Pansi uBev! (Down with Beverly!)

Saturday 25 Feb 2012

Saturday Mama had to go to a funeral, so after breakfast, Smu and I helped Mama by cleaning the house. Actually I had to force Mama to let us help out, but we swept, mopped, scrubbed, and dried the floors, put away all the dishes from the drying rack, and tidied up. When Mama left for the funeral, Smu had me break out my lap top and blast Beyoncé as we danced around singing until I forced her to take a bath.

After bath time we got ready and went to Pavillion with Smu’s friend Mandisa (I think I’ve mentioned her in previous posts). Also, side note, they spell pavilion here with two l’s, which has thoroughly confused me since I’m bad enough at spelling as it is. And another side note to that side note, my spelling has gotten worse since learning Zulu since everything is spelled phonetically. I spelled laughing lafing and phrase frase the other day… slight struggles.

Anyways, back to my Saturday. Mandisa’s family was going out for the day, so I was in charge of her. We grabbed a minibus to the Pav and headed to Mr. Price! Mandisa found a dress, a cute little denim jumper, but Smu didn’t find anything she liked, so we bought Mandisa’s dress and went to some other stores. Smu didn’t have much luck there either, so we went back to Mr. Price. Smu remembered that it was her cousin’s birthday and she was turning three, so she wanted to use the money I would have spent on a dress for her on a present for her cousin instead. I wanted to get Smu a present (she wanted a new dress to wear to our goodbye party this coming weekend), so I ended up getting a present for her cousin AND a new dress for Smu! She finally found a fancy purple dress as we were leaving Mr. Price, so we bought that for her.

           

After shopping we went to Wimpy’s for lunch to get some burgers and soda. We then caught a minibus taxi home and I went to Becky’s with Seth to work on our assignment that was due on Monday. We ended up getting hungry, so we made some fries. Then Thando and Scooby  came over and sat down with us. We ended up asking them some questions about health to help us with our assignments, but it turned into a very informative conversation about the stigma against HIV/AIDS in the townships.

           

It started to get dark, so I headed home for dinner, watched some TV with my siblings, and went to bed.

Sunday 26 Feb 2012

Sunday I got to go to Chesterville!  Smu wanted to give her cousin the present we bought her, and I wanted to see their other house. Stef was kicked out of her house because Mama was going to church all day, so she ended up tagging along. We ended up walking to Chesterville – its only a 10 minute walk or so, but it was extremely hot. We played with the kids a little bit, and then decided it was a good idea to get ice cream. After we all just sprawled out on the couches and watched the first disk of the first season of The Big Bang theory. It was wonderful. After a few hours, we walked all the way home in the heat.

The cow tail from last weeks slaughtering!

The Chesterville Girls

Back in Cato, I did some work on assignment, although not much progress was made, but then I met with my Zulu song and dance group so Smu could choreograph us a dance! Smu and Owami helped to teach us some simple dance moves (sorry, no over the head kicks in this dance) and we did a mini rehearsal before going to for dinner. After dinner I watched a little bit of TV and then tried to work on my assignment again, but it was EXTREMELY hot. Like too hot to sleep, hot. I was so tired, but was lying in my bed dripping sweat. (sorry if that’s too much detail for some of you).

Monday 27 Feb 2012

Monday morning in Zulu class, it was time to present our songs and dances! Thanks to Smu’s help our two Zulu songs were a success! We all wore our green amaZulu jerseys and sang Shosholoza and Buya Nomathemba. Another group wore traditional Zulu skirts and beads and danced to some pop songs, and the last group to perform did The Circle of Life as well as a song by Zahara, a hit South African Pop artist. It was a nice break from Bev’s lecturing, although we did have a small one before the dances. It was as unorganized, poorly explained, and frustrating as any other.

After Zulu Clive talked to us about our upcoming assignments and such. I used lunch to finish my assignment that was due, and then at 2 we were supposed to have a discussion about our clinic visits and other experiences, but Zandi split us up into two groups and had us write songs to describe the things we have observed… Yes, more singing and dancing. Her excuse was the it is because Africans express their feelings through song and dance. I totally agree with that, but I think she just didn’t want to have to engage with us for two hours because it was hot and she was tired. We were all frustrated with the assignment because we felt like we were back in 5^th grade or something. In the hour she gave us we came up with a song about what we saw in the clinics to the tune of Ke$ha’s Tik Tok, which we were all ashamed of. The other group did Celo Green’s Forget You, so that made us feel a little better, but we all felt badly about using a Ke$ha song do describe the hardships of public health care.

