Please check your email and enter your one time pin below:   Open in Gmail Sorry there was an error loading the audio In many ways, he’s one lucky Palomino stallion. Copper’s job is to identify mares on heat, with a show of great enthusiasm. As they pass his quarters, they will indicate their readiness with a lift of the tail. If they’re not in the mood, they will try to kick him in the teeth as they sashay by.advertisementDon't want to see this? Remove ads That’s why Copper’s enclosure is well padded with old tyres The mares on heat are destined to share their affections with other thoroughbred stallions But lest you shed a tear for Copper’s sex life he occasionally gets to run with the resident farm herd of free-roaming horses who knows what happens out there in the veld Our visit to this family farm just south of Gariep Dam takes place in 2016 when a truly Biblical drought has begun to bite deep life seems unaccountably cheerful out here at Gelykfontein The racehorse brood mares with their long-legged colts and fillies in the paddocks are peacefully swishing their tails The Nguni cows are glossy and in fine condition Poffie the parrot is up to his usual tricks calling Nonna the boerboel and then telling her to voertsek before launching into his repertoire of telephone sounds Farmer Schalk van der Walt is the fourth generation on this land On a morning ramble with him through the veld we realise the Van der Walt family is as tough as the land itself “Even with this terrible drought, I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else,” says Van der Walt. “If I had my life again, I would do exactly this. The Karoo has been good to me.”advertisementDon't want to see this? Remove ads and the blessings of the Verreaux’s eagle that roost here Copper the good-natured Palomino is the ‘teaser’ for the thoroughbred brood mares The horse theme is picked up in one of the Morning Glory guest cottages A vari-coloured troop of ‘Karoo mustangs’ canter down to the water Gelykfontein Specials in their natural Karoo setting A decent dust bath in a Gelykfontein enclosure does wonders for this young steed By the 1950s, around 70% of the country’s thoroughbred brood mares were based in a rough quadrangle between Venterstad, Middelburg, Colesberg and the southern Free State. The secret lay in the soil and plants, rich in calcium, phosphorus and other minerals that give horses strong bones. The dry healthy climate also ensured fewer diseases.advertisementDon't want to see this? Remove ads there were still 40 horse farms in this magical equine-friendly triangle of the Karoo But when manufactured feeds were developed in the late 1980s to include all the trace minerals the animals needed South Africa’s racehorse studs were increasingly moved close to bigger centres Van der Walt still believes that the natural grazing in the veld and the trace elements in the water are better for the horses than relying on artificial feeds European cattle that needed fairly intensive care in the harsh conditions of the Karoo these particular specimens proved to be skittish and unmanageable ploughing their way through fences onto neighbours’ properties but top among them is their calm temperament Schalk with his new breeding project – a herd of Ankole cattle He has begun cross-breeding Ankole bulls with a selected group of Nguni cows in separate camps Van der Walt is so besotted with the Ngunis that he will consider no other breed: “I’m not interested in those giant cattle, bred for feedlots. I don’t want to be running after them all the time.”advertisementDon't want to see this? Remove ads He has found a growing market for grass-fed Having evolved for at least 8,000 years alongside humans in Africa Ngunis are tractable beasts – more placid and alert than most bovine types “Just look how calm this bull is,” he says scratching its ear and dewlap with the stick he carries everywhere with him “I could mention a few other cattle breeds that would have flattened and buried us by now.” He dotes on them watching over his herds and talking about the heifers and bulls and their temperaments as if they were a bunch of eccentric relatives starring in a silent soap opera He talks with love and familiarity of their ancestors and sires – Ingwavuma The speckled beasts and their toughness inspired Van der Walt to look anew at other locally adapted animals he invested in a group of perky Xhosa lob-eared goats speckled with big apple-sized polka dots on their varicoloured pelts a hand-raised nanny goat called Marilyn peeled out of the herd and made straight for Van der Walt peering adoringly into his eyes and meh-ing a goatish greeting Schalk van der Walt is even breeding a new kind of horse that is ideal for farmwork hard hooves that don’t need shoeing – a great boon on farms far from farriers It will come as no surprise that many are spotted too we heard that rain had started falling on Gelykfontein and the Gariep catchment a remarkable 120mm of rain that revived the wetlands The Gariep dam swelled from 45% to near-capacity It was a desperately welcome reprieve in a drought that would grind on for another three years “You have to come and see how beautiful it is,” said Schalk’s daughter Marené over the phone We watched as the frisky Merino