Photograph: Karatara: a town I’d never heard of

Through a gap in the roadside tree cover I saw clouds in a valley below. Leaving the forest I entered farmland, evident from the amount of cow dung on the road. It mixed with the white sandy mud to paint my panniers.

A young girl on a bicycle with a plastic bag over her head for protection from the rain passed me at a fork in the road. Two dogs were on her trail.

I asked her which of the roads went to George.

“Either one,” she replied.

A small town I had never heard of appeared on the horizon. Like many South African dorps it had a church tower, which was the first feature I noticed from afar.

I pedalled through its streets, filled with dull-looking houses in fairly large plots. It was quiet as ever. Not a soul stirred. It was, after all, a public holiday.

Over the years it had changed from being Dingaan’s Day to the Day of the Covenant. Now it was the Day of Reconciliation.

I’ve always called it “the Day of the Government”, a fitting name to give the day if it involves a visit to Karatara.

“It’s a government town,” said Hannes, who ran the local shop that also served as a post office. “Many people here live on different kinds of state pensions.”

A short, elderly woman with long black hair, who was in the shop, appeared to be in need of help to survive. She seemed unable to talk but kept pointing at her groceries in her bag.

“We can sort it out on Monday,” he told her after which she drifted off slowly to a building across a large patch of lawn.

On the wall was a picture of an enormous steenbras fish he said he had caught off the beach at nearby Sedgefield. There were also mounted kudu horns, the biggest trophy being from an animal he had hunted “up in South-West (Namibia).”

“Why does the name ‘Karatara’ remind me of somewhere in Namibia?” I muttered.

The answer came out loud and clear, from a back room in the shop where Hannes’s wife had overheard me.

“Katatura,” she said. “We get all the misdirected post that should be going to Katatura.”

Katatura is the former township outside Windhoek.

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