Monday, July 27, 2009

mampoer, potjie & die engelse vrou


Drove through to the Vaal on Saturday morning. Moogs and E3 have now pronounced the spare room I use there, as my own.
At his family’s house on the river – I have my own ‘Joey Room.’ Either it’s very sad, or I am their number one guest – either way, bless.

A bunch of us then hit the Potjie & Mampoer Festival at Stonehaven.

Sweet baby Jesus.

You know it’s going to be an insane day when you pull into the parking lot, cylinders firing, the windows down and blaring the likes of black hip hop.

Brandewyn and coke will make you do brave things like that, even if it is evidently rather retarded.

The moment we arrived, to a smorgasbord of synthetic fabric, platinum streak jobs, mampoer, (70% alcohol. Which means you combust the moment it hits your lips), units with big tough stickers, children dancing provocatively and doing their thing by their cookie on stage – serial - and lots of Worsie Visser music, potjiekos, and ‘Jannie Kas’.

That’s Johnny Cash to the rest of us.

And some dude pretending to be Mr Bean. It was surreal. It was insane as far as cultural experiences are concerned.

Anyone who owned a 4x4 bakkie stood a chance of winning a bull bar as a prize. There were queues, in two-tone, to win a bull bar. Second prize was a nudge bar for the side.
So that’s what we were dealing with here, just to give you a picture of how out of place we were.

In order to feel more accepted and forgivably touristy, I got into character and became ‘that Engelse woman.’

I’ve done it before in Lydenberg, and it worked a treat, being an ignorant but very enthusiastic Brit bird, and they loved me, you see. More than say, being just an English South African girl with a very very very amazing handbag.

‘Hi, so what’s this then?’

‘Mampoer, you wanna try it?’

‘Ooh that sounds daaaaahling, can I buy this at the S’affrican shop in Wimbledon, bruv?’

‘Actually, ja.’

After one shot – one – suddenly, something very scary happened. Between the conversation and the moment of ingestation, I suddenly found myself on a stage in front of about 400 people.

I’m not sure how I got up there, or what I was meant to be doing up there, but it seemed, after the full realisation had hit me, (‘Holy. Suffering. Fuck. Why am I up here?’) I knew I had better keep up the Brit character, and I’d better do it good.

I was suddenly one of the volunteers, it appeared, for a live Mampoer Drinking Down Down Competition.

‘Oh dearie may….I don’t really know what to do here, innit!’ I say onto the microphone, and while all the other people on stage – being super friendly mind you – kindly explained to me that allSouth Africans drink mampoer all the time and that I must just follow what they do.

Meanwhile my friends are somewhere in the audience, wondering how the fuck I had got up there. (Still not sure myself. Must’ve got caught up in the excitement of siphoning blazing hot alcohol-saturated mampoer that would burn my oesophagus all the way down, as pleasant as that sounds).

‘You is from the United Kingdom. I are going to haff to punish you. You can keep your shooter glass afterward as a prize.’

‘Oooh,’ why thank you very much! What do I do?’ By now I’m concentrating super hard on my chavvy English accent, whilst talking into the microphone, and while I have to repeat something like this, in character: ‘Innie bos mampoer fees naby Stonehaven’ or some such. Which came out like this:

‘In knee bowce….mam po fierce… like a lion! Nah bay Stonehaven!’ And the crowd went wild.
Good lord, was this even happening?

After that was done, the press cornered me, and took a picture and my details, which went something like this: ‘Beatrix Clemence, UK, flew in from Dorset for the weekend for the Mampoer Festival.’

WTF. Beatrix? Apparently my character thought it was a very English name.

Meanwhile another mate was running around pretending he was a News24 reporter taking random pictures of everyone he saw with his wide angle lens. Even the various ‘pop singers’ on stage. Sometimes he’d take them through his jersey.

We got, as they say in the hinterland, completely besfokking vrot

Me and a mate got our faces painted. We stood – apparently – as its hazy – in a queue full of kids and I asked for a bloody butterfly, and she got flowers and teardrops and shit painted all over hers. And they also sprayed our hair with lumo spraypaint.

