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Published: March 31st 2016
Gone Rural
Splendid and practical artworksI crawled out of the diminutive door of my beehive this morning, sorry to let the experience go, but not wanting to prolong the inconvenience of the unconventional. We slowly drove out of the game reserve, rewarded by seeing a crocodile swimming with most of its head out of the water, evidence of its pulling a kill in its mouth, although we couldn’t see what. Also, Duane stopped by a seven- or eight-foot-tall termite mound created in less than a year.
Not too far along the highway, we stopped at an excellent set of cooperative self-help craft stores called “
Gone Rural ”. I found some brown and orange flat mats (meant to be placemats), which fulfilled my souvenir goal for this trip. And I fell into temptation over a cheerful printed infinity scarf (red, white, gold, black, white) from
Baobab Batik. Plus, the café had green tea with a slice of lemon – this combination refreshed me more than water.
Now on to a serious highway drive down to the border with South Africa, near the border with Mozambique. One strange feature of Swazi highways is the infinite number of almost randomly placed, big speed bumps. Duane cursed these all the
Proud Coop member
Endless temptation! way. Sometimes there are three to six bumps within 25 yards of each other! The road south took us into vast sugar cane fields, a major crop for Swaziland, in part due to the reliable rains in the area. In the medium distance all the way are the
Lebombo Mountains, foothills to the
Drakensburg Mountains. Duane explained that the Drakensburg are very high; running northeast in a sort of sickle-shape are lesser mountain, referred to as foothills, because they are part of the same geological fold.
The border crossing was quick and simple. On both sides we handed over our passports to officials in gleaming offices, got them stamped and were on our way. (Thankfully so far all the stamps have been on one page, in contrast to some countries that use a clear page for every stamp.)
As we continued south in South Africa, the highway went through a national game reserve. At one point a herd of impala ran across the road one by one in single file. This may be a good tactic in the wild, but takes quite a dangerous amount of time on a high-speed road. No mishaps, however. Thrilling to see them leaping at
Lebombo River
Slow channel wandering from the mountains a full run.
Lunch of salads and cold chicken was at the
Ghost Mountain Resort, whence a guide took us on a visit to a Zulu “village” (large, settled area run by a chief). Our safari vehicle climbed up a rough mountain road to very near the top, where we met an even more local guide, Justice. He showed us his “homestead” or “house”, i.e., the enclosed yard. Each building was considered a “room. The homestead belonged to his father. Each of the five sons had a “room” - Justice’s was the biggest and nicest by far. Plus, there was least one “room” for the five girls, although later he pointed out his sister’s very nice home next door. The family all build their homesteads as close together as possible. Land requested by a family is allocated by the chief, because all land is communal. When Justice gets married, he will build in the area and start his own homestead.
One room was for the ancestors. The ancestors are thus close by to the extended family; they must be and are consulted on all major decisions. Justice didn’t claim the ancestors were actually in the rondavel that was their home,
Cheerful tourists!
Fresh "light" lunch at Ghost Mountain Resort but that they were present spiritually. He called it a place of prayer and also of family consultation. Inside, it was virtually empty except for some ceremonial clay pot and animal skins; it felt calm. I asked about what looked like a loom; Justice said when his mother “had nothing to do”, she would make reed mats, and he showed us how the reeds were affixed with strings (just like in the demonstration village in Johannesburg). Finally, behind the “room”, he showed us the graves of his sister who died as a baby and his great-grandmother. A pile of rocks marked the graves; he said they are buried very deep. I liked how thoroughly he answered all our questions.
Exhilarated by our village visit, we continued in the vehicle up to the ridge line of the rounded mountain and drove along for about half an hour past homesteads, a few churches, a primary school and the high school. The views across the valleys on either side were spectacular hazy blue-green. The road only got worse as we joggled gradually down to the highway.
Ghost Mountain itself was across the valley. Our guide said it was named by the
Ghost Mountain "woman"
Her head is on the right. British because of the strange wailing and wavering lights appearing sometimes; however, it was actually still being used in secret by the Zulu of the area to bury their chiefs, nothing more sinister.
From Ghost Mountain Resort, we got back on the bus and drove another forty minutes in mentally exhausted silence to the Protea Hotel, a modern hotel at Hluhluwe, pronounced She-shu-wee.
View the map to date.
">View the video of Justice.
Isabel Gibson
non-member comment
Questions
I wonder how gracious I would be with foreigners, answering questions about how I live and what I believe. I fear not very - just trying to explain our health care or parliamentary systems to Americans can be exhausting! By contrast, Justice seemed entirely calm and patient - he knows what he believes, maybe? And his hurry to make the weaving OK so as not to attract his mother's "wrath" was cute, too - family relationships vary, of course, but similar elements can be recognized not just family to family but across cultures, too.