OnTap Magazine

and girls of all ages. I used to travel with them and their fan club near and far to watch the team and mind their food stall while they cheered. I soon learned that the fan club was a sort of drinking club. Acting like a man on the farm started with drinking out of turn GATHERING UNDER THE GUM TREE The most legendary post-game party was held at an overgrown Gum tree that stood alone on a mountain, casting a shadow over the grazing lands where my uncle and I often went to fetch pasturing cows. There was a huge home game that weekend, and as soon as the last whistle blew, my aunts packed up the food stall and led the march up the mountain to the Gum tree–with me in tow. We arrived at the tree to find crates of lager, and cider piled up high against the tree trunk, and a slaughtered sheep strung up by its hind legs from a low branch. A huge fire roared next to a bed of coral-coloured coals, and a truck battery powered a cassette player set on some bricks bleating out the latest Branda Fassie hit: Sangoma hlabel’amadlozi . Ironic. Playing a song about calling on the ancestors when this soirée was a far cry from the customary ceremonies. Married men were sitting with young women who weren’t their wives. Young men were seated among the young maidens. Everybody was drinking and eating from the same place. The guys passed around brown quart bottles which they shared, but even in this modern and relaxed setting, no one would pass a beer to one of the ladies. Even in this modern and relaxed setting, no one would pass a beer to one of the ladies My aunts and their friends held onto their cans and clear glass bottles of ciders. I started taking sips of their drinks and became acquainted with the burny ginger taste of Solantis Spice and the fizz of Brutal Fruit and Hunter’s Dry Ciders from an early age. Some of those drinks are still popular amongst my peers and younger ladies, but at the time, my older aunt got sick of the sweet drinks and started thirsting for beer. When I got older, I used to take a stroll with that same aunt to a secluded spot where she would gobble down a Black Label lager, light a cigarette and rejoin the party high on a stash of private satisfaction. In fact, the private party at any gathering I’ve attended on the farm or in the South African townships where I have lived, is the party of liberal girls sharing beers and smokes in a back room or garden, away from the crowd. Even the fiercest modern female could be intimidated by the eyebrows that shoot up when a lady opens a commercial beer for herself. More so if it’s not a dainty green bottle carrying an imported pilsner or pale lager. LARGER THAN FARM LIFE The first time I saw a young black woman drinking a brown-bottled beer publicly was at one of the fan club’s parties. She was a very pretty university student who came to the farm with her boyfriend, the star striker from the city. She wore white linen pants and had long braids down to her waist. She sat crossed legged next to her boyfriend and kept her sunglasses on the whole time as she talked to the group of guys huddled around her. Her glossy red lips moved and laughed smoothly–the only sign she was actually part of the conversation. She seemed otherworldly and utterly glamorous. She took a chilled brown bottle of beer from the star striker’s hand and drank. She was larger than farm life and couldn’t be shrunk under the disapproving gazes. She might have been too cool to be schooled on drinking etiquette but the rules still applied to the rest of us who were raised in the carefully laid seating plans of ceremony. For all we knew, she played by the same rules where she came from. I learned to moderate my social habits while at home on the farm, but I do as I please when I’m in the city where society has accepted that a woman’s identity is more than her choice of beverage. My younger cousins are adamant in their defiance of the carefully laid seating, drinking and eating plans set by our community. I envy them as they huddle in a group, as near as possible to the Kraal, to catch the attention of our male cousin and make sure he sets aside some lagers for them. My uncle almost always makes a point of walking past them to laugh and exclaim ‘ nabo ke onongayindoda :’ a bad joke using a derogatory phrase intended to masculate women. It is a remnant of our community's mindset and the reason I will never drink a commercial beer on the farm, whether a green or brown bottle; the scorn bruises the same. I love that the youngsters don’t seem to care, and that they use their numbers to defeat the status quo . This piece will be continued in our next issue as Mandisa further explores the impact of beer advertising and packaging and how it has changed since her childhood, as well as how it has influenced brown-bottled beer drinking among Gen Z and young millennials . COOL LIGHT BEER extra BEER PREMIUM LIGHT BEER LIGHT 20 | Winter 2023 | ontapmag.co.za