Research and Collective Heritage

On Sunday I went to the Drostdy Museum in Swellendam to look at some maps and do research. I invited Shawn Mpofu, the property manager of Hoogelegen and Towerwater along. Shawn has a keen interest in the world in general and the place he calls home at the moment. In his company there is never a lack of conversation.

Swellendam Drostdy

At the museum we looked at the Zanddrift restaurant the house was the original farmstead of the farm Zanddrift.

You can read more on the website http://www.drostdy.com/zanddrift/zanddrift-farm/

One of the old maps and the Bosjesveld where the farms Aan de Breede Rivier and Zanddrift is today
 

The project was done under the guidance of Dr Mary Cook that saved it from being moved to the old Transvaal by another curator according to Me Miemie Rothman granddaughter of the author M.E.R

The map of 1880 shows the farms along the Langeberg. Boschjesmans Drift is the original farm that our houses belonged to and on Sand Drift the house is indicated just below the word river where the road forks.

Me Miemie Rothman is still working at the museum and is a fountain of information. I got permission to photograph the maps and I left Shawn in her capable hands. I could hear the conversation from the passage where I was photographing. Shawn was charming Me Rothman with his stories of building methods and the smearing of cow dung floors from his village in Zimbabwe while she shared her experience of smearing floors and laying peach pip floors.

Shawn Mpofu  outside the museum
 

Shawn found several objects in the kitchen that he remembers from home and I realise that all the people in the world have a collective heritage that is similar in many ways.

One of these days Shawn will be an expert in the maintenance of Cape vernacular buildings, at the moment he is mastering the skill of limewashing.