Casio Survivor

I was conscripted into the South African Defense Force (SADF) in July 1979 and was sent into operational service on the Namibia-Angola border at the beginning of April 1980. On March 11, 1980 I was back home on my final "weekend pass" before heading north when I bought this Casio 83F-80 from "New World Pharmacy" on Pretorius Street, Pretoria.



 According to my diary It cost me a whopping ZAR 45.00 - US$4.50 / £3.00 at today's exchange rate, but a month's salary for me back then. I bought it for a number of reasons:

• It was lightweight plastic. As a reluctant infantryman I already had too much crap to carry!
• It was black and largely matt black. Fewer reflective surfaces to draw attention on patrol.
• It was digital and accurate, and required no winding.
• It had a light - essential when handing over guard duty in the pitch black Namibian night.
• It had an hourly signal to keep track of time & an alarm to help wake up at ungodly hours.
• Apparently it was vaguely water resistant.
• The battery seemed to last forever!

This wristwatch went into combat, and to hell and back with me. It saw four tours of duty (including one "camp" after my national service) and was on "The Border" (operational area) for probably 15 months or so. It survived Ondangwa (Ovamboland) and Operation Sceptic [a.k.a. Operation Smokeshell]), Ruacana, Mpacha, Bagani, Mohembo Hek and the Caprivi Strip It, and even spent some time in the cell at Katima Mulilo...but that's another story! It also survived two major car accidents - I rolled a car on August 28, 1980 and was a passenger in a second rolled car two days later (August 30, 1980). Crazy times...



I had not seen the watch for over 20 years when I found it in a box at my mother's place in 2007. The original strap had perished and crumbled, but I though it worthwhile to shoot pictures of it in that condition. I cleaned the watch, fitted a new battery and she fired up just fine. I couldn't find the right strap anywhere, and so settled for a rubber replacement with round apertures, which served me well until I recently acquired a Casio strap very similar to the original.



This watch is neither expensive nor sophisticated, but it is an important one in my life and a proud representative of its era.

See more photographs in this set on Flickr.

Cheers MAlfaRK ©

Truths Beyond Speaking

Bleeding and feeding on death and destruction,
The machine kicks into gear.
Moaning and groaning not under conscience,
But weight of arms and fear,
That oozes from our every pore,
And permeates our country dear.

Slinking and sliming the blackest of hearts,
Torment our cities and graves.
Unknown and unshow'n invisible assassins,
Devour our psyche's with waves,
Of angst and walls and razor wire,
Turning our homes into caves.

Wailing and flailing like a drowning animal,
Like terror to the slaughter beast.
Seeping and creeping congealed terror,
Served as the freedom feast,
For the AK-wielding whores and pimps,
With tentacles in the east.

Masturbating and debating are one and the same,
Stroking the ego and gun.
Spurting and squirting mass destruction,
Blood and semen for fun,
In the drive-past blood-bath taxis,
That rise with the waning sun.

Suicide and genocide sanitised on SATV,
Screens filter the endless pain.
Of savaged and ravaged mangled corpses on,
Our collective neurotic brain,
That douses our country's enthusiasm,
Like the errant African rain.

Elect and reflect on what has passed,
At last it's come and gone.
Toyi-toyi and "langarm" into the night,
To the liberation song,
That rattles in the place of guns,
And helps us to all belong.


Penned in Pretoria, South Africa between August 23, 1993 and May 4, 1994 - the months leading up to, and through, the country's first democratic election on April 27, 1994. We were all hoping for the best, but there was also a huge undercurrent of uncertainly. It was clearly the end of the Apartheid era, but was the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB - the ultra-right wing Afrikaner Resistance Movement) going to plunge the country into civil war? Would the ANC, PAC and Inkatha rip each other's hearts out? Would the new government ethnically cleanse the country of pink people? Would foreign investment vapourise and the country implode? Would there be food in the stores? There was blood on the streets, and was there going to be a future?

Tension were high, the country was on a knife edge and our daily existence was permeated by hate-speak, violence and savagery. It was a brutal, crime-ridden and stressful time, but we all tried to to keep optimistic...and drank ourselves into oblivion!

This was a late night piece, fuelled by most things alcoholic. It reflects on our lives and times and how we were overwhelmed by murder, death and a rising mound of corpses. However, the last verse is more optimistic and wraps it up by wallowing in the relief of post-election euphoria.

Cheers, MAlfaRK ©