Life is rather uneventful in the village of Koringberg – nothing earthshattering has happened here in a long time. Every now and then there’s a bit of a WhatsApp kerfuffle over an unplanned power outage or a dodgy character peeping over a fence. Or when Magik, the old school’s resident mutt, has once again done a Houdini over the six-foot fence and hit the streets in pursuit of company. In other words, every 10 minutes nothing happens in this part of the Swartland, and that lasts for more or less another 40 minutes.
This was exactly the impression that Clive Amsel got the first time he visited Koringberg in 2015. The Capetonian has worked in the demolition and waste-removal industry for years, and is also an anti-pollution warrior, an inventor and a chartered accountant.
His two fathers sent him to Koringberg, Clive says, laughing. “My father-in-law asked me to come and check up on a deceased friend’s plot, there at the bottom end of the village next to the blue gum trees. It was August, I clearly recall, and Koringberg was looking really beautiful – quiet and green, with wildflowers blooming everywhere. Things were fine at the plot, so I decided to take a drive through the village. That’s when I saw the old railway station and the sign for the Omnia fertiliser plant… My own father, Werner, worked for Omnia for almost 40
