Backwaters of the Molopo

If you look at a map of North West, where the northern border curves into Botswana, that's where you'll find Piet Plessis, Tosca, Bray, and Vorstershoop. Willem van der Berg drove many kilometres on dirt roads and met people who still have time for stories.

- WILLEM VAN DER BERG

It makes no difference from which direction you approach Piet Plessis - it will be via a dirt road. The hamlet doesn't lie on any tourist route. Not many people go that way unless they have to. And the few who do arrive in Piet Plessis seldom go farther north; they usually go back the way they came.

Here, north of Vryburg, cattle, and game are the main attractions. Most visitors to this remote part of the country are in search of calves or kudus. Or trouble, if you happen to find yourself on the R377 between Stella and Piet Plessis after heavy rains. It's the reason I'm regarded with wide-eyed amazement by two women when I park my mud-caked bakkie in front of Piet Plessis Primary School.

"Looks like you're on one heck of an adventure!" says Surika Coetzee before she introduces herself and Jana Mostert.

Surika talks and laughs with abandon. She has a knack for making a stranger feel like a friend in no time, and before you know it you're joking along with her about the vegetables Jana is selling out of brandy boxes and a cooler.

Jokes aside, Jana's green beans and spinach are as fresh as you'll get anywhere. She grows these vegetables on the farm belonging to her and her husband, Rikus Mostert's. Judging from her accent, she is not originally from these parts. "No, I'm from Bushmanland. From way beyond Pofadder."

Before any photos can be taken of Piet Plessis's vegetable vendor, she hops into her bakkie. "Forget about it! You'll have to come photograph me in Bushmanland, in my natural habitat."

Surika, who is a teacher at the primary school, takes me to her class, where the children jump to their feet to greet me: "Môre, Oom!" The maths lesson is interrupted there and then for a crash course in journalism.