Today, 10 July 2013, was a profound day for me. It was a day of recalling memories of many years ago. And also a day of making new memories that are embedded in my mind forever. 
We are visiting, let’s call them “extended family”, on a Karoo farm somewhere between Fraserburg and Carnarvon. It is so far away from everything it might as well be in the middle of nowhere!
As children, our family visited oom Jan and tannie Rhonel, who lives here, every June holiday. Magic memories were made during those holidays. Oom Jan allowed us privileges and experiences that were not possible in city life. Donkey cart rides, which became more exciting when we could take the donkey cart out on our own. Motorcycle rides, for as long, and as far as we wanted. Hunting trips, feeding lambs, playing on salt pans, target shooting, trained border collies shepherding sheep, fixing windmills, cement dams running full (and dry), warming feet in a coal stove, burning oil lamps at night once the generator ran out of fuel – to mention but a few of our memories.
Now my brother Danie and I are back together on this farm for the first time since school. Hubby and I are on a road trip with Danie and his family, and for the next three days, Danie and I are excited to share our memories and experiences with our spouses and the children.
Today’s program read “braai in the veld”. We were VERY excited, to say the least. We have done this as children too. Oom Jan was our hiking guide, and we walked to the braai area he had in mind for us. We climbed through wire fences, got stuck, laughed, and reminisced about childhood visits while we walked. We finally reached our destination, which to me, looked like the middle of nowhere again. But according to our guide, this was the spot. It, apparently, “is a significant spot”. Oom Jan announced that this is the exact spot where we last braaied when we visited as a family with my mom and dad. I remember that day so clearly. Oom Jan still built my mom a bankie of flat river stone. It was very sturdy, and she sat on it the entire time we spent here.
When I mentioned my memory of the bankie, oom Jan said: “follow me, I will show you where we built that bankie.” Now I thought this is going to be quite a joke. How on earth do you find a bankie spot when the veld, the grass, everything looks exactly the same at every spot. Well, I forgot for a moment that if you live here, even the same long grass clumps that grow everywhere may actually look different. Danie and I followed oom Jan. He walked towards the nearby river, bent over at some point, pushed some grass clumps aside with his hands, and then turned around: “come look at this.”
Oom Jan is the best Karoo teacher one can wish for. He has ways explaining, and allowing one to experience nature (as much as making you taste the karoo bush sheep eat – which tastes horrendously bitter). I have learned so much from him already. So when he called us closer, my first thought was, “mmm… another interesting Karoo lesson to learn, he must have seen/found something we have not seen before.”
Eagerly we make our way to him, excited to learn something new.
But did we get a surprise! There was the stone bankie he built Mom!
It was still there, in the exact same place, 30 years later! The only thing that has happened was the right “leg” of the bankie fell over. There we stood, Danie and I, completely gobsmacked! What a moment! And in 10 days, it would be 12 years since Mom passed away. The moment became even more significant.
Danie bent down, lifted the fallen leg of the bankie, and there it stood, exactly the way it did 30 years ago.
We called the rest of the family: “come look, you are not going to believe this; bring the camera or the cell phone, we need a photo!”
And there, Danie and I sat on this special bankie, each with our own thoughts, yet completely surprised too. What’s the chances of a handmade river stone bankie in nature still being around so many years later.
Today, was indeed another day of making memories, embedding more of them into my mind. The emotions, the sense-of-belonging, the connection with my deceased Mom… no words can explain how special the experience of finding this bankie was.
Lianne Smuts 