Drawing Mandisa made me that I used for my project.

I finally managed to hand in my assignment. It was a creative one where we were supposed to describe our learning process, so not your conventional kind of paper… I wrote a bunch of short story type things from different points of view and on different subjects all having to do with health, and included some pictures to go along with it.

Quick drawing that I also used in my project.

 

After school Smu and I bought some fries (I have eaten more fries here in Cato Manor that I think I have my entire life, but they are so good! The seasoning they put on them is addicting). Smu wanted to play with Rato and Owami, so I went to find Katie. She wasn’t at home, so Rato suggested we go find her at Becca’s house. Sure enough they were both there to get some peace and quiet (Becca doesn’t have any siblings), so we said hi. It turns out that Becca was leaving in a few minutes to have dinner with Dr. Karim, who is a leading HIV/AIDS researcher here in South Africa. He pulled up in his Lexus SUV while Katie and I were still there and invited us to come to dinner with Becca! What an opportunity! So, we ended up tagging along.

First of all, his car was the nicest vehicle I have been in in a long time, not to mention the first automatic vehicle since leaving the US. We pull up to his house, which has a large wall (apparently there is an electric fence?) and a gate. Their house may in fact be the nicest house I have ever been in, not to mention had dinner in. Their sitting room has an entire wall of glass, through which you look out onto the rest of their property with a pool and patio as well as an amazing view of the city of Durban. When we got there it was still light out and you could see all of the buildings and the water starting to have a pinkish orangy glow. After dinner when we went back into the sitting room for desert (more details to come), and you could see all of the city lights along with the lights of the boats out at sea.

Before dinner they brought out some delicious samosas and fruit juice as we talked to Dr. Karim for a little while. Then it was dinnertime. There was potato curry, chicken curry, roti, salad, vegetables, mushrooms, bread.. SO MUCH FOOD! It was all delicious, although slightly too spicy for me. Luckily the fruit juice was thick, so that helped. For dessert there were orange wedges, Turkish delight (from turkey!!! – their son goes to a Turkish school), chocolates, cupcakes, donuts, Portuguese pastries, you name it.

Anyways, so like I said, Dr Salim Karim and his wife, Quarraisha Abdool Karim are two of the leading HIV/AIDS reserachers in the country, not to mention the world. I’m serious, you should google them! They have two clinics, one in a rural area and one right in Durban, where they do all sorts of research and clinical trials. They mentioned that in the urban clinic they do a lot of work with co-infection of HIV with TB and to clinical trials of different treatment regiments. One of the things they do in the rural areas is education based research, where they have 14 different schools that they give money to and run different programs to motivate students. Students must get tested once a year for HIV as well as maintain their grades, but the program promotes sports, involvement, and also provides like a life coaching type of thing in order to help motivate students and develop life skills. Quarraisha was also one of the people who developed the Life Orientation program to be implemented in schools post apartheid! Crazy. It was such an amazing experience getting to talk to them, not only because their house was incredible, but also because they are very intelligent and well connected people. Hopefully we can use that connection in the future! They already invited us to visit the rural clinic if we so desire!

Tuesday 28 Feb 2012

Todays Zulu lecture was absolutely infuriating. Bev was in rare form. Maybe its because I haven’t slept well the past couple of nights so I’m extra cranky, but I think we all agreed that Bev was pushing it this morning. Hence the title of the post. We have a test tomorrow, and a lot of it is on stuff that she has just mentioned in passing, hasn’t covered in depth, or, my favorite, that SHE JUST TAUGHT US THIS MORNING! There are like 11 different noun classes in Zulu, each that usues different concords and prefixes, etc. The first two are distinguished by people vs. things, but then the others all have animals, things, people, etc… so basically anything can be a part of them. Bev happened to briefly mention all of them today and expects us to know them for the test tomorrow. It would be one thing if she could adequately explain them to us, but we have basically all had to teach it to ourselves and explain it to eachother. And she asks the most annoying questions and is just generally… annoying. She gave us these 10 fill in the blanks to help us review, but then proceeded to give us about 45 seconds to do all of them before yelling out the answers at us, which confused us even more. I’m going to stop ranting about Beverly now before I get myself all worked up again.

