One of the indelible experiences a young, white South African male would exit his youth with is that of Veldskool (Nature school). For those fortunate enough never to have been initiated into Veldskool, I'll dedicate a few words to describing the annual torture:

Once a year, in our high school years, our parents had to pay money to send us to a remote campsite, somewhere near the South Africa border, run by sub-standard army colonels, to allow us to break free from the perils of the suburbs.

The idea was that veldskool would be an annual getaway to prepare us, skinny English-speaking blokes, for the compulsory army duty we'd encounter shortly after leaving school. The experience itself was an incentive not to fail the year and have to endure any more Veldskool you had to! Somehow through being called a bliksem for 5 days (there's no English translation that I know for this except little shit), building our own shelters, running(and crawling) up and down hills (in the mud, often mixed with the puke of unfit kids), eating inedible food called Melk-kos with no sweets for a 50km radius, we'd somehow learn how to live a better life that was the good life and be harder, fitter and tougher before we got to the army.

Phwah! Did me some good … compulsory army durty was abolished the year before I left school.

But I did emerge from my Veldskool tenure with one valuable lesson – always spell my name correctly!

What?

Yes, indeed! Of course I had learned the importance of spelling my name correctly when constructing wishlists for Santa prior to going to school, but my first Veldskool experience was the taker.

You see, any good army institution has a roll-call. But being the sub-standard, mulleted, army drop-outs that headed up the Veldskool (kinda like the guy to the left here, courtesy of MulletsGallore ) we had to dictate our names to the instructors … who had not heard a word of English in their lifetime.

Mullet:"And, who can you like to be?"

Me: "Um sir, my name is Aiden Choles."

(Miffed) Mullet: "What did you call me?"

Me: "Uh, um, um, um, no sire, my name is Aaaaidennn Choooooles!"

(Sniggering) Mullet: "Uhu, raait, Adriaan Schultz … you speak funny! Move ofer ver! Neeext!"

And so, I moved on thinking that Aiden Choles had been accounted for. Nope, not so lucky. That evening we were summoned to the drill grounds so that the mullets could figure out who was playing the practical joke by giving a false name that was not on the roster.

No guesses as to who the culprit was … but do you think Choles had the guts to blurt out was he was thinking (You stupid mullet, YOU spell my name wrong).

And so nowadays, when asked for my name I spell it out for them before they have a chance to pin any blame on me for a practical joke.