Ohwebede - The Rural Areas and More

Its been such a long time since I posted, I am really sorry but there was zero access during my rural homestay and then it was Yom Kippur on which I felt like I could not post. Anyway, I will try to catch all you avid readers out there up on what has been happening in my adventure here. 

  Let me begin my telling you a bit about my family in the rural area.  Also, when I say rural I mean we had about 5 chickens and electricity (luckily, I guess).  You could see about 50 other homesteads if you stood on the ridge near where I lived.  (Again, ask for visuals when I get home – sorry).  We had a western style home with two bedrooms, a kitchen, living room and a bathroom.  There was no running water though, so the toilet, and bathtub did not work.  We collected the water in buckets that were filled by pipes connecting to the gutter.  When it rained there was a lot of water, presumably, in the drier times of year they went to a somewhat distant water tap provided by the state.   I had a mother in her 50s, Mavis, with a grown daughter, Lucia or Lulu, who had two children of her own.  They were both boys, one about 2 and the other around 7. I am not so good with ages but I hope that was moderately accurate.  There was a brother named Wanda who was 17 and another sister who I thought was younger but it turned out she was also 17.  It was unclear to me if they were children of Mavis or Lulu.  There were no fully grown men in the house, Mavis’s husband had passed away in the last 5 years and he was buried with a beautiful monument in the yard.  Along with his grave there were also two Zulu huts. These huts had thatched roofs and round bodies.  One was used for storage and cooking any items that took a long time, because we could cook them over a log fire and, I assume, save electricity.  The other hut was for interacting with the ancestors inside and no one could wear there shoes in there. There was also a shack that functioned as a chicken coup and a pit latrine. 

 

On Sunday of the first weekend, we went to our family’s church.  It was a Salvation Army church and they welcomed us wonderfully talking about how we were a gift from God.  They even translated much of the service into English for us.  Everyone wore a uniform.  It was cool.  There we saw some other students from our program who lived across the way and were staying with relatives of ours.  They told us they were going to attend a traditional celebration, after much ado we were told we could come too.  Eventually we made it, after riding in the back of a pickup truck filled with people.  We came to a huge clearing – inside were women dancing and soon a procession began to walk in.  it later became clear we were at an engagement celebration of sorts.  There are many traditional processes to a Zulu wedding procedure and one is where the bride and grooms’ families exchange gifts – that’s what we were watching.  There was a lot of dancing – both of men and women.  There was also a lot of drinking Zulu Beer – a milky beer brewed in people’s homes for these traditional occasions and maybe at other times too – I don’t know.  Just a few highlights, because I see how long this is getting.  The women were wearing only skirts – if they were virginal women, but the bride was a also wearing a bra and a beautiful hat and holding an umbrella.  For a portion of the dancing, the women would come up to specific individuals with traditional spears and put them into the ground in front of a person.  This was the sign that the specified individual was supposed to go up to the bridge and pin money onto her outfit or deposit some coins at her feet.  As white Americans we were, I assume, targeted to do this because of our perceived wealth.  Some of us had been warned that this implied we were supposed to dance into the circle and deposit the money – so we did.  Later all different women’s groups from the families’ respective churches danced in to give gifts of blankets to the family elders.  Also many men danced with spears at intervals I could not really understand.  Also we got to meet the area’s chief, he was a little tipsy. 

 

 On Monday, we went to meet with a traditional healer.  He, through a translator who was also our spunky female contact and coordinator in the area, we learned all about inyangas.  He talked about being called to his profession and how many healers specialize.  He also clarified the differences between his role, one which is traditionally male and deals with the herbal elements of healing.  In contrast to a sanguoma, traditionally a job for women, and a role of more determining what is wrong and then recommending the appropriate specialist – much like a western family practitioner.  That was really cool, then we looked at some developmental attempts to create clinics and spread information about basic nutrition as well as HIV/AIDS and TB prevention. 

 

Tuesday, we again saw the chief – apparently we were a very lucky group – when we went to visit the tribal court.  We got to see the court being presented a development idea by an outside company.  To enter we had to wear skirts as women, but there were women who served on the court and two host fathers for other students were headmen – indunas – for the court as well.  It was very interesting to see how the development was pitched.  The land of Ohwebede is right on the water and a very tempting place for development.  The companies must ask the tribal authority for they are the ones with the power to parcel out the land, although there is a government commissioner with many other powers in the area.  In our area particularly in KwaZulu Natal province the IFP (another political party) is steeped in the rural grassroots power structure but the ANC appoints the commissioners as the majority party in the national and provincial parliament  - this leads to interesting tensions. 

