Mzansi Fo Sho

So the morning of March 4^th, 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!