Old Takkies Indaba

I was forced, along with all other kids in the land, to learn Afrikaans at school and it was a language I despised as a child. This I think was mainly because the main protagonists in our childhood rivalries were predominantly Afrikaans and we were usually in the minority and so tended to lose these arguments. I can still hear the shouted insults between two groups of youngsters. ” Rooinekke” aimed at the English kids and the equally disparaging “Rock-Spiders” being hurled back.

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The neighbourhood that I grew up in was, I suppose you could say, predominantly Afrikaans. There was one local school about three blocks away that had full khaki uniforms (sans shoes) and being a student at a private school ten km’s away, I didn’t exactly have the motivation to go out and be friends with my neighbours.

I know that my mother and her siblings were given a hard time by the local kids when they arrived in South Africa in the early 60’s and I believe that a lot of rooi nekke were in the same boat, especially the ones with fresh English accents.

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