JORS

 

He was my Afrikaans teacher when I was in High School. Nobody knew his name ... just his surname.  He was Mr Jordaan but for us mere mortals who sat in his classes he was ... JORS.

Mr Jordaan was about sixty years old when I first came into his class.  He was the senior Afrikaans teacher at the Belfast High School in the Republic of South Africa, where I became a boarder when I was twelve years old.  He was a tall, thin man with huge hands and huge feet.  Some people said that he used to be a soldier during the second world war fighting the Nazis in France.  He certainly was a cold, calculated man who demanded military attention at all times.  Nobody knew anything about Mr. Jordaan.  Nobody knew where he came from, if he had a wife, children ... or even what made him laugh.  Mr. Jordaan was the same person day in and day out.  Grey suit.  Grey hair.  Huge size 12 black boots.  Just the same ... always the grey same!

Mr. Jordaan was the epitome of a classical education.  He loved knowledge and he loved teaching.  His deep understanding of life and of rich life experiences shone through every short story, every novel and every ordinary lesson he presented.  He was a man of few words but when he spoke the class fell silent. We wanted to listen.  We wanted to be in the great man's classes.  

He always sat behind his huge desk with his yard long legs up on the table in front of him with his huge size twelve black boots neatly folded over each other.  Way back there in the closeness of the blackboard his low, barritone voice educated class after class with a kind of wisdom which shaped and sanctified young hearts and minds.  We hardly saw his face, we only heard the voice.

Mr Jordaan was cut from a different wood.  He was of a different calibre of man.  I think his sole purpose in life was to form and to mold young hearts and minds.  Something must have happened to him somehwere along his long life path because being in his class was like being plugged into an electric socket.  Light flowed through and in you and you changed.

One short story was "The Salt of the Earth".  A story about an elderly couple working the land.  A wounded soldier arrives at their back door on a hot summer's afternnoon.  They do not have much but what they have they share with this man.  They care for him, washed him, nursed him and then finally walked back to the nearest villgage with him to put him on a bus to go home.  That ... Mr Jordaan explained to our eager minds and hearts was what a good person was.  A good person gives everything he has and then more!  The salt of the earth  ... and Mr Jordaan was in my young eyes ... just that!  THE SALT OF THE EARTH.