TIME CAPSULE: SA through the lens of mission stations: Genadendal, Goedverwacht and Wüpperthal

{JSON.stringify(article.attachments[0], null, 2)} --> A documentary team visiting old mission stations to record oral histories and Afrikaans variants meet a mix of young and old in Genadendal, speak to a community empowered through learning their origin story in Goedverwacht, while in Wüpperthal, still reeling from the devastating 2018 fire, see magic unlocked through a rieldans and basuin-orkes.

We have set off on a journey which will take us to about 13 communities around South Africa that were originally established as Christian mission stations in the 18th and 19th centuries. The “we” comprises interviewer Sandra Prinsloo, cameraman and editor Tim Wege, Juan Coetzee from the Stigting vir die Bemagtiging deur Afrikaans (SBA – Foundation for Empowerment through Afrikaans), and I, Laurie Gaum, as project manager.

Sandra is also deputy chair of the SBA board, and together we are on a mission to shoot documentaries about these communities and their specific variants of Afrikaans. This follows a series in which the SBA captured Bo-Kaap Afrikaans, Tankwa Afrikaans, Sabela Afrikaans (in prison), Tsotsitaal and Gayle Afrikaans (a queer version of Afrikaans), to mention a few.

First stop is, of course, Genadendal, which can write several firsts behind its name: one of the first printing presses in the Cape Colony; the first training of teachers; and Genadendal Dutch, which in 1816 had already distinguished itself from High Dutch while the Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners standardised Afrikaans only in 1875. The varied influences on “Genadendalafrikaans” range from Khoi, German and Dutch to Malay.

By 1799, Genadendal was the second-largest settlement in the Cape Colony after Cape Town, thriving like other Moravian mission stations as the “food basket” of the area.

Here on Die Werf (the churchyard), we meet those who have extended the local museum over decades with new themed exhibitions, the Moravian eerwaarde (minister), a school principal, a policeman and several other storytellers whose tales we record for this oral history project.

We meet a mix of old and young, starting with Marshall Rinquest , who was recently featured in Daily Maverick, and become excited by his contemporary reappraisal of the “old ways”, teaching people locally and across our continent about sustainable, small-scale permaculture farming.

The next week we visit Goedverwacht near Piketberg, a somewhat more secluded Moravian community in a beautiful, fertile valley stretching up into a kloof. Here, industrious local tour guide Lorraine Cornelius takes us around. She has excavated her own heritage, laying bare the layered history of Goedverwacht and its origins connected to a handful of family names.

We are reminded that history is often messier than expected, with silences that are visited on consecutive generations. Lorraine has convened the community to share what she has found out about their roots, and this has been in itself an act of empowerment for the community, who are now able to take pride in their origin story.

At some stage, Sandra asks me what constituted the missionary endeavour.