KATARAK
We did not speak of the struggle to unionize. But of naked feet thawing in the warm stream of a donkey's piss. The death of your son in Stellenbosch. Not knowing. We did not speak of forced evictions. White privilege. Larneys in Landbruisers. Krotoa. Huriǂoaxa. ǁkhamis sa. But shuddered at the sound of ǃ’Aukarob thunder. Rain lashing the corrugated iron roof of the storeroom.
We did not speak of fetal alcohol syndrome or the dop system. But of becoming a doctor. To be an example to your child. About those with power having only one eye. Playing center. The lack of an ear. We did not speak of a minimum wage. Or structural violence. But of how giving is more important than what you receive. How the roots go in search of sustenance. Of how the vine falls asleep after it has shed its leaves. And how it wakes with tears at the first pruning. One eye telling the other it is time to wake.
We did not speak of the lack of basic sanitary facilities for harvesters. Banned pesticides. But getting married in '78. Selling wood over weekends. Fishing for black bass. And youth education. Singing 'As Jesus kom, wat sal jou antwoord wees?' [If Jesus comes, what will your answer be..?] on a warm Cederberg night.
We did not speak of the struggle to unionize. But of naked feet thawing in the warm stream of a donkey's piss. The death of your son in Stellenbosch. Not knowing. We did not speak of forced evictions. White privilege. Larneys in Landbruisers. Krotoa. Huriǂoaxa. ǁkhamis sa. But shuddered at the sound of ǃ’Aukarob thunder. Rain lashing the corrugated iron roof of the storeroom.
We did not speak of fetal alcohol syndrome or the dop system. But of becoming a doctor. To be an example to your child. About those with power having only one eye. Playing center. The lack of an ear. We did not speak of a minimum wage. Or structural violence. But of how giving is more important than what you receive. How the roots go in search of sustenance. Of how the vine falls asleep after it has shed its leaves. And how it wakes with tears at the first pruning. One eye telling the other it is time to wake.
We did not speak of the lack of basic sanitary facilities for harvesters. Banned pesticides. But getting married in '78. Selling wood over weekends. Fishing for black bass. And youth education. Singing 'As Jesus kom, wat sal jou antwoord wees?' [If Jesus comes, what will your answer be..?] on a warm Cederberg night.
We spoke in the purest creole of prayer. We spoke in Afrikaans. Kitchen Dutch. Kaaps. But not of marginalization. Malabar. Bengal. Java. Madagaskar. Or the scarification of systemic dispossession.
Instead, we spoke of dreams. Before we fell silent.
Instead, we spoke of dreams. Before we fell silent.
Katarak is a long-term project tracing the lingering currents of colonial memory across the Cape Winelands through the lives, language, and labor of Afrikaans/Kaaps farmworker communities. It listens to what is spoken and unspoken: stories carried in gestures, silences, and the rhythm of daily work.
Through intimate storytelling and evocative imagery, Katarak explores how generations shaped by servitude and survival continue to nurture identity, dignity, and belonging. It looks beyond the vocabulary of struggle to reveal tenderness, humour, and dreams through a reimagining of self and future within a landscape marked by deep roots and inherited scars.
Ultimately, Katarak is a meditation on endurance and renewal: a quiet act of seeing and listening, where hope is found in the simple persistence of life.
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