Across the Mbashe River, the new brick road to Mvezo winds its way to the place where Nelson Mandela was born. Construction on the road began in 2011 – the same year in which Chief Mandla Mandela moved the graves of three of his grandfather Nelson Mandela's children from their original burial place at Qunu to Mvezo.
Mvezo, Mandla told the media on July 4, is bedevilled by poverty and socioeconomic problems. Development in the village hinges on the Mandela brand.
An enormous collection of huts and buildings stands apart from the sparsely populated village. The buildings are newly painted and empty. Locals say, when completed, they will house a museum dedicated to the life of Nelson Mandela. Madiba's face adorns art recently set up on an unfinished slab of concrete at the edge of the Mandela family burial site.
This is the site where Mandla reburied his own father and two of his father's siblings. This is the place to which Makaziwe Mandela believes Mandla is trying to "force" the burial of Madiba when he dies, with the implication that the motive is profit – if not for Mandla personally, then for the community of which he is the chief.
If that was the plan, it was severely wounded this week, perhaps fatally so. In what is now an open fight to determine Nelson Mandela's ultimate resting place, Mandla and Mvezo are losing, and Makaziwe and Qunu are winning.
"It is conceivable that such a heritage site has the potential to generate monetary gain," Makaziwe and 15 other applicants claimed in the Eastern Cape High Court in Mthatha this week. "Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that the first respondent [Mandla Mandela] has already begun preparations at The Great Place, Mvezo, inclusive of construction buildings."
Those court papers, in the fight over the remains of three family members, finally confirmed that the feud was, indeed, about the gravesite of Nelson Mandela, and that a battle over the other family remains was a proxy.
Tenuous links
Makaziwe, in her affidavit submitted to court, accused Mandla of an "agenda to confound the last wishes of Nelson Mandela". "There is a reason, of national interest, to redress the unlawful actions with haste," Makaziwe and other applicants, including Nelson Mandela's wife and next of kin, Graça Machel, said.
"The applicants, as custodians of the last will and testament of Nelson Mandela … are desirous of burying their father and committing him to the earth in which his descendants' remains lie," they said. "It is incontestable that these are the wishes of Nelson Mandela."
Mandla insisted these "tenuous links" to his grandfather had nothing to do with why he moved the other three graves away from Qunu. He insisted in court that he was allowed to move his father, Makgato's gravesite, and that he would abide by Madiba's wishes regarding his burial, as set out in his will.
According to Makaziwe, in early versions of his will and in interviews with the man himself, Madiba said he wants to be buried in Qunu, with his children.
At Qunu, the place where Nelson Mandela grew up, new roads are also being built for easy access to a planned burial spot. Aloes have been planted. It is said that he wanted his memorial garden to look like Mvezo, which is festooned with the plants.
There is already a Nelson Mandela museum at Qunu and significantly more development has taken place there than in Mvezo.
Lot of expectation
But whether Nelson Mandela is interred in Mvezo or Qunu, the potential profit of a Madiba site is less certain than his family appears to believe, with opinion on the matter divided.
On the one hand is the department of tourism, which has spent just over R43-million in the past six years on making the Mvezo Great Place tourist-friendly – and that does not take in the cost of road infrastructure, an interpretation centre and related projects. The tourism project includes self-catering chalets and a backpackers lodge, which was scheduled to be completed in the next three weeks.
It was initially planned to draw tourists to Mandela's birthplace in Mvezo rather than to a gravesite – although the latter appears to have become an unspoken part of the planning in the past two years.
During that time, the idea of having Mvezo declared a World Heritage Site was also floated, a designation significantly more likely to be granted should the grave of South Africa's first black president be located there.
"I believe, if the infrastructure is there, if the roads are good enough, people will come," said a contractor who has been involved in the project for several years.
"There is a lot of expectation from people, like maybe the world is going to be looking at this place and maybe they'll get running water. Maybe too much expectation. But if you have the place where Mandela was born and where he rests in one place, maybe the tourists will come."
But a source with close ties to the Mandela family derided high expectations of the potential of a Mandela shrine, whether it is Qunu or the more inaccessible Mvezo. "You are not going to create some kind of Mandela Disneyland out there. How many people would go? Not enough to uplift the entire community."