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March 30, 2004, The Paramount Chief, by Jim
The plan is for us to drive to the Tribal Authority on Tuesday
morning to obtain our PTO (permission to occupy) for the community
centre building site. We agree to leave Ndawana at 7:30 AM so we
can get to the Paramount Chief’s house in good time. Because
it has rained buckets the night before, we decide to drive the
long way, back through Underberg, then through Creighton to Riverside,
where we turn off onto a narrow track that winds up through a pass
and into another valley. By driving hard and fast I get us (Chief
Mr. Zala, his chosen elder Mr. Khumalo, Pelelani, Busisiwe, Sibusiso,
Khali and me) to the Paramount Chief’s house by 10 AM.
Mr. Zala and Mr. Khumalo go into the meeting house while the rest
of us wait outside. After a long while an elderly man (who we learn
is the Paramount Chief’s right-hand man) comes out to use
the toilet, sees us and asks what we are doing. We say we are waiting,
and he says he “hates that attitude,” meaning we should
have been invited in. At 11:45 we are finally called in.
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| Meeting with Paramount Chief. |
Mr. Zala waves me to a chair at his side behind the table. The rest
of the room is filled with benches and couches around its circular
wall. The right-hand man comes in and waves me out of his chair,
so I move to a bench. As expected by ancient custom, Busisiwe, as
the only woman in our party, kneels on the floor. An elderly man
gives her a mat to sit on. Then the paramount chief enters, dressed
in a red jumpsuit. He is all of 35 years old, and he tells Busi (a
feminist through and through) to sit on the chair I have just been
waved out of, since modern women don’t have to sit on the floor.
An older woman who is sitting on the floor complains that she has
been sitting there all morning, but she is ignored. At one point
someone uncovers a large plastic pitcher and hands it to Busisiwe.
She takes a drink from the pitcher and hands it to me. It contains
a mixture of cornmeal and sour milk. I take my drink, then pass it
on to the next person. Actually not half bad.
The Paramount Chief grills Mr. Zala about the project, asking several times
in English if it is just one site. He also asks me to confirm that. Then
he sends all of us out to another building, where we meet with the right-hand
man and plan to meet on Thursday in Umzimkhulu, the administrative centre
for the area, where we will fill out forms, get the appropriate stamps, and
thus be finished with all the approval we need for our building. The agriculture
people will come out to look at the site, but that is just a formality. Then
we file back into the meeting room, where the Paramount Chief asks if we
are in a rush. We say no, so he sends us back to the other building where
we are served lunch. It consists of samp (a mixture of a hominy-like corn
mixed with beans), a small portion of spinach and a piece of sheep meat.
It is good and filling, and we are all hungry. After we eat, the Paramount
Chief meets us in the yard and chats with us as he walks us to the bakkie.
We decide to drive back the short way, which turns out to be only 61 km., to
Ndawana. There are the 7 of us and 4 others from the meeting who want a lift.
After a couple of km. we meet another group from the meeting and they climb
in. There are now at least 20 of us in the bakkie, 5 seated in the cab and
at least 15 in the short box, all standing and swaying as we climb groaning
out of the valley and around the curves. For a while after we are back on
the main road, the road is good, the curves gentle, the hills low. I ask
why we had to go the long way this morning. Then we reach road T55, which
runs through Ndawana. We turn on to this road and the answer to my question
becomes obvious. We ford three rivers and pass numerous places where Busisiwe
shows me where a bus was stuck or it was impassable for some reason or another.
Very slow, steep, winding and rutted. The short trip home takes exactly the
same time as the long trip in the morning. Now all we have to do is go twice
the distance to Mzimkhulu on Thursday.
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