I am sitting on the stoep. The sun is low. The afternoon is setting in. The dusk will follow soon after. The land is dry, drier than I have ever seen it in the nine years I have been coming to this stoep, this farmhouse, in the Free State.
The winter has been harsh. The rains have not come. The grass is dry. It is tinder. Maybe it will rain, soon. The farmers here have been praying for rain for more than a year. It has come only in drips and drabs.
This is beautiful, harsh country. Not much by way of trees, but wide swathes of grass, mielie plants and grazing land. In summer it is hot. In winter a cold wind batters the land. It is JM Coetzee’s heart of the country: harsh, brutal, wild and lonely.
I have been sitting on this stoep on and off for nine years. This is my last weekend on this stoep, at this farmhouse. The farmers always drive by in their white bakkies. They hoot. They wave. They rush by. I don’t know a single one of them. Not a single one has ever stopped and said hello.
I know of the dairy farmer down the road. He speeds by and waves, too. The milk truck speeds by morning and evening, too.
The farmers are always white. There are no black farmers here. It is the Free State after all, someone jokes at me. Oh, there is the chicken farmer down the road, they remember. I have never seen him.
We have never had trouble here except the odd white couple who will come to check out the weird Joburg people who have done up a dilapidated farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.
So on Saturday I sat on the stoep and saw the white bakkie approaching and it was just another afternoon in the long, lazy days that we have on the farm. The farmer would wave and pass on.
This one stops. There are two of them in the white bakkie. From the passenger door a man walks out and asks after Kapok, the worker on this farmhouse. Kapok has gone walk-about. We call on his cellphone. He is at the next farm. He will be here in ten minutes. So we wait.
Not everything about this story is straight-forward. The man driving the white bakkie is black. He walks over to where I am now talking to his colleague, trying to locate Kapok. He is leisurely. He clearly wants to talk. He knows who I am, greets me by name.
I am reminded of a poem by Robert Frost called A Time To Talk. It reads, in part:
WHEN a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don’t stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven’t hoed,
And shout from where I am, What is it?
No, not as there is a time to talk.
And so we talk. Times are tough, says the farmer. He rents land from a local white farmer to graze his cattle. The grazing grass is running out. The ground is hard and parched. There is no rain or water.
“But that is not the problem, really. The problem is greed and selfishness. Greed, sir, which sees opportunities given to a few politically connected people while the rest of us real, hard-working farmers get nothing,” he says.
I demure. There is so much that government is doing to help black people get access to land, receive training and ensure restitution and reform. It might not be enough, but there is a lot happening, I say.
He looks at me with pity. Of course that’s true. But nothing ever gets to the “real” black farmers. Every restitution goes to a friend of so-and-so. Farms are lying fallow.
“I get many offers from white farmers to buy land from them at very good prices. I go to government for funding and they say get in the line. You know what? The line doesn’t move because the politically connected are taken by the hand and they get to the front of the queue. They get the farm and they hold parties with young women there every weekend. They are eating, but they know nothing about working the land,” says the farmer.
He is 35 years old. He never inherited a thing. He has two children. His father, a farmworker, taught him three values: hard work, educate yourself about your industry and frugality.
“But I worry about my kids. Under the ANC my daughter will have to sleep with someone to get a job. It is happening with teachers and it will happen elsewhere. So who will I vote for?
“I have voted for the ANC my whole life. This time? I don’t know. The greed is too much,” he says.
The farmer leaves. He is going to check on his cattle. He leaves me with a few pearls of wisdom: “This business is for people who are prepared to get up at 3am and work. It is not for politicians.”
That is what I remember from my
last weekend in the heart of the country that I love.
The dry, hard, truth of greedy farm favours
The winter has been harsh. The rains have not come. The grass is dry. It is tinder. Maybe it will rain, soon. The farmers here have been praying for rain for more than a year. It has come only in drips and drabs.
This is beautiful, harsh country. Not much by way of trees, but wide swathes of grass, mielie plants and grazing land. In summer it is hot. In winter a cold wind batters the land. It is JM Coetzee’s heart of the country: harsh, brutal, wild and lonely.
I have been sitting on this stoep on and off for nine years. This is my last weekend on this stoep, at this farmhouse. The farmers always drive by in their white bakkies. They hoot. They wave. They rush by. I don’t know a single one of them. Not a single one has ever stopped and said hello.
I know of the dairy farmer down the road. He speeds by and waves, too. The milk truck speeds by morning and evening, too.
The farmers are always white. There are no black farmers here. It is the Free State after all, someone jokes at me. Oh, there is the chicken farmer down the road, they remember. I have never seen him.
We have never had trouble here except the odd white couple who will come to check out the weird Joburg people who have done up a dilapidated farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.
So on Saturday I sat on the stoep and saw the white bakkie approaching and it was just another afternoon in the long, lazy days that we have on the farm. The farmer would wave and pass on.
This one stops. There are two of them in the white bakkie. From the passenger door a man walks out and asks after Kapok, the worker on this farmhouse. Kapok has gone walk-about. We call on his cellphone. He is at the next farm. He will be here in ten minutes. So we wait.
Not everything about this story is straight-forward. The man driving the white bakkie is black. He walks over to where I am now talking to his colleague, trying to locate Kapok. He is leisurely. He clearly wants to talk. He knows who I am, greets me by name.
I am reminded of a poem by Robert Frost called A Time To Talk. It reads, in part:
WHEN a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don’t stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven’t hoed,
And shout from where I am, What is it?
No, not as there is a time to talk.
And so we talk. Times are tough, says the farmer. He rents land from a local white farmer to graze his cattle. The grazing grass is running out. The ground is hard and parched. There is no rain or water.
“But that is not the problem, really. The problem is greed and selfishness. Greed, sir, which sees opportunities given to a few politically connected people while the rest of us real, hard-working farmers get nothing,” he says.
I demure. There is so much that government is doing to help black people get access to land, receive training and ensure restitution and reform. It might not be enough, but there is a lot happening, I say.
He looks at me with pity. Of course that’s true. But nothing ever gets to the “real” black farmers. Every restitution goes to a friend of so-and-so. Farms are lying fallow.
“I get many offers from white farmers to buy land from them at very good prices. I go to government for funding and they say get in the line. You know what? The line doesn’t move because the politically connected are taken by the hand and they get to the front of the queue. They get the farm and they hold parties with young women there every weekend. They are eating, but they know nothing about working the land,” says the farmer.
He is 35 years old. He never inherited a thing. He has two children. His father, a farmworker, taught him three values: hard work, educate yourself about your industry and frugality.
“But I worry about my kids. Under the ANC my daughter will have to sleep with someone to get a job. It is happening with teachers and it will happen elsewhere. So who will I vote for?
“I have voted for the ANC my whole life. This time? I don’t know. The greed is too much,” he says.
The farmer leaves. He is going to check on his cattle. He leaves me with a few pearls of wisdom: “This business is for people who are prepared to get up at 3am and work. It is not for politicians.”
That is what I remember from my
last weekend in the heart of the country that I love.
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