Why JL troepe were bussed all the way from Bossiespruit to look after Vegkop was never explained to us... or if they did explain it was something like fokkofkliminnielorriejullefokkenetters! Vegkop was where everyone did officers course – we never did, and for some odd reason I always felt a bit cheated for not having stayed in the old convent..
Albertus Erasmus and I were swerfwagte at Vegkop one evening. It must’ve been summer because we had our sleeping bags arranged on the top storey stoep that ran round most of the building. During our four-hour stint Bertus and I wandered up and down the garden area in front of the main building, talking quietly of politics and philosophy and music and the fact that we were outside in the middle of the night and didn’t have to wear jerseys. Both of us had Walkman’s – the old battery operated ones that played tapes and absolutely chewed batteries. Highly illegal of course, so they were cunningly concealed, with earpieces arranged that Rooimoer wouldn’t notice if he came and checked on us..
But that isn’t what I want to talk about. Bertus lent me a Koos du Plessis tape that night. The song that really stuck with me, lying on the stoep with a night breeze rustling through the tall bloekomboom next to the building was Herman...
Herman, jou skepe
le weer in die baaihulle kom van ou oorde
waar ver winde waai
van Java en Malta
Beiroet en Bombaai
maar waar jy vanaand is
kan ons maar net raai
ons wou nog praat oor Leningrad
Khartoem en Zanzibar
toe laat jy vir my
alleen agterbly
met 'n droom en 'n gebreekte kitaar
A quarter of a century later I’ve been to most of those places. I learned my Swahili in Zanzibar. I can comfortably distinguish between the Arabic of Beirut and that of Khartoum. But when I hear the song, I think of the stoep at Vegkop, and the wind in the bloekomboom.
The pic was taken in Oman, in 2005
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