Pee Bucket and Rainbow Homestead

SO MANY AMAZING THINGS HAVE HAPPENED IN SUCH A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME.

This past week, we packed our bags and headed to the rural villages of Umtwalume and Impendle (pronounced oom-twah-loo-may and Im-pen-dlay), just don’t want you to butcher my homies’ mainland.

We were each partnered with another student and put into homestays within these villages. My roomie for the week was the beautiful Victoria Ayres and we started in Umtwalume.

We arrived at our incredibly rustic looking home with a loving and warm Gogo (grandma) offering to carry all of our bags. We soon learned that Gogo is a Sangoma and a traditional healer, meaning she speaks to the ancestors and can tell people what their sicknesses and ailments are and then prescribe the proper Muthi to cure them.  She was absolutely amazing. 

There are SO MANY kids in the home, Amahle who is 15 and her cousin Samke who is also 15, Asanda who was our nine year old personal translator for the entire experience, Mandisa who was a 6 year old little girl, Olwethu was an amazing little 6 year old boy, Sandiso who was a 3 year old grumpy pants who didn’t start loving us until the last day and it was heartbreaking having to leave him!, and then a baby who seemed to disappear from time to time.

Amahle the 15 year old cooked EVERYTHING for us and basically ran the house with her mother Nomhlahla.  They were so nice and adorable.  The first thing they did when we walked in was hug us and plop down 2 HUGE plates of food for us.  It was intense to say the least.  We began strategizing ways in which we could take down our dinner.  I ended up not being able to even come close to finishing my rice mountain, and Victoria did rather well. 

We played games outside with the children. Regular jump roping games and game called Teddy Bear that just consists of a lot of hugging. 

That night they gave Victoria and me Zulu names!  They named me Mbali which means flower and Victoria was given Thando the word for love.  We laughed cause we’ve met about a thousand Thandos, one being the creepy serial dater in our area, but she still felt special.

We soon realized that we have yet to see a bathroom so we decided to ask where to go before it was an emergency.  They showed us the way to nearest bathroom which is in another house’s garage, about a minute walk away from the house.  It had no toilet paper and was pretty broken to say the least.  But when in Africa.  We soon realized that they were actually giving us special bathroom privileges and none of our family actually used this bathroom, they used a long drop somewhere in the back of the house that we didn’t find until the last day.

And of course, in the middle of the night they didn’t want to have to walk to the bathroom, so in the room we shared with 4 people, Victoria and I got to snuggle in a bed, they placed a PEE BUCKET by the door.  It was horrifying waking up in the middle of the night to our homestay aunt peeing in a bucket.  We ended up avoiding needing to use this bucket our whole stay.  It was just too much.

The next day Gogo showed us everything there was to know about being a Sangoma and taught us Zulu dancing and told us of her life.  Gogo is such an amazing woman.  She just wants the world to be healthy and happy and is so sweet.  We went to a spiritual healer who prays over water and sells it to people.  A spiritual healer also speaks to the ancestors but they really just give people “blessed” water.

When we got home, Gogo had made us this colorful ropes we are supposed to wear around our waists to protect us from sickness and other dangers.  It was so sweet. The kids wanted to teach us a game “donkey fish” which we learned was just uno.  We realized how many games kids can entertain themselves with a half deck of Uno cards.  It was wild.

On heritage day, we walked into the house while Gogo was fitting a woman into all her Zulu beads and Gogo would not let us leave the hut dressed so normally so she dressed us in traditional Zulu clothes and walked around getting a ridiculous amount of stares. I wonder why. Were they not used to a foreign Jewish girl in traditional Zulu attire?

That night, all the kids in our area including the kids next door, put on a big show for us in their Zulu clothes and did some Zulu dancing. It was so cute!

 Hiking up the road in my Zulu attire

Our guide, Xoli!

The last night, Gogo and the kids and everyone in the house was so loving and kind.  They told us they were going to miss us so much and I ended up giving away my gifts I had prepared for Impendle because I just loved them so much.  Gogo made us bracelets and the kids were just all around us being so adorable and nice and we felt SO LOVED :) and please remember I have still not showered at this point.

