Waking up in Williston

I’m sitting on a small koppie overlooking the Northern Cape village of Williston and there seems to be a lot to think about. The full moon is just setting, the sun is about to rise and the sky is a layer cake of lavender and salmon tones.

Text & Photographs by CHRIS MARAIS

Bushman Uprising

It’s always fun watching a Karoo settlement wake up. A young boy emerges from his family house to sweep the stoep. A rooster crows, and all his mates on the block follow suit. Two all-night revelers dance slowly in the street, clink each others’ wine bottles and fall down in the dust, laughing hoarsely.

Winding like a hunting puff adder across this tawny landscape is the dry Sak River. About 220 years ago, a farm overseer killed his last Bushman along this river. He, in turn, was murdered with a Bushman assegai.

On its own, this incident would hardly raise a South African eyebrow. But what happened subsequent to this event is deeply etched in the national history. A commando hunted down and killed many Bushmen in retaliation. And then the Bushmen rose en masse across the Great Karoo, from the Kamiesberg in the west to the Stormberg in the East. For the next three decades, the Bushman Wars raged across the heartland. Who won, and what happened to the Bushman Nation after that, is another story.

But how did the Bushmen know to stand up all at once? They didn’t have e-mails, back then. Not even Morse Code. How did they co-ordinate such a great military move?

The Sak River Snake

And then there’s this thing about the Sak River Snake. I’d heard about this some time ago, in the Williston kitchen of Jan and Elna Marais.

My notes, from that time:

“The Marais family has an African Grey parrot called Spirit. It likes to call out, rather stridently, in Afrikaans:

“Jeanette, clean my cage!”

Said Jeanette Abrahams arrived, cast a jaundiced eye in the general direction of the bossy bird, and told me about the Sak River Water Snake.

“I saw this snake one day in a nearby kloof when I was a little girl,” the 62-year-old housekeeper said, studiously ignoring Spirit’s loud requests. “It was seeking a mate. The water snake can travel, taking the form of a dust devil, moving from the Sak River anywhere it chooses - and at night it walks with light. Sometimes it sits close to humans, and is harmless unless anyone tries to hurt it.”

On this day the snake had pitch black hair, beautiful lips and perfect little breasts.

“Any time you swim in this kloof, you run the risk of being pulled in by the water snake. The only way to avoid this is to throw your own sweat upon the water, if you feel you are being lured in. If it’s hurt or chased, then it will rain terribly hard, it will flood.”

Either way, I wasn’t planning to swim in the Sak River anytime soon, and said so.

“Just as well,” said Jan Marais from across the kitchen table. “The river’s dry. We’re in a drought…”

Watching Rugby @ Die Ark

This particular morning, I leave the koppie and head back to the Die Ark at the Williston Mall, where I am lodged in a room with the evocative name of Slopie se Kooi. There’s a rugby game on between our boys and the Wallabies, and I join my hosts, Pieter and Elmarie Naude, and a bunch of locals for two hours.

“Elmarie can’t watch,” says Pieter. “She’s just bad luck.” So the feisty Mrs Naude takes up her post at the window outside, giving us the benefit of her vast rugby knowledge. We lose the match anyway.

The Noise Brigade

The following morning I am lying in bed, listening to the faraway sounds of clashing cymbals. And a whole bunch of something going Toot! Toot! OK then. Glad I didn’t have that extra bottle of red last night.

But the late night drinkers of the Amandelboom neighbourhood up the road are not so lucky. The Crash!Boom!Siss! of the Amandelboom Youth Brigade Band is in full cry this Sunday morning as it makes its merry way up the hill towards the Verenigde Gereformeerde Kerk van SA church building.

I throw on some clothes, grab cameras and rush off to find this marvellous band. As I begin to photograph the uniformed marchers and players, I see many a droopy head in many a window along the way. Ai, my kingdom for a drop of silence!

The kids and dogs of Amandelboom are, of course, full-cry fans of the Brigade Band. They run excitedly alongside the procession.

The leader, a stout man called Major Cyril Swart, says the Band marches on the first Sunday of every month.

“And each time we march, two or three join our flock.”

Uiltjie & Pootjie & Sarah

But not so spoilt the next morning are two local donkeys called Pootjie and Sarah. That’s because their cart-driver, Marietha “Uiltjie” (Little Owl) Botha is keeping a gloved hand of steel on their reins while I am trying to line their two sets of Cadillac ears up with the bonnet on her head, in order to make a photograph of sorts.

Uiltjie looks like a New Age Voortrekker as the bonnet ensemble is completed by a set of dark glasses. That’s why they call her Little Owl.

“People are always stopping me on the road for photographs,” she says. “Which I find strange. After all, I’m just transporting my milk, cheese and vegetables from the farm to Williston. And donkeys are cheap to maintain – there’s enough grass around here.”

Tart of the Day

I slide back to the Williston Mall for breakfast, and notice something interesting on the menu: Tart of the Day.

“That’s me,” grins the effervescent Elmarie Naude…

** The Williston Winter Festival takes place in July. Enquiries: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ; This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ; Tel: 072 08 7288 or 053 391 3659.