Continuing to Ponder South Africa

There is no what I would call “typical” day for Santi. Her day generally starts very early as she becomes inspired in her dreams I think. She was usually up and working when I got up while I was there. She was also the last one who crawled up the stairs for bed as well!

Three days a week Pretty is there. Pretty is Santi’s housekeeper and she speaks very little English. This probably would have been a good thing to know before I had a conversation with her though! Santi and family communicate with Pretty through Afrikaans. She knows a few words, like “your welcome” and she is just a sweetheart. I don’t remember how many years Pretty has been with Santi but it has been many years now. She comes in 3 days a week to help keep the house and laundry caught up so that Santi can concentrate on her digitizing. She spends 1 day at Liese’s house and 1 day with Cara as well. Between the family they keep her working full time. She has 2 daughters and also grandchildren at home as well. Her husband is having trouble finding work, so their family pretty well depends on what Pretty brings home.

While Pretty is cleaning the house, she also brings Santi tea on a regular basis. I think of the times that Pretty was walking up behind Santi with a cup just about the time she was going to ask for it! So I guess we can say that Pretty knows Santi pretty well. Pretty also makes a killer cup of instant coffee as well! She kept my cup full and hot as well. Normally, I’m not an instant coffee drinker and I thought to myself… oh no! But the South African instant coffee there is wonderful and I couldn’t tell it wasn’t brewed! Of course now I wish I would have filled that suit case up with it to bring home for those times when I just didn’t want to brew a full pot of coffee! Peter was also pretty quick on the spot with tea for “Mom” and coffee for me.

Calling Santi “Mom” started with us calling Peter “Dad” at night when we would want tea/coffee and he was in the other room. We would kind of talk loud about how nice it would be to have a hot cup of tea/coffee and he either couldn’t hear us because he was so into his tv or he was ignoring us… So I just started to ask “Dad” what he was doing LOL.

Pretty reminds me of a woman from my childhood. My great-aunt Ruth, lived in South Carolina and worked long hours in the textile mills. By the time she came home from work she was covered head to toe with lint from the spinning room (where cotton was spun into thread). She would come in the door and go straight to the bathroom and change from her working clothes to her house clothes. As you can imagine 2 dresses a day means lots of laundry. Ruth had a woman who did her laundry for her. She would drop it off one day and pick it up 3 days later or something. Every thing was washed and starched! I would go with Ruth to “fetch” her laundry. I remember that this woman knew exactly who I was even if it had been over a year since I had seen her! I even used to know her name… This woman had disabilities that wouldn’t let her work in the mills and this was how she fed her family, by taking in laundry! Of course this was the 60’s and you could find someone who would do the work affordably. This was the aunt who thought that a dime was more than enough tip, regardless of what the bill was!

Pretty and my great aunt’s laundress both take pride in their work and it shows. I wasn’t overly comfortable letting Pretty do my laundry, seriously, I had been the chief cook and bottle washer for 30 years while I was married! Santi explained that Pretty would be insulted if I didn’t let her take care of me the way she took care of everyone else in the house. It was hard for me to let go of that independence of mine and now wish Pretty could have come home with me! It doesn’t take much time to get used to being pampered!

Pretty would come and go to work by “taxi”. Now wait a minute, I need to explain what a South African “taxi” is. They don’t have bus service the way most of us do, they use passenger vans and pack them as full as they can and call them a “taxi”. It’s nothing to see a van with over a dozen people jammed in there! While I think any of us would find it shocking, it’s a way of life there and no one thinks much of it, it is what it is! There are times when Santi, Peter or one of the girls will take Pretty home, if she has shopping to carry with her or for whatever reason.

Keep in mind here that not only do they drive on the wrong side of the car, they also drive on the wrong side of the street for me! Going out was always an experience for me. First I kept trying to get into the “drivers” door. A mistake that Santi frequently makes while she is here and I used to laugh at her, but no longer! Then when it looks like we’re going head on into traffic I would be looking for my brake peddle! There wasn’t one on my side of the car! Can you imagine the traffic accidents I would have been causing? I don’t know how they do it when they come here! I wasn’t brave enough to even try once while I was there!

While we stop for traffic lights, in Middleburg they stop for robots. I guess I can see where they could call a traffic light a robot, being automated and all but every time someone said something about a robot I’m looking for Robby the Robot! LOL I think Santi was ready to send me back home when I walked slam into on coming traffic not long after I had been there! I am use to looking left, right left again to cross the street, there it’s right, left and right again and I NEVER got that one down!

There is a lot of traffic in Middleburg in the downtown area near where Santi lives. On our trips out and through downtown, there were so many people going about their lives. The streets are busy with cars, taxis and people hustling about. There is a familiar feeling about Middleburg, the look and feel of it, with their busy streets and the brick houses that line so many of the residential streets. I feels much like the South, which I still call home after 49 years in California.

Even so many of the country areas bring back memories of our driving trips to South Carolina, yet some areas are so very alien, so different. Like so many parts of our own country, there are so many different shades of green that it stimulates both the eyes and the memories. Even the friends of the family were familiar in their gentle ways and manners. Their hospitality and their open hearts and homes to a “stranger”. Many of these friends of Santi have never met a stranger.

Elsie is a long time friend of Santi and she reminds me of my own grandmother with her in her mannerisms and her personality. Her home is an older home and they are doing some work on it right now but I think that they are trying to keep the “feel” of the house as original as they can. I wish I had taken pictures of the home but I felt that would be so very intrusive and I wasn’t sure she would understand why I wanted to have them.

Unlike my grandmother though, Elsie is a sewist. She does alterations for Santi and others and her sewing room is stacked with fabrics, trims and other crafting supplies. She is an older woman who has the vitality of a woman half her years. I am still sew amused with Santi and her family and friend. When Santi’s mind races she breaks into Afrikaans without ever realizing it! She does it in the trunk shows at times as well. There is no need to be offended, she isn’t talking about us, she just communicates faster in Afrikaans at times. When Santi and Elsie realized they were doing it as well it was easy to laugh with them. I knew they meant no offense, it was just habit.

I can never tell where these blog entries are going to go. I start off with one thought on my mind and it just wanders and one memory will bring up another. At times it’s hard to end the blog and move on to other things I need to be doing.