Cape Town - There are no hashtags in Riebeek Kasteel.
Okay, there might be some lurking under barrels of red wine that have #blackberrynotes, or on the bags of fertiliser that get wistfully applied to the parched fields (#pleaserain).
Since arriving here a few days ago, the only hashes I’ve seen are the lonesome meals I’ve created (#lentilsoncrackers), and the only tags that have come my way dangle off the collars of the resident dogs, who are fond of following me into the bathroom to watch me pee (#weird).
Being away from the “Big Smoke” doesn’t mean I’ve been excommunicated to a cave populated by bats and an old hippie called Jan who makes his own clothes from guano.
On the contrary, the house I am looking after for two months is a stately affair once occupied by Jan Smuts.
It’s so big that by the time I’ve walked the length of the passage, I have to lie down in one of the spare rooms to catch my breath. At night, I’m certain I hear the banging of Smuts’s ghost in the kitchen as he forages for a nationalist agenda he can put on toast (#crustyoldfool).
Also, Riebeek Kasteel is only an hour from Cape Town, so it’s hardly in the wilderness.
In fact, I have access to technology here that I don’t have in my own home: streaming radio, an espresso machine, a dishwasher and an internet connection so fast it must be plumbed in to Usain Bolt’s short-twitch muscles.
If I wanted to, I could hold Skype conference calls with excitable businessmen in Chicago, or start an online jazz band with a bunch of bassoon players in Bangkok.
But here’s the thing: life in the country does indeed run at a different pace. And with that comes an inevitable submission to its rhythms, involving a lot of napping, a lot of staring at trees, a lot of marvelling at pomegranates and a lot of wondering about hashtags and Facebook’s new emoticons and how we’ve started communicating in a form of Morse code.
At the weekend, I wandered down to the local market, where a woman thanked me so profusely for buying her hummus that I became suspicious.
Across the road, I trawled the aisles of the Agrimark, looking at overalls, wound powder, hoendermis and a collection of rubber teats called “varkbyt nippels”. No fewer than four shop assistants asked if they could help me.
When I told them I was just browsing, they didn’t look suspicious. I went to the local Pick n Pay braless and barefoot and bought syrupy confectionery masquerading as hot-cross buns (#bestever).
I’m aware of the fact that I am viewing this pastoral environment through pomegranate-tinted glasses.
The effects of the drought are audible: everything has a dry rustle. The mountain behind the village bakes in the sun, the tin roofs of tiny houses flash SOS signals and some businesses in town have even closed up shop.
By next month, I’ll probably be tired of looking at trees and I’ll be desperate for a dip in the sea.
But being away – even if it’s just a quick hop up the N7, barely long enough to finish a Yogi Sip – is a reminder of how life can be shifted (#deepstuff).
It’s possible to exist without the pressures of hashtags and Likes and hairdryers and lingerie.
It’s perfectly feasible to be in bed by 8pm and be woken not by an alarm but by dawn’s milky light and the smell of cow manure (#abitstinky).
It’s liberating to realise that if the scraggy gum trees on the mountain trail fall in the wind, Twitter might not hear them, but I will.
Before coming here, I lamented on Facebook (#irony) about the disappearance of email letters.
Besides exposing how very old I am, I was overwhelmed by the responses.
“I write KILLER letters,” wrote one friend. Scores of others also mourned the death of the letter and the rise of the blue thumb (and now the heart, the sad face, the happy face, the impressed face and the face that is either sunburnt or constipated).
A few of us agreed that while I’m away, we will write each other long emails in which we may/may not describe our lives and our feelings and our thoughts about varkbyt nippels.
In between, I will work and walk the dogs and visit the Agrimark and pretend to be interested in deworming sheep while actually seeking conversation.
At night, when the wind froths in the trees and the house moans, I will pray that #SmutsMustFall.
I will learn new ways with lentils and, possibly, crochet a nice smock from guano – and resist posting a selfie on Instagram with a needy caption (#batwingfashion).
Cape Argus
* Helen Walne is an award-winning columnist and writer based in Cape Town.