Other than that we’ve had boring lectures about methods for our research and how to cite in APA format. Its currently lunch time and I’m typing up this post while waiting for the ancient scanner to scan a bagillion documents into the computer. We have to send copies of our passports and stuff to OverlandingAfrica to reserve our trip to Zimbabwe and Botswana at the end of the trip!!!!!!!

Spoiler alert for the rest of the week:

Tomorrow night we are going to a Bafana Bafana vs. Senegal soccer match! So we get to go to the world cup stadium again. (also, fun fact, my computer just tried to change that to Banana Banana…)

Saturday is our goodbye party for our families.

Sunday we leave Cato and head to our rural homestays!!! Goodbye civilization….

Ngiyajabula ukukwazi! (Litteral translation: I am happy to know you)

First, more updates on Cato life:

• They have set up a large white tent down the street from where we live. And I mean a LARGE white tent, like the size of a circus tent. Because we are on the hill we have a very good view of it, and rather unfortunately at times, that also means we can very easily hear what is going on in the tent. Mama informed me that it is a new church! Which is wonderful except that I found out the hard way that it meets every night. Every single night. Which is nice at first because there is lots of singing and its very upbeat and soothing most of the time, but come 9:00 when I’m trying to get ready for bed it starts to get annoying. Then at about 9:30 when I’m actually trying to sleep, it becomes very annoying. It is an African church, meaning there is no set time, but I think I have discovered that it starts around 7:30 most nights and then ends anywhere between 9:30 and 10:00. I hear some epic preaching most of the time, but its in Zulu so unfortunately I never understand. I know it must be inspiring though because it is followed by thundering cheers and even screaming at some points. Mama enjoys it though. She says she likes it being there because she likes to hear all the singing. As long as Mama likes it I guess I wont complain.

• There are Muslims in Cato? I’ve been hearing this strange moaning on a daily basis for sometime now, but there are so many strange noises in Cato that I don’t really think much of them most of the time. The other night we were playing stones outside and smu goes “Oh God, the Muslims are praying again.” And sure enough it was that same moaning sound I had been trying to identify. Smu then proceeded to mimic the sound, which gave me a good laugh.

And now a brief overview of my week! I can’t believe I’ve already been here for 5 weeks. Crazy!

Tuesday 21 February:

            Tuesday was pretty uneventful. We went to school, had two lovely, excruciating lectures from Zed about ethics and such. We had Zulu. Then I went back to Cato and hung out with Smu. Nandi (Elise’s sister) came over and Smu asked if we were going to go to church to sing with Nandi and Elise, so I said sure! And we left the house. Obviously first we had to stop at Silence Foods to get some chips (french fries), and then we went to Nandi’s house to pick up Elise. As I suspected, Elise had no idea that we were going to church, but after some slight confusion, we both embraced the situation and set off to church! After a little bit of exploration, we ended up at someone’s house. Elise and I were officially confused at this point, but again we embraced the situation and went inside. There was some confusing talk in Zulu that we didn’t quite understand, but there was no one else there besides us and the Woman who lived in the house. We were invited to sit down in the living room, so we obliged at Smu and Nandi’s insistence. After a few awkward minutes Smu and Nandi said it was time to go. Now Elise and I were extremely confused, and Nandi and Smu refused to shed some light on the situation, we finally found out later that we were really early for church and that people weren’t coming for at least another 45 minutes, so we went home. From that point on it was a typical night. I ate dinner, talked to my brother and Smu, and went to bed around 9:30.

Wednesday 22 February:

            Wednesday we started off the day with Zulu. I’m a pretty tolerable person when it comes to teachers, but uBeverly actually infuriates me. Oh! So first of all we had a Zulu oral. I did mine with Stef, and she was an American and I was an African, and we had a conversation about where we come from, what we do, and what languages we speak. I got a 20/20! (Probably partially thanks to Smu’s coaching). After that we went to our tutorial groups, which I also have with Beverly. We have a project due on Monday where we have to sing and dance to two songs in Zulu. There are so many options, from traditional Zulu songs to hit pop songs, and even the Circle of Life! Our groups are our tutorial groups, which is wonderful expect for the fact that Bev is our ringleader. She refuses to let us sing the songs that we want and she insists on choreographing our dances for us. And if you have been reading my blog and seen the picture of her attempting to Zulu dance… that’s all you need to know. Anyways, I wont vent too much, but let me just say that it is all the more infuriating when you hear Thula’s group outside belting out the Circle of Life (which only like 8% of it is Zulu) and Zahara (a Zulu hit pop artist).

