In my usual fashion, I am taking conscious lessons on living off the land, and unconscious lessons on life.
The farm has progressed well. Last year I made some profits off the sale of fresh produce, mostly Eggplant and rainbow peppers.
This year, my production line is non-existent at this stage.
Two reasons:
These are not actually crib notes – these are my exam papers – the convenience of COVID – write at home
During planting season, I was busy with my advanced tax studies (which I passed quite well, thank you for asking, and thanks to Doc Karen Stark).
And, more practically, because of our new chickens.
I wanted chickens for my birthday, and I got chickens for my birthday. It is lovely to hear their chatter and bragging about their laying prowess.
And you feel special when they rush to you every time you exit the back door. The fact that they are only after you for on the off chance you are discarding some kitchen scraps is beside the point.
So there is life around the house…….(insert theme music from Jaws movie here)…… Life starts around 4am…….
Its the “hoomans” that are locked up in the yard, while the “well diversified livestock” roam about.
Hank and company
And life needs to be fed. Layer Mash only lasted so long, they got bored. Mielies only lasted so long, they are bored. Garden pests are taken care off. Less weed removal required in general garden, due to the scrubbing of hens looking for interesting appetizers.
Rain is not due for another 2 or so weeks, and the veld is quite dreary. So no greenery for them to feed on. Did I mention they are free range chickens?
Dont let this chicken fool you – she snuck into the witness protection program. She is a free range chicken!
And range freely they do, into my vegetable patch. Gone are the organic carrots a friend brought all the way from Europe. Gone are the normal carrots because chickens pecked the greenery down to the nib, so carrots cannot get the nutrients they get through chlorophyll process.
Life leaked out of the leek
Victim number 1: Senor Oignon
Field of butter nut dreams
And so on.
What they don’t eat (yet), is SoutBos, Wild Garlic, artichokes (neither fresh nor cooked), eggplant, citrus, and onions. (Post script –> found Senor Oignon…..)
Everything else is fair game. Remember this ad? Come now, say it with me “They taste so good cause they eat so good”.
So the practical living off the land lesson is now done.
For the life lesson: Careful what you wish for, you might just get it.
I feel it is important to note, that this is a story of fiction. Some elements may seem awfully familiar. But afterall, where do we find inspiration if not in real life. Art imitating life or life imitating art and all that.
Any likeness to any person living or dead is purely coincidental. All characters are fictional.
In no particular order, I list the outcome of your inspiration:
Now we have the individual stories of each of these fine examples of steadfastness and honourable struggle. What remains to be told, is the story behind the complete picture.
Forces unknown to us as the reader of this story, conspired through a series of accidents and arrangements, to have them in within a day’s reach following a telephone call. A day may sound some distance, but time and distance are both relative. In the North of the country, a day is quite near, but given the intermittent availability of transport to the site of our story, it may take a day (or even longer) to get back to the village of Elenga’s childhood.
Elenga had hit a jackpot, of sorts. When COVID interrupted the way we lived and worked, and took away many lives and many livelihoods, he was lucky. He had found a job working out of harm’s way, which paid well. He worked extremely hard when most were stuck in their homes playing all sorts of social media games. He was in the sun and the wind day in, day out. And at the end of the enforced lockdowns, he had earned enough money to give back in a meaningful way. He packed his bags, spent a week in town gathering the essential equipment needed, and headed back home. There were funerals to attend to, and there was work to be done.
On his way, just before leaving network connectivity, he made a few calls. Yes, we all have our spheres of network and influence, and he wanted dependable trustworthy men. He was taking them to his home. He was going to change lives.
John Pallet brought his wise ways with him and found a kindred soul in the aged headman of the village. BaasLang had recently procured a portable welding machine and a diesel-powered generator through an SME financing scheme, which he brought to site. BruBen happened to be on the back of the Bakkie heading towards the village. XoXo knew he wanted to help on this project and insisted on taking leave from his new job.
Each of these men came for one reason, to add what they could to build a durable village well. One that would supply the inhabitants with safe drinking water, irrigate the Mahangu fields, and more importantly, provide a clean and undisturbed setting for the elephants to drink their fill. For no lives would be lost again, due to man and animal fighting each other for what both needed.
With tears of pride Ndiriraro who was now an old man bent with years of hard labour, watched the headman baptise the young village boy Elenge, into ElengeN, the man who had come back to his home, to make life better for all. In turn, ElengeN introduced his Motley Crew: John Pallet, BruBen, XoXo and BaasLang and the village became known as the origin of resurgence of self-sufficiency. A great wind of change started blowing through the nation.
How did the team find each other? Perchance? Providence? Does it matter?
No man is an island. What you do influences others, and your counterparts tie you into the bigger picture. Make it count.
It started in 1985. It was a desiccated late winter day. They had survived the cold brutal stabbing winter, but it was not yet spring.
“They” consisted of ElengaN’s father, mother, and sister, for ElengaN was not yet in this world.
It was a young family, scraping together what they could between this village and the next, for work was scarce, and while Ndiriraro, the young father, was a very able bricklayer, work was scarce, and his young bride heavily pregnant again.
