mean the absence of bad moments. Actually a good Good Day. I laughed. Laughed with abandonment – and not just once. The South Africans have decided to braai on Thursday (Saturday). It will be some chicken, coz I can’t bear the idea of their meat. Nothing compares to the real thing that I’ve been spoilt with at home. We are three middle-aged ladies (Afrikaans-speaking), one Coloured man and one Indian lady. We joked about Bill and Saji being sweet on each other (purely a joke). They are both very short. So I say to the Filipino girl, “they go well together coz they’re the same size”. She added, more seriously, “and the same colour” (pronounced caller). I don’t know why I thought it was so funny, but I did. Colour of the skin, shades of darkness, is certainly still an issue elsewhere in the world. Not an issue as such, but a point of discussion, worthy of mentioning when describing someone. You get dark-skinned Egyptians and light-skinned Egyptians. And that goes for most ethnic groupings and nationalities. It’s only in South Africa where we try our level-best not to comment on it.

Then there was my eleven-year-olds with their silly banter. Tom left the class and everyone wanted to know: “Where’s Tom going?” My answer: “Curiosity killed the cat.” Having never heard the expression, the class erupted into chaos: “Tom’s cat died ?” “Did Tom kill a cat ?” “Are we going to have a funeral ?” I tried to explain the expression but gave up in the end. “Forget about the cat that got killed, let’s get back to our work, now.”

We take shuttles from work to home. But they go to different places and don’t have anything to indicate the destination. You have to shout and ask. We are at “Ishkan 2” so you just put up two fingers, the peace-sign, to find out whether to get on or not. If it’s the Faisal-bus, it’s going to the hospital, and then there’s also the Air Force one. They shout “Air Force” and I shout “Air Base”, mine being the more accurate description of the two. We can hop onto the “Air base” one coz it passes by our compound. He won’t turn in, but drop us off on the main road so we have to almost crawl through a fense. We still do it anyway. Today, almost the entire bus was meant for Ishkan. And it was packed with South Africans. It made for a jolly ride. I chatted to Dawn who is from KwaZulu and has been here for 6 years. I also met Gladys who called me “Darling” but in the African way “Dâ-ling” – I loved it. Love all the big African mama’s here. It is the closest reminder of home.

And last but not least, the gardener had upended the bed of “Afrikanertjies” further up the road and I went and collected all the dead heads to sow next spring.

So that was my good Good Day!