Theebus & Koffiebus

by Mike Rossi
 
Named TeaPot and CoffeePot by the early Afrikaner Trekboer women, both Koppies sit side by side near Schoombee, in the Eastern Karoo. Each hillock separated by the R56.
 
A large, stark white cross sits on top of Theebus, erected by a parson from Herwin children’s home in the early 1960s. But Mother Nature is not a kind woman in the karoo and the cross needed to be replaced in a few years. In the 1980s, Colonel Jordaan, with the help of an army helicopter erected a new one, which stands today.
 
Dotted near both Koppies are the remains of British blockhouses dating back from the Boer war. Both Theebus and Koffiebus stand tall in a rare lush green belt of the Karoo. All year round the rich waters of the Orange River are channeled through the 83.3 kilometres Theebus tunnel, gushing into the small rivers and streams that feed the local farms.
 
The San bushman tells their story of how they lived in caves in the area. In their wars with the Afrikaner Trekboers they hid in Koppie caves, watching, waiting, to kill the farmers and to steal his cattle.
 
We are what we eat and this reflected in San rock paintings of the Mountain Reed buck, Grey Reedbuck and the strange, plump Rock Rabbit. Some of their etchings have baffled archaeologists for many years. High up in the Little Karoo Mountains, they show creatures with a round head, arms, and a fish tail. Are these paintings of mermaids? Does this mean the San people saw such creatures? After all it has been said the Karoo was a vast inland sea — and did their forefathers pass down their knowledge?
 
This was my second ten-day trip to photograph Theebus and Koffiebus. The first journey provided me with no magical cloud moments. Contrary to weather forecasts Nimbus didn’t even make an appearance. On the third day of my second trip, I waited all morning wondering whether the clouds would build up. The smell of blue gum resin, recently cut Lucerne, wrapped in the fragrance emitted from the Kanna bush hung throughout the countryside — there was a tang in the air. By late afternoon the blackened clouds arrived from the West, showering the Sneeuberg Mountains in the North. The landscape looked fresh like a Jacob van Ruisdael painting. The dome-like cloudscape spanned across the Karoo veldt and the sun licked every blade of Karoo grass at it flicked across Nimbus.
 
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