Don't Touch a Zulu Man's Head

Well, sorry I’ve been so lazy with my blogging.

We got back from the rural homestays on the 14^th and have been living on the beach in the Windermere ever since! So, that means that every day has pretty much consisted of me going to school, coming home, going to the beach, getting ice cream, making dinner, and maybe doing some homework if I feel so inclined! We have been to the beach at least once a day (sometimes two or three or four) since we got here, so in other words, I’ve been in absolute heaven.

View from the 12th floor.

So to explain the title of this weeks post:

Two weekends ago Seth and I went to visit our families in Cato. On the way back, we got a little bit lost trying to find the right bus stop that would take us back to our apartment. In the process, not only did we make some new ‘friends,’ but it also got dark…. So, we finally found the bus stop, but it was in a sort of sketchy area and there were a bunch of men hanging out right in front of it drinking beer in the back of a truck. We decided it might be a better decision to try to walk to the next stop on the line, when they started talking to us. They told us they’d look out for the bus for us and make sure we got on. They all seemed nice enough, so we figured sure why not. They also told us that if we kept walking down the street in one direction we would get robbed by the heroin addicts, and if we went down the other way we would probably get raped. We figured that was a good enough reason to stay where we were at the time. Musa (which means kindness) seemed to be looking out for us – he even gave us a CD with a track that his friend had just cut! He told us to keep it as a souvenir, so I figured his plan wasn’t to kill us anyways. Jokes, jokes.

Anyways, to the point of the story. One of the guys was really fascinated with my hair, and so he kept asking me where I got it. I tried to explain that it was my hair, but I’m not sure he fully understood. Or maybe I didn’t understand him. Either way, he kept rubbing my hair, fascinated by the texture or something. He then turned to seth and wanted to examine his hair, but instead of rubbing it like he did mine, he said “Bend over. You’re a man. I can’t touch your head.” The next day, talking to Sdu and Thula (our drivers/helpers on the program), they confirmed, “you can’t touch a Zulu man’s head.” So there you go. Lesson of the week!

Between waking up at 6 every morning and having a prime view of the sunrise over the ocean,
I've started a new hobby of cloud watching/photogrophy.

Last week we had our Zulu final on Monday and our Oral on Tuesday, which means no more uBeverly!!!!! They both went well all things considered. Tuesday night a bunch of us took our families to the amaZulu vs. Wits soccer game! It was a lot of fun! My two brothers and Smu all came with me and Seth’s little brother came with hime, and a whole bunch of Mama’s and other siblings. Smu and Lungelo (Seth’s little brother who has the same name as my older brother) were dancing up with the huge crowd at center field. Seth and I joined in towards the end of the game and ended up getting on the jumbotron! Probably because we were the only two abelungu (white people) in the crowd. My brother also informed me that we made the news on national tv later that night too when they did a re-cap of the game! That means I have now been on South African TV three different times! I’m practically famous!

Best South African sister ever!

From L to R: Lungelo, Me, Bhuwa, Bhuwa's friend Mtoko, and Smu in the front!

Lungelo and Smu cheering on amaZulu!

Wednesday was a national holiday – human rights day! So I exercised my human rights by going to the beach as many times as I wanted, while trying to write a 5,000 word paper in between. Maybe not the best life decision, but I greatly enjoyed it and say it was worth it.

Thursday we handed in our essays and had more class. We started our last module of classes called CCMS – something about communications and media studies, so those have actually been pretty interesting. Its just unfortunate to have to be stuck in a classroom from 7:15 until 4:15 every day when the weather is beautiful and the beach is right outside my front door! We made up for a full day of classes by making breakfast for dinner though. We made french toast, scrambled eggs, pancakes, chocolate muffins, and BACON! It was delicious! Such a good reward after a 5,000 word paper. Which is the other thing that annoys me besides being in class for so long. Why do we need to write SO many long papers?

hazy rays of sun!

Friday, our academic director could tell we were all ready for the weekend so we got out at 2 instead of 4, and I went straight to the beach!  After dinner, we naturally had to watch generations at 8, and we supplemented the experience with a bowl of brownie batter. We hung out with the apartment downstairs with a bunch of people on the program before getting tired at 11 and going back upstairs. But instead of going to bed right away, Erin (a.k.a Mom) made us each a mini one minute chocolate cake in a mug. It was heavenly!

Some more clouds

Saturday I went to the beach a few more times. We also walked down the beach about 15 minutes to go to uShaka to print out pictures for our families. We took a minibus taxi back to Cato around 5:30, and I got to visit with my mom and Smu for a little while! Then Bhuwa came and picked all of us abelungu up and we all walked to Chesterville to my brother Lungelo’s house for a braai! They threw me an early birthday party! Complete with salty meat and a chocolate cake! We all hung out and Bhuwa danced to his favorite songs – he is an extremely good dancer – and it was so much fun! Katie and Erin came from my apartment, along with Seth, obviously, and then the whole 7^th floor apartment also came, so it was lots of fun! My brothers invited a few of their friends and cousins and it was fun getting to talk to them! It was good practice speaking Zulu too!

Some of the crew at my birthday party!

Yesterday/Sunday I woke up at 7. I have yet to sleep in past 8:30 here. But it worked out well because I ate breakfast and then was at the beach by 8:15! Hunger drove me back to the apartment at 10:00, but good ole Seth never lets me down, and we were back at the beach by 11 or so. The water was so nice and we were catching some good waves body surfing, so we ended up staying in the water for almost an hour! At 12:30 after we had dried off in the sun we headed back into the apartment to try to do some work (we have our huge independent study project proposal due tomorrow/Tuesday), but naturally we were unsuccessful. We ended up eating lunch, procrastinating, and then heading back to the beach for another two hours or so. It was a pretty ideal day if you ask me! We all made cheeseburgers for dinner (except Cara cause she’s a vegetarian – she made a grilled tomato and chesses). The highlight of the night was having REAL KETCHUP! All they have in South Africa is tomato sauce, which you think would be the same thing, but its not. Its disgusting. And we finally found real ketchup for burger and fries night!!!!! After some more procrastinating it was suddenly 10:30 and time to go to bed.

Today (Monday) we unfortunately have another full day of classes, but today also begins our last week of classes!!!!!!! Its gone by so quickly, I can’t believe it. I’ve had so much fun the past couple weeks living by the beach. My roommates are all wonderful. I’m living with Cara (we call her crazy Cara), Erin (I already informed you we call her mom), Liz, Katherine, and Katie. Seth is also an honorary member of the apartment since he spends almost every waking moment with us. Its gonna be another fun night of all 7 of us sitting around on our laptops trying to finish our proposals!

Our apartment getting ready for bed... minus Liz who's head Seth cut off....

Anyways, that’s what’s new here!

Hope all is well with all of you!