We lived on the outskirts of the town of Messina (now Musina), near the Limpopo River in the 1950s. After school, I would grab my 'Gecado' (pellet air rifle), which I got for Christmas. I had begged my parents to provide me with this status symbol because the prevailing boys' culture was to kill anything that flew, crept or ran!
That 'Gecado' had a post and bead sight. As would happen to such a new acquisition—it was broken on the very first day. I managed to knock the little bead off the sightpost; never again would I have a good aim! But I was an extreme optimist, and every day, I dreamed of coming home with a sack full of dead birds.
It was a veritable paradise behind our house. The bush extended unbroken to the Limpopo River, miles away. In between, there were impala, wildebeest, buffalo, warthogs, kudu, duikers, baboons, monkeys, leopards and hundreds of bird species.
Older boys could shoot at these with .22 rifles, hoping for a kill. I worshipped the older boys. They let me walk with them in the afternoons. We would cover miles and miles. When we got to the town water tower, we would climb to the top, open the roof cover, dive in and swim. Refreshed, we would descend and continue along the paths left by the bigger animals. Often, the older boys would snigger and tell me to go off by myself with the ‘Gecado’—‘you're sure to bag something with that gun of yours’.
On such an outing one day, one of my older ‘besties’ nastily said to me that I should go off by myself, as he and another friend were hunting with the .22, and I would only be a nuisance. Sulking, I headed off with my trusty ‘Gecado’, shooting at anything that remained still and within range.
I got horribly lost. I walked in circles. Every bush and tree looked the same. After a considerable amount of time, taking paths to nowhere, I found myself in a clearing surrounded by thick bush interspersed with medium-sized trees. To my horror, when I looked up, I saw giant spider webs spanning the tree branches. At the centre of each of those webs, huge spiders hung, snugly staring down at me with a few of the many eyes they were meant to have.
I panicked and walked around in circles, trying to avoid the lowest regions of the webs. My breath came in ragged gulps. The scorching afternoon sun added to my misery as sweat ran down my neck. Strangely, the spiders were pretty nonchalant about me being there. I searched high and low for a gap. I must have trod the same circle for about an hour when I spotted a gap big enough to crawl through if I hugged the ground. I leopard-crawled into the gap and, at least fifty meters further, stood up and ran as fast and as far as I could. Houses appeared in the distance; I was home—'thank you, Jesus’, I said over and over again.
That experience launched me into a lifetime of panic attacks whenever I saw a spider. But I did notice the beautiful patterns on the spider, possibly an African Hermit Spider! From then on, I used to feed the spiders in our backyard until they became fat and friends—at a distance!
