Hadeda News - 02 December 2022

"You must select a market, know the product you are selling, and you must believe in what you are doing.You have to be single-minded and prepared to work day and night.” – Renier van Rooyen.

James Wellwood “Whitey” Basson’s story is inextricably linked with that of Renier van Rooyen, the legendary founder of Pep Stores. Whitey, as Basson is popularly known, first encountered Van Rooyen when he worked for the company called Brink, Roos & DuToit and took over the Pep Stores audit.

“Renier was one of the most impressive businessmen and retailers I’d ever met,” Whitey recounted years later

“He had the ability to take a new idea and transform it into a profitable business. He was a brilliant man, a very good marketer, and he had this passion to supply people with affordable clothing – not cheap, but affordable.And he knew his market.”

In 1955, Van Rooyen and a friend bought a small general dealer in Upington in the Northern Cape calledThe Bargain Shop. It dealt in a variety of goods, from household goods to clothing and even donkey carts. In 1959 he opened his second store, Upington Volksklere. He soon realised he should concentrate on selling clothing, shoes, blankets and bedding at discounted prices in self-service stores where customers could select what they wanted from among the stock.

He called his new stores BG Bazaars and, by 1965, there were four branches in the Northern Cape.

Van Rooyen wanted to expand, but for that he needed capital. There was great interest among friends and family, and in 1965 he founded Pep Stores. But he had a distinctive precondition: if you wanted to invest in his

business, you had to be prepared to work for the group. And if you wanted to work for group, you had to be prepared to invest in it.

This deterred prospective investors, and in the end he raised only R50 000 of the R250 000 he had hoped for Van Rooyen often used the word “pep” to encourage his colleagues. He also wanted a short name that would be easy to remember and sounded good in both English and Afrikaans.

John Lee, a supplier and later a director, came up with a list of suggestions, and Van Rooyen immediately liked the name “Pep”.The first Pep store appeared in DeAar, in the Northern Cape, in a former BG Bazaars outlet. In December that year, a Pep was opened in Kimberley and, a week later, another one in Postmasburg.

Pep Stores soon acquired a reputation for providing reasonable clothing at low prices. Van Rooyen’s philosophy was: “We don’t sell cheap clothing; we sell clothing cheaply.”

The low prices found favour with consumers in lowerincome groups, and growing numbers of customers supported the new stores. In the meantime, Christo Wiese had joined Pep Stores full time after his legal studies at Stellenbosch University. Stoffel Wiese, Christo’s father, was an investor and also served on the board of Pep.

In 1965, while Christo was still studying at Stellenbosch, he had invested R5 000 in the business – half of which he had borrowed from his father. It had always been the plan that he would join Pep Stores after obtaining his law degree.

Wiese had worked at Pep Stores during some of his university holidays, but when he joined Pep in 1967 on a full-

time basis, he was company secretary as well as second-incommand. He was also responsible for the recruitment of staff. But his biggest task was finding the premises for new stores, and he had his hands full. Pep grew briskly. By 1971, there were 115 branches in the Cape province, but Van Rooyen was dreaming of a countrywide chain of stores.

“There was never any doubt in Renier’s mind that he would become one of the largest retailers in the country,” said Whitey

Van Rooyen and his team

converted Pep Stores into a public company and issued 350 000 shares valued at R1.50 each, which were sold privately. Van Rooyen stated that the group wanted to establish 50 branches annually over the next four years. Pep Stores also intended to list on the stock exchange by the middle of 1972.Accordingly, Van Rooyen was looking for a chartered accountant to prepare the company for listing, and he knew just the right man.

On November 1 1971, at the age of 25, Whitey took up a full-time position at Pep Stores as financial director.

Met die Upington Landbou Expo se jaarlikse algemene vergadering en verkiesing is die 4 hoof posisies vir 2023 gekies.

Baie geluk aan die volgende lede: Coenie Willemse - President Henco Burger - Vise President Marè Venter - Tesourier Francois Badenhorst - Sekretaris

Ons weet jul gaan jul goed van jul taak kwyt en ons ondersteun julle ten volle.

As jy wil weet hoe jy lid van die Skou kan raak en sodoende ook kan Stem asook in aanmerking kom om verkies te word skakel ons Skou Kantoor 054 3312105

Francois BadenhorstSekretaris Maré VenterTesourier

Henco BurgerVise President

Coenie WillemsePresident

Skryfwenke vir jou (4)

Wenke van Welbekende Gepubliseerde Skrywer - Annerle Barnard

indien die leser dit nog nie weet nie. Die leser moet immers weet hoe die milieu (omgewing waarin die storie afspeel) lyk. Moenie jou storie met bywoorde en byvoeglike naamwoorde verdun nie.

Jy glo my nie dat bywoorde en byvoeglike naamwoorde ‘n teks melodramaties kan laat klink nie?

‘nAantal skrywers het al vir my gesê dat dit soms vir hulle voel asof hulle niks reg doen nie. Ek voel ook soms so. In sulke tye moet jy juis aanhou en daardeur werk, anders gaan jy ‘n muur tref. Die slim mense sê as jy van ‘n perd afval, moet jy dadelik weer opklim. Dieselfde met skryf.

Die lekker van skryfwenke is dat dit jou kan help om jou eie skryfwerk te verbeter. Meer as een persoon het al vir my gesê dat hulle nog nooit van “perspektief” gehoor het nie. ‘n Ander persoon het gesê dat die begrip anti-held heeltemal vreemd is.

‘nAantal mense het al vir my gesê dat hulle eie lewensverhale ongelooflik interessant is. Ek glo jou, maar as jy nie beroemd is nie, gaan mense nie belangstel nie. Dis jammer, maar waar

Selfs al skryf jy nie-fiksie, moet dit boeiend wees. (Let wel: Ek verwys hier nie na akademiese tekste en handboeke nie.)

Indien jy jou eie skryfwerk wil opkikker of net seker wil maak dat jy niks uit die oog verloor nie, hier volg nog ‘n aantal skryfwenke.

Lees jou dialoog hardop voor Die baie bekende P.G. du Plessis het vertel dat hy sy skryfwerk altyd hardop gelees het om seker te maak dat dit werk. Ek moet eerlike bieg dat ek vir lank nie bewus was van oorlede P.G. se ongelooflike talent nie. Sy roman, Fees van die Ongenooides, het my oë oopgemaak soos wat ‘n beker yswater nie kan nie. Indien jy dit nog nie gelees het nie, dit is

‘n móét.

Wanneer jy jou dialoog hardop voorlees, sal dit jou help om lywige sinne te heroorweeg en seker te maak dat die dialoog getrou klink aan die karakters.

