This story came about after an exercise at the writers circle I belong to. I was reading all the posts about the weather, and recipes and so on, talk about El Plonko [my name for boxed wine], and picturing all the Tavasa people, who are generally far apart and have not met, meeting for a weekend or a few days somewhere like a bush campsite with a fire and so on, and I could see it all in my mind. So, I gave the Tavasarites from Monday to Friday to send me comments, words, sentences, paragraphs, and trust me to edit and cobble them together to create a short story about us. Not everyone stepped up to the plate, but a few did, some of them normally quite shy too, and this is the result.

I was proud of those who did send a contribution.  Corinna

Tavasa’s Tall Tale

Looking around, Corinna could see everyone sitting round the roaring fire with tin plates full of aromatic stew and tin mugs full of the spiced El Plonko that had been heated up on the fire. All chattering away, enjoying meeting one another at this, the first gathering of Tavasa; conviviality, warmth from the fire, sparks jumping, seeing the faces flickering in the fire light. All were sitting on huge logs arranged around the fire; someone had brought a guitar along and was strumming and the air was redolent with that special chatter of women exchanging ideas. This was fantastic. She took another sip of the spiced wine, and set to on her plate of stew.

Seeing the firelight flickering on the tents behind the women had Annemarie thinking back to the time she went to the Kruger National Park. They were sleeping in tents too – the men on the one side and the ladies on the other. They were chatting away like this into the wee hours of the morning and then decided to go to bed. She remembered she had walked with her friend to the tent and some boys were playing tricks on them, running behind and making funny noises. It was pitch dark and very creepy, so they walked faster to get to their tent, but the next morning when they got up and stepped outside they saw their footprints and just behind them were the paw prints of two hyenas… it wasn’t the boys after all. The thought made shivers go down her spine now as she remembered. She felt quite nervous at the thought of going to bed in the tents, never mind needing to visit the trench! She picked her tin mug up off the ground thinking that maybe the spiced wine would sooth her nerves. She looked over at where Elsie was sitting chatting to someone.

Elsie and Margz had been having a discussion about camping holidays. Elsie said, I know its winter, but I know the perfect place to visit if you like this type of place. It is a small secluded bush camp on a game reserve in the Free State. It has an outside shower with a “donkey” to provide hot water, a long drop for the PPs, and a lovely braai area where you can have a huge fire, like this one, with enough wood to last the whole night. There’s no electricity though – like here. Margz said that it sounded fantastic but wondered how many beds there were, given that it was not quite a tent camp like this. Elsie told her that it had four beds, and laughingly added the comment, for those who will have had too many El Plonko’s!

They lapsed into a comfortable silence, listening to the crackle and pop of the fire and the conversational rising and falling of the different voices around them. As she sipped her spiced wine, nicknamed El Plonko by Corinna, who had brewed it on the fire earlier, Elsie was thinking of some of the things that could be done over the next couple of days. It had been suggested that everyone think of things to be made from the natural materials around them for which there would be small prizes for originality. Elsie had had a good look round earlier when it was still light and was thinking that she could gather feathers and make quill pens, or maybe even use thorns from the many thorn trees. Perhaps she could even try and make some ink by mixing ash with some of the El Plonko, and collect some of the papery white bark from the thorn trees and write some bush poetry. She had seen a small stand of eucalyptus trees as well and they shed their bark at this time of year.

As their conversation lapsed Margz was thinking how good it was to be sitting here around the warm fire drinking El Plonko. It had certainly helped her nerves to calm down!  It was quite daunting meeting so many people who had spoken to each other so many times ‘virtually’ but hardly knew each other personally. She thought it was great of Corinna to organize such a meet up. 

When she could see that most people were eating and more relaxed Corinna suggested maybe everyone should introduce themselves properly, which area they lived in, what areas of virtual business they worked in, or hoped to work in, where they felt they had progressed over the last year and so on, so that a lot of the newer members could see where they might be down the line. 

As Margz sat and listened to each of the ladies introducing themselves and giving little potted histories, she felt it was amazing to see how little the Tavasa members actually knew about each other, but how each person had a common goal, how ambitious everyone was.  Margz realised how motivating it was.