So, after attempting to steal some of the children, we were hoarded into a van on Wednesday and driven to Impendle.  Although I was so sad to leave our wonderful family, I was really excited about Impendle.  We arrived pretty late for dinner but our new mama had made us FRESH VEGETABLES!  I haven’t seen those in quite some time.  It was such an amazing fresh dinner.  We enjoyed a wonderful episode of Generations, which is a very popular soap opera here that is some weird dialect that is half English half Zulu, with our homestay brother S’bu.  Then it was off to bed in our hut but not before learning where the outhouse was.

Here is the view from my hut at like 6 in the morning!

The next day we spent wandering around impendle going to town, speaking with Social workers, going to a clinic, and visiting the library.  The young locals, our Host Guide Interpreters, showed us around and fed us an amazing chicken curry lunch with steamed bread that we picnicked under a tree.

That afternoon, a woman came with our professor, Clive, to have a group discussion. Her name was Samantha.  She had dreadlocks, piercings, and an awesome kid with her named Kai. Whatever her story was, I knew it was interesting, so after our generic conversation with Clive, we begged her to tell us about her life.  She was the coordinator for our Rural homestays. She was previously an SIT student in Ghana and knew she was not meant to live in the US. She moved to South Africa where her and her partner now live on a piece of land they’ve named “Rainbow Homestead” with their daughter, Oriah, and adopted son, Kei. So we decided to ditch all the plans we had for the following day and get a tour of her house instead.

IT WAS INCREDIBLE. She lives a sustainable lifestyle on acres of land that was just grass when she first arrived.  They built their own house that is all solar powered, planted trees and several other plants, and use herbs and the plants they grow for all of their injuries and ailments.  There was a contraption meant for drying fruits if they have an abundance, and an outdoor solar generated shower, and a worm garden, and a real garden, and a tree nursery, and SO MUCH MORE.   They built yurts where they “unschool” their children and accommodate house guests.  Their was basically a tree house and was incredibly homey and wonderful and you had to climb ladders to get to the bedrooms!

She made us an amazing tea all from plants from her garden and they all helped with women’s health.  I immediately knew that I needed to learn more and live her life.  So I dropped my original idea for my final research project I’m doing at the end of my program, and asked if I could live with her.  So for the entire month of November I will be living on Rainbow Homestead studying the way they live and how their lived environment creates a holistically healthy body and positive perceptions of self purpose.

Here is their treehouse home! There is a legitimate tree running through the house

This is their outhouse! Even that is beautiful

 Here is the  beautiful Sam showing us her garden!

Here are her children in their yurt where they learn! Sam "unschools" them

Here is part of the tree nursery

Picture of part of their home.  Does not do it justice it is so beautiful inside!

Afterwards we went to a group of Zulu women who hand-make beaded items and sell them! They were so beautiful and they were so sweet I obviously spent so much money there. After we bought beads they showed us some traditional Zulu dancing it was so cool!

I felt so happy at that home and I couldn’t stop smiling.  That night I thought of every possible topic to do on their land and went to bed early in preparation for my 4 am wake up for my mountain climb! It was amazing to finally get some good exercise in fresh air. 

This week has been so many adjectives.  Wonderful, loving, spiritual, fun, eye opening, I could keep going forever.  I have learned so much and have truly realized that everything really is relative.  When I first arrived in Cato, I thought it was pretty rough living, but boy was I wrong.  I was so excited to come home to a gigantic loaf of steamed bread my mama made me, and sleep in my comfy bed, and be able to wake up in the middle of the night and pee without having to trek through the wilderness infested with frogs and other wildlife.  Although it is nice to be home, I cannot wait to go live like a hippie with an amazing family and learn everything about them.

Sala Kahle BoSunshine :)

Anything Can Happen in Cato

So life has been pretty standard lately, nothing safariesque to report. But yesterday was a pretty eventful day to say the least. Casey, Alie, and I were desperate for exercise yesterday so we decided to run around Cato.  Several unexpected and somewhat traumatizing events interrupted our lame attempt at fitness.  First, as Casey and I were running to pick up Alie, we stumbled upon 2 puppies that a family was considering adopting.  At first it was sweet and adorable, until we realized that one of the tiny puppies was so sick and shaking and none of the kids knew how to play with it gently.  It was so sad to watch and the poor little baby dog looked so helpless.  We ended up coming to terms with the fact that there was nothing we could do and proceeded on to Alie’s house with troubling thoughts. After we picked up Alie we ended up running around trying to get a better view of several fires we saw around the hills of Cato.  We eventually gave up when the twists and turns led us in circles so we just deemed them as controlled fires because nobody was panicking. 

