My father also knew he could go fishing, where he could enjoy the peace and quiet around him. Sometimes he took my brother John with him.
When we went to Lake Mac, our family stayed in one of the very rustic huts available. There was no other choice. We self-catered our meals, often cooking South African sausages called “boerewors”, in an outdoor kitchen where we could BBQ not far from the huts.
It was a change of scene, but I must admit that a weekend at Lake Mac was only one-up on camping, insects, lizards, snakes, wild animals, and all. The huts were very rustic with thatched roofs. We slept under mosquito nets, remembering to cover our beds with the nets before dusk when the mosquitoes came out in full force.
It was a beautiful spot, though, with msasa and mopani trees providing shade, and the occasional outcrop of granite rocks dotting the scrubby grass. The lake was large, almost triangular, and looked very inviting, especially on a hot day. However, I can’t remember our being allowed to swim in it, perhaps because of the danger of catching bilharzia from the stagnant water at its edges. I can’t think of any other reason, but I know that none of us ever swam there. From the shore, we could sometimes see small sailboats in the distance.
Still, we enjoyed ourselves, being outside most of the time away from the confines of our small flat in central Salisbury. We loved eating meals in the open, running around freely by the lakeside during the day and watching the fireflies dancing in the night-time sky. It was fun.
We made friends with other families, too. I remember once that an impromptu game of rounders (somewhat like baseball) was organized by some fathers and their teenage children. Another player was needed to make up a team, so, much to my surprise, my mother volunteered. I had never known her to pursue any sports, so I had no idea how she was going to cope in a game of rounders that, as far as I knew, she had never played in her life. I suspected that the other men had accepted her offer only because there was no other option.
My two brothers and I settled down on the ground to watch the game. I was nervous because I thought it would be an embarrassing disaster for my mother.
Little did we know what was in store, though.
I still find it incredible, even now, all these decades later, that my mother, who was in her late thirties, was such a skillful player. When the bowler first threw the ball to her, the “thwack” of her bat hitting that ball reverberated across the lake, as the ball sailed away into scrub and trees around us! I was dumbfounded! “Was that really my mother?!”, I remember thinking to myself, as I watched her run round all the bases and score a home run. “Where on earth had she learned to do that?!” It was amazing, not only to us children, who were leaping up and down in excitement, but to the other players as well, who stood there in awe as she continued to play, never once missing the ball, and hitting it so far that she had the fielders running every which way to retrieve it!
