“The jackal went streaking past me while I held the irrigation pipe!” Christopher Robin told me, as wide-eyed and innocent as the character from the Winnie-the Pooh children’s books. But Christopher Robin Haughton has little else in common with story book characters. Christopher is a strapping young man from South Africa who’s come to America for the first time to work as farm labor on our neighbor’s farm.
“That wasn’t a jackal,” I corrected him. “That was a coyote.”
Christopher repeated the word “coyote,” rolling it around on his tongue, trying to get the “y” sound right. It was obviously difficult with his thick Afrikaan accent. Both Christopher and his friend Steven, who’s also come from South Africa to work on our neighbor’s farm, speak Afrikaan. Afrikaan is a dialect derived from the Dutch language. Christopher and Steven are descendants of the Dutch colonists who settled that country in the 17th century.
“How is it different here than in South Africa?” I asked the young men curious about their response.
Steven looked around him, the desert and the canyon walls, and commented there’s no sagebrush where he lives. He said South Africa has lots of thorn bushes though. He also said it’s much hotter and drier here in the American West.
“I didn’t bring enough water to drink walking irrigation pipes across the field, and suddenly, I got nauseous and dizzy,” Steven looked at me bewildered.
“I couldn’t believe I had heat stroke! I’ve never had heat stroke before. They even had to take me to the hospital.”
Forty years ago when I first came to Idaho I tried moving irrigation lines. I remember how surprisingly light the aluminum pipes were, but long and unwieldy. Moving one joint of pipe was fairly doable, but three lines of 32 joints? Even though I was a young woman, I didn’t have the strength or the stamina to move irrigation lines.
“Moving irrigation pipes is all right, but there’s snakes here in the desert, and I’m afraid of snakes (and apparently, coyotes),” Christopher said. I noticed then that Christopher was wearing shorts and anklet socks. I suggested he always wear pants, and especially boots, in the fields. Hearing this, both men burst out laughing. They explained how just last week Steven was moving pipe when Christopher spotted a rattlesnake wrapped around one of Steven’s rubber irrigation boots.
“Our roommate, Luis, is a much better irrigator than we are,” Steven admitted ruefully. Luis is from Mexico, and both Steven and Christopher seemed to be in awe of him.
“Luis is fast and efficient when he moves irrigation pipes. He learned from his ‘vadar’ (father) how to link the lines together quickly while the water’s running through the pipe.”
Steven and Christopher both have farm background in South Africa. Steven’s father raises wine grapes, and Christopher worked on a ranch herding Brahmin cattle.
They told me that where they’re from in the Cape provinces of South Africa, farmers don’t irrigate much.
“So, do South African farmer need to hire farm labor?”
“Yes, sometimes,” Steven said. “In the east Blacks work as farm labor, and in the west, Browns—Bushmen, do.”
“Bushmen?”
“Yes Bushmen. Have you heard about these people? They have a distinctive way of talking where they make a clicking sound when they speak.”
In fact, years ago I’d watched a move, The Gods Must Be Crazy, about Kalahari Bushmen who spoke as Steven described.
We soon ended our little visit and I walked away thinking what nice young men Steven and Christopher were. I also considered what an exciting adventure they were having working far away from home on a western farm in the U.S. It was a lark and a challenge for them. But for many farm laborers, it’s a way of life and their only means of survival.
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