            Ok, so our run was coming to an end, and just as were about to reach the field we noticed a small crowd around two dogs.  As one can guess, these two dogs were doing it. But it was the weirdest thing ever they were connected but back-to-back.  And just standing there.  Nothing was going on.  People were taking pictures and laughing and throwing water at them (which led all of us to yell the few zulu words we know at them). The poor, tiny female dog stood only on her front two legs, her rear legs shaking as they hung freely in the air. We soon realized that this was not natural and as more people gathered around the dogs became more distressed and in a way angry.  This was when we realized that they were not doing it anymore; they were stuck.  The male dog tried to lick the area of insertion, as Alie calls it, attempting to break free, but failing. 

            This was when I started to get real nervous.  This male dog was panicking and as more and more people came over he became more and more nervous.  Barking at people and making sudden jolts while dragging the poor female dog wherever he went.  I just need those not fully envisioning this to really have empathy for this female dog.  She was in a permanent wheel barrow position, backwards, being dragged by her vagina…..I’m shocked she is still alive.

Soon the male dog got so upset he ran across the street behind a gate in someone’s front yard and attempted to lay down and deal with the situation with a little more peace and quiet.

            This was when we decided it was time to intervene.  A man came out of the house and asked us how on the earth the dogs were connected and we had to awkwardly explain the situation and he decided this was not his cup of tea.  His statement sounded a little more like, “ohh shit I’m not dealing with that”.  So, we asked him to get us some vegetable oil and we were going to take matters into our own hands.  He laughed nervously as he went to fetch us oil.  In the mean time we figured we needed to calm down the male dog if anything was going to progress, so we sat on the ground and used calm voices while Alie got up and personal with his face, and was trying to get him to lay down and give his partner a bit of a rest (WHEELBARROW). At first he seemed to be ok, but then when Alie attempted to push on his back to tell him she wanted him to sit he FREAKED OUT and tried to bite her arm off!!! Ok that was dramatic, but he definitely snapped at her and jumped in the air out of fear thus releasing the female dog! The male dog was still freaked out and was going nuts and the little female dog was sadly running in fear while unidentified liquids poured out of her (I’m so sorry you had to read that, but we had to witness it so don’t even give me that).  After Alie heroically put her life in danger to save these sexually active dogs, we were congratulated by several hugs and arm grabbing from little children everywhere.  We decided to run over to the field to try to shake off some of the trauma we had acquired throughout our exercise and ended up joining the soccer team.  Casey and I are awful, and although Alie isn’t, it wasn’t entirely fair that we joined this very skilled boy’s soccer team, but they were all so nice to us anyway and still passed me the ball when I would completely miss it or pass to the wrong team.  I also feel its necessary to share that I have horrible anxiety while playing contact sports and cannot mentally handle someone running towards me at full speed with no feelings of love present.  But we even did the cool down run and stretch circle with them! They were so inviting. 

And that was my Thursday.  It was exciting, which was much needed after a really stressful work week that hasn’t been relieved by yoga nor mediation.

I’ll be heading over to Impendle and Umtwalume villages next week so I’ll be sure to blog after that.

Thanks for reading :)

The Circle of Life

This weekend was wonderful! On Friday we left for St. Lucia (a low risk malaria zone, but a malaria zone indeed), which is 4 hours away, I’m going to assume North but I really could not tell you exactly where right now.  We had to make sure we were on the road at a reasonable hour because we didn’t want to be driving in the dark.  Usually when someone says that you assume crime, dangerous roads, or just someone’s personal preference of driving during the day.  But, no. This was due to the excessive hippos that roam the street and actually cause car accidents and other deaths due to the simple act of getting in its way.

So we made it to our apartments in one piece no hippo accidents, although we were repeatedly warned of walking around at night because hippos just come to town and graze in random places. So naturally we searched for hippos instead of avoiding them, but we didn’t see any in the streets. 

