PROFILE
The old man and the kloof Next time you drive through the Baviaanskloof, pull over at Babes se Winkel and say hello to Gustav Nortjé, the oom behind the cash register and a storyteller extraordinaire.
I
t’s a Monday morning in April and I’m with Gustav Nortjé (81) on the stoep of his turquoise house in the Baviaanskloof. It’s overcast: The clouds are heavy but seem reluctant to release their burden. In the front garden, a wind tugs on the branches of a scrawny guava tree. From the roof of the stoep hangs a ploughshare and some succulent planters made from plastic bottle halves strung up with orange baling twine. A clump of ferns grows in a corner. Gustav looks like a farmer: leather boots, rugby shorts, two-tone shirt with a cellphone and a pen in the pocket. But he’s actually a shopkeeper. Well, he is now. The turquoise house borders his shop, which is right next to the only road through the kloof. A cat emerges from the house but flees over the stoep wall when she spies me. “Strepies! What’s going on with you this morning?” he says. Then he turns to me. “I’m one of the oldest men in the kloof. You can ask me anything about the people here. They grew up in front of me and I know them all by name.” Gustav is one of the last Nortjés in the Baviaanskloof. There used to be many more of them, including well-known Afrikaans author PH Nortjé. “Ja, my great-grandfather JG (Johannes Gerhardus) arrived in 1880 and got a title deed – he owned a piece of land that would later be divided between his three sons: Charlie inherited Grootplaas, Richard got Grysbult and my grandfather,
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BY SOPHIA VAN TAAK Frank, farmed on Sewefontein.” Gustav points over his shoulder, as if those farms are right behind the house. I’ve heard of Sewefontein before. It’s home to a natural spring and a forest of broom cluster fig trees that have sunk their roots deep into the water. A reliable water source is treasured in this region. “After my grandfather passed away, my dad Hannes inherited Sewefontein. His initials were also JG,” says Gustav, further mapping out the family tree. “Charlie’s sons, PH and Francis, were his cousins. Francis lived in this house and ran the shop. His name was actually Johannes Gerhardus Francois. I’m also Johannes Gerhardus Francois. Can you imagine how complicated things got at the post office! “This family of mine…” Gustav hesitates, then continues. “Look, Oom Richard was a donner. He had a twin brother who died when they were 12, trampled by an ostrich. My dad always said that God knew what He was doing because no parent would have been able to raise two of them… “Richard drove a Belsize, one of the first vehicles in the kloof. The brakes weren’t very good, and he always had a 7 mm Mauser behind the seat. One day, he was driving up the road when a donkey cart appeared out of nowhere. The brakes failed and he hit the donkey cart. The driver of the cart lay in the road and the donkeys were hurt. There was blood everywhere. Richard got the Mauser and put the donkeys out of their misery. The
driver was still down, watching the whole thing. Oom Richard asked him if he was alright. He was terrified that he was about to be next: ‘I’ve never felt better in my life!’ he said.” Gustav’s laughter sends Strepies, who has crept closer, scurrying away again. “In those years there were many people in the kloof. Many bywoners on the farms. You won’t believe me, but there were eight schools in the Baviaans at one stage. I went to a two-man primary school… Oom Francis and another of my dad’s cousins, Alfred Smith, were our teachers. All the kids from Sub A to Standard 2 were in one classroom; the kids from Standard 3 to 5 were in the other. After Standard 5 I went to high school in Willowmore, where I matriculated in 1959. “I didn’t like school very much, but I enjoyed rugby and getting into trouble. My dad wanted me to go to Grootfontein agricultural college, but I told him I’d had enough of books. So, I returned to the farm – to Sewefontein. “In those years…” He thinks for a moment. “No. See, I was born in 1941. There were only ostrich farmers in the kloof before my time. And people started planting tobacco. The road to Patensie was very narrow but in a good condition – it was graded regularly. We drove it in 10-tonne trucks to deliver tobacco to Patensie. After a while, they found out there was too much chloride in the soil and the tobacco farming petered out. We switched over to vegetable seed. I produced
