The weather is fine here in Bushmanland. A cold front from deep in the Atlantic Ocean is pushing dark clouds over rocky ridges, quiver trees and bare expanses. The veld around Pofadder is so red it seems as though the edges of the clouds have caught alight. About 30km south of the town, the clouds are shredding themselves against Namiesberg. Streaks of rain leak from them and the earth slurps up the water.
It’s also raining at Onder-Namies, the farm on which 28-year-old Marli Visser and her husband, Theunis, live.
“We had 9mm of rain last night and another 2mm now,” says an excited Marli. The only evidence is a splinter of rainbow among the orange trees.
“It’s a lot of water,” says her father, Andre Nel. “We must have had 3,8mm at our place. I just tilt the rain gauge so that it reads 4mm.”
Andre and his wife, Marinda, farm between Kakamas and Loeriesfontein. He gestures towards the heart of Bushmanland. Things are tough there.
Theunis’s father, Gerhard, who is the chairman of the Pofadder Boere-vereniging, starts counting on his fingers the
