The hunt

I trained our home helper's son to shoot my air gun I am 57 and still have one.

They followed me home after finding me hunting in the veldt (grassland or open spaces) with my Airgun. I was staying in a hut in my Stepfathers, building camp in Rural Kwa Zulu Natal. He built police stations in far flung places where there were little infrastructure, these areas were also scarcely populated and indigenous people lived like they lived for hundreds of years in clusters of mud huts with grass thatch roofs.

My daily routine started very early every morning. I would get up and shower under the outside shower brushing my teeth under the shower. I would then get dressed, just shorts and takkies,(sneakers) I took a plastic bag with matches and salt and knotted to keep out moisture. I had a pen knife and an army water bottle with a fire bucket attached that I carried on a sling over my shoulder.

Then I dusted my Airgun off and oiled it and took a tin full of pellets for the day’s hunt and I would be off into the wide open spaces. I never ate breakfast as I wanted to prove that I could live off the outdoors. I wanted to prove this solely to myself and sometimes my mother told me to at least it breakfast before I leave.

Because of my outdoor wanderings I was tanned and I was fit from all the exercise walking for kilometres  every day. I saw these boys form a local clan at the river were they were bathing and they watched me hunt at a distance. I ignored them but gave a wave out of respect as a greeting and just carried on my way.

I could not speak Zulu I was Afrikaans and I spoke English well. The next day on waking up they sat a few feet from my hut at Sunrise and I merely carried on with my daily routine. As customary I greeted them by raising my hand.

Like all small Zulu boys they were basically naked just wearing an animal skin around the waist and bare feet. They must have been close to my age of fourteen years but I was taller than them. Some of them had knob kieries(a club mad from dry tree roots.)

Others had just a piece of hard wire with a hook bent on one side and a loop on the other side. They kept on showing me I must come with their hands and I showed them to wait with mine. We spoke not a single word to each other just using hand gestures and the universal body language of little boys.

My mother wanted me to wear a hat against the fierce sun but I always left it behind as my blonde curls were ample protection against the African sun in my opinion. So it happened that they joined me for my hunt the first time. They were eager to show met their skills with their handmade weapons and in turn I showed my marksmanship with my Airgun.

They were to be my Impi(Zulu platoon of soldiers) I was In my mind the leader as I had a superior weapon and considerable outdoor skills. I was impressed with these  boys and their knowledge of their territory. They knew where to find field mice nests and bird nests and they had keen eyes. Several times they would point out a snake long before II spotted it. Some of the snakes in the vicinity were highly poisonous and well camouflaged.

On finding a field mouse nest they would use the hard wire down the hole to pull the little rodents out one by one. They would kill them with a rock or knob kierie and skin them. This was a bit gruesome as they merely put a finger up the mouse’s anus and tear it open with it. They then removed the skin and strung the bodies on their wire to eat later. When we passed clean water they would wash their mice and gesture me to make a little fire so they could fry their mice kebabs.

I did not eat the mice I showed them with my gun and arms I am going to shoot at birds. I saw a cluster of trees earlier and saw pigeons settling in there. I walked slowly and took cover and soon I bagged two pigeons and took them where the boys were still gnawing on mice. They were very happy for the pigeons, cleaned them and soon they were frying also.

I took o0nly half of one, cut it with my pen knife and they ate the rest. In that region there were also wild banana trees and berry trees in the veldt so we need not depend on meat alone for a meal. Some days later we followed some guinea fowl and I wounded one on a wing so that it could not fly further. My hunting companions were fleet footed and they threw their knob kieries at it and killed it in no time.

They wanted to clean it and fry it immediately; I showed them with my hands and head later. I lead them to a fountain where they rinsed their mice as I saw there was caly and I dug up some clay with my hands. I gutted the Guinea and washed it in the fountain. They lay claim to the innards as they ate it. I had some berries in my fire bucket that we picked earlier earlier and some banana leaves I meant to put my food on when needed. I shredded the banana leaves and stuffed it and the berries in the guinea’s emptied gut and I added a little salt from my plastic bag.

We were going to have a feast. Out of experience I know fried Guinea meat can be tough so I wanted to bake it covered in clay. First I dug a hole in the sand close by and put some rocks in it. Then I made a fire on top of it and waited for coals to form. I put some banana leaves on top with the clay covered guinea on top of that then I covered it with sand. I made another fire on top and put rocks around the fire so it could not spread and we left.

We were off once more to hunt and gather and we were the happiest kids in the world. We bathed in streams and drank ice cold clear water from fountains. I live in a beautiful country and nature was abundant. There was a camaraderie building up between us. We communicated without words and we all laughed in the same language.

I spent some time with them to teach them how to shoot the air gun. They loved it and understandably they were poor shots and in their eyes that made me more important as I was a crack shot. They taught me to throw a knob kierie accurately and I was not nearly as accurate as them so things evened out.

I few hours later I motioned them and we moved back to the fountain. I scratched away the coals on top and dug out the sand with a Log. That guinea was still steaming and I took it out covering my hands with banana leaves so I do not burn. I put it down on a banana leave and used a small rock to crack the backed clay further and removed it with my pen knife. The feathers came off with the clay and underneath were a perfectly baked guinea fowl.

It smelled heavenly and my friends were hugely exited to dig in. It tasted absolutely delicious and the meat was tender and cooked through. We dipped the meat in the berry juices from the body cavity and feasted away. It was a proper meal. One afternoon at returning to my hut I motioned them to wait. I was leaving that evening to go back home. I went to the building site and asked one of the Zulu guys to explain to my friends I was going back to the big city. They were visibly upset and one boy had tears running down his cheeks. We all hugged and I went to my mother’s huts to pack my clothes.

It was one of the best school holidays I ever experienced and I would miss my Impi.