Our stay in Middelburg has been mostly spent doing very little.  The one surprise was a visit from an old school mate who lives here and lectures at Grootfontein Agricultural College which is just north of the town.

Middelburg is struggling a bit.  There is a high rate of unemployment and the pandemic hasn't made things any easier.  The property market is depressed and the local municipality is not able to keep up the maintenance on infrastructure. 

In many ways it is a microcosm of the problems facing South Africa.  The headline for an opinion piece in today's edition of a local newspaper read "Creating new cities is the way to drive SA’s socioeconomic growth" and maybe it is.  What can't be denied is that something needs to be done to rescue the unemployed and the underemployed which is at its most visible in many rural towns.  What will be even more difficult is rescuing the unemployable - those left behind as a result of the decay in South Africa's education system which is also more evident in rural areas.