sjoe… my uitruilstudent-vriend is besig om sy wedervaringe op te skryf. hier’s ‘n stukkie oor annderster… my naam is sommer ann.
dis vreemd om myself deur iemand anders se oë te sien. quirky? bold? dis cool. eclectic and fearless. giggling? minder cool. random girl? …
presies wat ek wil wees.
Quite unaware of my origins or much anything about me, a random girl asks if there are any guys in the area who can dance. Did she not see my moonwalk? I think to myself. Not quite bashful about my dance skills, I volunteer my prowess as relatively okay. “Alright, well then you should come with me to the saakie.” “The what?” I say. “Oh, you’re American aren’t you, haven’t done a saakie yet? You’re in for a treat” Geez, this girl is presumptuous. “Ann, this is Jason” Herman offers, to make things just a little more realistic. Nice to meet you. First impression smiles. This girl is quirky looking, but I love her boldness. “Joe, you want to go to a saakie?” Why the hell not, right? Before I know it I am with Joe following this eclectic and fearless Ann to the saakie.
Roughly 10 kilometers outside of Stellenbosch I begin to worry, the imposing darkness and Ann’s taillights aren’t looking as appetizing as the excitement and spontaneity suggested only moments ago. We aren’t led astray, just to a dancehall in what seems to be the middle of nowhere. Joe, my blue pants, and the unknown girl with pigtails. We are meeting Ann’s friends there, and unexpectedly my 8th grade cafeteria transformed with a bar and 30 year old-Afrikaaners. A dance floor contains the three tireless couples who forget that this is the song that everyone takes a break for. Twenty-something girls sit with half-cleaned up boys who hop around them like crows around the leftovers at a coffee shop, all you want to do is read the paper and they are just so hideous you can’t take your eyes of their black gloss or mute your ears from their annoying repetitive calls. Ann finds her friends and we do that shaking of hands where you don’t put too much effort into it, aware that you will never see these people again. Now it’s time for that ever-important moment. The first dance. It’s more pressure than a hand-shake, the preconditioned moment of first impressions. Bodies must align, rhythms must find themselves, lose themselves, then rediscover again their footing. There is no time for thinking, I just have to go in head-first, or feet-first in this situation, and pray that my strengths compensate for her weaknesses and vice versa. It’s a traditional Afrikaans song, one of the better ones. So far, so good. We take that first step, I forget that I’m still learning, and play it off with a cute smile and say “Lead me for just a moment and I’ll take over naturally”. She gladly complies with my courtesies and does so, but it catches in me quicker than I thought and I take over in no time. I start spinning her, just to show her I got some moves. Girls love that. Something about being out of control for a short moment, losing themselves in the 360, then 180, then into your arms and dipping towards the ground as they lose themselves in the loveliness, in your eyes. I can feel this happening with Ann, although there is this slight awkwardness about our chemistry on the dance floor, and I am pretty sure it’s on her side. She is sure of her ability, but giggles a lot, showing some sort of looseness that shouldn’t always be there on the dance floor. Yet she makes it work, she smiles and says “Where did you learn to saakie like that” as we sit amongst the crows. I can’t decide whether to act like I’m a natural, or confess that I’ve been dancing for years, that I lost my inhibition when I was 14. She gets that quiet smile on her face, the one where no teeth show, just that little line that grows next to your lips as you recognize that there is something about this person that is wonderful. We dance the night away, and the awkwardness fades slightly, I’ve actually grown into at this point. Just for safe-keeping I dance with a few other girls, one who is in her early 30s and is an armed forces woman, slightly intimidating, but firm and fun to dance with, as not many guys are ready to handle her strong and tall frame. Yet as quickly as we meet, they fade away as I dance with Ann, maybe they sensed our awkward chemistry. Midnight comes and goes, and we dance our last dance, just as critical as the first. The rise and the fall of the music mimic our motion and we fall in between the lines.
