My second round of rural homestays was pretty awesome. I went to Impendle, back in the Drakensburg Mountains. I stayed in a larger house with Karthik, our homestay mama, and our little sister who was about 5, who was mama’s grandchild. The first day we got there, we went to bed at about 7.30 when mama went to bed. The next morning we were woken up at 5AM by mama, who bustled into our room and gave us coffee. We had a huge farm breakfast of egg sandwiches and porridge, and headed out to start our day. We went and met our co-ordinator for the weekend. She was a hippie American lady in her late 20s who kind of came to South Africa about 7 years ago and never left. She took us to plant some trees at a school, thinking that it would be a great community building experience. We split into groups and I ended up at a high school, digging holes for peach trees while the students watched. I did some serious manual labor digging tree holes, and was rewarded with a nice set of blisters (they don’t use gloves here when using pickaxes).
The students did help when we started planting some veggie seedlings into the ground, which was nice. We then headed to a primary school and saw the students do a fantastic traditional dance routine. Afterwards we headed to lunch and saw some more dancers. We got back home at about 5 and I was so tired that I slept until dinner at 7.
The next day, we headed to a series of lectures at a local clinic. We heard from a community volunteer and the head nurse of the clinic, both talking about their work in the community. Afterwards we talked to a Sagoma (traditional healer) in her practice and heard about some of her work and what she treats in the community. She actually records the patients that she treats, and shares her logs with the nearby clinic. She also refers patients to the clinic, and was very adiment that traditional healers needed to work with western doctors and clinics.
We were then taken to some crafters in the area, which got uncomfortable. They toted out all of their wares and no one really wanted to buy anything or had much money on them, so we just kind of stood there and all looked at each other. They also had increased the prices drastically for our arrival. We then went to visit the commune where Sam (the hippie lady) lives. It was just like being home in Eugene for the afternoon.
I thought that Sams role in this community was very interesting. She had lived there for a while, and was attempting to do good in the community, but she didn’t really seem to have a great interaction with the community or important community members such as the inkosi (chief).
We came back to Durban on Thursday and moved into a set of flats right on the beach. The view is amazing, and the beach is fantastic. The weekend has been spent trying to figure out my study project for the next month, and finishing up other various assignments that are all due within the next few days.
On Sunday, however, I did get out to a wonderful market, where I walked around and looked around. I found some really nice wood carvings and some other cool stuff. This week should be pretty hectic, everything seems to be coming down to the wire school-wise.
Wish me luck!
Sala Kashe,
-Ben
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