Memories sparked by snoek.......

It's friday two weeks after the burglary and our lives is slowly coming back together, we have camera's and security beams around the house now, if only for piece of mind, I was hoping it would be lasers beaming across the yard like in the movies, would've been a nice game to play with the kids, beat the beams, turns out to my utter dissapointment it's similar to the little eyes you have on a home system sitting in the corner of every room.

Now let's be straight, I am a west coast girl, grew up in a beach town and later in the winelands of the Western Cape in South Africa and "snoek" (deep sea fish true to the south coast of africa) and "bokkoms" (dried salted fish) and seafood "potjie" (seafood stew in a black cast iron pot on the fire) was the best treats our parents could give us, I would still choose a "bokkom" above a chocolate or sweet any day! I know it sounds strange and it smells incredibly bad but man does it taste good!

To my utmost delight I went to our corner shop yesterday and there was a pick up with a sign "fresh smoked snoek" I almost drove straight over the vendor! I could not contain my excitement, okay to be honest I drilled the poor guy first as to where it came from and when it was smoked, it is Windhoek afterall and a good 35 degrees but all seemed good and I bought 2!

Needless to say I had smoked snoek with apricot jam on toast for breakfast and it took me back to a time in my childhood which tought me the most valuable lesson I think I ever learned, it tought me to never give up. My parents had a very successful steel business, we had a nice house, 2 vehicles, a big workshop where you could have coffee with powder milk, we snuck out spoonfulls of the sweet powder milk as kids. After a very bad business deal with a client dissapearing with most of an investment from my parents we were quickly reduced to the breadline, I distinctly remember as a 10 year old little girl the day the bank removed the furniture from our house and not understanding the magnitute of the situation, as a grownup and a parent now I understand how completely helpless my parents must've felt and the fact that this was not a bad decision they made, it was a good deal but with bad people. 

It wasn't long and my dad started driving to St Helena bay hours before the break of dawn and go buy the freshest snoek from the harbour, he would come home and we would all help smoke and salt and pack fish (well I don't think I was of much help but at least I thought so), he would then go stand at the side of the road and sell the freshest fish out there and it wasn't before long and he was able to build a cool box trailer that he towed behind the pick-up and expand the business. By the time I was aged 13 and a cheerleader for our primary school athletic event, I was in the blue team and so proud to be me, with parents that doesn't give up that I asked my mom to sew us blue fish themed outfits as the team theme and where all the teams arrived on the sports field with fancy sports cars sitting waving at the back the next moment a pick up towing a blue fish box got on the field, stopped infront of the crowd and 5 shiny blue fish jumped out....we won that day...we also got the prize for originality and I remember that day as if it was yesterday.

A few weeks ago I was at yet another tourism workshop and was told by someone that he doesn't think he's met someone as persistant as me and believes my business will make it big one day if only for the reason that I don't give up.....hey what can I say other than "fresh snoek my broer, fresh snoek".