Afrikaans has very descriptive names for a range of subjects as diverse as birds and farms, and sometimes it’s only people who are not mother-tongue speakers who can spot and appreciate the colourful descriptions and the uniqueness of some of the words. The name of this farm ‘Sukkelsoek’ is one of them.
Directly translated it means ‘Searching for struggle’, but the translation doesn’t do it justice and lacks the intrinsic charm of the word. One wonders why a farm has such an unusual name and a few thoughts come to mind. Being a farmer is not easy, especially in arid areas. Farmers have to ‘sukkel’ with droughts, locusts, fires, inflation, heat, poaching, ground water shortages, diseases and bush encroachment. The name ‘Sukkelsoek’ could have been given to the property a long time ago by a land surveyor who thought that anyone who attempted to farm on the land would be in for quite a time. Or it could have been the name people in the area used unofficially when referring to the land, and it gathered substance along the way until it was adopted as the actual name.
Whatever the reason, we assume that the owners felt a fondness for it, embracing the wry humour of the name in the harsh circumstances of life on an arid Namibian farm, and retained it for its familiarity like an old friend who is always welcome at our table and our hearth.
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