sheep raced the springbok in the veld Ground squirrels popped up and flourished their tails at us ganna and kriebos that seemed dead and grey only two months before were green and vigorous A hand-raised Xhosa lob-eared goat called Marilyn but also have a useful function in hot climates – helping to cool blood to the head The korhaans call out their rattling krr-keraak cries Blue cranes were pairing off to raise their young The gemsbok watched us from a rise before wheeling away like a cavalry regiment we saw a herd of Van der Walt’s Gelykfontein Specials They were scattered around the veld but raised their heads when they saw us These Karoo Mustangs gathered together in a spirited herd before stockman Frans “Tokkie” Januarie gently drove them towards the water Tokkie was mounted on one of these same Gelykfontein Specials This is an extract from Karoo Roads III – The Journeys Continue, a book with black-and-white images by Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit. For an insider’s view on life in the Dry Country, get the three-book special of Karoo Roads I, Karoo Roads II and Karoo Roads III for only R800, including courier costs in South Africa. For more details, contact Julie at [email protected] It little positiveness in todays negative news times ' + scriptOptions._localizedStrings.webview_notification_text + ' " + scriptOptions._localizedStrings.redirect_overlay_title + " " + scriptOptions._localizedStrings.redirect_overlay_text + " say they are repeatedly denied access to some of their traditional fishing grounds Inland small-scale fishers from the communities of Norvalspont Venterstad and Oviston in the Eastern Cape say they are tired of fighting for access to historical fishing grounds Marginalised and impoverished fishers from these communities report that they are denied access to their traditional fishing grounds within the nature reserve of Oviston and recently led a march to the Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency (ECPTA) offices to hand over a memorandum of demands According to the Masifundise Development Trust fishers are also asked to pay an entrance fee of R25 in order to enter the reserve which is located on the southern shores of the Gariep Dam They say this amount is unrealistic for small-scale fishers who try to earn an income but do not catch enough fish to sell and make their money back I don’t have money to take my children to school,” says Nomfundo Saul “But I am fighting for my right to access fishing grounds so that I can catch fish and have some money to send my children to school and to put food on the table.” ALSO READ: Inland fisheries policy ‘can only work if implemented’ Food For Mzansi previously reported that freshwater fishing activities in South Africa are currently regulated by the department of forestry and that existing regulations only provide for recreational fishing who continue generational fishing traditions to put food on the table are fighting for the rights to make a legal living from it a small-scale fisher also from Norvalspont says that fishing is his livelihood and he wants fishing rights “There is unemployment [and] pensioners don’t work and are struggling During the Covid-19 pandemic many people lost their jobs and still sit without one.” “We don’t want to fight; we just want access to our fishing grounds [Management] is making things very difficult for us fishers by refusing access to the reserve Reserve manager Luyanda Gcaza later met with representatives of the inland fishing communities and acknowledged fishers’ grievances Gcaza agreed to set up community structures that allow ECPTA to work together with the communities on issues regarding access to the reserve ALSO READ: Small-scale fishers have it hard this Easter Similar problems stretch far beyond the Eastern Cape Mtubatuba and Jozini in KwaZulu- Natal fight the same battle In Mazambane and Mtubatuba fishers express their frustration with the restrictive own-consumption permits that prohibit the sale of fish this impedes on their ability to sustain a livelihood and income Fishers say that their cooperatives suffer as they cannot make any profit from their restricted fishing activities they also request that local municipalities assist them in creating local markets where they will be able to sell their harvest ALSO READ: Fishers losing faith in Creecy after lobster debacle Sign up for Mzansi Today: Your daily take on the news and happenings from the agriculture value chain Shocking footage from Daybreak Foods’ farms reveals thousands of starving chickens turn cannibalistic as feed runs out With 21 global awards in the first six years of its existence Food For Mzansi is much more than an agriculture publication unashamedly saluting the unsung heroes of South African agriculture We believe in the power of agriculture to promote nation building and social cohesion by telling stories that are often overlooked by broader society Contact usOffice: +27 21 879 1824News: info@foodformzansi.co.zaAdvertising: sales@foodformzansi.co.za 2017As we drove past the Lake Gariep reservoir Toni Richard Poni points to the farm he grew up on shimmering in the late afternoon light just like all the water around it when we get close enough to walk to the reservoir