Kort en kragtige prosa Literêre fiksie is iets heeltemal anders en ek gaan dit nie hier bespreek nie. Wanneer jy egter genrefiksie skryf (dit sluit romanse in), fokus op sterk werkwoorde en vermy/beperk werkwoorde anders gaan jou teks melodramaties klink.

Wat is ‘n bywoord (adverb)? Die rooi Ferrari ry vinnig in die straat.

Ry is ‘n werkwoord in die bostaande sin en die bywoord beskryf die werkwoord, dus is vinnig ‘n bywoord.

Hoe kan ek dit herskryf en die bywoord (vinnig) uitlaat?

Gebruik ‘n sterker werkwoord as ry: Die rooi Ferrari jaag.

Jy kan “in die straat” ook uitlaat, want voertuie ry gewoonlik in ‘n straat. Dit is dus ‘n vermorsing van ink op papier. Indien die Ferrari elders ry — op water of om ‘n renbaan — kan jy dit vermeld

Marelise knip haar oë vinnig voordat hulle weer versigtig en gretig oor die hoekige lyne van Gerhard se sterk kakebeen spring. Met haar asem gespanne ingetrek, stap sy stadig deur die pragtig gemeubileerde kothuisie. Sy weet hy staan agter haar: ‘n lang, gespierde gestalte met weerlig in sy swart oë en ‘n melodieuse, diep stem wat die hordes senuweepunte in haar lyf kiertsregop laat staan.

Fokus

Ek kan glad nie skryf wanneer mense oor my skouer kyk nie. Ook sukkel ek wanneer ek voortdurend onderbreek word.

Ek het moes leer om oproepe en Whatsapps te ignoreer wanneer ek moet konsentreer. (Ek reageer slegs indien dit vanaf my man of seuns is.)

Selfs wanneer ek lees, ignoreer ek sosiale media, want dit steel my leestyd en ‘n mens kan nie skryf as jy nie lees nie. Ek ignoreer dus ook sosiale media wanneer ek skryf en probeer eerder daarby uitkom wanneer ek iewers sit en wag (voor die skool, in die tandarts se spreekkamer, ens.)

Die beroemde skrywer van die Jack Reacher-reeks, Lee Child, het tydens ‘ onderhoud gesê dat hy op ‘n rekenaar werk wat nie met die internet verbind is nie. Besluit self wat vir jou werk en hou daarby

Werk selfs wanneer dit voel of jy niks reg doen nie

Einstein het gesê dat iemand wat nog nooit ‘n fout gemaak het nie, nog nooit iets nuuts probeer het nie.

Hiermee stem ek heelhartig saam. As ‘n mens nie uit jou foute kan leer nie, waaruit moet jy dan leer?

Eenkeer toe ek op moedverloor se vlakte gestrand was, het ek iemand gevra wat om te doen en die persoon het vir my gesê om nog ‘n karakter by die storie in te trek. Dit het gewerk.

Tydens die skryf van Spel moes ek ‘n futuristiese wapen ‘ontwerp’ en ek het nie geweet hoe nie. Ek was vir vier dae heeltemal verlore en die Internet het my nie die antwoorde gegee wat ek wou hê nie. Uiteindelik het ek ‘n kenner gebel en een oproep het na ‘n ander gelei. Voila! Die uiteindelike wapen verskyn op bl. 234 in Spel.

Wanneer jy sukkel, oorweeg die volgende:

Kyk na jou aanvanlike notas asook jou beplanning.

Raadpleeg jou navorsing of doen addisionele navorsing.

Oorweeg dit om nog ‘n karakter te betrek of neem een weg.

Skep konflik.

Gooi meer hekkies in jou protagonis se pad. (Raise the stakes.)

Lees op oor skryftegnieke. Gaan stap of lees of rus vir ‘n dag of twee.

Indien jy steeds sukkel, kyk asb. na my blogplasing oor skrywersblok.

Lekker skryf.

NOORD KAAP TUINE

600g boerewors 250ml mieliemeel 625ml water sout en peper na smaak 200ml gerasperde Cheddarkaas 410g tamatie-enuiesmoor 25ml rissie-enknoffelsous

METODE:

Voorverhit die oond tot 180*C. Spuit ‘n ronde, middelslagoondvaste bak met kleefwerende middel. Hou die wors in ‘n spiraal en braai dit

in ‘n verhitte pan tot bruin en gaar Verwyder en hou eenkant. Meng die mieliemeel met 125ml water. Verhit die res van die water in ‘n kastrol en voeg die mieliemeel by wanneer die water kookpunt bereik. Geur met sout en roer tot kookpunt en tot wanner die pap verdik. Prut tot gaar Roer ‘n bietjie kaas by. Skep die pap ui in die voorbereide bak. Skep die wors, steeds in spiraalvorm, bo-op.

Verhit die tamatieen-uiesmoor saam met die rissie-enknoffelsous. Geur na smaak met sout en peper en prut ongeveer 5 minute lank. Skep daarvan oor die wors en strooi die orige kaas oor. Bak 15-20 minute of tot lekker warm. Dien op saam met die orige sous. Ek het by my pap blikkie room mielies gegooi, die mieliepap het bietjie vaal gelyk. Bron: Facebook / Onbekend

Rock Art: How South Africa’s Coat Of Arms Got To Feature An Ancient San Painting

Anew exhibition in Johannesburg titled ǃke e꞉ ǀxarra ǁke – People who are Different: ComeTogether celebrates the rock art of the San people, the first inhabitants of southern Africa. Presented by the University of the Witwatersrand’s RockArt Research Institute and the Origins Centre, the exhibition includes an ultra-high-resolution facsimile of a San rock art panel called the Linton Panel.The panel contains the image chosen for SouthAfrica’s national coat of arms.The exhibition also features a new artwork by descendants of the San people, as well as a book launch. We asked the head of the institute, Sam Challis, to tell us how the painting rose to such national prominence.

Who are the San and what’s their rock art about?

The names San and Bushman refer to the indigenous huntergatherers of southernAfrica, and their descendants, whose ancestors lived here for many thousands of years. Both names have been used pejoratively –as demeaning terms – for centuries. But now both have been reclaimed as identities to be worn with pride. Some groups prefer either one term or the other, depending on the historical use in their region. SouthAfricans prefer the word San while those in the Kalahari Desert region – and the artists from Nieu Bethesda in South Africa whose work we commissioned for the new exhibition – prefer Bushman.

The rock art is an indigenous archive of San religion: their beliefs about how to transcend realms to heal the sick, influence the movements of animals and control the weather It is not a “menu” of animals they liked to eat, and these are no idle doodles or simple “records” of events.

