Dear bizi,
I would have thought your climate was pretty similar to mine, although I'm not sure how cold it gets there in winter. They seem to love hot and humid and have quite vigorous water searching roots.

Where I live we have most rainfall in summer, as I imagine you do, with dry winters. Doesn't get cold here though and I'm not sure that they would handle cold very well at all. Hard to say not knowing how cold your winter is, but they might do ok in a fairly sheltered spot. They shouldn't be grown too close to houses though! That I do know.

I just looked at a map showing the tropic of cancer, equator and tropic of capricorn. I think I live closer to the Equator than you do by looking at that. Pretoria would be just south of the Tropic of Capricorn, so I think the climate where Chemar used to live would have been pretty similar to mine here.

If I come across anything about growing them in your area in garden forums I'll let you know.

World map showing equator and Tropics of Cancer (to the north) and Capricorn (to the south)