"TSAMMA SEASON"

There is a saying in Africa, that only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. I am like the Englishmen today, as I also wish to venture out in the midday sun. The sun bakes down, burning my fair skin, sweat runs down my body in rivulets, and the sand scorches the soles of my feet through my shoes. "It is bloody hot," says Noel, "are you sure you want to do this ?" I think this a stupid question, and I make him stop the car. "I don't think I want to do this," grumbles Noel, but he engages first gear, and drives up a steep incline. Perched on the ridge of the high riverbank stands a small, solitary building. It overlooks the Auob riverbed.

The Auchterlonie Museum overlooking the Auob River

"What is so important about this building ?" asks Noel wiping the sweat from his face.

                                                                                                                                          "I read the book," I reply.

                         Noel rolls his eyes, because he knows that I spend a lot of time reading, and I have a curiosity that is never satiated. I know he is thinking that my mind has become heat-addled, but yes, I have read a book that was inspired by this lone building. The book is called "Tsamma Season" and it is written by Rosemund J. Handler.

In an appendix to the novel, the author writes: " Tsamma Season is a work of fiction and the characters are imaginary. Like many works of fiction, the story is inspired by actual events. A family lived and farmed above the Auob, as did the Johannsens, but well after 1914, when the government of the Union of South Africa drilled a series of boreholes along the Auob River to provide their troops with water in the event of a South African invasion of what was then German West Africa. I first visited the site of the ruins in the late 1990s. I gazed about me at the immense desolation and the heat-glazed riverbed, and felt the magic that captured the imagination of Alf Johannsen. Some years later, these ruins became the little Auchterlonie Museum, built by the people of Upington to depict the life of the family who farmed there.The stark unassailable beauty of the Kalahari Desert continued to captivate and intrigue me. On each succeeding visit to what is now the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, the story grew ..."

I experience first-hand the "washed-out sky" and "heat-glazed" riverbed, as described by Handler. I also experience the intense heat, as I stand looking at the re-built farmstead. Thankfully, it is summer, and I do not experience the biting cold of a Kalahari winter. The Kalahari winter would be the "Tsamma season", as this is when the Tsamma melon ( Citrullus lanatus ) matures in the cold, dry winter, when there is no rainfall. The Tsammas become an important source of nourishment and moisture for birds, rodents, ungulates and even carnivores. ( See the blog post entitled "The Pride of Nossob" for information about the symbiotic relationship between the Tsamma and the Brown Hyena. ) The human settlers would also have had to rely on the Tsamma as a food source. It is difficult to farm with livestock, and grow vegetables in the desert. The settlers would shoot game for biltong ( preserved, dried strips of meat ) and would tan and dry the hides. The hides were exchanged for goods like tea, coffee, sugar and ammunition. The closest town is Upington, a journey of two weeks by ox-wagon.  

The museum was constructed using the ruins of an old farmhouse. The walls were built using the calcrete stones that are found on the banks of the river. Rafters and beams would be fashioned from the wood of the Camelthorn tree. Riempies ( thin strips of dried animal gut ) were used to secure and lash beams together. The roof is thatched using dried grass and reeds. The flooring is a mixture of sand and animal dung. There are only two rooms in this cottage: one room is a bedroom, with a big double bed, and the other room is a living and cooking area, with a fireplace. There is also an outside cooking area, a big round pit, where a fire would be made. There would also be a hollow in the ground like an animal burrow. A few\hot coals would be placed in the hollow, together with a pan of bread dough, which would then bake. There is a tanning pit for the animal hides, the precious bore-hole, and a few low stone walls forming kraals ( enclosures ) for the livestock. 

I start to feel like I am baking in the hot sun. I just cannot imagine the suffering and the hardships of the people who once lived there. It is so remote, so isolated from others, the climate varies from extreme heat to extreme cold. They must have been very tenacious, more tenacious than me, as I seek to get out of the hot sun.  We return to our car, and begin the thirty-five kilometre drive to Twee Rivieren.

HANDLER, R.J. Tsamma Season. 2009. Penguin Books: South Africa.

www. penguinbooks.co.za