Wow. This past week was amazing. It was my last weekend in Cato with my home stay family. I went to Wengu (Amatikulu), Umthwalume, and hiked the Drakensberg Mountains. Here’s the run down:
LAST WEEKEND IN CATO
Sadly, it was my last weekend living with my homestay family in Cato. On Friday night we had a farewell dinner with all the families. The food was pretty typical South African cuisine: tons of meat and carbs. After round one of eating, my mama had me snipe some of the food for leftovers. Once the meal was over, all of us got on stage to perform for our families. Being typical college students, we procrastinated practicing our performance until 5 minutes before said performance. We couldn’t decide what to do. Popular choices: “Don’t Stop Believin’”, “Waka Waka”, “Sweet Caroline”, and “God Bless America”. We ended up dancing to “Waka Waka” since pretty much everyone here is OBSESSED with the song. Who can blame them? It’s an awesome song and it’s so catchy. It was the theme song to the 2010 World Cup, if you haven’t heard it yet you should listen to it. Anyways, we got all the kids up on stage to dance with us. So cute. All the little ones were grooving and the gogos loved it! We also sang the Zulu version of “Head, shoulders, knees, and toes”. Saturday was boring because I had to work on a paper and Sunday was a chill day where I just hung out with my family. I also gave them thank you gifts on Sunday night. For Smu: 2 art kits and some mixes that I made (Rihanna’s Greatest Hits and Beyonce’s Greatest Hits). For Buwa: a huge bar of chocolate, a Bates lacrosse hat, and some mixes I made. For Mama: a nice throw the family can use. When watching TV, if they get cold they use an old towel with holes in it. I figured a nice throw would be great when mama gets cold. After saying my farewells, I left for my weeklong trip to rural villages...
AMATIKULU/WANGU
We arrived in Amatikulu (or so we thought) bright and early Monday morning. We arrived at the clinic to learn about the community health worker (CHW) program at the clinic. While there, we found out that the village was actually called Wangu and the clinic was called Amatikulu. Interesting. Anyways, after lunch at Steers (a ridiculous fast food chain) we met our homestay mamas. My mama was a sweet but quiet woman. Our house overlooked the ocean and was pretty big. Sally and I each got our own beds! Around their house was sugar cane field and groves of banana and mango trees. That night I discovered what lurks in the drop toilet at night. The drop toilet was one of the nicest I’ve seen, but it had HUGE roaches in it. Sally used it first, but when I opened the door and saw a roach crawl on the seat, I couldn’t bring myself to use the toilet! Thank goodness the roaches leave the longdrop during the day! On Tuesday we shadowed our mama on her route. Community health workers are trained members of the community who spread information concerning hygiene, nutrition, STIs, and TB. They go on a route around the community and visit people at their homes. We only visited a few homes, but it was nice to be out and about. We talked to people about washing their hands and how to make rehydrate. We went back to the house around 11 and watched Tyler Perry movies with my sisi Sne. I helped cook dinner. And by helping cook dinner, I mean chopping the veggies. After a delicious dinner of fried chicken, cooked veggies and pap we watched Generations and went to bed. On Wednesday, we left for Umthwalume.
