CITY OF PRETTY Namibia in Hamburg
I am in Hamburg for the next leg of my trip. The occasion? My great-Aunt’s 90th birthday. Among 70 guests consisting of her closest friends and family, we’ve spent three days of excessive champagne-drinking, eating and speech-making to mark this humongous milestone for our family’s ultimate Grande Dame. At 90, my Mumi’s sense of humour is as sharp as a razor and she’s as unobtainable to her many admirers as that Middleton sister is.
Mumi sets the pace for an echelon of strong women following in her footsteps – daughters, nieces, granddaughters and great-granddaughters.
My grandfather would turn in his grave. He was so adverse to emancipated women that he just about excluded my cousin from his will when she decided to study a Masters in women’s studies after her degree rather than get married when she was due.
It seems my father had to bear the karmic brunt of his father’s narrowed mind. Fortune and patience have been endlessly tested since my mother bore him four exceptionally headstrong daughters. By the time I came along the novelty factor had worn off, probably with the added realisation that four daughters would drive him into financial ruin. On the up side, he had ensured that five women would simultaneously be lobbying for his affections for as long as he lives. My grandfather clearly didn’t have much vision.
As a saving grace to bankruptcy, daddy’s girls were attractive prospects and he managed to marry off all but one, me. In marriage, my three older sisters had daughters as their first-born. The fourth granddaughter was born last week Friday, totaling nine hens in daddy’s fruitful basket, and with two grandsons to contend his ultimate Alpha Male status. Well, maybe some day.
Pap is the first to admit that the all female presence in his life has made him a more sensible man. Wisely, he realised long ago that fighting against the will of a woman (or five) is like trying to teach the Chinese to roll their R’s. Though his vocational training paid off with my sisters, he has come to accept that I’ve grown against the grain.
I will not be following in my sibling’s footsteps in any foreseeable future. I am still enjoying the privilege of being the youngest too much – finally I have him all to myself! Far away from any grandchild, and after some tough months in London I am taking advantage of only child status. As independently as I live my life, every girl needs her daddy and I need to take my tough girl hat off for a while. In fact I write this column from the backseat of a car my dad is driving whilst mom bickers about his abrupt driving. For the next ten days I am the little girl in the backseat, asking for coins for a Coke at the Shell, and shamelessly being a daddy’s girl.