SOME BARE NECESSITIES OF LIFE

I have already mentioned the installation of a buffer tank and pump to tide us over the periods when our domestic water supply dries up. Our inverter should be installed soon that will assist by providing some electricity during the ever longer periods during each day that we are without. A large number of businesses and private home owners have gone as far as erecting solar panels on their roofs to harness the sun to provide electricity – we are not there yet.

It is a sad fact of life that one has to erect burglar guards on one’s windows these days. These are in our lounge, where I once caught young thieves red-handed as they were trying to steal our television and decoder.

Another sad fact – and necessity – is having home testing kits for Covid at hand: the brouhaha over the pandemic might have gone away, but the virus hasn’t!

Then there is the wonder of Wonderbags that keep on cooking one’s food – or keeping it warm – once load-shedding has kicked in.

Farm gates are a feature of rural areas – mainly to keep domestic animals from wandering into the roads.

Staying with electricity – its presence or absence tends to dominate our lives – are the various wind farms that have sprung up all over the country. This one at Waainek was touted as easing our town’s electricity woes … funny how all that was ‘forgotten’ or ignored once the population had been duped into agreeing to have the skyline blighted. No-one is able to quantify any benefits the town has received.

Look for the bare necessities, the simple bare necessities

Forget about your worries and your strife

I mean the bare necessities, old Mother Nature’s recipes

That bring the bare necessities of life …

Song by Bruce Reitherman and Phil Harris

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GRAHAMSTOWN HISTORICAL CEMETERY

A large number of our principal citizens gathered in Church Square yesterday afternoon, with the many immediate friends of the bereaved family, in order to follow to the grave the funeral of this lady, whose decease was recorded by us on Monday last. The ceremony took place in the Wesleyan Cemetery, the neatness and beauty of which bear testimony to the kindly care of Mrs. FLETCHER, with whom (as well as with other members of her family since her illness) it has long been a labour of love to attend to the adornment of the last resting place of so many of our early colonists and their descendants.

Extract from The Grahamstown Journal Wednesday 5 April 1882.  [Bolding of words is mine].

The Wesleyan Cemetery forms a part of the larger cemetery in Grahamstown that is often referred to as the ‘old cemetery’ as the ‘new’ one is situated much further away. Look on in horror at what this historical cemetery looks like today:

This overgrown unkempt cemetery filled with historical graves that provide a capsule of the history of the town is not only scattered with litter, but has been vandalised and it is in fact unsafe to clamber through the weeds and bushes on one’s own. Ironically, a strong metal fence, fancy gates and a sturdy lock guard one roadside frontage, whilst the fence has been torn down elsewhere as people have made a path through it – a shortcut into town.

Most of the rusty metal railings surrounding graves have either been broken or removed – doubtless to sell as scrap metal. This is one of the few that has survived such an onslaught. For how long?

We had visited the cemetery with out of town friends who were looking for graves with a family connection – a very difficult task under the circumstances. Not many graves were still upright and in a fairly good condition like this one:

An astounding number of gravestones have been deliberately pushed over:

Given the climate and the age of the cemetery, it is probably natural that some of the sun-baked bricks would erode – although we felt that some were being deliberately gouged out:

Even the marble lion atop a memorial honouring men from various regiments who had died while serving during various Frontier Wars has had part of its face smashed:

Sadly, this is the fate of many cemeteries, especially those in rural towns.

ROADS OUT OF TOWN

Those of my readers more used to tarred highways, fast traffic and concrete bridges might like to pause a while to come on a journey with me to see some of our roads. We will start on the corner of the tarred road below my home (hidden behind the trees) where, having crossed over a bridge we are halted by part of the Urban Herd taking a rest from grazing pavements and any shrubs or flowers they find during their daily trawl through the suburbs.

If we were travelling during December, we might wish to stop in at the local supermarket to buy some refreshments. As we drive out of the parking area we would halt again to admire the street and pavement strewn with jacaranda flowers.

