THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

I’m really fascinated by how different these West Coast people are and what spending time with them does to a persons innerste. These people don’t have degrees as long as your arm but they do know where to find crayfish the length of a mans arm and their stories are just as long and fleshy. The higher up the diamond mining coast we travelled the more interesting the people became. I mean, there we were, parked on the beachfront in Port Nolloth, minding our own business, checking out the diamond boats, when this couple stopped off and before you could say potsnot we had moved to their place to drink lots of beer and listened to the Ewings and the doings of Port Nolloth. Andre has a tow truck business and is your typical a grease monkey, although he seemed more of a placid monkey covered in grease. His wife Ria is, well lets just say she’s a very colourful character. She started a non profit animal shelter and does a wonderful job of rescuing the neighbourhoods abused cats and dogs, all at her own expense. Her method of collecting these animals is on a take no prisoners system as she cruizes the neighbourhood with a long beer, a baton and a vengeful glare. Being a mercenary is more her calling I think. She even sorts out the drug dealers here (apparently Port Nolloth the drug mecca of the West Coast) and isn’t afraid to smash a car windows or a face if anyone gives her problems. She says people here either have too much money (the ones who strike it lucky with diamonds) or too little (the ones who spend all their money on drugs). By the end of the evening I had heard all about the illicit diamond dealings of the towns main kanonie and how lucrative the Nigerians drug business was and about all the poor mange dogs in the townships. And here I thought Port Nolloth was a sleepy little sea side village with plenty of fish. I didn’t question her in case I got head butted but the next day in Spar Supermarket I scrutinized everyone pushing their trolleys around and wondered if they had a hidden cache of diamonds tucked away or if they were high from snorting kilos of coke.

Another out of the ordinary character we came across was Oom Josef at Lekkersing, a village in the harsh middle of nowhere. We headed there because the brochures led us to expect a Nama village with matjies huisies all touristy like and I was hoping to chat to the people there and find out more about edible and medicinal plants. Yip, I’m still hoping to find Kougoed (Sceletium tortousum) while everyone else is hoping to find diamonds. I’ve grown really fond of my Hoodia plant and every day when we stop driving for the day, I lovingly put it outside in the sun and feel guilty about it being cooped up inside. The other day the moerkoffie kettle fell over and drenched the poor plant in coffee grinds and I apologised profusely to it. (in my head of course so Theo didn’t hear and think I’m going cuckoo). When I do eventually try a bite of the appetite suppressant plant a bit of caffeine thrown in can surely only add to its effectiveness. I often give my beautiful stones plakked on the dashboard a good morning smile when I climb into the cab. Maybe I should get a dog but actually I’m finding the concept of positive energy to be quite rewarding.
Anyway back to Lekkersing. The people who lived there were Busters who lived in old houses, some were pretty corrugated houses which looked as old as the original settlers and were probably historical. The town offered nothing in the way of tourism but we stopped to chat to the friendly brown people with blue eyes. Theo was hoping to find someone to teach him how to plait a whip so we stopped to ask a group of guys if they knew of anyone but we were first invited into the shed to look at a caracal hide which a proud boy told us he and his dogs had killed. They pointed out Oom Josef’s house and said he knew how to plait leather. Oom Josef didn’t seem to have a busy afternoon planned and was quite willing to show Theo how it’s done so we spent a couple of hours hunched on home made riempie chairs on his stoep. He was as old as toeka se dae and I would have loved to have spent more time with him but the clouds were rolling in and Theo got worried about the corrugated dirt road ahead so we rattled on and hoped no body parts worked themselves loose and fell off. We had a long dusty road ahead and it surely would lead to somewhere.
innerste – insides – the place where good feelings come from
Potsnot – translated to pot of snot but actually means bullshit
Kanonie – head honcho
Matjies huisies– mat houses which the Nama people live in
Moerkoffie – ground coffee boiled in a kettle
Plakked - stuck
Riempie – leather thong - not the one’s you wear – the ones used to make furniture
Stoep – veranda
toeka se dae – days gone by