So the morning of March 4th, Sunday, I woke up
super early to pack and get ready to leave Cato. Its as if someone out there
knew it was a sad occasion, because it happened to be pouring. As excited as I
was to go to the rural homestays, I was so sad to leave my Cato family behind.
They have truly made my time in South Africa unforgettable. After saying
goodbye, we went to the SIT house where we had a few hours to finish our papers
that were due before we left for the rural visits. It was rough going, but I managed
to crank out an acceptable piece of work just in time to leave for inpendle.
IMPENDLE ( 4-7 March 2012)
First of all, due to a tropical storm, there were torrential
downpours and lots of rain, so it was questionable if the roads were going to
be good enough for us to be able to reach our destination. Never fear, we made
it! Inland the weather was much better, since the rain and winds were mostly on
the coast.
Impendle is actually one of the most amazing places I have
ever been. It is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. They say a picture is
worth a thousand words, but I don’t think any one does this place justice.
Everything is so green and the little colored houses and black and brown cows
spot the hill sides.
 |
| Beautiful Impendle |
DAY1:
We pulled up to our house and my first reaction was that it
is huge! Especially compared to the Cato houses in the townships, they have so
much more land to build on and use. There were three buildings making up our
housing complex, with a large yard, a cow pen, and a garden. As we walked up to
the house, two young kids were waiting for us inside the gate. One was our 8
year old sister Akhona, the other our 3 year old brother, Asi. Both were so
adorable. We also had a 17 year old sister who was the only one who spoke any
English, although very broken and quietly, and our Gogo was hilarious, and only
spoke isiZulu (except for thank you and goodbye). We were slightly confused by
the set up of the house, since there was no halls, but a series of rooms. The
kitchen was the palce to be though, since the stove was run by fire power! (Oh,
I forgot to mention that it is cold in Impendle. Especially compared to the 30
degree celcius weather that we are used to on the coast – partially due to
being inland and partially the mountains, I’m sure).
 |
| Me, Asi, and Akhona playing outside! |
Anyways, they served us some tea and cookies, and then we
played with our little brother and sister outside until dinner time. It always
amazes me that despite the fact that we couldn’t understand each other, we
could still have fun together. We played tag and hump rope and all sorts of fun
games! I noticed that there were tow goats in the yard just hanging out and
also a bunch of chickens. Cool! Then the cow came home. At first I was
extremely confused as to why it was coming through the gate, but then as
Slindile (our 17 year old sister) started chasing it into the pen it all became
clear. We had a cow too! Life was awesome. Dinner was then awesome too. We had
a typical chicken and curry type of meal, but Gogo also made steamed bread,
which is one of my favorite parts of being in South Africa.
After dinner we were quickly ushered to our room where we
were handed a bucket and instructed not to use the toilet at night…. So we
deciced to go to the toilet then to avoid the bucket… but the “toilet” was a
little tin shack, with a big hole covered by a wooden seat with a hole cut out
of it. It was an experience to say the least.
After just a night with my family I already love them so
much! Gogo is so funny, and the two little kids are adorable. They are so good
natured and Asi is my favorite. He likes to dance around with me and even
though we can’t understand eachother he sure does try to talk to me in Zulu. I
can usually catch a word or a verb here and there to understand what he is
trying to get at. I can’t believe this is real life! Ngiyajabula! (I am happy)
DAY 2:
This morning we woke up to our sister knocking on the door,
bringing us a tray of coffe! In bed! Room service! Am I in Impendle or a 5 star
hotel? This makes me realize that we are definitely guests, and not actual
residents, but it is still a very nice gesture and adds to my love for the
place. Last night was freezing.. so cold that I actually wore multiple layers
to bed and used three blankets, casually falling asleep listening to the cows moo.
