When the normally sun-drenched Garden Route wants to sulk, it brings down a grey veil of clouds and the coastline around Knysna descends into a gloomy slump.
We arrive there on such a day, in the local township named Khayalethu, which in turn is broken up into sections named Concordia, White Location, Jude-se-Kop, Bongani, Nekkies and Judah Square.
We are here as guests of Emzini Tours and we are fretting, re-setting our camera F-stops and shooting speeds. All these ramshackle old wooden tumbledowns that looked so quaint in yesterday’s golden sunset now resemble a timber village in Chernobyl. Together with our guides, Penny Mainwaring and Ella Mhlalu, we’re on a hill overlooking a swathe of swish developments around the lagoon below.
There’s so much money down there it’s hard to comprehend. Knysna has always been the playground of the rich and powerful, going right back to the early days when adventurers and potentates sat around large fires and cooked up the odd elephant foot for breakfast. Just read the journals of Francois le Vaillant and you’ll see.
Here, by contrast, is Andrew Lottering, clearly still in shock from the night his wooden shack burnt to the ground. Three weeks ago he left a cooking fire burning outside his home, popped around briefly to a neighbour and returned to find his place in flames. Even his chickens fried in an unscheduled manner; the ongoing tragedy of paraffin stoves and wooden shacks. But Andrew has built himself another shack, and the various local disaster funds that exist to help out the many fire victims of Khayalethu came to his aid with basics such as pots, pans, food and blankets. His wife, Monica’s, employers provided the family with bedding. Life and hope for Andrew lie in the garden he’s rebuilding. He loves flowers, but when we ask about vegetables he replies, “I try to grow them but the pigs, the pigs eat everything …”
Feral pigs, we hear are everywhere in the township. With big brains and an advanced sense of cunning, these wild porkers become basic side-flashes in our peripheral vision all day. They are very camera-shy little beasts. One of them darts past the Club 702 Dance Club (so very clubby they named it twice) where, our guides say, there was once such a lively party that the enthusiastic revellers literally fell through the collapsed dance floor.
Khayalethu’s wooden dwellings jut up the hillside in a higgledy-piggledy way, some of them completely parallaxed, swaying at acute angles, others looking as cute as crofters’ cottages – and just as tough to live in. Built out of the discarded bark-side wood provided by local sawmills, they look about as stable as a merry pack of village drunks tottering home by moonlight.
We hear that these plankieshuise are all going to be torn down eventually and replaced by rows of RDP houses. How utterly uncharming, yet ultimately more comfortable for the residents. And where will the water come from? The Garden Route is on Stress Level One as regards fresh water. But hey, this is a township tour piece, not a water management story …
Breakfast, a fortifying repast of mieliepap, coffee and vetkoek, is served over at Ella’s place. She reveals the simple secret of Emzini Tours‘ success: “Just be honest and trustworthy.”
“I met Penny at the Baptist church and we started talking about going into a partnership,” she continues. Penny Mainwaring takes up the story: “I’d come to live here from the old Rhodesia via Joburg, Ella and I became friends first, partners later”
Now they want to start up a soup kitchen and a safe house for abused women and children in the township. Funding for the land, building and soup kitchen has been provided by donors. Penny admits she also cares for the township brakke that roam the streets and so always travels with a large sack of dog food in her car boot.
We visit Nekkies, also known as Little America. This is where a lot of Africa does business. Here’s Godwin Afari of Ghana, a former gunsmith who now cuts hair for a living – out of a metal container “In this country, everyone likes hair dressing,” he says.
“Sometimes, when business is slow, I go out and repair shoes.” At Cut Right Tailors (‘Where Perfect is a Habit’), also in a container, Rashid Tanga from Malawi sits sewing away at a pair of Levi jeans. Rashid comes from a long line of family tailors but really wants to be a businessman back in Lilongwe one day.
Nearby is a general dealer’s stone run by two Somalis, Abdul Haji Osman and Faisal Ahmed Aidid. They escaped the civil war in Somalia six years ago and opened their shop here. When the nationwide xenophobic attacks swept South Africa in May 2008, they were looted but not personally attacked. “Without crime, this country would be a paradise,” says Faisal.
Up the road is a restaurant owned and run by Nigerian Heany llokobi. He married a South African woman 10 years ago and they have three small children. Heany brings the flavours of Nigerian cooking to Knysna. “My mother had a restaurant like this, and I learned to cook from her.”
The Paula Witney Pre-School is also a perfect photo opportunity for us because the 70-odd kids there love to ham it up for cameras. I am festooned with cameras and accessories so when one little runny-nosed child hurtles up to hug me, I send him back. A teacher wipes the boy’s nose and within seconds he has found his way into my arms, getting a basic up-close lesson in Canon equipment.
Two children, a boy and a girl, come up to Julie and kiss her hand. Country Life is being utterly and completely charmed right now. “Like most of our tourists,” laughs Penny. “It’s really hard getting them out of this place.” The children, many of whom come from the poorest families in the area, assemble in the playground and sing for us. Although the skies around are still dark, the human sunshine here, at this very spot, lightens the spirit.
After listening to some energetic street drumming from the Siyaya Artist Productions group, we say goodbye to Ella and Penny and hook up with Mawande Kondlo for lunch at his Roosterkoek Shack. The young, enterprising Denzel Washington lookalike feeds us chicken, chops, pap and chakalaka at his upstairs restaurant overlooking Khayalethu, before taking us on a special tour of Judah Square – where the Rastas live.
This part of the township, painted bright with Rasta colours and portraits of the movement’s heroes, is a place we’ve been to before. Last time, local leader Maxie Melvill was our guide. This time it’s Bra’ Zebulon Afrikaner; a pixie-like person who wishes us an ‘Irie Experience’ in a lilting, fade-away voice.
“You know Maxie, the Alien Buster? He’s the captain of our ship,” says Bra’ Zeb, He goes on to explain that Maxie Melvill is away right now, maintaining and monitoring ring-barked alien trees and keeping an eye on the local walking trail through the forest.
Up the road there’s the delicious sound of reggae. It’s the Judah Square Band having a practice session. A man with wild eyes and a guitar emerges from a house on the hill. “Let me introduce you to Bra’Winston, the Reggae Ambassador talk of the town,” declares Zeb, sounding like a WWF impresario. We enter the building and there, under a shiny disco ball, we are treated to a loose-limbed and marvellous reggae number.
Zeb connects us with the other band members: on bass, Dierbare Koublad, aka Dierblare Goldblatt; on vocals and backing rhythm, Goer-Goer; on drums, Brother Gaston; on keyboard and lead vocals, Iniqwa; and, of course, the Reggae Ambassador himself, on lead guitar and vocals. A young dreadlocked kid named Julio arrives to wave the Rasta flag. Outside, Chris asks Bra’ Zeb to pose for a photograph. He complies, saying, “Take your best shot.”
We ask him what he thinks of Knysna. “It’s like, always, so green and juicy. Know what I mean?” We finish off our tour at the tiny crèche, where 34 babes are having their afternoon nap and Bra’ Zeb says to us in a stage whisper: “Look, they’re growing.”
Outside, the sun has finally spread its blessings over Knysna and all its people …
Emzini Tours, Tel: 044 382 1087 / 082 338 6289 (Penny) / 078 631 0673 (Ella). BuyamboTours, Tel: 082 2949 063 (Mawande Kondlo)/ Knysna Tourism www.visitknysna.co.za
For all our local information of Knysna visit ShowMe Knysna
Text and pictures by Chris Marais and Julienne Du Toit. This article was taken from the May 2010 edition of Country Life.
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