When Norbet Coetzee was a young boy he and other children of his village had a favourite game they often played — sliding down the sandy banks of the dry Molopo River while the community’s elders bathed in hot springs nearby.
At Christmas time they would have watermelon picnics at the spot, enclosed by impressive ravine cliffs shooting high into the blinding Kalahari desert sky.
Norbet and his village kin were the masters of the harsh and beautiful piece of land called Riemvasmaak. Hemmed in between the Namibian border and the Orange River in the far north of the Northern Cape, it is more often than not an uncomfortable habitat.
In summer man and beast suffer in unbearably high temperatures. Rain is scarce and when it does come, little penetrates the hard crust covering the rock-strewn earth. Desert shrubs with sand patches here and there dominate the largest part of Riemvasmaak.
Only down at the river nature appears more fertile, somewhat greener.
To worsen matters, most of Riemvasmaak was fairly inaccessible in the days when Norbet was a young boy. One can imagine it was no mean feat to tackle its rocky hills with a donkey cart or even a motor vehicle.
Norbet and his people, the majority of Nama or Xhosa origin, were nevertheless happy subsisting in their secluded kingdom. Happy enough to resist repeated attempts by the apartheid government to remove them from what was supposed to be a ”white spot”.
Their protests in vain, the inevitable day arrived in the early seventies when an official finally notified them that they were to move for good.
”Even if your God should come over that mountain today, you will trek,” this official told them, old stories say.
Norbet, now 43, remembers that the adults were furious, many of them crying.
He and the other children were excited because they were to go on a train trip. They had to move all their belongings, livestock included, to the train station at neighbouring Kakamas .
Riemvasmaak’s Xhosas were eventually moved to the then homeland, Ciskei, and the Namas to Khorixas in what was northern South West Africa (now Namibia).
It was an unusually rainy year and downpours repeatedly caused the train trucks to derail, delaying their trek. More than once they had to trek their animals back to Riemvasmaak due to the delays, Norbet recounts. It took two weeks for them to finally depart.
In Namibia the local community did not easily accept them because they did not speak the local Damara and Wambo languages, the Xhosa descendants had similar problems — the locals only spoke Afrikaans.
Meanwhile, the South African defence force acquired Riemvasmaak as a training ground. Former prime minister John Vorster and his senior officers reportedly held regular ‘bosberade’ (deliberations) at the hot springs, says Jesse Strauss, historian and tour guide.
The foot soldiers were apparently not allowed into this secret meeting place, says Norbet. Two of the former soldiers who were trained at Riemvasmaak, now Western Cape wine farmers, recently revisited the area with their families. They were completely surprised when shown the hot springs, telling Norbet they had not realised it existed.
After apartheid had come and went, the Riemvasmakers were beneficiaries of the new South African government’s first resettlement project. New houses and other infrastructure have been built for them since moving back. A private company established a vineyard at the river to help provide an income for the community.
The communal property association earns some money from tourism, employing Norbet as their main tourism official. This income has increased from R40,000 in 1997 to a peak of R92,000 in 1999, Norbet says. Last year 1660 tourists overnighted in new chalets built with donor funds near the hot springs.
Norbet is committed to stay on and recreate a future for his people. He is a highly trained tour guide who was taught at a luxury lodge in Namibia.
”Many tour operators offer me well-paid jobs, but I’m not interested,” he says.
”I have a big vision to realise for this community.”
Norbet believes they are gradually rising again from the Kalahari dust. A neighbouring commercial farmer with a tented camp for tourists on the river believes the Riemvasmakers could earn at least ten times more from tourism than currently. He is willing to help.
With such assistance, almost 200km of riverfront and a landscape
like theirs, their resettlement may still turn out to be a success story. – SAPA