Well, it has been quite a while since my last post. I have been busy with school, mostly trying to work on my Zulu. Last weekend I was home with my family in cato manor. On Friday night there was a braai for one of the girls in the program’s birthday, and I got intimate with several more of the local sausages that are specific to the region. I also tried Cane, which is a local vodka-like drink made from sugarcane, but different than white rum. It smells and tastes like straight rubbing alcohol. On Saturday I went to another girls birthday. Her family had braai’d some very tasty inkomo (cow), and I had my first taste of Zulu beer, or besiZulu. It is made from fermented sorgum and milk, and tastes kind of sweet and salty, with the consistency of thick cream. I cant say that I am too much of a fan, but the locals seem to love it.
This week was a little bit more stressful, our Zulu final was on Friday, and I spent the week studying for it. We had a written and an oral examination, and as I am (apparently) not very gifted with languages, Zulu has been a bit more trying for me. On Monday we had a great lecture with a man who has been highly involved in rural healthcare for the last 20 years. He spoke about some of the needs of rural healthcare, and about rural health practices.
On Tuesday I went to an NGO with a couple of other students. We went to the Hillcrest Aids Trust Center. It was an amazing place, the people there were simply incredible. It is a Methodist organization founded in the 1970s. This NGO was really cool in the holistic attitude that it took towards greeting HIV/AIDS as a community disease, helping those who were affected by aids as well as those who are living with it. The center does food distribution, support groups, home visits, help the families to raise gardens, and supports 350 families directly through facilitating access to world markets for their bead workers. They also have a hospice center that they built to support those patients whose families cant look after them, or have no families to care for them.
Friday was the Zulu final, which went on all day. Afterwardson we headed into town for a weekend out. Friday night we had a mixer with a few of the medical students from the local university, which was fun. We braai’d and mingled, and talked, and afterwards headed to a club called 80’s. Saturday I went to the beach, swam in the Indian ocean and built a pretty cool sand castle. I got a touch of sunburn, and went out for pizza for lunch. Afterwards, a bunch of us caught a taxi to the Sharks stadium, where there was a professional rugby game. It was great to get to some sporting events, and the Sharks won, which made it even better! From the game I went with some friends to dinner at a thai restaurant. I had some tasty Pad Thai (not quite as good as Ring of Fire, but you cant have everything) and went back to our hostel. Later that evening I got dragged to another club, the Mansion. It was quite different from 80’s more a young black professionals club, but it was pretty nice.
Sunday I came back home to Cato and went to a traditional wedding. It was different than I expected, it took forever and there was lots of drinking of zulu beer. I talked to old zulu men for about 4 hours, and watched them slaughter the traditional wedding goat. Eventually I got hungry and walked home (the food was taking forever, they call it “African Time” here, if something is done within an hour of when it is supposed to it is incredible) I fell asleep at home, got up for dinner, and then went to bed again. All in all, a good weekend. This week is going to be a little bit more relaxed hopefully, it is Heritage Day on Thursday, so there is no school and we are going to the beach with our families.
Until next time,
Sala Kashe
-Ben
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