You may well have seen pictures of the brightly painted homesteads and colourful crafts of Mpumalanga’s Ndebele villages in magazines all over the world. When you visit a Ndebele village you'll see for yourself the vibrantly coloured geometric designs of their dwellings and dramatic traditional clothing.

The little town of Siyabuswa in Mpumalanga’s cultural heartland is home to the Kghodwana Cultural Village where you can follow the progress of the Ndebele from 1 000 years ago to today. The people in this region are linguistically related to KwaZulu-Natal’s Zulu tribe and the Ndebele of Zimbabwe.

Take a tour of the village, shop for stunning crafts such as bracelets, necklaces, mats woven of dry grass and beadwork-adorned gala blankets, visit one of the Royal Kraals and admire the heavy brass rings worn by married women around ankles and necks to display their wealth.

It's the Ndebele women who traditionally paint the vivid geometric designs of the homesteads, based on triangular and rectangular shapes. Skills are passed from mother to daughter and the shapes used are often inspired by their intricately fashioned beadwork.

Another Ndebele village well worth a visit is situated at the beautifully restored Botshabelo Mission Station where early South African Christians sought refuge and found education training from the mid-1800s. This Ndebele village is an open-air living museum of vibrant colour.

Admire the artwork of the huts, the glowing murals on internationally acclaimed Ndebele artist Esther Mahlangu’s family homestead, the beaded aprons of the little girls, the glowing colours of blankets and beadwork, and chat to the married women about their spectacular clothing.

Thirsty after all this sight-seeing? Then pop over to the Loopspruit Wine Estate – South Africa’s northernmost vineyards – just across the road from the village.

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