Later that night, we started to see the first symptoms of everyone’s malaria medication.  Of course I did not get my shit together in time so I was without the medication so I just got to watch as people slowly started to show symptoms such as peeling skin, weird dreams, various body rashes, and as Danielle put it “I feel weird”.  It was fun for me honestly.  But I did acquire 4 mosquito bites this weekend so we’ll see who’s laughing in a few weeks….

We got to shower!!! It was incredible, I obviously took one every single day, even though my natural scent is that of roses.  Anywho, the whole reason we were there was for SAFARI DAY! We woke up at 4:30 Saturday morning to get out there early cause the earlier you go the more likely you’ll see CATS! No not cats. Jungle cats. We piled into these open car thingys a drove around with a safari guide that helped us spot animals! We ended up seeing a lion kill and the male lion was guarding the bloody zebra until he was pleasantly stuffed so that later the females (who did the hunting, damn patriarchy) can eat what’s left and feed their babies. 

After our long but incredibly fun safari, we went on a boat ride to see crocodiles and hippos and several birds that our boat driver kept stopping for that nobody cared about.  Hippos are spectacular! Crocodiles are creepy and apparently don’t like to come out when its cold so we saw 1 and a half crocodiles.  But the boat was supplied with a bar, so we all had a good time.

There are pictures, but before you scroll to those lovely beauts I just want to tell you that on Sunday I got to go to the beach! But not just a beach, a beach highly populated by monkeys who love to steal food and other objects.  But luckily, none of our things got stolen that day.  So we enjoyed a lovely day of snorkeling and relaxing, and a beach shower!! Yes, I brought my shampoo. Showers are a luxury one cannot take for granted.

And now some visual aids to show you a little bit about our weekend…photo credit to my beautiful friend Casey Coviello

Soccer Match and other Shenanigans

Small update!

I won’t have internet for quite some time after this so I thought I would write up a little something.

My homestay is still wonderful! Mama and I are getting closer and closer as the days go on. Mostly because she loves that I’m her white butler, but I’ll pretend it’s all because I’m funny and cool.

Baths are becoming quite a struggle.  Boiling water and preparing a bath every time I want to be clean is exhausting.  Not to mention the energy I must exert once in the bath; Buckets are heavy!

On Saturday we did another drop off kind of deal except this time we had siblings from Cato Manor be our tour guides so it was much easier! Also we were in groups of 4 instead of 2 so it was a pretty relaxing day.  My group went to a Mosque I could not even tell you where. We ended up in an area completely unfamiliar to me so I just kinda went along for the ride.  After we were basically kidnapped by the Mosque tour guide and weren’t released for quite some time, we headed over the Moses Mabhida Stadium, the stadium that was created for the world cup, for a soccer match! It was soooo fun.  Bafana Bafana was playing Botswana needing the win for the chance to make it to the playoffs.  If they won that and Ethiopia lost to CAR they would be able to go!  The game was so exciting and they ended up winning! 4-1!  But a bittersweet victory because Ethiopia ended up winning, crushing their chance to go to the World Cup :(

Yesterday, a few girls and I were desperate for physical activity so we ran over to the field in Cato Manor.  We expected to run and do some circuit training and quickly get out of there.  But to our surprise, which was dumb because we should have absolutely expected it, about 25 children would not leave us alone.  During our warm up laps we had to be incredibly cautious as children were weaving in front of us, stopping, slowing down, encouraging more friends to join.  It was so stressful! Everything we did was followed by these children.  So we tried to explain a “no touch policy” but that didn’t really fly. So we did the best we could, trying to get a work out while also entertaining these children.  They did all the workouts with us though! But poor Alie was trying to show a leg lift work out as children were climbing all over her and one was literally in between her legs.  But it was fine, we ended up getting a good enough work out and ended the day with a lovely round of duck duck goose.  Which no longer has rules because these kids just do what they want.

As we were leaving we were trying to say bye to all these kids, but of course that did not fly.  So we walked home with a kid grabbing at every limb and running around us, which has become so casual now and we even have normal conversations and often forget that we have a child hanging at every part of our bodies.  But its nice to have a little crew to walk us home :)

That’s it for now! Sala Kahle!