In the 1860s and 1870s, two linguists, Bleek and Lloyd, recorded the language of San Bushmen prisoners being held in CapeTown. Later, scholars realised that these |Xam (San/pronounced “Kgamm”) testimonies produced a “fit” with rock art images, which until then had been poorly understood. Dorothea Bleek’s 1932 study Customs and Beliefs of the |Xam Bushmen proved an almost inexhaustible resource for understanding this religious art from the perspective of the

explanation of the Linton Panel (click to enlarge). Courtesy Rock Art Research Institute

artists. Especially when these beliefs intersected with those of the Maloti Mountain San and Kalahari Bushmen, and other communities who inherited them.

What San painting was used in the coat of arms?

In 2000, PresidentThabo Mbeki’s office approached the RockArt Research Institute because they wanted an indigenous rock art image to grace the coat of arms of the new SouthAfrica. (The old shield had contained ox wagons and other colonial images.)The institute’s scholars offered several appropriate options, and the government chose the human figures from the famous Linton Panel, which is displayed at Iziko SouthAfrican Museum in CapeTown.

With various partners we have reproduced the panel digitally The art can now be viewed on an interactive zoom console in which visitors can highlight various motifs with explanations.

The two human figures come from one painting of a male figure. In the original, he most likely represents a San healer and game control specialist. He’s been mirrored and stylised to form a gesture of greeting.

How did a San phrase become a national motto?

Mbeki’s office also asked the institute to deliver a new national motto using the |Xam San language. Our professor, David Lewis-Williams, chose the |Xam words “ǃke e꞉ ǀxarra ǁke” from the phrases “people who are different” and “come together”. It can be translated as “diverse people, unite”.The language is no longer spoken (and so does not favour any of the country’s 11 official languages) but it is important to recognise that the people survive.There will be 16 individuals of |Xam descent at the opening, from the Bushman Heritage Museum.Three of these are the artists whose work forms part of the exhibit, in a modern |Xam take on the imagery in the national coat of arms.

There’s also a book being launched? I

It is very fortunate timing that the institute’s honorary research fellow, Jeremy Hollmann, is launching a revised edition of his book Customs and Beliefs of the |Xam with Wits University Press at this time. Based on Dorothea Bleek’s 1932 Customs and Beliefs of the |Xam Bushmen, it brings the testimony of the |Xam to a wider audience, making San beliefs more accessible.

Why is this exhibition important?

As part of Wits University’s centenary celebrations, the new exhibit takes a fresh look at the symbols of what it means to be SouthAfrican while also reflecting on what it means to be colonised and marginalised, as the San were and are. We celebrate the efforts to illuminate the indigenous archive, and to decolonise the images of these and otherAfrican ancestors.The RockArt Research Institute is the first and foremost centre of its kind in the world.

From the 1980s, its scholars, with David Lewis-Williams, joined the academic fight to bring to light the religious, and serious, nature of indigenous images and history. From the 1990s, its teachings have spanned the globe and influenced hunter-gatherer studies from Spain to Siberia and from CapeTown to Canada.

From the late 1990s, under Ben Smith, it strengthened connections acrossAfrica (hosting the digital collections of several other nations) and in the 2000s created the Origins Centre (which then became a separate entity).

The exhibition opens at Origins Centre in Johannesburg on 28 November 2022. - The Conversation

An

Force Majeure On Coal Line To Richards Bay

reopened on November 19, TFR said it was not in a position to resume normal services at full capacity as “certain critical restoration works” remained outstanding.

“The recent assessment of the site indicates that the normal resumption of services on the coal line can be immediately phased in,” it said in a statement Friday. “Accordingly, the force majeure declared on November 10 was lifted today.”

executive for the North Corridor atTFR (Transnet Freight Rail) in October As per its contract terms with customers,TFR grades its performance from April to March 2023.

TRANSNETFreight Rail (TFR) has lifted the force majeure on its North Corridor line that routes coal from mines in the Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces to Richards Bay

This follows the derailment of a 97 fully laden coal train on November 8 – an event that was preceded by community threats, the government-owned company said.The force majeure was in effect for 15 days.

The derailment, which occurred between Bloubank and Nhlazatshe stations, caused “massive damage” to infrastructure and rolling stock, saidTFR.This required the closure of both lines and negatively affected the service from the mines to Richards Bay “hampering the performance of contractual obligations by Transnet and coal export parties”, it said.

Although the lines were

The derailment led to logjams on Richards Bay’s roads as exporters sought to transport goods by truck.

It remains to be seen if the event, following a two week strike atTFR holding company, Transnet in October, will damage the company’s chances of achieving 60 millons tons (Mt) in coal deliveries for its 2022/23 financial year, ending March 30.

“We have not revised the 60Mt,” saidAli Motala, managing

The Minerals Council calculated that including the effects of the strike, as well asTransnet logjams, the country would suffer annualised revenue losses of R50bn this year, 43% more than R35bn last year This covers losses on revenue of iron ore, coal, chrome, ferrochrome and manganese exports.

It said that R151bn could be gained in additional exports, with the concomitant benefits of employment in mining increasing by 40,000 jobs to 500,000, the fiscus benefiting from improved tax revenue and higher revenues forTransnet if all rail and ports systems were optimally and efficiently run at design capacity. - Mining MX

* Opening 30 November 2022

SouthAfrica is famous for its amazingly rich and diverse fossil record.The country's rocks document more than 3.5 billion years of life on Earth: ancient forms of bacterial life, the emergence of life onto land, the evolution of seed-producing plants, reptiles, dinosaurs and mammals—and humanity

Many will be familiar with hominid fossils such as the Australopithecus africanus skull Mrs (or is it Mr?) Ples and the paradigm-shiftingTaung child. Less well known and equally important fossils such as the oldest terrestrial vertebrates in the ancient supercontinent Gondwana, which document the first steps from the ocean and onto land, have also emerged from SouthAfrica.The country's wealth of fossils is due in part to the region's unique geology, which documents 100 million years of nearly continuous deposition in its Karoo Basin.

Fossils also hold clues to climatic shifts, from the great Carboniferous ice age over 300 million years ago, to the huge dunes of blazing Jurassic deserts where dinosaurs roamed 200 million years ago. Scientists can read the devastation of the mass extinction events that destroyed global ecosystems and changed the course of Earth's history

But in the race to understand the "big picture" of the evolution of life and to distill its dramatic ups and downs into punchy headlines, it is easy to forget the small and quiet things. Pause, and consider what life looked like on an average day, in a world without humans, mammals, birds, butterflies, flowers, or even dinosaurs. What was it like on the shores of a rippling lake, on a drowsy

summer afternoon, 266 million years ago in what's now the Northern Cape province of South Africa?

