Butterball & Oli

I thought I would just write about childhood memories but my overactive mind jumps from one thing to another, so forgive me but we are going to fast forward about 20 years or so. This is about my youngest son.

One day he’ll be an excellent delegator. He is a student living away from home but even from afar, he has us jumping around for him. It could be anything from food he needs, cell phone contracts to change, wood that needs picking up, clothes to buy, reminding us about his pocket money, negotiating, hard negotiating, until I want to scream.

As he comes through the door, Morrie gets picked up, wrestled and kissed. Hello my G, he says, it's good to be home. A foot through the door and it's, do you think I can get my laundry done?

For when? I say.

Tomorrow, he says.

He's only home for 24 hours. The laundry pile is a mix of boxing kit, rugby kit, socks socks and more socks, a colourful range of boxer shorts, a couple of shirts that have seen better days, some (borrowed) unrecognisable t-shirts and always, always a new pair of thrifted pants.

It doesn’t end. He walks the garden like a farmer walking his land, checking on this plant and that. Have I watered his yellowwoods, why hasn’t the granadilla plant been trailed, have I fed the lemon tree. Into the house and he’s checking out what’s in the fridge, why is there never any food in the house? There’s never anything here to eat, he professes.

Oli to the right, Van Der to the left, South African boys in the Karoo

A busy chap, he's back in the garage and he’s cleaning his car, a car we’ve inherited from Greg’s mother. It’s a 1997 Opel Corsa, an orange butternut colour which has faded in the sun and now looks more yellow than orange. We call her Butterball because she's just that, round and yellow like a ball of butter. She has become a bit of a legend, she’s still on the road, having been passed down from Greg's mother to Daniel to Alexander and now to Oli. You’ve got to fully invest in the belief that driving an old Opel Corsa has some retro coolness to it. He has fixed her up, polished her wheels, a Ferrari sticker has been placed over her stolen Opel sign, a sex wax dangles from the rear mirror giving a pleasant aroma to the interior. It's girlfriend ready.

I’ve driven Butterball often, it’s exhausting. No power assisted steering, manual wind up/down windows, you can almost imagine peddling her, you are that close to the ground. But Oli knows this is the only sense of independence he has and appreciates that he needs to look after her.

Spot the Ferrari sticker, Butterball and proud owner

Public transport is non existent in South Africa. We have buses, which are pretty unreliable and the routes are limited to certain areas. Taxis are another mode of transport, they are mini buses, to get into one of them is to take your life into your own hands. They squeeze as many people they can into their vehicles and drive like madmen around the Cape Peninsula, picking up as many passengers as possible to get their quotas in, driving right up your backside, stopping to drop and pick passengers up wherever they think fit, overtaking on blind corners. Let’s just say they are dangerous. Not recommended. Then we have the trains, again limited routes and are often vandalised. Not reliable either.

To get from A to B, you need to rely on Ubers or if you’re lucky enough, you’ve passed your drivers license and you have a car, then you thank your lucky stars for your wheels.

Oli is a passionate South African. He loves his country, from the Springboks, whether they're winning or losing, to the ocean to the mountains to the flora and fauna. He delegates but he puts a lot out to the world, he lives life fully and appreciates his family and friends. When he was little he decided he wanted to send Nelson Mandela a birthday card, I thought he might forget but every day after school he would ask me if I’d sent his birthday card. Truth was, I had no idea where to send it. I took it to the post office and they suggested I put Nelson Mandela, Pretoria on the envelope. At last I could tell Oli it had been sent. A couple of weeks later Oli got an answer back thanking him for his wishes.

The value of persevering and delegating.