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B...saw
items about our own ben dekker, oy!s and the pondos of our colourful
world. Can add to it. Bevvie's word Oy! has other functions too. If
you sit in a packed restaurant or dining hall, abuzz with voices
resembling a tree full of Indian Minas in Durban at sunset, battling
to get service or attention - say Oy! out loud and see what happens.
Besides your family trying to all duck under the table, there's an
immediate hush .. and you have all the attention, including that of
waiters and management, as fast as you can say, well, Oy!.
Have known Ben Dekker for many years myself - he was engaged to a
friend of mine but she was intimidated by the bags of email from
female admirers from all over the world and left the region
altogether. Also because he refused for her to wash herself, clothes
or dishes with soap. "A good rinse will do". They still don't speak.
Ben was quite a peculiar house guest. My first encounter with him,
was when we, wide-eyed and very suburban from Pretoria, moved to a
farm outside Port St Johns. Ben came for supper with his cat and
insisted on a setting for it at the table. Me being an animal lover,
said fine ...
Ben has the biggest capacity for whisky -- a bottle an evening is
nothing ... halfway through the bottle settles him on a plane of
self-rightousness from where he attacks, preaches, insults and
intimidates all who comes his way. He once launched a scathing
attack on Eskom who was at the time electrifying the green hills of
the Transkei. He was and still is completely against electricity and
all forms of civilization and rattled on for hours against the
contractors who were polluting the air with their bakkies and 4x4's.
Shortly afterwards Ben's dad passed away and left him a car, a silver
Toyota Corolla. For the next few months, until the car disappeared,
Ben was spotted driving everywhere .. no thought to said pollution.
having said all that, I'm very fond of him. He lives in a cave on
Second Beach just off the township, enlarged with a piece of
tarpaulin ... where he fosters many orphan children. He's currently
embroiled in a heated fight with the local PSJ municipality, who now
demands rates and taxes from him. He is a very wise man, and taught
me something that I remember to this day. Being a very uptown girl
in high heel shoes and an attitude to match (at the time), I lashed
out at him once, saying that he was a has been. He then quietly told
me 'rather a has been than a never was'. That shut me up, for sure!
He's a gentleman of note, a charmer of ladies, bringer of wild
flowers, sharer of good wines and above all, have always been a
stubborn but good friend of mine. I was his student for ten years in
the secrets and places of the Transkei ...
But back to Oy! and the Pondo's -- there's another word that is
everything that Bev's Oy! is .. and that is the Pondo's 'Xa!' Xa!
should be a universal word, because it says it all and contains
complete sentences in one. Land of the Pondo is also mine ... my
heart throb, my passion and my nemesis ... let me email you a photo
of my most favourite spot in the entire world -- best enjoyed at
sunset with a bottle of red in the company of a good friend or two
...
the other one is a view of Ben's cave -- look to the left, at the
top of the second fishing rod from the left, that's his abode ...
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martin@martins.co.za
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