The other move
Alan Duggan searched for people who couldn’t handle platteland life – but failed
Countless South Africans trade the grime, crime, traffic and other urban nasties for a platteland idyll where contentment rules and everyone knows your name (and your every move). But what about the other way round? Alan Duggan went looking for people who tried small-town life and couldn’t handle it. His quest was a miserable failure.
Igrew up in a small Northern Cape town – okay, technically a small city – and it was wonderful. I knew all the local heroes and villains, played cricket in the streets until it was too dark to see anything, rode my bicycle everywhere and stole fruit from neighbours’ gardens.
One of the local villains went by the nickname Papbek. He and his gang would ambush me at the bottom of our road whenever I cycled to the local shop. His gummy scowl always signalled a fight – or at least an exchange of bloodcurdling threats. That stopped when I spread the word that my muscular Afrikaner friend named Julius would sort out Papbek and his hangers-on if they didn’t back off.
“Papbek” might sound strange, but in keeping with ancient small-town traditions, we didn’t call one another by our given names. So my friend Julius became Caesar (obviously). I also knew people named Dagga, Slug, Duckie, Whitey and Toad.
In my mid-teens, I’d steal my mother’s car while my parents read the Sunday papers, joining my friends for an exhilarating half-hour of smoking rubber and two-wheeled cornering that drove the neighbours mad. I also rode my motorcycle to the local girls’ hostel, where it was rumoured all manner of interesting undergarments would be thrown from the windows in recognition of my courage. It didn’t happen. Not once.
Of course all these references to illegal activity make me sound like a career criminal. In fact, I was doing what came naturally to kids in small towns: ignoring the teachings of my parents and yielding to the urges of my teenage brain.
Later, when I discovered the joys of fermented beverages, I’d get drunk with assorted hell-raisers and even diamond smugglers, most of whom were nice and liked to think of themselves as latter-day Robin Hoods, except that they stole from the rich (De Beers) and kept the cash for themselves.
In other words, life was perfect. Then, as so often happens, a bigger city and better opportunities beckoned, as did a girlfriend who was relocating to Cape Town.
I could never go back to live in Kimberley, but my memories remain vivid and precious. Does that mean
I will never again experience bucolic bliss? Not by a long shot. >
Not for everyone
If any place could be regarded as a microcosm of the platteland lifestyle, it’s the Eastern Cape town of Cradock. In their warmly received book Moving
to the Platteland, Julienne du Toit and Chris Marais describe how they exchanged the leafy northern suburbs of Johannesburg for a very different life in the remote Karoo village. As they put it: “Friends and family thought we had lost our minds.”
In the nearly 13 years since their move, the couple have managed to remain both sane and happy. But, they warn, “Dorp life is not for everyone. It’s a mind shift as much as a geographical one.”
Julienne believes people who move from a city to a small town are either pushed or pulled. “Those who are pushed away from the city – perhaps because they’ve been victims of crime, or because of a divorce, retrenchment or some other traumatic event – are most likely to return to the city, because it wasn’t life in the countryside that had drawn them there. Instead, they were trying to escape something. The most successful ‘semigrants’ are those who are attracted to country living in general and a specific dorp in particular. Some may end up moving to another small town if it’s not the right fit, but even they rarely return to a city.”
Creating an income opportunity can be challenging, although much depends on one’s area of expertise. “As I note in our book, the internet and broadband have opened up the countryside,” says Julienne. “As long as you have relatively reliable connectivity, you can be earning dollars or euros in the bundu. You just have to do a lot of research before you move.
“Also, find out whether there are possible problems such as regular electricity outages. Many dorps have creaking, unmaintained infrastructure, which may mean you need solar backup. I think the drop in the price of renewables has contributed to increased interest in the platteland. People can go off-grid more easily now than before.”
Platteland locals have the reputation of disliking change and dismissing the concerns of newcomers, she says, but that’s not true of everyone. “Many longtime locals appreciate the energy and entrepreneurial assets outsiders often create. However, you have to be aware of vested interests.