Our sister also brought us some wonderfully warm bathwater. I’m sure you’ll all
be happy to know that despite the urge, no one had to use the pee bucket in the
corner of the room – we made it till morning! Although it was strage to go to
the bathroom in the morning and watch a cow graze in the yard at the same time…
Anyways, enough potty talk. Our first stop of the day was to
the Gomane School, which is an Eco-School, meaning it has a garden and does
other green practices to help the kids be healthier and the school be more
sustainable. We got a lovely tour of the garden, a speech about the state of
the program and challenges they face (mostly being access to water and lack of
protection from wind). We also had lunch there and got to see the kids perform a
zulu dance for us! After lunch we went to a Sangoma, which is like a
traditional healer who can talk to the ancestors. They’re pretty cool. This one
became a Sangoma because she got sick and had a calling from the ancestors to
become a sangoma. She didn’t listen to them and was sick for three years.
Finally she became one and she got better! After that, we went to a clinic. It
was your typical clinic, but what I found very interesting was that they
started a team of outreach nurses, so they go out into the communities, spread
info about the clinic and campaigns, and also gets info about their problems and
reports back to the clinic.
 |
| Working in the garden at the Gomane School |
 |
| the Gomane School |
After a long day, we got home and played with our siblings
again. We gave them some bouncy balls and parachute men and a popper and they
had a blast. All of the sudden I saw a big black cow out of the corner of my
eye. Surprising because it was a different color than the brown one that came
home yesterday. I went around the corner and saw another.. then another… then a
baby! So it turns out we have 5 cows!
 |
| Akhona and Asi |
After some tea and more playing, I journaled for a little
while while Akhona drew me pictures in a notebook. Slindile came in and helped
her with some math problems too! Then it was dinner time, followed by washing
the dishes, and soon after bed time.
 |
| Akhona drawing pictures and doing math problems! |
Apparently we are the first students to stay with their
family! I’m glad and also surprised the little ones weren’t more afraid of us
to start with. I also wonder what life is really like on a daily basis. It
seems like a lot of chores and Slindile says she doesn’t see her friends
outside of school. I’m not sure if I could live hear full time. All of the
little things like not having a reliable source of clean water would probably
get to me… along with the toilet situation; however, for these three days I am
greatly enjoying it!
DAY 3:
First thing after getting picked up we went to a group of
crafters! This is a group of women who get together every week to do some
beading and they also perform some traditional songs and dances. I spent well
over 300 rand on bead work, and then they put on a short performance for us,
which was very impressive considering they are all elderly! After we went to
Sam and Shine’s house. First of all, Shine’s name used to be Shawn… That should
give you an initial impression of these people. Anyways, they were wonderful
people, living a pretty much completely sustainable life in Impendle. The three
pillars of permaculture are earth care, people care, and fair share, and they
try to live like that every day. Even their bathtub is sustainable! They build
a fire under it and pump water into it and its like a personal spa out under
the stars! I could spend pages talking about their house, which is essentially
a tree house, but you’d probably think it sounds crazy. Which looking back on
it it actually was pretty crazy. We were all so enthralled by the beauty of the
place, the excitement of being in South Africa, and feeding off of the energy
of being in a new place that we thought it was a magical world. However looking
back on it, they took some things to extremes that I could never imagine
incorporating into my life. We then went
next door to Jo’s, who grows her own herbs for medicines, which was also relaly
cool. We got a tour of her expansive garden and a lesson on what each of the
plants are used for – everything from skin diseases, to stuff noses, to broken
bones! She also made us a tea!
 |
| So many beads! |
 |
| The crafters dancing for us! |
 |
| Sam and Shine's "treehouse" in Impendle |
 |
| Sam and Shine |
When we got home our siblings were waiting by the gate again
for us. Adorable. We played, had tea, the usual, but Becca (the other student
from the program living in my house) and I were so tired that we tried to keep
it low key. Dinner was an elaborate array of pashed potatoes, squash, pasta,
chicken curry, cabbage and mayo, and then dessert of jello and yoghurt and fruit1
it was all delicious! We helped with the dishes and then went to bed.
