Betta Steyn and her son left behind the “comfort and money” of Gauteng for a baby-blue bus 17 years ago in order to learn from the Kalahari Bushmen how “dangerous but intensely good” the quiet life can be.
'Listen to me, young man. This desert hides nothing. It’s beautiful. Red dunes. Wide and open and stripped and honest. Especially honest – this isn’t a bugger that licks anyone’s arse, it’s not a two-faced jackal… The Kalahari doesn’t behave the way people do.”
She stretches out in the last rays lingering on Koo Pan, 15km north of Askham. Christened Francoise Alexandra Steyn, aka Betta, aka Antie Bettagoed, aka Vet Bet (although she’s lost “several kilo grammes and even more centimetres” since her conversion to the Banting gospel in December 2015), aka Sandmeid – that’s how the late ≠Khomani Bushman leader Dawid Kruiper “cursed me so beautifully”, she says.
She takes a couple of sips of lukewarm water from her two-litre Coke bottle before continuing: “Here you’re at the mercy of the elements. I swear, around January, February, it gets to 50ºC – that’s when you stay indoors between 10:00 and 15:00 and keep your mouth shut. Or otherwise I visit my folks on their farm outside Winterton in KwaZulu-Natal. That’s a whole different world. There I can swim as much as I like and the mornings are so peaceful… I can lie awake for hours just listening to the birds. But here! Here you open your eyes and can’t wait to jump out of bed – you know exactly what the day will bring. And when there’s only the slightest suggestion of a cloud, that’s when every Bushman dons his winter coat.”
FRANCOISE AND THE LAND OF SAND met in 1999. “The lonely ex Mrs Von Lengeling” was an unemployed, divorced single mother to Siemon (then 4) when she drove into the Kalahari with some artist friends and decided on Day One she was there to stay.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة Summer 2016/2017 من go! Platteland.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة Summer 2016/2017 من go! Platteland.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
There are few secrets in Verlorenvallei
All platteland towns have that one famous (or infamous) character who knows everyone's business. Meet Livia Hoogenboezem, the keeper of every piece of gossip in Verlorenvallei...
Make magic with winter's abundance
This winter menu is our invitation to look beyond the bewildered herb garden, move out of your comfort zone and bake a loaf of bread, appreciate the beauty of a head of cabbage, and invite the rain gods to the table to feast with you on venison pie, pudding and cake.
It takes a family
Christian Fry and his fiancé, Pippa de Lange, arrived at Dombeya with just a day to spare before the Covid-19 hard lockdown commenced in 2020. Their purpose was to save the Fry family farm from being sold. They've settled into life in their Elands River Valley haven now but continue to dream big and work hard.
For the love of birds...
They may be called birdwatchers but they are in fact using their ears. As Johan van Zyl discovered on his maiden outing as an \"avian tourist\" with BirdLife South Africa to find the 450 bird species that live in the Garden Route and Little Karoo.
To the babbling brooks of Sabie
Roughly every five years, Jaco and Jens Reverchon get itchy feet. They hopped around Cape Town, moved up north to the Greater Kruger and then, recently, put down roots next to the Sabie River where they live a peaceful life with their animals.
Creativity & community in Dinokeng
The driving force behind the successful Makers Village in Irene has now implemented the same concept in Cullinan, creating an incubator and exhibition space for entrepreneurs and artists. Platteland dropped in at this budding creative hub to find out what it's all about and came away impressed.
Willie Strauss Never an idle moment
A variety concert... that is how to approach your life and career when you want to survive as an artist living in the platteland. So says singer, lyricist and radio food expert Willie Strauss, who entices visitors to Die Sinkstoor in Cullinan with traditional offal and his mother's Bushmanland boerekos.
To die for
How do you avoid the tourist avalanche if you live in an Afromontane forest where holidaymakers descend in December? You drive to lonely outposts in the mountains of the Cape, says photographer Obie Oberholzer, and you make pictures rather than take them.
1 Fiat 500 2ha 4 boys...19000 miles!
When the go-cart that an engineer father had built for his four sons couldn't handle the tufty terrain on their 2-hectare plot in Montana, Pretoria, they hunted down a Fiat 500 in a salvage yard. They only wanted its suspension system, but Mom intervened, the car was saved, and those little daredevils clocked up an impressive 19000 miles - all without leaving the plot.
SUTHERLAND Cold town, warm hearts
Life in Sutherland in the Northern Cape isn't always easy, but even those who leave tend to return. Come with us to find out why.
