How the wool boom changed the Karoo farmhouse
The Karoo farmhouse is a domestic archive and a reminder that even the most isolated home was connected to a much wider world.
Naomi Roebert
A beginner’s guide to Karoo stargazing without expensive equipment
The best approach is to begin small. Learn the Southern Cross and follow the Milky Way. Notice how the sky changes from month to month. The Karoo will do the rest.
The reading culture behind the Karoo’s literary festivals
Karoo literary festivals connect contemporary books with a much older culture of storytelling. They might seem like a recent addition to Karoo life, but they reflect a region that has long used words to cross distance.
What makes a place Karoo?
Perhaps the most accurate definition is that the Karoo begins wherever dryness becomes the organising fact of life: where water determines settlement, distance defines community and people learn that survival depends not on conquering the land, but on understanding its limits.
How the Tankwa came to host two very different communities
The encounter between AfrikaBurn and the farming Tankwa should not be reduced to farmers watching strangely dressed outsiders drive past their gates. The more interesting story is that the same environment has produced two different expressions of independence.
A potentially historic El Niño is developing. What should the Karoo prepare for?
An unusually powerful climate system is developing and will overlap with the Karoo’s hottest months. The appropriate response is to watch the regional forecasts closely and prepare for heat and water stress while there's still time to do so.
The lost art of the farm pantry
The pantry's greatest lesson is that food was once understood as a seasonal resource that required knowledge and labour. Behind every flour bin and bottle of apricot preserve was the same question: how do we make today’s abundance carry us through what might come next?