The search, and what we found

In a new paper, my colleagues and I provide the first glimpse of such an ecosystem. We have found a profusion of fossils of tiny insects that have never been found before, as well as important plant specimens that are changing our understanding of how they evolved.

Our findings give fresh insights into the effects of extinction events on ecosystems.The subject has taken on great urgency in the face of what scientists are calling the sixth great extinction event, which is being driven by the current trend of global warming.

Afossil of an insect nymph - so tiny that it is dwarfed by a human hand - and, on the right, seen under a microscope. Credit: Rose Prevec

For the past few years we have been excavating a small, nondescript rock outcrop near Sutherland in the Northern Cape.

This outcrop is yielding untold fossil treasures of plants, insects and other invertebrates that are new to science.These unique fossils, some only a few millimeters long, are telling us about what lived in and around a calm pool on a delta plain during the middle Permian period between 266 million and 268 million years ago. Rocks of this age contain fossils of the oldest therapsids, a group of reptiles that eventually gave rise to the mammals.

Other life of this time included the lizard-like ancestors of tortoises, large amphibians that lurked like crocodiles just below the water surface, and forests dominated by

a tree called Glossopteris with an understorey of sporeproducing plants such as mosses, ferns and horsetails.

Teams of paleontologists have discovered and excavated many hundreds of vertebrate fossils in the western and southern Karoo of SouthAfrica that date back to the Permian, including the Sutherland District and surrounding areas. But the kinds of rocks that are rich in vertebrate fossil bones tend not to preserve plants and invertebrates.These seem to require the more anoxic, acidic conditions present in calm lakes and pools for high fidelity preservation, whereas bones preserve well in more oxygenrich settings.

This makes it difficult to understand the ecosystems of this time—and means our discoveries are especially astonishing.These include the oldest freshwater leech, a record that pushes back the known range of this group by 40 million years, and the oldest water mites by 166 million years.

Other exciting finds include the oldest damsel-fly and oldest stoneflies from Gondwana, as well as a profusion of the tiny, aquatic, immature stages (nymphs) of an extinct group called the Palaeodictyoptera. Many of the insect wings we have found have yet to be identified.

There are also mosses and liverworts, tiny soft plants that were among the first to colonize land.They too, have a very poor fossil record, and we have found both at our site.The liverwort is the oldest inAfrica and one of only a few records for the Permian period globally.

One of the most exciting finds is the dense accumulations of the male and female cones of the

Glossopteris plant, an unbelievably rare occurrence that is shedding light on the evolution and classification of this important coal-forming plant.

Our work has been slow Excavations have involved a lot of sitting on spiky rocks in the sun for weeks on end, extracting tiny pieces of mudrock and then examining them with a magnifying hand lens.

The fossil site is still producing new weird and wonderful plants and invertebrates, and will keep us busy for a while.There is also great potential for finding other sites in the region.The thousands of plants and insects we have collected so far are being carefully curated and studied at theAlbany Museum in Makhanda. We are keenly aware of the need to conserve this precious part of SouthAfrica's protected natural heritage.

Our work to better understand the organisms we're finding provides knowledge about how and when they evolved and interacted as well as about local climate, how their distributions changed through time, how the positions of the continents changed, and the effects of deserts, mountain ranges and seas on the movement and evolution of life.

This is very important when trying to understand extinction events such as the Great Dying, which marked the end of the Permian 252 million years ago. It destroyed most life in the oceans and on land and—in a chilling echo of the current global climate crisis—was driven by hundreds of thousands of years of volcanic activity that produced huge amounts of greenhouse gases, leading to an increase in global temperatures. - phys.org

A fossilised insect wing with some of its colouration preserved is just one tiny treasure emerging from the site. Credit: Rose Prevec

A fossil of an insect nymph - so tiny that it is dwarfed by a human hand - and, on the right, seen under a microscope.

Credit: Rose Prevec

Here’s How Framestore Helped Make Idris Elba Fight A

very important for that shot because obviously Sharlto’s cuddling him, he is rubbing his head around his mane and his head, and there’s a lot of hand gestures and hand interaction with the body

around the set for getting the right height or the right distance and perspective of where the lions were for framing.

The best kind of set-lighting reference

Baltasar Kormákur’s Beast tells the story of a father (played by Idris Elba) and his two daughters who visit an old friend (Sharlto Copley) in SouthAfrica, but then quickly come up against a vicious lion seeking revenge.

All the lions in the film are CG, crafted by Framestore, under visual effects supervisor Enrik Pavdeja. In addition to various build challenges on the digital lions, Framestore also had to deal with extensive lion/human interaction–at one point Copley’s character hugs a pride of lions, and later Elba fights ‘Beast’. Plus, director Kormákur sought to represent several lion scenes as lengthy oners.

Here, Pavdeja tells befores & afters how those challenges were overcome for Beast over the planning, shooting and post stages of production.

The prep Enrik Pavdeja: We flew out to South Africa in early 2021. We met the director and all the other department heads there and starting to break down the script by doing a page turn.After that, I think I’ve lost count of how many scouts and recces and technical recces we went on: so many trips into the savanna, game views, flights, climbing up rocks.All of that was the most incredible experience ever

In the end, we probably managed to shoot 80% of the film on location, with just a small fraction in the studio, like the night scenes in the car. We filmed on location in Northern Cape and Limpopo, which is by the border with Namibia.

How to plan a shoot featuring lions–without lions–and the birth of the oner

Shooting with real lions was never really an option, so we knew we were going to have CG animals. In order to shoot the film, we needed to do previs, and that started withThe Third Floor. I was working very closely with them to figure out the performance of Beast, because that was the most important thing to Balt for this film. He just wanted it all to feel very grounded and very real. That was the main driving factor in why we needed to previs what these performances were going to be so that we could figure out how we could then shoot these plates.

Muscle structure rig.

It was also how the idea of the ‘oner’, seen in the film so much, was born. We were putting together these shots in previs, which are quite easy to keep as a oner They also made for very scary, visceral moments.The challenge became, though, how do we actually film this? From the previs, I’d then work closely with the DPand the camera department to figure out how we go about shooting this, what type of rigs we were going to use and where our stitches would be for certain shots.

For example, the first time we see the lion, which is the first attack where he runs down and smashes into the car, that was a mixture of something like 10 different plates. There are some more obvious stitches in places, but there are also some very hidden stitches that I don’t think people notice.There’s just a load of CG take-overs.

