“A certain level of decorum must be observed at all times, especially in such foreign lands. In this wilderness. I shall address you as Miss Reinhold and do kindly address me as Mrs. Poppelmeyer.”
She lectured me without the trace of a smile on her thin lips. I wondered whether Ethel understood that it helped to be nice to people, if she didn’t plan to die of loneliness in the wilderness.
“Of course, beg my pardon. We shall observe propriety then, Mrs. Poppelmeyer.” I said in an ironic tone, which seemed entirely lost on her.
“Yes,” she mused. “Perhaps I’ll be able to greet you as Mrs. Stratton soon?”
Wow, I hadn’t seen that one coming.
“I doubt that very much. Tony and I have no plans to get married.”
“Oh how regrettable, Miss Reinhold,” Ethel said icily. “Then I’m afraid we shan’t have a great deal to talk about, Miss Reinhold.” Her nose went up a little higher.
She seemed to like the sound of my surname, since she kept repeating it so often.
“That’s indeed regrettable Mrs. Poppelmeyer. I’m sure you have good reason for that.”
“I certainly have.” She let go of the poor motsetsi plant at last and nervously stroked her embroidered apron instead.
“Well it was nice meeting you all the same.”
I could have said a great deal more, but kept smiling for Tony’s sake.
“Good day Miss Reinhold. If you will excuse me, I have very important matters to attend to.”
With that she turned around, nearly collided with a stray dog and marched back into the principal’s house. The drawn lace curtains moved a little. I just shook my head and went on to have my juice on the porch.
I couldn’t help thinking, with a touch of pity, that Ethel might have lost her marbles in the African heat. On the other hand, the Poppelmeyers had been on a similar assignment in South America, according to Tony. If that wasn’t just as exotic as Africa!
Tony laughed the whole thing off.
“Her nose is permanently out of joint,” he said. “Ethel Poppelmeyer is a very lonely woman. All of her maids run away after a few days. She seems to think that she’s the lady of the manor around here, surrounded by lowly serfs.”
“Just that there is no manor here. And no lowly serfs.”
“Exactly.”
“Maybe she’s just in the wrong place, you know. Some people don’t easily adjust,” I offered.
“Probably more ‘wrong century’,” Tony grinned.
Palapye was not exactly the lively place I had pictured in my mind.
No teeming marketplaces, no riotous music and dancing and no smiling fishwives in colourful garb. The locals could be rather shy until sorghum beer got the better of them.
And not one single African warrior in sight, who remotely resembled Shaka Zulu in the video-series. And nobody wore such creative, African attire I had seen on film.
There was just a lot of red earth, grey sand, dusty plants and searing heat. Only very few people to speak to, but far too much time to think.
Mrs. Poppelmeyer did me the honour of another brief visit about a week later. For lack of another listener, she complained to me bitterly about her gardener, who had torn a pair of work pants. He had not returned after she took 10 Pula quite rightly off his monthly pay.
Never mind that the poor chap only earned about 50 Pula a month and needed to feed his family. 10 Pula was a fortune to some in 1988. About 1 Pound Sterling if I remember correctly. A fortune for a simple gardener.
“When my husband and I lived in Bolivia, where he was of course the principal of a very large college, servants were so much easier to handle. My husband would just say ‘Hey chico, come here and do that’ and the servant would obey. But these blacks are so difficult —,” she grumbled.
I kept my peace and went back to my garden work, giving Ethel some excuse that Tony expected me to finish the planting by the end of the day.
Ethel didn’t speak to me again. I just heard rumours later that she had returned to Cobblestead for good, leaving her oh so hardworking husband to his own devices in the African wilderness.
Another neighbour had come back from England. Alfred Jones lived next-door. He was the woodwork instructor and one of a kind. His heavily pregnant wife had stayed behind in Cardiff.
Alfred was quite a character, burly with a mop of unkempt grey hair and a big wiry beard hiding most of his face. He wrote to his wife Judith every day. Usually in the afternoon before downing a few beers on his porch. He often gave me a lift to the police station when he posted the letters. Alfred Jones also sometimes competed with me for telephone time at the Botsalo Hotel.
Now and again, Tony invited him over for a chat to help ease his loneliness. It was a sight to behold, when our neighbour got onto his footstool and climbed clumsily over the fence with a candle in his hand. Power cuts were frequent.
On one such occasion, he had even grabbed my hand in the darkness and held it tight — drunk of course. He didn’t remember afterwards, but Tony had requested that Alfred should bring a candle with him.
The beginning of the term drew closer and the wives of two Tswana teachers were setting up home in the complex. They were busy with meal preparation for their extended families all day long.
Mieliepap, the staple food, was cooked in three-legged black pots in the garden. The stiff mash was made from crushed white maize and the wooden stomping sounds never ceased. Surely driving Ethel Poppelmeyer around the bend.
The pap was often eaten with marogo, wild spinach. The women also had to run after their brood of children and wash everybody’s clothing. Or they supervised young girls doing these chores for them.
Unfortunately, there was an insurmountable language barrier between us.
My Setswana was non-existent, which put paid to a meaningful conversation. At least Mrs. Matija, a matron with five young children, managed to say Hello in English, while giggling and staring at her feet.
“Good morning, Mrs. Matija, how are you? Oh, is this your youngest? Hello.”
“Good morning, Miss Reynole.” That was usually it.
Her husband was one of the heads of department at the training centre. A position he assumed with dignity and a sense of tradition.
By now, I’d had to make peace with the fact that I would be staying longer than expected and I realised that I had to learn how to speak Setswana.
Tsanana, our maid, came up from the village every day to clean for both Alfred and Tony. She was the only female I could have a meaningful conversation with. Tsanana had been to school and — lucky for me — spoke some English.
She cleaned the house and taught me the bare basics of Setswana: “Dumela mma - Good day ‘m'am.”; “Dumela ra - Good day sir.”; “Le kai? How are you?”; “Re teng - I’m fine.”; “Ke utlwa Setswana gologonje - I understand a little Setswana.”
I had to repeat the phrases parrot-fashion. But she never grew impatient if the words didn’t roll easily off my tongue. Oh, all those harsh ‘g’ sounds. And then those little intricacies, such as pronouncing ‘ph’ as ‘p’ and ‘sh’ like ‘s’ and that a ‘he’ often became inexplicably a ‘she’.
Finally I could say a simple greeting in Setswana: “Dumela”. Not enough for a conversation yet, but a good start. In the afternoon the rain drummed onto the tin roof and we had to shout at each other.
“Tsanana, why don’t people look at me when I speak