Their union was not without the strife of life at the time. Both parents had come from villages pillaged by marauding forces, and they had found a young blossoming love in the homestead of a far-off cousin, who blessed the union in the absence of any first world priest willing to travel to the deep bush.
Their girl child had escaped the trauma of burning thatched homes and was a happy toddler content to bake fat cakes in the mud of the nearby watering hole. You found the best mud late winter, when the sun was cool, and the water hole reduced to a bed of soft mud, with a small, but life sustaining pool of water.
It was only when the other children ran screaming to the village, that they had realised she could not hear, for she had not returned. She did not hear the warning shouts that there was a great herd of elephants heading towards the playing children.
The ordeal was too much for the young mother, who had lost all her family in the bush war, and it was that very same shrivelled late winter day, that Elenga was born, 1 month early.
As if to make up for the loss of a sister he never knew, and the mother who was able to give him life before she passed, Elenga was blessed from his very first breath. It is most unusual for the menfolk of the village to be involved in matters relating to childbirth, but the women were either fetching potable water from the nearest borehole 5km away, or in the nearest town, which was 4 hours by car, if you were able to flag a car from the tar road 10km away. So, it was the aid of the headman of the village, a life weary and wizened old Tate, who brought Elenga to the start of his story. And that is where Elenga got his name. Elenga being the vernacular for “boss”.
You may ask yourself, whether there is more to the story, because at this stage, he was known as Elenga, or Elle for short, but he was introduced to you as ElengaN. You are right, there is more to this story.
The sounds of guns and war seemed to retreat from their world, and through the spring, followed by a summer unlike the seven years before, the clouds above produced volleys of rain that swelled the richness of the earth. The village raised this blessed child as their own, even when Ndiriraro had to leave for unknown period, to find paying work elsewhere. But somehow, he always did find work, and he always was able to provide basic sustenance for the village raising his child.
It was this tenacity of spirit, that fed Elle’s essence, for he worked hard at school. The hour walk to the nearest mission school was filled with babbling and impish children, often taunting Elle to play hooky with them, or some other childlike mischief in the making.
His teacher, sensing a determined young man, was strict in the lessons. Afterall, what sense is there in learning something, if you aren’t going to learn it well.
Elle persevered. He was going to study, like the son of the headman, so that he could come to the village in a car, but unlike the headman’s son, instead of bringing liquor and kwaito, he would bring a borehole pump.
ElengaN – Unassuming Boss Man
That was his dream. For no-one would die at the feet of thirsty giants again.
He worked hard. There was no light at night to study by, but there was radio. Elle would stay up late listening to the news of the world.
There were no desks at home at which he could study during the day, until Ndiri brought home a dilapidated old school desk. One of those where you could lift the lid and find a treasure trove of peanut butter sandwiches, cracked marbles and a prized collection of half full ball point pens from a variety of hotel chains, left by tourists travelling through the area, that Elle would never even have heard of.
That dilapidated desk served as the afterschool centre for many hours of what is now called “peer group learning”, where the children would take turns to lecture, and be lectured.
And so, Elle grew up from a blessed boy, always going to bed with a full stomach and occasionally a sweet treat, to a blessed young man who quickly found a job with his cousin in the big city. We say his cousin, but it really is a cousin by community, being the slightly older child of one of the village aunts he would live with while his father was away.
And this is where Elle’s story starts to veer in our direction. Because this is where he became a craftsman. Ironically, but perhaps because it is exactly because his father was a bricklayer, this is the trade that he excelled in. This is where he grew from Elle, that young innocent village boy, into Elenga, the village provider, when he took over his father’s role. When he was the only prodigal son to return to the village to help rebuild the headman’s abode when it was burnt down by a runaway veldfire. I say rebuild; it was, in reality, an entirely new build. A castle fit for a headman.
His story may be a bit scandalous, but if you understand his origin, you will have a sweeter appreciation for his loving nature.
XoXo is what you would call, The Ladies’ Man. Immensely popular, very loving.
And it comes from his very first breath. XoXo was born in a small “dorpie”. Now, to give context to our international readers, a dorpie is not a village.
If you are reading this in Europe, the picture you may see in your mind probably revolves around quaint cobblestone streets, old stone façade little shops on the street front, with pane glass windows displaying freshly baked croissants, or cosy pubs.
Contrary to that image, a village in the local milieu means a collection of reed huts, mud floors, or cow dung floors, around a central meeting area called the Olu Palu.
The Olu Palu is an especially important place. Important decisions are made by an audience of elders, sitting on logs around the fire while the headman speaks.
There are no shops, and no streets. But the air vibrates with the excited babbling of children herding the goats back to the kraal, which is in all likelihood, loosely stack thorn bushes and trees, creating safe sleeping quarters for the goats, against a backdrop of smoking cooking fires and delicious smelling potjies and pap.
Again, I must veer off to explain a potjie. Which a particularly good English friend of mine explained the best: It’s like a stew, only its cooked outside. To explain pap, you would have to visit.
