Fiela Skippers

Fiela Skippers asks her grandchild how old she, Fiela, is and apparently she is 88 at the time of the interview. Fiela worked mostly for farmers throughout her life, and everyone who worked with her has passed away. Her father was too strict to tell them stories growing up.

I’m 88, this year I’ll be 89. For the rest I was, I’m just living here with my daughter, my husband passed away many years ago…

Your name?

My name is Fiela, used to be Das but I married, didn’t I? Skippers. And now I am… sometimes I’m sick, I’m not healthy every day but I’m still around, by the grace of the Father. For the rest I’m just… Those years that I worked, I worked a lot for the farmers.

And the older members of my family are all dead, the young ones who worked with me are also all dead. I’m probably the only one left here on the farm. And then we, then I moved here, didn’t I, down from Karnemelkvlei. And then we came to live here. Now, we’ve been here for quite a few years, but I’m still alive… I have my sister who lives in town, but then I went blind with the stuff that the eyes get, that they call catars. I just say catars at the doctors. Then they worked on my eyes and ehh, then they recovered.

[gesturing to third person] She also worked, and then she had to leave her job. Her people moved, and then he… Now we just sit here. The people working at the packing shed had me for… A baby, she now looks after the baby because she was also a worker, but then they said she had to stay so that he could go work. So then she, she now works at the packing shed. And the other one works at the water shed, the eldest one. In this way we’re all here, bundled together. And this one works night shift.

Did your father and them tell many stories?

No, I was too small to…

[laughs]

He just said… He went to work at Valies [?? 02:50], up there at Karnemelksvlei. Now, in the evenings they would go drinking [inaudible 02:53], then he would hit us senseless.

I had a brother named Jan, he played the guitar a little. Then Pa would tell us in the afternoon, “Where have you been, you have to go get wood.” There wasn’t electricity and those things.

Then he tells me, “Ousie*, go and get the wood.”

Then I say, “Yes, we can go get the wood. Stop being naughty, you must also go.”

No, he takes his guitar and visits the other farm boys. Plays the guitar, and then they go somewhere. Now, I have a friend, her name is, what is the girl’s name again? Karolina, Lina. Then she tells me… “Ousie,” she says. Then she says, “Ousie, Ousie, where are we going?”

So I say, “We’re going into the [inaudible 03:39], and then we’ll just break off those thorn bushes and then we come back with the small ones.”

When they get there, we’re already back at the house, with the house things.

Hmm. “But you haven’t broken any wood for me.”

Then I ask, “Did you have a rope? You can see where we broke the wood, can’t you?”

“Yes, but I don’t see that wood. Tonight I’m going to give you a proper hiding, because you’re enjoying yourself too much. Playing the guitar. Go and dance with the farm boys, and children, but you don’t want to help me. When I get home in the afternoon, I have to clean the house, do the washing and all those things, but you sit and play the guitar.”

Pa never [inaudible 04:19] us with the hat. He took off his hat, then he hit us with it. I got my hiding. Every time I made a mistake, I had to suffer.

[laughs]

Then he says to me, one day he says, “Ousie, you know, you’re not being fair.”

“What have I done now?”

“Pa only hit you twice.”

I say, “I brought my wood in, you haven’t even carried in water, and you play your guitar.”

So he plays his guitar until Pa comes.

Says, “Have you made coffee?” Asks me whether I’ve made coffee.

I say, “No, it’s your job. You have to make coffee.”