 

Wednesday, we went to a school that was a success story.  Rural schooling is often a nightmare with students walking kilometers to attend in rain or shine and often without food from home to sustain them.  Also the language of instruction in most rural KZN schools is English even though it is constitutional right to receive schooling in any language you request as well as the fact that most teachers do not speak English as a first language either.  I ended up helping teach my host brother some biology that his teacher seemed unable to explain one night. The schools have pit latrines and struggle with all sorts of other infrastructural problems.  Another major challenge is the attitude around schooling portrayed by the previous generation.  The children of the 1980s chanted ‘liberation before education’ in the face of apartheid’s oppression and many now live on government grants.  If they are succeeding to some degree without education and cannot help their children with homework nor even, in some cases, explain why it will help with their future when a GD helps so little in the scheme of landing a job, schooling seems not to be delivering on all its promises of life betterment. 

 

Thursday, we went to a prison.  It was a small, rural prison with only a few hundred male inmates.  We got to work with an organization called Phoenix started by some Quakers that works to reconcile the inmates with their families and society as they move toward the date of their release. We split into groups and all had different conversations with the men about families, parenting, relationships etc. The day was a bit hectic but definitely moving for a lot of people and a really cool opportunity.  I liked learning about the prison system and how it is struggling in South Africa, not that I know too much about the US prison system, but for those who did I bet it was a really interesting comparison.  Later we got to speak with the director of Phoenix and see an art gallery.  There were pieces done by prisoners in conjunction with phoenix and their facilitators.  Most of the facilitators are themselves previous inmates which is very unusual in most societies and also in SA. While in the prison, many of the inmates asked to put on a musical performance.  Much like the men in the shack settlement, they danced while singing a cappella in a ‘cat’ like style and later incorporated the traditional Zulu high kicks ( I can show videos when I get home) that had also been done at the engagement ceremony.  The men sang songs asking for forgiveness form society as well as other political things, one was all about the coming of Jacob Zuma and how we will help the country.  

 

On Friday, we took a Zulu test – both written and oral.  It was fine, but it had rained the entire night before. So it was a muddy and wet walk to school as it continued to rain. We tried to get picked up because of the students near where we lived didn’t want to walk, but the bus got stuck and we ended up having to walk.  So besides the students all getting there late, the tutors and professor got stuck in Durban traffic and so the whole day ran about 3 hours late.  After a couple hours of testing, 1 for written and every student got about 5 minutes of oral testing.  We went to an orphanage run by the women who had been also catering our lunches.  We went to the orphanage for a celebratory lunch including an ice cream, yogurt, custard and fruit dessert.  Dessert is a major rarity in both our homestays so far so I was very excited.  Then the children in the orphanage did a dance performance similar to the engagement party as well as the high kicking done the prisoners.  Basically to dance to the beat until there are louder bangs in the rhythm for which you kick your leg up over your head and bring it down with great force.  After they danced for us, they wanted us to try and many of us (including me) tried to do it for a bit – again ask when I return and hopefully I will have the video.  It was really Fun! A lot of the boys in the orphanage played soccer with those who did not want to learn to dance or play the accompanying drum.  But since the whole day ran late, we got home very late and some parents were worried, but eventually we all got home and ate. 

 

The weekend was cool we went to a Zionist church ceremony of the installation of a new priest and also played hand games with the girls and our sister next door.  It was cool and so fun!

 

On Monday morning, we went to the mall (a big deal and the center of much of society in SA) to have lunch and then eventually to the game park hostel.  Before we got there we saw some examples of successful of rural developments and not so successful ones.  We went around with Blessing - the man who will run the development focus study in a week or so. 

 

Anyway, on to the exciting game park safari!  Pictures, obviously, when I get back – just ask! We saw giraffes, rhinos, these crazy huge and apparently very dangerous buffalo. We also saw warthogs as well as other really cool gazelle type creatures called inyala and impala.  It was so cool! There were also eagles and other beautiful trees. Later, after some free time for lunch, we went on a hippo boat thing and saw tons of hippos and a few crocodiles.  They are apparently more rare at this time of year because they are raising their young but we saw some of them and it was awesome! Between the two locations, the game park and the hippo boat ride location.  Our bus broke down and so a few of us had to ride on the safari car to the next town over.  It was a crazy ride, there were no sides to the car and it was really cold but we put on blankets.  Unfortunately, one of the girls fell asleep on the ride and dropped her glasses out the back.  It was really sad for her.  But the ride was ridiculous and something I likely will never do again!

 

More has happened but I think I will write about it another time, because this is so much so take in at once.