Once the introductions were over it was time to have second helpings of delicious stew, and maybe because of the fresh air everyone seemed hungry, so it was that the evening air became somewhat quieter and more peaceful while everyone ate. The stew was delicious, Margz thought, but Corinna had promised dessert and if the stew was anything to go by she could hardly wait. She hoped she had left enough room for it!

It was a very mild night and the full moon rose high in the sky. The small grove of pine trees they were surrounded by, totally out of place in these surroundings, threw shadows out around the area and created a feeling of security and shelter. As people finished their food, a few people threw large logs onto the fire, whilst others refilled the group’s mugs with the mulled wine, and then they settled down with jackets and blankets around the fire. It was story time and the story telling began…. whilst Elsie was laughingly thinking that it would have been fun to bring along the “Naked Chef” to cook the rest of the meals…

With images of the Naked Chef in her mind, Joan, AKA Lewinia (so dubbed by friends, because she liked a bit more of the El Plonko than her friends) sighed and took another slurp of the last dregs in her mug, only to spit it out in disgust – a huge fly or something had dropped into the warm spicy wine, probably looking for a place to warm up. Spppppttttfffff, spppppttttfffff. Joan’s face was a picture, and then she dissolved into a fit of laughter, which started a coughing fit that was not helped by the laughter and mimicking sound effects from the others around the fire. Their combined laughter echoed out and around the clearing like hyena cackles and giggles in the night. Everyone was in stitches as they tried to recreate the look on her face when she spat out the wine.

Geez guys, no more spitting you are killing the fire, Joan said, wiping her eyes and getting up to get a fresh refill of the very moreish spiced wine, which, by now, had become El Plonko to everyone.

Meanwhile Gaynor’s mind had been rather preoccupied by the thought of a sick hubby and two crazy kids left at home; thinking that perhaps she was really the chief maniac in the zoo taking time out like this, or maybe that was just the effects of the El Plonko, which, as the night wore on, was tasting more and more like fine wine! She began to sing and the rest of the group joined in. Soon the group were all drunkenly singing a song by the name of Kookaburra; Kookaburra sings in the old gum tree… after which, amidst much laughing, they broke into 10 green bottles, hanging on the wall. Should one green bottle accidentally fall, there’ll be 9 green bottles hanging on the wall….

Ali started to join in and sing along, but soon found herself lost in introspection about the week she had had and how these few days away would help her unwind! 10 green bottles hanging on a wall; good job they had not been hanging there when she found herself losing her temper when Tom had come in from school on Thursday, having been beaten up on the bus by older boys! She gave a small snort at the memory of the bus driver’s face when she told him off, and what the School Principals face must have looked like when she got stuck into him. She somehow thought neither of them had any idea what ‘stuck in’ meant when she used that expression to describe what had happened on the bus. She had been really fuming! That had really been the culmination of a week that consisted of internet problems, power problems – damn Eskom, clients dumping last minute work on her, typing assignments galore, coming out of her ears in fact, nothing working properly, frustration, high blood pressure, headache! Phew, those sherries had certainly gone down well during the evenings, even in the soup. Gosh, it had been a soup week too, goddam it, soup, soup and more soup. It was hard to believe that she and Dries had been enjoying watching cricket in the evenings, as the weather had been cold and wet in Johannesburg most of the week. Watching cricket with a glass or two or three of sherry to fortify her had helped her calm down in the evenings, and made her smile now. She was glad that SA was winning at the cricket, at least, hip, hip hooray! Her reverie was interrupted by a nudge in the ribs from the person sitting next to her.

And so their few days away together went on. The weather remained unseasonably warm, for which they were all grateful, especially those from further north who had been suffering with the cold and wet. And during the days they had time to exchange ideas and information, recipes too in some cases, and have fun as well. It was just a shame that more people, especially the few male members of Tavasa, had been unable to make it. It was with a mix of sadness and bonhomie that they all piled into their transport to start their journey home

Maybe the next time; after all what is a think pot without all the shared information that goes into it?

Corinna Turner 
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