The nomadic lifestyle of the Northern Cape’s karretjie mense makes getting an education almost impossible.
By LEE SCHOLTZ and JULIA GREY
AN education is as rare as an income for the karretjie mense [cart people], the Northern Cape’s Third World gypsies whose nomadic way of life makes schooling almost impossible.
Constantly on the move with their donkey-drawn carts, the karretjie mense travel hundreds of kilometres from farm to farm through some of the most inhospitable terrain imaginable in search of a job. On whatever dry and rocky wastelands they make camp for the night, their only shelter from the elements is a blanket, which they drape over their cart for a roof.
Modern-day nomads: Forced to be continually on the move looking for work, for people like the van Wyk family schooling is nothing but a dream.
photos: nadine hutton
Willem van Wyk still remembers a time when you were raised in the place you were born, a time when hunting jackals to protect the farmer’s sheep was your life’s work. That, at least, was his own experience, about half a century ago. But all three of his children were born on the road — and none of them, from the 22-year-old to the baby of the family, eight-year-old Dirk, have ever had a formal education.
But, of course, there are knowledges peculiar to their environment and life style that are passed on to Dirk. He knows all about the driedoringboom, a thorn-tree scattered throughout the veld, how to treat a snakebite, the best donkey dung to use as fire-fuel, and everything there is to know about caring for the donkeys, which is his particular task.
His mother Koba van Wyk has great dreams for Dirk, and getting him an education is one of the main ones. While Koba knows that school fees don’t legally have to be paid, their extreme level of poverty still makes it a difficult dream to fulfil: ”After I’ve bought everything like food,” says Koba, ”where am I going to get money vir die goed van kop tot toon [for things for the head to the toes].”
Koba’s reluctance to send her child to school hungry and barefoot is only part of the issue. More crucially, the fact that they are forever on the move means that Dirk would have to receive his schooling in bits and pieces from various schools in many different locations.
The nomadic way of life of these people is a huge challenge for the education system: while schooling is legally free and compulsory until grade 9, it is almost impossible to reconcile their lives of constant motion with schools that remain in one place. Anneline Potgieter from the Northern Cape Department of Education concedes that ”this lifestyle presents a problem, especially as far as the schooling of the children is concerned”. The solution put forward is that parents ”place their children in schools with hostel or boarding facilities to minimise disruption of their school careers”. While some karretjie mense manage to do this, it implies money for boarding which many simply do not have. It also means a life of separation for both children and their parents.
Principal Johaar Slamdien from Strydenburg Combined in the small town of Strydenburg acknowledges how difficult it is to accommodate such children: ”The main problem with [schooling] these nomads is that we do not have enough time to give them special classes. The [learning] problems they have go on throughout their schooling [but] we do try to have sessions for those who can’t read or write.”
Slamdien adds that withdrawals and absenteeism among his learners are one of his main frustrations: many based permanently in Strydenburg work out of town on the farms and leave their children to their own devices — which often do not include going to school.
Lena Struis is one former karretjie mens who has built her family a shack on a bleak stretch of veld in the Strydenburg area, specifically so her son Barend can attend school. Barend had gone to school previously while his parents were on the road, and boarded with a family in the community, but Struis could no longer afford the R50 a year that they charged to look after him.
But once again the extreme need which characterises their lives hinders Barend’s education. ”I don’t have a job here but I was forced to come here and build a little room so my children can have a place to stay,” says Struis. ”Now they’ve got a place to stay I can’t feed them because I don’t have a job.”
Struis is distraught when she says: ”This child [Barend] must very often go to school without food. How does this feel for my mother’s heart? Tell me — how does my heart feel?”
Barend, who says, ”I want to learn how to be a policeman so I can lock people up,” speaks of his struggles with school. Living in a squalid shack with illiterate parents and no such thing as a book at home, he has his work cut out for him. His mother complains that Barend is bullied at school, and cries about it in the mornings; but her own sense of exclusion from the school community means that she doesn’t feel confident enough to approach the educators for help.
Life on the road in the harsh Northern Cape conditions is not the first choice of most of the karretjie mense. Says Koba van Wyk, ”I just want a small piece of ground and a wind pump,” and her husband adds that with five goats and the help of his three sons, they would then be able to build their lives. And this seems to suit the vision Dirk has for his own future, too — for even if he could get an education, Dirk is adamant that ”Ek wil bokke oppas [I want to look after the goats].”
But until their dreams are realised, the karretjie mense will continue to be a people whose lifestyle is at odds with many areas of our modern society. Koba van Wyk expresses her sadness and frustration that she couldn’t vote because she comes from the Britstown district, but was in Prieska during the election. Access to medical facilities is also difficult: Willem van Wyk suffers from chronic asthma, and the family has to journey to Britstown specifically to get his medication. As Potgieter puts it, ”This is … a social matter to address in its entirety and not only as it pertains to the schooling of these children.”
— The Teacher/Mail & Guardian, January 6, 2000.
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