Diesel and Dust

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Diesel DustSouth AfricaEgyptEthiopiaYemenUnited Arab EmiratesOmanEmirate of Al-SharjahNamibiaBotswana

00 Page 1-7 • 7p - 1-7 FDK:Opmaak 1 19-08-2011 16:27 Pagina 1

South Africa

Egypt

Ethiopia

Yemen

United Arab Emirates

Oman

Emirate of Al-Sharjah

Namibia

Botswana

Diesel D


Dust


Colophon

Photography and text: Obie Oberholzer

Publisher: Koos Hussem, The Netherlands

Design: Frans Jansen, The Netherlands

Production: Corné de Keijzer, Boek|Design, The Netherlands

Lithography: X-Cago, The Netherlands

© Obie Oberholzer, 2011

ISBN 978-1-4314-0110-9

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means,

electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,

without written permission of the publisher.


Turn around a southern bend 8

South Africa

There’s a wreck at Dog Stone Bay 44

South Africa

White rocks of the Great Sand Sea 70

Egypt

Donkey watching camel sleep 96

Ethiopia

Far below the Muezzin calls 122

Yemen

United Arab Emirates

Oman

Emirate of Al-Sharjah

Dust falls like snow 150

Namibia

Botswana

Memories of Dreamtime 180

Contents


For those of you who have trampled around on Earth for a while, you willknow that there is something Australian about the title of this book. I stoleit from the 1987 album by an Aussie rock band called Midnight Oil. I’vealways loved the cover photograph of this album. It shows a forlorn housestanding alone in an Outback landscape. I am sure that those old rockerswould not mind me using their title now. Before I became a photographerand a visual thug, I always wanted to be a singer in a rock band. All that re-mains now is the visual thug. Before Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, I wasa wild little boy who grew up on a farm in Africa. My father taught me how tobe kind to people and my mother took me travelling to Europe and America.I taught myself how to praise all the things around me with my eyes. I used towatch the gravel road that ran over the horizon from my childhood home,wondering how the cars pulled up the dust behind them. Chevys, Fords andStudebakers, they were. I thought it was a real ‘lekker’ (nice) thing to do, tohave a cloud of dust follow you over the pale blue horizon. I always thoughtthat dust followed you to a wonderful place. It upset me when my uncle saidthat we should all see Africa before they tarred it. You see – back then, all ofAfrica belonged to the European colonial powers, in particular Great Britain.The Brits were building railway lines and tarring roads everywhere. Little didwe imagine then, that all those roads would go to pot one day – ‘potholes’, soto speak. Potholes, greed and corruption have become the new colonizers ofAfrica. My photographic career started not in Africa, but in Italy, in Pisa to beexact. In the square format of my mother’s Kodak twin lens reflex camera,I positioned the leaning tower in an upright position. The picture showed thatall the other buildings around were leaning except the leaning tower of Pisa.It was also around that time that I started to learn that having a sense ofhumour made life around you seem easier. Later, I started to travel far andwide, especially on the back roads of Africa. Now that I am older, I still pullthat cloud of dust across the horizon with a smile on my face, dangling my


right arm out of the driver’s window. Freedom is having a right arm that istanned browner than my left arm. Freedom is also not quite knowing whereyou are going. Freedom is writing ‘freedom’ in the dust on your dashboard.Freedom is listening to the long-song sung by the rhythm of the tyres on thecorrugations of a gravel road. How wonderful it is to wake up before dawnand to walk around your ‘bakkie’ (pick-up truck) with the smell of the wideearth mixed with a tinge of Diesel & Dust. I have never really found whatI am looking for. In fact, coming to think of it, I don’t really want to find whatI am looking for. I guess that we all search for our own little piece of Utopia.My place is called Fokkolfontein in Happy-Sad-Land. Here, right next to thechurch and the only shop, is a bar. Inside, at the long stained counter, sitDiesel & Dust, served by a barman who was once the mayor. As time pullsme towards that far away place, Diesel & Dust has become a concept, a stateof mind, a psychology – a dented and battered psychology, but one all thesame. To me, the Diesel & Dust is everywhere, in downtown Johannesburg,a lonely camp in Namibia, a reflection in Cleopatra’s Bath, pilgrims in Ethio-pia, Blood Dragon trees on Socotra and, in Australia, my son beneath awaterfall in Faraway Bay. My camera is my friend and companion. I don’t saymuch to her, as she knows exactly what I want. My other best friend is mywife, Lynn. I also don’t have to say much to her, except that she doesn’talways do what I want. My other best friends are my two sons and, of course,that barman who was once the mayor in Fokkolfontein. When travellingthrough Africa (and often elsewhere), the best companion to have is a senseof humour. The camera, wife and sons are optional. To get the real feeling offaraway places you need to rub yourself with a bit of Diesel & Dust. This stuffis a bit like after-shave; if you put on too much, people start pulling up theirnoses. It’s the mix that counts. Those wonderful clouds of dust that weredragged over the horizons of my youth are now the clouds of memory thatfloat across a wide-open sky.