UMTHWALUME
Umthwalume was by far my favorite of the rural homestays. We arrived in Umtwalume Wednesday morning. First, we visited a school. The school was amazing. For the limited resources they had, they had done so much! They teach the kids about sustainability and recycling: the kids help grow vegetables in a community garden and all the children learn how to recycle garbage into crafts. What’s most amazing about the school is the faculty. They are truly invested in the future of these kids. A big portion of the student body fits within the “Orphans and Vulnerable Children” category. Teachers will purchase students food and uniforms out of their own pocket money. They will take children into their homes to feed them dinner. They’ll repair their torn uniforms and wash them for them. It was incredible. Next, we visited a Love Life Y center. Love Life is an organization run through the South African government that focuses on HIV/AIDS prevention in the 12-19 year old population. Although the good intentions are there, they aren’t a highly functioning organization. The funding is limited and the peer mediators don’t practice what they preach. Many of them are teen moms but talk about having safe sex. There’s a big disconnect. After the downer at Love Life, I went to my homestay. My family was AWESOME! My mama was a Sangoma, a traditional healer. She spoke 4-5 words of English. Speaking with her required some miming and pointing at things. Thankfully, her daughter did the majority of translations for us. We had a baby brother who I was obsessed with (cause as we all know I love babies) and a 4 year old brother. The house was pretty small and a little intimidating. There were a lot of mice and geckos. We went to bed super early (7:30!). To our amazment, we shared a room with the gogo and the baby. We slept on the bed and the baby and gogo slept on the ground. During the night, Sally and I thought our house was going to blow over! The wind was so loud we thought something had fallen on the house! It didn’t help that our house had a tin roof which made a ridiculously loud rattling noise anytime wind blew past. Our gogo also woke up on several occasions to use the “pee bucket” in the middle of the room. Lucklily, Sally and I had access to our neighbors flush toilet. SUCCESS. After a rough night’s sleep, we went to visit a faith healer at her home and place of practice. She combines Christianity and traditional Zulu medicine as a mechanism of healing. Normally, she provides water that she blesses with the help of God. After that we went to a beautiful beach. It was too windy and too cold to go swimming, but we got a chance to admire the surroundings. Then, we went to a craft center where members of the community learn to produce craftwork. We learned how to make AIDS ribbon pins. Lets just say, I’m not so good at beadwork. The teachers felt so bad about mine they gave me a premade one. After that we went home. We spent the evening hanging out with our family without electricity: the electricity went out due to the strong winds. Once to electricity came back on, our gogo put on her sangoma apparel and had us take pictures with her. You’ll have to see the pictures on Facebook or when I get back! She put one of her wigs on Sally and a hat on me. We exchanged gifts with our family. Sally and I gave the family chocolate, dish towels, knives, and some bubbles for the kids. Earlier in the day, I was admiring the beautiful cloth our mama was wearing. When I asked her where she buys it, she took me to our room and pulled out a suitcase filled with tons of the cloths. She oftered me one! Shocked, I told her I didn’t have money to pay her, but she gave it to me anyways. Sally got one too. They’re beautiful. Mine is a garnet, black, and white one (YAY BATES COLORS) with a shield emblem on it. Pretty awesome. After a heartfelt goodbye with my family, we left in the morning and visited a TB hospital. After visiting the hospital, we headed to the Drakensburg Mountains!
SLAYING THE DRAGON: HIKING THE DRAKENSBURG
Apparently, Drakensburg means “Dragons back” in Afrikaans. We arrived on Friday to the campsite. We relaxed and prepped for one of the biggest hikes I have ever done. After a delicious dinner of pasta cooked over the campfire we went to sleep to rest up for the treacherous climb. On Saturday we began our 5 hour hike. The scenery was amazing! We hiked near a river until we got to the base of the mountain. It was so steep! Our AD Zed, who is pretty much a mountain man, was going so fast up the mountain. I ended up hiking with the EXTREEMM! Bunch. Also known as the stragglers. We had a technique of hiking until we got to the next rock with a tree. Unlike the other group, we spent more time admiring the scenery and enjoying the moment. Eventually we made it up to the top! We got to see the Khosian paintings at the top. The Khosian are the South African bushmen that were almost driven to extinction. Now they live in colored communities through out South Africa. The paintings were amazing, depicting scenes with hunters and warriors, contact with white settlers and their horses. After the paintings we made it all the way to the top. The view was amazing. I’m so proud of myself that I made it up such a huge mountain. I’m thinking that I can accomplish my goal of hiking Khatadin before I graduate from Bates. The climb down was almost as intense as the climb up! Eventually we made it to a river where we got to swim. It was so refreshing swimming in the super clean river. Don’t worry, no schistomiasis or scary parasites. After that, we hiked back to the campsite and ate a traditional South African brai (bbq). The food was awesome. I’ll have to bring some brai spice back for our BBQs at home.
Today we arrived back in Durban. I’m now living the life: living in a beachfront holiday flat for the next 2 months. Did some grocery shopping because now I’ll have to cook for myself! As a treat, my roommates and I went to get Indian food for dinner. That’s it for now. SO much happened in the past week. Miss you all and can’t wait to see you in 60 days!
No comments:
Post a Comment