The Uitenhage Pool – enter if you dare!

Whilst working in Uitenhage (a beautiful inland town near Port Elizabeth) for two years (2007 and 2008), my family remained behind in Krugersdorp and visited me in Uitenhage every holiday. My wife would pack the four girls in our Toyota Tazz and tackle the 9-hour drive down to visit to me. It was always very exciting, not only for them but for me as well. Many phone calls were made to keep track of progress on the epic journey.

The first time that she drove down, the one back tyre of the Tazz burst, just passed Bloemfontein, so she had been driving for about 4 hours. She is a very independent lady and proceeded to unload the boot, get the spare tyre out and the jack. She was jacking the car, but nothing seemed to be happening. Eventually a kind gentleman stopped to help her. Only to discover that she had the jack upside down; the top part was facing the wrong way!!! Of course, the gentleman smiled with typical gender superiority regarding vehicles and their female counterparts, (sadly deserved in this instance).

The story that I want to tell you today however is about the local municipal swimming pool. With it being summer, Michele tracks down the local pool to discover that it is only R2 entry and the girls (being the only swimmers) have the deep end of the pool to themselves. The town Uitenhage is a tiny town, most of the white people had their own pools which left the public pool for the street urchins and the poorer class, bluntly put, mostly the Coloured and Black folk (and my family). So, getting past the street children who were pooling their money that they had freshly begged at the robot, my wife gives these entrepreneurial swimmers-to-be a few coins; pays the required ten rands then goes into the pool arena and settles the girls down. The girls had a great time swimming in the deeper side of the pool as the locals who could not swim remained in the shallow end.

The chaos is almost indescribable but absolutely lovely to behold (intense enjoyment was the order of the day). Kids running as fast as they could and jumping into the pool, usually missing those already in but sometimes landing on others in the pool. Once during the day, a group of mates decide that their one friend who is terrified of water, needs to overcome this personal hurdle. A pack of them hunt the luckless fellow down, grab him, and throw him into the shallow end of the pool while he is howling his head off. He did survive the ordeal as he was close to five foot and 10 inches, almost six foot, while the depth of the water came up to his waist when standing.

At 4 o’clock a siren goes off. Michele wonders what is going on as all the bathers who have been languishing next to the pool in their underwear mostly (and a few clad in the occasional costume) suddenly all leap into the pool. The water turns into a white foam of thrashing limbs. As she watches, the life guards (big fat coloured guys) come out with sjambucks and start indiscriminately issuing a few clouts to speed up the departure of the tardy. It is Home Time with a vengeance!! The siren was to say, “please go”; the sjambuck was to say, “MOVE IT NOW!!!”. Well needless to say, the alarmed Michele packed up much more speedily and left before she got a clout or two!

The next day the girls want to go to the pool again. But remembering the 4 o’clock ritual, she decides to drive the 40km to the public beach pools in Port Elizabeth. Once parked, everybody is super excited, she unloads the car and together they walk into the entrance. Only to discover that it is R20 per person. Needless to say, being a South African, and indignant that such a large sum was required to enjoy a beach that ought to be "free", let alone pay for it, she did an immediate about turn and drove them back to the "R2 per person pool". She just made sure to be packed up and out of the pool before 4 o’clock arrived.

[link] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sjambok)