            Anyways, after school I went to the Pav to go to the ATM and get in some free internet time at Mug and Bean (well free is relative, because you have to buy something there to use the internet…). My mama had also been working so hard the past week. She had to go to the hospital to get her meds and also organize the whole party at her house this past weekend and clean up from it. She was so tired the Monday night she was falling asleep on the couch at 6. I had asked her the other week if she wanted me to make dinner at some point, and she said no just bring home KFC! So I told her not to make dinner on Wednesday, and I would bring home KFC. Her face instantly brightened and she proceeded to give me a bunch of instructions! So while at the Pav, I went to KFC and got a huge bucket with 21 pieces of chicken and some fries. Then I went to Pick n Pay and got some rolls, a 2 liter Coke, and a tub of ice cream!

            When I came home with the goods, Mama was so excited! She gave me a big hug and told me I did good. Haha. She made an elaborate set up and both of my brothers came home for dinner! All five of us had our KFC, salad, rolls, fries, and then ice cream for dessert! Mama even bought some bananas and cut them up in the ice cream! Afterwards we all had a slight stomach ache from all of the food that we had eaten, but the sky was so clear outside so you could see all sorts of stars.

            Smu was so amazed and fascinated, and Orion was visible from our back door. I pointed it out to Smu and explained what it was. She thought it was so cool and kept asking questions about the stars and the universe. We also saw mars! And I had to explain why it didn’t look like it was moving even though it was orbiting the sun. I also explained why sometimes we can’t see the sun. It involved a lot of animated discussion and acting out on my part, considering I was trying to teach her all of this in her second language. She did very well though and I could tell she was trying hard to understand everything and digest the information. Then somehow we got on the topic of the big bang theory, which she thought was great! Until she realized that it conflicts with religion. She promptly halted the conversation and asked, “Wait. Wait. So… you mean to tell me… God didn’t create the earth?” Which was a more difficult question to answer. Thank goodness Lungelo was there to help out and to translate difficult topics into Zulu for Smu to explain. After some more talk about God and the religion vs. science debate, we realized it was already past 10 and that Smu (not to mention me) should go to bed. I said goodnight to Lungelo, locked up, shut off all the lights, and passed out.

Thursday 23 February:

            Today was our last clinic day, which was both sad and exciting at the same time. I have grown fond of a lot of the nurses there, and everyone is so welcoming and helpful, but at the same time we do a lot of sitting around and I can’t help but feeling like I’m in the way and in general being utterly useless. 

The front of the lovely Cato Manor CHC/

  

 This week I was in the ARV clinic, where my job was very similar as it was in the other departments, except that I also would take every patients weight, and only some of their blood pressures. It was all too strangely normal for a while, until the kids and malnourished patients started coming in. It was weird to think that every single person I saw was HIV positive, and seeing all of the little kids was sad too. Some of them were so skinny and others had really bloated cheeks, so they almost looked like chipmunks. The ARV clinic gives out a lot of porridge and nutrient rich cereal and drinks. They seem to have a good system. They are pretty organized (at least compared to what some of the other students have said about their clinic experiences), and they have doctors and counselors there to see patients. Most of the time I was just sitting around, observing, but I learned a lot about the filing system, their charts, and how to enter patients into the log book to keep track of who has been there.

            After clinic I went to House of Curries with the other girls to get some lunch and hang out. I went home and spent some time with Mama and then went into my room to take a nap. Right as I was falling asleep she surprised me with another lunch! After I washed both of our dishes she instructed me to take a nap. Actually she said, “You must have a snap.” Which I first heard as “snack” and was so perplexed as to why she wanted me to eat even more food after I had already had two lunches, and then realized she meant I must go lie down and sleep. I went into my room and slept for over two hours. I heard Smu come home after school and debated getting up to spend time with her, but I was absolutely exhausted, so I went back to sleep. Finally, at 4 I managed to drag myself out of bed. Mainly because I had to go to the bathroom, but also because I wanted to be able to sleep that night.

            I woke up to my nap to find Smu doing her homework. She then proceeded to come into my room and I helped her with her similes and parts of speech. Katie and one of the neighborhood boys (Uwami? I’m not sure exactly what it is or how to spell it) came over and him and Smu tried to teach us how to dance. It was very comical as always. When we went back into the house, Mama had dinner ready for us, so we ate.

