The sun is high in the sky. A little grass road separates us from the shade as we work the fenceline. “Ilanga likipha imkhovu etsheni” Johnny Clegg once sang. Today the sun is doing just that, chasing the evil spirits out of the rocks… It is cooking hot! Umuzi still wears his blue overall jacket. To protect his skin from the sun. “Girls like it more when you’re skin is lighter.” Nkosi jokes, a naughty smile on his face. “Hai….” Umuzi tries to defend himself. “You are lying” he jokes back. I tell them that white people work very hard to make there skin darker, purposefully going into the sun. We all laugh.
“Hau!” Nkosi and I spin around at Umuzi’s reaction. A puff of soft feathers floats down to the ground from the fence. Just metres away from us. A little bird looking for a rest got something of a surprise and a shock, trying to land on the electric fence. A little naked now perhaps, but happily it escaped.
We’re up in the north spraying the fenceline to keep the grass at bay. Lakhize, Dumisani and Jerome are doing the spraying. I am doing the driving. Of the tractor. After a short lesson. Three gears on the one stick and a rabbit and a tortoise on the other. We’re going quickly, well for a tractor, so I slip it in into hare gear. One guy sprays while the other two mix the deadly concoction. By the time we are done and I’m dropped off at home I’ve earned the name “Umnobonobo three” despite the fact that I still have my front teeth. Dumisani is Umnobonobo two, for like Umnobonobo he drives a tractor and also has no front teeth.
The two male lion will soon arrive from Madikwe. Any day now in fact. And we have to prepare the predator boma. Slashing the grass, fixing holes and repairing the electric fence. Jimson, Nkosi and Bakuze (Nkosinathi) work next to me. Soon the work is done and we wait for Umuzi and Fani to return to pick us up. We sit in the shade of the boma. But then Jimson is up and about, combing the grass for wild spinach. I cannot resist. I make space in my lunchbox and after checking the plant with Jimson to make sure Kristal and I won’t be eating weeds later, I move along, hunched over, stooping to pluck the little green plants. Soon all the space is taken up and I’m done – my first wild veld harvest. Two nights later we enjoy the spinach in a delicious macaroni cheese. Yum!
The last the day of work on Phinda. We are dismantling an old buffalo boma close to Imagine Dam. Fani, Umnobonobo and Nkosi are with me. Fani and Umnobonobo removing the bolts and Nkosi and I cutting the wire that binds some of the poles and then removing the poles. It is overcast and chilly as we work, but soon we warm up. Ramming the poles off the loosened bolts is tough work for Nkosi and I as we follow the bolt-loosening team ahead. The grey of the clouds starts to darken and soon it is drizzling. We work on. And then it is raining. We stop working. Thanks to the rain we enjoy a two-hour lunch taken from 11am under a little tin shelter in the boma. We chat about lobola and still they cannot believe that us whiteys don’t pay lobola. It is really not easy to get married if you’re Zulu. About R55,000 for 11 cows and that is before you even get to the wedding costs.
Before we know it it is 3 o’clock. I say another farewell to Bakuze who has joined us, Nkosi and Umnobonobo. I climb up behind Fani who gives me a lift on the tractor home. We give him a box of matches to light his Boxer gwayi. Sucking back on the newspaper rolled cigarette he waves and trundles off home.
We head off to say farewell to the guys in the south, Vusi especially. I had hoped to work with them today, but it was not to be. An after-work farewell will have to do. We arrive with a camera for final photos and a tub of Kristal’s delicious cappuccino muffins as a parting gift. Individual pics first, just me and each of the guys. Some strike a pose and some just smile. And then the group photo with Vusi, Lakhize, Dumisani, Seven and Thembankosi. A few Zulu words of farewell are exchanged and promises to keep in touch are made and we leave them to continue washing or preparing dinner.
What a special day. To end the most remarkable three months. Working side-by-side with some of the best people I have had the privilege of knowing. Warm, kind, patient and many other things that I was not able to share in my farewell speech last Friday. I have learned so much more than just Zulu. Vusi Dlamini, Jimson Mthethwa, Umuzi Mtshali, Thembankosi, Lakhize, Seven Myeni, Nkosi (Sibonga Konke), Patrick Mseleni, Fani, Bakuze (Nkosinathi), Musa Mbatha, Umnobonobo, Jerome Gumede, Anton Ndlovu, how fondly I will remember the days that I have spent with you, for all the days that lie ahead of me.
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