Junkyard Blues

He’s the Master Baker of the Karoo AKA The Junkyard Man. Above all, Dirk van Rensburg of Calvinia has the precious gift of story-telling…

Papsak in the Kitchen

The minute I meet Dirk van Rensburg and his delightfully hippie-chic wife Sonja, I know there’s going to be a party. And so it comes to pass, as we dwell around another papsak at their kitchen table, after having walked through (and I know these are fighting words) the funkiest backyard in the Karoo. In between Bakes Bakery and the Van Rensburg home is a collection of almost-priceless enamel signs garnered from farms, far-flung chicken runs and dusty township homes. Dirk collects everything in this world: old cards, photographs, road signs, ancient farm implements, all arranged into a colourful display of throwaway art.

Packrat Dirk

“I grew up in the Kalahari,” he says, sipping on his nine millionth beer, eyes and speech clear as anything. However, my treads are beginning to thlip.

“I lived with my father in the Sand Kalahari on a piece of land that initially had no water. My brother and sister were packed off to boarding school and it was just Dad and I. We built a one-room shack with a sand floor, grass walls and a corrugated iron roof, and called it the Duinebos Hotel. On clear nights we would drag the single bed out, lie on it and look up at the stars.

“They were constantly drilling for water, so Dad could start farming. We bathed in the water that had been used all day to sharpen and temper the drill blades. Once the borehole people had left for the day, we’d jump in and wash. All we ate was springbok biltong and cream from our cow. (Yum, I think blearily, because I haven’t had supper yet).

“We lived wild.”

Love of Baking

Dirk’s love for baking was born when a woman called Ou Liesie came to work for them and prepared roosterkoek, a typical Kalahari-Karoo special.

“Listen, a loaf is not just a loaf. It’s more than that. And pies? Oom Daan’s Pies are the best. Heartburn? What heartburn? As we say over here in the Hantam, if you get heartburn from one of Oom Daan’s pies, I’ll refund you your money.”

Into the Tankwa

The evening grows late, but we will not be budged. That’s all right by the amazingly sober Dirk van Rensburg – he can tell you stories until the sun comes up.

“Where are you going from here?” they want to know. We tell them about the Afrika Burn Festival down in the Tankwa, a kind of New Age creative get-together. Laptop hippies with matches and incredible design skills. Possibly the finest desert festival in sub-Saharan Africa.

“We’ll see you there,” says Dirk, finishing his last beer and shooing us out…

Township Junk Junkies

The next morning, I’m having focus issues while Dirk van Rensburg is disgustingly perky. We’re in the township called Calvinia West, visiting some of the locals who’ve caught the “junk bug” from Dirk.

Here on Skema Street, Tony Koopman’s yard says it all: farm implements, old stoves, enamel potties, broken guitars, an aloe in a kettle, little headless figures and a paraffin burner. He and a mate are somehow trying to turn two rakes into one rake, it seems, when we pitch up.

“I like coming out here into the garden in the morning, doing a thing here and moving a thing there…” 

Neels Tieties

Down in Dikgetse Street, Neels Tieties has lined his fenceline with clear plastic bottles that once contained cheap white wine they call “rooiproppie” (red top) in the Upper Karoo. Dirk starts talking about when people go “kloontjies”.

“That’s when you get so drunk on cheap wine that you have long conversations with invisible people.” Kind of what I’m doing right here, for a living, I guess. Just without the “rooiproppie”.

Five Maxis in a Mini

Not far from Neels Tieties lives Oom Stoffel Koopman, and he’s got a Mini Austen panel van (1963 vintage) resting in his back yard. But don’t be fooled, he warns me.

“Last year I took five very large people down to Ceres in that Mini,” he says. “The policeman who stopped me said I was mad, I’d never make it. Three hours later we were back from Ceres – how’s that?”

Afrika Burners

We leave town, and four days later Dirk and Sonja appear before us at Afrika Burn, like cheerful mirages. I see he’s holding a beer bottle. I also see it’s the alcohol-free kind. And then I realise why his party animal never gets hangovers... - Text & Photographs by Chris Marais, Karoo Space