IT’S IN OUR HANDS

The recent municipal elections won’t change the atrocious conditions in some platteland towns. Residents – and newcomers – will have to roll up their sleeves, says Ingrid Jones.

Where is the so-called platteland? Far away in the bushveld? Just past the final suburb as you drive over Sir Lowry’s Pass? Or where Pam Golding hasn’t yet opened an office and Woolies wouldn’t even bother? Where the sun stands still, rusty garden gates hang lopsided and there are more people on the liquor store’s doorstep than bums on pews.

The platteland is in my blood. It’s the place just beyond the mountain. Bonnievale. Where I grew up, went to school and started using my brain. I remember it as being idyllic: swimming in the river, picking peaches, church bells on Sundays, home-made bread and moerkoffie in the afternoons, and a hiding from Oom Jannie that didn’t bother my mother at all. There was no litter on the streets, the drunks sat swearing on their own porches (afraid the dominee might spot them), and absolutely everyone had a job.

It was only when I went to the city to go to university that I started looking differently at “the platteland”. I wanted to shake the small-town dust from my feet immediately because it was suddenly so unrefined and so Afrikaans and there weren’t any theatres or movies or restaurants or bright lights…

But now, years later, I’m properly fed up with the city and its tinsel. I’m back in the platteland for a simpler and safer life, but nowadays it saddens me. The platteland is supposed to be the soul of our country, but on a recent visit to the Karoo, the decline of the towns hit me like a punch in the stomach. People are struggling and 1994 just another year in recent memory – the year when everyone’s life was supposed to change for the better.

In the Beaufort West township we only heard dogs barking as we rode through on a donkey cart to support local tourism. Every single child was actually in school. It made me happy – until we stepped inside the library. Then I wanted to cry over the meagre shelves of books that had seen better days. The librarian was positive and ready to help, but she’s been waiting for many months for the government to fix everything.

Early morning in another town, the shebeen was packed with plastered people. People without hope. But, just like the librarian, there are others who believe things will get better. When Mr Zuma is gone. It’s like waiting for Godot.

Even Bonnievale isn’t the same any more: now there’s a shantytown and severe unemployment and substance abuse. Was it always there? Did I deliberately overlook it or is social breakdown an inevitable byproduct of change and progress?

I live in Pringle Bay now. This is platteland because it is outside the city, but it’s different here. I can count the black families on my one hand (for an honest reflection of the numbers I’ll even have to chop off some fingers). The people who clean our homes and work in our gardens are my people. I pay them more than they earn elsewhere, even though I was warned to stick to what locals pay, otherwise people will expect more and they can’t afford more.

Here, South Africa’s problems are things that happen on TV. We’re inside a cocoon of sustainability and environmentally conscious living. Neighbours look out for one another, and newcomers are immediately identified and watched from behind twitching curtains. We have a Facebook page for everything from spotting baboons to dune protection. Everything is so orderly. When you drive in at the Pringle Bay Hangklip turnoff, you’ll see a large Freedom Front Plus poster.

I love my country – warts and all, challenges and all, highlights and all. Because when you see projects that work, like the tea growers at Genadendal, the new generation of environmental managers in the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve, divers who would rather work on abalone farms than strip abalone, and smallscale sustainable farmers across the Overberg who are trying to launch a new platteland, my heart sings and I do a rain dance on Pringle Bay beach.

Land (and land ownership) is something that’s close to all South Africans’ hearts, and I believe our regeneration will germinate in the platteland soil. Those of us who have swapped the city for the countryside try to give back, educate, change people’s minds. We’re not waiting for someone else to do it, because we’ve learnt hunger is the driving force of growth. The municipal elections will change very little – it’s up to us to live the change.

Ingrid Jones is a director of Mikateko Media and editor of Mango airline’s Juice magazine.