We would have to cross over a disused railway line that once carried good and passengers to Alicedale and on to Port Elizabeth.

You may prefer to eschew the highway and drive through some of the farming areas. We would be travelling along the dirt road, but you may wonder at some of the tracks, such as this one, on some of the farms we pass by.

Occasionally, on what you think of as a good tarred district road that will give us a clear run to our destination, you might be surprised at having to halt once more by this typical rural scene.

At last we reach the Addo Elephant National Park where we turn off some of the main tarred roads to explore the dirt roads – one of which will lead you to the well-known and much photographed waterhole known as Hapoor. The spectacle of hundreds of elephants milling about drinking, bathing, or enjoying each other’s company will cause us to halt again. They are so interesting to watch that more than an hour could easily pass before I could persuade you that we should drive on for there are other animals to see.

A SIGN OF CELEBRATION

The gate was along a rather isolated road, one with little in the way of views to recommend it – in fact there was a plot filled with rusting remains of broken down vehicles next to it on the one side and open wild grass on the other. One would be forgiven for driving past the gate without even noticing it – never mind giving it a second glance. The gate itself wasn’t even attractive – it too had nothing to recommend it, unless you wanted to admire the security aspect of it.

I have passed this gate many times, only this time I slowed down at the sight of something bobbing brightly in the distance. Closer inspection shows that someone behind the gate was celebrating a birthday. The balloons tied to the gate must have been a marker for friends to know where to find the party.

I pulled away smiling at the thought of a garden hidden from the road, where children would be playing party games; perhaps gathered around a cake and singing ‘Happy Birthday’; or sitting on the lawn eating icecream – it was an ‘eating-icecream’ sort of day. This outward sign of a celebration within lifted my spirits as I drove along this rather isolated road with little in the way of views to recommend it.

TRAVELLING LOCAL

The COVID-19 pandemic has clipped our wings in ways we would never have imagined a year ago. Initially there was the anxiety of repatriating South Africans abroad who needed to come home as well as the hundreds of people trapped here who had to return to their homes and places of work abroad. Then we were stuck: at first confined to our homes; gradually being allowed out to exercise; being restricted within provincial borders; and now we can – still with caution – enjoy what South Africa has to offer.

With so many overseas trips cancelled – and still not possible – ‘travelling local’ has taken on a new lease of life. There is a lot of ground to cover in this beautiful country! Friends and neighbours are taking advantage of setting off to explore hitherto unvisited areas or hiving off to the familiar delights of iconic places such as the Kruger National Park.

While confined to home during the initial lockdown phase, I got to know my garden very well indeed – as well as the creatures that share it with us. Nonetheless, I would gaze through our front gate with a degree of longing, yet only ventured as far as our local supermarket on my weekly grocery shopping expeditions.

Expeditions they have been too: rising in the pitch dark to enter the shop when it opened at half past six in order to avoid the lengthy queues that gathered outside after sunrise. I still go early even though the queues have somehow dissipated, and now can enjoy the fresh air and the birdsong at the start of the day. I am home by seven in the morning and the rest of the day stretches ahead, with the worst task already behind me.

‘Freedom’ first came in the form of being allowed to exercise close to home. We have got to know our local streets very well. How’s that for ‘travelling local’?

I clearly recall our first day visit to the Addo Elephant National Park. What a rigmarole it was to get in as we had to book the visit beforehand and show proof of our residence in the Eastern Cape. Then, as now, one had to fill in various forms and have one’s temperature taken – and of course wear a mask. Even though the shop, restaurant and the picnic area were closed, this didn’t detract from the sheer joy of leaving the confines of our town and being in the wild once more.

I have visited the area a few times since then, but the Mountain Zebra National Park was ‘calling’ too – especially once overnight accommodation was allowed. For the first time ever, we eschewed camping to stay in a chalet.

Another favourite place that has simply had to be savoured once more is the Tsitsikamma section of the Garden Route National Park. Spending four days there was restorative for my soul.

We have not yet left our home province, but the rest of South Africa is beckoning …