“My First Rhodesian Christmas”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 851, 20 December 1929, Page 5 (Supplement)

“My First Rhodesian Christmas”

By

Sheila Macdonald

Those who have not chuckled over the delicious humour of ”Sally in Rhodesia ” and “Martie and others in Rhodesia,” have missed some most excellent reading. The brilliant author of these books, and of “Margaret Venning — Rhodesian ” is Sheila Macdonald, who teas born in Mew Zealand and lived for many years in Rhodesia. In the following article she narrates, in her inimitable way, a Christmas “ tragedy” in South Africa. T WALKED across the Downs the other day tf> pay my egg and butter bill at the small farm I patronise, and at the same time bespeak my Christmas turkey. It was a grey day and cold. The farmer’s wife was inclined to be conversational. “It’s to be hoped we get seasonable weather this year,” she volunteered. “A bit of snow livens things up considerable at Christmas, and is more suitable like.” I felt impelled to put in a word for the sunny Christmases of distant lands, but her rigid insularity was discouraging. “I never did hold wi’ loose foreign ways,” she sniffed, “and when it comes to playing tricks wi’ Christmas.” . . . Words failed her! I walked homewards, and as I looked up at the lowering autumnal sky, and down at the yellowed sadness of fallen leaves, . my thoughts leapt back to many past Christmases, most of them gay, thank Heaven, and all of them different.

There was one on board ship, several in New Zealand, two in Cape Colony, many in Rhodesia and seven in England. But out of the pleasant mist which hazes my recollection of them, only one stands out vividly in my mind.

It was my first Christmas in Rhodesia and not having yet lost faith in the black-skinned humanity that served me, I was out to impress. I invited six guests to dine with us. Five of them were men, for in the Rhodesia of 1907, Woman with a capital W was not yet arrived. I showed the menu I had drawn up, with considerable pride to the Breadwinner, who annoyed me by remarking with a grin: “All right! It’s your funeral, but I bet you a bob Whisky lets you down over it.”

Whisky was our cook-boy. He was exceedingly black, with little peppercorns of hair, and a misleading expression of childlike innocence. He was also an ardent Christian with a penchant for hymn singing which had to be rudely curbed on account of the neighbours’ susceptibilities. As Whisky’s culinary successes were confined to the actual cooking and did not embrace preparations, I myself stuffed our turkey, and left it, pallidly expectant, on the pantry shelf beside a pudding that needed only to be heated, and flanked by an hors d’ceuvre protected from heat and flies by damped banana leaves. A saucepan in which the ingredients of a

future hot savoury awaited the last rites, was close at hand. I must state that in order that Whisky might be familiar with its every pitfall we had eaten a facsimile of that same savoury every night for the better part of two weeks. I had a few final words with Whisky before setting out for tennis, and Christmas cake, at a friend's house, three miles’ distant, and his confidence relieved any qualms I had

“Me cook-a-plenty Klisimas for plenty Missus,” he assured me, and I left him feeling that he was out to add yet another successful "Klisimas” to his bag.

The afternoon simply dripped heat and after tennis, when the warm tropical night commenced to close swiftly down, there were many sundowners and much cheery conversation on the stoep. It was seven when we reached home to find the house

dark and deserted, the kitchen fire out, our Christmas dinner just as we had left it, and not a boy in sight. Guests due at eight o’clock! 1 raged and stormed and did more or less ineffectual things with the woodburning kitchen range while the Breadwinner went in search of the missing staff. He returned a few minutes later, propelling the squirming terror-stricken houseboy, Sixpence, who, in a maddening torrent of Kit-

chen Kaffir, which I could not follow, made explanation. Between a series of exasperated cuffs of a black woo-lly head the Breadwinner translated for my benefit.

It appeared that at four o’clock Sixpence, actuated by the worthiest of motives, went to the pantry to see to the filling and cleaning of his lamps, and there came across a chameleon, which somehow straying from the pot plants on the stoep was.

stretched along a silver table spoon unhappily changing from emerald green to a whitey grey-. And before he saw it, Sixpence’s black hand touched that chameleon. Now to the white man that means nothing, but to a black man it was disaster unspeakable. A chameleon is b’lala (bewitched) and anyone touching it is in a like predicament. The well-nigh frantic Sixpence rushed from the house to take counsel of Whisky, who in his turn was appalled at the magnitude of the disaster, for physical contact with Sixpence meant that Whisky in his turn would be bewitched. Missionaries and their precepts were forgotten. There was only one thing to be done, >and that was to search out a witch doctor, and procure from him a charm potent enough to release Sixpence and incidentally avert danger from his friends. With never a thought for my dinner Whisky rushed toff. That was that! Sixpence’s state of mind was one of such gibbering idiocy that before be could even be persuaded to enter the house the chameleon had to be located and removed. The guests, arriving, helped hilariously in the search, and we finally discovered the pitiable little object endeavouring to make itself one with a sugar sack. After that we cut up the turkey, grilled small portions rather unsuccessfully over my recently lit smoky fire, and generally got together an indifferent kind of a meal. But as the Breadwinner said, the company was good, and so were the drinks, and so, all said and done, was Rhodesia, so why worry? Anyway by the time Whisky returned with a freshly dissected frog’s leg tied by a piece of wire round his neck, and presented the thankful Sixpence with a large pill of chopped snakes’ eyes to be swallowed immediately, even I was in a mellow and more or less forgiving mood. It was short-lived, however, for his dish-washing over, Whisky reappeared at the head of a small procession of house and garden boys to say with an ingratiating smirk: “Mally Klisimas, Baas. Klisimas Boggis, Missus.” I failed completely to join in the uproarious merriment of our guests. * • • So Christmas cold, or Christmas hot —here’s to them all, past and to come! All said and done it is our hearts, not our surroundings, that count. And even if December 25, 1929, finds me wrestling with frozen pipes and chilblain jd\ fingers, there’s sure to be fun and laughter not far off. Someone said to me the other day, “The best part of Christmas is its fun.” I wonder! The second best perhaps, but the best surely is the wiping out of enmities, family discords and pettiness, if not for always, at least for one sweet cloudless day. I think so anyway.