As I was going to bed my stomach started to feel kind of
funny, but I thought it was just because I ate SO much food for dinner. I went
to bed around 8:30, and unfortunately woke up two and a half hours later to
find that my stomach wasn’t so happy. I’ll spare you the details but I’m sure
you can tell what happens next – all I can say is thank god for the “pee”
bucket in the room. I somehow made it through the rest of the night as well as
the drive back to Durban in the morning (good thing we were supposed to leave
anyways).
 |
| The last morning in Impendle. Toilet on the left, corn on the right. |
UMTWALUME (7-10 March 2012)
DAY 1: (invasion of the monkeys)
So like I said, I made it back to Durban. That afternoon we
were supposed to head to Umtwalume, but what was supposed to be day one there
turned into a sleepover at the SIT house since I somehow developed a 102.5
degree fever. Becky stayed with me and we camped out on some mattresses and
used the projector to turn the classroom into a movie theater (we watched
Avatar). At one point, we went to go outside to get things from the back room
only to find that the house was under attack by monkeys! Probably like 20 of
them! They were in all of the trees, on the neighbors’ houses, and on our own
roof! Then it dawned on me, that I had banana’s sitting in the back room – what
if they stole my bananas!?? Tragic. So, I decided I was going to brave the
monkeys for a recon mission. As I was about to run into the room, a monkey came
out with a banana in its mouth. I yelled at it and it jumped to the roof, but I
was terrified! What if there was a monkey in the room when I went in!?? I
braved it anyways and found banana peels littering the floor, but managed to
rescue my bananas and ginger biscuits before they could counter-attack! Then
from the safety of the house we watched through the window as they infiltrated
the trash. Anyways, that was the main excitement for the night.
 |
| MONKEY. |
DAY 2:
The next day I felt a lotttt better. Still not 100% but
functioning enough to head south!. We met the rest of the group at a craft
center where we made AIDS pins out of beads! The biggest problem was the
language barrier, but they did bad job of explaining and showing us how to do
it. They would just insist on doing most of it for us if we were struggling.
After one woman started mine I figured it out and wouldn’t let anyone
confiscate it from me, but others weren’t as fortunate. It was a fun activity,
but I wish they had given us more information about the purpose of the craft
center and how it fits into the community. I do however have a newfound respect
for beaders – its hard tedious work!
 |
| Beads and my finished pin! |
After the crafters we headed to Bangibizo Primary School,
which is another Eco-School like the one we visited in Impendle. It seems a lot
more self sustaining than the Gomane school, but it also seemed like the
enthusiasm was running low. What I really liked was their orphans and
vulnerable children program, which they seem to put a lot of time and energy
into. This is also the school that I will be spending three weeks at in April
to do my independent project! So it was nice to get to see what its like and
get a preliminary introduction.
 |
| The Bangibizo school and their garden out front. |
After lunch we went to LoveLife, which is an NGO with a
youth center right next to the Bangibizo School. It was a little run down and
the facilitator seemed to be a little disconnected from the programs being
implemented, but in theory, all of their programs sounded really promising in
theory. They have programs for kids in school to Gogo’s! trying to target
behavior change and push them to stay away from bad influences.
Anyways, on to the good part – meeting the family! Which,
besides my Cato family, is my favorite one in SA so far. We were in a cute
three-room house, with our Gogo, her two daughters, their cousin, and their
children – ten people in total! Gogo is a sangoma, which is awesome. She showed
us her room and everything. The only setback is she didn’t speak any English. Her
daughters spoke some English, which was nice, and also Asanta, our beautiful
little sister spoke pretty good English. Our house was also right next to Elise
and Becca’s mansion! They had real showers and three flush toilets. We were
actually sent there to go to the bathroom instead of use our outhouse.
