10 years ago

THREE-YEAR-OLD twins and their grandmother were burnt alive in a fire that ravaged the shanty they were sleeping in. The fire broke out at a house on Saturday at about 10pm. Captain Tshepo Mofokeng said the fire department suspected that the fire was caused by a candle and that the three were trapped inside the burning shack after attempts to put out the blaze failed.

TODAY, good reader, we pose an epochal question: where is South Africa’s national drink? Half the world, including us, believes we owe whisky/ey to the Scots and Irish. Character analyses are built on whether we spell it the Scots way or Irish. But do they merit this credit? Japan, Taiwan and many countries were distilling grain before they heard of the British Isles. What we really owe those Celts is congratulations on their chutzpah, and marketing technique.

America’s chutzpah is even greater. They gave a subspecies of whiskey a separate name, bourbon, stolen from France, and actually legislated that no one outside America can make it.

Switzerland has its absinthe, Bermuda its rum, Mexico its tequila. There’s Russia’s vodka. The Scandinavians merge potatoes and caraway into their akvavit.

Shouldn’t an ambitious cocky nation like us be putting our hat in the ring? We’re pretty good at producing alcoholic liquids and extremely good at consuming them. Planet Earth needs a drink that while being applauded from Vladivostok to Valparaiso induces warm thoughts of the good folks at the tip of Africa.

Is there a chance of mageu becoming that thing? Current betting would give you odds equivalent to Ajay Gupta getting Businessman of the Year, but think broad, the world moves, who knows when somebody might formalise mageu, define it, refine it, and we see a vertical graph?

I’m told that the Belgians thought their Stella Artois was a rough ploughman’s beer until they blinked and found that millions of non-Belgians had made it Premium.

Meantime, some would say we have a stand-out candidate in the spirits terrain, mampoer.

My perspective on mampoer has done somersaults. I met it at the Marico, its traditional heartland, on a memorable night. The first half.

Old beautiful farmhouse, bushveld forever, Boere with beards to obscure their khaki shirts have laid steak for two armies on the braai and are revelling in their first flush of applied Simunye. My colleague, Vusi, would once have been an unlikely guest. Now in compensation they treat him like their best friend returned from Mars.

When the steaks are bone, mampoer appears, wrapped in barbed wire, quite a masterstroke. A bottle that can draw blood states a distinctive identity.

In no time, Vusi and I are at one, converts to the cause of mampoer. We denounce the injustice of the world and the liquor industry that failed to alert our cities to this home-grown nectar. We appoint ourselves its agents, as of our return tomorrow.

I recall tomorrow making a slow start, but we had our barbed bottles, alright. And we both discovered a sad truth, like the carriage turning to a pumpkin.

In the Marico, mampoer is the nectar of the gods. But back in the suburbs it tastes like something from Creatures the World Forgot.

The bottle shifted rearward in the cabinet. Until, years later, lunch in my garden, a guest wants to try mampoer.

I pour a glass. I add ice. It sinks. He stares, blinks, knocks it back.

Thirty seconds of silence. Then he rises, tosses his glass over the back of his head and kicks the dog into the fishpond.

The barbed bottle has seen minimal use since, cauterising small wounds. My faith in its potential shrank a bit. Though I now hear there’s a move for more flavour and less alcohol, even unto floating the ice. The world advances. Mampoer Lite was heresy once; moffie, sickly, liberalis-kommunis. Now – Go, mampoer! Conquer the world! (And cut mageu in, willya? Twin act). THE NOUPOORT Wind Farm has supplied funding for a library for Ikhwezi Lokusa Primary School in Kwazamuxolo, Noupoort.

The mayor of Umsobomvu Municipality, Mzwandile Toto, this week cut the ribbon to commemorate the opening of the Ikhwezi Lokusa Primary School Library, funded by the wind farm.

“A school library is a fundamental resource for supporting pupils’ learning, a key support for teaching staff and is central to learning as well as being a place for encouraging innovation, curiosity, and problem solving,” Livhuwani Nwachukwu, economic development manager for Noupoort Wind Farm, said.

What was previously an unused classroom has been renovated and converted into a lively and engaging library that includes all the necessary shelving, cabinets and other furnishings to make it a haven for young pupils.

In addition to the renovation and stocking the library with books, the wind farm also provided a computer centre with new desktop equipment to support pupil education.

“The library and computer lab are having a hugely positive and motivating impact on our pupils, who are now able to explore additional sources of information and research additional material for school projects”, said NG Somi, the principal of Ikhwezi Lokusa Primary School, which has 400 pupils from Grade R to Grade 7.

This is not the first time that Noupoort Wind Farm has assisted local school libraries. In 2015, books worth R30 000 were donated to Eureka Primary School. The books included

Grade R to Grade 7 Afrikaans curriculum books, teacher aids and activity books. This was the first time that the library had received new books since the school was founded almost 50 years ago.

Noupoort Wind Farm “supports education within the local community and is particularly dedicated to improving literacy levels”. The wind farm supports the belief that literacy is not only the ability to read and write, but also a person’s capacity to apply these skills to effectively connect, interpret and discern the intricacies of the world in which they live.

“School libraries make a difference to pupils’ understanding, are an important part of the school community and assist in helping to improve literacy,” Nwachukwu.

– Norma Wildenboer