Dear Readers,This makes a change from the usual DearJon Letter – a post written by Jane my publisher of Boutique Books fame. She is so efficient that I got replies to my emails almost before I sent them 24/7. Anyway here it is from the little dorp renowned as a birder’s paradise where 370 different species have been recorded.
"Jon rather rudely said that we in Wakkerstroom were no
doubt safe from Covid-19 as he was sure that the virus had never heard of our
little town. And it is true that very few people know its name. I suspect,
though, that viruses don’t need to know the name of anywhere in order to infect
them. A town like
Wakkerstroom depends on tourism for its survival, and that means that we have a
fair number of people visiting from overseas. This meant that particularly the
staff and owners of the restaurants (of which we have a large number, and very
fine they are too) and the guest houses had been recently exposed to quite a
lot of people from Europe . So, in fact, there
was a fair chance that the nasty germs could have snuck their way in. And had
they snuck in before the lockdown, there would have been a very good chance
that it would have spread quickly, as ours is quite a close community.
"Of course, lockdown in a dorp is a
bit different from lockdown in a city. On day one, I imagined what it must have
been like in Jo’burg or Cape Town
"The dorp of Wakkerstroom consists of
a total of 595 large plots in the town proper, and then eSiza maleni, the township at the far edge. In total,
there are about 600 people who live in Wakkerstroom, and about 7000 who live in
eSiza maleni. At first, some of the
less generous people in town felt very sure (without having verified it) that
everyone in eSiza maleni was
wandering around their part of the town, taking no notice of the lockdown
regulations. I, however, checked in frequently with all my staff and they were
quite clear that they and everyone else were staying in their homes. There was
a very noticeable police presence (because of stock theft, which is huge around
here in farming country, we have quite a large police force) in both eSiza maleni and on the streets of Wakkerstroom and
anyone rash enough to wander was soon sent home.
"Those of us who are privileged
enough to live in the dorp itself all have quite a lot of space as our
properties are generally quite large. I have a flourishing vegetable garden and
a young but developing fruit orchard, and a large number of people here do grow
at least some vegetables. I am almost self-sufficient as it is, so have found
it quite unnecessary to go to the shops at all, except to get milk so that I
can continue to make cheese, kefir and yoghurt as I usually do.
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| The 'away from it all' that so many of us are trying to get used to in much of South Africa is nothing knew to the residents of Wakkerstroom |
"We are all, however, quite used to
not having easy access to shops as our closest Spar is twenty-six kilometres
away (and, something which many incomers to the town find very difficult to
deal with, our closest Woolworths is seventy-five kilometres away, and in
another province, nogal). In the dorp itself, there are a few general dealers
and a quite-recently-opened but small grocery shop, but all of these either
stayed closed or ran very short hours.
"In the main shopping street, the
bakery opened three mornings a week and the dairy was open every morning. And
apart from that, there was the internet café, also open only a few hours a day,
where at least people could buy their airtime, data and electricity, and the
garage. Otherwise, everywhere was closed.
"The internet café is called
Wakkerstroom Central, and it provides basic services like photocopying and
(amazingly still) faxing, as well as access to PCs. It is something I started
to help the many young people in the area who have little or no access to
computers or the internet, or to basic facilities that allow them to send out
CVs and so on. We are one of the only places in the area where you can buy
airtime and electricity at face value. I employ three young people who do a
great job of running the place. Because it has to be staffed full time (08h00
to 18h00, every day except Christmas and New Year’s days) it loses quite a lot
of money, so Boutique Books subsidises it.
"There are no banks in Wakkerstroom. There is a
Standard Bank ATM, but it does not accept deposits. There is also an FNB ATM,
but it is mostly locked away and it also does not accept deposits.
"Our dorp was like a ghost town.
There were no cars to be seen anywhere, and no people. There were definitely
more birds in town than usual, though.
"I was forced to go to Volksrust
twice, in order to deposit money from the internet café into the bank, and I
saw no-one on the road until I got to the town. The road was, however, full of
birds that flew up as the car approached. It felt quite Hitchcock-ish. In
Volksrust, the Spar and Shoprite (the only two grocery stores) were busy, and
there were extremely long queues snaking along the pavements as people waited
patiently to get in. But almost everywhere else was closed. I was extremely
glad not to have to buy anything.
"Both shops were closed down (on the
last day of level 5 lockdown) because a merchandiser who had been unpacking
stock in both stores was found to be infected. As it was month end, this was a
quite dreadful blow to everyone as the next-closest place in Mpumalanga za maleni. They are still closed but will hopefully
open soon.
"I am told that many people have been
very busy getting together on the Wakkerstroom Facebook page, and that there
have been interesting challenges and competitions and some wonderful
photographs uploaded. I don’t “do” social media, so I have been left out of
those opportunities to socialise. However, I spent a lot more time than usual
on the telephone and was surprised by the people who popped up at the end of
the line.
"Most people around here are retired,
but I still have to work every day, and was fortunate to have a lot of work to
do, so for me things went on pretty much as normal. Oddly, though, I still felt
it necessary to cook up treats that I would never normally contemplate – Feijoa
with meringues and cream, muffins with rhubarb and raspberries, blackberry
fool. Somewhere I guess I still felt the need for some kind of comfort.
"My dogs took lockdown badly. They
were used to going out for a walk in the late afternoon (after the goats have
gone home to bed) and on day one they were extremely perturbed when instead I
walked round and round the garden. On day two, they were more than perturbed;
they were incensed. My younger dog is a real handful and it has been difficult
to keep her properly exercised. I continued to walk my usual eight kilometres a
day every day, but round the garden, which now has a deep track circumventing
the property. Quite soon, the dogs decided that this was just silly, and they
took to just running from one corner of the house to other, watching me
disappear around the corner as I started my circuit and then taking the short
route to watch me coming round the other side.
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| Her dogs Emma and Sukey |
Thanks for the contribution Jane,
Regards
Jon
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