As for the children, who are near and dear to my heart, we
had a baby, who was a little funny looking, but I love all children so I didn’t
discriminate and we still had fun. We had some gender confusion and thought
that all of our young siblings were male… however we were corrected that we
actually had two sisters and two brothers! (and the baby, who I believed was a
girl, but also was not 100% about that either). Mandisa was my automatic
favorite. She was so adorable. And Sandi, Mandisa’s little brother was also
adorable. He ran around with no pants on all day, making faces at us. Anyways,
everyone in the family is very kind and generous and gave us so much food.
It is definitely much different from anything I’ve ever
experienced. The house is small, and not even close to clean by my standards,
and dirt is a perpetual problem. We also share a bedroom with 5 other family
members! Sleepover!
DAY 3:
First stop this morning was the traditional healer. It was
hot and stuffy which made all of us a little drowsy, but unlike a sangoma, she
didn’t need to have any training, but was spoken to at the age of 8 by spirits,
and so started her career! She blesses water and gives it to patients to help
heal their spirits and also works by touching to physically transfer strength
and power.
Next stop was the Dunstan Farrell TB Hospital, which is a
specialized hospital for… you guessed it… TB patients! They only treat TB/HIV,
and have admission criteria for them to be treated. Most patients are referred
to them and are patients that have a history of not really taking their meds.
They showed us all of the different wards, which was a bit redundant, but also
felt slightly invasive to the patients there, especially the ones in the worst
condition – you could see every bone in their body through their skin.
 |
| Hibberdene Beach |
After the TB hospital, it was time for a little bit of fun.
We went to the Jolly Roger for lunch and then got to spend some time at the
Hibberdene Beach! The waves were HUGE and there was a pretty steep incline to
the water, but Seth and I braved it and went in. It was so much fun, but there
were definitely a few moments when I didn’t know which direction was up and we
were both slightly concerned about our safety.
 |
| from left to right, Asanta, Asanta, Me, Mandisa, and Olwandle(?) |
Post beach, we went home to our family! We played with our
sisters and their friends and taught the older ones who speak English how to
play go fish! We were also fed dinner even though we were going to a goodbye
party later. Gogo dressed us up in some cloths and sent us next door for the
start of the festivities. We sat on the floor with girls on the left and guys
sitting in chairs on the right. Mandisa was glued to my hip as always. They
gave us a wonderful traditional Zulu party with singing and dancing and lots of
food! They then asked us to sing a cultural song from the US… so we chose the
Macarena… and the chicken dance…. I am still slightly embarrassed just thinking
about the ridiculousness of the situation that we found ourselves in, but
somehow I think we pulled it off, and everyone got a good laugh.
The party ended with a song and dance by my Gogo and sister.
She is an amazing dancer! Which just made me love her even more. We helped
clean up a bit, brought the kids home, and went to bed! Our Gogo’s daughter – I
guess our aunty? – was getting her hair braided still when we got back, soooo
we attempted to fall asleep while that occurred.
 |
| Me and Becky with our favorite sisters - Asanta and Mandisa |
We were sad to be leaving in the morning. Mandisa is one of
my favorite children ever. She is so kind and quiet and sweet, and even though
we maybe said three words to eachother that we understood, there was definitely
a mutual feeling of love. I’d rub her head and then she’d make me bend down so
she could rub mine. If I put my arm around her shoulder, she would immediately
put her arm around me too, and if I rubbed her shoulder, she would rub mine too
(although with the height difference it was usually my hip or back). Asanta was
Becky’s favorite and my second favorite. She is Mandisa’s older sister, and
they are both beautiful and so sweet.
