Weekend Update: Last Weekend in KwaZulu Natal!

Let’s start with Friday. On Friday I officially said goodbye to the Thandanani staff. I gave a presentation on Thandanani as an organization and what improvements I felt could be made—this included recommendations for new volunteers and staff members in the future [these were per the director’s request]. Then I went into the more personal impact my experience had on me, called “Lessons from Thandanani: Things I didn’t know to expect.” This included expecting friends, expecting family, expecting hardships, expecting changes, expecting the unexpected… overall, I tried to convey what I had learned and applaud them for the work that they do. I ended my presentation with a R3,000 [$400 USD] donation to Thandanani’s community projects in Snathing, where I had done the Umhlaba Wami workshops. Much of the donated money came from donations to the Umhlaba Wami program, so for those of you who contributed, thank you. :)


The staff responded with memories we shared, and positive words about me being there. I am leaving knowing that I actually made an impact, and very happy that I came. I really am going to miss the comfort and the friendships made, and especially the work that I was doing in the communities. Below you see a picture with most all of the staff at Thandanani that day… and you can see why they call me “the mlungu” [white person], despite the fact that I think my skin is pretty tan.

Agnes, a staff member at Thandanani, decided that she wanted to take me home that weekend. We went to her house in the township of Dambuza, where I had gone with her in the beginning of my stay to do Thandanani home visits with caregivers. The next night we went to Elanskop, a more rural township where her husband lives and a place where the frost bite of winter is even more apparent. I learned the ins and outs of fetching water and pit toilets, and how to cook Zulu food [pap, steamed bread (aka “dumplings), cow intestines, and cow stomach lining…. Yum?]. I also realized I had bathing troubles—in Indonesia [volunteered as an English teacher there, summer of 2006] things were quite easy as there is a bucket of water with a cup and you pour the water over you like a shower. The water splashes all over the floor and flows into the drain. In both places you warm the water up in the kettle so you have some hot water. But here, you actually stand in your bucket, and you are bathing in the middle of the bedroom, so you cannot splash all over the floor. Plus, it is a freezing cold 4-degrees Celsius… and you are standing unclothed in a bucket, desperately trying to figure out how to not splash on the floor while still managing to wash anything above your ankles.

On Sunday we went to Mthobisi’s house [another Thandanani staff member] for a function. Here is a way that not knowing about a culture can make you feel pretty stupid. A conversation with Mthobisi on Friday:
Brittan: Hey! I am going with Agnes and Jilleth to your party on Sunday!
Mtho: Really? That’s great, gal.
Brittan: So, what is it for exactly?
Mtho: It is my sister’s unveiling.
Brittan: So what is that? A coming of age party? Something to do with a wedding?
Mtho: No, no gal. My sister is coming home.
Brittan: Oh! So should I have an unveiling when I go back to the States? Yay! I get a party!
Mtho: What? No, no. Gal, you’re crazy.
Brittan: But I wanted a party. And I am coming home, too. So I should have an unveiling.
Mtho: No, an unveiling in my culture with a year after someone dies, you unveil their tombstone and slaughter a cow. My sister is dead, gal.
Brittan: Oh.
Yes, I felt stupid. Fortunately, we all laughed it off. Maybe I shouldn’t ask so many questions.

Mtho’s house was bulging with people when we got there on Sunday. Hundreds of people crammed into a tiny space, and on one side everyone seemed to be wearing lots of white. It is because her mom is Shembe, a very traditional Zulu religion, and they wear white—being Shembe is also why she had to have the celebration on Sunday [Father’s Day], because the Shembe do not work on Saturdays, and this would have included cooking. The Shembe women wear beautifully beaded white hats, and with so many of them around you cannot miss them. As they left, they danced away from the house with a guy playing a drum [practically made with duct tape, hitting it with an empty Coke bottle], and two girls in white playing a long horn, looking like an elongated metal vuvuzela [the Shembe claim they were the originators of the vuvuzela]. They kind of looked like the angel Moroni on top of LDS temples. The sound was simple, yet really awesome.

Unfortunately [or, perhaps fortunately] I missed the ceremonial stuff, which included the slaughtering of a cow. I watched a sheep get slaughtered at Thabani’s sister’s umbondo, but I didn’t know if I could handle a cow. But I ate the cow, and it tasted quite good. The room I was sitting in was next to the room that had the carved cow meat in there, and every time someone walked in and out of the door [which was every few seconds], I got a whiff of the raw meat smell. I couldn’t even feel sad for myself, because all this was happening in someone’s bedroom, and I have a feeling that their clothes and will smell of slaughtered cow for a very long time.

It was a good last weekend in KwaZulu Natal. I went to church that evening and said goodbye to everyone, except my Bible study group which I invited over for pizza on Wednesday. Ah! My last Sunday! This Friday I take a bus to Johannesburg, and a week later I am on a plane to America! Wow.


I know so many of you are itching for all the updates from my camping trip. Well… it will come in due time, but perhaps not until I get back to the States where I can sit in the library for hours on end and use their wireless internet to upload all the [bajillions] of photos.