The Train to Matjiesfontein Part 1

The Karoo – from the Window

The early morning coffee waitress stood at my door shouting “coffeeeee” at the top of her lungs ripping into the last of my quiet peaceful dreams, she was not going to take no for an answer.

Everyone woke up and bought the cold coffee just to get rid of her. My eyes adjusting to the early morning light caught the sight of the Karoo and its wildlife waking up.

The Karoo has a personality of its own. Buck and Meerkat stand and stared at us as if seeing a rushing train for the first time, the semi-desert plants bend slightly in the wind we leave behind and then just as sudden as it changed, life reverts back to the quietness of the Karoo morning with the large eagle dropping lower and lower in ever descending circles onto an unsuspecting field mouse or dassie. The circle of life continues here  as it has for centuries before man came with his ox-wagons, cattle, pollution and guns.

At its edge of the growing sunlight,  little “dorpies” appear. Out of the box dwellings, roof firmly held in place by rocks and even larger pumpkins, humanity spills walking with a spring in their step and a smile, despite the poverty, on their faces. No tax, no electricity accounts, no worries. Those worries that are left will be drowned tonight by a ‘dop’ in a tin mug. Truly picked by the sun, the wine and life, they head for the farms.

They raise their hand, as if to greet the rising sun, which by now is causing a long splash of orange across the horizon, to greet us with a wave, strangers sharing this common time and space for a second. I wave back, our lives touch,  and we all move on.

A long forgotten rural graveyard flashed by, almost totally hidden by the unyielding ‘kakiebos’. Its citizens long dust, ghosts of the past. The local population amble past on way to work, oblivious of those who gave birth to their forefathers and forged their future, resting in peace waiting for that glorious resurrection, promised centuries ago.

Tar roads that stop in the middle of no-where, on route to what is now an unknown destination give way to grass and local plants as nature reclaims its place from invading civilization. This land was hers before we came and she knows it. Soon it will be hers again in all her glory.

Our train speeds past the old stations where gardens once stood proud and tall. I remember. Tendered by a loving Station Masters hand aware of the competition from his neighboring station, these have now become casualties of neglect. Only a few ‘vetplante’ remain – survival of the fittest – most suited to this arid terrain, growing side by side with tall grass throwing their seeds to the wind.  
 

The buildings stand forlorn – glass panes gone as the wind takes its course howling through the empty rooms once again. Paint peeling off the walls like petals dropping off a flower that once was. Door frames, devoid of wood – crumble and like those ancestors who once worked here with pride – turn back to piles of crumbling bricks and dust.

The history we once knew is fading fast, captured only in the memory of those of us whose time on this earth is drawing to a close, leaving nothing of the glorious past when interpersonal relationships and care were more important than technology, to the new generation - who no longer remember, no longer experience and no longer care.