I found myself in a tiny rural town in the Eastern Cape, just outside Gqeberha last week, writes Gasant Abarder in this new #SliceofGasant. There, I found Clarkson, whose residents have the simple yet profound answers to all of the challenges that wrack South Africa’s towns and cities.
Abarder, who recently launched his book, Hack with a Grenade, is among the country’s most influential media voices. Catch his weekly column here, exclusive to Cape {town} Etc.
“Take your own water,” I was warned ahead of flying to Gqeberha at the end of last week for work. Gqeberha – formerly Port Elizabeth – was where I found ‘The Friendly City’. The somewhat ‘Windy City’. And now, definitely, the waterless city.
I had flown in from Cape Town, the former home of Day Zero, to its current home as the water has run dry. Apart from the lack of water, GQ – as the locals have now taken to calling it because the word ‘Gqeberha’ apparently has no meaning – is a city whose streets are pocked with potholes.
It made me think of governance and the political parties that have allowed these fine South African cities to slip into decay. The reason for my trip to GQ was to visit a small town just about 100km away on the road back to Cape Town. It is called Clarkson and if you blink you’ll miss the road sign that gestures you to turn right.
Listening to the rain pound my roof as I write this during this much anticipated and publicised storm, it is hard to imagine that just a few years ago we were counting down to the dread that was Day Zero.
I was in GQ with an author and film crew following the publishing of a book on Clarkson and a documentary that is in the works. Established in the early 19th century, Clarkson was a Moravian Church mission town. Here, despite modest settings, no one went hungry. Whatever was grown in the fertile lands was shared among neighbours. The offspring of Clarksonners – as they call themselves – went on to become judges, lawyers, school principals. Back then, the town had a proud murder rate of zero.
The rest of GQ may be hit by a water crisis. Here in Clarkson, the locals tell me, water is in abundance and the land fertile – thanks to the water pipes the German missionaries laid down.
But a few years after the town and land were given up by the church to be incorporated into the local municipality with the advent of democracy, the town became prone to the challenges contemporary South Africa faced. After our democratic miracle, Clarkson witnessed its first-ever homicide.
Back then the population stood at 1000. It now stands at 6000. Poverty and crime, infiltrating every town and district in our country, have not skipped over Clarkson.
In an interview session with notables from the town, like the former school principal and the bishop who still served the community, the Clarksonners remembered the good old days. The Clarksonners know the recipe to get those days back, says the former principal Jonathan Lawack, 74, who is known as Meester Johnny.
Meester Johnny, sixth-generation Clarksonner, says the town was built on the solid foundations of church, school, sport and culture.
“Central to life at the Clarkson mission station was church, and thereafter school. Everything revolved around those two elements. I went to school here, then taught here and then later returned as the school principal. I was very involved in the church, the church committee and the choir,” says Meester Johnny.
“Your life revolved around the church and values were established. Like respect for others, discipline and hard work. It was a poor community but people cared for each other; that which is now known as Ubuntu existed here. When one person struggled, we all struggled. Every child belonged to every family here.
“Today we know that an old lady from our past had suffered from dementia. It was so safe that she stayed in the bush to collect wood for hours and nothing untoward would happen to her.”
The Clarksonners believe the farming skills they’ve handed down from generation to generation is the answer to restoring the town to its former glory. For Meester Johnny, there is another key ingredient required.
“Everything begins and ends with healthy family life. If South Africa returns to this important element that the family is at the heart of everything – they go to church together, go on outings and do everything together – we won’t experience these challenges. We must go back to basics like respect and caring for each other. If I look back, Clarkson was one big family,” he says.
After experiencing a plate of Clarkson hospitality (the most delicious beef stew, crispy chicken, rice, pumpkin and cabbage with a traditional malva pudding and custard dessert), I battled to keep my eyes open on the road back to drought-stricken GQ.
But I kept thinking the Clarksonners had the answers to restoring our towns and cities to former glory. Respect for yourself and your neighbour. Caring for each other. And a return to family values.
Simple yet so profound.
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It’s time black and coloured Capetonians start talking to each other
Picture: Gasant Abarder
