Arrival in Umtata (now Mthatha) June 10, 2001

I was on a my way to South Africa to take up a two year contract working as a volunteer under New Zealand’s Volunteer Service Abroad programme. My base was to be Mthatha – then known as Umtata, the former capital of the “Independent State of Transkei”. Following its release from this charade, in 1994, when the ANC (African National Congress party) swept to power in South Africa, it became a somewhat neglected rural town. It was amalgamated into the new province of the Eastern Cape. The capital, Bisho, of the neighbouring ‘independent’ homeland , Ciskei, became the new provinces’ capital and the spelling recently reverted to the Xhosa spelling of Bhisho.

The photo below is a beach at East London (eMonti).

I managed to arrive in East London rather than Mthatha and was picked up by the acting director of the Umtata Business Service Centre, Victor Cimi, the next day. Victor was a knowledgeable and thoughtful guide and mentor over the next two years. On the 220 km ride north we covered many topics of conversation and I, as well, was given a great introduction to the countryside.

It was interesting to note some of the historical boundaries that we crossed - from South Africa to Ciskei (one of the earlier homelands, which were a cornerstone of the appalling apartheid policies of the Afrikaans government) back in to white SA (when the land was seen as being more fertile and valuable), back into Ciskei, back into SA, into Transkei (another homeland, both of those homelands, since 1994, being part of the new Eastern Cape province) at the Kei river. A black South African historically travelling the distance we did that day would have had to present a passport at each border crossing.

The photo below is of "Rondavels" - houses of the local people. They are beautiful. Made from mud blocks, plastered and usually painted in special patterns and with an exquisitely hatched roof.

The countryside is rolling hills, lightly treed in parts and with many areas in rough pasture. Also plentiful are the wonderful Aloe Ferrox.

Black South Africans mind very small stalls along the highway selling a small selection of fruit and vege that they buy off the Africaan farmers. They may also be renting a shack on the farmer’s land or living in a shack on a piece of communally owned land. A large bag of tomatoes and a couple of small pineapples could be had for 7 Rand, about $2.

What really struck me was the dry, brown veld. I left a cold wet winter in New Zealand and arrived to a reasonably warm, very dry South African winter. I was later to experience the very wet, hot summer, often with frequent electrical storms. More of that later.

About 21 kms from Umtata we passed through the village of Qunu, an early home township of Nelson Mandela. Qunu covers quite an area with the beautiful looking Rondavels – round, thatch roofed huts - dotted along the hills. Near the southern boundary of Qunu is Nelson Mandela’s ‘presidential house’ (shown above). A quite large house built on land given him by the people of Qunu on which to build a new home when he became president in 1994. He did not want a palace and the main feature of the architecture is that the house largely consists of a replica of the space he occupied as a prisoner on Robbens Island off Cape Town.

Driving through Qunu coincided with the end of the school day which meant that the side of the highway was a lined with school children walking home, all dressed in uniform. It was easy to see why the road toll is so high, run-down-pedestrians being one of the major contributors to the dreadful statistic. The apparently large number of people walking on the side of the road was to be seen as almost insignificant by the time we reached Umtata.

There the sidewalks were covered with people, standing talking or simply standing, sitting or minding a stall of fruit and vege – mostly, I understood, bought from a local supermarket - or a stall of other goods, sometimes new, sometimes second hand.