sTasasTaT.

South Africa.

01 Chapter 1 • 36p / 8-43 FDK:Opmaak 1 19-08-2011 16:32 Pagina 8

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9


Sammy Dercks.

Baviaanskloof.

The Baviaanskloof is a beautiful place, a wildand harsh ravine that lies between the Bavi-aanskloof and Kouga mountains. I have beenthrough there many times since the first timein 1974. The Kloof has now been made into aWorld Heritage Site and has been discoveredby all sorts of enthusiasts. Hikers, artists,writers, climbers, hippies, off-roaders, moun-tain bikers, photographers, birders, investors– all come here. At Studis, a small colouredcommunity in the ‘kloof’, I ask Sammy whatthe star is doing on his head. “Nye, my larny,”he says, “I go to this big city last week andI see some big gang larnies. They tune methat I must become a shooting star. I mustmove like a meteorite, crash the enemy gang-okes that soek trouble with me. Shoot fromthe hip, you know, my larny – quick on thedraw.” Towards late afternoon I drive up avery steep farm road and camp on top of amountain. That evening, I lie on my back andwatch the heaven that abounds with galaxies.I count seven shooting stars, one for me andsix for Sammy Dercks down in the kloofbelow.

12


Sea Point esplanade.

Cape Town.

It is said that you should make your own luck.I believe more in just being there, ‘just hang-ing around’, as we Africans say. Before I leftfor a faraway place where there is a ‘sea ofsand’, I walked the Sea Point esplanade inCape Town. The Atlantic Ocean was furiousabout something, probably just generallypissed off that mankind was stuffing up theplanet. Destroying it. My friend walking withme said that it had nothing to do withmankind or destruction but was simply a

storm at sea. Sometimes factual people irri-tate me. A number of tourists were enjoyingthe spectacle and posing for photographs.Then, enter the marvel of the rogue wave,the disputed theory of ‘the seventh wave’ anda little luck. (Surfers and boarders often saythat the seventh wave is the biggest in a setor sequence of waves.) “B-B-b-b-b-o-o-o-OOOO-O-O-O-M-M-MMMM!!! !” crashedthe wave. “Shit,” said my friend. “Shooo,”I replied.

13


Rock formations.

Matsikamma Mountains.

14


Elephant foot.

Graaff-Reinet.

15


Diamond building.

Johannesburg.

Those of us who try to live in this Goddamnedcountry are filled with pleasure at its beauty,but when the clock gets to five to twelve, itcan suddenly be the shittest place on earth.Here, the good and the bad walk hand inhand. I look at the mirror inversion of myselfin the morning; my eyes of joy and happinessare lined with a darker sadness. “Mirror, mir-ror on the wall, why are we so happy, but sad,in this beautiful land?” Sometimes darkclouds follow me, menacing thoughts ofgloom. There are the sounds of gunshots andtyres screeching and people screaming andglass shattering and robbers robbing andATMs exploding. It’s just your normal day inJohannesburg and Cape Town and Durban.I am following ‘Fabulous’ through the streetsof downtown Jo’burg looking for peripheralsoccer images – it’s the 2010 World Cup. Theworld watches with bated breath as its jovialsoccer fans infiltrate a violent land. There areno police sirens chasing the crooks and mur-derers and rapists, they are out there aroundthe stadiums in a show of force protectingsoccer fans. ‘Fabulous’ is my bodyguard, myguide, my reflector of the happy-sad. Hisweapon is a hammer – a simple hammer.He has Rastafarian hair and, like me, loves thereggae songs of Lucky Dube that are knownthroughout the African lands. Lucky will singno more; killed by carjackers in 2007, shot infront of his two children. Through his songsruns the warmest of Zulu blood. In PresidentStreet, along the side of the De Beers ‘Dia-mond’ building, a reflection of ‘Fabulous’ be-comes the memory of Lucky Dube. Sixmonths after taking this shot, I hear that‘Fabulous’ has weakened to skin and bone.He is diagnosed with advanced HIV-Aids andhas returned to his mother in a village inZimbabwe to die. I see the mirror crack inmy hands and a sadness drip down on thebroken glass. All that he left behind was ahammer, just a simple hammer.