            After Smu wanted to go for a walk, so we stopped at the store (a shipping container converted into a small shop) to get some corn puffs before going to Katie’s house. The kids were all playing outside so I went inside to say hi to Katie. A few minutes later Seth came into the room panting and barely able to talk, saying something about playing a game with the other kids where they tied him up. Katie and I were curios so we went back outside with Seth and played with the kids. It was a strange game where a crowd of kids stand in the middle and two kids run around them with a rope and try to tie them all up. The kids in the middle have to try to escape, and the last person to get out of the rope loses and everyone gets to tie them up. It was slightly terrifying but also hilarious. Shortly after it started raining, so all the kids dispersed and went home. We all went inside (Me, Seth, Katie, Rato, Uwami, Smu, and Nolisa) and the kids proceeded to pretend to be Sangomas, or traditional healers, and they would use rocks and clothespins to tell our fortunes and speak to the ancestors. They also played all sorts of singing and clapping games with us where they obviously made fun of our white people dancing.

            Also, highlight of the day, was Uwami and Smu asked me what color my poop was since theirs is brown and their skin is brown. I told them that mine was pink, and sometimes blue and they were amazed. Katie told them that hers was always blue, and Seth said that his was orange, which made us all look at him strangely. Somehow we managed to keep it up and convince them that ours also smells good. So now Smu is insisting that I don’t flush the next time that I go number 2. I also taught her the saying T.M.I. which was very fitting for the conversation. Anyways, after generations we went back to our house, talked to Lungelo for a little while, and then went to bed. 

These little guys were hanging out across the street from the clinic. Typical.

Friday 24 February:

            This morning we were the early pick up group, so Thula came at 6:55 to bring us to school. Although its early its nice because I have a solid 45 minutes before class starts to finish typing up my blog post and check my e-mails and go on facebook. You know, the important things. Pretty typically there was some miscommunication and poor planning on Zeds part, but it ends up being fortunate, because uBeverly is teaching the other SIT program and won’t come in this morning! So we now have until 10:00 to catch up on some work, meaning I will be working on my mortar board application and avoiding working my assignment due Monday. Oh well.

 This is our last full weekend in Cato. I can’t believe its pretty much over at this point! It flew by that’s for sure, but I told Smu we would have lots of fun before I leave. I might even be going into her school on Monday!

Blue Sky Mining

So as I mentioned, there was some slight drama and confusion over attending the cow slaughtering and party this weekend, so I ended up going with a crew of people to Blue Sky Mining Backpackers in Amanzimtoti, which turned out to be one of the most amazing decisions that I have made in a long time!

We drove down on Friday after school and pulled up to this beautifully painted front gate. We were then ushered inside, shown our rooms, and given a tour of the property. There were two pools, a little porch/patio thing, and the rooms were incredible. I roomed with Stef for the weekend in a cute little room (we called it the honey moon sweet) with its own bathroom, a spacious shower, and a wonderful queen bed with two towels folded at the foot with plumeria flowers tucked inside. They have a mini restaurant type of thing in the hostel, so we all ordered dinner. I got a ham and cheese, which as delicious! And they delivered everything to us at these picnic benches outside, complete with a placemat and condiment rack! After dinner I hung out for a little while, took advantage of the basically free internet to upload some pictures to facebook, etc., and then listened to some music in my room with Stef before heading to bed. 

Warner Beach all to ourselves!

Saturday we woke up around 7:30, we had pre-ordered breakfast to be ready for us at 8, so we sat by the pool and did some reading, had a breakfast of two eggs on toast and a muffin (by the way the muffins are delicious. I think I’ve eaten at least 6 over the course of the past two days), and then went on an adventure to the beach! We found these cool rocks which looked like they used to be the foundation of a light house or something, and played on them for a while. It was cold and kind of rainy out so we didn’t really go swimming – the waves were also very rough there. Unfortunately, one of the waves unexpectedly crashed over the wall as Rachel was trying to get down off the rocks and she slipped and cut her self up, so we decided it was probably a good time to head back towards the hostel. We ended up stopping at Sparr, a supermarket down the street, and we got some PB&J (well actually our jelly ended up being diabetic strawberry jam since that was all they seemed to have…), some yoghurt, some candy bars (essential), and some apples! We then walked back to the hostel, up a ginormous hill, and made lunch. The rest of the day was pretty lazy. It was rainy so we cooped ourselves up in the hostel, read for a few hours, and took advantage of the unlimited internet use (even if it was extremely slow as we all tried to skype and upload pictures). That pretty much summed up the rest of my Saturday – eating, relaxing, socializing, smores, ya know.  Unfortunately I didn’t get to start the hunger games, but I did get some other quality reading and homeworking done! Oh! I almost forgot, I also took the most amazing two hour nap. It was heavenly. That is only the second nap I have taken since coming to Africa, and it was much needed.

