There’s Nothing Quite Like Family
Dear KuierKos Friends,
Andreas and the kids recently spent ten wonderful days in South Africa visiting Oupa and Ouma. There really is nothing quite like family. Even when you haven’t seen each other for a year, the connection is instant. Within minutes, it feels as though no time has passed at all. Paul and Anne loved every moment with their cousins and, naturally, were thoroughly spoiled by the family. Andreas also took them on an early-morning game drive at Entabeni Game Reserve, where they saw so much wildlife. What a blessing to experience the African bush together.
Their adventure brought back memories of one of our own unforgettable family holidays to Botswana. It was during the winter school holidays, and my parents somehow dared to pack five children, me and my four brothers, into an Isuzu bakkie with a canopy and, of course, a Ventertjie behind us. For those who don’t know a Ventertjie, it is that famous little closed trailer that so many South African families grew up pulling up and down the country, filled with everything you could need… and probably quite a few things you didn’t. Heaven knows where my parents found the energy for those long roads with five children!
We travelled from Warmbad through Francistown and Nata to Makalamabedi to visit our friends Tannie Inus and Oom Klaas Vos, who lived on the banks of the Boteti River. We camped there for a few nights, surrounded by hippos, crocodiles and all the excitement that comes with being a child in the African wilderness. The Vos children were older than us, and we thought they were the coolest, wildest people alive. They would race up and down the river in the motorboat a few times and then announce that it was now “safe” from the hippos and crocodiles for us to swim and kayak. We believed them completely. My mother… not so much!
From there, we travelled with the Vos family through Maun to experience the incredible Okavango Delta. We ate cowboy breakfasts of toast and beans, camped under the stars and experienced wildlife in its natural habitat. The Okavango is especially fascinating because its floodwaters arrive during Botswana’s dry winter season, transforming the landscape and bringing it to life. As children, we didn’t understand the phenomenon. We simply knew that it was wild, beautiful and completely magical.
One night, we slept underneath a worsboom, which, in hindsight, was perhaps not our brightest idea. Those enormous sausage-shaped pods can weigh several kilograms, and if one had landed on one of us during the night… tickets!
But the memory that still makes me laugh the most happened around the campfire. Someone told us about a wolf that supposedly came at night, biting children and dragging them away by their heads. I still don’t know whether there was any truth to the story, but it certainly made an impression on us, and apparently on my mother too. Her solution was to use empty Castle and Black Label beer boxes as headboards while we slept. Five children in the Botswana wilderness, protected from wild animals by South African beer boxes. Somehow, we all survived!
Looking back, I don’t remember whether everything went according to plan. I remember the dust, the bakkie, the Ventertjie bouncing behind us, the river, the animals, sleeping under the stars, laughing around the fire and simply being together. And that is what Andreas and the children’s trip reminded me of. Families grow, children get older, and sometimes oceans separate us, but the moment we are together again, the distance disappears.
Perhaps that is why we love KuierKos so much too, because the best food is never only about what is on the plate. It is about who is sitting around the table, the stories we tell, the laughter we share and the memories we make together.
Warm regards,
Marnella & Andreas