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Merweville, part two - Karoo Nougat Central

Merweville, part two - Karoo Nougat Central
The cheerful honey-sucker team of Merweville say they’re proud to help keep their town clean. Photo: Chris Marais
Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit
By Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit
28 Aug 2024
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In the second of two visits separated by 14 years, 'Karoo Roads' book series authors Julienne du Toit and Chris Marais return to Merweville and find something magical has happened to the tiny village in the Koup Karoo. It’s time to investigate.

December, 2022: After a 14-year absence, we’ve come to see what has happened to the Western Cape Karoo village of Merweville. There has been a successful television series partly shot here, called Die Boekklub, starring acting legends like Jana Cilliers and relatively new stars like Armand Aucamp. 

Taking a slow mosey around before finding lodgings, we see the streets are relatively clean and we’re struggling to find a pothole. Something is working here in Merweville, and it can’t just be due to a popular TV show.

But it’s still pure Karoo: sheep in huge backyards, wind pumps spinning along every street, massive grape vines giving shade and fruit on stoeps where friends gather for sundowners, classic wooden window shutters keeping the summer heat out, dwarves glaring at succulents in gardens, and that splendid old neo-Gothic Mother Church looming above all. 

Merweville The idyllic dirt road setting of Merweville. (Photo: Chris Marais)



William Koopman on duty at Die Boekklub coffee shop. (Photo: Chris Marais)


No Country for smoked oysters


After a hearty breakfast at Die Boekklub, some shopping at the Merweville Mall and a tour of the household vegetable gardens and shade-netted afdakkies (lean-tos that provide essential relief from the murderous Karoo mid-summer sun) of Die Skema, we finally arrive at a gate where the sign reads:

“Karoo Blessings: Jesus se Sweets Fabriek.”

Someone has told us this is Karoo Nougat Central. Will disappointment lie beyond this gate here at Jesus’ Sweets Factory in Merweville? We are not sure, but what we do know is there’s a giant Boerboel pacing around the yard, looking ready for action. We ring the cellphone number advertised on the sign, and presently a woman with a long ponytail emerges and stashes the monster dog in a smaller enclosure. This is Marian Esterhuizen, the Boerboel’s name is, wait for it, Goliat, and it turns out he’s an excellent chap.

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-08-22-merweville-memories-of-the-hard-lands/

Both of these women exude that kind of creative cheer, the thing that shines through when one works on a passion project. Within minutes, we can see why.

Two teaspoons of their new Orange and Belgian Chocolate nougat and a handful of leftover Nutty crumbs have us demanding for more. So it is the best nougat in the Karoo. 

“It all happened during 2020, with Covid and the drought,” they say. “We were dying to contribute to our families’ coffers. Our husbands lent us the money and within three months we paid them back!”

Marian Esterhuizen, co-founder of Karoo Blessings. (Photo: Chris Marais)



The bubbly Suzaan Theron, Marian Esterhuizen’s business partner in 2022. (Photo: Chris Marais)



Because the main ingredients of nougat are egg white and sugar, a local farmer has tripled his egg production. Several town bakers called Die Koup Oumas, who support their kin with their ovens, now incorporate the nougat crumbs in their biscuits and fruitcakes. Other Merweville seniors are incentivised to hand-write small bits of hard-fought wisdom, to be included in nougat packages sent far and wide. Who thinks of these things?

One of the Karoo Blessings product lines is a series of beautifully decorated boxes containing seven different nougats. Each time a box is sold, R30 goes to local drought relief. If you thought South Africa’s weather had generally turned to The Wet (as they say in Australia), come visit Merweville. It might rain here from time to time but, like fickle friends, the storms move on and pretty soon all is stark and dry.

So what happens when it rains?

“Then we halt the nougat and turn to making Merweville walking maps, licence and bumper stickers. And when loadshedding comes, we pack boxes.”

Bring on the rain


Our new temporary home in Merweville is an old house opposite the Boekklub called Karoo Vreugde. It has a great back stoep, where we sit in the shade, pinned down by the heat of the day.

So it allows us the time to sit for an hour and watch the antics of a mouse on a saltbush, and the swaying blue head of the koggelmander in the shrubbery. Or to watch the wind tug at a tumbleweed, then kick it across the garden.

Don’t think about lunchtime shopping at the Merweville Mall. A quick bite is followed by some serious siesta time. That’s Merweville style. We leave the streets to the tumbleweeds and dart inside for the shadiest, coolest patch.

In the late afternoon, the skies darken to wet purple. All the wind pumps in town are spinning hard, turning to face just away from the wind. A wall of dust lifts up. It is hot as a bread oven outside. Thunder and lightning rumble and flash. Then a silent sense of yearning and anticipation.

After a tentative tap-tap, the rain roars down, making all conversation inaudible under the tin roof. It sweeps across the veld, herding all before it. Once again, we are blessed to see Merweville in the rain.

Fridays in Merweville


The weekend begins early, on the main street of Merweville. Izak Visser, his wife Ronell and their right-hand man, Koos Jacobus, are clustered around a mobile braai stand across the road from Muller Handel.

The sun’s hardly up, and these three are griddle-baking roosterkoek like gangbusters. Farmers on their way to the co-op pull their bakkies over and order the hot roosterkoek: R10 plain, R25 cheese & jam, R30 cheeseburger or the R30 chicken & mayo special. Koos darts up and down the road making deliveries and buying more ingredients as the orders come in. They sell about 100 roosterkoeke every Friday morning.

Merweville Izak Visser and his early-morning roosterkoek braai setup in the main road of Merweville. (Photo: Chris Marais)



The cheerful honey-sucker team of Merweville say they’re proud to help keep their town clean. Photo: Chris Marais



We watch Izak methodically flipping the roosterkoeke over the coals. He arrives early to get the coals right. And he also does the flipping of the delicate dough with his bare hands. The roosterkoeke puff up a little more every time he turns them. I ask how tough his hands are. 

“Not tough enough,” he says ruefully. 

We drive on towards the church and finally discover the secret to Merweville’s magic. It comes in the unlikely form of municipal tractor driver Manie Koopman and his gang of Honey Suckers, who are literally singing as they go from house to house, emptying the old-style septic tanks.

“We are proud to keep this town clean,” he tells us. And there it is: South African municipalities everywhere, take note. DM



This is a short chapter excerpt from Karoo Roads IV – In Faraway Places (360 pages, black and white photography, R350 including taxes and courier in South Africa) available from  September 2024. Anyone interested in pre-ordering a first edition, author-signed copy should please contact Julie at [email protected] for more details.

The Karoo Quartet (Karoo Roads 1 – 4) consists of more than 60 Karoo stories and hundreds of black and white photographs. Priced at R960 (including taxes and courier in South Africa), this Heritage Collection can also be ordered from [email protected]

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