Eating sand

Cape Town - A woman who used to eat half-a-cup of red sand while living in Gauteng, is having difficulty finding this type of sand in the Cape.

Freda Engelbrecht (53) of Summer Greens near Century City says she eats the sand with a small spoon from a bowl. "It tastes like cocoa."

Any type of sand is not good enough. "In Roodepoort it was easy to get red sand from the mine dumps. I always sifted the sand to get rid of stones until it was very fine.

"In Johannesburg, I had a friend who ate the sand and one day she invited me to have a taste."

During her second pregnancy, Engelbrecht became concerned because she could not go without the sand and went to a doctor because she was "worried that a garden was sprouting in my stomach". Shortly after, several doctors diagnosed an iron deficiency and prescribed pills, vitamins and injections, "but nothing helped".

After 12 years in the Cape, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get hold of red sand. "Before, when I heard about friends coming down to the Cape, I always asked them to bring a bag of sand along. But they are not heading down this way as often, they say "it's too expensive".

It's a difficult habit to control, Engelbrecht says. "I get such a craving for it. Then I have to control myself, because I don't have red sand. I try to focus on other things. But when I'm watching TV, especially sports programmes where the cars are racing through the sand, I feel as if I can jump right into the TV, take a spoon and eat the sand."

One of her daughters, Yolandi (26), says the family does not find her mother's sand-eating habit strange at all. Yolandi says she also feels like eating sand sometimes after it has rained and the smell of damp soil hangs in the air.

Engelbrecht is not interested in the Cape's sea sand. "I will never eat sea sand, it's too salty," she says. "I wish someone could just drop me off in the Kalahari with all its sand, with just enough water to drink."

A psychologist, Christine Lochner of the unit for anxiety and stress disturbances of the University of Stellenbosch, says the condition described sounds like obsessive compulsive behaviour.

Anyone who can assist Engelbrecht can phone her after hours at **********.