Page 40 - Heritage Streets of KwaMashu 2025

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HERITAGE STREETS OF KWA-MASHU
SECTION A
EKUTHULENI
(a place of peace)
This is Kwa-Mashu Hostel, originally the men’s hostel when it was built in the late 1950s as part of the early settlements and through forced relocation from Mkhumbane (Cato Manor). The hostel is located in A-section – earlier it was known as ezimpohlweni (and the residents hated this demeaning name) it was done firstly to accommodate unmarried men. As time went on, the name ezimpohlweni was associated with an insult by hostel residents and one uttering this name would be in danger, beaten and sometimes even killed – especially if not from the hostel. (Impohlo means an unmarried, single man). Remember, most men in the hostel had left their wives in rural areas when coming to Durban for employment.
During the 1980s A-Section KwaMashu Hostel became better known as Emzini Wezinsizwa (home of men away from home). Historically in South Africa, hostels are where single men as well as men whose wives lived “on the farms”, aka rural areas used to live. There are a lot of stories about how dangerous the hostels were and still are. Not only is it alleged that if you want to find a hitman, you go look in the Kwa-Mashu hostel, but there is apparently to this day still a lot of “dark witchcraft and muti-making” going on. Rumour was that it was impossible to win a fight against a person from the hostel. It is said, that there was a young man from Ntuzuma who did not get along with this other man from the hostel and had an argument. The next day the man from the hostel got to work first and rubbed some herbs on the young man’s machines, and the young man passed away after he started working on his machines.