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Tomatoes
and Mozzarella - mouth-wateringly fresh
The eye has difficulty getting accustomed to the semidarkness.
And then it has to contend with a colour that is in
stark contrast to the brown, beige and yellow hues of
the desert outside: jade green. Lettuce and celery,
beans and cabbage, tomatoes and parsley fill the beds
under the arched roof of the oblong greenhouse we've
just entered. Excited clucking mixed with the occasional
grunt or drawn-out moo completes the picture of rural
tranquillity in otherwise harsh and arid surroundings. |
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With a satisfied
look on his face and the occasionally critical eye Breshnef
Diergaardt takes us through his little kingdom –
the Canon Self Sufficiency Centre he manages. It consists
of a small farm with a greenhouse, chickens, pigs and
cattle, as well as a butchery and a cheese-factory.
The smallholding about six kilometres away from Canon
Lodge is as much part of the concept of the Gondwana
Canon Park as are nature conservation and hospitality.
Here the kitchen scraps from the lodges are recycled
for fodder and compost. The business does not conflict
the aims of nature conservation since it only takes
up one or two hectares of land. Ground water resources
are ample and far outweigh what is needed for accommodation
and production of fresh produce. |
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The
Self Sufficiency Centre, Diergaardt tells us,
was set up about five years ago, originally, because
of the necessity to do something useful with the
kitchen scraps, whose nutritious elements are
of even greater value in the arid desert regions.
By keeping pigs and starting a vegetable garden,
the kitchen scraps were put to good use. Today
the farm also has free ranging chickens and –
something Diergaardt is particularly proud of
– 20 Jersey milk cows. Next to the greenhouse
vegetables are also grown in the open –
even baby marrows and water melons seem to flourish
here.
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But that's
not all. Back at the homestead, Breshnef Diergaardt
shows us how he processes meat and milk. The butchery
not only produces steaks and cutlets for dinner, but
also ham and polony for the breakfast buffet. In the
small smokehouse they even make smoked meat and salami.
And then there is something that really leaves you baffled:
a small, but obviously successful cheese-factory. A
cheese mass for mozzarella is heated in a hot water
bath before being diligently kneaded into a smooth dough.
Dozens more cheeses are ripening on the shelves of the
cool storeroom. |
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Staff inspecting lettuce.
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The Self Sufficiency
Centre covers about 70 percent of the fresh produce
needs of the Cañon Lodge, the Cañon Village
and the Cañon Roadhouse. This means that far
fewer products have to be bought from the nearest town
Keetmanshoop about 100 km away – products largely
imported from neighbouring South Africa. The Self Sufficiency
Centre thus runs in line with the national campaign
'Natural Namibian' which aims to promote the production
and sale of local goods and lessen the dependence on
imports. A further advantage of the centre is that it
creates jobs: Ten people are employed by the Centre
on a full-time basis – invaluably important in
a region where every third person is unemployed. |
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And then a
hint of nostalgia creeps into the otherwise businesslike
presentation. Diergaardt tells us about the former farm
Karios, on which the Self Sufficiency Centre is situated:
the founders of the farm, the brothers Schanderl from
Germany, grew fruit and vegetables here at the beginning
of the 20th century and sold it to the police stations
or in Keetmanshoop. |
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For the guest
in one of the accommodation establishments of Canon
Collection though, the most important aspect must be:
Lettuce, Tomatoes, Paprika, cucumbers, ham, polony,
gouda, mozzarella, cream cheese and yoghurt appetisingly
arranged on the buffet are mouth-wateringly fresh. |
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