Tuesday, April 10, 2007

All my mothers children

I hope people will have patience with me and understand that I get flooded with memories of my childhood. I try to keep them all in the correct order in which they actually happened but its not always possible..

I don't remember how old I was when 61 Mech started sending guys to live with us. The boys they sent were more there for their own benefit than ours, since some guys just could not cope with the harsh army life so instead of sending them home they send them to live with us.

I remember Kleinjan the best. I don't know who would remember the letters "Kleinjan" sent home to mum and how we all laughed at them. In a way our Kleinjan was much the same...If I remember correctly he wasn't even issued with a rifle for his own safety and those around him. He fast became part of family and soon him and I had the most violent fights over the most trivial things. At one stage my mother complained that if my dad wouldn't do something about us, there would not be a working door handle in the house by the time were finished. What would take place is that a fight would break out between us and then there would usually be a door involved where one of us would try get to the other while trying to escape the impending attack.

I remember Kleinjan in his t-shirt and his "onsedelike broekie" as my mum liked to call it. In the 80' s there were these very shiny and very bright coloured shorts with a silky feeling to it. I think they were actually polyester shorts. That’s what klienjan wore...ALLWAYS, barefoot and too eager to help my mum with anything and everything...he was a good boy, but I hated him then!!! He once tried to kill me with a knife, yeah!!! The fights often got vicious and even bloody.

I also had an older brother and I learned at very early age that my teeth were my best weapon and Kleinjan wasn't quite as clued up about it as my brother was.

My parents felt a great responsibility towards the guys who were living with us and there was always someone there, at times more than one. I don’t remember most of their names, but I remember Kleinjan and Koos.

Koos, I think was not his real name but his surname was van der Merwe and because we thought that hes character very much resembled that of the Koos van der Merwe in the jokes we christened him with the name. Much can be said about us bunch of van der Westhuizen's but no one could ever accuse us of not seeing the humour of a situation and making the most of it, often at the expence of some unfortunate victim.

Koos was the opposite of Kleinjan, since he was extremely tidy on himself and he wore his browns every day, even though it was not required on the farm. They were only to wear it when they went into town or when their officers would come around to see how they are doing.
But Koos was adamant that he would wear his browns everyday, his boots polished to the extent where you could see your face in them.

Koos wore contacts and one day someone thought it would be a good joke to switch them around. Poor Koos came into the kitchen cross eyed and confused as to why he couldn't see today. My mum couldn't understand what was going on with Koos either and was the verge of radioing for help for Koos when we started giggling and spilled the beans.

Just the other day I opened my mums cook book and there was a recipe written down in Kleinjan's child like writing, and I wondered where he was today, would he have gotten married and have a family. Does he ever think of us? He was as much a kid in the house as I was and I think because of the person he was my mother often sided with him. She had such a kind heart. She would tell me to let him be since he is special.

Kleinjan and Koos today I remember you, I hope u r safe and happy.

Due to factors out of my control I will be doing the postings on the blog myself from now on. As im Afrikaans speaking, there is bound to be spelling mistakes, even though I do try to do my best. The way things get put across in writing may differ very much.

I hope to hear from all of you so please do feel free to send any contributions for my blog to me via e-mail or leave comments.

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