Old Takkies Indaba

It was not love at first sight. It was hate. The first time I met you was when I was five years old, at a bilingual nursery school. In between belting out the lyrics of Stevie Wonder’s “I just called to say I love you” on the tyre swing, I had a war to fight. There was our jungle gym, and there was yours. Ours was the “rooinekke” one and yours was the “afrikaaners vrot bananas” one. Our weapons were words, and the occasional stick or stone. I cannot remember who won these battles, or what we were fighting for. I don’t even remember speaking to your people because they were in the vis class, and I was in the fish class.

The next time I met you was in grade one where I was taught how to sing “Die Stem” and “Ek borsel my tande taritz tarotz”, or something like that. I didn’t like you. You were hard and you were foreign and you were forced on me. I had to learn all your stories about some blind girl who ‘verdwaaled’’ and got lost and died, about some man who saved even the horses off a shipwreck but then died, about “Kringe in die Bos” where of course, all the elephants died. Why, my dear Afrikaans is there always death around you? Why so sad, so depressed, so victimised?

Why when I got my only Afrikaans friend, Aunty Alta, (who spoke English to me) to write my speeches for me, did you still always give me a C or a D? Why do your verbs go at the end of the sentence? Why?
Why did I hate you so much?
I don’t know.

And now?

Now, my dear Afrikaans, now, I love you.
I cannot say exactly when this surprising transformation of emotions happened or why. But as I write this, my heart goes all warm and fuzzy thinking about you. Yes, now, more than 20 years since we first met, I feel a deep and sincere affection for you. I think it may have started when I got my first ever B grade in Afrikaans for my final Matric exam. Or, perhaps it was when my friend, a playwright, started doing all this wonderful stuff with you because as he said, “Dit klink net beter in Afrikaans”.

And you know what? It does sound better in Afrikaans. Swearing in Afrikaans is just so therapeutic, so cathartic, so expressive. Why say shit, when kak is just so much more powerful? Who wants to say marijuana, when dagga just rolls off the tongue so beautifully?

I love you so much, that I even threw myself into some crazy workshop where I taught you to a room full of foreigners in Japan. The Japanese battled with your guttural “ge” sound and were shocked that I dear to teach them the dagga word, the Americans lapped up the lekker, remembering “laquer” even two years later. After my evangelical foray into teaching you, spreading your word worldwide, I realised I have much to learn, after reading one of the feedback comments: “I never knew that Afrikaans had so many English words in it”. But my dear, I will continue to use you, to swear with you, to talk about the shop assistants who are irritating me and continue to roll your r’s off my tongue.
Long live Afrikaans!
Your biggest fan,

Nev

ps maybe not as big as the tannie in Klippiesfontein, but you get my (klip)drift… soentjies xxx