Machadodorp, jilted by a neighbour

MACHADODORP’S golden moment was a brief one, and sad. For 29 days, it was the capital of a nation, Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek. Then it was jilted and displaced by a neighbour.

Part of this is history, often with speculation about the gold bars that (allegedly?) evacuated Pretoria’s Treasury on May 29, 1900, before President Kruger’s train left town in flight from the British Army.

The other part I was told as a teenager by aged Oom Taute, who in his own teens had stood to proud if broken-hearted attention while the anthem played and the flag was raised at Machadodorp station, installing Kruger’s carriage’s siding as the seat of the doomed government.

Twenty-nine days later, Kruger’s train departed, down the escarpment to Waterval Onder, and with it went Machadodorp’s mojo.

The story goes that Kruger was too cold. That’s not hard to believe, on that escarpment in June, and it gives sharpness to the insult the town felt. But it is not the whole story. Kruger’s army chief, Louis Botha, must have wanted the boss in place for a quick escape to Mozambique. Weeks later, the last and most forgotten of the war’s big battles happened at Bergendal, hardly more than a cannonball’s flight away.

Oom Taute told the too-cold tale wryly, anyway. After 65, the sting had subsided. But he was adamant there were still Machadodorpers who wouldn’t set foot in heathen Onder, that president-thief.

It’s funny now, with Onder reduced to a few lonely bricks and Machadodorp’s station to a tangle of khakibos. But translate your head into those times and the little worries we ourselves live through, government in implosion and universities in flame are small beer.

Then, 116 years later, first sight of Machadodorp bounces a certain word into the mind’s eye like a neon sign: “DILAPIDATED”. The town square announces itself as MAC DOD RP and is decorated by a wheelless doorless caravan on bricks. The handful of rundown retailers seem to be mainly bottle stores. The Assmang chrome plant that employed half the town is now a massive static ghost.

But as usual, you have to take a second look. Here is Purple Orchard Icecream Parlour making a go of things. Here is Grey’s Inn firmly declaring No Overalls and No Takkies. Classic and here, begorrah, is the Highveld Emporium, once famed far and wide for its proprietor, Shorty Chothia.

Not so much that Shorty was short; the classically unexploratory instrument that is the Anglo-Saxon tongue had trouble with “Chothia”. Shorty was famous for a motormouth, for selling everything, and for backing the ANC when that was about the most illegal thing it was possible to do.

Shorty is retired now, I’m told, and the emporium is two-part. The side with Hindu deities still sells everything, from Woodward’s gripe water to hookahs to hair extensions to maize and Huggies piled up to the high-pressed ceilings. Over the road is the Muslim side, in building supplies.

Nearby, new public housing is actually attractive. On a primary school excursion, kids of all complexions hold careful hands crossing the road. And there’s the pumpkin challenge! Ronel Brits, psychologist, a Machadodorp import, says: “I’ll never leave this town, it’s a special place though it needs a bit of a pick-up.”

So Ronel and friends distribute seeds. They have summer, maybe rain, and March 4 is Pumpkin Day. You can’t despair, right? South Africa doesn’t permit that.