I love the ocean, and I love my camera.

Sunday morning we woke up at 6:15! I know, crazy, but it was for a good cause. After a nice bowl of corn flakes, we got picked up by Gary and driven to his stables! He runs a like trail ride sort of gig out of his stables and it was only R250 for a two hour ride! We got to the stables, got some bomb riding hats, and saddled up! My horses name was Tequila and she/he was very well behaved. Jess somehow managed to get the trouble maker, and her Becky and I were the ones with pretty much zero experience. Silpa and Stef actually ride, so they had a little easier time, but Gary & co did such a great job! Definitely the best horseback riding experience I have ever had. They took the time to actually teach us how to ride, and not just the basic this is how you turn, this is how you stop. They taught us how you’re supposed to move up and down in rhythm with the trot, and what a proper stance was and how to hold the reins etc., but the best part was that they taught me how to canter! The first time Gary held onto my leash the whole time and I rode right beside him. It was seriously one of the most exhilarating experiences I have ever had. There aren’t many things in the world that come close to the feeling of galloping on a horse. The next time I went with Shirley, the other girl who was riding with us, and she let me run free, all by myself! It was all at once terrifying and liberating, to feel the horse working beneath you, to feel the wind through your hair, its almost indescribable!!!! Stef told me that I had the biggest smile on my face – pure joy! It was so much fun. I got to gallop along the beach!

One of the two pools at the hostel and the ocean view!

But anyways, afterwards we came back to the hostel, had some more food, and then headed to the beach! It was extremely windy (and I mean EXTREMELY windy) so we ended up setting up camp on the wet sand because it didn’t blow up and pelt us continuously. The water was so incredibly warm and felt amazing. The waves were massive and intense, as they seem to always be here in Africa, but we had fun in them anyways. I did end up getting a lot of water up my nose and turned over a few times… one of which I saw Becky fly over me…But it was a lot of fun as always. After playing in the waves we went back to our towels and I read my book (I was so close to finishing Hemmingway! Which would mean I could start the Hunger Games!). All of the sudden, out of nowhere, we were all submerged under water. All of our stuff got soaked, our towels were soaked and sandy, and our books were soggy. We all instantly screamed and jumped up surprisingly quickly and rescued all of our stuff as we were cracking up. We then tried to dry out our phones and cameras (good thing I didn’t bring my good Nikon!) and ran into the water with our sandy towels. We decided that that was a sign that we should probably leave, so we headed back to the hostel with our soggy bags and clothes and towels. 

Becky in her riding get up and the view as we descended to the beach.

Back at the hostel we had another extremely relaxing rest of our day. I spend the afternoon in the sun by the pool and finished my book! Finally! I did some homework – We have a lot due in the next week. Boo. My assignment due Tuesday is already 42 pages. Oops! Its an outline of all of our big papers and projects – we call it a consolidated field journal because it is based off of our journal entries and experiences we have had so far. Anyways, we also have a Zulu oral exam on Wednesday, and a creative assignment due next Monday… still not so sure what the heck I’m doing for that one.. I’ll keep you posted. But uhmmm, other than that, that pretty much summed up my day. I started the hunger games and even just the first chapter was addicting (meaning I obviously didn’t stop there…)

The crew on the beach!

This morning we were picked up at 6:45 to head back to school. So depressing. We had Zulu for two hours this morning as usual… well actually Bev showed up late, so it was probably more like an hour and fifteen minutes, which was wonderful, but then instead of having lectures we had a solid 5 hours to do some work on planning for our independent projects that we are doing at the end of the semester! So that’s what I’m doing now! Wahoo! Haha kidding. Really I have been reading the hunger games ALL DAY. I essentially started this morning (I was on chapter 4) and then read the rest of it over the course of the day, finishing right as Sdu came to pick us up to go home. It was amazingly addicting and I’m forcing myself to wait at least a day before starting the second one so I can be at least somewhat productive!

Me and my horsey, Tequila.

Anyways, its been a long day and I’m exhausted, so that’s all I have to say for now. Hamba kahle!

