Sometimes life gives us something to laugh about and sometimes it gives us something to cry about. My thoughts are enjoy the good times while they last, laugh hard and often, and when the bad times arrive endure them because it just makes you that much stronger. But remember, the tears are not always tears of pain, sometimes they are tears of laughter.
And today, I have something to laugh about, well actually it happened yesterday, but I thought I would share it with you today. As I am sure you know, the south African school holidays are our busiest times and over the last 2 or so weeks we have been very busy with work. And as you know our work is Horse Riding on the beach.
So our story is about yesterday’s ride, we had a group of three tourists from Holland, one who had a little previous experience, and two who had never ridden before. Now, we are not situated on the beach, we have to ride to the beach. So yesterday as we come up over the rise, around a clump of bushes into view of the beach, I nearly ride into a bare butt! And by that I mean some guy visiting from the rurals up country who’s come to the beach with no swimming clothes and gone skinny dipping. He just happened to be redressing and his oasie wife also stark naked and hurriedly trying to dress next to him. She turns around to me, and in the heaviest zulu mixed with boereman accent starts saying “ooh sooory ooh soory”, at which I just laugh and look away. But then behind me appears a 50yr old Holland tourist on horseback, and the “ooh soory”s start even more, and the lady on the horse behind me starts trying to say “its ok, no its ok”. I’m really starting to hurt from my laughing uncontrollably. But then, lo and behold, along pops another tourist on a horse, this time a teenage boy. Well, the bare butt that I had seen earlier was already dress by now, a bit shabby, but I am very sure he was worried about yet another woman popping around the corner. Not so much luck for the oasie who was battling to get her underwear without the use of a towel, she’d only just managed to get the undies on and was trying to figure out which side of her dress was the top. And then the wind picked up. So this teenage boy looks to where the commotion is coming from, and I’m sure he thought he was blind after the sight of the nearly naked 200kg oasie who’s still profusely saying “ooh soory ooh sorry” almost in tune to some modern rap song, he went blood red with embarressment. But the thing is, right then I’m not sure who got the biggest fright, the oasie, the teenage boy, or the horse. Because a great big gust of wind came and yanked the dress that oasie nearly had over her head, right out of her hands and straight towards the horse like a boogie man about to eat her, and boy did that little horse run for her life from the boogieman dress. I think the poor kid on board was so distracted by the blinding sight of the nearly naked 200kg oasie that he didn’t expect his horse to run, and he came off after about 3 strides.
And all I could do is cry with laughter at the whole situation. I know I shouldn’t, but if you don’t agree with me that was funny, why are you reading this? On the good side, the kid wasn’t hurt, and his falling provided the oasie the needed distraction to get her dress on before anyone else saw her nearly nakedness. And of course I leapt off and between my gasps for air from the histerical laughter managed to get the boy back on.
Oh well I guess that’s a real “Welcome to deepest darkest Africa” moment.
