Headed Inland

With only a mailing address to guide the way, we set out from Richards Bay in search of Fr. Loftus, our main contact in Mtubatuba and the head of the mission in the area. After a harrowing drive through the hazy countryside and a few lucky turns, we arrive at the right place on the first try. The mission itself sits at the end of a small road and borders a very busy, very colorful and very loud primary school. The base of the chapel steps must have been the wrong spot to park, because we certainly got a lot of stares getting out of our sub-compact. The grounds looked empty at first, but within a few minutes of poking around we are greeted by Fr. Andre, and he takes us inside to finally meet Fr. Loftus.

After our meeting, we all pile into the mission pickup truck and take lunch at the local country club, which up until the end of apartheid in the 90s had been exclusively white and almost entirely Afrikaans. Not much had changed it seemed. After lunch, we took a tour of the area to see different housing projects, aids centers, neighborhoods and a strip mining operation. It was just after closing bell at the local schools, so thousands of school children crowded not just the country roads and dirt tracks walking home, but major intersections of the highway to try to hitch rides with passerby or overcrowded taxi buses. Those who couldn't afford the time to wait or the fair to pay started hoofing it down the pavement on the shoulder of the highway. The insanity of doing such a thing only becomes clear once you understand that the shoulder is routinely used as another lane on the highway for slow cars and the logging trucks that frequent the area. The danger triples at night, yet you always have to be on the lookout. Madness to us, but status quo to the locals.

The acres of identical housing in the pics are all government funded, but do not do anything to really relieve any kind of population overcrowding in the slums. "Favela upgrades" as Fr. Loftus put it. Driving around, one gets a sense that things are routinely just kind of shuffled around in this country, rather than dealt with directly. Water is also a big deal, as you can see from pictures of children fetching water in one of the rural villages. When there are no pumps or boreholes available, ditches filled with brackish rainwater are the next best option. Everyone and everything uses them- cattle, dogs, people. You can imagine the sicknesses involved in drinking from a communal cesspool. The last thing of note is that the entire area is dotted with sugar cane fields. The air is sweet with sugar, but prior to the harvest, miles upon miles of cane fields are burned, covering the area with ash that is locally called "zulu snow". The sky has a surreal haze and reddish tinge to it everywhere not adjacent to the coast. Every trip inland poses not only cultural shock, but environmental as well.

Words: Hamrock

Photo credits in this post from the top: H, H, H, H, C, C, H, H, C, H, H, C