Jun 24 2013

Some of my thoughts in writing for It’s write easy on Fridays

It’s write easy June 21, 2013

(The following came up in my mind while thinking about something that worries/worried me. These are only my ideas!)

June 14, 2013 during the 6 o’clock news there was a bulletin on Nelson Mandela being admitted to the heart hospital in Pretoria. Why the heart hospital I wondered? Why not the Military hospital in Voortrekkerhoogte where they always treated high profile people?

The report on Mandela said he was admitted for a lung ailment. Then 6 days later the report was that his kidneys are failing. To me as an ordinary citizen it sounded like something to worry about. The president Jackob Zuma said – nothing to worry, Madiba is making progress! Family were all coming and going.

When I think back to the last weeks my mother spent in hospital before she passed away this sounded familiar. Her lungs were still breathing and her heart was still pumping but her kidneys failed at the end. She was just lying there. No reaction, no movement. When I touched her, her skin was soaking wet. All the fluids were pouring out of her body through her skin. She was so to say drowning in her own fluids. This sounds to me much like what is happening with mr Mandela.

The reports keep coming positive but in the mean time I think many people do not believe the reports. How can a 94year old body still function without all its organs? I wonder!

The ANC is busy trying to win time and votes for the next election by saying Madiba is getting better.

There are two ways that show it is not going that well within the democratic Republic of South Africa. One is the economy. The Rand is still dropping and the miners discontent. Second is the people’s living circumstances – the lack of sanitation. These are the biggest problems that have not been solved in the 23years after Mandelas walk to freedom. Everything is slipping away from Mandela into real life now!

April 27, 1994 we as a nation went to the polls to vote for a democratic South Africa. Three days were used to vote. Everybody could vote. Schools were closed for three days because school halls were used as voting stations. Security in and around the poling- stations was very, very strict. Long rows of voter waited outside to cast their votes. It took about 2 and a half hours waiting till I could cast my vote. I voted the first time in Secunda at a Primary school near my home. The atmosphere was kind of nerve breaking , because nobody knew if it would be calm around the country. Some people expected riots but luckily everything was under control.

Monday June 17, 2013 was Youth Day in South Africa. I saw on the news that there were peaceful marches by young people and meetings held to commemorate the riots and shooting of young people that day in Soweto in 1976. The marches were peaceful and quiet because everybody was thinking about Madiba in hospital.

This event also took my memory way back to 1976 to the Soweto uprising , June 17. I was a teacher in Potgietersrus and my parents were still living on our small holding between Pretoria and Johannesburg. These marches and riots were not far from where my parents lived. My school’s rugby and netball teams had to play some matches in Pretoria on June, 18. We were going by bus and sleep-over in Pretoria the Friday night. My father called the principal to tell him that it was to dangerous to travel to Pretoria by bus. Busses were set alight by the demonstrators. We traveled to Pretoria that afternoon. Just before entering Pretoria we saw a bus that was still smouldering along the high way. This was very scary!

Everything was quiet the Saturday morning. We played our games and got home safely late afternoon. The riots were all because the government of the day made Afrikaans the main language in all schools. The police shot and killed some rioting students. It is so sad that those marches were instigated by politics and the young people were swept away by the force of the masses.

June 24, 2013

Update on health of Mandela- He is deteriorating , no getting better message coming through anymore. This is all we heard this morning on the news in New Zealand.

Nov 10 2012

It’s write easy

It’s been two weeks now since I have done some It’s write easy. I did the writing but did not have time to put it on my post. I’ll catch up this week again. I have sorted some of my writing and had to put it in a book. The editing and printing took some time to complete. It is done now I can go on with my weekly writing again.

I am going to jump a few writings and do the quick writing we had to do yesterday.

This is a tribute to a wonderful teacher I had.

November 09, 2012

10 minutes quick writing: Tell something about a person that meant a lot to you or who made an impression on you ( teacher, parent or grandparent, friend)

Teacher

RUDI NEITZ

My first two years in high school I had some very interesting teachers. The best one I remember was my German teacher.