We had a cable-cam for the first section of the shot, then we’re always hand-held for the inside of the car. Later on when they start driving off, that was a different rig where it was actually a drivable car, like a buggy with a pod, where we had a guy on top that could drive the car

To give you context of how many long oners we have in this film, between Framestore, BlackGinger and the in-house team, we probably delivered about 200-ish visual effects shots, which doesn’t sound like a big film at all. But for Framestore alone, we delivered upwards of 100,000 frames of visual effects, which when you break down to your 150 frame conventional shots, it works out to almost a thousand shots that Framestore alone did.

Crafting a lion hug

At one point, Sharlto’s character hugs the lions. We had previs’d this and realized to get the shot we needed to have the actor interacting with something. So we had puppeteers in gray suits and we built a rig where you had a guy at the front who could wear the suit, which had the correct proportions of the head and the distance of his arms. His arms could actually accurately portray what would be paws.

Then we had a guy at the back who effectively could drive the neck and head positions, which again was

We had a production side creature department and I worked very closely with them to get the right shapes to puppeteer At the same time, we were building the 3D asset at Framestore, so we knew what size the lions would be.And we did all this rehearsal, based on the previs, before we even stepped out on location.That made the oner side of it work better too, since that hug is all done in a single take. It’s something like a three-and-a-half minute long shot.

Fighting a lion

For Idris’fight with Beast, we take this one step further and essentially filmed what we call a stuntvis, which was our lion suit guy, a stunt man in a suit, and Idris rehearsing the stunt. We sent that back to Framestore. The Framestore Pre-production Services team then started effectively putting in rough blocking of our lion, which again, gave us an idea of scale, gave us an idea of the action beats, the physicality of the lion, and the performance in terms of what would this lion be doing in this moment. He’s being hit. So where does he go when he’s hit? Does he roll over? Is he further away from camera? Does he actually just stay there? Is his presence felt?

All of these things started to really give us an idea of what this performance was going to be.And at the same time, actually putting in there the blocking of a lion, which had the right proportions–that gave us an idea of what the camera needed to do.

Lion stand-ins

In addition to our performers in lion suits, we had a variety of things standing in for what would be our CG lions during filming.At the most basic, we had a tripod with some ping pong balls for an eye line.That was used for any far away lion in the distance.

Lion line-up.

We’d also printed out molds of lion paws, which were made out of silicone, which our stunt men could actually wear They would be used for any quick interaction beats, say a paw swipe, especially when we were inside the car and we have the lion by the window and he’s coming in and he’s swiping at the cast.

Then we had a more lightweight version of a printed 3D head, which was effectively made out of soft silicone but with a rigid body underneath, which meant that it was light for the stunt man to carry This acted as an eye line, but also for framing.

Finally, we had full 3D printed scale lion 3D cutouts that we could place

For gathering lighting reference, first of all, we built a realistic lion head, care of the creature department. We then had a lion pelt and part of a mane that we would carry with us throughout the location.That allowed us to understand how the fur reacts to the light that we were filming in.

Scarface (a reference for Beast) in real-life on the left, and CG version at right.

Both the lion head and the pelts and the mane were used for photography on every shot at the correct timing of the shot, together with all the chrome balls and everything else we would normally use.Those were then sent to Framestore so they could have them while they were building the assets.

The second, and probably more important thing was, even though we had agreed with Universal that we wouldn’t use real lions for the film, we were allowed to shoot reference for lighting purposes. So we had a very beautiful lion called Mojo that traveled with us to location.As we were filming, we would note down all of the right information–the camera, the lenses, the time of day, the position of where we were filming. Then we would corner off an area and we would bring the lion in and we would film the lion in the exact same conditions.

Beast stalks the family

For example, the lion jumps on top of the car bonnet at one point. It meant that we could literally take our car, place it in the exact spot that we needed this lion to be jumping on this car, get a camera inside the car and have the animal handler train the lion to do that exact action to jump on the car. It gave us the perfect reference of what this lion should look like.

Mojo actually features as one of our lions–he’s Kuda in the film. We built Kuda one-to-one based on what Mojo was like.

Lion-building

CG supervisor Dan Neal did an incredible job of looking after our lookdev team and assets team to really hone in on all the detail of what these lions needed for them to appear realistic. One challenge we had was, you couldn’t really get a typical photogrammetry scan of these animals, like you might a dog or a cat. I mean, we still built a photography tent where we could bring in Mojo and other lions and take hundreds of photos, polarized, non-polarized, bright, dark, in the light, at night, whatever

Beast sneaks up on Idris.

Beast lookdev

But, we didn’t have that key scanning ability. Our modeling and rigging and texturing was therefore more old-school. We literally had to build these creatures and these assets in the most old-school visual effects way that you can imagine, based off of some CR2s, essentially. But in some ways that was also quite liberating.

Our groom team was brilliant, just matching fur based on a pelt that we’d sent them. We had a multitude of lions, we only had one pelt, so we had to go, ‘Right, so that’s what that is and we have to now creatively art direct that, but have the tools in place that allow us to still have the ability of what these things should look like.’

Then our CFX team was also brilliant. Everything from lion dynamics to digi-double work to cloth sims, muscle sims and sand simulations.As we were studying more and more of these lions, we realized just how complex their muscle structures are.

Afinal shot of Framestore’s creation. They’re essentially a muscle machine and every pose brings a different look to a muscle. It was a very strange thing where it wasn’t the conventional cycle of how a muscle reacts. Instead we had to effectively shot sculpt every type of muscle movement per muscle and have that as a rig that could be triggered by animation, which would then be sim’ed on top of.

Our render engine called Freak was utilized here. I believe it’s one of the first shows that was actually used for full production.

Perfecting performance

It was imperative that everything that we provided Balt with in terms of performance was grounded in reality. Whether it was a walk or a rule or a run cycle or a take down attack, all of those things had to come from somewhere. So even before we’d start shooting, we built a library of every lion action you can imagine. Every lion action that we could find on the web, any video of a lion anywhere, we’ve basically

ripped it and built a library of all these actions which we could call up on.

Walk cycle.

Alot of our early postvis submissions started out life as just a clip of various lion beats.Then when we got into animation, those became even more focused. We had close-ups of what they’d be doing with their face, for example, instead of just, ‘Oh, they’re now running across whatever they’re running.’

Even moments where Idris is being

attacked by the lion, sadly, we did have to look at a lot of reference of people being attacked by lions or lions attacking other animals, and it just gave us idea of how the body reacts, how the lions react.

Also, one of the main things we noticed as we were studying all these lions was just how underwhelmingly boring they can be! We’d have to try to find that balance of, we want to get an engaging performance, but we want it to be real. So that was also a tricky thing. -

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A final shot of Framestore’s creation.