“Chris and I were really indignant when they wanted to set up a sugar beet ethanol plant just outside town 11 years ago, with serious potential for pollution, bad smells, a lot of heavy trucks and so on. I wrote critical articles for the local newspaper, but the guys who have tyrerepair places and sell diesel and truck parts were very supportive of it. The town was split a little over that.
“Then along came the threat of fracking and everyone pulled together against it – except for one farmer and a few opportunistic politicians.
In a way, that was a far easier fight, because the project was in the interests of almost no one in the Karoo. Planned developments, ethanol and fracking have been warded off – so far.”
Who shot the sheep?
Diane Cassere is a writer and subeditor with a conversational style so entertainingly candid that her unwary dinner guests have been known to choke on their wine. She’s married to Tony Jackman, a journalist, playwright, cookbook author, former restaurateur and current chief sub-editor of the online news platform Daily Maverick.
Having lived in cities here and in the UK, with first-hand experience of Karoo dorpies that alternately delight and infuriate, Diane and Tony are eminently qualified to spell out the pros and cons of each. They began to investigate Sutherland in the 1990s and eventually bought two properties in the town, for R36 000 and R25 000, respectively.
After a four-year spell in the UK, they were lured back by the idea of running a restaurant in the Karoo. “In the interim, property prices in Sutherland had rocketed, so we sold the small cottage at a vast profit and poured everything into Perlman House, named for the family that had settled there,” Diane says. “The restaurant worked, Sutherland did not. We survived on the visitors who poured in to visit the observatory – most notably, the Southern African Large Telescope, SALT – and the snow in winter.”
Diane recalls her time in Sutherland as a heady mix of frustration and weirdness. One day, a would-be diner called the restaurant and wanted to know whether they shot their own sheep (authentic Karoo lamb chops were among their popular menu items). Told that the lamb chops came from a more conventional source – more specifically, the local butchery – the customer growled that he and his daughters would never eat an animal killed in an abattoir.
Then there was the time a diner appeared to lose consciousness in the restaurant while tucking into a lamb curry. “His wife said he had suffered a heart attack and calmly carried on eating. We called the ambulance, but not before removing all traces of the curry. The next day, the man walked into the restaurant, hale and hearty. He had in fact been dead-drunk. It was a mad place; you never knew what would happen.”
And the move to Cradock?
“We had friends there, the fabulous Antrobus family, who own Victoria Manor and Die Tuishuise. The son, Philip, runs the family’s pecan farm, >
“I think the drop in the price of renewables has contributed to increased interest in the platteland. People can go off-grid more easily now than before.”
and matriarch Sandra has built an empire in the hotel and Victorian cottages. Daughters Lisa and Cherie as well as Lisa’s husband, David Ker, all work in the family business.
“The Schreiner Tea Room, part of the hotel complex, was up for grabs, so we sold our flat in Cape Town and headed off into the yonder once more. We bought a house – one we still love to distraction – and prepared to do business. Bummer… Cradock wanted a tea room, we wanted a bistro. We lost.”
After a one-year detour to Grahamstown and a segue to new and interesting jobs (both now work remotely for Daily Maverick), the couple returned to Cradock three years ago. They have no intention of living anywhere else.
An anarchist’s approach
Diane has strong opinions about the municipalities of some small towns where inertia rules and an impressive job title and an official car appear to be all that matters. As a result, she says, even the most basic municipal services falter or even grind to a halt, forcing locals to do just about everything themselves. “You have to be an anarchist to get anything done,” she says.
“We have frequent power outages due to nonpayment, and every once in a while there is no water in the taps, so you need to install a tank or some other form of water storage. We put in a small pool that doubles as water storage, and we run our TV, one light in the lounge, both laptops and WiFi router off an inverter, using a very big battery that charges off the mains and runs for up to 11 hours when the lights go out.
“This, together with solar heating, is the standard way of doing things in the Karoo. We have gas for our stove and geyser, and a large fireplace to warm us in winter.”
