Once, donkey’s years ago, I attended a function at the German ambassador’s house in Waterkloof. It was something to do with the Friedrich Naumann-Stiftung, which funded the student publication I was editing at the time. We stood around eating canapes and listened politely to a few words from the generous Germans. All pleasant enough, though not especially memorable.
The memorable part had nothing to do with liberal student politics or a commitment to free markets and the rule of law. No, what I remember about that evening, mostly, is the ducks.
They were everywhere. In the paintings on the walls. On the plates, printed in patterns on the cushions, on the handles of the umbrellas. Even the toilet cleaner was Toilet Duck. Everywhere you looked, there were big ducks, small ducks, brass ducks, glass ducks, ceramic ducks, resin ducks, ducks shaped in crystal and carved out of wood — a nightmarish gallimaufry of anatine bric-a-brac.
It was horrible. I never looked at Germans in quite the same way again.
Yet here I am, in danger of falling into the same trap. There are already three wooden chickens perched amidst the chaos on my desk at work and I know in my heart of hearts that there will be more. The first, a birthday present from my ex-husband, is close to 60cm tall. He bought it years ago from the side of Witkoppen Road and inadvertently triggered my desire to own examples of kraal fowls as rendered in jacaranda wood and painted with PVA. The second, much smaller, was a purchase from a curio shop in Vaalwater (which now appears to be marketing itself as the Hoedspruit — sorry, Marulaneng — of the west), and the third I bought last weekend from a man sitting under the bridge outside the Numbi Gate of the Kruger Park.
The third is definitely my favourite. Unlike the other two, he’s black, with handsome yellow legs and a bright red comb. He has a wonderfully imperious expression, of the kind I would imagine a real African cockerel would display — right up until the moment somebody wrung his neck and stuck him into the nearest cooking pot. Chickens, like Nguni cowhides, have an African authenticity somehow lacking in wooden giraffes or soapstone hippos. Perhaps it’s because they symbolise a connection with the domestic, with the daily lives of ordinary people, rather than the tourist vision of Serengeti mapped onto an entire continent.
I hope to collect more examples at the next opportunity I get. Numbi Gate man might charge Dutch tourist prices, but he’s good. Next time, I’m going to buy a bigger one.
To make matters worse, now their soccer team think they will be a sitting duck at next years WC…
sounds like you’re getting broody -time for a few brats, that’ll cure the wooden chicken habit..
Really hate to put a damper on your fetish Sarah, but a chicken, or rather the cockerel, is the symbol of ZANU-PF in Zimbabwe, from where I spring and it doesn’t evoke any pleasant memos!
Why collecting wooden chicks on your desk?
Take two of those (of different gender!!) and you will have a garden full of chickens within two years.
A friend of mine has the same passion for cows. Wherever I go, I always buy her a cow and ….believe me…they come in many different shapes, sizes, forms and materials.
Big Fish, based on that reasoning one could renounce elephants on the basis that they’re a symbol of the Republicans. Or eagles because the Nazis had a fetish for them. Ultimately, everything somewhere is used as a symbol for something unpleasant. Where does it end? I like chickens as chickens, and if Zanu-PF does too, so be it.
As for the cows, I also have a collection of them. And sheep. And pigs.
Buy a vintage little BSA Bantam 175cc motorcycle. You’ll meet plenty of intelligent, interesting people most of whom will be able to keep you and your Bantam running all over either side of the road. Cross over to the other side.
@Big Fish,
Isn’t the chicken a Gallic symbol too?
All this chicken talk reminds me of the old Five Nations in Paris during the 80′s and a bunch of French men chasing a cock er ill? around the field with baguettes while 22 grown men balled their way through a rousing local anthem….inspiring stuff…