As a Joburg towny with an Afrikaans vocabulary of all of ten words, heading into deep south-western Free State would definitely fit into the category adventure. There I was in my semi-plastic Tata, flying through endless open country, relieved at not being in the city, yet very slightly anxious at the thought of so much open space. We townies don’t get much space, don’t understand it, don’t trust it. It’s a beautiful idea but hey, where’s the Nando’s?
By the end of the journey it was official: I had been Free Stated, which is to say my heart was temporarily reflecting a straight flat line. That’s what happens when every road you drive on for 5 hours is dead straight for over 40 kilometres at a time. Roads tailor-made for the straight-laced, straight-forward types, for those who like to think simply? It’s a push-foot, no-brainer – in fact it’s dangerous to have a brain if you drive along such roads. Having a brain might tempt you to imagine that there’s a curve in the road and then you find might yourself careering into off the verge. The effect is almost hypnotic – hypnotised by the sheer unrelenting tedium. The Romans built straight roads, so their armies could get across territory efficiently. I’m not sure Free State roads (the N1 or N8) were built for any army to move up and down, but they put the Roman roads into the shadows. And all this was just to get to the mysterious Koffiefontein.
Koffies, as the locals call it, is quintessential small South Africa. It exists because there are diamonds in the ground there. It nearly died when De Beers closed down the mine , but a few years ago it was reopened, and with that the dorp has refound its pulse, a weak one at best, but I can definitely say there’s signs of life there. Anywhere with a drankwinkel, a mini-mart, a police station and a PEP store must constitute life. And a funny life at that: I meet a fellow English-speaker called Peter. One of his friends is the local traffic officer. Traffic officer! You’d have to employ an events management company to generate anything close to ‘traffic’ in Koffiefontein.
The colonial-esque yellow and white painted curbs, roads wide enough for ox-wagons to turn in, rusty corregated roofs…it feels a little like a film set, except that the actors haven’t pitched. The extras have pitched but they don’t know what they’ve pitched for. My GP registration turns heads. The lady at the drankwinkel seems charmed by the fact that I can’t speak Afrikaans. This English towny is clearly something of a curiosity.
Local entertainment starts and ends with dopping: dopping on your boat at the lake, or dopping on your stoep or at the one commercial dopping joint. There is a sports club of sorts: there are old men employed to keep the empty flower beds tidy, but the sports club car park is beautiful for its emptiness. The club’s cricket pitch is kept green but something about it says that it’s watered in honour of the good old days more than for any dashing activity going on nowadays.
The difference between being laid back and in a coma is put under the microscope here. On the one hand people seem to have found a peace that townies can only dream of: no one locks their car, no one rushes anywhere – there’s nowhere close to go to – so people tend their gardens after their mineshift has ended. On the other hand, there’s a frustration in the air, in people’s eyes and voices. As if it’s an open prison. People are here for work, not because it’s God’s gift to beauty or excitement. Capital investment is not coming here, franchises are not coming here, cinemas are not coming here. Every second person is in debt to a loan shark. The biggest growth areas are churches (40 plus in a place with a population of approx 14ooo) and creches. Very few non-mining South Africans come here, I’m guessing. Perhaps if you planned to get lost ,Koffiefontein might look like heaven.
But, whatever it doesn’t have, it does have two things: it has more than its fair share of intense dry heat and it has people you could comfotably call real. That is, if who I’ve worked with is anything to go by. The bullshit factor with them is as low as you’ll ever find. And so is my understanding of their Afrikaans. At regular points in the workshop that I run with them, they break into long spiels. I smile and wait for them to finish, hoping I might understand a word or two. One or two look sad for me: poor rooinek, can’t praat. So they do summary translations to keep me in the loop.
What they have to offer is the nuts and bolts of life – nothing fancy or very deep, but solid and authentically, unashamedly them. Many wouldn’t know how to pretend to be something they’re not, even if you paid them. So for two days I feel very grounded, listening to stories of carats and management practices that would make your wig spin. They treat this outsider with an unpretentious warmth. We come from different worlds but for two days the baggage of Koffies and Joburg disappears and we can find a little bit of very solid common ground. In their own ways, they are doing heroic work, not that they know it – it’s just work to them. This chance to be with them, to help them find some clarity for themselves is a privelege.
What I learn from these straight speaking people goes some way to compensating me for my 5 hour flatline of a drive back to Gauteng.
