Kuruman

Where do I begin? What a memorable day! I jumped up bright and early to get the 6.30am breakfast before heading off. Breakfast here is very nostalgic as there are several things they serve such as stewed guavas, chicken livers and pap that were part of my childhood. (Eaten separately)!

I then hit the road to Vryburg just under two hours away. This is along the N14 and the N roads are pretty good with rest areas and a suggestion of a verge. This one is also relatively quiet with fewer mining trucks.

My father’s parents lived in Vryburg when I was maybe 4-5 and we visited a few times. I’d interrogated my older relatives but none could remember the address, just the street. So, when I got there I had a drive up and down to see if any house rang a bell. Sadly no, but the golf course which my grandfather loved was looking good. Vryburg is in better condition than Kuruman and there are some lovely areas. It is in the North West Province and Kuruman is in the Northern Cape. It’s a rich agricultural area and green and lush with large herds of cattle on the farms as you enter town.

My main purpose was to collect Rev Mighty Keagile (the g is is pronounced like a throat clearing). I had no idea what to expect. When I realized he lived in a township on the edge of Vryburg I felt a little anxious as historically it’s not where white people go. Luckily my fears were unfounded as it was a tidy suburb with an air of calm. Clearly not wealthy but it held pride and hope and felt safe. I did feel very white though and was a great source of amusement for passers by. My destination was the Congregationalist church. Mighty met me there and he was not what I expected. He was younger - late 40’s early 50’s I’d guess, and much less serious than I expected a Congregationalist minister to be. He greeted me with the traditional African handshake and then showed me around his church. It was also established by the London Missionary Society in the early 1909’s (as were all the Congregationalist churches). Mighty has a big congregation of all ages including several chiefs, and I regret not going yesterday. He said I would have enjoyed the singing and dancing even though it’s all in Tswana. Indeed I would have.

We drove the 1.5hours to the Moffat mission while I learned about his life. He was born in a rural area a few hours north. His father died when he was a child and his mother was a domestic servant, which in the apartheid era meant she lived with her employer. Mighty and his brother were sent to separate families to live for many years while their mother worked to support them. They were often hungry. His high school was 11 km away and there was no bus so he had to walk. There was no food provided by the school so he was hungry until he got home that night. Apartheid came to an end in his last year of school. He studied theology at a theological college based at Moffat Mission (where the Maths/Science school is now). That’s where he got to know the mission and the Moffat story so well. After graduating he spent some years as supervisor of the mission and used to preach in the church. He’s unhappy with its current management.

Since graduating he’s been a parish priest and in Vryburg for the last 10 years. He says he tells his people ‘ I don’t know poverty from a book, I lived it. I don’t know homelessness from a book, I lived it. So don’t tell me helping those people will make them lazy. I know what it was to go to school with an empty stomach.’ You have to imagine this said in a beautiful lilting African accent.

Their church has just renovated their kitchen complete with giant black cast iron cooking pots to start a daily soup kitchen for the homeless and hungry in the community.

I didn’t tell Mighty I’d had a sneak peek at the mission as I didn’t want to spoil things, and really this time was completely different.

The first thing we did was go to the cemetery which was hidden from view from the rest of the compound. It is a beautiful place with powerful stories. Robert and Mary’s three children who died are there as well as one of their son, John Smith and his wife Emily’s children, Unwin. John Smith is my great great grandfather. He also ran Kuruman for a time, was born there, as was his son Malcom, my great grandfather. You can see why the place is so significant to me. Mighty explained that he always starts tours of the mission at the cemetery because of his belief that death is the beginning of a new life.

We then explored the other buildings which I described to you in an earlier blog. This time with all his special stories attached. He showed me the stump of the famous almond tree where David Livingstone is supposed to have proposed to Mary Moffat (the daughter). He particularly loves the church and he said the huge wooden rafters supporting the roof are the original ones donated by the fearsome Matabele chief, Mzilikaze, who Robert developed a strong relationship with. There is a picture attached for you. The floor is also original and is actually cow dung. Villagers would come with wagon loads of it and spread it on regular working bees. It’s a gorgeous surface. The church is in three rectangles in a cross shape, meeting at the alter. All still original. The other really cool thing was seeing the printing press that Robert Moffat used to print school books, hymns and sections of the Bible in the local language, Sechuana. He eventually translated the whole New Testament and had it printed in the UK and distributed amongst the local people. He also preached in Sechuana.

Despite this being a unique piece of cultural heritage the Moffat Mission are getting no funding from local or National governments for its maintenance. It’s becoming a burden so I plan to do a bit of fund raising among my family.

Before we left we dropped into the school where there is The Robert Moffat library. The delightful librarian with the equally delightful name of Kamogelo showed me their collection of old books on the Moffats and some photo albums. I found some treasures I have never seen before.

I took Mighty out for a thank you lunch at the local Spur restaurant and he filled me in on the Four components of love: agape, philius, Eros and Storge (never heard of it) and the Five Pillars of Marriage: culture, the bedroom, finances, religion, communication. Quite a lunchtime conversation!

My car still had tyres on our return from lunch so we headed back to Vryburg where I met two of Mighty’s delightful sons. What a pleasure it is having time with people who are so generous with their time and their stories. The drive home into the setting sun was hard work, but a nice glass of red helped with the stiff muscles when I got home.

Tomorrow I leave this magic place. I’m going to start my day at the Wonderwerk caves who are kindly opening just for me in the early morning. I’m then taking the long way to Kimberley. The road I drove in on on Friday was really challenging with both the road conditions and trucks. There was also no opportunity to stop. I found out yesterday it’s called The Road of Death! Instead I’m going to go back to Vryburg and then South from there sticking to all National roads. It’s an extra two hours but an interesting route and hopefully safer. I will let you know tomorrow!

I’ve attached several pics of today because I couldn’t decide plus a video of Mighty explaining the printing press xRead more