Dlala amaZulu!

So Wednesday night we went to the amaZulu vs. Sundowns soccer match at the Moses Mabhida Stadium (the world cup stadium), and it proved to be quite the event. After school we all got dropped off back in Cato Manor to get changed, get rid of our backpacks, and prepare for the game. My mama was in Chesterville and I didn’t have a key to the house, so I ended up going over to Becky’s and leaving my stuff there. Before the game we hung out at the House of Curries (essentially Becky’s house – her mama sells curry out of a shipping container in front of their house), and we took a bagillion picture of this adorable child named Mlu. We hung out, had a few beers, and waited for Thula, Sdu, and a few taxi’s to come and pick us up and drop us off at the game. 

I ended up in a Mozzie Taxi with Becky, Seth and Jess. We had a grand old time in the cab ride to the stadium until Becky and I realized that we had forgotten our tickets. Typical of me, I know, but Becky was going to provide the purse and I was going to supply the camera. We had consolidated our belongings and managed to fit both of our wallets into her small purse, when we realized it would be easier to just use one wallet with both of our money. Mine was smaller, so we transferred our cash to mine and Becky put hers back in her room. Now I’m sure you know where this is going… Before we had decided to just use one wallet, we had put the tickets in Becky’s since, like I said, her wallet was bigger. When we transferred her money to mine, it never occurred to us to also move the tickets. That would have been too easy. So anyways, we were essentially at the stadium when we came to this realization. Our immediate dismay was momentarily alleviated by the thought that since the tickets were only 10 rand ($1.30), we would just buy new ones when we got there. However when we got dropped off by the cab, we were informed that the boxoffice was closed….

Becky, Jess and Seth in front of the stadium!

It was time to come up with a plan B. We frantically called Thula and Sdu and thankfully Sdu was still around the stadium so he came back and picked us up and took us back to Cato to get our tickets. Meanwhile, Becky had to pee and never made it to a bathroom, so she was about to pee her pants in the back seat, and Sdu giving her a hard time about forgetting the tickets wasn’t helping the situation. It was all very comical, and we ended getting out tickets and getting back to the stadium without any more incidents and getting to listen to some bumpin’ tunes with Sdu. 

Unfortunately this debacle lead to us missing kick off, but just being at the stadium was an absolutely incredible experience. We were told to root for the amaZulus, who are the team from Durban. They were playing the Sundowns, which are apparently a very rich team from Pretoria. We (the amaZulus) inevitably lost 1-0, but it was an exciting game! Or maybe it just seemed more exciting because it was the world cup stadium… or maybe its because I don’t generally watch soccer…Either way, we had a lot of fun. On our way out we got caught up in the Sundowns fans victory celebration/procession out of the stadium, so naturally, despite the fact that we were all wearing amaZulu jerseys, we all jumped on the opportunity to sing and dance and jump around with some soccer fans! Rhumor has it that theres a South Africa vs. Senegal game coming up at the end of the month, so hopefully we can go to that! Unfortunately tickets are about 10x as expensive for the good seats (R100 or about $13). Rough life.

The soccer game was another one of those times being here that all we could say to each other was “could life get any better right now?” South Africa has had its ups and downs, and the honey moon phase is definitely wearing off, but Wednesday night was spectacular. To be in the world cup stadium watching soccer and singing in Zulu was definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far. The only downside was we had to stay up wayyyy past our bed times (we probably got back around 10:30 or so). Man is life different here.

The Sundowns celebration coming out of the stadium!

Thursday I had to wake up early to go to the clinic. My pick up time was 6:45, which was a little rough given my staying up late for the soccer match the night before. The clinic day was pretty similar to my first experience, so I’ll keep it short. I was in primary health care again, so I took a lot of blood pressures. Liz and I got to practice our Zulu though, and we made some old ladies extremely happy! We were also told that we were being very fast and helping the queue move along quickly, which made me feel like I was at least doing some good there! My new favorite sentence to tell my patients is “Ngizama ukukhuluma isiZulu!” which means “I’m trying to speak in Zulu!” The old ladies get suck a kick out of it. It still surprises me that the lines are so long and that for a lot of people this is either their only option for health care or the easiest way for them to access it. We keep hearing the phrase “health for all” and “universal health care” and keep being told that the right to health is actually part of the constitution of South Africa, and I keep wondering to what extent these rights are being realized? And if health for all is actually achievable for this country given its current policies and, more importantly, its current practices. I will leave my philosophical rambling at that for now. I’m sure there will be much more of it in the future…

