Day 5 – Journey to the Zululand

After a quick breakfast we left Hippo Hollow and were back on the road to visit the Zulu battlefields. We journeyed across the golden African landscape from vast plains to farms of sugar cane, bananas and grapes as well as the odd mountain, river and grasslands too. In order to get to Zululand, we had to travel through Swaziland – the landlocked country surrounded by South Africa.

Swaziland was obviously a lot poorer than South Africa – the poverty was more obvious and more extreme. It's definitely third world as we saw children running naked down the dusty tracks at the sides of the road with buckets of water and women washing clothing in the streams.

 

Also their houses were much simpler – even more than South Africa’s shanty shacks in some cases – some seemed to be built using just mud and wood with thatched roofs. Many were only half constructed – we were told this was because money had run out or the builder had died – leaving the structure half finished.

The local shops/stalls:

In South Africa, there is no minimum wage – the average wage is around £4 a day for a full day’s work, in Swaziland it is much less. We saw some people lumbering wood on their backs across the sloping terrain of the country and others hiking their way across their farms or hand turning their soil.

 

 

It did make me wonder if they’re happy – obviously we naturally pity them as they don’t even have enough food for the whole family, let alone school, air con, central heating and a fridge and you can forget TV, play stations and running water. However, I wonder if they may be happier as they don’t know what they’re missing and they have much more family time with their only worry to be about food, water and shelter which they spend their day providing – they may not know we see it as our right and stress about other things like exams and work whereas these people can just spend their time in their communities and enjoy the simpler things in life like the sunrise or the night sky.

 

We arrived at the battlefields lodge late evening and were greeted by a warming African beef stew, rice and vegetables – simple yet satisfying. We then went to bed in perhaps our least luxurious hotel of the trip – but at least we had a bed, running water and a shower which is more than the kids in Swaziland.