Baardskeerdersbos is a tiny dorp in the Overberg region with an intriguing name. Literally translated it means “beard shaver’s bush”, apparently named after a solifuge, a spider-like creature that is said to cut off hair to use for nesting material.
Who knows if it really has trimmed some sleeper’s beard, but it makes a good story. Baardskeedersbos is small, just over a 100 people according to the 2011 census, and began as a single farm, Baarscheerders Bosch, that was surveyed in 1831. Most of the locals have shortened it to simply B’Bos. Once a month the B’Bos locals hold a farmers’ market, and I was lucky enough to be there when they held it last weekend. What a great experience. On one level it was just fun to mix with the people and see all their wares, but on another, it was quite uplifting to see the level of entrepreneurship in the platteland, people just getting down and doing things to make a living, or to supplement their income. On the grass outside the hall there was hot coffee, wine tasting and a Zimbabwean woman selling vegetable seedlings ready for planting. On the stoep a woman was frying egg and bacon rolls, and if you wanted a more adventurous breakfast, there was afval kerrie just inside. I was delighted to find so many traditional plattelandse wares: hot pancakes made while you wait, melktert, koeksusters, rusks and home made biscuits. And the ingelegde goods had me happily handing over cash: curried green beans, waatlemoen konfyt, pickled onions in sweet mustard sauce, quince jelly, green fig preserve, apricot chutney. And they were all made by the woman selling them. I chatted to a man selling pure honey. He said he could make far more money by hiring his hives to fruit farmers for pollination, but he did not want to risk his hives possibly becoming contaminated by other bees. The purity of goods was a theme throughout. It seems that quite a few people have moved to the Overberg from cities and towns in search of a quieter life. One was a young guy selling bread he had made from stone-ground wheat. His father runs bread-making workshops. As we wandered back laden with goods, we discussed what it took to make an entrepreneur. What was the magic ingredient that made these women and men decide to start their small enterprises, and what did it take to make a success of them? None of us was able to define it, but we agreed that it was something we need more of, both globally and locally. With the high level of unemployment, it would be good to change our attitude from “I need a job” to “I am going to start selling/making this or that to earn money”. How does one get that transformation in thinking?
