G is for Gunga
August 13, 2007 at 7:30 AM
by Ashleigh
I don't have any photos of my Oupa, so instead you get a photo of Lake Kariba at sunset.
No no no, not ganja, Gunga!
Gunga, for some reason, was the name I called my maternal grandfather when I was little.
I think around the time I turned 7 or so I must have started calling him Oupa, but until then he was always Gunga.
He had a way of looking at you with one eyebrow raised. A sort of lopsided quizzical look with a half smile. He didn't say much, just played patience a lot and drank excessively. However, even with all the drinking I never saw him get violent. He was often quite bad-tempered. I suppose you would be if you had a constant hangover.
He was a mechanic by profession.
I made long caravan trips with my Ouma and Oupa when I was a little girl. Oupa would make his special padkos (food for the road), which was usually vetkoek filled with a sort of bolognaise mixture.
There was a whole ritual around padkos which I might write about under 'P'.
For Dutch readers, vetkoek are a sort of oliebol, but then savoury rather than sweet. They are sometimes served sweet too, but that's more uncommon.
I am always surprised that Oupa could cook. The time and place seemed wrong for a man to be able to cook, but he was quite good at it!
When the civil war was raging in Zimbabwe I often spent weeks with them at their home in Harare. Later on they moved to Gweru, and then even later to South Africa.
We visited them one year in a place called Amersfoort in the Eastern Transvaal.
Brrr. Cold, miserable, inhospitable and not a tree to be seen. The washing hung, frozen on the washing line until after midday.
Ouma was sick and Oupa had a job working for Ford that he didn't like. It wasn't a good visit. My cousin hoarded all his sweets and tormented me with them when I'd already finished mine.
A while after that Ouma and Oupa came back to Zimbabwe and he opened a gas-station in a little town called Selous, out on the Harare to Bulawayo road.
After Ouma died I visited him quite a bit with my ex. He still didn't have a lot to say, just sat and listened. He and Ouma had four kids. Maybe that made him less talkative.
He loved vegetable gardening and grew all of his own veggies. Huge carrots, cabbages, onions. Maybe I get my green fingers from him?
Anyway, in writing this, I've realised how very little I actually know about him and his life.
I have flashes of memory which place him in different situations and I have a lot of anecdotal memories, but nothing that really resonates as 'wow, this is a great memory of Oupa!'
I think Il need to consult my mom and ask her to fill me in.
What are your memories of your grandparents? I feel as though I'm looking back at my early life as a reflection in an old, dappled, spotted mirror and everything is just slightly out of focus. I see the memories, but I can't reach them, and I can't write about them.
I could have written about other things that start with G.
Like Giraffes, Gonarezhou, our Goat-herders on the farm and the ... um... fascination they have with the tail-ends of the goats they are herding.
Alas, you will have to use your imagination for that one!
I just read about the G from Girafpas (www.girafpas.nl) and was contemplating it.
I think it is hard to really have an insight in your grandparents, because you only get to know people when you are an adult yourself. I lost my father when I was 12 and I have enough anecdotes and pictures in my mind, but I still don't know him as a person and never will.
August 13, 2007 1:49 PM