Bloemfontein

Once you get settled in life, it’s a good idea to write to your childhood hero again. Just so he knows you’re okay, says Willem van der Berg.

Dear Jonty… Almost all the letters I wrote as a schoolchild started that way. I was crazy about cricket and especially about Jonty Rhodes. People even called me Jonty. In my mind there was no doubt: One day I would play for the Proteas, probably as a bowler. Bowling and fielding were my favourite disciplines. I wasn’t the best batsman, even though I had a Gunn & Moore bat just like Jonty’s. Jonty received letters from Reddersburg, George, Theunissen and Olifantshoek – all the towns I lived in as a child. My last letter to him was probably written in Olifantshoek. But in a small school in the Kalahari, cricketing dreams easily turn to dust. No one called me Jonty any more. Proteas don’t grow in the desert. This made me sad, but luckily, at the age of 16, it was easy to come up with a new dream career. Miss Clara Aucamp instilled in me a passion for languages and writing and I started to believe that I would become a writer. I didn’t, at least not immediately. First I went farming, fixed windmills, hunted jackals and used an ultrasound device to check if ewes were pregnant. After that, at the age of 23, I went to Bloemfontein to study. By then I knew I wanted to be a journalist.

The Kovsie campus is no stranger to bakkies, so my 2.5-litre Isuzu with its skaaptralies didn’t look out of place. You would often see a bakkie with a few patient sheep on the back parked in front of the agricultural department building while its owner was inside writing a test. The rest of Bloem was no different. I quickly grew to like this small city with its platteland atmosphere. One minute I could be at the Senwes Co-op, with its familiar farming smells, the next I could pull into Mimosa Mall to watch a movie or eat at a restaurant. Journalism led to an interest in photography and I bought my first camera after selling some sheep. I started working at the campus newspaper. Then I nailed it. One night, my friend Pieter Steyn, who was at the Bloem daily Volksblad, took me to the printers so I could watch my first front-page story rolling off the press. That smell of fresh ink and hot paper was irresistible. I was glad my other career plans had never worked out. Journalism was for me. After a while I sold my bakkie and bought a black Yamaha XT 660. Finding parking outside a packed lecture hall was a breeze. But the bike also gave me the freedom to explore the gravel roads of the Karoo whenever I felt like it, and my next career dream took shape: I wanted to write stories for go! After a postgrad degree at Stellenbosch University, I briefly worked at the Eastern Free State branch of Volksblad before moving back to Bloem to work as a freelancer. It was a miserable few months. I slept on a mattress in Pieter’s flat because I couldn’t afford a place of my own. My father also passed away during this time. He had always enjoyed keeping an eye on the weather, but he never lived to see the autumn thunderstorm that erupted over Bloemfontein the evening of his passing. I left the hospital on my bike and I remember thinking that even though I was torn up inside, I’d never seen Bloemfontein so beautiful, the street lamps turning the puddles on the road into pools of gold. After this, things improved. In 2012 my first articles started appearing in go! and Weg. I rented a flat in Mayo Street and listened to the flat track action at the show ground next door. My job allowed me to travel. I met beautiful Daleen, who would become my wife, on a sunny, windless day in the middle of May. And that’s how Bloemfontein became my home. It’s the place I most like driving to. It’s the place where I learnt the most. It’s the place where most of my dreams came true. I think it’s time to let Jonty know.

Dear Jonty Sorry about the long silence. So much has happened since my last letter. I stopped playing cricket, and I don’t have photos of you on my wall any more. Sorry – I had to make room for photos of my wife, and the interesting people and places I’ve seen in recent years. I know you won’t believe me, but I also found something I love more than bowling and fielding. Stories. Finding them, and telling them. Greetings from Bloemfontein,

But in a small school in the Kalahari, cricketing dreams easily turn to dust. No one called me Jonty any more. Proteas don’t grow in the desert.