This weekend I was supposed to go to the cow slaughtering and traditional ceremony at my Mama’s other house in Chesterville; however this morning she popped into my room as she was leaving for the hospital (she goes 2x a month to get her medication), and said that my friends and I couldn’t come… so much confusion… so long story short there was a change of plans and a lot of stress, but it turns out I’m not going L which is one of the saddest, frustrating, and stressful occurrences since I have been here. But Katherine, Stef, and I (we were supposed to go to the slaughtering, stay the night, and go to the party on Saturday) will now be joining the crew at Blue Sky Mining down the coast about 50 kilometers. Its by warner beach if you want to google map it or something. The forcast is also very rainy, and the reason this hostel was picked was for its prime beach location. Fortunately for me, I just bought the whole hunger game series!!! So I will be all set for the whole weekend… or maybe at least a day depending on how fast I blow through them.

I’ll be sure to update you on all of our crazy shenanigans. I hope you are enjoying the pictures I’m managing to post, and I will do my best to keep posting more in the future! (Also thanks Gran & Gramps for the Christmas present – everyone is jealous of the phenomenal pictures that it takes!)

OneVoice, Lots of butter....

On Tuesday, Valentine’s day, we went on an NGO visit. I visited One Voice, which I was very excited about because they do a lot of work in schools across Kwa-Zulu Natal. They run workshops in the schools for 14 weeks out of the school year supplementing the school’s life orientation (the equivalent of health class for us) programs. They go over HIV/AIDS, TB, life skills, and then finish with a project that will be used to spread the information that they have learned throughout the school and community. The information that they presented to us gave us the impression that they are very organized and efficient with what they do. They seem to know their limatations and don’t try to spread themselves too thin. They only work in 15 schools so that they can focus on making a difference in those communities. I also really liked the idea of the advocacy project that they do with the kids and how this helps to spread awareness in the communities and to the other grades (they only work with 8^th graders), and it also helps to solidify the information for the kids in the program.

After talking to the manager of the NGO for two hours, we then walked next door to the mall! Katherine and I split some amazing muffins at a coffee shop downstairs. We got a blueberry and a cappuccino muffin and they warmed them up for us too! They were so delicious. At 11:30 Zed picked us up and we went back to the SIT house. I went for a swim and spent some time outside before having lunch at 1:30. We then had a lecture and discussion about our projects we have to do at the end of the semester and our day at the NGOs. I went home, did some laundry, did some journaling, homeworking, etc., had dinner, and went to bed at 9!

This morning I woke up, went for a run, had breakfast, and now I’m at school! Very exciting I know. Surprisingly, our Zulu lesson this morning was actually bearable. Bev had people learn to Zulu dance at the front of the room (see pictures, please). I had promised you a picture of the Bev-ster, but luckily for all of you, not only do you get to see this marvelous lady, but you get to see her in action, as she participated in the Zulu dancing. There is also a picture of Mike getting fancy with some clap-under-the-leg action!

Mike showing off his Zulu dance skills

Bev in action

Tonight we are going back to the world cup stadium, but this time to see a soccer game!!! Apparently the teams aren’t that popular, so there might not be that many people there, but hey, for 10 rand, I’m not gonna complain! I look forward to telling you all about the experience in my next post.

Another update on Cato living:

• Every sandwich I have eaten in Cato has butter on it. We get butter and jelly; peanut butter, butter, and jelly; butter and paloney; butter and leftovers… butter, butter, butter…
• Mayonnaise is used very liberally.
• They buy oil buy the JUG full. And use so much of it in cooking
• My mama has started making me pasta or noodles with my dinner (along with rice and potatoes obviously), and it is AMAZING. Maybe its just because I haven’t had any in such a long time, or maybe it’s the amount of oil used in cooking it… to be determined.
• People play music extremely loudly. Both at their homes and out of their cars. Like.. so loudly that I’m surprised any of them can still hear anything. The other night while watching tv, a car stopped outside of our house blasting its bass. The whole house was shaking and the windows were rattling and if I was deaf and couldn’t hear the music I would have thought it was some weird pulsating earth quake. My mama promptly got up from the couch and yelled at them to turn it down cause they were going to break her windows and if they didn’t she was going to give their license plate to the taxi company (apparently they handle dispute in a …