He was this handsome young man and all the girls loved him! He was really special because he had this deep bass voice. Every Friday he would sing to us. He was very shy. He never wanted to stand in front of the class to do his singing. He would go to the back of the classroom and we were not supposed to look back. The best song to all of us was “Old man river”. We enjoyed going to his class.

At the end of the second year (std 7) he got a post as lecturer at Pretoria university. We all cried when they said good bye to him.

Rudi Neitz also wrote a small piece in my autograph book in 1961.

One day he told us that he was going to sing on the radio. We all listened that evening. His first song was” Annatjie Voortrekkernooientjie”

He also had the opportunity to sing at the inauguration of our first State President Blackie Swart. This was in 1961 when South Africa became a Republic. Afterwards he told us how it was to sing in front of all these people on Kerkplein (Church square) I can still remember that it was a very unpleasant and rainy day. We did not have TV so we could not follow the whole ceremony. Everything was only in the newspaper and magazines.

Before coming to New Zealand I tried to get hold of one of his cd’s, with no success. In 2010 I found a double cd and brought it back with me.

( He passed away in 2002)

Here is the page from my autograph book.

RUDI NEITZ, bass, born 28 December 1934, died 6 February 2002

During the last 50 years of his life, Rudi Neitz became a household name in South Africa and considered as a national treasure.

After completing his school years in Brits (near Pretoria), he obtained the THOD degree and a Teacher’s Diploma at the Teachers’ College of Pretoria. He subsequently obtained B.A. and M.A. (German) degrees at the University of Pretoria, where he was later appointed as a lecturer and acting Head of the German Department. He was honoured with the Dux Docens Award and a Pro Munere Medallion for his outstanding educational services at the University of Pretoria.

During his youth and student years he already proved himself as an outstanding singer. Apart from his great love for the German Lied, he appeared in countless productions of opera and operetta – amongst others in the leading bass roles in Die Zauberflöte, Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Aida, Nabucco, La Boheme, Norma, Amahl and the Night Visitors, Lucia di Lammermoor, and Peter Grimes. He appeared with conductors such as Alun Francis, Nicola Samala and Franco Ferraris. He was invited to perform at the Vienna State Opera, but he declined the offer. Rudi also performed regularly in oratorios such as teh St Matthew Passion, Messiah, Die Schöpfung, Verdi’s Requiem and Mozart’s Coronation Mass.

Rudi was married to Bakkies Barnard, with whom he had two sons – Erdi and Werner.

RUDI NEITZ

Biography and other information

(Back to Rudi Neitz’s Home Page)

http://saoperasingers.homestead.com/Rudi_Neitz_Bio.html

Oct 22 2012

Gallery

Sunday post: CITY

This gallery contains 6 photos.

Here’s how the weekly photo Competition works: 1. Each week, we’ll provide a theme for creative inspiration. Show the world based on your interpretation what you have in mind for the theme, and post them on your blog anytime before … Continue reading →

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Oct 19 2012

It’s write easy

For today we had to take a topic and tell about the changes that have taken place during the years. I took travel as my topic.

CHANGES

Travel

Going to school gave us, children, travel time in a bus.

I started school in 1952. At first, while in Pretoria we had to use a double-decker bus. This bus was still connected to electric wires at the top. They were electric buses. They only had the reaching space of the electric arm. They could not give way to traffic, traffic had to give way to them. They also had their own space on the road! Today we have petrol or diesel engines in our buses.

Then from 1960, we also had to travel by bus to our nearest High School. The first bus we used we called the Chicken(chook) cage. It had open windows with wires and no glass. There was only a piece of oil cloth rolled up which could be rolled down when it rained. When all were rolled down they flapped in the wind and it was quite dark and unpleasant inside.

Later on glass windows were used which you could open and close.

