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Bertha Tsineng, Product Owner
 


Areitekeng Leather

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IN 1924 the skull of a child was found in a lime quarry outside an almost unknown place called Taung in the arid northwestern reaches of South Africa near the border with then Bechuanaland.

The skull’s discovery ignited excitement – and international controversy. The child had died 2.5 million years ago. Brilliant Wits University anthropologist Raymond Dart deduced that she had walked upright, and so should be classified as a human ancestor. He named his find australopithecus africanus.

The scientific community and creationists were, at best, sceptical but Dart was a dogged scientist and eventually his theories gained ground. Later Australopithecus specimens were dated to 3.2 million years and even earlier. Debate, discussion and controversy still swirls around the  issue of  a distant link between man and apes.  One thing, though, is for sure: it was the discovery of the Taung skull that set the cats amongst the evolutionary pigeons.

Going on for a century after Dart’s dramatic discovery, the quarry at which his famous skull was identified has been abandoned. Until recently there was a casino in the small town of Taung but that recently closed and these days the people of greater Taung find work opportunities hard to come by.

In this sprawling land of humble Tswana villages, cows, goats, donkeys and thornbushes, young Bertha Ntsineng and three of her friends have taken the bulls by the horn to create gorgeous  fashion items out of the hides of animals which once roamed freely across this  land.
Bertha, 29, grew up in Taung and finished her schooling in nearby Jankempdorp but, as she sadly adds, there was no money for tertiary education so she and three friends made up their minds that they were not going to be swallowed up by the sea of poverty all around them and that they were going to earn a living making beautiful, functional things.

Their business, Areitekeng Leather, operates out of a single room hired from a sewing combine in the village of Mokgareng, just outside of Taung. The ladies of Areitekeng – which means “working for ourselves” – make stunning sandals and shoes from leather and springbok hides. They also fashion belts (sometimes from buffalo hides) as well as handbags.

Bertha, the chairperson of Areitekeng, explains that this little four-women project today has to source its springbok skins not locally but from a wholesaler in Gauteng. Friends who obviously enjoy each other’s company, the foursome make the rubber undersoles without the use of machinery, stitch the inner leather soles and fashion the upper parts of their shoes and sandals all by hand.

Springbok skin is capable of being dyed into a dazzling array of primary colours and a lustrous dark brown, without losing its obviously springbok patterning and texture. Sandals are produced, some with a quirkily pointed, turned-up  toe, most with a more conventional finishing. They look elegant, they look well-finished but, more importantly, they wear as good as they look.

Still largely unrecognised by the major markets in faraway Gauteng  and Cape Town, Bertha  dreams about making her team’s one-of-a-kind creations accessible to a wider market. “At the moment there are very few tourists who come to Taung, and if they do come here, they don’t know where to find us,” she says. “We need a little bit of training and then we will be able to sell our products in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Our products are top quality and they are made with love. They are very African and we hope we can interest people in buying our goods.”

One of the groups of people who have been interested in buying Areitekeng’s goods is TEP, to the point that the partnership has become the little project’s single biggest customer. “We really appreciate  their support,” says Bertha, “and we really hope  that  TEP can continue  to help us grow our business.”
While Bertha looks forward to taking on
the markets of the big South African cities, Areitekeng will always remain rooted in Taung. And as long as it is rooted there, those tourists who would like to see this band of sisters making beautiful things out of springbok and other skins, 70km outside of the regional town of Vryburg, are always welcome to come and see them  at work.; Bertha will happily pick up visitors at the Taung railway station or their hotel.

Bertha Ntsineng, tel 083 6211922

 
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