Toni points out the subtleties I missed — the small island that juts up was actually a hill that flanked the farm houses those mountains on the side divided the farm between two provinces the farm-owners' homes were tucked over there It was a poignant reminder that almost 50 years after the reservoir filled Toni Richard Poni points out the site of his farm When I began my journey into the Karoo a few weeks back fully aware that Gariep and Van der Kloof dam — the pillars of the Orange River Development Project – were built almost two generations ago But with the invaluable help of famers and municipal employees in the Colesberg district is largely responsible for this — he tracked these individuals down and translated their stories from Xhosa and Afrikaans to English The story Lungile and I found was dispersed in the towns and townships of Kuyasa all of which circle Van der Kloof and Gariep Dam leaving the life of the farm behind to build new lives in the segregated townships that were a feature of apartheid life who were very young when the dam was built and then took their newfound skills to construction jobs around the country and I came to realize that the dam project was a project of its time requiring all blacks to carry identity documents with their ethnicity hindered the free movement of many workers we talked to (and were almost always derisively referred to as the 'Dompas' or Dumb Pass) Some dam jobs were reserved for blacks in the Transkei and Ciskei segregated and economically-depressed homelands that the apartheid government set aside to cordon off blacks this policy limited work opportunities for blacks who lived closest to the dam so a few people we spoke to changed their names to 'coloured' surnames in order to find work Some families spoke of rushed removals off their farms possibly because of the devastating floods that overtook the Orange River in 1968 Some spoke of how the dam allowed for a new beginning by giving them the chance to move to a township and be in a larger community the snapshot of around 20 farm and dam workers we spoke to mentioned how the bones of their ancestors remain inundated One mentioned how her ancestors were complaining that they were cold underwater Wakhanda Boots Martins looks out over his property we interviewed a few members of the Poni and Phongolo families "It was like a town," Christina Phongolo told us who was around 17 when the dam was being built hated his life of labor on the farm – the early morning work as a child and extremely low pay But the farm offered open space and livestock and free meals which many interviewees wistfully recalled Unemployment and a lack of job opportunities is rife in the townships today The Poni and Phongolo family gather for a group shot in Venterstad I was only able to speak to one farmer on camera who's father was one of the main engineers on the Gariep dam Kathy and David described a wonderful boomtown that sprung up when the dam was being built International consultants and engineers set up shop in the area and this sleepy slice of the Karoo came alive with restaurants Many families asked us to give them the final report when we were done — some wanted to use it to seek compensation for livestock and land losses Since the final report won't be done for a while we instead held a small exhibition at the Colesberg Museum We put up the photos we took and screened a short film based on their interviews Lungile and I purposefully omitted details like name titles or exposition about the Orange River Project since most of our audience was familiar with the project and each other I'll share some more of these narratives and stories The Poni and Phongolo families settles in for a meal after the exhibition at the Colesberg Museum I worked as a fact-checker before this fellowship I find it hard to square away the 'truth' in everyone's interviews There are gaps and inconsistencies in people's stories and timelines don't always make sense The goal of this project is to capture people's 'lived experiences,' and I've realized those experiences can be messy Memories fade and experiences weave together over time Recording life narratives may be less about combing over every detail more about listening for and appreciating the heart of the story Ishan Thakore, a multimedia storyteller and journalist, is creating a series of short films to portray a nuanced portrait of the human benefits as well as the costs of large-scale water development in South Africa. Follow him here on the Voices blog, on Twitter and on Instagram About The National Geographic SocietyThe National Geographic Society is a global nonprofit organization that uses the power of science education and storytelling to illuminate and protect the wonder of our world National Geographic has pushed the boundaries of exploration investing in bold people and transformative ideas providing more than 15,000 grants for work across all seven continents reaching 3 million students each year through education offerings and engaging audiences around the globe through signature experiences To learn more, visit www.nationalgeographic.org or follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook. National Geographic Headquarters 1145 17th Street NW Washington, DC 20036