Wessel Ebersohn's Blog, page 2

What Will the New Year Bring?

Where I live, on a small holding north of Pretoria, when people think about the new year, they often ponder the levels of crime that have plagued the past one. And our crime levels are absurdly high. Last night, in the adjoining plot lands, we had four break-ins and two

The post What Will the New Year Bring? appeared first on Wessel Ebersohn.

Christmas Confusion

Christmas comes round faster each year. As you grow older you experience that. Professor Ruth Ogden of John Moore University in Liverpool tells us that time drags when you’re bored and speeds up when you’re having fun. She also says it slows down when you are about to have a

The post Christmas Confusion appeared first on Wessel Ebersohn.

Give him a Beer

We live in the country, away from the city and the relatively sophisticated entertainments it provides. Now and then country life is enlivened by a touring entertainer. Usually the singers perform Afrikaans country songs that sound like an imitation of American country and western songs. Let it be said up

The post Give him a Beer appeared first on Wessel Ebersohn.

Oom Jakkals

Oom Jakkals does not resemble a jackal in any respect. How he got his nickname no one knows. He is not alert as jackals are, or light on his feet as they are, or as well adapted to his environment as every jackal is. His environment happens to be a

The post Oom Jakkals appeared first on Wessel Ebersohn.

Help for the Aged

The parking outside Pretoria North’s car licence department is always filled with men who seek to assist you in any dealings you have with the local bureaucracy. Car licences, registration of vehicles, driver’s licences for various size vehicles, road worthy certificates and anything else you may need from that office,

The post Help for the Aged appeared first on Wessel Ebersohn.

Home Grown Organised Crime

In the features produced by Hollywood organised crime consists largely of illegal liquor shipments in prohibition days, prostitution rings in inner city America, protection rackets aimed at people who cannot protect themselves against the racketeers, and shipments of cocaine, the drug of the upwardly mobile. In South Africa it has

The post Home Grown Organised Crime appeared first on Wessel Ebersohn.

Sporadic Lifts

We are all hearing a lot of service delivery complaints lately. There are complaints about our electricity supply, Johannesburg’s water supply, potholes in the roads of various cities, education failures and many others, many of them real, some imaginary. But there is one failure that no one complains about, at

The post Sporadic Lifts appeared first on Wessel Ebersohn.

A Disappearance

Willie got a lift to less than half a kilometre from his place of work. From the point where he got out of his friend’s car you can see the front gate of the premises. Half an hour later his employer tried to contact him, but there was no answer

The post A Disappearance appeared first on Wessel Ebersohn.

A Zimbabwean Family

I had been looking at the rather sad figures of South Africa’s economic condition when a small Zimbabwean family arrived. Their clothing was dusty and they looked tired. The man introduced himself as Arthur, the woman as Matilda and the small child as Mary. They were looking for a place

The post A Zimbabwean Family appeared first on Wessel Ebersohn.

Trees Misbehaving

Tannie Susanna van Wyk was an unhappy person. When I arrived at their home to collect bags of chicken manure for our garden, she was in the kitchen, her face looking like thunder, to use a colloquialism. Outside, their teenage Zimbabwean gardener seemed to have gone insane. He was as

The post Trees Misbehaving appeared first on Wessel Ebersohn.