Last week in Cato!

I can't believe I've been living in South Africa for over a month! This week is my last week in Cato. Definitely a bittersweet kind of moment. I'm really excited to move out and live in the city but I'm also sad to be leaving such a wonderful family. I've loved living in Cato with my mama, Smu and Buwa. They're so much fun and have taken such good care of me. This Friday we have a party with all of the families which should be fun. I'm planning on baking an apple pie for my family tonight or tomorrow night as a way to thank them for being such wonderful hosts.

Next week I go for a full week of rural homestays then off to hike the Drakensburg Mountains for the weekend. I'm so excited/nervous. The last homestay was great, but who knows how these next two will be. In Amatikulu I'll be following a community health worker. I'm not 100% sure what I'll be doing in Umthwalume, but I'll let you know when I find out!

After living in the rural areas, I'll move into my pre-ISP/ISP location. I'll be living in Windemere Holiday Flats on the beach! So excited to run on the boardwalk in the mornings, lay out in the afternoons, and get Indian food for dinner. Living in a city will be an amazing experience.

Love,

Leah

Weekend and Impendle

This weekend was awesome! Saturday I went to Essenwood Market, a really cool market with a mix of traditional South African goods, global foods, and cool modern crafts. It's my favorite market thus far. After that we went to the beach! Sunday we went to Moses Mabhida Stadium in downtown Durban. Although it wasn't a big game, it was so much fun being in a world cup stadium with all the vuvuzelas blasting. We watched the Swallows play the AmaZulu.

Monday and Tuesday I was in a village called Impendle. I lived with an amazing host family! I lived with Gogo, 2 sisters, 1 brother, and 2 grandkids. The grandkids were two adorable little boys! The family spoke a little bit of English. My oldest sister spoke the most, so we communicated with her the majority of the time.

The house was nice! It was a lot nicer than I expected: it was a lot bigger than my house in Cato Manor. I was surprised to find that the house had electricity! They even had a TV. We watched 3 really cheesy movies. The first was a Nigerian film portraying a biblical story in Africa. I don't really know what happened in the movie. We also watched a movie about an American guy who had an Eastern European accent go to Thailand to train as a muay thai boxer the avenge his brother. The final movie we watched with the family was kind of like that Antonio Banderas movie where he teaches the hoodlums how to ballroom dance. Only this time, it was in Miami and the teacher was a green beret teaching the hoodlums capoeria, a style of Brazilian dance/fighting. Pretty epic.

The toilet situation was interesting: it was an outhouse. The door was a sheet. This is problematic up in the mountains where the wind is so strong. One time when I had to go to the bathroom the outhouse almost blew down! It was swaying back and forth in the wind. Luckily I made it out alive.

The food was really good but our family fed us SO MUCH! They would pile up our plates with as much food as possible! My sisi taught me how to make South African steam bread, so I'll have to make it for everyone at home when I get back! On Tuesday, our gogo slaughtered a chicken for us and our sisi cooked it. When I opened the pot to serve myself, I was shocked to discovered every part of the chicken had been cooked: including the head and the feet. I was more shocked than disgusted, I'm not used to seeing the head of my food with my food.

Our days in Impendle were packed! On Monday, we went to a school to attend Zulu lessons with kids at the school. We helped them with English while they helped us with Zulu. We then had a few lectures at the clinic. At the end of our day, we went to see a Sangoma, a traditional healers. We got to ask her questions about what it means to be a Sangoma and what she can do for the community. She even dressed up for us and consulted he ancestors. When asked if she could sense any diseases among us, she told us that we didn't have crabs. Good to know. On Tuesday, we visited a bead co-op. We got a chance to meet women that are part of a small beading company. We also visited another school. We learned about the international ecoschool program as well as health concerns in Impendle schools. The school children performed several songs for us. So cute! After meeting with the school children, we headed back to the clinic to talk to one of the nurses and get a tour of the facilities. Overall it was a great experience in a rural village!

The people you'll meet...

We went to UKZN Westville Campus this morning to listen to a lecture on Indian Identity in South Africa. The lecture was held in a mini-museum/historical society at the college. Our lecturer, Vina, was a graceful Indian woman with a cute gray bob and a confident stature. She started off the lecture in typical form: she discussed the history of Indian migration into the Durban area. Indians were brought to South Africa as indentured servants to work in the sugar cane fields. She talked of Ghandi's time in South Africa and spoke highly of what he did in South Africa. The historical portion of the lecture progressed to the 1970s, the height of student protests in South Africa. Vina passed out photos from a student protest. She described the protest in vivid detail, talking about the dogs the police released upon the crowd and the terror the crowd felt. She then revealed that she had been a part of the protest: her 22 year old self was at the forefront of the crowd and she appeared in all of the photos wearing Jackie O shades. Vina described the horrors of being arrested and the devastation of 12 days of solitary confinement. She talked about being personal friends with Winnie Mandela and her first meeting with Nelson while he was imprisoned at Robbin Island. Her message of being passionate and standing up for human rights was moving and poignant. I left her lecture feeling so empowered to make a difference in the world.

and then I had my Zulu exam... what a downer. The written part was first, not too bad! The oral part was definitely challenging, but I stumbled through it as gracefully as possible.

