SOS Sunday 4 October 2020

Steve on Sunday

Greetings patriots and makwerekwere,

Summer is here!

That’s enough about the weather for this week.

Let’s chat about a comment and a query I made last Sunday.

How I could forget that it was the Umtali educated Lindy (nee Kloppers) who married the winning 2012 World Cup Rugby coach Jake White I have no idea. And what a name she made for herself too in the 1970s.

While at the University of Cape Town she won the Rag Queen and the Campus Queen beauty contests, this in 1976. She won the Miss Legs RSA in 1978, and if Yolanda Kloppers is Lindy Kloppers then she was also the runner-up in the Miss RSA contest that same year. I am sure Lindy and Yolanda are one and the same but am open to correction from one of my 11 readers if she is not. Or is it now 12 readers?

Lindy married the Rhodesian (Zimbabwean) businessman and entrepreneur Tony Taberer and eventually settled in the Stellenbosch area on their Avontuur wine and racehorse stud farm. They also owned the winner of the 1989 Durban July, Right Prerogative. Sadly, Tony died from cancer. Some years later she then married Jake White and the rest, as they say, is history.

Love these Umtali girls who did and do well. There are many of them, and they deserve a book just about themselves.

The query was where the Keith brothers were today, both having played polocrosse for (I think) the Ruzawi River side. That was answered pretty rapidly. Both Anthony and Alastair are alive and well. That’s good news is it not?

No more comments or queries this week as the answers flowed inwards and kept me away from my beloved sleep for at least half a day. Not good when you reach 42 years of age.

Back to the Chines* viru*, everyone’s favourite topic since about February this year. You all know most of the rules and regulations and the way certain politicians have loved the limelight, but somehow, we, or most of us, have all reached Level 1 with restrictions. Tourism alive and well? Hah!

Reading about and listening to the ‘leaders’ in the tourism and hospitality industry, you’ll be inclined to think that if all is not rosy, then it’s pretty close to rosy. You could not be further from the truth. Do remember that these fellows and fellowesses have been on full pay since lockdown. No tourists, no problems, we’ll still get paid.

Tourists from the three major departure points, the United Kingdom, the United States, and most of Europe, are not allowed to visit RSA yet because of current rules regarding the plague. I understand the rules, but allowing visitors from countries who have never even had check-ups regarding the virus is strange. The UK, the USA and the European countries are the visitors who bring in the most tourists and therefore the most money. Check out the statistics. Are we doomed? Well, certainly for this year anyway. My one booking, so far, for a tour in February next year, is still on, but they are from the UK, so who knows the future…

Still, I am not losing any weight, but as a wise person once said, poor people can only afford pap (sadza) and bread, so many are indeed fat! That’s me, pap en brood (sadza and bread).

I do need to tell a story regarding the wearing of masks. It is the law of the land as you know but then you also know that no-one is really obeying this law. Except me of course. I am a goody two shoes in this regard, and I always work on the principle of a matter. If I have to wear a mask in public – by law – then you too must wear a mask. It is not just a rule for me and other goody two shoes.

So. There I am minding my own business, mask on AND it is covering my mouth and nostrils, entering a butchery cum delicatessen. First time I have been in there. I had heard some great stories about their meat products.

I go straight to the long low fridges with meat on display but halfway there three voices trill from a separate sealed off working zone: Sanitise your hands! Sanitise your hands! Where is the sanitiser, I ask. There, there, against the wall, the bottle being on the right hand side of the door where one enters. Nicely hidden with no signs, methinks so that they can shout loudly at each and every person who enters.

While washing my hands with the watered down sanitiser I suddenly notice that the three workers, ladies all, are not wearing masks. Two have them below their chins and the other is not even wearing one. What? They are the ones dealing with the meat in a public area and here they are trilling at me to wash my hands! And in the meantime they are laughing away, talking away, dare I say sneezing away, all while working with meat.

I expostulated! I do not swear but I do become prim and proper when agitated and some big words come out, many of which I have never used since learning them at school.

I advise them that the law of the land says they must wear masks covering nose and mouth and that there is no law that says I must wash my hands. How can a customer be forced to wear a mask – by law – and then enter a shop wearing the mask only to find the staff are not wearing theirs? I ask them. The two slide their masks up over their face, the third does not even budge.

Anyway, while muttering (and I am good at muttering) I notice that the two staff have removed the masks from their face and there are now three with no masks at all. They are ‘telling’ me they are not happy with me and how dare I even comment let along criticise them.

Okey dokey methinks. I can also play games. I go fetch two plastic baskets to pack meat and meat products. I fill them and then go to the till. The till is behind plastic covering and in the area of the three staff ladies. One of them swaggers over to the till, still maskless she is, and then proceeds to ring up the meat products and place them into the four ‘plastics’ I requested. This is all done in silence and she is smiling. Smiling! Good stuff.

The total comes to R1340 odd. I only have about R100 of course. Remember I can only afford pap en brood.

Oops, I say to the cashier, I have decided I do not want the meat products any more. You are not wearing masks and I do not know what germs are on these products. Have a nice day and off out of the shop I walk…

The look on her face was priceless. It really was worth the while believe you me.

So on that ‘revenge of the nerds’ comment I sign off for the day and week, smiling away merrily.

The story still brings a smile to my face, not that you shall see it as I am wearing my mask.

Remember, I am a goody two shoes.

I thank you.