After two days and more than a few customary whiskeys with Thulani and Toland, it was time to continue our journey eastward to the mission in Ingwavuma. We awoke early to beat the midday heat, and after a few more conversations of future projects together, we said our farewells and took off. With most of the missionaries we have talked to, it has been a battle to try to warm them up to prospective ideas about how some Californian High School a world away can help them with their own causes; it seems the older generation is wary because of past experience and promises unfulfilled, the younger generation more hopeful but wary just the same at our suggestions and the work involved with committing to unproven relationships. Results are not out of the question, but this kind of mindset just makes one more obstacle to get passed in any case. The road East out of Mnguzi was even more desolate than the one coming in, and as is par for the course, the landscape began to change immediately from sandy soil and palm trees and clear blue skies kept clear by ocean breezes to angry red soil studded with jet-black rocks, and thorn trees. As if to add insult, the cane smoke that plagues the midlands of the country seemed to follow us from Mtuba and sat with us the entire rest of the drive to the mission. This is funny because the nearest cane field was some 300 kms away at this point. The path itself posed a challenge as well with whole sections of road almost impassable in our little micro machine; with every pothole that ate our wheels we all held our breath to listen to any telltale sounds of escaping air. The road got better however, but the isolation of the potholes was replaced by locals driving up and down the mountain that Ingwavuma sits on with rallycar-like speed and absolute disregard for lanes, shoulders or the cliffs that plunged ever higher the more we climbed in altitude. Not too fun.
Once we got to the mission, we met with Fr. Charles, a native Nigerian and sole priest at this particular mission. He was a kind man, wearing knock-off diesel jeans and shorter than most of the South African Zulus. Since he was not a Zulu or Xhosa, it was interesting to hear his take on how matters in the country were progressing, with both the elected Zulu president, the semi radical ANC and the traditional Zulu monarch. We got a short tour of the mission grounds, saw the bat-piss ruined roof of the chapel, and then hopped into the back of a bakkie to visit the surrounding township and the houses that Fr. Charles helps out with. The woman who owned the vehicle and who was currently driving down the rocky roads at breakneck speed actually turned out to be sister to one of the 30 or so wives that was married to the Zulu King. She acts as Fr. Charles cohort, and sees it as her duty to help her people out. Pretty simple, pretty noble, but her conviction became clearer once Charles told us that the Zulu King receives something like 30 million Rand a month in government funds as his royal stipend to help out his people. Needless to say his people are left wanting while Ferrari, BMW and Mercedes ship their latest models to KwaZulu Natal. This fact was appalling because in the desolate mountain top we were now touring, people living among the scrub and smoke and rocks eeked out the sparsest living we had seen yet.
There was no fertile soil to plant gardens like in Mtuba, there was no sand like in Kozi Bay to make cement-making easier and less costly. No, here there was only heat, dust and rocks covered by a thin layer of soil. This geological makeup posed several obstacles, from the obvious to ones that we as Americans never faced until this moment. Let me frame it for you: have you ever played the game mine-sweeper on a Windows laptop? Or for you older folks and nostalgia freaks, a game of Battleship where you guess the position of the opponent and sink accordingly? Well in Ingwavuma, digging foundations for houses works much the same way, but in reverse. Not hitting rocks mere inches down in the soil is considered a victory, and a rare one at that. And like I wrote earlier, houses are the obvious thing that comes to mind when taking into consideration digging depth. I would give you a gold star if you mentioned water wells, but this is taken care of by pumps and a communal cistern up the road. No, the thing that blew our minds were the piles of rock we had to step over and pass to visit the first site that Charles took us to. With each step, we were passing over generations of the buried dead that had occupied this small little spot of land overlooking the green plains of Swaziland for decades. The question was so practical yet so foreign that it took most of us by surprise: where DO you bury someone when you can only dig a few inches into the soil? Well the answer was passing us by in the form of waist-high piles of rock mere feet away from the huts and the kitchen and the clear spot that served as the children's play area.
Initial shock aside, we strode into the clearing and met the matriarch in charge. As we walked up, this gnarled woman was busy mending her chicken coop, and after several minutes of translation learned that she had built most of the other structures there as well. Busy woman. She wiped her sweaty brow and took us on a tour of her little kingdom, then plopped down in the shade of her hut. Before doing so she gracefully thanked each one of us and stated that it was her great honor to receive guests, adding that it had been years since anyone else had come through. As we rode away from that meeting Fr. Charles explained to us that her husband had died some years prior and it was only her holding the family together. Someone asked her age and Charles replied with "93". With the conditions she lived with, I couldn't help but to think about how long it would be before she joined the mute piles of stone that served as sentinels to her rocky home...
Next post wraps up our trip to Ingwavuma and puts the words "hike", "hill", "school" and "2 hours up and down" into perspective.
Words: Hamrock
Photos include: Blurry street scene, Batpiss roof, Fr. Charles explaining Zulu royalty, Rocky clearing Rocky soil Rocky grave, Most stoked little kid ever- Ryan's luscious locks won him over, Matriarch with baby.
Photo Creds: C, H, H, H, H, H, C, H, H
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