noble people from an older time

Anthea is a coloured woman doing a research PHD on the Khoi San people, said to be the early inhabitants of South Africa. In her day-job she is the manager of the local Mugg n’ Bean, a coffee emporium you will find in most towns here. We met her at the Main Street Market, a new idea in Plett where locals and visitors get together over food and wine and music and where they don’t pay high tourist prices. During the evening you come to notice its cooperative character. All the food stalls share responsibility for supplying plates, cutlery and glasses, tidying up – every little item returns to its place at the end of the evening. Last night featured the blues music of Albert Frost, a well known South African bluesman. I had to take their word for that – he was good, though. Very good.

The Khoi San were two peoples, we are told, and one reared cattle while the other hunted. The hunters were successful chasing their prey on foot because they hid small water containers over a wide area of the bush while the animals, though fleeter of foot, grew tired and thirsty.

There were “fall-outs” between the Khoi and the San. Eventually they came together but were driven west by settlers. Anthea speaks of them with passion and admiration. The men, she says, were real fathers to their families and communities, faithful in the feeding and protecting of their wives and children, faithful, too, in their marriages. One hopes we can learn from these noble peoples from an older time.

Speaking of marriage, the owner of Milkwood Manor asked me if I would “bless” a marriage in a few days time. The local pastor who had agreed to perform the marriage rite suddenly decided to go off on vacation. The couple, by the way, had requested that the pastor should make no mention of God at this wedding ceremony. Yup. Sea without the water, air without the oxygen, Guinness without the collar, The Coffee House with no coffee. The only thing I don’t get is why the pastor didn’t just say “No!”