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African Stories: The Mampoer Festival 1. Near Pretoria, South Africa.|| Oberholzer: Every time I land at Oliver Tambo International, I don't think of Oliver Tambo. That's maybe because I was not previously interned and re-educated in one of the ANC's ‘Umkhonto we Sizwe' camps. Instead, since my first gurgles, I have lived here in South Africa, disorientated. Soon after landing I get mood swings from the dark of sadness to euphoric happiness and then back to a frothing frustration. Once out of arrivals, I find a column to knock my head against. Outside the terminal building I then shake it furiously like a wet Labrador. This act of madness keeps all the potential robbers, hijackers and bogus taxi drivers away. Then, on the new journey through the Rainbow Nation, I rename my ‘HappySadLand' to ‘Just-shake-your-head-land'. The only muti for these mood swings is to do something totally mad. I decide to do a Shebeen pub-crawl in Soweto, enjoy a day out with the Hard-Living Gang in Mannenberg or go to the Mampoer Festival just outside of Pretoria. As my early years of disorientation started on a farm outside Pretoria, I take the road to the Mampoer Festival. Mampoer is uniquely distilled South African liquor. This can be compared to the Irish ‘Poitin', American ‘Moonshine', Brazil's ‘Crazy Mary', Poland's ‘Bimber', Norway's “Hjemmebrent' and Iran's ‘Aragh Sagi'. (The last one is a bit of a nasty since the 1979 Revolution. Being caught with it is punishable with 74 lashes). You might wonder why I know all of this. Well, one of my best friends is a master, renowned prizewinning home distiller. The Mampoer Festival is held annually at the Willem Prinsloo Agricultural Museum grounds. The only interesting thing about this is that forefather Prinsloo was called Willem ‘Wragtig'. This is one of those almost untranslatable Afrikaans words meaning ‘honestly'. He was a famous big game hunter and a trader in ivory and skins. Wragtig. Honestly. On arrival, I see Paul Kruger selling boerewors rolls. At times it feels like the re-birth of the old Transvaal Republic, a Boer nation unplugged, glad, sad, happy like me. I pass an area where hundreds of the country's best distillers have their Mampoer on display for tasting. I feel the oncoming drool of booze as a thousand bottles glimmer and wink at me. I find a thorn tree and bash my head a few times then shake it furiously. ‘Wragtig', but it helps. I am shooed along and taken away, as if by angels and plonked amongst warm people sitting around cast iron potjie pots, furiously on the cook with a unique old farm kitchen delicacy known as ‘Kaiings en pap' (cracklings and maize meal). The word Mampoer was derived from the old Venda chief Mampuru, said to be the first to distil liquor and trade it with the Voortekkers. Through the potjie smoke I can taste the folklore legends of long ago. Mampoer and Mampuru should not be confused with Mampara. Mampara means a fool, a buffoon. The Sunday Times voted President Jacob Zuma as ‘Mampara of the year' for 3 years running. ‘Wragtig'. (KEYSTONE/LAIF/Obie Oberholzer)