There’s a village in the middle of nowhere being restored by a man on a mission.
In the winter of 2004, a slightly-built guy with bushy eyebrows and a studious mien arrives out of a dust storm in a middle-of-nowhere place called Rietbron.
Pedestrians don’t pitch up at Rietbron every day of the week, because the village lies on a sandy smudge on the map between the major Karoo centre of Beaufort West and the charming town of Willowmore to the south-east.
Our dusty, bespectacled newcomer is Dr Peter Kenneth Le Sueur, a highly-qualified quantum physicist with a deep knowledge of steam trains. He was also, in his time, a Kimberley ghost guide.
When first we met, we discussed the common thermodynamic link between ghosts and trains and the transfer of energy, a fundamental cornerstone of the workings of the Universe. It was like talking to a trainspotting, ghost-busting Einstein.
He said: “Death is just a scrap merchant, recycling matter into energy.”
‘A living museum’
De le Seuer buys a house and hires Anthony Cohen, the restorer of Rietbron, to enclose the porch so he can have more darkness and a bit of an escape from noisy morning birds.
When Anthony Cohen first arrived in Rietbron, it was in the company of his mother, who had bought a little house here back in 1978 for R600.
“My mom and I could not believe what it was like here,” he says. “It was a living museum. Everything was old and authentic. But then people started selling their stuff to the antique dealers of Oudtshoorn. They thought they were getting money for nothing, but they were actually giving away their heritage.”
Anthony started buying houses in Rietbron, mainly to revive them to their former glory and prevent them from being “modernised”.
A glorious hideaway
Driving in on the gently undulating dirt road from the Willowmore side, our first indication of life is the green smudge of trees around the graveyard and then the top half of the face-brick Moederkerk, with its legendary springbok spire.
Surrounding the church are deceptively tiny dwellings built around a century ago, mostly as Nagmaalhuisies by the farmers – places to come for communion, markets and match-making.
Most of the large backyards stilcul boast a braai chimney and an outdoor privy. There are working wind pumps, pepper trees and saltbush hedges – essential dryland garden elements.
There is only one shop left – the former Rietbron Kontant Winkel, now called Kapok Winkel – ...