A Different Kind of Psalty

It was Christmas morning in Nature’s Valley in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. The rain poured down as we walked to the community hall nestling in the trees. It was 7 am and we wanted to make it to the early church service delivered in both English and Afrikaans. We sang alternate verses of carols and I did my best using A level German pronunciation – not quite right, but as close as I could manage: ‘Ons buig in blye aanbidding’ (O come let us adore him) ‘Verlosser en Heer!’ I held my newest grandson, four-month-old Teddy, in my arms and sang praise for new birth and hope. Alternate verses in different languages is just about right for him, with an Irish mother and an Afrikaans father. Big boetie, Sebastian (3), is fluent in both and, recognising the sense of worship and thankfulness, he asked if this was 'a different kind of Psalty'.

Willem, Maria and Sebastian

The American singing songbook accompanied us and our four children when we lived in Zimbabwe and travelled to South Africa in the school holidays. On one occasion we drove the twenty-four hour journey from Bulawayo to Cape Town, where my daughter now lives, and it is wonderful to hear the old songs again and see the same calming effect on my grandchildren.
Nature’s Valley is an absolutely beautiful place. A steep road descends through the mountain into lush forest floor dotted with holiday homes surrounded by indigenous plants. It is a conservation area on the edge of the Tsitsikamma National Park housing bush buck and leopard in bountiful Fynbos undergrowth. Tsitsikamma is a Khoisan word meaning 'place of much water' and although it was not safe to dip in the churning ocean, I loved swimming in the brackish waters of the lagoon, like bathing in cold tea - the amber colour drawn from the roots and minerals in the surrounding hills. We stayed there for two weeks with my son-in-law’s family – a generous, warm-hearted house party with at least 16 people staying and many more stopping by on their way through. The heart of the house is the stoep, where people gather for coffee and rusks in the early morning, collapse after a swim or a sup (stand-up paddle board) and congregate in the evening for G&Ts, good conversation and the inevitable braai or potjie. There we stood breathless and watched as a pair of magnificent green loeries swooped down and perched on the wooden rail with a surprising flash of vermillion.

South African loerie

The stoep is the place of stories: how many dolphins, how strong the current or how long the cycle ride. Everyone brings their own flavour to the feast: the surgeon who told of how no one is allowed so much as a whisper while the heart patient is under the knife; the farmer’s brother who described a bush fire which destroyed acres of Knysna; the Polish girl who raved about boiled cabbage and the accountant who caught someone fiddling the books. We laughed together and shared each other’s lives, but the most special moments were when we stood together holding hands and gave thanks before we ate: for holidays, for friends, for food and for family.

Teddy bear

It behoves travellers to educate themselves about the places they visit. While the man took himself on The Great Trek Uncut, I have been on A Passage to Africa with George Alagiah, in a personal intimate portrait of the continent during his time as a foreign correspondent with the BBC. He traces its wars and sorrows in the countries where he worked, from the new dawn when Ghana first achieved independence to the more recent hopes for a rainbow nation in South Africa. He is unwavering in his harsh judgement of both the black leaders who disappointed their people and the white rulers who failed to accept personal responsibility for their blindness and greed. He describes Africa as a blighted continent but also imagines how the knarled and twisted baobab trees of Zimbabwe have seen it all and do not despair because no condition is permanent and Africa is stronger than she looks. Nkosi sikele Africa.
Before leaving Africa, we returned for a few days to the windy city. We traversed the southern tip of the continent along the Voortrekker Road through the mountains with their haunches bent together like huge giants huddled in a rugby scrum. We visited a wine farm at Boschendal where I found this amazing metal wire sculpture of Ouma Sarah, sitting on the vertebrae of a whale and musing on the lives of her offspring yet unborn. The book lying beside her is open at the following poem:

It's 3.23 in the morning
and I'm awake
because my great great grandchildren won't let me sleep
my great great grandchildren
ask me in dreams
what did you do when the planet was plundered
what did you do when the earth was unravelling
surely you did something when the seasons started falling?
as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?
did you fill the streets with protest
when democracy was stolen?
what did you do
once you knew?
(Drew Dellinger)

 

Ouma Sarah

Cape Town sits cradled where the mountains sweep down to the sea like our own beloved Mournes. The stark difference is that in Northern Ireland water is in plentiful supply. The Western Cape is in the grip of severe drought. My son-in-law is digging a dry toilet in his back garden because there is now no question of showers or flushing the loo. It is reckoned that Cape Town will finally run out of water by 12 April, already declared 'day zero' and will make history as the first modern metropolis to exhaust its clean water reserves. Very soon there will be one tap per five thousand people and my daughter will have to queue for her allocated 25 litres. ‘How will I carry it?’ she wailed on the phone. ‘On your head, of course,’ I replied. She is dreading the moment when nothing at all comes out of the taps. I am preparing the guest room!

Like Ouma Sarah, I am concerned about what we are doing with the world. These are, indeed, troubled times. Apparently Yeats’ poem The Second Coming has been quoted more in newspapers in the past twelve months than in the previous thirty years: ‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.’ The only antidote I know to the fear that this engenders is another wise man’s assertion that: ‘Jesus is before all things, and in him all things hold together.’ Or as Psalty sings,
‘Anytime I don’t know what to do, I will cast all my cares upon you.’