Journal 05.01.2026.
Sawa Camp, Nuweibaa, Sinai Peninsula,
Egypt
Is this not the total hammer!
My daddy in Rhodesia once bought a hammer.
He bought it from Mr Jones’s hardware shop at Mount Pleasant Shopping Centre.
It was called a claw hammer. I do not know why it was called that
because it had no claws on it. I knew what claws were at the age of six when
the cat tried to claw my eyes out.
This was a fancy claw hammer. Not like the
wooden one Daddy had broke driving a six-inch nail into my head to try and
knock some sense into me. I was 7 at the time and was told many times that I
had a thick head. After a week he thought that maybe he should pull it out but he
would need a claw hammer.
This cost a lot of money trying to make me
think and at 13 dollars, I better be worth it. It had a shiny round chrome
handle with a black rubber grip. The head was round and at the back was a bit
of curved metal with a V cut into it.
Daddy tied my head to the washing line
post and placing the V onto the nail head till it fitted tightly, my Daddy
heaved with all his might. A strange thing happened. Always strange things
happen to me because the shaft where it met the head bent right over! How about
that! The round hitting part was now almost jammed tight against the shaft and
it took some real tugging to get it off and the nail hadn’t moved at all! How
about that hey!
Daddy dragged me to the shop and demanded
money back or a new hammer. Mr Jones looked oddly at me and turning to my daddy
said
‘I am not at all surprised. You should have
loosened it a bit with a crow bar first.’
‘Daddy,’ I said wisely, ‘Did you know that
crows have claws also. Can they pull the nail out as it has given me a headache
and I don’t feel very clever at all.’
The new hammer worked and today is hammer
day because I used one. (Not on Angie. She was nice to me today. Tomorrow we
are going into the desert for lunch…) I approached the owner Salama and
explained I wanted to rip up the carpet on the veranda floor and nail it to the
side where the wind blows in. (The other was temp. I intend to make it better.)
and he told me I need wood and hammer and nails and he send some of the people
who work for him eventually when he can awake them from a 24/7 hour stupor from
doing fuck all - all day.
‘Salama, please, I am the famous Gokwe Kid
and an expert in scavenging amongst building rubble like you have stashed at
the back, and bless the little sleeping fuckers, but I am a real hard ass
Rhodie and have driven many a nail in, with or without Viagra, and quite
capable doing it myself. Thank you kindly, dear sir.’
‘But you will need a hammer and nails and
wood.’
‘Never fear, TGK is here my dear old
china, look…’ And there in my sack was a small pile of 3-inch, light rusty
brown, used nails and…YES – a hammer! And what a hammer it was indeed.
He was duly astounded and offered me the position
of co-owner for a small investment. Nah, not - really.
The hammer and nails worked a dream and
all very professionally done.
The hammer my daddy got was made in…China.
The one I used has seen much in its life. Jewish
slaves chipping at stones for pyramids, bloodied from caving in Phoenicians’
heads, stolen by Moses to land up here where I am at the moment (I kid you not.
Go look it up. Read carefully how he managed to part the sea for 25km and an
amazing over a kilometre deep water - with this very hammer,) for me to find.
It is surely a sign…
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