This weekend is a Cato Weekend with a beach trip on Saturday. Sunday we're planning on going to a soccer game at Moses Mabhida stadium. Monday I leave for Impendle! I'm there Monday and Tuesday. It should be quite the experience. Apparently there are rats the size Bandit. Oh boy.

Visiting Schools and Prepping for Rural Homestays

Today was awesome! We visited a school for mentally and physically challenged children in Durban. It was a truly touching experience.

We went to the RP Moodley School. The student body consists of about 120 students with a variety of over 25 types of learning disabilities. The majority of children had more severe forms of autism. The school focuses on life skills and fundamental basics (letters, numbers, days of the week, etc.) A group of 6 of us arrived at the school and met the principal. He was extremely kind and spoke highly of South Africa. We then met Sherrie, a teacher at the school who gave us a tour around the campus. She took us to their morning exercises. The kids meet in the gymnasium and do simple Tai-Chi moves. All the children loved it! It helped them get focused and get out all their extra energy. As we visited all the classrooms, Sherrie explained how the school functioned. After visiting all the classrooms, we split into groups of 3. I went with a group that was making scarves with the kids. I partnered up with Nakita, a little Indian girl who was about 8 years old. I'm not sure what kind of learning disabilities she had, but she was very highly functioning. Together we made a white scarf with red felt cut into flower petals. With some of the leftover fabric I helped some boys make superhero masks and we pretended to be ninjas. After spending an hour with the class, we went to the main gym for team time. The staff provided tea and cookies as well as samosas and chili bites (SO GOOD). After tea time, the children all came into the gym for music class. They performed their dance to Shakira's "Waka Waka". We then performed the dance with them. The kids were so happy. I was so impressed by how well taken care of these kids were. For being kids with learning disabilities, they were so well behaved! After dancing with them, we saw some of the little ones and then learned how they teach the kids to make beaded projects. It was an amazing day, I had so much fun with the kids.

Tomorrow we have our final exam for Zulu. Wish me luck! We also have our rural homestays on Monday and Tuesday. Should be a truly interesting experience. No running water, long drop toilets and no electricity. Roughing it South African style. We'll see if I survive... We're going to the mall today to buy water and snacks as well as more bug spray.

Epic African Adventure weekend

This weekend was AMAZING!!! I wish you all could have been there to see it yourselves.

Friday: On Friday night I cooked dinner for my family. My host sister was a little wary of the dinner I was making. She hates vegetables, or so she said. She helped me cook some pasta as well as sauteed veggies and some tomato sauce. The meal was a hit, she loved all the food, even the veggies! Mama liked it too! We then watched Generations and went to bed.

Saturday: We drove 4 hours to the traditional Zulu reed dance at the Zulu King's Enyokeni Traditional Residence . It was amazing! First, let me give you a little bit of history about the Reed Dance. The Reed Dance is a Zulu tradition where young virgins present themselves to the king. In the old times, the king would choose a wife. Only virgins can participate in the festivities, so virginity testing occurs before the girls can present their reeds to the king. At first, I was a little hesitant of the fact all the girls would be topless and celebrating polygamy. I was also a little iffy about the ethics of the virginity testing. However when I got there, I discovered how empowering the experience is for young women. In a country where HIV/AIDS rates have skyrocketed and teenage pregnancy is a common occurrence, it is an honor to be able to be respected for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. It felt a lot like a debutante ball, the girls are presented to society as capable of becoming a queen. All the girls wore colorful beads and skirts. The toplessness factor didn't seem that big of a deal once we got there.

The procession of girls to the King's gates took over 2 hours, we didn't even get a chance to see the end of the procession! The entire time they were dancing and singing. I got a chance to talk to some of the girls and look around the different stalls at the festival. Strangely, people wanted pictures with me! Probably cause I'm an American and there weren't a ton of tourists at this event. There were a lot of stands with HIV/AIDS prevention and awareness groups. I talked to a few of the groups to pick up some pamphlets for my ISP research. I also bought a sweet beaded bracelet to always remind me of this awesome event. We missed the actual dance part because we had to leave before it got dark. We then got back in the bus. On the way to St. Lucia we drove through a game reserve. After passing the signs about the rules of the park, an elephant appeared over the hillside! We stopped for 5 minutes to take pictures of the elephant. It then crossed the road in front of our car. We were continuously stopping to see all the animals. We saw zebras, water buffalo, impalas, springboks, warthogs, and even 2 rhinos! Some of the zebras got really close to our cars. After driving through the park, we arrived in St. Lucia. For dinner we ate traditional Zulu stew at a restaurant in town and headed over to our hotel for the night.

