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Meandering
in Marico -
James Clarke
I drove to Madikwe recently and a friend suggested I
visit Groot Marico, en passant (as we linquists say
in italics), the town made famous by Herman Charles
Bosman who is to South Africa what James Thurber is
to the US and what Xhai Ding Dong Merrilee On Hai is
to Outer Mongolia.
My friend, recalled, years ago, finding an information
bureau in town. He knocked and a woman in pink fluffy
slippers answered.
She said the information office was the door further
along. He knocked at the one. The same woman answered
but this time wearing high heel shoes.
"What do you have on Groot Marico?" he asked.
She said she didn't have anything. "And Herman
Charles Bosman?"
She said they had nothing on Bosman "but you
can read his books".
I too discovered an information sign. It was on the
wire gate of a silent house mostly hidden by trees.
Beneath it a notice warned I must beware of the dog.
I rattled the gate but there was no barking. It was
Sunday.
Being a trifle terrified by silent hounds I decided
to look around town instead. Margaret Mead would have
described it as one of those towns that, "when
you get there, there is no there there."
A sign said "Mampoer 5 km" so I drove along
an attractive sandy road and found a huge dark building
glowering under an enormous thatch. There was an empty
brandy still and tables and benches and cooking facilities
- but not a soul. Fifty metres away was a farmhouse
where a dog on a chain playfully tried to remove my
leg. I walked round the house calling that silly word
"cooey!" Nothing stirred. After a bit I realised
"cooey" sounds like the Afrikaans for cow.
I walked back past the dog which shrugged its shoulders.
Look, I didn't say this story would be interesting.
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