The Misinterpretation of Dreams

On the South Coast of KZN, the best place to go people watching is the beach! Busy holidays are the prime time to do this, because large portions of the population of some of the northern landlocked provinces of South Africa descend onto the South Coast in a frenzy to make the most of the sea.

Worker’s Day (1 May) was the perfect day. I woke up and looked out to the sea which was a perfect blue, the wind was absolutely still and the sun was gloriously bright. I headed to the little beach in St Michael’s about 12km from my home, it’s small but quite popular. There are swimming beaches nearer to home but my efforts were definitely rewarded. On the beach was every class of South African stereotype you can imagine. I got a full three hours of undisguised people watching, interrupted only when I went for a swim.

Let me describe and label some of the colourful characters. Once I found myself a spot, got out of my clothes and got some sunscreen on, I took out my book and I got right to it.

To my right and slightly in front of me was your conservative Afrikaans family: the ‘pap en braaivleis’ variety. The mother’s face looked like she might have been in her early 30’s, but looking at her from the back you couldn’t tell. All you could see was ass!! She never moved from her spot, she was as fully dressed as you could be on the beach on a hot day without being Muslim. Her role was to keep the food coming, while her husband fished and the children played. It took her double the normal time to make a sandwich for her husband, because everytime she spread a bit of cream cheese onto the bread she had to spread an equal portion onto her tongue. She finally got some rest from all that strenuous work and sprawled across the sleeping bag and tried to read her home decor magazine “Idees” but it was just too much, she passed out.

Behind me were the two blondes. One in her early 20’s. She had EVERYTHING necessary for the beach: perfect body in a beautiful bikini, matching accessories, perfectly ironed hair, perfect posture. She never got wet.
The other ‘blonde’ was in her late 40’s and she believed she “still got it”- she wore a brightly coloured bikini and flaunted the extra padding she’d acquired around her middle region, her lipstick matched her bikini, her hair was bleached and frizzed so it could look just like it did back in the 80’s and she had quite a collection of gold on her arms, which she probably started accumulating around the time of her hairstyle.

To the right of the blondes were the young and trendy Afrikaans family, the rugby playing variety, that came complete with jetskis and Toyota Fortuner.They ran up and down the sand either with a rugby ball or to get back into the water with their boogie boards. I frequently heard phrases like: “Die water is net flipping amazing vandag!” (The water is just flipping amazing today!)

To my left were the slightly new age English family. The 3 year old son rolled around naked in the sand and the 5 year old daugher was allowed to run into the water all by herself. It was obvious they were from Gauteng, the province with the highest crime rate in South Africa. Those poor children hadn’t been allowed to run around outside of the house for quite some time. The beached whale, I mean, conservative Afrikaans mother, to my right was NOT impressed, I heard her say to her husband: Kyk vir daai kind, hy loop popkaal! (Look at that child walking around stark naked!!)

As if I wasn’t being entertained enough, I looked up from my book to see your typical Indian family walk by. The young man at the front carried the huge breyani pot, big enough to hold enough food to feed his entire extended family. They were leaving and the pot was still half full. Tailing at the back of the family was the old drunken uncle. He was being very responsible and had decided not to just leave all the empty bottles on the beach. He was trying to carry about 5 empty beer bottles in each hand as well as his shoes. Everytime he dropped one bottle onto the sand he almost fell over trying to pick it up, only to walk 2 metres and drop another. At one point he did fall over as he bent to pick up a bottle, after which he decided that it would be wiser to wear his shoes, then he’d be able to hold onto the bottles a bit better. Amazingly, once he left the sand and got onto hard ground he didn’t drop one bottle until he got to the bin. There he realised that there were just too many fine motor skills involved in getting the bottles into the bin, so he eventually just left them standing next to the bin.

My two favourites were:
1) The old couple in their sixties still holding hands and looking healthy. Gran wore a blue bikini top with black shorts and Gramps wore plain black shorts. They didn’t try to look younger than their age, but they were current enough to know that a Speedo was no longer appropriate swimming gear for Gramps.

2) The 10 year old boy who was… what’s the politically correct term now- intellectually challenged? Well, he seemed to have an element of ADHD and maybe some mild cerebral palsy. But he was just so happy. He danced around at the edge of the water continuously. He bumped into people all the time. Little things on the sand caught his attention for about two seconds and then a wave came along and made him dance again. I’m sure he must be a handful for his parents when it comes to normal everyday things like going to school and playing with other children, but while I watched him I was almost envious of the utter bliss he appeared to be in.

I can’t help but wonder, do other people people watch too? And if they’re watching me, what label do I get? Lonely girl? For today, I’m ok with that label.