Spaceship to the Great Karoo

The Great Karoo enticed me back with its strange natural and human landscapes. I returned to the semi-desert in the height of summer for a weekend aimed at visiting the Valley of Desolation and the Owl House of Nieu Bethesda.

On Friday afternoon after work, I rented a car and rapidly covered the 250km from Grahamstown to Graff Reinet. The landscape turned bigger and drier (Karoo is Khoesaan for "land of thirst") towards the fifth song on the CD. My first encounter was with the owners of Le Jardin Backpackin', an older couple that has turned their home into the backpackers' where I stayed on Friday night. I made a quick dinner then chatted with them and their dogs in the kitchen as I ate and drank half my bottle of screw-cap wine (an essential when backpacking in South Africa). Towards ten, I retired to my room to sleep between the green sheets and flowered bedspread.

I set my alarm to wake the next morning to visit Camdeboo National Park, a new addition to SAN Parks. I did a quick game drive (monkeys, wildebeest, kudu, hartebeest, springbok, ostrich, guinea fowl, mountain zebra), but the focus was the haunting Valley of Desolation. Its rugged pinnacles of dolerite formed by volcanic magma and erosion stand in stark contrast to the backdrop of the endless Karoo plains. I did the one-hour circuit walk along the edge of the valley, taking several stops to reflect on the scenery. Along the way, I met another lone traveller – Pedro, a British born in Spain (hence the name) who co-owns a bar in Bristol so can travel for about half the year. We headed back to Graff Reinet for a leisurely lunch (Karoo lamb chops) and a few drinks in two garden restaurants, then I hit the road again.

At a certain point on the N9, there is a sign with an arrow pointing to a dirt road on the left that says "Nieu Bethesda". It is a small strange town with no petrol station or ATM but plenty of endless starry nights and transplanted artists. What drew me to Nieu Bethesda was Helen Martins (1897-1976) and her "Owl House". After years spent in an unhappy marriage and caring for her severe father, her life suddenly erupted at about age 50 with colour and sculpture. She had the vision (and courage, in this conservative wilderness) to bring light and colour to her personal surroundings. She worked obsessively with the help of local workmen, grinding bottles and mixing cement, to fill her home and yard with coloured glass and cement sculptures, mostly facing toward Mecca. At age 78, suffering from arthritis and blindness, she killed herself by drinking caustic soda. Today she is considered South Africa's foremost Outsider Artist, someone with no art training who creates fantastic, raw, visionary art working outside of the mainstream art world.



















Besides Miss Helen, Nieu Bethesda still has its share of interesting immigrants and locals. On Saturday, I met a lovely family that now runs the book and art store, recently moved from the Cape Town area to try out the town for a year. The mother has lived in many different places and the father repairs violins and preaches in the town and township churches. She invited me to the weekly braai at the tennis club, where I chatted movies and high school romances with her 16-year old son and met other locals. On Sunday, I walked across the suspension bridge to Two Goats Deli & Brewery, run by a Cape Town immigrant. I had a lovely lunch, barefoot in the garden, enjoying his homemade beer (alcoholic and ginger) and goat's cheeses, and kudu salami made by a guy in Graff Reinet. Full of good food, drink, and interesting sights, I jumped in the car to drive back to Grahamstown in the late afternoon light.

The Old Gaol Slaughter

One day in January, a message arrived: "You are cordially invited to the chicken slaughter at the Old Gaol as decapitator general. 6pm sharp." I was invited to slaughter a chicken.

The background to this began in northern Ghana in 2007. A village woman gave my co-intern Leemor and me the gift of a white chicken. We had to decide what to do with the chicken, and had a conversation about how people have become increasingly disconnected from what we eat. Most of us buy our food in shops, where meat appears in shiny packages and fruits and vegetables are organized into neat piles. Many people have never eaten something they have killed or planted themselves. What is meat? When you buy it, you give little thought to the life cycle of the animal or how it was slaughtered. Living with Leemor that year increased my awareness of how meat is prepared, since she ate only kosher foods. In Milan, I used to shop at a fantastic gastronomy shop called "Buzzi", whose owner said he bought his salami from a place that slaughtered the pigs on Saturday because the animals were more relaxed and so the meat was sweeter.

Leemor and I never got to slaughter our white chicken. Through a series of mishaps, we lost the chicken to a local boy who had promised to take care of it overnight then slaughter and cook it with us the next day. Since then, I have had the desire to eat meat that I have slaughtered myself. Some would call this morbid, but should I have the right to eat meat if I can't face the animal?

One night last September while drinking at the Old Gaol, this subject somehow came up. A few days later, Emily showed up at my door with a chicken for me! However, the chicken was young and had to grow up. I couldn't take care of it in my apartment (although I tried for a few nights), so I gave it to someone to raise for me in the township, where it is currently still growing fat.

Four months later, some friends decided (for me) that this was going to be the night. They bought a chicken and instructed me to show up at the Old Gaol. When I arrived, I was presented with an ax and a drawing on top of a tree stump to practise my aim. After a few practice swings, we went to get the chicken.

Killing a chicken is not as easy as you'd think. Facing the chicken on the chopping block, I suddenly trembled with anxiety and adrenaline as I realized I was going to take its life. I pushed myself to go through with it. The ax was heavy and the neck area was surprisingly small, so I needed both force and precision. The first blow lacked both. Luckily, the second and third blows succeeded. The chicken landed on the ground, its legs moving futilely in the air for a few seconds. It was dead, and my heart pounded with relief.

We plucked the chicken by plunging it into a pail of hot water and cleaned its insides. It was fascinating to see how the animal was made up; there was a sachet of uneaten maize in its throat and a cluster of underdeveloped eggs in its belly (which could be eaten and had whites and yolk just like mature eggs). I thought of how we humans are so similar; we also have a throat, stomach, liver, intestines. We fried the insides, and the boys fired up a braai for the meat. The running chicken became a drumstick in my plate. Thus the circle of one small life.