When I was 12 years old at an English-language school in South Africa, we had an Afrikaans teacher who taught us Afrikaans as a second language. (The Afrikaners were the whites of Dutch descent and their language, Afrikaans, was a derivative of Dutch). The Afrikaners were a devout and dour lot who firmly believed in corporal punishment as a method of child-rearing. Though there was caning in our school, it was rumoured that at the Afrikaans school down the road boys were caned on their bare buttocks.
One day our Afrikaans teacher came in and explained that there was a new summer program in which English-speaking boys could spend a few weeks on an Afrikaans farm in order to become proficient in Afrikaans. Though I was good at languages, I wasn't sure that I wanted to become more proficient by spending my summer with an Afrikaans family. But some of the other boys agreed to it, so I did, too.
A few weeks later, I was given a handout of information. We had all assigned to different farms. The family I was assigned to was in a farming area deep in the hinterland. There were 3 boys in the family, aged 12, 11 and 10. Five English-speaking boys from other schools were assigned to the same farm. The regimen was Afrikaans lessons in the morning for 3 hours by the mother for the visitors while the boys of the family did farm work. In the afternoon we basically became members of the family and could hang out with the family, roam the fields and help out with household duties as requested.
My departure was delayed a few days by a fever, but since the program lasted several weeks, we decided I should still go. I set out alone by train, and after a long, slow overnight journey arrived at my destination, a small station in a sleepy rural town. I was met at the station by the father, who had a solemn but not unfriendly disposition (the Afrikaners can actually be quite warm despite their dour outlook on life) and he drove me in a pick-up truck over a bad, bouncing gravel road for quite a few miles until we arrived at the farm. As we drove in through the gates, I saw a sprawling farmhouse. It being mid-afternoon, lessons were over. The mother and her 3 boys came to the door along with two of the other visiting boys. The boys in the family were all slim and tanned with short blond hair-sort of like peas in a pod of descending size. The English boys, being urban, were a little sunburned. One was 11 and one 12.
After a brief round of hello's, the farmer escorted me upstairs to the room I was to share with two of the other visitors. (There were to be three visitors to a room, with the family boys together in a third room). One of the other visitors was in the room lying on a bed on his stomach listening to a cricket game on the radio and reading an Afrikaans comic. The farmer quickly left us to do our own introductions and the two of us were alone.
The boy looked up and we introduced ourselves. He was 12 and from a different town from mine. He had brown hair that streamed over his forehead. I asked him what it was like being on the farm. He said he really enjoyed being able to roam the country in the afternoons with the other boys but didn't much care for the morning lessons. The mother was strict and had them sit at the dining room table while she drilled the daily lesson into them. He said he would actually rather be out with the family boys raking, cutting and doing whatever else they were assigned while the visitors were at their lessons. But he said the afternoons were fun.
It was a warm afternoon and he told me there was a stream running through the back yard where the boys hung out a lot. "Let's go to the stream," he said. "It's fun making a dam." We started to change into our swimming trunks, and when he stripped off I was rather startled to see four red parallel lines across the lower half of his buttocks. They looked quite recent. "Have you been caned?" I asked hesitantly.
"Yes," he said. "That's the one bad thing about being here besides the lessons. They use the cane if you misbehave, even for the visitors. But the afternoons are really fun. We can even go up into the mountains if we want to."
I asked him what had he had done to earning the caning.
"Didn't do my homework last night," he said gloomily. "Mrs De Jaager made me touch my toes and gave me four. But the worst part was that I had to take my trousers and underpants down first. We don't do that at my school."
"She caned you bare!?" I asked with incredulous horror.
"Yes, I think it's an Afrikaans thing. Nothing one can do about it. It comes with being here. It stung like the devil and I had trouble sitting through the rest of the lesson. And she threatens you if you don't concentrate, though I must say it's hard to concentrate when you feel like you are sitting on hornets." He gave a rueful smile. "Still, I'm not sorry I came. She's quite pleasant when lessons are over and we have had a lot of fun. The other boys are nice."
Back then tight speedo's were the only bathing trunks boys wore, and as we went down the stairs, I could see some of the tram lines on the exposed part of his buttocks, especially lower down where the trunks tapered inward.
When we got to the stream all of the other boys were there, clearly having a blast. They were gathering stones and pebbles and setting them across the cheerfully bubbling stream. Only about half the stones made it into the wall; the rest got hurled into a small pool formed by an earlier dam downstream. (Not surpisingly, none of the dams were waterproof, but did create small pools; the stream was dotted with these amateur challenges to nature's aquatic laws).
As the boys stooped and bent I looked to see if any others had evidence of recent punishment. One did: the 11-year-old family boy had stripes emerging toward the sides from behind his swimming trunks. They were darker and looked as if it was a week or more since they had been given.
At 4 o'clock we heard a gong chiming in the farmhouse. "Tea time!" sang out one boy, and everyone dropped their pebbles and raced to the farmhouse and ran dripping into the kitchen.
"You're getting water everywhere!" shrieked Mrs De Jaager. "How many times must I tell you!?" Everyone beat a hasty retreat to the bathroom and toweled off, then returned to the kitchen table. It was spacious, homey room, with a large rustic wooden table in the center set with tea, lemonade and biscuits. We ate hungrily. "I don't want anyone coming dripping into my kitchen again!" she said threateningly.
After tea I went back to my room with my two roommates. The second was 11, a cheerful boy with long black hair. All three of us lay on the bed reading comics, two of us on our backs.
"Still sore?" Tim asked Robert.
"A bit," came the reply.
"Are you the only one who has been caned?" I asked Robert.
He said he was, though he understood that Willem, the 11-year-old son, had been caned shortly before he visitors arrived. He also suggested that the rest of us would do well to avoid that cane. He pointed to a list of rules that had been left on the dresser that included the injunction to towel off before entering the house, to do one's homework each evening, to make one's bed, and so on. We all agreed on the wisdom of sticking to the list.
After a while the gong sounded for dinner and we all went downstairs. On the way, Robert and I stopped by the dining room where lessons were held. Leaning against a corner was a thin, smooth, whippy cane. Robert picked it up and bent it almost in half.
"Wow!" I said in awe. "I bet that did hurt!"
"Let's go in to dinner," came the reply.
Dinner was a homecooked, bountiful affair at the kitchen table with lots of chatter. We were all required to converse in Afrikaans, not so easy for those of us for whom English was a second language.
"Remember, only Afrikaans," said the father. "If you don't speak it, you won't get any better."
I remembered seeing that on the list of rules. Tim, Robert and I had already transgressed on that one. I decided to be more careful.
To be continued....