All Phia had to say was baa and add a sss in the end. Baaaaas!

“Tell him to say it the same way he says bus. Can’t he pronounce bus?” he asked.

“Ye..yes I think he can say bus.”

“Then what’s so difficult about saying baas? Ok, go tell him to call me a bus. Say he is a bus,” Baas Pieterson suggested.

Fearing that Phia might lose his job, I urged him to always call our employer “baas” or, as my employer alluded, at least call him a bus.

“Maar his name is Johan Pieterson not baas,” Phia said.

“Yes, that is his real name but that’s how he expects all his employees to address him. Just say bus when you see him. That’s all he wants from you,” I said to him calmly.

“If you can avoid thinking critically about what and how we address Mr. Pieterson, and why we do it, you won’t end up hurting inside,” I said. Those words must have stirred something inside of Phia because he just walked off without saying anything.

The following day Baas Pieterson hosted visitors from Pretoria; three women and a balding man who, judging by his demeanour and clerical clothing, must have been a priest. I watched my employer showing them around the farm, pointing here and there. We were busy milking the cows when our employer showed his visitors the milking process, and by accident, dropped his expensive pen in the muddy kraal. Phia was the only employee nearby.

“Phia!” Baas Pieterson called him.

“Huh!” said Phia as if he was talking to one of us.
Baas Pieterson’s male visitor frowned and exchanged an incredulous look with another female visitor. Baas Pieterson’s face flushed red with humiliation. He looked around and called me to pick up that pen for him. As soon as the visitors had left the farm, Baas Pieterson came out walking briskly, almost gasping for breath.

“Phia!” he screamed.

“Huh!” Phia trotted towards him in his one boot.

My employer yelled: “Wena khuluma bus!” (say bus.)

But Phia asked my employer: “Wena funa bus?” (Are you looking for a bus?)

“Wena khu-lu-ma bus!” Baas Pieterson repeated.

“Wena funa bus?” Phia repeated.

Baas Pieterson raised his hand with an intention of slapping Phia, I quickly came between them.

“Please don’t do this my baas,” I apologised on Phia’s behalf, and reminded Baas Pieterson that Phia was just another inexperienced farm worker from Transvaal. Also, that it was his first time working for a white man.

I turned to Phia, “I told you to say bus, like the bus you use when you travel home.”

“But he is not a bus moes,” Phia said.

“You see! Did you hear that this man has just said baas?” Baas Pieterson was livid.

“He is not a bus; he is not a bus…” Phia kept on saying again and again.

From that day onward, Baas Pieterson observed this weird man from the Transvaal province very closely. He noticed that Phia preferred only vegetables, which was odd for an African. He also learnt that Phia enjoyed his own company, and people will also hear him muttering things to himself. As Mrs Pieterson was a nurse at one of the psychiatric hospitals in Benoni, she advised her husband to send Phia for psychiatric evaluations.

Tell us: Should Phia be sent to a psychiatric hospital? Motivate your answer.