Follow your nose along the Fragrance Route
“The secret of being miserable,” said Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, “is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not.”
The old fellow clearly never visited Friemersheim, because here in the shadow of the Outeniqua Mountains, it truly does feel as if the hours are created empty – though the roosters do crow and the men in blue overalls walk to work briskly every morning shortly after six.
Yet not a single person or animal or plant in Friemersheim appears sombre. Not the tannies in their bright pink gowns leaning on their front gates, mug of coffee in hand, as they chat to the neighbours across the street. Nor the cattle that meander along the streets, keeping the grass on the pavements short and neat.
There’s a tranquillity, a certain equanimity, that defines life in this historical mission village halfway between Mossel Bay and George and about 15 km north-west of Great Brak River. It is named after the German town where its founder, the honourable Johann Kretzen of the Berliner Missionary Society, was born. He arrived in the Cape as a carpenter in 1838, determined to become a missionary. This was a dream he only realised 32 years later when, on 13 December 1870, he bought part of the farm Gonnakraal and officially founded a mission station there.
Kretzen, who also worked as a teacher in the George area, was especially committed to advancing educational opportunities for coloured people. He sent many men to the Moravian
