Hazyview

The Lowveld around the Sabie River was Shangaan and Swazi country, hunted and farmed long before European settlement, and for much of the nineteenth century it was a hard place for outsiders: malaria and the tsetse fly killed both people and cattle, and the transport riders who crossed it towards Mozambique did so in winter when the risk was lower. The name Hazyview is said to come from the haze that hangs over the flats in the hot months.

Two developments made the modern town. The first was conservation: the Sabi Game Reserve was proclaimed in 1898 between the Sabie and Crocodile rivers, and in 1926 it was enlarged and renamed the Kruger National Park, with gates opening on to the western boundary a short distance east of the present town. The second was farming. Once malaria was brought under control in the middle of the twentieth century, the well-watered soils below the escarpment were planted with bananas, citrus and, later, macadamias and avocados, and packing sheds and a service centre grew at the crossroads.

The private reserves west of Kruger — the Sabi Sand foremost among them — later dropped their fences with the park and built a high-value safari industry, while the escarpment road above the town carried a steady flow of visitors along the Panorama Route. Tourism and farming have grown together since, and the town has spread along its roads with shopping centres, craft markets and lodges, its population increased by workers drawn to both industries.

This is Shangaan country, and the Tsonga-Shangaan people who live here speak Xitsonga, with siSwati common to the south and isiZulu, Afrikaans and English all heard in the shops. Cultural villages on the roads out of town present Shangaan dancing, drumming, divining and homestead life to visitors, an industry that has also kept alive craft skills — beadwork, basketry, pottery and wood carving — sold at stalls along the R40 and at craft markets.

Life outside the town follows rural patterns: homesteads of several households, cattle and goats as savings and as the substance of ceremony, chiefs and traditional councils alongside the municipality, and church on Sunday for most families, in congregations ranging from Anglican and Lutheran missions to large independent African churches. Weddings, funerals and initiations draw relatives back from Gauteng.

Conservation is part of local identity and local argument alike. Families have worked as rangers, trackers, guides and camp staff for generations, and lodges fund schools, clinics and community levies; at the same time the fences, land claims and restrictions on access are a long-running grievance, and rhino poaching in the nearby park — and the policing that comes with it — is discussed here as local news. Visitors are received warmly and with a directness that assumes they will be back.

Hazyview is a small town whose built-up centre holds only a few thousand people, but it serves a much larger rural population in the settlements and homesteads spread through the surrounding hills, and the wider area counts tens of thousands. The centre has supermarkets, hardware and farm suppliers, banks, filling stations, clinics, schools and a busy taxi rank, and it fills at month end when wages and grants are paid.

Farming and tourism carry the economy between them. Bananas and macadamias are the main crops, with avocados, mangoes, litchis and citrus alongside them, and the picking and packing seasons govern work on the plantations. The lodges, the private reserves and the park employ a large share of everyone else, as guides, trackers, drivers, cooks and housekeepers, and craft selling adds an income for many households.

Days begin before dawn, with workers gathered at the roadside for lifts and minibus taxis and the first game-drive vehicles heading for the gates. The middle of the day is hot and slow, and the evening traffic of packing lorries and returning safari vehicles is the town's rush hour. Unemployment is high, water supply and roads are recurring grievances, and elephants or hippos occasionally stray on to farmland — a reminder of how close the park is.

Everyday cooking here is Tsonga and Swazi. Pap, the stiff maize porridge, is the staple, eaten with beans, wild greens known as morogo, or meat and gravy, and sour porridge is common at breakfast. Shisa nyama, buying meat at a butchery and having it grilled on the spot, is the sociable weekend meal, served with pap and the spiced vegetable relish chakalaka, and magwinya, fried dough balls, are sold from stalls and shop windows all day.

Lowveld produce fills the rest of the table. Bananas, mangoes, avocados, litchis, papayas and macadamia nuts come straight from the plantations to the farm stalls, and macadamias are among the district's main crops. Mopane worms, the dried caterpillars of the emperor moth, are eaten crisp or stewed with tomato and onion, and marula fruit, which falls in late summer, is brewed into a traditional beer and used to make the cream liqueur Amarula.

Lodge and restaurant kitchens serve a South African menu for visitors: braaied boerewors and steak, game meats such as kudu and impala, potjiekos stewed in a three-legged pot over coals, and malva pudding or milk tart to finish. Trout comes down from the escarpment streams above the town, and the drinks are cold lager, rooibos tea and, increasingly, wine brought up from the Cape.