Tracking The World’s Shaggiest Sheep In The Northern Cape

utumn, 2021 –The streets of Calvinia shine with remnants of overnight rain. Locals thank us for bringing yesterday’s thunderstorm, and by now we have learnt not to protest. Maybe we are rainmakers of some kind. But this time we are on a mission to track down a very shaggy sheep calledThe Poggenpoel.

At 8am, Calvinia Museum curator Memci van Wyk and her assistant, Adonis de Wee, are opening the doors to the erstwhile Jewish synagogue.

This museum isn’t perhaps as expansive as “The Macgregor” in Kimberley, but it is so eccentric it can leave you smiling for days.

Take, for instance, the section dedicated to the Lombard Quads of Loeriesfontein. Born in Calvinia in 1951, Klasie, De Waal, Jan and De Villiers all turned 70 sometime this year The Philadelphia Enquirer caught up with the six-year-olds in 1957; theAmerican newspaper reported that the Lombard Quads used to sing and rock each other to sleep at night. Now that’s a show one could sell tickets to.

The quads were identical, so much so that when they were babies, the hospital pinned name tags to them. Hannie stayed in hospital from February toApril. In fact, she only saw them 11 days after the birth. Her two other daughters, eight and four, were delighted, and heard to exclaim:

“Two for you and two for me!”

Apart from a collection of family photographs in the Lombard Room, four child-sized dolls dressed in bow ties, waistcoats and cricketing whites (each holding a little shepherd’s crook), four walking rings, four cots, four christening robes, four baby’s bonnets and what looks to be four toddlerleashes are on display

The Jewish Community

Here’sTrekboer Corner, with an ageing diorama of a settler couple completely engrossed (as they have been for many, many years) in preparing supper in their outdoor asbos skerm (lye bush shelter). There’s even a glow in the fire.

Not long after theTrekboers came to live here permanently, the Jewish smouse (travelling traders) arrived. Many of them stayed on, opening various enterprises that ranged from general goods stores to, later, automobile shops. Others were farmers, photographers, hoteliers, chemists and doctors.

The imposing Calvinia synagogue, built in 1919, was eventually donated to the municipality for use

as a museum in 1970.The 120odd Jewish families who lived here once are commemorated as a community in a spec ial section of the museum.

Snake oil salesman

Arelatively small but very significant glassed-in box has found its way to the Jewish section. Inside is a four-legged ostrich chick, its little beak gently resting on a stick.

ACalvinia carpenter, remembered only as “Du Preez”, glued two artificial legs to the stuffed chick more than a century ago, back when snake-oil salesmen were just as thick on the ground as they are today

Du Preez used to move from farm to farm, doing the odd carpentry job.To make a few bucks on the side, he took his four-legged ostrich with him, and charged the farm children a penny each to see it. It finally became the possession of a prominent local, Max Rosenblatt, who donated it to the museum.And to this very day, people continue to pay to see this wondrous apparition.

Old-time wheels

Outside stands a Victorian-era version of a camper van, a smous wagon that served as both the trader’s sleeping quarters and stock room. It is simply a container-sized wooden box on metal wheels drawn, one surmises, by a sturdy team of oxen. Right next to it is the classic 1952 Ford V8 bakkie, with its distinctive white grille. In the Wool Boom days, it was a farmer’s favourite, full of style and attitude.

That very model was Ford’s maiden cross-over from farm-only vehicle to general market jammy To lure buyers from the city, the Ford marketing team went into top gear, touting all the comforts of what they dubbedThe Million Dollar Cab, because of its huge redesign budget.The cab was said to be quieter and wider, sporting innovations like an easily read instrument panel, sun visors and an ashtray

Holding court near the entrance of the museum building stands the Makadas Class 24 steam loco that used to haul Calvinia’s wool to Williston, then to Hutchinson and finally onto the main line to the markets of old Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha).

Why “Makadas”? Various theories abound.The English version is that a bored fireman told his driver to “Make a dash!”TheAfrikaans version is that Makadas is the rhythmic sound made by the slowly turning wheels of the

locomotive as it gathered speed.

Back-stories abound

Memci van Wyk, born and bred in Calvinia, has been the curator of this museum for a decade. She keeps a record of the 1,700-odd items, big and small, in storage and on display here.

“Everything has a story,” she says. “And it is such a joy when you find that story.”

Like the possible background to an unsigned painting donated by oneAminaAdams. It’s of a wagon in the veld, manned by people of colour.Trekboers, one discovers, came in all shades.

This particular group in the painting are possibly Basters trekking northwards from the Colonial Cape to the wilder spaces along the Orange River In fact, when one digs a little deeper, it emerges that trekboer parties consisted of just about any nationality or hue imaginable, from San to Spaniard.

Adonis de Wee is Memci’s righthand man. He was born on a nearby farm, picking up some essential skills like wire fencing, painting, meat processing and product packing. He ensures the gardens are looking as beautiful as a drought cycle will allow

Together, they keep this classic Karoo Imaginarium ship-shape, and often updated with little innovations. The Poggenpoel “But where’s the fluffy sheep?” we askAdonis.

There, under glass, is the scruffiest Merino you ever saw:The Poggenpoel.The morning light through the window casts an amber glow onThe Poggenpoel’s shag, and for a brief, fanciful second, we feel like the GreekArgonauts of old. We have found the Golden Fleece. Its owner is possessed of kindly eyes, a hint of a smile, dainty little feet and matching set of curled horns.

This fellow once belonged to Danie Poggenpoel, from Bonekraal Farm up in the Roggeveld Mountains. It wentAWOLfrom its flock for a few years and skipped many shearing seasons. It was so remarkably tatty that the farmer kept it like that and, when it died, had it stuffed and donated to the Calvinia Museum.

The Poggenpoel Sheep lives on, behind glass and under the watchful eye of the Calvinia Museum curator and her able assistant. DM/ML

This is an extract from Karoo Roads III – The Adventures Continue, by Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit.

The Poggenpoel Shaggy Sheep – end of the search for the Golden Fleece of the Upper Karoo. Image: Chris Marais

Memci van Wyk, Calvinia Museum

curator, and her assistant Adonis de Wee, with the renowned Makadas steam loco. Image: Chris Marais

Bou Met Poort Beton in 2022

21km

Male :

1st place Rhein Coetzee

2nd place Chester Dioka

3rd place Pieter Laubsher

Female :

1st Place Janika Botha

2nd Place Mari van Niekerk

3rd place Karla du Plessis

10km

Male:

1st Place Johan Visser

2nd Place Emmanuel Jerimah

3rd place Matthues Olyn

Female:

1st Place Hanneri van der Merwe

2nd Place Ilana Human

3rd placeAdalein Maritz

Eerste vir STAAL

Jou -deur Andries Scholtz Geestesgesondheid

REDES VIR DIETOENAME

Freeman (2003) wys op die volgende moontlike redes waarom daar die afgelope aantal jare so ’n toename was in self-mutilasie: Jongmense verkeer onder meer druk as in die verlede, veral as gevolg van die opvoeding sisteem met sy klem op pertinente doelwitte wat bereik moet word.

