Being in a fairly intoxicated state, and with a desire to enjoy the return journey sitting or lying on the Land Rover’s bonnet and on its roof, they told Peter Chibemba to drive the vehicle. Peter was only marginally acquainted with engines and gears on a wheeled vehicle. Nevertheless, being the least sozzled of the trio, and despite causing all kinds of damage to the vehicle, road signs and assorted passing village architecture, he somehow managed to guide the vehicle back to Chingola, but not without running over and killing a stray goat while negotiating a dirt track through some obscure hamlet.
Triumphantly, the freshly expired goat was lifted up onto the roof of the vehicle by the intrepid trio, and they arrived at the Chingola hospital late at night, tyres squealing and gears grating, in a cloud of suffocating dust, and immediately set about attempting to gain entry thereto. The deceased goat, draped across my dad’s shoulders, now represented the originally desired trophy.
Dad’s ‘gift for my boy’ stared vacantly at the unfolding scene.
Understandably denied access by the indignant matron and nursing staff, the trio regrouped and, using their formidable combined intellect, changed strategy. They set off stumbling and guffawing around the hospital perimeter to the maternity section, where they then proceeded to serenade the obstetric wing at the top of their voices while brandishing their ‘trophy’.
The song that they sang, somewhat discordantly, but fittingly, was, ‘Hang down your head Tom Dooley.’ I swear that my first memory is of my mother, laughing uncontrollably, holding me in her arms while standing on the first-floor balcony, looking down fondly at the performance.
The surrounding bush played a major role in my toddler years, and I recall with great fondness the lessons in bushcraft taught to me even at that tender age by Dad and Peter. We had at least one bushbaby as a pet, and I also developed a liking for chameleons, each of whom I named Charlie.
Chameleons were not permitted in the house, as they tended to terrify the domestic help. When I smuggled them in, Peter would take them out into the garden and release them at the first available opportunity. I would become distraught when I was unable to find the latest Charlie where I had left him and would begin to cry. Finally, an exasperated Peter would take me into the bush to look for Charlie and, irrespective of whatever chameleon we found, he’d convince me that it was Charlie and peace would return for a time.
I learnt at a young age that a stick of bone-dry hartebeest biltong provided effective relief for teething pains in babies, that anthills invariably contained red ants that bit mercilessly at one’s tender parts, and that fathers in that part of Africa never came home early on a Friday evening.
A weekly battle raged in our home at around midnight each Friday when Mom would try to stop Peter from heating my long-overdue Dad’s dinner in the oven. Mom would put the plate into the fridge to ensure that the fat would congeal. But, as soon as her back was turned, Peter would take it out of the fridge and return it to the oven. This battle would rage on for hours. Peter was dismissed from our employ at least 15 times every Friday night.
Weekend fishing expeditions to the Kafue River were a regular occurrence and helped give me a deep love for the African bush, which endures to this day. I have one abiding memory from one of these trips.
During this particular adventure, my younger brother Mark, who was but a toddler, had been settled, naked, in the back of our Opel Caravan station wagon to sleep through the heat of the tropical day. Temperatures around the 40°C mark were quite common.
The Opel’s tailgate was open, as were all its doors. Somehow a hungry blue vervet monkey got into the back of the car and, while sorting through the buffet of tasty treats on offer, grabbed what he probably thought was a juicy caterpillar, but which turned out to be Mark’s willy.
My mom and the other ladies, who were chatting nearby, suddenly saw the monkey in the car, and a great shriek was heard. Mark woke up, saw and no doubt felt the monkey and also started to wail. Alarmed and confused, the monkey joined the cacophony, wondering what was causing the hysteria.
My dad and his mates, hearing the barrage of panic-stricken noise, came running. On seeing the sight before them, they collapsed in a heap on the ground, laughing until they cried, much to the chagrin of Mom and the other ladies.
At that moment, my brother, in an instinctive effort at self-preservation, tried feebly to hit the poor ape, which prompted Buck Jones to comment, ‘Isn’t Mark a bit young to spank the monkey!’
In 1963, when I was five years old, my parents decided to leave Northern Rhodesia and move south. This followed the tragic death of my sister Jacqueline in 1961. She died at our home in Chingola when she fell between two treated poles that formed the apex of a rose arch in our garden. Her little head caught in the gap, preventing her from breathing.
She was just two and a half years old and was buried in the Chingola cemetery. This devastatingly traumatic event, coupled with the rise of Uhuru-related violence against white people in that part of the world, led to our moving to a place where my folks hoped that the agony of Jacqui’s passing might be mitigated. Mom and Dad carried the acute pain of her loss for the rest of their lives.
My dad had little intention of going far, but Mom had other ideas. Dad had designs on us settling at Lake Kariba. He was a shoo-in for a job as a ranger in Operation Noah, which was aimed at rescuing animals stranded by the waters rising behind the newly built Kariba Dam. This enormous structure was constructed in a gorge on the Zambezi River, which formed the border between Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia (today Zimbabwe). Until the day he passed away in 2003, even a mention of Kariba and the Zambezi valley would cause Dad to drift off into a state of melancholy and longing for the African bush and the undying regret that he hadn’t played a greater role in its conservation.
As it happened, my mom didn’t post his job application to the relevant authorities. Many years later, the discovery, in an old trunk, of this unposted set of documents led to the most epic of rows in the Joubert household, spanning several days at least.
Might this have been an act of revenge on Mom’s part, possibly seen in the context of Dad’s actions a number of years earlier? Let me explain. When they decided to get married, spurred on by the fact that my eldest sister was definitely going to be born three months ‘prematurely’, my folks lacked the funds to buy either engagement or wedding rings. It was only after they had been married a few years that they were able to afford a decent wedding band, and so my dad was dispatched to Chingola town to make the long-awaited purchase of the symbol of their marital union.
However, on entering the single-street Chingola central business district and just before reaching the jewellery shop, he passed the Land Rover dealership. A bright, new, short-wheelbase Land Rover was on display.
Had this been a fight, the referee would have ruled ‘no contest’ within seconds of the opening bell. The price of the Land Rover and the price of the ring were about the only things equal in this one-sided contest. Everything else in the equation was, in Dad’s mind, logically weighted. Before long, he was happily driving home in something practical, as opposed to something ornamental… His arrival at our home at 33 Briar Street in Chingola was not greeted with the same euphoria. It was to carry consequences for which he would pay dearly, right then and in the years to follow.