Early Morning Tea
Tea was more than just a drink. It was a ritual, appropriate for almost any official function as we saw in the last piece from my novel, The Hospital Christmas Tea. There were teas to celebrate a dignitary’s arrival, the opening of a new facility or a business, served at the annual fete and after the weekly church service, whatever the denomination. There was tea at tennis, tea after bowls, numerous teas to fortify one through the tedium of a cricket match. Less elaborate, it punctuated our every day lives, too, from dawn to dusk beginning with early morning tea in bed.
Here is a memoir of how it played out at our house.
Early Morning Tea
The verandah embraced our house safely in its wrap-around arms. It was fully enclosed with taut wire screening to protect us against the ubiquitous plagues of Africa: house flies by day and mosquitoes by night. We moved our beds out there in the summer (which lasted almost all year long) to catch any hint of a breeze. The mornings were best.
Early morning tea was served on a tray and started the day sharply at six as we gathered around Mom’s bed.
The pot seemed endless as we drank in the verses she read to us from Now We Are Six by A.A. Milne, while Dad did his calisthenics in his underpants. He started with 100 step-ups, using a foot rest from one of the verandah chairs. He went on to squats, sit-ups, push-ups, jump and reach. Next were dorsal raises and finally hip adductions using the foot rest again. As he sat down at the verandah tablea bit puffed, he propped up his elbows and began his ten-minute series of muscle control exercises. “You should all join me,” he said. “This is what they teach you in the army. Fitness! Self control! Confidence! That’s what fitness gives you, total confidence to know you have tireless energy to tackle the day, however long.”
“Here’s your tea,” my mother would offer again. “It’s getting cold.” He’d disappear for a quick cold shower, return dressed, ready for Sick Parade at seven, and gulp it down.
“You know the least you can do is keep yourselves fit. Start the day with enthusiasm,” he’d chide us. “Embrace the sunshine. These poor blighters on the mine sweat it out, day after day underground. They plummet down in the cage where day is night with not so much as a single star. You are so lucky! Most of the mine boys are pretty much deaf after a few years from the noise of the pneumatic drills. Silica chokes their lungs. Damp rots their skin. They make just enough pay to send home to their families in Nyasaland. There are no jobs up there. Maybe there is enough money left over to go to the beer hall on Saturday night. I’ve got to go,” he’d end abruptly, “And weed out the malingers. Up everyone! Up! Rise and shine. We’re getting through Sick Parade in less than an hour. You see, we’ve eradicated the misery of scurvy. What did it take? We introduced oranges into their rations instead of vegetables that they had to cook. Application! That’s what it takes. Apply yourselves to the task at hand whatever it is. The screen door banged behind him as the hooter wailed the change in shift and Sick Parade began.
7 Comments
LoveFeast Table
May 15, 2010Please say there is more!! I’d love to read more of your story and promise to keep coming back!! You painted a wonderful picture of your morning and I just can’t wait to read about the rest of your day!
~kristin
Diana
May 15, 2010Kristin,
Yes! there is more. I’ll be posting memoirs weekly on Fridays. This period (1940’s, 50’s and 60’s in southern Rhodesia) were days of great purpose and optimism. Some of Africa’s ills could so easily be solved with attention to healthier diets, and preventitive medicine. Others of course were a tremendous challenge and I hope that came through along with the tea time ritual (in just 500 words.) It was a mysterious mix of privilage and relentless service dictated by the mine hooter. Thanks for subscribing.
Diana
Lisa-Jo @thegypsymama
May 15, 2010You have just described my South African childhood perfectly. Yes, tea – all the days rhythms revolved around it. Love this. Thank you.
Diana
May 16, 2010Lisa-Jo
Yes, tea’s rituals demand you pause and take stock of where you are in the day so unlike our current, coffee-to-go in a paper cup! Thanks for taking the time to subscribe. Log on every Friday with a spot of tea and relax while you read my 500 words post!
Diana
Pat Staelens
May 17, 2010You had me laughing out loud. Your father’s routine and belief (I think regular exercise is important, too) that his family should be following his example is so typical of family. Never mind the cool cup of tea and the peace of mind and soul that accompanies this lovely ritual! Pat S.
Diana
May 17, 2010Pat,
I’m so glad you enjoyed the piece! Yes, Dad was ahead of his time with a lot of medical advances….smoking which was all the vogue then (he quit himself cold turkey in the early 50’s,), eliminating “fatty foods” as he called them (we had the world’s worst non fried, fried eggs that stuck to the pan so I loved to be invited to a friend’s for breakfast where her egss were swimming in a lake of bacon fat….and so on. That was European medicine. With the African’s the problems were so different. They had no conception of the food pyramid and so suffered from a host of serious nutritional disorders which could be easily and inexpensively prevetented if you met them in the context of their culture…(men did not cook and threw the veg rations away) which was so simply solved in the case of pellagra by issuing fresh oranges or guavas which are particularly rich in Vit C. We didn’t appreciate the wisdom!
Thanks for reading and commenting.
Diana
Kim Nicholson
January 18, 2012Love this blog … I have just found wow just enjoy your writing.
We grew up in Que Que, lived at Gaika Mine and then just before we left Zimbabwe, my dad bought (your dads) Dr Hirch’s house at Hillandale.
We all loved your dad, he was a brilliant man!! and he loved his exercise too…swimming everyday! of his life.
Please keep it going …:)
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