IN PRAISE OF THE HARD HANDYMEN OF THE KAROO

Our day job is to drive around the vast Karoo outlands of South Africa in a dusty bakkie looking for stories to tell.

Not just any story. Like pied crows we swoop over the dry country, picking out slightly offbeat and interesting shiny bits, as they’re often the only tales that make any sense to us. 

The Stuffed Giraffe lurking in a Richmond shop, the Most Famous Farmer’s Knees in Norway, Koeksister Lessons in Casablanca, the Ghostly Dancing Tongs of Burgersdorp, the Barbie Cue of the Tankwa Padstal, the Devious Diamond Pigeon of Alexander Bay, the Note of Endearment that drops from a book in Nieu-Bethesda, the Really Rasta Golfers of Calvinia, the Cult of the Hospitality Pineapple, the Adventures of the Karoo’s Spitfire Ace, the Gossiping Masked Ladies of Steytlerville, the Goose Girl of Murraysburg – and we’re not even in first gear yet.

We often find that the living legends of the Karoo are its hard handymen; the guys who can tackle all of life’s mechanical problems with little more than a pair of pliers and a roll of duct tape.

Outa sends his love

[caption id="attachment_2257849" align="alignnone" width="2227"] Outa Lappies was true Karoo Royalty. (Photo: Chris Marais)[/caption]

The late Jan Schoeman, aka Outa Lappies, was a ramshackle philosopher-artist who inspired travellers from all over the globe.

With his gnarled hands, he fashioned little carts, coaches and cryptic signs out of recycled glass and tin. His glinting outsider artworks would catch the eye of passing motorists, many of them foreign tourists, who would then stop, chat and purchase his creations.

When we met Outa Lappies on the Prince Albert road he had built a large bottle-and-cement wall at the entrance to a farm called Botterkraal.

His central philosophy, taught him by his sheep-shearer father, was this:

“Every day, make something out of nothing.”

In 2000, Outa Lappies was voted Tourism Personality of the Year. He used to keep this framed award displayed under a thorn tree near his workspace.

His festooned hand cart stood a few metres away. There was a time when an incredibly strong, younger version of Outa Lappies harnessed himself into that cart and dragged it across the Great Karoo. 

“I have eaten the main meal of my life,” said Outa. “Now I’m living on pudding – I’m outspanned.” 

For many years, on his daughter’s birthday, he would seat her in his hand cart and pull her through the streets of Prince Albert village in a ceremony that would steal the heart of any princess.

Outa Lappies was true Karoo royalty.

Mossie Klaaste – The craftsman

[caption id="attachment_2257854" align="aligncenter" width="2560"] A length of wire and a pair of pliers – basic toolkit for a Karoo handyman. (Photo: Chris Marais)[/caption]

The Karoo is blessed with many guys like Mossie Klaaste of Richmond.

They might not have university degrees or even a matric certificate, but people like him know their way around a pair of sheep shears, an angle grinder and a plastering trowel. And that, out here in the artisanal Karoo, amounts to a useful education.

Mossie Klaaste grew up on a farm near the Northern Cape village of Williston. Not for nothing is that area known as the Hard Man’s Karoo.

His father was an expert shearer and a builder. Young Mossie learned both trades from him, which he used to support his family in later years, drifting from town to town across the arid country. 

Sometime later, his wife passed away and Mossie was left to raise their five children alone.

But there’s always a sheep wanting shearing or a hartbeeshuisie in need of repair somewhere across the Karoo, so he’s never really been short of work.

However, Mossie has not stopped there.

In the evenings when he gets home from the job, he takes out his collection of discarded tin cans. He selects a Valvoline motor oil can and turns it into a pretty pre-Victorian-era drawing room chair.

A Karoo shearer-builder with the soul of a Thomas Chippendale, Mossie Klaaste crafts two of these miniature chairs and then sets about making a table to go with them. 

Phillip Fourie –  The off-grid man

[caption id="attachment_2257858" align="alignnone" width="2560"] Phillip Fourie, who was offgrid before offgrid was the fashion. (Photo: Chris Marais)[/caption]

Phillip Fourie is known in the Northern Cape village of Philipstown as the “white-haired man who drives the black bakkie.”

Some also call him “the man with the spotted pigs” or “the man with the shiny house”. But, really, “Mr Off-Grid” would be the most accurate way to describe him. And, these days, it’s all about living off the grid.

He and his wife Hennie have named their home Viv Lavi.

“It’s Creole for ‘Love Life’. We keep sheep, chickens, milk goats and our neighbours are very quiet,” he says, looking pointedly across at the town graveyard.

Their home is a set of three workers’ houses you buy in kit form from small-town co-ops these days. They have an open three-sided courtyard facing the aptly-named Pramberge (Breast-shaped Mountains) in the distance – a view they toast every evening with a glass of wine in hand.

Everywhere there are signs that proclaim wisdoms like, “There is no end to Beingness” and “Shit Happens”, Phillip’s current favourite.

The couple grow most of their food on a six-hectare plot of land, and what they don’t consume they use at their coffee shop in town: chillies for hot sauce, homestead eggs and 10 kinds of tomatoes.

Their groundwater is solar-pumped. They sold their TV and kept their portable radio.

“We live debt-free, frugally and happily.”

And why Philipstown, Phillip?

“Well, it was either Philipstown or Fouriesburg,” he laconically answers.

Leon Swanepoel – The Aermotor man

[caption id="attachment_2257857" align="alignnone" width="2560"] Leon Swanepoel, the Windpump Doctor of the Hard Man’s Karoo. (Photo: Chris Marais)[/caption]

“Wherever you go, you see them. Whenever you see them, they go.”

That is the timeless motto for the Aermotor windpump. 

Only 45 were sold when they were first launched in the United States in 1888, but they became so popular and efficient that in 1892 more than 60,000 were shipped all over the world.

The Aermotor tail featured here lies in the backyard of Leon Swanepoel’s workshop in Carnarvon, once said to have more resident windpumps than any other town in the Karoo.  

Leon sits behind a counter in his office, answering telephone calls and occasionally scowling ferociously. That’s because if a local windpump stops working, it’s suddenly his problem. 

“A farmer depends on a certain windpump to deliver his water for the house – the washing, the flushing and the drinking. Now if that windpump is suddenly plucked apart by a rukwind (snatchwind), it’s a serious story. 

“Or let’s say a certain windpump supplies skaapwater (water for livestock). But it’s broken, so your animals are getting thirstier and thirstier. What do you do? 

“Now it’s my problem… not only that, it’s an emergency. My emergency.”

And what’s his definition of “local”?

“Anywhere between Victoria West, Loxton, Beaufort West, Fraserburg, Graaff-Reinet, Jamestown, Prieska, Kenhardt, Calvinia, Brandvlei, Vanwyksvlei, Putsonderwater, Marydale, Vosburg, Sutherland, and of course, Carnarvon,” he will tell you, as if all of it lies right here, in his backyard. DM

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For an insider’s view on life in the Karoo, get the three-book special of Karoo Roads I, Karoo Roads II and Karoo Roads III by Julienne du Toit and Chris Marais for only R800, including courier costs in South Africa. Karoo Roads IV – In Faraway Places (360 pages, black and white photography, R350 including taxes and courier in South Africa) will be launched in September 2024. Anyone interested in pre-ordering a first edition, author-signed copy can contact Julie at [email protected] for more details.

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