Strange things happen in the Karoo

By Roxanne Reid
If you’re ever in the Karoo, deep in the heart of South Africa, make time to chat with random people you meet. Guesthouse owners, restaurant staff, shopkeepers, even people you bump into on the street. You’ll be captivated by their stories of what strange things happen in the Karoo.

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Like the chap who has thousands of hectares of farmland but says he doesn’t have the money to pay the R23.00 increase in his life insurance; he wants to cash it in instead. Or the people who would never dream of paying in real money for services rendered; they pay in produce, from prickly pears and pomegranates to Karoo lamb and springbok wors.

Like the chap who reverses his car out of the yard and then drives in reverse gear to the shops on the main road. Reverse is the only gear he ever uses. When we heard the story, we thought perhaps the forward gears of his car didn’t work properly. ‘No, no, it’s his brain that doesn't work properly,’ was the reply.

Sunset at the Karoo National Park near Beaufort West

A corbelled house from the 1800s on a Karoo farm

Like the woman who came walking down the hill kaalgat (naked). Seems she and her man had taken their ancient 4x4 into the hills and got stuck in the sand. She’d ripped off her clothes to use as a makeshift sand-ladder to give the vehicle some traction and get it unstuck. It hadn’t worked, so she just walked home, not bothering to recover the sandy clothes first.

Karoo architecture in Prince Albert

Typical curved zinc Karoo porch, Prince Albert

There are lots of similar stories: the one-legged car mechanic who has been working on someone’s vehicle for three years and counting, the plumber who won’t work except in the cool of night, the shopkeeper who still has produce on his shelves that’s more than a year past its sell-by date but refuses to buy more until the old stock is sold. 

They wouldn’t survive a week in the city, but here in the Karoo they’re just part of the local colour and people find a way of accepting their eccentricities.

Adapt to the slow pace of the Karoo at Nieu Bethesda

The Karoo is rich in steep mountain passes like the Swartberg Pass

On a rough, steep gravel pass somewhere in the Karoo, we saw a Toyota Landcruiser pickup approaching. We slowed to greet, as you do in the platteland, where you haven’t passed another vehicle for an hour or three.

The driver was a longhaired, bearded hippie with lots of beads around his neck, a squint in one eye. Bangles stretched three-quarters of the way up his arm, which was sunburned from sticking out the window as he drove. He told us he was on his way home from a long trip, sticking to back roads just for the fun of it.

Next to him in the passenger seat was a beautiful woman with an excessively pale skin, staring forward from under a pink sun cap, sunglasses held delicately in one hand. We thought it odd that she was ignoring us when he was so friendly. As we were saying goodbye, we realised she was a shop mannequin. But by then he was rolling down the hill in a puff of dust, which was a shame. I’d have liked to ask who his friend was – and wouldn’t that have been an interesting story.

Karoo churches like this one at Nieu Bethesda are good places to meet the locals

The Karoo isn't really as barren as many people think

But perhaps my favourite Karoo story is of the Oom who lives on his own somewhere in the vast and lonely land.

‘So what does Oom do all day?’

‘I listen to the radio.’

‘What programme do you listen to?’

‘Radio Pofadder.’

‘I don’t know that one, what’s it about?’

‘Ja well you see it goes “sss … sss” most of the day.’

Sss … ssss, Radio Pofadder’s (puff adder’s) static white noise has one loyal and happy listener.

Strange things happen in the Karoo.

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