I have been going through my Ouma's papers, neatly preserved
pictures and letters from a forgotten age, the writing faded, edges slightly
curled, postmarks almost disappearing - a beautiful, gentle world of good
manners, adventure and the inevitable social custom that was
the postcard. So much better than a Facebook update.
So in between the small family scandals, there are stories
of visits to the Zimbabwe ruins, the north of Namibia and tons of notes from my
great uncle who "had to go north" during the second World War coupled
with heartbreaking pictures of young boys in military gear, a lost British
woman whose paths had crossed that of my Ouma's family and countless pictures
of weddings, funerals and christenings.
The one series of postcards tells of one adventurous
brother of Ouma who caught a lion cub and brought it home for his daughter. A
few followed showing the cub growing up. Another shows a beautiful young lady
with a beautiful lion at the Ladismith Town Hall (nogals) posing in front of
the fountain casually noting: "The lion bit his her twice and her dad had
him shot." That was the end of the lion story.
One must wonder why this photosession did not cause great
uproar and drama in town. Or maybe it did. Must plan adventure to go study the
local newspaper's archives.
Today there is just a whiff of a lion possibly escaping into
the great wild that is the urban spread of Port Elizabeth and the whole town is
suddenly a flutter with fear. Clearly it is escape season for the kind of the
jungle as reports were also coming in of one being on the loose in KwaZulu-Natal. Annoying
morning person that I am I sat at my desk at 5 am this morning watching the
pouring rain and thinking of my Ouma's niece and her lion. Then I suddenly
realised my bunnies have been missing for a day or two but am hopeful that it
was just the bad weather...
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