This past month or so has been a kind of whirl-wind tour of South Africa based mainly on the fact that my parents were out visiting and having a vehicle opens the world of possibilities for me here. Again, I cannot think of one single highlight of the past few weeks, so I will make a little ‘best-of’ list –in no particular order:

- We flew down to Cape Town where we spent some time on some extremely windy beaches, drove through some absolutely gorgeous countryside in vineyard country, walked to the infamous ‘Cape Point’ which was so beautiful but again, very windy, and the females climbed Table Mountain in record time, battling gale-force winds that prevented even the cable-car from ascent. We also spent some time around the city-centre which was very nice but very touristy. I felt more like I was walking around the streets of Europe because of the abundance of patio cafes, cobblestones and French and German people everywhere you turned.

- The second week of January was a big Menno-retreat near Port Shepstone (about 1 hour South of Durban). I got rejuvenated singing some solid blue Hymnal hymns, having some harmonica jam-sessions, playing soccer and ultimate Frisbee, and splashing around the swimming pool. Meeting and reconnecting with people from throughout South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland was very interesting and was a highlight of the week.

- We spent one day going on a tour of some townships around Durban. My friend, Myrie, - a Maasai warrior who walked from Kenya to Cape Town five years ago – and his friend Umhlongo showed us some very interesting sites. From tasting cow tongue and stomach, to visiting Ghandi’s place of residence for 21 years, to visiting the church of Shembe, to stopping in for some cool drink at a house of complete strangers, the tour was very interesting and eye-opening. Even though apartheid was abolished 15 years ago, the races are still very segregated and live in specific areas (or townships) around the city. The Zulu township of Umlazi is the second biggest in all of South Africa. It has its own fairly large university, many schools, two radio stations, a centre for performing/visual arts and many up-scale houses. There is still, however, an abundance of poverty within the townships. Another one we visited, Inanda, was characterized by houses made of everything from spare pieces of plywood, to sticks, mud, tin and cardboard.

The land of diversity that is South Africa continues to reveal its stark dichotomies.

Hallelujah

It was a typically noisy afternoon in the crèche - the children had all awaken from their slumber and were once again renewed with the energy that only a 4 year old can exhibit unfailingly each and every day. As I was trying to play damage control, a small boy came up to me and asked if I could tie this piece of fabric around his neck, I asked “Like a super-hero?” and he said, “No, like a preacher.”

After fastening his preacher apparel I thought little of it and went back to attempting to maintain relative order elsewhere in the classroom.

Several minutes later I look over to the corner of the classroom and see about 10 little girls seated in two rows of chairs. Standing in front of them is the preacher boy, holding a wooden building block and shouting “HALLELUJAH!” while the church goers in the seats replied “AMEN!” The preacher repeats with extra vigor, “HALL-E-LU-JAH!” and the girls, “AMEN!”

This goes on for several minutes, until the next preacher is handed the ‘microphone’ and begins a new course of “HALLELUJAHs!” By this time the “Amens” from the girls in the church seats are growing increasingly less exuberant. How clever, the children have even managed to capture the differences in audience participation from the beginning to the end of a service 3 hour service.

Hallelujah

It was a typically noisy afternoon in the crèche - the children had all awaken from their slumber and were once again renewed with the energy that only a 4 year old can exhibit unfailingly each and every day. As I was trying to play damage control, a small boy came up to me and asked if I could tie this piece of fabric around his neck, I asked “Like a super-hero?” and he said, “No, like a preacher.”

After fastening his preacher apparel I thought little of it and went back to attempting to maintain relative order elsewhere in the classroom.

Several minutes later I look over to the corner of the classroom and see about 10 little girls seated in two rows of chairs. Standing in front of them is the preacher boy, holding a wooden building block and shouting “HALLELUJAH!” while the church goers in the seats replied “AMEN!” The preacher repeats with extra vigor, “HALL-E-LU-JAH!” and the girls, “AMEN!”

This goes on for several minutes, until the next preacher is handed the ‘microphone’ and begins a new course of “HALLELUJAHs!” By this time the “Amens” from the girls in the church seats are growing increasingly less exuberant. How clever, the children have even managed to capture the differences in audience participation from the beginning to the end of a service 3 hour service.

