ZOAR: Sophia Ludick walks down a long and winding gravel road, over several small streams and past flourishing clover fields.
With a length of bamboo in hand and the sun setting on her back, Ludick, 81, finally reaches a barbed wire gate, lifts it and pushes it to the side until it falls to the ground.
“Leave it, I’ll pick it up. You might hurt yourself,” I say.
“Leave it, I’ll pick it up. I’m not a scared girl,” she says, affectionately.
Ludick walks some more until she reaches the concrete steps that lead to her front door.
All around, leaves are rustling in the wind and another gust can be heard approaching in the distance.
Ludick lives alone in a house at the bottom of a valley in Zoar, in the Little Karoo, and has just spent the day at Willem Blaauw’s house, her dearest friend.
There is nothing around Ludick’s house besides trees and fertile soil she hopes to use one day.
“I love being alone, and I like the silence and time I get to think. I'm not a scared girl. I was born in this house. My mother gave birth in the room behind me. I left Zoar once to work in Cape Town, but I came back here. This is my home.
"They broke in here a couple of times, the naughty youngsters, and they stole my plates and glasses.”
The worst thing about her humble abode, is that it has never had a toilet, Ludick says.
“When they built this house, the white people said: ‘It’s okay, they must just go there (the bush) if they want to go’. It's terrible having to do that,” Ludick says.
But next month, Ludick is having builders fit a flushing toilet in her home.
With a wide smile on her face, Ludick says: “I saved for this. After 81 years, I will finally have one in my house.”
According to Stats SA, about 88 percent of 1 236 households in the town have flushing toilets connected to sewerage.
Ludick becomes emotional when she starts to talk about the upcoming local government election. She says she will be voting for the ANC in honour of her late son, who supported the party.
“All my family members have moved out of Zoar, but my other son and grandchildren still visit me a lot. This is where I will live for the rest of my life,” Ludick said.
Zoar is close to Ladismith, in the Kannaland Municipality, established in 1817 as a mission station by the Southern African Mission Society.
It’s name means “Garden of the Lord.”
When you drive past it along the R62 today, green fields and grazing sheep greet you.
Blaauw is responsible for this. About 10 years ago the fields were grey pastures, with lots of potential.
Blaauw, 87, who worked on a livestock farm for most of his life, decided to host a community meeting and 10 people were selected to each get a portion of the land to farm clover and sheep.
The land is not theirs, but Blaauw said fortunately no official has bothered them yet and the community is doing well.
“It provides a sense of pride for us, and the residents know how to work the land better than anyone. Coloured people know how to farm. We are the real farmers of this country,” Blaauw says.
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