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From: "Becky Horne" <>
Subject: [ZA-EC] Newspaper cuttings from the Eastern Cape - Steytlerville,Part II
Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2006 08:10:48 +0200


Weekend Post, 1 January 2005.
The Karoo town of Steytlerville is a quaint relic of a bygone age.

Continued from Part I.

The massive N G Kerk with space for 3, 000 people sits imposingly in the
main street of Steytlerville.

For here, visitors can still savour what a South African town looked
like prior to the "advent of progress" in the form of nasty,
mass-produced plastic signage and awnings.

Thankfully Steytlerville with its tiny population of 4 000-plus, has
escaped this blight of commercialism. Here corner cafes are still your
traditional, muddled but comfortable corner cafes; back gardens still
host mongrels, hen and chicken plants and rusted Chevrolets, and
churches still outnumber shebeens. (Indeed, the town's only genuine
hotel, the Karoo Hotel, is a good two kilometres out of town. The
reason? Steytlerville was founded when drinking was a sin.

And then there are those worms. In fact, there are bats in the belfry
and meerkats in the parlour too. But more of these later. .

The worms are the "work" of one Jan Pampoen. Actually, he's Jan
CLAASENS, but such is the proliferation of the CLAASENS clan in
Steytlerville that all the Jans are known by other names, rather like
the six JONESES' in the Welsh rugby team. Jan Pampoen is a small stock
farmer who supplements his income by selling what are reputed to be the
longest earthworms in the world, to fishermen for just R7.

More to follow.

Best wishes
Becky

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