1969 - Serial Story

“There’s your city, Nineveh, Sir.”

It was unbearably hot on that Monday morning, 13 January 1969, and my grey trousers stuck uncomfortably to my upper legs while I tried in vain to understand what my benefactor was saying.

He slowed down, selecting a lower gear as we followed the road over the edge of the plateau and gradually descended towards the valley floor. Below us heat waves played “follow your leader” on the vast expanse of semi-desert plains. The dirt road meandered lazily, like a slow-flowing river, among a scattering of low bush, sparse shrubbery, and erosion-scarred ridges, only to abruptly disappear in the barrenness of this seemingly hostile land. I noticed tufts of brownish-yellow ankle-high grass bravely taking a stand against the heat and dry wind.
Then, as if from nowhere, a solitary donkey cart loomed up in the distance. Just in time it pulled off onto the shoulder of the road before we whisked past and mercilessly engulfed it in swirling dust, reducing it in seconds to a part of history.

The miles slipped past amidst that ever-present, suffocating, sticky cloud of pale yellow dust. My eyes kept searching for tall green trees from which multi-coloured birds could launch themselves into the azure sky. But to no avail. For mile upon dreary mile, in boring monotony, flat landscape upon flat landscape passed by my window.

Every passing minute served to feed a feeling of loneliness, dread, and abandonment that threatened to overwhelm me. I longed for the lushness of the Cape vineyards, the evergreen oak trees in which nimble squirrels played hide-and-seek, the smell of ripe apples, and the enticing smell of my mother’s freshly home-baked bread.
Then Mr Viljoen, karakul farmer in this southernmost part of (then) S.W.A, and transport provider for the last stretch of my epic journey, gestured with his hand. Aroab. A massive concrete and steel reservoir rose above the surrounding plain like an overgrown mushroom, and underneath that lay the small village that, for the foreseeable future, would become my home away from home.

The day before I had alighted from the train at the Keetmanshoop station with my meagre worldly possessions stowed away in a suitcase and a satchel which had seen better days. And there I was, qualified young teacher on the warm platform, flanked on one side by the railway line and on the other by the station buildings.

The lack of people immediately caught my attention: no jostling crowds of passengers, and no noisy children. It was in fact eerily quiet.

I was a foreigner in the gate of Jerusalem and not the foggiest idea whither to turn my uncertain steps. I could, however, feel how my enthusiasm for the teaching profession was ebbing alarmingly.

At the station master’s I had enquired when the following train would leave for Aroab. The look he gave me conveyed a message of unbelief. Once he had mastered to control his misplaced mirth at my very logical question, he said, “There is no railway line going that way, Sir. You need to take the bus tomorrow”.

Immediately it conjured up images of the double decker buses in Cape Town with which I was very familiar. Then he pointed to a vehicle in the station grounds that at first seemed a crossbreed between a lorry and a school bus and indicated that it would be my mode of transport the following day.

My mood plummeted to the very depths of Hades. But then a certain Mr Viljoen appeared to aid my venture into the unknown.


Nick van Zyl