In the Northern Cape where the red Kalahari sands sprawl across the land, camelthorn trees throw their beauty to the skies and the dry Molopo and Kuruman rivers provide hope for wetter days, you can find diamonds in the dust. I came across some of them when I turned from the road, south of the Kgalagadi, into the small village of Askham.
“Hello Tannie, ek wil ietsie eet” (Hello Auntie, I would like something small to eat) were the words I heard when I sat down at a table on the stoep of the Diamond T coffee shop and the local patrons started to filter in for lunch. The warm and friendly reply came from Elodi Naude, owner of Diamond T: “Kom binne, ons het vars springbok pasteie” (Come in, we have fresh springbok pies).
I had to smile. There’s not much visible on first sight in Askham besides a surprisingly well-stocked general dealer-trading post, an Agrimark, fuel station, church, bottle store and several guesthouses, but as I’ve learnt, jewels can often be found in unexpected places when you turn off the main route to listen to the local stories. And in Askham, there were many.
The first is the story of the Diamond T bus, which is printed on the coffee shop’s menu. The Diamond T Motor Car Company, founded in Chicago in 1905, produced heavy trucks that were acquired by the British Purchasing Commission to be used as tank transporters during World War II. They proved their worth in North Africa where they handled the rugged conditions well. After the war many found their way to other parts of the world and one made its way to the Northern Cape to deliver post and goods. The building where the coffee shop is presently housed served as overnight accommodation for the drivers. A framed photo of the old bus still graces the coffee shop wall.
I had heard the story many years ago from former coffee-shop owner, Johanna du Toit, who told me about the buses that once travelled the route between Askham, Noenieput and Upington. The first bus used was an old Albion. This was later replaced by a shiny red Diamond T. The driver, a Mr van Rensburg, fondly known as ‘Oom Van’, delivered the school children COD (cash on delivery) to a Mr Van den Berg, the headmaster of the small school and owner of the only shop in Askham. He matter-of-factly added the payment to the parents’ grocery bills. On cold winter mornings, the schoolboys had to push the bus to life. In those days it was a long journey on the gravel road, which was maintained by Oom Willie Jacobs, with his grader and team of sixteen donkeys.
Elodi had often visited the family farm in the area, and when during lockdown she heard that the Diamond T coffee shop was for sale, she couldn’t stop dreaming about it. She and her husband packed their bags and left the big city of Johannesburg for a quieter way of life. They bought Diamond T “and the recipe for their famous melktert,” as Elodi told me, keeping all the old customers satisfied. She wasn’t entirely sure where the name ‘Askham’ itself came from, but it’s said that there was a Scottish land surveyor who surveyed the farms along the Kuruman River in 1919. Many farms in Namibia and South Africa were given Scottish names by land surveyors at the time and it’s possible that he named the farm after a village in the UK.
Askham, being only 73km south of the transfrontier park, is brimming with Kgalagadi stories and at the entrance to the coffee shop are ex-warden Elias le Riche’s words painted on a rusty car door. (The Le Riches were instrumental in establishing the park and held the position of warden in the family for more than fifty years, passing it from father to son and brother to brother.) It read: ‘Die Kalahari is ‘n man se hemel, ‘n vrou se verdriet en ‘n motorcar se hel’ (The Kalahari is a man’s heaven, a woman’s misery and a motor car’s hell).
When I asked Elodi about the history of Askham, she invited longtime resident Lettie Toua to join us at our outside table. Lettie had painted the quote on the car door for the former owner years before. A font of knowledge about the area, as well as a treasure-house of intriguing stories, Lettie started to talk, keeping my rapt attention until the shadows were lengthening and I had to reluctantly move on. She grew up on the farm, Erin, across the road from the coffee shop, and went to primary school in Askham and then to high school in Adelaide. When she returned, she worked for two years at Askham Sentrale/Post Office, where she was the switchboard operator. “Nommer asseblief?” (Number please?), she told me. Remembering an old South African TV programme and film, we laughed. I could tell that she knew a few juicy local stories, but her good manners wouldn’t let her divulge any of the old ‘skinner’ (gossip) or mention any names. In 1962 she married Jakob Toua and they were the first couple to be married in the new church.
She had some fascinating tales to tell, one about the beginnings of the village of Askham. The farm Askham had belonged to Jakob’s grandfather. In 1931 the South African government offered the farm Colinton on the banks of the Kuruman River to them in exchange for Askham. The school and the Dutch Reformed Church were built to serve the Kalahari farming community and the village grew around them.
From Lettie I also learnt that the nearby Witdraai police station was a camel farm at the time breeding camels that were used to patrol the area.
And then, in the flow of conversation, I discovered that Lettie and Jakob with their team of four workers dug many of the boreholes in the Kgalagadi in the 60s and 70s, and that Lettie was the water-diviner who found seven of the boreholes, including Union’s End, Gharagab, Nossob and Polentswa. “It’s a gift God gave me,” was how she explained this unique skill. “We stayed in a caravan and every night there were lions around us. It was ‘fantasties’ (fantastic),” she said, her eyes lighting up with the memories. “Every afternoon when the sun was setting the lions began to roar in the distance and the jackals started calling.”
She had some funny stories to share as well. She remembers when Stoffel le Riche, Elias’s older brother, met them on their arrival in the park for the first time to lay out the law of the land. He told them that they weren’t permitted to carry a weapon in the park or to harm any of the animals. “And you must not run if you come across a lion,” he warned them, ‘because a lion catches its prey if it runs”. At that one of the workers asked: “Oubaas, if the lion comes towards me, what must I do?” Stoffel replied that he must stand still. The worker shook his head saying “Nee Oubaas, ek sal my broek vuilmaak” (No Old Boss, I’ll soil my trousers), to which Stoffel replied, “Well then the lion won’t eat you because a lion won’t eat vrot (rotten) meat.”
Lettie was pregnant with her fourth child when she joined the team for one of their stints in the park. Elias le Riche had given them springbok meat. Jakob accompanied the men to the dunes to keep a look out for lions. Lettie was stringing up meat for biltong between the caravan and the fence when she saw them running toward her shouting. She looked behind her and saw a hyena that was only two metres away, making its way towards her and the meat. She leapt into the caravan and forgot about the biltong. She thought that she may lose her unborn child from the fright.
She also remembers the hard work involved with water drilling. She recalls that at 12 noon, when temperatures rose well into the 40s, they would be laying grass on the track through the dunes to get the heavy drilling machine over.
Diamond T, ‘Nommer asseblief’ and Kgalagadi stories had filled the afternoon hours and had taken me on journeys to yesteryear and into the wilds of the Kalahari, and I was sorry to say my goodbyes to Lettie and to wave to Elodi, who was now busy rolling dough in the kitchen.
Every person and every place has a wealth of stories, and I felt like I had been lucky enough to hear just an inkling of them. Enough for me to know that were many more and that the place shone brighter and brighter as we found each diamond scattered on the desert sand.