Sunday:

We walked around St. Lucia, enjoying the awesome weather. St. Lucia is a really cute touristy town. There are a ton of places to go on safari around St. Lucia so we'll be going there at the end of the semester to see all the animals. Before we left to go home, we went to the estuaries near the ocean to see some hippos and crocs. We didn't see any crocodiles, but we saw a bunch of hippos near the beach. It was pretty cool to see them in the wild even though they didn't really do anything...

Monday was a typical day. We had classes on reproductive health as well as the education system in South Africa.

Today, we went on our hospital excursions. I went to King Edwards Hospital in Durban. It was a little chaotic because the PR director thought we were medical students. When she found out we were pre-med/pre-law (I'm the only pre-law) she was a little confused as to where to take us. I visited the maternity ward. We stood around a lot but got to learn about some of the major issues associated with pregnancy in South Africa. Also got to learn about some of the ethical issues involved with sterilization. So interesting.

Tomorrow we're visiting NGOs, Thursday we're visiting schools, Friday we're learning about the Indian population and we have our Zulu final exam! This weekend is in Cato then we're off to Impendle or Amatikulu for our rural homestays! Should be epic.

"Get Down", Zulu skits, and an "American" dinner

Last night, Meredith and I were playing with a bunch of the neighborhood kids. Camp kids, you'll be so proud of me. I taught them "Little Sally Walker" and "That's the Way You Get Down". All night all the kids were singing "That's the way you get down".

Today we had to perform skits in Zulu! My friend Sally B and I made a skit about a tourist (me) trying to find Moses Mabhida stadium. Sally played a kind Zulu lady who was helping me figure out how to get there. Other groups had way funnier skits. One group portrayed our academic director, Zed. They fit his lingo in between Zulu phrases which created a pretty funny skit. Zed phrases:

"Keep it Tidy"="keep it classy"

"Havin' a few toots"= "Having a few drinks"

"100%"=doing well

"Sorted"="good"

The rest of today we have lectures and time to work on our Community Health Seminar paper. Tonight, I'm cooking dinner for my family! Since we're supposed to cook "American" dinners, I'm making pasta with veggies and tomato sauce. When Smu and I were discussing dinner for tonight, she told me that she hated vegetables. After much debate, She promised she'd at least try what I cooked. Hopefully my family will like dinner! I'm planning on baking them an apple pie later in the semester.

Tomorrow we're on the road to see the Reed Dance. It's a traditional Zulu performance where young maidens perform Zulu dances for the Zulu King so he can choose a new bride. Polygamy is legal in South Africa (President Zuma even has 6 or so wives). Should be interesting to see this performance from a culturally relativistic perspective as well as a women's rights perspective. More about that on Monday!

Miss you all!

Love,

Leah

Ngemepelasonto eThekwini (Weekend in Durban)

After class on Friday, we were dropped off at the Windemere holiday flats. The location is amazing: the flats are across the street from the Indian Ocean. It takes literally 5 minutes to walk to the beach. All of our rooms had balconies facing the beach. The rooms were nice too! I have a feeling I'll be living in the Windemere flats during ISP time since I doubt I'll do a rural ISP. If so, it will be an amazing experience to live beachfront for a month!!!

So Friday night we went out to eat at a local Indian/Pakistani restaurant across the street from Windemere. After that all of us met up at Joe Cools, a local hangout on the beach. The music was mostly American Pop and the occasional rock song from the 80s. We had a blast dancing the night away.

On Saturday after sleeping in (for the 2nd time this semester) I went for a run on the boardwalk. It felt so good to be on the beach!!! A bunch of my friends and I took the peoplemover (a touristy bus that we used for our drop offs) to Victoria market. Victoria market is a variety of shops with all sorts of touristy goods. I didn't buy a ton of stuff this visit to the market, but next time I'll have to get all sorts of South African stuff to bring home! I did buy some awesome skirts that I'll be using for the rural homestays. After an hour or so, we decided to head over to another market that is only open on Saturdays. Unfortunately, by the time we got a taxi the market was closing. We did manage to get some Bunny Chow for lunch. As you read this you may wonder what exactly Bunny Chow is. Well, I wondered the same thing when my host sisi mentioned it to me my first week in Cato. It's a thick slice of bread that is hollowed out and filled with an South African/Indian curry. Although it was a bit much with all the bread, the dish was pretty good. I got a bean curry although there was a mutton curry as well. After eating our bunny chow we visited a local coffee shop then took a taxi back home. Saturday night we decided to go out to Florida Road to check out the scene there.

