Memel is a town in the Free State province of South Africa, located close to the provincial boundaries of both kwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga, and is situated some 1,730 metres above sea level.

The town is perhaps named after the port city of Memel in former East Prussia by a settler with historical links to the Baltic, but there is no direct evidence of this.

In Lithuanian, Memel means mute, silent (mėmelis, mėmė)[2] and this same name was adopted by speakers of German who later colonized that part of the Baltic.

Whilst silence certainly remains one of the fine attributes of the surrounding rural area, it can be difficult to find within the town itself these days as the population of Memel continues to expand.

Seekoeivlei Nature Reserve, a massive wetland spanning some 30 km², lies to the north of the town and was declared a Ramsar site in 1999.

Headed in the Memel area by an engineer from Zimbabwe, Working for Wetlands annually employs between 30-90 unskilled workers who build gabions (rocks placed in wire retaining cages) and weirs to slow erosion and resurrect marshland.

The character of Memel was, for most of its written history, that of a typical, isolated, agricultural community where apartheid and the Dutch Reformed Church were a dominant feature in peoples lives.

Their direct action was successful with government hastily surveying the area and officially proclaiming, at very low cost, plots on which people could build their homes.

[citation needed] Since 1994 dozens of people from outside, some from overseas, have moved to Memel, with many of them seeking a healthier lifestyle than that offered by the cities and lands from where they came.

When including Zamani, the proportion of black South Africans, specifically those of the Zulus and Sotho people, form the majority in Memel-Zamani.

Memel / Zamani is populated by considerable numbers of free roaming cattle, impacting the town's gardens, streets, roadside verges, empty plots and even the athletics track.

Diabetes, hypertension, cancer, malnutrition caused by poor diets of processed food, respiratory infections and aids further exacerbate the hardships that people live with.

A library has also been established in one of Memel's three primary schools, with donations facilitated by the Rotary Clubs of South Africa and the United States.

[citation needed] For decades the main highway that bypasses Memel was dangerous due to a combination of its badly neglected state and speeding motorists.

[citation needed] The economy of the Memel-Zamani area is that of a typical rural community on South Africa's plateau where livestock farming and maize cultivation dominate.

[citation needed] In the early 2000s, with the influx of house-buyers from the cities and overseas, house prices moved from the R50 000 level to around the R600 000 mark but this trend has now slowed.

[citation needed] Local organic gardens now produce dozens of vegetable varieties in summer, as well as butter, yoghurt and cheese.

[citation needed] In November 2014, they opened Memel Organics Boutique Guest Houses much of which was built using rammed earth techniques and utilises solar water heaters for radiant hydronic underfloor heating.

Unemployment there is estimated to be between 50-75% with most people surviving on government benefits, small vegetable gardens and remittances sent by relatives employed in Gauteng province.