Santa & Egbert van Bart
Groot-Marico Visitors Information Centre
Santa is standing in the wild garden in front of their stoep when I arrive at their house – the Visitor Information Centre is in the Van Barts’ home.
“This morning I decided I was going to take off my pyjamas and put on this colourful dress to feel better,” Santa tells me. She and Egbert have just recovered from Covid-19, and I’m lucky we’re able to meet.
Egbert says they do feel a little better, but admits that Santa is the more enthusiastic one of the two of them, as always. “As soon as Santa starts to feel better, she wants to move mountains – she has an awful lot of irons in the fire,” he says. “She is involved with both the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture, and the Department of Basic Education – she runs music outreach projects and helps manage an early childhood development centre she founded many years ago.”
The artist Johann Moolman joins us on the stoep. We talk about the area’s history and why growing a beard seems to be a prerequisite among the men here. “The old Marico people were generally bearded. Shaving actually comes from the English,” Egbert says.
We also chat about the infamous mampoer distilling, something that was born out of necessity. “The guys who came here since the Great Trek all brought their pot stills with them, because they couldn’t buy liquor in the area. Most farmers in the Transvaal Republic had their own pot still on the farm, but because the government wanted to sell liquor, a law was introduced that prohibited ordinary people from distilling alcohol.”
To this day, there are disputes between those who have a distiller’s licence and those who don’t, which is why mampoer distillers are hesitant to openly promote their product.
“Oom Van der Merwe who lived up there at Bokkraal used to say there are three scourges in a farmyard: a eucalyptus tree, a bitch on heat and a mampoer pot still,” Egbert says.
• During our visit the Van Barts were still recuperating and weren’t up to posing for a photo. Hermien Webb later took this photograph of them once they recovered fully.