Sunday was awesome! After another luxurious morning of sleeping in late we went to the Sunday market across the street from the flats. They had all sorts of cool stuff including some USA vuvuzelas that were pretty patriotic (camp kids take notice, i might buy one for 4th of July festivities next summer). After the market we spent the whole day at the beach. The water was pretty cold and the waves were surprisingly powerful. Despite our fear of the infamous sharks off the coast of Durban (courtesy of Shark Week on Discovery Channel), we went knee deep in the water! Luckily, there weren't any shark attacks. We figured the surfers would act like a buffer anyways. All afternoon we played some volleyball with the lifeguards and studied isiZulu on the beach. Sunday night we went out to dinner at Cape Town Fish Market, a yummy seafood restaurant at UShaka Marine World.

Over all it was a pretty awesome weekend. This week is filled with interesting lectures and our last few Zulu lessons! On Saturday we'll be going to a traditional Reed Dance. It's about a 3 hour drive from here and we'll be staying in St. Lucia on Saturday night. Should be a fantastic cultural experiences.

Sala Kahle!

Leah

Week 2 in Durban

Sawubona!

This week has been flying by! I can't believe it's already Thursday. Monday we went to a clinic in Cato Manor which was a really informative and valuable experience, more on that later. Tuesday was pretty much a typical day at SIT and Wednesday was filled with some fun adventures.

Monday: we went to Cato Clinic as a group for a tour of the facilities as well as an information session about the clinic. I was surprised at how nice the facilities were. We got to tour the maternity ward, the HIV/AIDS ARV clinic, as well as the rehabilitative center. Learning about how the clinic worked was helpful for gaining a better understanding of the health care system in South Africa which has both a private and public sector.

Tuesday: Zulu lessons and lectures at school. Zulu is an interesting language. I'm understanding it on paper, not so much in a conversation setting. Which is funny because that's the opposite of my French skills. I'm much better at conversation than writing. Granted, I know way more in French than I do in Zulu. We have a written quiz on Monday which I'm not too worried about, but the oral exam in a few weeks should be interesting....

When I got home on Tuesday, Smu and I decided we were going for a run then play a little football. Before our run around the grounds (the soccer field), she was smack talking me! She thought she was going to run faster than me and further than me (remember she's only 11). We got to the field and began running. She only made it the first lap, actually, she didn't even finish the first lap. She sat with the soccer ball while I finished running. After my quick little run, we started to kick the ball around. As soon as we started playing, kids swarmed to us to play with us! It was so fun playing soccer with all the little kids. I now totally understand how sports like soccer can bridge cultural and language gaps. Despite our differences (age, gender, nationality, cultural group, socio-economic background) we all knew how to play the game and how to have fun.

Wednesday:

Yesterday was quite the adventure. Most notably 3 major events occurred.

1) I was getting ready to take a shower at the SIT house after running with a bunch of the girls in my class. I accidentally bumped into the trash can causing it to fall over. A HUGE cockroach scurried out and was frantically scurring around the bathroom. I was terrified!!! But I was already about to get in the shower anyways so I just got in the shower and hoped the roach would leave me alone. So every few seconds I would pull open the shower curtain to check the roach's location. The damn thing kept moving around the room. When I finally finished the shower, it was underneath where my clothes were hanging. I had to wait a few minutes until it moved to quickly grab my clothes, put them on and then get out of the bathroom.

2) All the students decided to go to an rugby tournament at University of KwaZulu-Natal. Although it was a tournament between the different academic departments, we figured it would be fun to be a part of a college campus environment since we're missing out on our campus experiences this semester. It was nice to be on a college campus again. However, getting to the field and leaving the field was an adventure. There are little gates with the roundabout doorways to get to and from the field. They can only be unlocked with student IDs. Since none of us had a UKZN ID, we had to rely on random people to help us get through! I felt bad considering how many people are in our group.

3) Driving home was an adventure as well. We got a safe taxi but the taxi driver knew nothing about Cato Manor and how to get there. So we had to whip out our map of Cato and try to figure out how to get to Wiggins, the section we live in. After a while, we finally figured it all out and made it home safe.

Today, more Zulu lessons and lectures as well as a trip to the megamall. This weekend we're staying in downtown Durban so we can go out and about. We're planning on going to uShaka Marine world (which is one of the best aquariums in the world), Victoria Market (to get some sweet South African goods like skirts, scarves, and world cup tees) and the beach. Should be awesome!

miss you all!

Leah