16



18


19

Dancing woman.

Polokwane.

This woman has no name. She embodies allAfrican women who swing to the rhythm oflife. She is Mama Africa, the one who dancesto the music. Westerners or Europeans followa rhythm that is determined by the melody.Mama Africa has an additional rhythm; she isthe listener and the dancer, and she puts lifeinto the song. She is the song. I watch herfrom behind my camera that shields my em-barrassment. Just beyond that camera line isa place I’d like to jump to but cannot. I cannotfall down the waterfall of rhythm and dance.I am just a stupid white man. An Mlungu. TheAfrican cosmos, the music, is like a spiderweb; its smaller elements cannot be touchedwithout making the whole vibrate. Everythingis connected, united in a kind of ‘vitalization’,

an energy, a force of life which permeates allof nature: rocks, trees, rivers, heavens and,particularly, man. African tribes believe thatthis force lives in every person’s body. TheAfrican-Americans call it soul. Notions of theflow control relationships between people,forces beyond the mere chemical make-up ofour bodies. This ‘flow’ is a rhythm that ex-tends into an African’s being, his personality.This concept of vibrating movement, or flow,unifies all people and things. Visit a tribaldance, a protest march, a township weddingand an African soccer game. You can hear it,see it, feel it and taste it – but most of all, ittouches the soul. Please, Mama Africa, teachme how to dance.

Vuvuzela blower.

Soccer City, Soweto.

Sorry – what was that? Please speak up! It’sthe 11th of June 2010, Soccer City Stadium inSoweto, South Africa. Bafana-Bafana is play-ing Mexico at the FIFA Soccer World Cupopening game. In the minds and ears of mostSouth Africans the 2010 World Cup will re-main the most incredible and monumentalevent ever to happen on the African conti-nent. Even now, the atmosphere of thatmonth, the crowds, the mad exhilaration, thecolours, the flags, the singing, screaming, stillrattle through me like a freight train. It wasas if all the years of African badness and sad-ness, the wars, conflicts, famine, crime, vio-lence and shame had, for a brief month, beenpoured into this huge cauldron. All theAfrican Gods sent the spirits to make thecauldron good and great, changing it into abubbling, sizzling African pot that filled thenation’s calabashes, stirred by a million vu-vuzelas into the greatest stew we’ve ever had.The vuvuzela! South Africa’s plastic horn, thatblasted through our ears into our heads, inand around all the stadiums, the streets,cities, country and township shabeens, blow-ing over the mountains and echoing downinto all the valleys. The Vuvuzela! The littletrumpet that irritated most foreign soccerfans – a plastic tube that can easily be blownto the sound of 130 decibels, louder than ajet plane taking off. It has been compared tothe sound of a swarm of locusts, bees, For-mula One racing, stampeding elephants orperhaps the best, according to The Guardiannewspaper – the sound of an army of ninjabumblebees. If you wear an orange FIFAphotographer’s accreditation vest, well, thenthe bumblebees will all turn your way; kind ofvibrate you off the ground. Vuvuzela levita-tion. I hear you now, you plastic horn, youbeautiful soccer beast, you blew a nation to-gether as one. (Note: For many years I havesuffered from tinnitus, an incurable afflictionwhich presents as a constant ringing in theears and results in a mild loss of hearing.)


Farm stall.

Near Worcester.


Ob

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Diesel DustSouth AfricaEgyptEthiopiaYemenUnited Arab EmiratesOmanEmirate of Al-SharjahNamibiaBotswana

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Diesel and Dust