And that’s how we walked around. Me, with a pink wingspan on my face, and she with green shit smeared down the side of hers.

Then I passed out in a chair outside where everyone was watching rugby. My mate said that everyone who walked passed said something like, ‘These British people just can’t handle real alcohol...ag shame…what’s that on her face?’

I haven’t ‘taken a nap’ during a crazy drunk day in years. I felt like I was 17 again. Make that 7, with the painted party face.

Interesting.

18 comments:

DelBoy said...

Sounds like an outing to the KKNK in Oudtshoorn!

Seriously though, Beatrix the Chav is not very realistic. Innit?

Peas on Toast said...

DelBoy - tell me about it. Yeah it's not helluva realistic - except that EVERYONE there thought so :)

I think I'm going to call myself Beatrix more often ;)

Revolving Credit said...

As in Beatrix Pothead?
...you soo thought that was a kareoke stage didn't you?

So Lady Beatrix, exactly how much of this African firewater did you consume during this down-down?

ExMi said...

mampoer are making me want to kots.

Peas on Toast said...

Rev - I had TWO in total. And was totaled as a result.

I'm telling you, absinthe has done less damage!

ExMi - tell me about it, I'm feeling the same way...

Mickey G said...

I can't even imagine combining the joys of Stonehaven with the allure of Mampoer.

A few years ago I went to a bachelor party at Stonehaven for a mate who stayed at the vaal. All I can say is it ended in tears.

On the subject of Mampoer, as a present I received a bottle of this see through liquid called 'Mother's Milk' the bottle even came with its own teet.

Needless to say the only reason the word Mother is in its title is because that's who you swearing at for bringing you into this world the morning after sucking on the aforementioned teet.

Crazy!

Peas on Toast said...

Mickey - oy vey, I know about that teat! Fuck, once I found one at the bottom of the jaccuzzi where I had my 15th birthday party and thought for about 0.2 seconds it was a condom ('EEW WHICH OF MY MATES DID THIS??), but it was the witblitz tit.

Dude, dodgy things happen at Stonehaven hey. Once we crashed a wedding there. It was...sensational.

mamastella said...

LMAO!

Charmskool said...

Ahahahahaha I wish I'd been there to see it! Shame hey that you can't hold your mampoer too well tho' Beatrix? You sound like me -when I'm misbehavin' I become Giovanna (the Italian former sex-kitten) from Jo'annis'borg. My friends all recognize her arrival these days - she was out a couple of Fridays ago - wild thang.

Anonymous said...

Pois! I thought you learned your lesson with the gin! You had a barbie on Fri if i recall!

Peas on Toast said...

Ruby :)

Charm - oooh, so you have-a za alter-ego too? I think Giovanna and Beatrix would get on like una casa on fire! :)

Levis - gin is CHILD'S PLAY in comparison to this stuff. Seriously - I was on fire!

Anonymous said...

You was on fire! :-) I seriously love a girl thats on fire! Lets say it makes it so much more fun that way! And fun is good. :-) Its like Win Win!

Peas on Toast said...

hahaha :)

Just A Fly On The Wall said...

Yes it does make it much more fun if we are on fire. Heelo Pretty Peas, found you on Mr Levis blogroll, or is it bogroll? :) Hi Stevie! Shouting out!
Lovely site Peas, enjoyed the visit.

Anonymous said...

So The Fly has found the Pois? Be careful of Pink Flies, Miss Pois! This little pink BiVALVE could easily distract you.
PS. Is that a 34B in that image? :)

moss said...

Hahaha!!! Nice!!! "You shouldda Settled for a po'of tea with a spo' of meelk Beatrix!" ;-)... CLASSIC!

Peas on Toast said...

Moss - I really really shoulda mate! :)

Unknown said...

Have a look here https://picasaweb.google.com/117839944443539248779/StonehavenPotjieMampoerFestivalAlbum4 and tell us which one of the ladies you were! - All the photos of the event is available through www.showme.co.za/vaal!