A Town Like KwaMbonambi – what’s it like to live there?

Roy wasn’t particularly keen on driving down the main (read only) street of the bustling metropolis of KwaMbonambi – and one can’t really blame him – but he did, and even stopped for me to snap a couple of photos.

A highlight was the roadside barber, wielding his tools under a shelter of transparent pink plastic, but I didn’t want to intrude my camera on the customer in such an intimate moment.

A good call, as I soon realised when I took the picture [above] of a trading store: the black man with the Chinese man, who was almost certainly the store-owner – that’s the way things are going in this and other parts of Africa – shouted “Why are you shooting us?”, in a rather unsettling way.

It seemed fruitless to stop to explain that I found the place and its people picturesque – particularly as the three grumpy men were battling to shift some rather heavy-looking stuff. Instead, I gave an apologetic sort of wave, and we and our hired BMW made a hasty exit.

KwaMbonambi can politely be described as a small African town not too far from the much bigger port town of Richards Bay, about a two-hour drive north of Durban. You’d never guess it, but KwaMbonambi is something of a historical spot. Its name means “the place where the chiefs gather”, and the Zulu King Shaka (1787-1828) spent the first 18 years of his life here with his mother Nandi. What’s more, it’s close to some of KwaZulu-Natal’s oldest and most illustrious game reserves, such as Hluhluwe-Umfolosi and Phinda.

Our friends Keith and Dawn are a semi-retired couple (she’s retired, he isn’t), who live on the outskirts of this modest little town. Roy and I hadn’t seen them for a year or two, so we invited ourselves to stay with them for the night on our way to Modimolle (previously Nylstroom) for Mathilda and Gideon’s wedding.

Roy has known Keith for 45 years, ever since they were both at sea with BI (The British India Steam & Navigation Co.) Keith was Chief Officer on the Amra, Roy an officer cadet. He’s known Dawn for nearly as long. We had a splendid evening together, drinking far too much whiskey. (And it must be said here that Dawn makes the best cheesecake in the world.)

Keith probably didn’t expect to retire in the KwaMbonambi house that he and Dawn bought 30 years ago, when, they explained, it was the only house for sale. He probably didn’t think he’d still be working as a Richards Bay harbour pilot at the age of 75, either! Now, he says he can’t imagine leaving it and its beautifully kept, expansive garden.

Friendly burglars

What’s it like to live in a small town like this one? Well, a couple of months ago burglars broke into the house while Keith and Dawn were at a Zulu wedding no more than 200m down the street. That in spite of the heavy security precautions that most South Africans take to protect their homes: the burglar guards, the beams, the alarms and the armed rapid response service. Local police were on the scene within minutes, but not before the thieves had made off with the TV, plus a few watches from his precious collection.

The watches were an afterthought, he says – it was all about the TV, and more particularly its screen. Apparently, there’s some sort of compound on the back of TV screens that enterprising individuals scratch off and mix with dagga (marijuana), plus an assortment of ingredients such as crushed antiretroviral drugs, rat poison and detergent powder, to make a drug called whoonga. First developed in the environs of Durban, whoonga is said to deliver a mind-blowing high and is becoming popular in other parts of the country, too.

Interestingly, Keith is pretty sure of the identity of the man who was behind the burglary. “When I see the bastard in the street,” he says, “we wave, smile and say sawubona (‘hello’ in Zulu).”

So, that’s what it’s like to live in KwaMbonambi.