My lawn, actually my had been lawn, was now just a piece of soil with here and there a tuft of grass waving forlornly in the Haarlem breeze. I have been to every shop within a radius of a hundred and forty kilometers, and even tried Capetown, all to no avail. According to the garden experts, this Cricket Moles are quite a new pest in South Africa, and everybody is running around with their hands in their hair trying to find a way to destroy the little pests. Well I have now tried just about everything that came to my mind, all with no avail, and have decided to plant the whole piece of where the lawn used to be with Agapanthus, as it didn't look as though the larvae could destroy their roots.
Some days I think I looked very peculiar, as with me trying to flush the things out of their tunnels, the ground became soggy and muddy, and I usually had a few plonks in the mud! That made me so angry that I talk in strange tongues, shouting words to the heavens that my children would not believe I even knew!
It was during one of this periods, me having had quite a few dives into the sticky mud, as I have a lot of clay patches, and my clean hair standing in all directions, caked with mud, and my nerves a wee bit on the raw side, that somebody called me from the gate.
I gave a grumble like very heavy thunder, as usually it was somebody wanting money, supposedly for food, but in reality all the money they can lay their hands on went for the drink. There were just a few people in the village who were complete alcoholics, while the rest work on the farms, but the drukards could be a nuisance. The others do drink over week-ends, but they are not alcoholics.
At the gate was a small woman, the flesh on her face like pieces of dough stuck on the bones, with dark spots all over, and she was smiling merrilly at me with a pair of swollen lips, far outdoing the new botox lips of Meg Ryan and Angelina Jolie. Their was only one tooth that I could see, and I must say, the sight of that face was not a nice thing to see.
But what caught my attention was the dirty towel around her body, with something very much resembling the shape of a small baby underneath.
The other woman with her saw my eyes staying on the shape, and she started telling me about this woman's hardship without a husband, but the toothless one was not happy with that, and told her in no uncertain way to shut her mouth. She then tried to turn so that I couldn't see the baby, and begged me for a vyf randjie (five rand) for a rookdingetjie( something to smoke)
I told her shortly that I am not giving her anything for drink or cigarettes, but I demanded to see the baby. She knew that I would go bonkers if she was so paralitically drunk, walking around with such a small wee thing, as I have given a few of them hell before this, and news travelled far and fast between the villagers.
When at last she capitulated and showed me the baby I was aghast, as it was the tiniest, maybe a few days old wee thing, with a head of tight curly hair almost smothering it.
I gave her some milk and a few of Emil's clothes that was meant for another baby, and told her to come back, as I will get blankets and clothes for the poor little thing from other women with babies that had outgrown them. She was not very happy, and stumbled on up the road, and kept on looking back and making remarks about the suinige mense (stingy people) in this village!