Ouma Grietjie Adams
16 November 2007
This reconciliation award celebrates a humble and gifted woman who maintained her soul in the harsh, often brutal circumstances of a small plattelandse dorp, and taught others what it means to be human. |
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Ouma Grietjie Adams of Garies sings, tells stories and loves people. Through her music she has become iconic in her home region of the Northern Cape, attracting individuals from many different communities who recognize in her something authentically human and thus in themselves and neighbours. A regional identity is being forged.
The “rieldans” (an indigenous folk dance), the playing of the concertina, and the homegrown worldviews captured in song, are Ouma Grietjie’s gifts to the nation. She speaks a lyrical Afrikaans and answers most questions with story.
Her lined face portrays a life of hardship and service. Her life was forged in the intimacy, inequality and interdependency of life in Namaqualand during the apartheid years. Her charisma bears witness to the humanity she celebrated through the most bitter of times.
She was 76 when her first CD was recorded in the kitchen of a remote farmhouse. In 2004 a documentary film of Grietjie Adams won the AKTV Award for best Afrikaans documentary. More recently the Premier of the Northern Cape honoured her as an “icon of the Northern Cape”, recognizing her contribution to uniting the people of the region.
She embodies an indigenous culture and heritage which is often unrecognized and overlooked – a heritage under pressure with the passing of and older generation. Hers is the hospitable and kindly culture of a sparsely populated area, every bit as valuable as the diamonds and copper that was once the mainstay of the local economy.
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