Today we made a beeline south along the coast and up into a beautiful area northwest of Durban, South Africa’s second largest city. The area we went to is called Botha’s Hill and it was located among a thousand other hills (allegedly) known as “The Valley of A Thousand Hills”. Most of the region seemed to be occupied by Zulus and the place we went to that hosted us for the day was an organisation meant to introduce outsiders to Zulu life. Our tour even included a homestay overnight with a local Zulu family.
After arriving around mid-day, our first activity was lunch as a local restaurant. As with all our visits throughout the day, we walked through the neighbourhood up and down hills and in and out dirt paths to get from place to place. Everything we did was meant to be a real Zulu experience, and this included the food that we ate. I have had many good experiences eating South African food in years past so there weren’t too many surprises for me. Lunch was indeed very tasty and everyone I ate with seemed to enjoy it. There was a seasoned beef stew, heavy bread, and lots of vegetable dishes.
Afterwards we walked down to a traditional Zulu healer for what turned out to be a somewhat disappointing photo-op. She rocked up a bit late, wearing her traditional clothing, and then invited us into her hut. The hut was round with a corrugated steel roof, like a lot of traditional Zulu structures. On one side she had a collection of plants and other concoctions to use in her therapies. None of our Zulu guides seemed to believe in any of it, but it was interesting to see. She did burn a few dried plants at the beginning of our meeting but never really performed any kind of demonstration for us or explain much after that. Instead she seemed most keen on testing our knowledge of the Zulu language for which we all had cheat sheets. My fellow travellers got somewhat of a kick out of the fact that she claimed she could cure colds and flu while her daughter sat sick with the flu right next to her.
After the medical visit, we walked up to the top of a hill with a pretty spectacular view over a part of the valley of a thousand hills to hear some Zulu music and watch and participate in some Zulu dancing. Along the way we stopped in a local shop for snacks and a chance to see how typical local life was. It was a very unseasonably warm day smack dab in the middle of winter here, so we were enjoying being outdoors very much. Once at the dance place, we were initially invited inside a hut to see how married Zulus dressed in traditional clothing with various animal skins, feathers, beads, etc. This included dress up time for a few of us. Then we went outside to watch some of the local children perform some dance routines for us.
The setting was really quite spectacular with a great view overlooking the valley of a thousand hills and the light just starting to head down for the night and give off a beautiful golden glow. The kids were very cute and ranged in age from about 4 or 5 all the way up to older teenagers. This was the part of the day that everyone seemed to enjoy the most. Of course, we were all individually invited to dance with the group and make fools of ourselves trying to get our feet up above our heads (a common Zulu dance move). We thought the dancing was finished when all of the sudden an adult dancer showed up out of nowhere to step through his moves. Did he oversleep? Not sure, but I think he was meant to be there a lot earlier.
After the dancing we continued walking through the neighbourhood to get to a children’s orphanage. This place was seriously depressing! I would try smiling and joking around with the kids a bit but none of them seemed to have any capability of smiling or having fun. They gave us a dry tour through their house room by room and all you could see was that there was no joy anywhere. Some of my fellow travellers suggested that creative activities should be done with the children instead of just going their to invade their privacy and look at them like animals in a zoo – which is probably a good idea.
I was told the children were there primarily due to their parents dying from AIDS or due to being abused by alcoholic relatives. Overall, the neighbourhood was very poor and allegedly quite dangerous. One two separate occasions while walking between stopping points the guy who lived in the neighbourhood and was touring us around made mention of the fact that a ‘hijack’ (robbery?) could happen at any time and we should really all try sticking together as a tight group. It was a little unnerving.
Once we finished our Zulu neighbourhood tour, which was a good, important experience even though such an idea may not work its way into too many tourism brochures, we headed to our host family’s home for our overnight stay. Like everyone else we had encountered in the neighbourhood so far, our host family was very warm and friendly and eager to learn as much from us as we were to learn from them. Like virtually all houses in the neighbourhood, it was quite poor. Although it had a roof, it lacked a ceiling. We were lucky to be there on a nice warm day, but you got the impression it would be a very cold or very hot place on other not-so-pleasant days. It also lacked any kind of running water – other than a single tap back behind the house. That meant toilets had to have water scooped into them to flush and dishes had to have their dishwater brought in and heated up before they could be cleaned.
We slept on mattresses laid out on the floor, but not before they served up a big Zulu feast and performed some singing and dancing for us. They were very friendly and very generous about everything while we were there, insisting that we all think of their home as our own. It always amazes me how some of the poorest people you meet can be the most generous!