Anyway, XoXo was born in an in-between village. In between the idea of streets and brick houses, in an African Village setting.
His family was large. Mom and Dad, Uncle Jam, seven siblings and a smattering of village dogs. Uncle Jam was a character of note. Wizened by the lessons of the veld, he knew how to find the bulbs that cured gout, or the bark that relieved toothache.
He also knew how to flatter the ladies. He clearly passed on some of this skill to XoXo. But still, XoXo started as XoXo even before then.
The lovely XoXo
It is important that I share with you, the pronunciation of XoXo. You may be associating it with the town gigalo from that French Cobbled Street Village, Xavier. That would be wrong.
It is more guttural. Not quite machine gun guttural, but a back of your throat GoGo. In Greek, it would be something like ChoCho.
A “fun and loving” sounding name.
Finally, we get to the point where XoXo got his name.
His mom was a cheerful and chubby lady. She fell in love with his dad at the age of 16, and very quickly started “producing” as they say here. Xoxo, child number 5, was born to her when she had 21 years. (Another quaint expression from round here).
She did not attend much school and could not read nor write. But she understood hugs and kisses, and when the towns clerk wanted to know the name of the new baby, she “wrote” as best she could, XoXo. Hugs & kisses.
And that explains why, to this day, no matter where he finds himself, working amongst whichever crew, he will find a way into the hearts of the ladies. Through his most gentle caring of the horses for his Donkey-Cart. (Yes, I know, it is a donkey cart even if driven by horsepower).
Or the way his most gentle hands construct hammocks for the ewe who has difficulty giving birth.
Or the way he will provide for his late brother’s wayward teenage child. Or the way he shares what he can, with the lady from two jobs ago, that claims child maintenance even though he is doubtful that the child is his. And if it is time to let the chickens breed, he constructs, with as much care as he builds his own love shelter or love shack, pigeonholes for the hens to safely hatch their chicks.
Yes, XoXo may not look like a front-line soldier, but he has the warmest most loving heart. Hugs to you XoXo.
He is an enigma. He keeps to himself, knows how to survive in the veld eating from the bounty of nature, and works harder than any of the young men on the team.
When there is a debate on site, whether a raging clash of ideologies, or a philosophical debate about the nature of decline of political parties, he will get a far off look in his eyes, like he is gathering filaments of information from all corners of the world, and then he weaves his response into a well-considered mantle of knowledge.
Very much use or lose it. And mostly, it is wise to use it.
Not much is known about his past. And for some strange reason, not many people have attempted an interrogation. So, this would be the crumbs where we pick up his story. Or rather, his stories.
Some say he was raised by wolves. Having drifted down river as a toddler on a raft constructed of old pallets, not crying, accompanied by a flock of twittering birds, his life-raft beached on the sandy banks of a side stream to the mighty Okavango River. The wolves found him; they did not devour him as a morsel of sweet meat. Instead, they gently took him by the loose folds of the hide he wore and raised him as a member of the pack.
The story diverges here. Some say he was later found by a local witchdoctor, who taught him all the secrets of the veld. What herbs to use for toothache, medicine for stomach upsets, and the secret to longevity. And the many uses of old wooden pallets, from lean-to shelters, to raised vegetable beds, and many more.
There is another tale often repeated late at night. In this account, he is very, very old. Some say, he personally brokered the safe passage of the Dorsland Trekkers. These “Trekkers” consisted of a succession of explorers searching for political independence from 1874, to 1881.
Now if you are paying attention, you would at this point exclaim disbelief. Because that would make him more than 170 years old…..
Mine is not to reason why, mine is to share with you the tales told. But I will tell you this, it could make sense, if you see the sage way he advises the young men of the working crew on the meaning of life, and why it is important to make your peace with your friend, and your foe.
Some say, that after his family disappeared one stormy night, he spent all his days and nights searching. Searching the backstreets of all the towns in the region, searching all the abandoned villages in the North, searching the ghettos of the city, even in the poorest pallet homes part of the poorest locations, searching in vain. And no one knows whether he gave up hope, and became a hermit, or whether he scoured every inch of the secluded countryside which is how he came to learn about surviving on what nature provides.
Either way, he must have found at least his mother and his sister, because his entire pay packet is sent home, and on occasion a beautifully woven basket, filled to the brim with all manner of dried berries, or Mopane worms; or hand-crafted rubber string extricated from worn tyres, finds its way to whichever site he has found employment at. And he shares. With his paltry possessions fitting into a small duffel bag, he still shares. He shares his food, and his wisdom.
Some say he saved someone’s life once, at great personal peril. And when he woke up from the induced coma the doctors had to place him under for his body to recover, he could not remember anything. He was told he was found under a pile of pallets near an overturned lorry; hence he took the name John Pallet. We will never know the real story of John Pallet. But look into his eyes. You will see the wisdom, the harmony, and you will see his truth.
So no greenery for them to feed on. Did I mention they are free range chickens? 
Remember this ad? Come now, say it with me “They taste so good cause they eat so good”.
