A wise man once said: “The only man I envy is the one who has not yet been to Zululand for he has so much to look forward to …”
Good Morning Mr Pinheiro, DHS Staff and the Boys of DHS. My name is Luvo Magula, and I am here to give you a summary of our recent trip to Zululand.
Our first stop was a KwaDukuza, formerly known as Stanger. This town was a royal home of the legendary King Shaka. KwaDukuza is a Zulu word which means ‘a place of the missing people’. It is at this place where King Shaka settled before his death in 2828. We got to the King Shaka Memorial site and were welcomed by the friendly staff. We proceeded to the auditorium where we attended an oral and visual presentation of King Shaka’s life, his philosophies, his day to day activities and of course his fears. We saw his rock which he used to sharpen his spear, and it is the same rock that he sat on when his killers mysteriously arrived in September 1828. On the south part of his rock were two Zulu huts, each one was built to fulfil a particular function in the older days.
The second stop of our trip was at Fort Nongqayi in Eshowe. This site was important for two reasons – the first reason was that is was where the European missionaries settled and started converting the Zulus to Christianity in the northern parts of Zululand. It was later used as a police training site which came into full use during the Bambata rebellion. A guided tour of the museum gave us insight on hos Zulus made craftwork which worked well with the ecosystem.
The third and final stretch of our tips was at Shakaland, which was our home base. It is here where indigenous values, traditions, customs and history of the Zulu people where explored. This misconceptions and stereotypes about certain practices were clearly explained to us.
I would like to thank the Zulu department of DHS, the facilitators of the various sites and, most importantly, our parents, for making this trip possible. We will certainly remember and maintain the lessons learned from this trip for many years to come.
Luvo Magula
Grade 11