Petroleum Powered

Sasolburg was established in the early 1950’s as a town to house a host of Engineers, specialists, mechanics, fitters and turners, the people who were responsible for making SASOL work. SASOL is the main company responsible for petroleum manufacture in SA, and Sasolburg was filled with great minds who worked long hours and built a giant energy corporation. It used to be a town with culture, where the trophy wives kept themselves busy with raising kids with high morals, and drinking tea at quilting clubs. My most frequently repeated quote about Sasolburg is “It’s the perfect place to raise kids. It’s not big enough to be a city, and it’s too big to be a small town. It’s a well-balanced town with well-balanced people.”

I spent the biggest part of my life in this town. Walking through the streets brought back memories from being in primary school and riding my bike, nearly being hit by a lightning bolt once and speeding back home, white as a sheet. Or the eye-to-eye I had with some insect, causing me to crash my bike into a fence and cutting open three of my toes as I never wore shoes in those days.

There’s this wonderful thing called groenstroke (green strips) in Sasolburg. This is basically a network of cement roads for bicyclists and pedestrians that snakes through the neighborhoods like a network of veins, keeping kids out of the streets and getting people to walk down tree-lined backroads. After 5 o’ clock, you found families on bicycles, families walking their dogs, old people walking hand in hand. Maybe I just had a beautifully disillusioned childhood.

Now, walking through town is like walking through a faded snapshot. Everything is still there, but neglect is spray-painted on the walls and overgrowing the pathways. Corrupt municipalities and apathetic government systems has led to the downfall of the town. Faded wrappers and empty cooldrink cans decorate the unkempt bushes. Plants grow through in cracks in walls and slowly creep over the man-made structures. What I like about it though, is that it almost seems like nature is reclaiming the land. With no budget to trim the hedges and cut the grass, plants are given free reign once again to grow over and around the structures put in their way, back when Sasolburg was still in it’s prime.