DURBAN (10-11 March 2012)
As a break from rural homestays, after leaving Umtwalume, we
were shuttlesd to the Happy Hippo Backpackers for the night. I never thought I would be so appreciative of
an upright shower and a flush toilet. Basically I spend the day and night and
next morning reading the rest of the Hunger Games series. It was excellent.
 |
| reading hunger games 24/7 |
AMATIKULU (11-14 March 2012)
DAY 1:
Sunday afternoon we were driven to Amatikulu and dropped off
at our Mama’s house, which was amazing! It is definitely the nicest that I have
stayed in so far. We have a sister, Akhona, who is six, a Mama, who is Akhona’s
granny, a baba, our Mama’s husband, and a Gogo, our baba’s mother. Phew. Sorry
if that was confusing. The main plus is that we got our own room with a queen
bed each! (I’m also rooming with Becca again, FYI). The first night we got
there we moved our stuff in, had dinner at 6, and then prayer time at 7. At
first I was really skeptical of prayer time since they have it every night, but
it actually turned out to be my favorite time of the day! We sang two hymns in
Zulu, which was comical for us, and then had individual prayer time, which was
a nice reflection and meditation period for me. We then went back to our room
and I read Hunger Games (I’m now on the third one).
 |
| The family in Amatikulu! Baba, Gogo, Akhona, Mama, and me! |
DAY 2:
Mama woke us up at 6:30 for our bath. The bathroom was
outside, which was different, but the warm water was amazing. We then had
porridge for breakfast, finished getting ready, and headed out! All of our
mamas for this homestay are community health workers, so we spend the day going
on rounds with them. We first stopped by her supervisors house to sign in for
the day and then proceeded to three houses. Nothing exciting really happened.
We would go to a house, Mama would listen to their ailments, would give them a
lecture on diabetes or strokes or TB, depending on the family, and then we
would leave. The biggest thing was seeing that these people lived in a lot
poorer conditions than I am used to seeing. One woman lived with 5 or 6 orphans
and had to take care of them.
 |
| A cool view of Amatikulu! |
Afterwards, we had some tea, and then Becca and I
essentially spent the rest of the day either eating, reading Hunger Games (I
finished the series), or napping (I had to do something after finishing the
series, right?) So it was a very nice relaxing day. Dinner was again followed
by prayer time at 7 and then we watched Generations at 8 before bed!
DAY 3:
This morning we were supposed to have a lecture by the guy
who runs and organizes the community health workers, but he was stuck in Durban
so Thula took us to the beach! I think we have all been reading too much Hunger
Games because we all agreed it could be the Quarter Quell arena…it was a fun
morning activity though!
We then went to the Holy Cross Hospice, which was pretty
neat. Basically one woman turned a whole farm, essentially, into a hospice
where they take care of people. They have a preschool on site as well as some
other ones in different communities, but they do training and therapy and
healing and everything you can imagine!
 |
| The Holy Cross Hospice |
 |
| The playground at the preschool |
Lastly we went to Eshowe Hospital, which is mostly noted as
an exceptional hospital according to SA standards because of its successful Maternity
ward and ARV clinic. The doctor there attributed it to dedicated staff, which
makes sense!
When we got home, Mama and Akhona took us for a walk up to
the top of the hill behind our house to see the view. It was absolutely breathtaking.
Although I wish I had more time to get to know their family, the rural homestay
tour was beginning to take its toll on me and I was definitely ready to go back
to “civilization.” I loved getting to meet all of the families and learn what
it was like in the different areas, but I hadn’t gotten a good nights sleep in
a while, and all of the curry and rice were beginning to take their toll on my
as well.
 |
| At the top of our hike - Me with Mama and Akhona |
 |
| my little friend |
PRESENT TENSE:
Currently I am back at the Windemere apartments right next
to the beach typing up my experiences as concisely as possible but still with
enough detail for you to enjoy. After school I get to run across the street,
play in the waves for a half hour or 45 minutes, get an ice cream cone for 10
rand at Milky Lane, and then come back and cook dinner for myself and my
roommates. It is as close to a “normal” study abroad experience as I have yet
to have! Anyways, I hope you have enjoyed the ups and downs of rural living –
definitely more ups than downs if you ask me, but I also lucked out, a lot of
people had really aweful experiences in Amatikulu with cockroaches and mice and
rats…
Hope all is well in the States! Miss you all! Thanks for reading!