Pursuing the dream
Former magazine editor Toni Younghusband and her husband, Kevin Jacobs, a retired journalist and foreign correspondent, moved from Cape Town to the village of Prince Albert, known among locals as “PA”, where they spent six of the happiest years of their life. Then they moved again…
What prompted their initial relocation to a village in the remote Karoo after decades in the city? “We longed to escape congested city life and experience a slower, more natural way of living,” Toni says. “We wanted to grow our own vegetables and fruit, buy our milk and meat direct from source and not clingwrapped, and experience what the city never really gave us – a sense of community.
“Prince Albert delivered all of that and more. Within six months, we had more friends in PA then we’d had in 20 years in Cape Town. We ate fruit straight off our own trees, picked and bottled our own
olives, and became involved in myriad community projects, including animal welfare. They were six wonderful years.” Why the move to Greyton?
“I work for a company based in Somerset West, and while I was able to work remotely for six years, the pressure to be present at meetings and other commitments became more intense as the job grew, and the distance from the office became more and more difficult. I grew to hate that long drive,” Toni says. “Ironically, with the arrival of Covid-19, I’m back to working remotely!
“Then there was the issue of medical facilities. Most small towns have a small government hospital or clinic and, with luck, a general practitioner. We had an excellent GP in town but faced a three-hour drive to George for hospital care. I developed a medical condition that required ongoing treatment, which made me realise how important it is to be closer to hospitals.
“Also, Prince Albert’s summers finally got the better of me. I love nature and growing things, and I hated to see what the increasingly harsh summer temperatures did to the veld. Kudu and tortoises were dying in the drought; the dams were dry; I couldn’t water my own garden; my veggies wilted.
“Greyton’s wetter climate suits my soul a lot better. I hike in the mountains several times a week and, every time
I do, I marvel at the beauty of my surroundings. I miss the Karoo’s big skies and the gorgeous early-evening light, but I don’t miss its searing heat one bit.” >
“We longed to escape congested city life and experience a slower, more natural way of living.”
Sometimes the city wins
Project manager Asta Geldenhuys and her fiancé, André Ackerman, a motion designer, spent two years in the small town of Somerset East, about 133 km north of Port Elizabeth. Their platteland experience was a mixed bag of surprises and frustrations, but is clearly remembered with affection.
Asta describes how it came about: “André worked for a Johannesburg agency that went bankrupt; the staff were informed and dismissed on the same day, with no severance pay. He started a month-long job hunt, applied for several jobs, and said yes to the first company that made him a decent offer.
“During his first couple of unhappy weeks at the new job, he heard about another rather intriguing opportunity: an ‘explainer’ video company was starting a Karoo tech hub in Somerset East, of all places, saying they loved his portfolio and wanted to hire him. They sold it beautifully, punting ‘smalltown living with a big city salary and international career opportunities’. We had recently moved to a new, noisy development near Sandton in an attempt to shorten our daily commute and were hating city life, so peaceful small-town living seemed like the perfect solution.
“The plan was that I’d continue working remotely for a digital agency, but that fell through a couple of weeks before our move, so off we went to the Great Karoo in a leap of faith with two cats and all our belongings… and one job between us. We intended to stay for three to four years, or forever if we ended up loving it, which I secretly hoped we would. However, we ended up moving to Cape Town two years later for various reasons.”
Among these was – perhaps counterintuitively – a crime issue. “We experienced crime for the very first time in the dorpie. There were two attempted break-ins at our home as well as a murder a stone’s throw away,” Asta says. Two other factors that influenced their decision to move on: the promised “international career opportunities” never materialised, and a Cape Town agency made André a compelling job offer.
Yet their platteland sojourn was by no means unhappy, says Asta. They enjoyed the town’s community spirit and cultural quirkiness, not to mention the glorious absence of noise and traffic. “The only Karoo traffic jam I ever experienced was when I got stuck behind a few grazing cows on my way out of town.”