‘Treffers’, halloumi and the Barbary sheep

It’s possible to live in SA and exist in entirely discrete pockets of culture that never really cross over. Ever.

Sometimes there are distant intimations of names and people and places that you think you might know, but not really. Not in a way that would get you out of a corner at the pub quiz.

In the kind of  week we have had, this realisation hits hard. The kind of week where the divide feels all too real and you wonder if there really is such a thing as South African culture — that ineffable uniting force that speaks to our better angels and that does not end in horrified tears in a dorm room in Stellenbosch. 

This is what I am thinking about when I take the drive to Pretoria East and arrive at Woodlands Mall. To be fair, Woodlands Mall is a mall like any other, and I mean this in the best possible way. And the Mugg & Bean where we end up eating halloumi and sweet chilli sauce with avo on the side is like any other Mugg & Bean (the halloumi is pretty good, though).

But as the purveyors of hospitality like to say: it’s the people that make the place. And here we are in the heart of a very Afrikaans enclave. The place is pumping and it’s Monday — midmorning. We are getting a bit of discreet fan engagement from the other tables, and a persistent visitor who is under five. I am sitting with Karlien van Jaarsveld, who is basically Afrikaans pop royalty. You may also have heard of her brother Bobby.

The music came from her parents, who sound like the sort of folks who like to break into song with an accompanying guitar that is never far away. Her mother had a burgeoning career in music but shelved it to raise Bobby and Karlien.  

Karlien followed Bobby into the industry with an initial foray in a band called Melktert Kommissie and then took her close friend Karen Zoid’s advice to go solo, because she has a great voice.

And the rest is Afrikaans pop history. The treffers came thick and fast. This morning she is manifesting as very rock ’n’ roll, with a sassy faux fur jacket, an old rock band T-shirt and a  jean mini. But when I ask her why we are here at this mall in this Mugg & Bean, she smiles and confesses to not really going out very much any more. She is in a get-together-at-home-with-friends mode, because she is deep in the heart of motherland, with four children — eight-year-old twin boys and two toddlers under four.

It sounds intense. When she is not running a very tight musical ship, her life revolves around school lunches, breakfast smoothies and driving the kids to various extramurals.

“I think you go through student life and it’s crazy, and then it all changes when you have kids and I love that I don’t want to ever change it back, I’ve had my fun. So this is a different kind of fun.” 

I wonder how she finds balance. “The children always come first. The two younger ones have never experienced me touring or being away from the house. Now that we are starting to work again, they don’t understand. Like last weekend we shot three music videos in Cape Town — I was away for five days. Now we are doing shows again, like earlier this month we did two shows for Afrikaans is Groot. We literally flew all the boere from Agrichem to Mauritius. We had such a lovely time.”

I have to confess that I am entirely ignorant when it comes to the operations of Agrichem. She laughs. “Oh my word, it is the  biggest company for boere that helps them invest in their business. They are basically keeping SA alive.” I suggest they might soon be keeping the wider world alive, given the wheat shortage from the Ukraine war.

I also learn the biggest writer of the treffers is a guy called Christoph Kotze. I will be saving this piece of info for when they ask a Bok van Blerk question at the pub quiz. He writes Karlien’s pop songs and she writes the moodier, more alternative material coming up on her new album.

I wonder if her impending appearance on Tropika Island of Treasure is the kind of mass cultural endeavour that helps with social cohesion. Goodness knows, we need some of that.

Open auditions for the public to partner with the celebrity contestants are happening for the next two weekends in Durban and Sandton, and I am starting to feel a new appreciation for the remarkable unifying quality of these reality shows.

I wonder what she would say to her younger self. “Embrace life, the good and the ugly and everything about it because everything is part of your journey and it’s supposed to teach you something, and broaden your mind and your perspective. Your mind will be expanding and you don’t know everything you think you know.”

On that note, Karlien wraps it up. She is in a rush because this afternoon the family are driving to a game farm. She organised a hunt for her husband Joe Breytenbach, a former rugby player. “He  has always wanted to shoot a Barbary sheep.” So ja.