Hluhluwe

The name comes from umHluhluwe, the isiZulu name for the thorny rope climber Dalbergia armata, which grows along the river and gave its name to the river, the reserve and the village. The hills to the west are said to have been royal hunting ground for the Zulu kingdom in Shaka's time, and their protection began in the late nineteenth century, when the colonial government of Natal proclaimed game reserves at Hluhluwe and Umfolozi — described as the oldest reserve in Africa.

The settlement itself grew much later and for other reasons: the coastal plain was opened to farming once malaria and tsetse fly were brought under control in the middle of the twentieth century, and sugar cane, pineapples and subtropical fruit took over the flats. A siding, a store, a church and a school made a village on the road north, which became the modern N2 and carried traffic towards Mozambique.

The rhino gave the district its reputation. By the early twentieth century the southern white rhino survived in the wild almost only in these hills, and the capture and translocation work of the 1950s and 1960s, known as Operation Rhino and led by the park's warden Ian Player, moved animals from here to reserves across their historic range. From the 1990s tourism became the other pillar of the local economy, with lodges and game farms spreading along the bush roads as the reserves, and later the iSimangaliso Wetland Park on the coast, drew visitors north from Durban.

The district is overwhelmingly Zulu-speaking, and daily life follows the patterns of rural KwaZulu-Natal: land held under traditional authority outside the village and the commercial farms, homesteads of several households, cattle as wealth and as the substance of ceremony, and the authority of chiefs alongside that of the municipality. Ceremonies marking marriage, coming of age and the honouring of ancestors bring families back from the cities.

Craft is the visible face of that culture on the roads around the village. Zulu basketry woven from ilala palm and grass, beadwork whose colours carry meaning, and carved wood and wire animals are sold from stalls at the roadside and at craft centres set up to reach passing traffic. Cultural villages near the N2 stage dancing, drumming and demonstrations of homestead life for visitors, an industry that has grown up beside the game lodges.

Conservation is itself part of local identity and local argument. Several generations of families have worked in the reserves as rangers, trackers, guides and camp staff, and community levies and concessions channel some tourism money to neighbouring areas. Rhino poaching, and the security that comes with it, is a constant presence: patrols, roadblocks and the loss of animals are discussed here as local news rather than as an international story.

Hluhluwe is a small town, the service centre for a much larger rural population living in scattered homesteads across the hills and the coastal flats. The centre holds a supermarket, hardware and farm suppliers, filling stations, banks, a clinic, schools and the offices of the surrounding municipality, and it fills on month-end weekends when wages and grants are paid.

Farming and tourism carry the economy. Pineapples are the crop the village is known for, and the area produces most of the country's queen pineapples, with sugar cane, timber and cattle alongside them, and the picking and packing seasons set the rhythm of work on the farms. The lodges, game farms and the reserves employ a large share of everyone else, and many households depend on a member working away in Richards Bay, Durban or Gauteng.

Days start early, with workers gathered at the roadside before dawn for lifts and minibus taxis, and the middle of the day is quiet and hot. Unemployment is high, water supply is unreliable in dry years, and the distances to hospitals and government offices in Mtubatuba and Empangeni are a constant cost in time and fare money. Yet the village is far calmer than the cities, and the surrounding bush is close enough that nyala and warthog turn up on the edges of the farms.

Everyday food here is Zulu country cooking. Phuthu, a crumbly steamed maize porridge, is the staple, eaten with beans, wild greens known as imifino or morogo, or with meat and gravy, and often accompanied by amasi, the thick soured milk that is a food in its own right. Amadumbe, a taro-like root, is boiled or roasted, and umqombothi, the sorghum and maize beer, is brewed for ceremonies rather than sold in shops.

Meat is the food of gathering. A shisa nyama, where meat is bought at the butchery and grilled on the spot, or a braai of boerewors sausage and chops with pap and the spiced vegetable relish chakalaka, is the standard meal for a weekend, a homecoming or a paid-out month. Braaied chicken feet and offal are sold hot from roadside braziers, and magwinya, fried dough balls, are breakfast for many.

The farms supply the rest. Pineapples are the local emblem, sold whole, peeled or cut, alongside bananas, litchis, mangoes, avocados and papayas from the roadside stalls, and lengths of raw sugar cane to chew. Lodge kitchens serve a South African restaurant menu — grills, game meat such as kudu or impala, curries carried up from Durban, and malva pudding or milk tart to finish — and cold beer and Zululand-grown rooibos and black tea are the drinks of the day.