Mgazi has passed on!

Two days ago, Mgazi (Totoli Ntshangase) died at the age of 80 at Bethesda Hospital in Zululand.

He was a loving husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and a highly respected member of his community.

Over many years Thanda Safari guests visited him, his wife Silvina, and his family, to learn about life in a rural Zulu community.

I am honored to have know him as a friend, even if we needed to communicate through an interpreter.

His and his wife’s willingness to open their home to foreigners and welcome them warmly has always impressed me, and I will continue to visit the family whenever I can.

I have written this post because a few of you have known him, or read about him in the book Leon Wobbe and I wrote a few years ago. And I am sure many of you would have enjoyed knowing him.

My thoughts are with his wife and his family during this difficult time.

To live in the hearts of those we love is not to die. Thomas Campbell