Weekend in KZN: Sunday

On Sunday the weather lifted a little and the rain stopped so we headed into the mountains proper. The scenery was unbelievably beautiful. The area is very fertile and is home to both Afrikaans and Zulu farmers.The Afrikaans farms are large and have mechanical aids, growing great swathes of mealies, sunflowers, etc. Dairy and beef herds were also in evidence.However, I beleive they find the going tough nowadays, like farmers everywhere.The Zulu crofters, who live in thatched round huts called rondavels, grow a few mealies and have chickens, a cow or two and goats. The children herd the animals with long pieces of reed-like grass. Their way of life probably hasn’t changed much in hundreds of years, except for the fact that many people had cell phones! Everywhere we drove we passed crowds of locals walking…from nowhere to nowhere, it seemed. Great crowds of barefoot school age kids, bunched up in groups of twenty or more, were walking along these endless tracks. Mothers and grannies, babies tied to their backs with towels, huge cooking pots balanced on their heads. Where were they all going? Some were easier to work out; teenage girls carrying laundry or a few dishes in a plastic basin were heading to wash things in waterfalls at the road side. We had to stop when a group of some 12 or so young men, carrying sharp spears, were stopped by a police landrover and bundled inside, the spears taken from them and put in the front. Puts a new slant on carrying an offensive weapon, doesn’t it! We passed several schools which were like tiny huts, no bigger than a single car garage. Most had broken windows and some had open doors. There was little evidence of furniture inside. In these country schools, children often sit on tree stumps or beer crates for lessons. They routinely walk 5-10k to get to lessons. We found out that many young men and women leave the "homelands" to work in the cities or in hotels and resorts on the coast and return home at weekends. That would account for the number of people we saw lugging those checked bags you often see at airports! Though I doubt if many of the people we saw have ever flown.
We found out a bit about the San or Bush rock art paintings.These are stick-like representations of ancient farming and spiritual rituals painted on cave walls using sticks and vegetable based dyes.They have survived for thousands of years! Stark but quite beautiful.