The seats in these old busses were also not as we know them today. The first busses had seats that were from the front to the back. Meaning lengthwise. One bench under each window and in the middle two long benches. You had to sit back to back on the middle seat facing the windows. It was difficult to climb over children when you had to find a seat deeper into the bus. The children getting off last had to fill up from the back (which some of them did not always do).

When I started teaching in 1968 I made use of the school bus again. The seats were then more as we know them today . Not one long seat from the front to the back anymore.

Today’s buses are much easier to use. There even is space for disabled people and also families with babies or smaller children.

http://www.old-bus-photos.co.uk/?cat=51

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

We had to do silent reading each others writing. At the end we discussed some of the comments made on the writing.

Oct 12 2012

It’s write easy

I cried and cried
I had just one chance
Grandmother/grandfather once/often told me
Things I regret
I remember with fondness….

October 12,2012

Use one as starting point

I took I remember with fondness…

I remember with fondness…

the last days while my mother was still alive. She was such a soft, good hearted person.

The last few months my mother lived in a home for the elderly. She really enjoyed being with a group of people her own age. I had the opportunity to visit her every afternoon after school. I was still teaching in Potgietersrus while looking after my sister’s place in Naboomspruit. This was in 2006.My mother was in the home for the elderly in Naboom. Each afternoon she would sit outside, waiting for my visit. We would go for a stroll down to the gate and back, while chatting about all the things that happened that day. She could not remember much because she had Alzheimer’s disease. After the stroll we would go to her room where her bed was . I would cut her fruit of the day so she could eat it. She loved it if I cut her orange in eight slices/wedges. She would then suck out the juice and eat the orange from the peel. ( Just the same way she always did to us while still young.) Then I would see to it that she eats her small cup of yogurt. While eating we would go on chatting about small events that happened in the past.

Then the worst thing happened. She got big ulcers from all the sitting. She never moaned about anything. She had to go to hospital and they operated twice to try and clean up the big mess.. I knew it was hurting her so much but she still did not complain. She tried to do everything the doctors and therapist asked her to do. She would always ask if she was doing the right thing. She always wanted to please everybody! During the last few days while she still recognized us I could just think of her as a strong woman with so much pain she was hiding and I really felt so much love and fondness for her.

Late one evening the hospital called to say that we should come because it wasn’t going well ,they feared the worst.. I went that night at about 11pm( I had to drive from Naboom to Pretoria, about 200km). I sat with her that night and suddenly her mind was clear. She asked me when my father would come. She wanted to see him(he had passed away in 1993 ). She also asked where my older sister was(my sister was still working in England at that time) Those were the last words she had spoken to me. After that night she just deteriorated , she still lived for about 2 more weeks before passing away.

I will always remember these last days with my mother in fondness.

The following double page has the last photos of my mother on it.

Luckily I have her with all three sisters!

We did not do a quick writing session because we are changing the way of doing the writing.

Oct 5 2012

It’s write easy

This was again hard to decide about what I could write

Starting points:

Mother/father/other always said…
I searched everywhere
I won …
“Don’t ever do/say that”…
Do you want the good news or the bad news?

I WON…

I won them over at the end!

Today when I sit down and think back of times I have won animals over, I can say I have done so a few times that I can remember.

The first time that comes in my mind I won an animal over was way back in 1970. My parents had a milk goat stud. The name of the stud was Hil-sum, after Hilversum from where we were born. My parents wanted me to also start my own stud and own line of goats. My stud name was Candida, meaning white and the goats were Saanens and they are all white.

We ordered or booked two ewes from a well known goat farmer near Britstown in the Cape(South Africa) My father and I drove to the farm to pick them up and also to meet some of the goat farmers. We lived near Pretoria . Britstown is about a thousand km from Pretoria.

The two ewes were still very young and wild. They had not been handled by the farmer or anybody else. Just before we had to load them we went into the shed where they had been for the night. They were very wild . They kept running away. I slowly went nearer and nearer to them and talked to them. I totally calmed them down and won them over. We could pick them up and put them in the pick up without any hazzles.

