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!

My New Haircut!

Saturday 3 March 2012 

So Saturday morning I woke up extrememly early to go to the Pav with my host sister and a bunch of other people. We got there around 8, and proceeded to the national shave-a-thon! I have always been curious as to what it would be like to shave my head, and this opportunity presented itself, where our 50 rand donation and all of my hair would go towards cancer patients (my hair in the form of a wig of course).

Anyways, when I first told my host sister she was horrified, but after some consideration she decided that I would look ok and could pull it off. We showed up, signed our life.. or I guess our hair.. away, and then took turns becoming victim to the buzzers. I have to say, it was definitely one of the strangest experiences I have ever had. They started by cutting off chunks of my hair to put in the donation bag, which was slightly stressful, but then when they shaved off the rest it was almost like a head massage! After a slight anxiety attack about how long it would take to grow back, I realized the benefit of having short hair in Africa! Especially since we were about to embark on our rural homestays the next day.

After coming home from the Pav, I gave Mama and Smu the goodbye presents, which made them both really happy, but also made me so sad to leave them both. They were both so gracious and appreciative of every little thing. I had bought Smu the Lion King so we watched that together with Mandisa and Seth and Stef. After, despite pouring rain, we headed down to house of curries one last time to hang out with our brothers.

Anyways, sorry I have been bad about updating this. We are back in Durban for the night, but have been in the rural areas! When we get back on Wednesday I will try to update you more thoroughly!

Bafana Bafana!

Tuesday 28 Feb 2012 (Continued)

So, sorry its been so long. SO much has happened since my last blog post so I'll try to keep it short so as not to bore you, but also include enough info to give you a good idea of whats been happening.

Sunrise in Cato

So Tuesday after school, life quickly got exciting. I happened to be at Becca's house with Katie when Dr Salim Karim showed up to pick her up for dinner. He invited both of us to go along with her, so we jumped at the opportunity. Him and his wife are two of the leading HIV/AIDS reserchers in South Africa, not to mention the world. They have both an urban and rural clinic that they do research out of for both HIV/AIDS treatment and also its co-infection with TB. The wife, Dr. Quarraisha Karim so helped to design the original life orientation curriculum in SA and does education based research in the rural area their clinic is.

So first of all, they pull up in a Lexus, which is by far the nicest car I have been in in South Africa, not to mention the first automatic. And then they took us to their home, which is probably the nicest house I have ever been in in my life. Their view of Durban and the city is amazing. They made us an amazing dinner of curries and salads and roti, and then for dessert they brought out so many freshly cut oranges and cupcakes and Turkish Delight from Turkey!!

Wednesday 29 Feb 2012

Today we went to the Bafana Bafana vs. Senegal game at the world cup again! Again it was a lot of fun and caused us to stay up so much later than we usually do. Sdu brought his hugeeee vuvuzela, so that was entertaining and deafening at the same time. Anyways, I'll keep this one short, but below are a few pictures of highlights I guess you could call them!

Chinese fire drill while waiting in traffic by the stadium

the stadium with the moon over it!

Sara, Jess, Me, and Becky!

it started to rain...

Friday 2 March 2012

Love my Cato family

 














Thursday first of all seems so long ago, but also nothing really eventful happened I don't think, so we are just gonna leave it out. Friday we had two lectures after Zulu, which were incredibly boring as always. Especially it being friday. But afterwards we went home to get ready for the goodbye party! I couldn't believe that our time living in Cato Manor was already over.

After school we went home. Smu and I went to silence foods for the last time with Seth and Katie before getting ready for the party. Smu wore her purple dress that I had bought her. W were shuttled to the hall where we then sat at a table and waiting or everyone else to arrive. Thula gave an introduction and then we all took turns standing up to say thank you to our mamas and the rest of Cato Manor.  Then, before the meal, we stopped to say a prayer, and what would you know, the Cato Muslim lives right behind the hall, so as one of the mama's said a prayer, the muslim prayer was wailing away in the background. It was all my brother and I could do to not burst out laughing. Then it was time to eat. The fruit was almost instantly hoarded so mama had me sneak up and get her some before it was all gone. The dinner was pretty good, but not nearly as good as my Mama's cooking, which made me realize how much I was going to miss living in Cato. Anyways, after dinner there was lots of dancing (my old Mama even got up and danced!!)

After the party we went down to House of Curries to hang out with our siblings. It was a good time as always, dancing and singing. I don't know why we didn't hang out with them more often! Like, I've been a lot closer with Lungelo because he comes over pretty much every night to hang out, but Bhuwa is so much fun and such a great person. I ended up staying there with them and everyone much later than i had intended, but it was just so much fun! Anyways, I'll stop rambling.

The gist of the night was that we never wanted to leave South Africa. I love Cato Manor, my family, my friends, everyone. Everyone has been so kind and generous, and there are a few special kids who I am going to miss so much! My brothers said we will still hang out a lot when I get back from the rural homestays, so thats something to look forward to!

Two of my favorite girls :)

My house! (the yellow one on the right)

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!