Community

I have now moved on from the formal and somewhat stiff greeting - a firm handshake with your right hand, while your left hand is on the right elbow – to the more informal and familiar greeting of a hand slap and half-hug. I have to say it is so nice to have graduated to this level of familiarity and is a much more jovial greeting!

I have also graduated at work and in the house to making my own tea. This is a huge bonus. People here put tea in their full-cream milk. I had to choke down and even secretly pour out several glasses of tea that were ¾ full cream milk and ¼ tea. When the people see me drink tea now they exclaim, “Your milk is so small! You like it like this?” I assure them I do.

The last two weekends my host siblings and various friends have created a routine of getting up early (6:30ish) and heading over to the gorgeous beach for a run. With the sun shining on the endlessly crashing waves, the long stretches of white-sand beach and the invigorating feeling of actually getting physical activity these runs are often a highlight of my week. The girls (and Evode) do not really ‘jog’ but run a little, stop and walk, then run some more. Sometimes they go swimming afterwards. Even though this incredible beach is a 5 min walk from our flat, the kids would never really go on their own so they enjoy our runs very much as well. I have already started a little bit of motivational speaking/coaching them in running, which I hope will help these girls be able to know how to run and know how much stronger they are than they believe.

I have started a little bit of some music lessons within the community. Literally everyone wants to learn guitar and keyboard. I have a little group of 10-13 year olds made up of my host siblings and other children in the community who have had 2 beginning music lessons. We are starting from square one with rhythms and notes, and will progress to the keyboard. They are really enthusiastic and bright – I enjoy these classes thoroughly.

I have also been teaching several older people from the church, giving guitar lessons. These have been one on one because its fairly difficult to do without a guitar for everyone. It will be interesting to see how much progress everyone makes as it is really hard to move ahead if you do not regularly practice. The only access these people have to instruments is in their church, so that may prove a challenge.

Black tea and Bracelets

- Just a Note:

I have been an awful blogger and have not written in several weeks. This is an entry I wrote several weeks ago, but wasn’t able to post, of first impressions etc.

Written: September 12^th, 2009

I arrived here in Durban on Saturday, August 29th and was welcomed by many pairs of open arms. I met my host family -Eugene and Eldophonse: Sandrine (14), Rosine (12) and Evode (8) – some ladies from the crèche, their children, some neighbors, and some members of the community church, all within the first several hours. Nearly everyone in this community is a refugee from another African country. Most, like my host family, are from Rwanda, but there are also people from the Congo, Burundi and Uganda.

My first several weeks of working at the crèche and living with my host family has been a continuous stream of new faces, new names, new food, new ways of doing things, new boundaries and new opportunities. It has been great being thrown into this extremely close and welcoming community; I will have to make an effort to extend myself beyond its loving - yet tight - embrace and make connections in other communities.

Just as I am having a cultural experience, my host community is surely shocked with many of the ‘cultural’ things I do.

Some Examples:

-People here dress up very nicely in general, but at church, you dress for the occasion. The second day I was here, Evode, my 8-year-old host brother, said “Aren’t you changing into something nicer?” as we were on our way out the door for church. I was wearing my nicest skirt and a regular top… I also got scolded by my host mother for wearing pants that weren’t ironed: You cannot go where mothers are not.

-I have these old looking hemp bracelets that I wear all the time. I have gotten so much guff about them from pretty much everyone. They ask me if they are cultural and when I say “Not really.” they are pretty confused. I made one for my little brother because he wouldn’t stop asking me for one, and when his mother saw him with it on she got pretty mad at him. She said, “What are you wearing? We’re Christian, Evode, we don’t do that!” It turns out bracelets are something that Zulu South Africans wear, so my Rwandan mother didn’t want her son posing as a Zulu.

-White people don’t plait their hair. (that is braid their hair in cornrows) The other day a young friend of the family wanted to play with my hair while we were sitting in the living room. Next thing I knew I had my hair nicely plaited into cornrows. They were expertly done and would have looked great on an African. White people have VERY white scalps…and look somewhat ridiculous with hair like this. After this I got even more stares on the streets as people tried to comprehend this white girl walking around Central Durban with plaited hair. A lady in a shop said, “Who did your hair, girl? You look like a beautiful Zulu lady!”