The farmer said that he had never seen someone calming down wild animals like I did.

It is the same when I approach an unknown dog or other animal . I have a calming effect on them. I have the patience to win them over and calm them down so it is easy to handle them.

Then I have another short story to tell about my late husband winning over my puppy.

When I started dating my husband I had this puppy called Dixie. She was only used to me and did not really wanted to take notice of my “boyfriend”. I think she was just protecting me. When my husband asked me to marry him I said yes on one condition. Three quarters of me says yes and as soon as he has won Dixie’s quarter over we could get married! That’s how it happened at the end!.

This is me with twin lambs. (1969)

10 minute quick writing:

Words: local event, lost, shopping, arrival, scarcity

LOST

I was about four years old when I really got lost. I remember it clearly because I wasn’t supposed to walk after my grandfather.

All I remember is that my grandfather walked out the door going back home. I went after him without him knowing it. I could see him walking down the street and then he was gone( he turned the corner) I just kept on walking straight on. Later on I walked down a lane with high trees.(Remember I am only 4 years, I don’t think the trees were that high!) Someone came across from the other side, took my hand and took me to the nearest police station. I can remember that I was sitting on the counter enjoying myself while waiting for someone to pick me up. My mother came to pick me up on her bicycle.

Later on my mother told me that my grandfather was supposed to have taken me to his place and he did not remember it. He just went off leaving me outside on my own. I remember that my parents were very upset about the situation my grandfather put me in. They were also very glad to find me unhurt and save.

Sep 21 2012

It’s write easy

September 21, 2012

Starting points:

Not for the first time
If only I …
I never forgot
Missed chance
It was an absolute disaster

It was (could have been) an absolute disaster

It could have ended in an absolute disaster if I had not kept myself together!

Many years back I had to look for a new place to buy. Every afternoon I went out with the estate agent to different places. It went on for days on end.

One day the agent told me she wanted to show me another place. She had to call the owner to make an appointment to go inside.

We went to the place. We entered the gate and knocked on the door. No response. The owners were supposed to be there. We walked around to the one side of the house. We could not go to the back because it was fenced in with wooden panels.

The agent said we must go the other way around to the back. We turned around and started to pass the front door and there it was! A huge black Rottweiler was standing on the veranda watching us, making no sound or no move. We kept on walking but to my surprise another Rottweiler was coming around the corner of the house. Wew, that’s really bad I thought.

Both the dogs started stalking us, growling and hackles up. The agent charged out the gate. I knew that if I also started running they would both attack me. I kept my ground. One step backwards for me and two steps forward for them. When I stopped moving they stopped coming. In the meantime the agent kept on calling:”Ineke, get out of there! Hurry up!” I did not listen to her I just kept on keeping the dogs at bay. Every small step made them move closer. Every time I stopped I talked to them and told them to go away just to calm them down.

At last I reached the gate and jumped out backwards, still keeping my eye on both dogs.

It could really have been an absolute disaster if I had not kept my calm and wits together. Many times we hear or read about dog attacks this day wasn’t my day for a dog fight or attack.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rottweiler

Quick writing for about 10 minutes

Use one of the following words:

tour, tunnel, hope, school milk, baking

TOUR

During my lifetime I have toured quite a bit. I started teaching in 1968 and the end of that year I went on a 3 week bus tour from Pretoria to Cape Town. It was very exciting because it was the first time on my own. We always went to the Lowveld for holidays once a year as a family. I had the opportunity to go on school tours once a year for 4 years.

The next big tour was in 1971-72 to South America. My sister and I went on this organised 21 days tour.

Then in 1974 I went on a tour to Europe. I visited my family in the Netherlands while the other tour member visited Amsterdam. In 1976 I toured South West Africa– Namibie today.

I got married in 1980 and my touring days were over.

2006 I came over to New Zealand to have a look how things were going here.

I also toured twice to Zimbabwe. First in 2005 and the second time in 2010.

Jul 30 2012

Sunday Post: ROAD

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