Andries comments on these two videos: “This one is about that one tannie in every South African town or suburb who is not a tannie. She doesn’t buy her clothes at Edgars or Woolworths – she has her own style. She listens to opera and jazz on her record player and doesn’t cook her food until it is grey. She is an oujongnooi, a spinster, and this makes people very nervous. She doesn’t fit into the town’s norms of what women should do, say, and how they should behave. During her life she has travelled, she has seen other parts of the world, and the town is not her only world. She reads widely. The dominee, especially, doesn’t like this. She is weird, bohemian, volksvreemd. Some call her a heks, a witch. They tell their children stories to scare them away from her. But the clever ones know that she is a kind of role model – an alternative to their parents, their teachers, the ooms and tannies. Her presence reminds them of the possibility that they too can be different, if only they are a little bit brave.
Heks van die Karoo/Witch from the Karoo – music video
“I had great fun filming and editing this video. The scenes are mostly from Carnarvon in the Karoo, where we stayed at one of the cottages attached to the Lord Carnarvon small hotel and guesthouse. Some of the footage from other Karoo towns. I’ve made a visual collage, which, I hope, adds up to a coherent image of the small town in the song.”