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Elliot Ndlovu is incensed – a herd of Nguni cattle has just trampled through his treasured herb garden, leaving a wake of scattered plants along the footpath to his hut. But his irritation is brief.
The burly sangoma has never been one to hold a grudge. Helping people find inner peace is, after all, his business at the five-star Fordoun Hotel and Spa.
Situated on a former dairy farm 5.5km from Nottingham Road in the scenic KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, the spa has become the gateway for many sceptical visitors to dabble in traditional healing. The resident sangoma is quite a tourist attraction, and is often fully booked.
“My body has two lives, the spiritual as well as the physical,” he says. He also has two homes, one at his rural homestead and another at the luxury hotel.
“I am constantly bridging the differences between these opposing worlds,” he says.
Founder Jon Bates says Fordoun does all the typical spa treatments.
“It is a pampering spa, but it also has a serious side,” he says. “We try to think of health in a broader sense, rather than just eating and exercise. It is also a spiritual and mental thing.”
Therapies include reiki, aromatherapy body and bath treatments, frangipani body wraps and Inkomfe African potato healing wraps, seaweed treatments, and deep-tissue Swedish and Ndukuduku massages.
Another blend of indigenous and Western treatments is the Turkish steam and clay treatment for couples. Called rasul, the experience combines a mud bath with a sauna and then a “soft rain” shower. Instead of the usual mud, Fordoun uses a pure local clay, “harvested by maidens at full moon in the foothills of the Drakensberg”. While the idea is to slather the mud on to your partner in a state of relaxation, the session can quickly turn into a full-on mud fight.
A calming aromatherapy massage uses traditional massage techniques to spoil guests. But the spiritual takes centre stage. While Fordoun’s popular healing-touch therapist Brenda McFee feels energy, Ndlovu consults ancestors.
“The outcomes are remarkably similar,” says Bates.
Ndlovu’s biggest support at Fordoun is from white South Africans.
His most popular consultations centre on the common lifestyle afflictions of our time – high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity. But clients also want to find someone to love, or need advice about their future.
“Almost 80% of my clientele are Western people,” says Ndlovu. And his ancestors have no problem with talking to white people’s ancestors, he adds.
Typically, a session in his consultation room – a traditional Zulu hut in the gardens of Fordoun – starts with a client opening up to Ndlovu. The sangoma will burn impepho (traditional incense), which draws the ancestors near.
Next, Ndlovu opens up a line of communication by throwing the bones.
“It sounds a bit like talking to someone underwater,” he says.
He answers his client’s questions with the guidance of the ancestors. Once completed, he may then prepare a herbal remedy if the ancestors advise him to do so.
Both inyanga (medicinal healer) and sangoma (spiritual healer), he is quite the celebrity, having done a tour to Los Angeles, where Hollywood stars vied for his service.
A few years ago, Ndlovu even received a visit from former president Thabo Mbeki.
But despite international fame, Ndlovu believes his true calling is as a herbalist and ethnobotanist in rural KwaZulu-Natal. He keeps herb gardens both at his home in the Kamberg and at Fordoun, and grows more than 140 different traditional healing plants.
He is passionate about the preservation of indigenous flora, and educates his community about sustainability.
“The muti market is worth about R2.5 billion a year, and these plants are being harvested faster than we can grow them because of the demand,” says Ndlovu.
Many sangomas only believe in collecting wild-grown plants, which are fast becoming extinct. Ndlovu grows the popular but endangered black stinkwood and African wild ginger sustainably in his gardens.
Together with Bates, he has developed a range of products made from indigenous plants for healing. The first two ranges are made from ukukwabafile and wild dagga.
*Groenewald was hosted by the Fordoun Hotel and Spa. Accommodation rates at the hotel range from R930 to R2 300, according to the room and time of booking
Read Groenewald’s travel blog at reismier.com