Moderne oorlewing strategieë – of die gebrek daaraan. Waar daar in die verlede veel meer staat gemaak is op ondersteunings netwerke word daar tans al meer van die individu verwag om te kan oorleef, hetsy alleen in sy/haar kamer, deur na musiek te luister, of te ontvlug deur dieTV. Dan is daar ook die faktor van portuur-druk onder tieners.

Persone wat vriende het wat hierdie praktyk beoefen, sal meer geneig wees om dit self te begin doen.

WATSELF-MUTILASIE NIE IS NIE

Dit is nie ’n mislukte selfmoord poging nie

Dit is nie slegs van toepassing op meisies nie.

Dit is nie bloot ’n ‘tiener probleem’ wat later ontgroei word nie

Volgens Whitlock (2010) kan die tendens van self-mutilasie tot diep in die volwasse jare voortduur. Ryan et al. (2008:239) toon aan dat dit meestal gedurende die kinder- of adolessente jare ’n aanvang neem, en dan vir 15-20 jaar, of selfs langer, kan voortwoeker

Fisiese pyn is nie die werklike fokus by self-mutilering nie. Oor die

algemeen geniet self-mutileerders nie die fisiese pyn wat hulle hulself toedien nie, soos wat blyk uit die woorde van ’n self-snyer: It’s never about liking pain. If I liked pain, then it wouldn’t help. I hate it.That’s why it helps... I feel terrible. I have to make my feelings go away

Coetzer Die self-sny fenomeen onder jongmense

I just use bitter medicine to make them disappear (Clark & Henslin 2007:45).

Aansluitend hierby gee Penner (2008:36) die volgende belangrike stukkie raad, “We need to remember that at its core, selfinjurious behavior isn’t primarily about creating pain; it’s about managing pain.”

Self-mutileerders is nie psigoties nie. Dit is nie maar net ’n nuwe gier wat weer sal oorwaai nie.

Betreffende self-mutilasie gaan dit egter nie om ’n nuwe mode gier of haarstyl nie – inteendeel gaan dit om ’n hoogs verslawende, lewensveranderende, self-destruktiewe gedragskeuse wat ernstig opgeneem moet word (Penner 2008:36).

Daar is hulp. Maak afspraak.

Vrae wat Pla ???

Jy kan nou al jou geestes gesondheid vrae vra.

Stuur WhatsApp na 0722123204 METJOU VRAAG.” Groetnis Andries Scholtz Spesialis berader

BA,B.Th, M.Th. PracticalTheologie (UOV)

FunctionalTherapy (Post Graduate UNISA), Fecilitative Leaderschip (US), Substance abuse (SANDRA) Cert IV Veritas Colage (Perth Bible Collage) Tel: 0722123204 Upington

Hey Leah

Hey Leah

UpingtonArtist Heidi Botha ( ‘Follow the light artist’on facebook) “Eve's tide" 40x30cm Oil on Board Painted from a photograph of Schroder Street, in Upington.

In

Bracing against the vibrations of the jackhammer, illicit diamond miner Jefferson Ncube bores steadily into the rock face before him, sending chunks of dry stone clattering to the ground and filling the air with a cloud of pale gray dust. He's 30 feet below the surface of the desert in the Namaqualand region of SouthAfrica in a tunnel barely tall enough to crawl through.

"I don't enjoy this at all, but I need the money," says Ncube, who holds a degree in agricultural science from the University of Pretoria but says he has been unable to find work elsewhere. "I have a family to support, a wife and a 1-year-old child."

The Nuttabooi mine, near the coastal town of Kleinzee, was once mined by the diamond giant, De Beers, the largest of dozens of industrial mining operators who, for the best part of a century, formed the backbone of the region's economy.

But over the past 20 years, rising operational costs and a dwindling supply of diamonds have made large-scale industrial mining increasingly unviable. The sector's steady decline has left a legacy of chronic unemployment in Namaqualand but has also created opportunities for a growing number of desperate young men and women willing to tolerate hardships and dangers as they eke out a living in abandoned mines.

Known locally as "zama-zamas" — loosely, "ones who try their luck" in isiZulu — unlicensed miners like Ncube are considered illegal by the government.Yet here on South Africa's wild and diamond-rich Atlantic coast, residents say the number of zama-zamas has burgeoned in recent years, fueled by the lack of jobs, the economic impact of the COVID19 pandemic and the rising cost of living, as well as by political and economic crises in neighboring countries.

Earlier this year, SouthAfrica's minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Gwede Mantashe, described illegal mining as a "plague" amid reports of rampant corruption, extortion and violence linked to zamazama activity across the country, not only in relation to diamonds but also coal, and other minerals

such as gold and chromite. Once confined largely to the country's estimated 6,100 abandoned or ownerless mines, officials say illegal mining is increasingly spilling over into operational mines too.

Ncube is part of a 12-man team, all of them migrants from Zimbabwe, where hyperinflation and unemployment have made it all but impossible to build a stable life for their families. Out in the desert, living conditions are bleak and working conditions even worse, but with some basic tools and a little knowledge of geology, they manage to make ends meet.The men, almost all of whom have arrived in the past two years, share the work and split whatever profits they make.

"We dig down until we hit the bedrock, then we go sideways through this belt," says Ncube, pointing at a band of rock and gravel on the side wall of the tunnel. "This is where we find the diamonds. In the past, they used hammers and chisels. But if you use a jackhammer, you can take out more rock and then there are more diamonds for you."

Danger in the tunnels

The miners have little in the way of safety equipment, and their tunnels are prone to collapsing. Alittle more than half a mile from here, at the neighboring Bontekoe mine, a simple granite plaque in the desert commemorates the miners who lost their lives in a particularly deadly collapse in 2012. Smaller accidents occur frequently and often go unreported. Community leaders say that at least six people have died at Nuttabooi alone in the past few months.

To try to stay safe, Ncube and his colleagues make a point of leaving "pillars" at 6-foot intervals as they tunnel through the ground. But it's an imperfect system, made harder by the fact that tunnels dug by different groups of miners often collide.

