There ís Water by Lut Teck

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Title: There IS water/Daar IS water (a traveller’s view of the Xhariepean community in transition)
Author: Lut Teck
Publisher: African Sun Media

 

 

Buy There is water/ Daar ís water (A traveller’s view of the Xhariepean community in transition) from AFRICAN SUN MeDIA

This little volume is interesting, and unusual, in several ways.

It is a snapshot of the rural Xhariep district in the southern Free State, presented in the form of a diary, as Ms Teck traces her travels from one town to another. In each town she conducted interviews with grassroots officials, volunteers, researchers and community members. As such, the diary harks back to the travelogues of the very early pioneers in South Africa, in the 18th century. The author presents her findings very much as she experiences them – naively, so that the reader can draw his own conclusions.

The book also serves as a photo album, with Teck’s photographs artfully inserted as photos stuck rather randomly, and creatively, in an informal scrapbook. The book is colourful and vibrant.

It is likely that contemporary travellers to the Xhariep district, as well as researchers in future, will find much of value in the perspectives of these local residents. The overarching impression of the district is of one plagued by poverty, social dysfunction, frustration and demoralisation. The underlying question, one imagines, is: How is it possible that a society, twenty years after the abolition of apartheid, could still be so troubled? What causes these social cleavages and deprivations? What is going wrong in Xhariep district?

It is at this level that the reader is left rather confused by Lut Teck’s book. Although it is commendable to present local residents’ honest, untutored responses in a naïve way, there are such powerful phenomena – and contradictions – in the text that one wonders what Teck actually made of all this. She provides little in the way of reflection or explanation. One perhaps has sympathy for her reluctance, because any attempt at explanation may well have to delve into theories about causality for which she may not have the resources or the confidence to attempt. On page 37 she notes, “This was our last event before leaving the Xhariep District. I could not help feeling lost.” Actually, the author rather accurately reflects the residents’ own sense of “lostness” in their own towns and societies. One almost feels as if the main purpose of this text would be to give it to a range of local audiences (government officials, university students, philanthropic organisations) and tell them: “Make sense of this! Figure it out! What is going on in South Africa?”

Ironically, the very first page of the book reflects the rather surreal nature of the local society. The motto of the Xhariep District Municipality has long aroused wonderment in me: “An area of unfound diversity”. “Unfound diversity”? What could this mean? Diversity that has not yet been discovered? Diversity which is somehow more or greater than anywhere else? Who on earth devised this motto?

Some of the photographs also left me with a sense of puzzlement. The photo of the community vegetable garden in Reddersburg does not appear to have a single plant in it – it is a vista of barren soil. The row of plastic soup containers at the soup kitchen in Bethulie at first glance resembles a neat garbage row.

And in fact, the title of the book (There ís Water, with an emphasis on “is”, as if to refute any thoughts to the contrary) also leaves one perplexed. In this arid landscape, of course, it is reassuring to hear that there is, indeed, water – somewhere. But the author leaves this rather unexplained, except for an enigmatic note right at the end of the book: “Transformation is like an undercurrent of water under dry soil that will make the wasteland fertile. Sometimes one can see little green scrubs [sic] growing. One must not lose hope. There is water.” I am slightly heartened by this belief in the underlying power of beneficial forces. But the views of the informants are generally so depressing that one wonders where the author found this fountain of hope.

Teck could have sought some more editorial assistance to clarify her text. Presenting people’s observations verbatim is one thing, but recording rather incomprehensible, quasi-literate statements does not provide for an easy read (although perhaps the book is, actually, not meant as an easy read). Sometimes there are acronyms without explanations. There are enigmatic comments, offered without explanations.

Possibly the most bizarre piece of information in a generally discombobulating book is a long discourse on “What is a Xhariepean?”. The author quotes an official from Koffiefontein who provides a description of what Xhariepeans (residents of the Xhariep District) are like: they are linguistically diverse, but “the poverty here makes you a special person”. Can this be? Astonishingly, the author provides a website reference which defines a Xhariepean as: “Where the big hearts, friendliness and sheer willpower of the people lead to prosperity”. And after this brave statement the book provides a litany of poverty and suffering, often railing against the lack of concern of other community members. How does this all match up? Where would such a wellspring of hope come from?

What does not help, is that the term “Xhariepean” is never, ever used by local people to refer to themselves. In fact, the district municipality of Xhariep has remained a weak, inchoate structure, with no local presence whatsoever. For residents of the area, their local municipalities (such as Kopanong and Letsemeng) are at least familiar – typically, though, for unfortunate reasons, such as corruption, inefficiency and patronage. The District of Xhariep is a bureaucratic notion, dreamt up by government apparatchiks in Pretoria and Bloemfontein. It is not real, for the people of Xhariep.

That is the difficulty with naïve travelogues by well-meaning foreign observers. The local reality is deeply confusing and fragmented, and to portray it at face value may well create misleading impressions.

Should the book have been written at all? Definitely. It is a valuable snapshot of a forgotten region at a specific historical moment. But perhaps the text could have been tested on some local reviewers, so that the author could have considered her observations more clearly.

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