Home Is Where The Bushveld Is

Most people stop in Zeerust to fill their tank and buy a coffee at the Wimpy before they continue along the N4 to Botswana. But what is life like for the people who live in this part of the Marico Bushveld?

- Toast Coetzer

You travel past farms with names like Valkevallei and Knoffelfontein; past slate quarries, game farms, cattle farms; all along the course of the Klein-Marico River. There’s a depression in the landscape and in it you find Zeerust. That’s if you approach from the south, as I did in May this year.

The name is a contraction of the original farm name Coetzee-Rust: first owned by a certain Casper Coetzee in 1858, and later by Diederik Coetzee, whose idea it was to establish a town. The farm was divided into erven in 1867 and by 1880 it was officially a town.

And now? Now I’m here.

A naartjie from Mangope’s orchard

I always promise Vermaak Senosi that if I ever pass through Zeerust and I have more than half an hour to spare, I will visit him. Vermaak works as a bush chef for our tour partner Bhejane 4x4 Adventures, and he’s more than a magician in the kitchen. He’s always full of stories and he always welcomes you to the campfire with a big smile.

I drive out of town in the direction of the Skilpadshek border post to Botswana. After a while, I turn right at Lehurutshe. During apartheid, this area was part of the Bophuthatswana homeland. You’ll see almost no settlements indicated on your map, but that’s far from the truth: I drive through sprawling village after sprawling village. The houses have spacious yards and bushveld trees provide shade at crossroads. Cattle roam freely as kids walk to school.

I meet Vermaak at the police station in the village of Motswedi and we drive to his house for tea and rusks. Later, he asks if I want to meet one of the daughters of Lucas Mangope, the controversial former leader of Bophuthatswana. Apparently the Mangopes are Vermaak’s neighbours and he was good friends with one of the Mangope sons as a young man.