Tripping through towns at home and abroad

Wendy Jasson Da Costa|Published 4 months ago

Oberholzer calls South Africa the “Happysadland”. He says that some people stay, others leave for distant lands, but many remain for the love of this place, for the hope and prayers that it is indeed a promised land.

RENOWNED South African photographer Obie Oberholzer has just released his 16th Coffee Table book titled Going Dutch - Nine towns with Dutch names in South Africa and their namesakes in The Netherlands!

The title of the book is exactly what it is; a comparison between towns in South Africa with Dutch names and the towns or cities in the Netherlands with the same names. In South Africa he travelled to Alkmaar, Amersfoort, Amsterdam, Dordrecht, Ermelo, Haarlem, Marken, Rotterdam and Utrecht.

“It's so heavy and big, you can't lie in bed and read it, thank heavens. So, you've got to put it on the table because what runs parallel is a history going through the book and then on the left in the white pages is a Dutch side and usually on the black with the red captions is the South African side,” said Oberholzer.

The idea for the book came unexpectedly. Oberholzer lives in Nature’s Valley on the Garden Route and was commissioned to do a story for a magazine in Haarlem nestled between two mountains and not too far away from his home. Then he did a story on Dordrecht in the Eastern Cape and another in Utrecht in KwaZulu Natal.

“So this little light bulb went on and I thought, well, they are all Dutch there. And then I was sitting with a friend and we debated all the place names with Dutch names and we came up with nine. And then another slightly brighter light bulb went on and I decided why not think of making a book of these nine.”

Oberholzer contacted his publisher in the Netherlands who had worked on his three previous books and he loved the idea.

“He thought it was a very good idea, doing these dorpies and their mother cities. So that started my sort of historic study of the Dutch that came in, but settled at the Cape then they fell under British rule and got gatvol and they decided to move along. One can call it the Great Trek, you know, which one must skip though because it's frowned upon in the latter years and it doesn't exist for some but there's no concern of mine.”

The skeleton of a pioneer’s wagon, where dolerite fingers of the Agtersneeuberg Mountains clutch at the sky above an abandoned farmhouse. I wish that the green Pepper trees that still hang around the house could tell me more of the Grobbelaar family that arrived here in 1838 from Graaff-Reinet, trekking away from the clutches of British imperialism.

The outcome was a “big production” which took months of travelling and hard work resulting in a book that weighs 3.7kgs.

Oberholzer says the book is an “Obie” take on the history of the early settlers and their conflicts with various tribes and the 1820 settlers.

“But you must remember the heart, the spirit, the backbone of this whole book is the contrast. The contrast between the nine South African dorpies and their whereabouts and their people, compared to the nine mother cities in the Netherlands.”

Oberholzer was previously a photography lecturer in Durban and then at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. “At one stage I was promoted to senior lecturer but had such a debauched party that night that I was demoted back to lecturer the next day,” he remembers.

The book is filled with dozens of pictures he took along the way to the various Dutch named South African villages and their “mother cities in the Netherlands.

Oberholzer says, as always, he was inspired by Elvis Presley’s song "Follow That Dream” and that’s what he has done all his life.

“I do this (photography) for the love of it.”

Going Dutch is a 444 page coffee table book which retails for R1000. It is only available at Exclusive Books.