lazarus was scheduled to pick us up with the bakkie at 7 am on monday morning - he arrived at 9 am. cape town traffic! aire and i made ourselves comfortable in the back, and off we went to picking up no. 4 in the group: the consultant.
first destination: wupperthal. does that name ring a bell? sure. german missionaries gave the place that soundful name - because the valley in which it is situated reminded them of wuppertal. can't say it still does, but then i never saw 18th century wuppertal. coming back to wupperthal (with th), it's tucked far far away from tarmacked roads and mobile reception in the middle of fynbos and wild flowers. white washed houses with straw roofs, no police, no alcohol, but the moravian church that keeps things in order. really a stunning place!
first event: meeting barend, the head of the wupperthal rooibos tea coop and a very open and friendly guy who filled us in to his view about the rooibos minimum price, the big corporations which are taking away the market for small farmers and the problems the coop is experiencing due to this. not an easy issue - rooibos is more than a 'cash crop', it's rather some kind of life, and it's the only possibility for the people living in this very dry and rocky are to make a living. by the very nature that they are producing it, it's organic - and sometimes even wild, because cultivating becomes complicated as a result of many factors (one of them being global warming). and it is decidedly the best rooibos you can get because it's allowed to grow as naturally as possible - even the big corporations agree to this (and like to blend their tea with the superior wupperthal one to improve the general quality).
we talked for about three hours, and it is pretty impressive how much depends on the fair price or rather the concept of fair trade for the small farmers in wupperthal - and how complicated the whole issue of rooibos actually is. consequently we got out of this meeting with lots and lots of insights and ideas - it DOES pay off to talk to the people who know best what they are talking about...
we had supper in the only cafe in the village - lekker huiskos, and yes, it was surprisingly good. after sunset not much remains to do, plus the fact that it immediately becomes very cold, so aire and i retreated to our cottage where we would spend the night. apart from the hot water boiler it was quite original. and its stoep a splendid place to watch the sun rise the next morning.
after some heavy boerewors breakfast and a few hours of waiting, we also had the chance to talk to the farmers of the coop who'd been holding a meeting in the morning. again lots of insights, especially concerning the benefits of fair trade and the difficult situation people are now in - so many good projects have started, and now it becomes impossible to keep them up. and - another thing - young people run off to the cities as they don't see any future in rooibos any more.
and off we went to niewoudtville, through an amazing dirt-road mountain scenery. too bad we were in a hurry, otherwise we would have loved to stop and take a swim in the river next to the road (would have been incredibly cold anyways). in niewoudtville we stayed in a very impressive guest house - heating, 3 course supper, friendly hosts, fireplace and free sherry, and a hot water bottle ready before going to sleep. jeeez. luxe.
we almost managed to leave in time after another killer breakfast (ham and eggs. at this point i have to throw in all my admiration to the principle of 'condiments' - there are always great sauces and chutneys and stuff on the table) for the farmer's meeting in melkkraal, a very traditional down-to-earth, uhm, settlement some 40 km away. not only the farmers of the coop but also the other farmers of the region were having an important meeting there - for approximately 4 hours, in afrikaans and in a corrugated ironsheet-hall in which the acoustics made any attempt of understanding what was going on futile (might have been because the subject matter was very specific). i went outside in the sun, reading, became friends with a little girl called amber who wanted to share her orange with me in exchange for touching my hair and listened to the talk outside the doors. i might be mistaken, but it sounded a bit like unhappiness over the fact that the bigwigs inside are deciding and that's apparently the way it goes. well. power relations seem to be a small problem there, as we also found out later when talking to the farmers - not everyone was really inclined to talk.
the problem in heiveld was basically the same as in wupperthal, although the farmers were looking at it from another angle and had also other ideas as to the solution of it. they agreed however to all the things presented to them that were learned in wupperthal the days before...
of course we were way later than we would have hoped for concerning the trip back to cape town. although promised otherwise, i wasn't allowed to drive the bakkie and tried to watch stars from the back. we came back to cape town in the pouring rain. ah well. otherwise, not much had happened - the cat of the neighbours has shitted in the bathtub, electricity was running low again and the house seemed to have commonly decided to not wash the dishes any more.
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