Martha Evans spends a day slumming it in poverty-stricken postcard Africa
I have come a long way to meet Khululwa Dodwana. Her village was a blank space on South African maps until Dave Martin set up a backpacker’s lodge in 2003.
Now a circle marks the spot — Bulungula — but only so tourists can locate it. Dodwana’s village, Nqileni, as with the surrounding communities, remains unnamed, in spite of its 800 inhabitants.
Just south of Coffee Bay, Bulungula Lodge and Nqileni Village are nestled between the mouths of the Bulungula and Xhora rivers. They can be reached only by 4×4 and it’s a bumpy ride. But driving there is part of the experience. As the national, main and tar roads recede, so the faces of inhabitants become friendlier and more children wave in welcome. It’s the image of Africa that many tourists hope for and it’s harder to find these days.
Tourists learn to grind grain like pros I’ve been to Bulungula six times now and am watching the development in this little corner of Africa with interest. When Martin first arrived only three of the villagers spoke English and there was no word for tourism in their dialect. Now more than 45 of them have jobs linked to the lodge. Guided hikes, traditional meals, horse-riding, canoeing and fishing trips are on offer.
Since my last visit the “Woman Power” tour has been introduced, giving city slickers a chance to spend a day with a rural woman. This is how I came to meet Dodwana. Tourists pay to view her home, to watch her work, for a glimpse of her life. I’m usually a bit sceptical about such things; cultural tours bring Kagga Kamma displays of faux “authentic” bushmen to mind. But when Dodwana meets our group she’s wearing trousers much like mine and collects her cellphone, left to charge overnight at the lodge.
The footpaths to her home string over the hills, away from the coast. Our group bombards her with questions: is she married? (No, she doesn’t wish to be dominated by a man.) Are the men very domineering here? (Yes, all South African men are like that.) Does she have children? And so on. We soon establish that she is a 25-year-old single mother living with her parents. She receives child support from the state but no maintenance. She had to cut short her education in grade six when the nearby school closed down. She doesn’t want to leave Nqileni, and Bulungula Lodge means that she might not have to.
When we arrive at her home, it’s hard not to be taken by the view – a panorama of the coast overlooks the heaving hills — a vista that would cost millions in other parts of our country. Poverty, one of the tourists remarks, doesn’t look too bad from this perspective.
And by the village’s standards, I can tell that Dodwana’s family isn’t poor. The homestead consists of a rectangular mud-bricked building with three bedrooms and a separate round hut for preparing food and eating. An outside shed shields the fireplace and a makeshift fence protects the vegetable garden. The household is the second in the village to have acquired a solar panel and a television awaits a satellite dish.
The view from Khululwa Dodwana’s hut Other Nqileni homes consist of round huts with no distinct cooking areas, no raised beds and no tables. Not much has changed here over the years and though tin roofs are starting to replace the thatch, water still comes from a stream and nobody in the village has toilets.
Dodwana introduces us to her mother, who is washing clothes in the sunshine, the bright suds against the blue sky recalling an old Omo advert. The woman, Nolesile, expresses concern that, between us, the women in our group have managed to produce only two children. It is a common refrain among the village women.
After painting our faces with clay, we spend the morning collecting wood, making mud bricks, picking spinach and learning to balance vessels of water on our heads. We marvel at Dodwana, whose 20-litre barrel puts our pithy versions to shame. (This aspect of the tour was quickly tailored to suit tourists’ abilities!)
For me, the most revealing part of the day is grain-grinding, which takes place on one’s knees before a flat-topped rock, over which dried mielie kernels are pounded. It is exhausting work and our group has no technique or stamina, so Nolesile kneels down to demonstrate, pummelling the rock in a movement that would seem effortless if it weren’t for her scowl. She looks up at us and says pointedly: “Imasjien!” It’s slow going — 15 minutes of labour produces a measly cup of grain.
All the while, Dodwana’s four-year-old child, Sonnyboy, follows us around, posing for photographs and watching his mother with a jealous eye. Eventually he will attend the school being built by Bulungula Incubator, an NPO set up to fund development projects in the area. Dodwana takes us to the site and, although progress has been slow because there is no road, several buildings now reach up into the sky. But lack of access also poses a problem in attracting qualified teachers. Despite of the beauty of the location, the search for a suitable principal continues and the frequent pleas for road improvements fall on deaf ears. Dodwana tells us that the municipality is due to start building the road in May, but she says such promises were also made last year.
After a traditional meal, cooked in a potjie over an open fire, we say goodbye to Dodwana and her family. Nolesile assures us that we are always welcome in her home and Sonnyboy waves at us as we wind our way back to the lodge.
My last few days at Bulungula are wet, unusual for this time of year, and the paths become muddy streams. As the rain floods down, I wonder what the 800 villagers can be doing in their cramped homes with no radio, television, computer or phone and no means of going anywhere else.
As we head off to Mthatha, I ask a local whether he thinks they’ll start building the much-promised road in May. “I hope so,” he says, though his shrug implies otherwise. “Always promising.” Martin tells me that the villagers are busy improving the road themselves. For this community, given a glimpse of alternatives, it seems it is no longer enough to simply wait.