Yes, this is indeed my great-great-grandma.
My moms-dads-moms-mom.
In fact, “Guten Tag” might be a more fitting greeting, since they were fresh off the boat from Germany, arriving in the colony of South West Africa, which today of course is known as Namibia (made famous by being the birthplace of Brangelina’s first biological child).
Her name was Wilhelmina Schroder.
Das ist very German ya?
It’s odd. Because my father is Dutch (born and raised in the Netherlands and emigrated to South Africa in the 50′s) I’ve always felt more dutch than anything else (My stubborn streak. My sense of humour. My distinct LACK of humour on occasion. My bluntness).
However, while the Dutch usually turn their noses up at the Germans in general (they’re still bitter about World War II and with good reason…) there’s something about German culture that has always felt a bit like home for me. (NOT the nazi bits okay?)
Now I know why too.
Don’t you love digging around in your ancestry? It’s always so deliciously fraught with scandal too. (More on this later).
I can’t help wondering what made Wilhelmina (and her husband August – who you can’t see in this picture the way I’ve cropped it.) Get on the boat all those years ago, and swop the beautiful countryside of Germany, for the barren wastelands of the Kalahari desert. I mean okay, so it’s not like they could just take off on a cruise or select from a bunch of a miami vacations packages. When they got on a ship to go somewhere it took *months*. It cost a *lot*. If you were going, then you were going for good, so you had to be sure about your decision.
Ok, I’m exaggerating, all of Namibia is not barren and lifeless.
Well mostly not.
Well okay, so most of it IS desert, but still, I wonder with what sense of adventure and pioneering spirit they set off for the deepest darkest (driest) Africa all those years ago.
I nearly forgot the reason for this post too – because look here – I set about restoring the photograph!
Here’s my great-great-grandma after I’ve scanned in the disintegrating photo of her and August Schroder, and worked a little Photoshop magic with it…
Yeah this is the point where you slap your foreheads in awe and say WOW! How did she *DO* that!? Where you email me and beg me to restore parts of your ancestry to former glory, and promise me all your worldly goods and first born children to do just that.
Have a look side by side…
Okay. Maybe not.
But still, it’s cool right?
Coming tomorrow: August Schroder My Great-Great-Grandpa, and his very thick, no good, very 19th century, scary beard.
Jawohl.
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Well thank god it’s the first of the month and I have bandwidth again. No more drive-thru email pick ups!
It’s been a crazy few days. Skippy recovered well from his Rota-virus infection, only to come down with bronchitus in the last two days. Thankfully he’s already on the mend, and currently driving me around the twist. I’m not sure what they put in that medication, but holy cr*p it could solve this country’s power shortages with the amount of energy it generates in my 2yr old. Better yet, give it to several 2yr olds, and have them sit and cycle on stationary bikes, or hamster-wheel type things to power the African continent. Voila! The world’s energy problem (and harrassed mothers everywhere) solved!
Speaking of the African continent, and don’t worry, I don’t get political often, I’m just not smart enough for that…but honestly I want to make one thing quite clear. Right…everybody listening…?
Zimbabwe is a country.
It is a whole separate country.
It lies between Botswana (to it’s west), Mozambique to it’s East, Zambia to it’s North, and South Africa to its South. (Goes to check Google Earth, to make sure i’m not embarrassing myself further). Oh yes, and a teensy tiny piece of it touches Namibia too.
Of course you’ve all heard of Namibia, because it’s where Brangelina were holed up to give birth to Shiloh. (Rubs hands in glee at how google search engines are going to spike my stats after typing those words…)
It is not…I repeat IS NOT the same country as South Africa. The reason I want to make this quite clear?? Because everytime their dumb as sh*t president opens his yap, and some other kind of insane drivel comes out of his mouth, OUR currency takes a dive against the US dollar. Of course it could be that anytime that dumbas* SOB opens his mouth, it destablizes the whole region, but I prefer of course to blame everyone else, and say it’s because people are confused, and in all likelihood, geographically challenged.
Anyhoo, if anything about Zim has made the news lately, it’s that that very same president (who is in his 80′s) has his country in an autocratic iron grip, and having rigged an entire electoral process, and laughed in the face of international pressure, visited horrible human rights abuses on his OWN people and basically just been a dooshbag of note. I mean for crying out loud his entire country and economy is on it’s knees the people are starving and he HAS PEACOCKS TETHERED AT THE ENTRANCE TO HIS PRESIDENTIAL PALACE.
Anyway, just to keep it real, I want to explain why I’m peeved about all this. Of course things like human rights abuses get my knickers in a twist.
But I’m also very shallow.
When our currency takes a dive, it directly affects my ability to shop online. Particularly at Amazon… and that makes me a very unhappy little camper.
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