A 'Sound-of-Music-esque' picture from the hike in the Central Drakensberg

Highlight Reel

Since exactly 3 months have passed since I have arrived here in South Africa, I will share a little highlight reel, if you will, because my entries here are limited and I owe all my adoring fans at least a little something to keep them at bay. Me being a ridiculously indecisive person at times, I will not put them in any particular order, but it will be more of a mélange of random events – more how I roll.

14 - Lesotho: With the sun setting over the wooden goalposts on the dirt soccer field in Lesotho, passersby joining in our game of pass, cows lowing in the distance and the scent of freshly fried ‘Fat Cakes’ I was in my element in the rural country of Lesotho. All us SALTers spent about 1 week in Lesotho attending the biggest cultural festival in the country. We met some incredibly ambitious and bright individuals with some awesome stories of hope. We also got to taste a hint of life in Lesotho – which I absolutely love. Life is relaxed, people are super friendly, there is an abundance of cows, mountains, rondovals and gorgeous views.

587 – Drakensburg: I went on a weekend, 2 night hike, in the Central Drakensburg. It was an incredible experience with views that I cannot even begin to describe in words, so I will not even try. Everything from sliding down natural waterslides in the rock, yelling with/at the Baboons, seeing a herd of Eland, sleeping in a cave for 2 nights, and witnessing a huge monstrous and exciting thunderstorm. A ‘lekker’ weekend with many ‘kiff’ views.

29 – Street Kids Festival: One of my co-workers in the crèche – Sandra the white South African teacher – has pretty much the most contacts in the world and got involved in this Street Children’s Festival that her friend was organizing. Youth homelessness is a huge problem Durban’s city centre – my walk to work every day passes many of these children. The purpose of the festival was to honor the children for the day, help restore their dignity, and show them they are worthy and courageous – many have been living on the streets since they were 10 yrs old. I helped to serve eggs, bread, sausage, fruit, juice and milk to 500 children and some adults. The rest of the day had music, performances, sports and a lunch was served. Shirts were given out to each of the kids, and I see them all around town wearing them proudly. It was a really interesting event to be a part of.

98 – Getting Peed on 2 times, puked on once: At work I have gotten peed on the foot and a full on puddle on my pants. I have also got my foot vomited on by a child. These may seem purely gross, but alas there can always be good found in the most unpleasant situations. After getting peed on I had no change of clothes so a co-worker of mine “borrowed me” her African skirt (that is really just a big piece of fabric). After much time spent with ladies trying it on/attempting to keep it up by myself I had myself a new look. All the ladies thoroughly enjoyed a white person wearing such an outfit, and laughed a lot. I had to go to the store and I got so many stares, being a white person walking through Zulu-land, wearing a traditional Congolese skirt and an Old Navy tank top.

6998 – Day at the beach with the kids: One Friday me and a lady from the crèche decided that the three to five-year-olds should be taken to the beach. This seems like a relatively simple concept, however the task is ridiculously daunting and I do not recommend it. All that can be said about 40 children and about 8 adults walking to the beach and spending the morning there and walking back, is that they all made it back alive: therefore, it was a success. Although it exhausted all the adults, the kids absolutely loved it. They spend 5 or 6 days a week in the third floor of an apartment building (the crèche) with very limited space to run around in, and this group had never ventured on a field trip before.

68 – Music week at work: This week we were learning about music at the crèche. The Zulu cleaning lady got out this drum and started playing/singing some hymns. Lots of the children were dancing around having an awesome time – as was I. She tried to teach us some of the dance moves – we all had a fabulous time. The next morning I walked into work to see two boys banging on overturned boxes and some girls around them doing the dance moves from the previous day.

7905 – Aerobics Routine: I got to the flat one day last week and my oldest host-sister , Sandrine, commented “I feel like working out. I have so much energy.” No more needed to be said. I immediately turned to my “work it out” playlist, cranked the volume and did a kick-bum aerobics routine with my siblings and some of their friends. It ended with a “crump circle” where people went into the middle to exhibit their skills. No one had too many – especially me. I also was told I don’t have enough hip-hop or house music on my computer.

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!”