A FARM IN AFRICA
My family farm "Witpoort" lay in the shadows of the Steenkampsberg mountain range in the Highveld of the Transvaal. The koppies in and around our farmstead lay siege to a vast landscape of nothingness. The farmhouse sat on an overlook to the river and that river ran along the border of the lucern and clover paddocks way out there.
I was born on my mother's double bed at 9 o' clock in the morning and my mother's mother helped at the birth and when she saw my hands she said: " those are healing hands ... oupa Nollie's hands". I got to know oupa Nollie, my father's father and my ouma, ouma Bettie, in a very intimate way. I grew up in the same house with them. They were always around and our lives became a tapestry woven together in togetherness.
Mine was a God fearing family. A normal day on the farm started with the big Family Bible open on the kitchen table and the family seated around the table listening. Nothing ever happened on the farm before the morning and evening "Boekevat".
My grandfather always sat at the head of the family table. I remember listening to the stories he told us about The Boer War. He was a twelve year old boy when the Boer War broke out. Stories of the suffering in the camps, the bitter cold, the meager food rations and the loss of loved ones. How Boer Women and children were taken to concentration camps where many died of starvation and pneumonia. Balmoral was the name of the concentration camp where many of my relatives were confined in.
After the war my great grandparents returned to "Witpoort" and started again ... with nothing. The Paul Kruger Government gave each Boer family a small stipend with which my great grandfather managed to buy a young bullock, a mule and a donkey and some wheat seed. Anybody who has any knowledge of ploughing with animals will be able to tell you that it is an almost impossible task to put these three diverse animals under the same yoke but they did and they managed to get a wheat crop in and that is how they started again.
By the time I was born "Witpoort"
was a well loved and well kept farm with a large flock of Dohne-Merino sheep, a good solid dairy herd and a large fruit orchard of apricot and yellow cling-peaches. The wheat paddocks were by this time a thing of the past and instead of the wheat, luscious Clover and Lucern crops flourished. The year old lambs were fattened off on these wonderful pasture lands and my father walked away with "The Fat Lamb" trophee several years in a row.
This family farm "Witpoort" and my God fearing family created in me a heart that is open and receptive to the Sacred and for this great gift I am so grateful 🙏
