In the heart of the Eastern Cape's Karoo valleys lies Nieu Bethesda, a quaint town distinguished by the Owl House, a creation of the enigmatic Helen Martins.
Passed through Nieu Bethesda years ago, stopped at the Owl House. Doesnt look like much from the road but once you walk in that camel yard you understand what the woman was doing. Crushed glass everywhere, light catching it all afternoon. You have to respect that kind of focus, working away alone in the Karoo heat for decades. Koos Malgas too, that man had patience. Nieu Bethesda is sommer a strange quiet place, gets to you. Dis mos not everyone who leaves something behind worth keeping. Glad they made it a monument before it was too late.
Drove through there maybe fifteen years ago, my wife insisted we stop and honestly I was just thinking about getting to Graaff-Reinet before dark. Glad she won that argument. What gets me as an ex-sparky is the way she thought about light, the crushed glass embedded in the walls, the mirrors angled just so. That’s not madness, that’s somebody who understood how light behaves and worked with it deliberately. No fancy equipment, no consultant, just trial and error in the Karoo. You’ve got to respect that. Koos Malgas is the unsung hero of the whole thing though, the man shaped hundreds of those cement figures by hand. My hands ache just thinking about it. Nieu Bethesda itself is worth the detour off the N9, very quiet, very remote, the kind of place where you realise how much noise you normally live with. Helen Martins ended her life tragically but the work she left behind is genuinely strange and genuinely South African. Not everything has to make comfortable sense to be worthwhile.