Veldskool Indoctrination
Once upon a time, when I was young and pretty – now I am just pretty – I was a regular child at school. I was just a chubby child at school and fairly nondescript as far as I thought back then. Now into my forties I have found that I did leave a mark where ever I went. I can be a slow learner at times.
30 years ago it was a common thing for children to go to something that was called “Veldskool”. Children would generally be forced to go once during primary school and then again in high school. I was one such child.
So read on for my experience. I can assure you it is all true. Although the inserted humour is designed to make for pleasant reading, it was not a lovely summer camp experience for the most part.
With age comes vague memory so my age at the time is approximate. I was roughly about 11 or 12 and probably in standard 3 or 4. That was about the time when all primary school attendants were sent off to “Veldskool”.
Being naive and never having experienced “Veldskool” before – neither had my immigrant parents – I was unaware of what was in store for the following week of “Veldskool”. With some supplies such as a poolside blow up mattress (I like my bare minimum comforts), a sleeping bag, with some trepidation I set off to the now infamous “Veldskool” with my fellow inmates… erm, school mates!
Upon arrival the first warning sign that comfort is not something we should expect was the state of accommodation. There were several large tents which probably slept 20 or 30 people all right next to each other. There was not even so much as a ground sheet.
You may be thinking to yourself that this is not so bad! It’s good for kids to go rough it a little in Summer Camp! It would be prudent of me to mention that it was neither summer, nor a Summer Camp we were experiencing. It was bitterly cold and a harsh winter out in the bush.
Still, I had my trusty air mattress to separate myself from the ground during slumber. Some poor children didn’t even come prepared with a sleeping bag. They were to sleep their first night on the nature’s dank floor! After the first evening there was a mass protest and we got some rubber ground sheets and blankets for those who were in need of them. No, I didn’t lead this particular posse!
That first evening we were all marched off on foot down the road that we arrived on. At some point we were ordered to stop and lie down on the tarmac starring at the stars. I recall lying there awaiting the next 18 wheeler due to come along and end this nightmare. It had to be a nightmare. Surely I was soon to awaken to find that all of this was just a terrible child’s bad dream. I never did figure out what the point of this expedition was.
Dinner was quite another story. Dinner would be a generous description. Mostly it was just indescribable slop of dubious origins! If everyone did not line up in timely and soldierly precision, we were forced to run around the camp till everyone did so before eating. Charming!
There were activities such as obstacle courses, complete with barbed wire, mud pools to wade through, and other such high altitude obstacles that no child should attempt. I, of course, refused in my typical Aries fashion. I was a chubby child and not made for climbing and shimmying across ropes suspended high up above ground. My neck was precious to me.
One particular morning we were awakened early (earlier than the usual crack of dawn) to find that a swim in the icy waters of the local river was the order of the commencement of the day. All this before breakfast mind you. How uncivilised! I refused yet again and as I did have ear problems, I managed to avoid this ghastly dip!
One lovely winter’s day we discovered that a little hike was in store. My memory of it was walking the most part of the day. Years later a school friend reminded me some of the funny things I said. It sounds like the kind of thing I would say so I have no reason to doubt him. I am reported to have said that if we just kept on walking, we would walk our feet to mere bloody stumps. It wasn’t quite so amusing then but reflecting, it must have lightened the mood.
Upon finally arriving in the middle of nowhere we were all instructed to sit down on the rocky landscape. There were some idiotic speeches and we were fed nothing other than a slice of dry bread with not so much as a scrap of butter on it and unsweetened black coffee. Then began the long trek back to camp. We only arrived back in the darkness to no dinner.
On another day we were ordered to pack our things to go off into the bush with a scrap of a map and a compass. I would venture to say that our little group wasn’t the only one who had no sense of bush direction or able to tell north from south. Still, we did not arrive last.
After having walked most of the day like aimless concentration camp survivors, bearing the load of their backpacks, we finally arrived only to find that we now had to erect tents or sleep out in the cold winter evening’s fresh bite. In the failing light we discovered that we didn’t have enough pegs but at least we had some shelter for the night.
The toilets were just huts over long drops. Each group had their duties. One of them was to clean the toilets. If any duty was not properly undertaken then that group would have to repeat it the following day. Fortunately for us we never got around to potty duty during our stay. The poor group that got stuck with that task has my eternal gratitude!
Once again you may be thinking to yourself that all of this builds strength of character in a little child. In part you are correct in your thinking except… well, there is more. I saved the worst for last.
The days started early, lasted long and strenuous hours, ending in a late night evening in the large hall. This hall was awful. It was full of taxidermy and reeked of death. It was stuffy and uncomfortable. We all sat on the cold hard floor for endless hours of the evening. These little speeches often ran late into the night. I don’t recall really getting to bed before midnight on most evenings.
So what were all those lectures and speeches about? Well, through the foggy memory of a tired child I recall endless ramblings about communism, “Swart Gevaar”, and other such delightful topics for late night entertainment.
Now a pattern begins to emerge. The children were trained in military style till exhausted, sometime not even being fed, and then indoctrinated late in the evenings. So in short it really was nothing more than a Winter Brainwashing Camp. Summer fun had nothing to do with it.
I have no idea who was responsible or why some of the “Veldskool” camps were run this way but it does bring to mind that the then government was trying to organise it’s youth to do it’s bidding in the future. In those days of Apartheid races didn’t mix so we were all white.
I have heard of other people’s experiences that really were more like pleasant Summer Camps, albeit in winter. So why was ours so much like a brainwashing campaign? Who ordered it? What were the expected results?
Needless to say, I refused to repeat the experience in high school and boycotted it with great personal success. Those of us who opted not to go simply sat around the school, basking in the winter sun, without ever having fallen prey to all the nasty things they had in store for us if we refused to go to “Veldskool”.
So the message to all parents is be careful where you pack your children off to. They should be protected from the awful world they will inevitably be exposed to. Prepare them but protect them. Let them enjoy the pure innocence that will soon enough be cruel ripped away in due time.
Notes: “Swart Gavaar” is Afrikaans. It translates directly to “Black Danger”. This is the term that was bandied about when the element of black revolt or danger was talked about.
