I planned to go to Texas as they have a “Texas Potjie Festival” there every year. I had booked my flights and was planning to rent a car to drive the 3 hours from the airport to the festival by myself. I told Michael about my trip and he thought it was cool, ‘til I told him I was doing it alone. Which prompted him to ask, “so you are flying alone, driving 3 hours (for those of you that know me well…I’m directionally challenged) to a campsite where you are setting up tent and camping for 2 days by yourself?!” I just said I won’t be by myself there will be South Africans there! But thank goodness he decided to join me on my adventure!
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| Rusk, Texas |
The morning started pretty early as we (Michael and I) had a 9am flight. Michael and his dad came to fetch me and we were on route to our big adventure! Michael had to listen to me saying “We’re going to Texas” which is probably as annoying as a 3year old asking “are we there yet?” as you are backing out of the driveway. But he handled it with grace and just smiled most of the time. We flew direct from Milwaukee to Dallas and on our flight met a missionary who was on route to his home town, a place called Garland, when his ride called to tell him he would be really late as he was in a meeting (and after finding out Garland is 30 minutes away from Dallas) we offered to give him a ride. After our ‘road trip’ and good deed we were on our way to Rusk which is to quote a certain person “the middle of Bumble F*** Texas”
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| Our road trip friend |
We arrived at the festival happy to see that there were showers, a swimming pool and a hall used to watch rugby games. Not quite roughing it, but hey when God smiles down on you…smile back. We set up tent in between two large groups (after being advised to change the direct of our tent opening in case Deon decided he needed a midnight leak. A wonderful “welcome to the neighbourhood”.) People at the festival were prepared; I’m talking gazebos that doubled as kitchens, couches for lazing on outside and food that could only be described as more-ish. We were…not so prepared. We thought our air mattress and pop up tent was a sellout, plus bringing a Weber on a flight…not an option! We headed to the little town of Rusk in search of food and fine things only to find a dodgy looking gas station with not many choices, after asking directions to a dare I say real shop. We stocked up on non-perishables and fruit and headed our way back to camp only to be invited for dinner with one of our neighbouring tents. It was so great to see that you can take a person out of Africa, but not Africa (and its kind and warmth) out of a person. The hi-light of the dinner was *in this order* meat, meat, good conversation, aromat, meat, droe wors and koeksisters!
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| Droe Wors :) |
Day two was a beautiful day, which I woke up thinking we were going to start by drinking O.J and eating fruit as we weren’t the” cool kids” and didn’t have a grill to make a traditional camp breakfast on. However our other neighbours had others ideas and invited us to join in their scrambled egg and bacon feast…aw, gotta love a group that lives on meat! In return I offered to wash their dishes, upon my return from the communal sink I find out I have lost Michael…where was he? Getting ready for the rugby game of course! Which led me to the realization of two things 1.I really missed watching rugby games and 2.I know less about rugby than I originally thought…hmmm, got Wikipedia that! Michael was asking me all these rugby related questions and at the beginning I was doing pretty well, until the questions got technical…then I passed him onto the guys behind me so I did not give him chick answers about a man’s game! Sadly Ama Bokke Bokke lost, followed by a loss from my Shark boys, but with so many activities to get through my sadness was forgotten by hanging by the pool and going on a nature walk.
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| Coffee, rusks and a rugby game |
Saturday night was spent dancing the night away, after eating boerewors rolls and hanging with some of the youngens of the group. I wore a dress that my mom had made for me using the SA flag, and Michael got himself a SA t-shirt just to represent. That night I learnt that Sokkie is apparently not a real dance and that dancing however you want to songs with titles such as “rooi rok bokkie” and “loslappie” constitutes Sokkie dancing. Either that or these guys have been away from SA for too long and no longer have the moves. We did meet a nice couple that moved around the floor with ease so we cornered them and learnt a few new moves. To make the night even more special there was a projector screen set up that was screening famous Afrikaans cartoons and clips from shows, even I could not contain myself and sang a little (okay the whole song) when I saw the “Trompie en die Boksombende” clips. After a group singing of ‘del-a-rey’ (swaying included) I was feeling a little uncomfortable, and was hoping that would be the last apartheid reference, and surprisingly enough for a group of Afrikaans South Africans that left SA, it was not reoccurring theme that was brought up repeatedly. Mandela, your dream is alive!
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| A full view of the dress |
Sunday was supposed to be the best day…unfortunately we were only able to stay for a small part of it as we had to return the Mustang, yip we rented a ‘stang! If Michael had had the choice between taking the ‘stang or me back to Milwaukee…I’m pretty sure this post would be coming from Texas! Our flight back was pretty eventful as apparently Michael’s cast had picked up a chemical used in bombs (or something like that) so they had swab EVERYTHING that Michael had packed…including our tent and ground cover and in the process unpacking his “Mohammad” and “Intro to Islam” textbooks which he had brought to work though some of his Theology homework. Imagine the looks he was getting from TSA! Then when I hugged him (a foreigner, “kiss me I’m South African” t-shirt included), it was declared that I had to be searched…just the way I wanted to spend my last hours of vacation.
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| With all new special friends :) |
Once on the plane we realized that the amazing seats we had (in the exit row, which means more leg room) were not so amazing if you have cast on your arm, so Michael got bumped up to business class I was not so lucky, at first. After the plane took off the flight attendant said I could move up once we were in the air, and took my backpack and handed it to a confused Michael. She kept saying here is your bag, and it is to be noted that my backpack has the cheeky line of “Boys are stupid” written on the back, then she explained I was moving up too. We slept for whole flight, waking up only to eat. Finally at home after what was an amazing weekend, made me happy to have grown up in the South African culture.
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| Downtown Dallas, TX |
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