Thoughts on a man called JP

The answer Janco Piek gave when I broached the idea for this article was exactly the one I was expecting. ‘No man’ he wrote, ‘write on anything else, just not me.’ But this was a brief from the higher-ups. Had to deliver or there’d be no story. Mr Piek is the bearded, self-styled nerd on the Toverview/eParkeni organogram, our tech guy who prefers the company of PC monitors and coding than banter with his technologically-challenged journeymen. If that sounds like an apprehensive square with wanting social skills, yes, but then again a big no.

As a technician, artist, self-taught tech scholar, coder, crypto dabbler, online trader, there just aren’t enough hours in the day to squeeze in all those errands to be gotten through. Then the hobbies: the prized GoPro camera, guitar and paint ball guns. It’s not that he’s not in the mood for chitchat, only that there are deadlines to be honoured: a website to put up here, somebody who needs an urgent document scanned there, a call from a panicking new client who’s heard that around Colesberg this is the man to call when the gadgets start acting up.

Also, once he goes full monty in his tech lingo, he’s often met with blank stares, unconvincing ‘mhms’ – basically he can pick up that his listeners don’t want to confess that he’s now practically switched to Greek. Could he take it from the top, this time slowly, and if he could, perhaps break it down to kitchen sink patois?

He is the guy who created our tricameral sites in the Karoo: eParkeni, Toverview and Sakhisizwe Tours, swaddled them, potty trained them until they could more or less do the deed without too much supervision. His own Colesberg.info site serves as a cyber tour guide for visitors and tourists unsure what this town has on offer for the weary traveller. The analytics suggest that it is a firm favourite during the holiday season.

For the guy tasked with putting this piece together, the tricky thing about Piek is that he is chronically spotlight-shy. Prefers being the technician slogging behind the scenes than the subject in front of them. One could pull a sly move, let’s say pounce on him on a rare off-day, insist on a few drinks and when the inhibitions start to give way, announce a daring challenge. Maybe a ride into unfamiliar territory. Outside his comfort zone, there’s a great deal you can learn about a man. Does the fish hold it together or does it thrash about eager to get back into the water?

So in October 2023, every inch of SA drenched in Bok fever, Piek was lining R5 coins along the pool table, our corner at a Kuyasa wateringhole riddled with quarts of beer. ‘No bruv, no!’ came my protest, ‘here, we usually buy according to the number of people at the table. A quart a man, perhaps one extra for the table – no reason when there are only three of us to have splurged on eight beers at a go. Too much attention.’

All Piek wanted was to shoot some pool, so my bickering was shrugged off with a indifferent ‘let’s just have fun, dude.’ In between pocketing the phenolic resin balls, he was also distributing beers by the capped bottle as though he were Oprah. Okay, perhaps he’s generous, I figured. A good trait, I suppose, for anyone to have.

The language of technology Janco picked up ‘before I could even read, around 4, installing and playing games by making do with the icons.’ By Grade 1, he was already troubleshooting – fixing complicated problems on the PC at home. For someone encumbered with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the machines offered some respite from a school environment in which ‘I felt understimulated most of the time.’ The skills that have since brought him business have come by way of a ‘boatload of online courses over the years.’ By the time he was a teenager, he had grown pretty fluent around the assorted machines of technology. And, in no time, he saw that more than this being a great love, there was also some money to be made.

In the interim, there have been a few assignments where we found ourselves hurtling in his car. Like the day we went out to Lowryville hoping to hear what was on the mind of the newest, most controversial addition to the political database, Gayton McKenzie. The PA leader stood us up, but despair is not a dint that Piek entertains, and so we somehow wound up in a home somewhere in Zwelitsha, drinking umqombothi in company that were too out of it to be anything but nice. There was the impromptu photo shoot at the plakkerskamp, where at short notice Janco immediately rushed for his GoPro and off we went. That was the closest I ever got to the feeling that even in these moribund enclaves, a man can enjoy the surge of purpose, an adrenaline that one might associate with more interesting places.

Earlier, I wrote that Janco doesn’t talk much. I lied. Most of the time it depends on the topic. The shallow ones often throw him off, and although he might go along with some interest, deep down he’ll just be going through the motions of not wanting to seem like he’s rude. But get going on the mystical/spiritual, political conspiracies and the like, then Bob’s your uncle. The philosophies of Marcus Aurelia, for instance will have him on a ramble, full of quotes and references to other stoics. More than the scholarly, they’ll show you that the difficult moments have fashioned Janco into the sort of fellow who doesn’t mind doing things according to what’s right to him than the noise of the crowd. He is one of those self-assured sorts who’s as comfortable amongst others but is undaunted by solitude.

When Maeder Osler first pitched his idea on a ‘model for rural communications,’ Piek was only meant to be just another colleague. Then came the meetings, phonecalls, blaring rock music whilst cruising around town, long-winded talks on dead philosophers and barefoot shamans and Piek had become not just a guy who was capable around computers but a friend with whom you could ‘kick it with’ and learn something. Thanks to such sessions, I’m happy to report that as illiterate as I may be on the internet, I can smell a scam from the first text. For that I have JP to thank.