"If the hole is ‘paying,' people get greedy and they eat away at the pillars until the whole thing is just hanging," says Ncube. "That's how some guys died just two holes away from here. If you get greedy you'll die down here, and then your family will suffer even more."

After handing over to a colleague, Ncube climbs carefully back up the vertical mine shaft and hauls himself

over the edge.At the surface, in a stark, lunar landscape of craters and piles of rubble, zama-zamas cluster together around their holes, sifting through gravel and chatting over the low hum of diesel generators.Afew hundred yards away, the old De Beers mine lies abandoned, a massive scar on the face of the desert, hemmed in by towering mine dumps.

"De Beers has taken all the diamonds out of Namaqualand and now we're back in poverty," saysAndrew Cloete, a longtime illicit miner who lives in a small tent of black and red plastic sheeting in the ever-expanding squatter camp below the Nuttabooi mine. "The companies left us like they found us — with nothing. But if we just sit there thinking about it, our kids will die. So we, the diggers, come in here and take the scraps.”

The plight of the zama-zamas There is a palpable sense of anger, particularly among the

miners who grew up in Namaqualand, over how little of the region's diamond wealth has stayed in the local area. Over several decades, vast quantities of diamonds have been exported overseas, yet most of the area's roads are still unpaved, service provision is haphazard at best and poverty and alcoholism are endemic. Unemployment in the province stands at over 46%.

“Africa's f***ed up. We don't have jobs, all we have is minerals — but they're being looted by the West," said one miner, an unemployed mechanical engineer who didn't want to be named, citing concerns that he may be targeted by the authorities. "This is ourAfrica.This is our land. These are our minerals.”

Outside Cloete's tent, men wander through a small city of plastic lean-tos that has sprung up in the desert over the past two years.The camp has

Jefferson Ncube, an illegal diamond miner from Zimbabwe, works on his latest tunnel at an abandoned De Beers mine near Kleinzee, South Africa. Ncube is a univeristy graduate, but has been unable to find employment. Tommy Trenchard for NPR

A diamond miner hauls up a bucket of gravel at an illegal mining site in South Africa's Northern Cape Province.

Tommy Trenchard for NPR

enveloped a handful of derelict buildings left behind by the mining companies, where zama-zamas now sleep side by side on filthy mattresses on the floor The camp, home to around 1,500 people, has no electricity, running water, clinics or sanitation but a surplus of bars and taverns that do a steady roundthe-clock trade.

"Nobody would live in conditions like this if there wasn't a need," says Cloete, gesturing toward the scene outside. "We're here because of poverty, hunger and joblessness."

They're not getting rich off their diamonds

After lighting a cigarette, Cloete reaches for a small glass jar and takes out a plastic packet from inside. Carefully, he empties its contents into his palm.About a dozen small, rough diamonds tumble out. On international markets they might fetch a substantial sum, he says, but due to the illegal nature of their work, the zama-zamas have little bargaining power and are forced to sell their finds to black-market buyers for a fraction of their true value.

"They buy diamonds like they're buying sweets," complained one zama-zama. "You get people

buying diamonds for 100 Rand [about $5.50]."

Cloete, who founded an informal group of mineral rights activists known as the "Mining Fighters," has spent years petitioning the SouthAfrican government to find a productive way to formalize zama-zama mining, a move that he says would lead to safer working conditions and a fairer marketplace for local diamonds, as well as bringing in considerable revenue for the government. Similar systems are in place in many other African countries, where socalled artisanal mining, carried out by individuals or small groups using traditional methods and basic equipment, is now a major employer and revenue generator

But Cloete says he has yet to receive a response. "They treat us like we're criminals," he says.

Many in the formal diamond sector would also like to see the legalization and regulation of informal mining, which they say hampers their legal operations and fuels a parallel black market in illegal diamonds.

"At the end of the day, it's a situation that's totally unbearable for us," said Gert Van Niekerk, chairman of the SouthAfrican Diamond

Producers Organisation, an industry body representing legal diamond miners. "This is not the Wild West."

In Kleinzee, a faded mining town once owned by De Beers, where most homes now lie empty, residents say the influx of illegal miners from around SouthAfrica and neighboring countries has led to a rise in crime.

The uncertain future faced by zama-zamas “Zama-zamas aren't welcome here," said one Kleinzee restaurateur. "They have knives, they have guns, they're gangsters.They can come and buy things here, but afterward they must leave. We don't want them here."

Police raids are frequent. In one major operation in July, a combined force of police and other law enforcement bodies backed by two helicopters and a spotter plane raided the Nuttabooi site, arresting over 100 people and confiscating 130 generators and 121 jackhammers, along with other equipment. But within days, mining activity had resumed.

In a policy document released in March, SouthAfrica's Department of Mineral Resources and Energy

announced its intention to create a new police unit dedicated to combating illegal mining. It also laid out plans to make it easier for artisanal and small-scale miners to legally acquire mining rights by streamlining the expensive and time-consuming process of applying for a permit.

But creating new legislation to support the policies could take time.And critics say it's unrealistic to hope that many zama-zamas will voluntarily cease their activities, undergo training, comply with regulations and start paying taxes and royalties to the government, especially given that many are in the country illegally and would not be eligible for mining permits.

In the meantime, Namaqualand's zama-zamas don't intend to wait around.

“There's nothing for us out there," said Kim Cupito, a former fruit trader who lost her job during the pandemic and now lives with her husband in a derelict De Beers building with gravel piled up in the hallways and gaping holes in the roof. "We need to survive, and this is God's ground. It's for everybody." - Npr.org

Andrew Cloete, a diamond miner and activist for mining rights, photographed in his shack in a squatter camp at the Nuttabooi mine in Namaqualand, South Africa. The government considers the activity at Nuttabooi illegal because the miners do not possess permits.Tommy Trenchard for NPR

An ilegal diamond miner breaks up rocks at the Nuttabooi mine near Kleinzee, South Africa. - Tommy Trenchard for NPR

Members of an illegal diamond mining collective look down a mineshaft at the Nuttabooi mine. - Tommy Trenchard for NPR

Zama-zamas have little bargaining power and are forced to sell their finds to black-market buyers for a fraction of their true value. - Tommy Trenchard for NPR

HEALTHCARE services in the Northern Cape province will be more accessible after Vodacom created an end-to-end technology solution for the sector. The solution, which includes a computeraided emergency services dispatch system, is hailed as a first for SouthAfrica’s public healthcare sector Vodacom believes this highlights how publicprivate partnerships can spearhead innovation and ultimately save people’s lives. In 2019, the provincial government pronounced the idea for the end-to-end technology solution, which includes a smartphone app and intelligent emergency medical services (EMS) dispatching functionality.