The Resettlement Blues


Harry had a problem. Or rather, he had several problems but one in particular that really got up his nose every day. He'd been baptized (which as a committed atheist also offended him) Hendryk which was a good Dutch name, but since he'd emigrated to South Africa & settled in Cape Town everyone he came in contact with insisted on shortening it to Harry.

He really didn't like that.

It was a shame really. Although he'd upped & left his native Holland despairing of the "cradle to grave" oversight of the Socialist Government, he remained a patriotic Dutchman and resolutely resistant to any and all attempts to assimilate him into Die Volk. He spoke only good Dutch (rather than the mongrel Afrikaans) at home to his wife and daughter, insisted that they ate good food like kroketten, rookwurst and snert (none of that ponsified British pea soup for them), sought out other Dutchmen to socialize with and generally tried to remain true to Queen & Country. But no-one (except his wife) would call him by his given name. He even suspected that when she talked about him to her friends she called him Harry!

And now, as Femke (now there was a good Dutch name) was growing up, he was having even more problems maintaining his ethnicity. He'd tried to do the right thing by her, recognizing that the English Speaking schools in Cape Town were far superior to those of the Afrikaners and he'd not begrudged her the fees, the uniforms or even the need for her to speak English. That he could & did tolerate but it was her friends with their English customs and frivolities who stuck in his craw. They made it so much harder for him to train Femke in a proper Dutch manner and the more she saw of them the more she wished to be like them and dress like them and, and (the word stuck in his throat) frolic like them. No decent Dutch maiden frolicked!!! He'd never heard of the old advice about keeping a wife barefoot, pregnant & in the kitchen but he would have considered it to be sage if he had. That should be what a Dutch maiden aspired to be and that was what he was rearing her to be. It was hard work though. They were all against him; her school friends, his work colleagues (who laughed at his traditions and called him an antique) and even his wife Maria (who if truth be known wanted for her daughter a far happier upbringing & marriage than her own)

And now this latest fiasco. All her friends had pets so she wanted a pet. They had a perfectly good aquarium in their apartment with several goldfish but that wasn't enough for her. She had to have a creature she could touch, and well, pet and one that would respond to her. Oh, the discussions! Harry's daughter didn't argue with Harry but the discussions over a pet went on and on and on. First, it was a horse. A horse?? Absolutely no way!! The cost, the agistment, the equipment, the riding lessons, the maintenance, the list was endless. Surely she knew that a horse was a farm animal not a child's pet! So then it was a dog. Harry was more receptive to that. A good Dutch dog like a Keeshond or a Stabyhoun would make a fine watchdog even if their apartment was too small for it and it had to sleep outside the front door. But no, that wouldn't suit her. She wanted a little dog like a Poodle or a Fox Terrier she could pickup and cuddle!! So a dog was out too.

So that left a cat. He didn't want a cat. Back home they lived in the barn with the cattle & caught mice and the occasional bird and didn't have much to do with people other than showing off their latest litter of kittens. When he thought about it he was sure there had to be a Dutch breed of cat though for the life of him he couldn't think of any. But, on reflection, he realized that this was probably the best chance of domestic peace he was going to get. A cat it would be. Though, by God, it would have to be a proper Dutch cat or nothing.   So, he told Maria of his decision and she told Femke what sort of cat it would have to be and last Saturday morning they had trouped off to the local Pet Shop to find a cat, Harry, Maria, Femke and 3 of her schoolmates. So simple but such a disaster!!!

They had found the shop quite quickly and Femke had fallen in love with a fluffy little kitten sitting in the window display. So Harry had told her,
"Go to the shopkeeper and ask about the kitten's parentage"
But she was shy and had insisted they all come in with her. And, because of that, there was a receptive audience to Harry's eternal shame, when she approached the shopkeeper and   …….













sang ………












"How Dutch is that Moggy in the Window".