- Gondwana Desert Collection/ News



		News 2005 News 16.02.05

Life in the Era of Apartheid - 16.02.05
Little education, a tiny income, poverty in old age – the life of Guido Alfred Voss is representative of many others of his people, the Bondelswart. Born in 1919 in Pella, South Africa, he is raised by his grandmother in Warmbad. Instead of attending school he tends sheep.

In October 1949 he marries Katharina Bezuidenhout. Together they work on farms for board and lodgings and a small wage. He still tends sheep, she helps in the house. They never make enough to buy their own livestock; they always have to depend on the farmers.

Guido and Katharina Voss do not have children of their own, but they adopt two boys and a girl. In their old age they live in a self-made hut in the suburb of Warmbad on the minimum state pension of N$ 250 (about 35 Euro at present). Occasionally the daughter looks in on them. Katharina dies in 2002.

Gondwana's Managing Director, Mannfred Goldbeck, meets Guido Voss in Warmbad while doing research for a company study on small farmers in communal areas. The green vegetable garden catches Goldbeck’s eye. Every time he comes to Warmbad he pays a visit to Voss. Goldbeck also takes US artist Stephen Bennett along, who paints a portrait of Voss. At Gondwana Cañon Park the painting is now available as a postcard. Since 2003 it adorns a wall in Cañon Village.

Guido Voss, portrayed by American artist Stephen Bennett.

In late 2004 Guido Voss is taken to the hospital in Windhoek. In his modest manner he does not send for Mannfred Goldbeck. Voss dies on 7 February 2005. In memory of him Gondwana and Bennett donate a gravestone fitted with a copy of the artist's painting.