Around 1965 or thereabouts, I got an early morning phone call filled with excitement and urgency: “Koos! Come quickly! Come see! There’s a snake in the hoona hock!”
Well, I was thrilled! This I had to see. You can live in a dorp and hike in the veld often and very seldom see snakes, so I hopped onto my dikwiel fiets and pedaled furiously. It was about a mile to the Joubert’s house. Down Hector Street, west along Stuart Street past Scotty’s house, past the MOTH Hall, then downhill in Piet Uys Street to their house on the spruit that ran between them and the meisieskoshuis.
As I pulled up the whole family was there to meet me, Aunty Joyce, Uncle Cappy, Etienne, Tuffy and Deon, laughing and shouting “Happy Birthday!”
There was no snake. I’d not realised it was the 1st of April.
~~~oo0oo~~~
hoona hock – chicken coop (actual Afrikaans hoenderhok)
dorp – village
veld – fields, grasslands
dikwielfiets – sophisticated mode of transport, a black balloon tyre bicycle
spruit – stream
meisieskoshuis – girls hostel
==== another time I forgot the 1st April ====
6 replies on “One Fine Day in April”
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[…] Added: And how Tuffy tricked me here. […]
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[…] Yet again I was caught by an April Fools joke on my birthday, Tommy the perpetrator this time; so I was pleased to see one of my heroes also fell for one back in 1832: […]
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[…] Full of jokes and ‘streke,’ I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Aunty Joyce with her Cape accent – she pronounced the Afrikaans ‘so’ and sue, not sewah as we did – that put Tuffy up to this prank. […]
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