This should go a bit faster! Friday we got up and headed back to the school. The kids came in and got right to work. Digging, digging, digging. Sometimes in their enthusiasm they dug up onions that were left there from the old garden. Ah well…. I forgot to mention, there is a bit of an age range. They are all grade 6, but the kids that live further out have a long walk to school so they start a couple years later.

After class we headed home, and I relaxed a little bit. I’ve been reading Nelson Mandela’s Long Road to Freedom, which has been awesome to read while I’m here. In addition to it being a great book, it’s been nice to learn more about some of the history of the country I’m in. So I read a bit.

The Headman came over to talk to Louie that afternoon, and it seemed like serious conversation (about the water pump among other things). I didn’t want to intrude and felt a little awkward, so I left to give them some privacy. I asked one of the other girls about it later, and she said in their culture they are used to having people around all the time, so it wasn’t really necessary. She said the best thing we could do would be to offer them something to drink, and go about business as usual. Live and learn!

Friday night was “movie night” at the house. Every Friday some of the kids from the village come over to watch a movie on Louie’s laptop. Tonight’s movie was The Gods Must Be Crazy. Which I found kind of – crazy! I hadn’t seen it in YEARS, but I remember it being more of an adults movie with kind of a strange sense of humor. But the kids found it hysterical! In fact, they find a lot of things hysterical. They laughed when the coke bottle fell from the sky and hit the guy on the head. They laughed when the people fought over the bottle. They laughed when the rebel terrorist guy did a lot of the things he did. I laughed because they laughed.

When the movie was over they treated us to a couple of songs. Their voices were beautiful, and some of them stomped their feet while they sang to create a rhythm section. I wish I could have recorded it but it was too dark, so I just enjoyed.

Saturday we got up in the morning to go with Louie while he cut some trees for the headman. After he cut them we used machetes (or bush knives as they called them) to peel the bark off the widest parts of the trunks. Louie took them back with us so he could flatten them as they dried and use them as wind breaks around the garden I think.

That afternoon some of the kids came over to play. We watched them hula hoop (which they love and are really good at), and then tried to play some softball. The kids didn’t really dig the softball rules. We started off on two teams with a bunch on the field, and a bunch waiting to hit. Slowly the team on the field got bored, and wandered over to join the guys waiting to hit. But what they really liked was to run, and at first preferred to run around all the bases after they hit the ball (whether they were “out” or not). Eventually they gave in and tried to follow the rules about when they had to stop etc, but I don’t think they had as much fun with that.

After that we built a fire, and some of the kids hung out to play drums and sing. These guys are so talented! And they’re just kids having fun!!!

Sunday Louie took us on a day trip to the beach. We put mattresses and blankets in the back of the bakkie (pick up), and headed out. On the way we came across some ladies doing laundry. Since they don’t have electric or piped water here they do the wash by hand in the river. So much of the time I’m unsure about whether or not it’s rude to take pictures so I miss a lot of the day to day things, but I got this one. They had to have been freezing!!

They must have gotten more tourists around this area, so I also got to see first-hand some of the not so nice effects of tourism. Instead of the kids just grinning and waving because they were fun and friendly, these kids happily yelled “sweets?” and held their hands out. Which I suppose was cute, but somehow seemed less purely innocent. It probably didn’t help that it was followed by a man who said that he was hungry, and asked for 2 rand to get something to eat – as he rubbed his giant pot belly….

Just another view along the way. By the way – it is freezing here!! My pajamas have merged with my clothes as I am too cold to change, and my general strategy is to pile on as many clothes as I can fit on top of each other. If you are thinking my body looks disproportionately large compared to my head in the pic below – it’s because of all the layers I have on.

After a long drive we got to an empty resort and walked down some stairs to the beach. It was completely empty, peaceful and absolutely stunning! Spent a couple of hours relaxing and then headed back, and made it home just after dark. In addition to it not really being safe after dark, there is one other practical matter – it’s hard to navigate the giant bumps in the dirt roads unless you know the area well.

Monday was uneventful. Tuesday Louie left to do some research on food forests, and permaculture farming. The idea behind a food forest pretty incredible. The principle is to learn from how natural forests develop – how to create fertile soil, the different types of plants, the order that they appear, and roles they play etc. A food forest uses that model, but with food bearing plants. The forest will largely maintain itself, and could last for years. This is a dream and long range goal of the project.

In the meantime we had the school garden that needed fertilizer before we could do much planting. We needed about two truck loads. Tuesday we headed to town for grocery shopping, and stopped at a couple different places along the way to see if we could get our hands on some shit. The guys headed into the first place we stopped, and came back out shortly after. No shit. Back in the bakkie and drove to the next place. Again, no shit. We drove on, not really sure what we were going to do. I sat there in the back of the truck, worried about where we could get the shit from. Then I thought – “When in my life have I given so much thought to shit?” What a new position for me to be in, that I was trying to obtain shit. And having difficulty. (By the way I normally wouldn’t use the word so liberally, but that’s what we were all saying. If you say it with an accent it kind of sounds pleasant.)

We brought some meat back from the grocery store and that night had a braai (BBQ). South African sausage is delicious! We also tried a trick we learned from a couple of guys that stopped over one night. Take a squash, cut it in half, put some chakalaka (a spicy condiment) in, put the two halves back together, wrap in tinfoil and then cook right on the fire. We were excited to try it, but must have used a little too much chakalaka because it was spiiiccccyyy. I had burning hiccups for about 15 minutes after that. Then a couple 18/19 year old guys came from the village and played music and hung around the fire with us. Again – great music!!! If the kids can sing and play well – just imagine these guys with years more practice.

Wednesday was my last day. Stefanie was going to be traveling on as well, so we would be leaving together the next day. It was freezing outside so Lisette generously suggested I stay inside and bake Xhosa bread. A couple of days earlier we had bought a loaf from one of the “Mamas”, and had I loved it. Kind of moist, and almost heavy. The girls wrote down the ingredients for me to mix, we let it rise for a couple of hours, then they helped me get a fire going so we could cook it. You cook it in a pot with a small fire underneath and a small fire over it. After a while they left me to man the fire. I’m not exactly experienced in fire maintenance so my little fires kept going out, and we had to let it cook longer than normal. When it was finally done we let it cool, and took off the lid – excited to see how it turned out. Unfortunately the bread split, and the top half came off attached to the lid. Shame. My first Xhosa bread came out mangled, slightly burned in some places and undercooked in others. In the middle was good though!

We woke up the next day, said goodbye to our friends, and Stephanie and I left for Port St. John.

Couple of notes to help tie some lose ends, or didn’t make it above and I don’t want to forget. Gwexintaba is in the Wild Coast/Transkei area in South Africa. Under apartheid policy of “separate development” this area was declared a Bantustan (area set aside for members of a certain ethnicity. In this case Xhosa speaking blacks). It operated as a separate “country” from 1963 – 1994, that no one in the world recognized except for South Africa. The leader for most of this time was Mandela’s nephew who essentially ruled as a dictator and squashed any form of opposition. This helped me to understand a little how the area could be so extremely impoverished and underdeveloped compared to other areas. It also helps to explain why there is still so much raw natural beauty.

– The people speak Xhosa (which includes a couple different clicking sounds in the language). Strong traditions including:
– It is customary for a groom to pay a bride price to the bride’s family. Usually in the form of livestock. Married women will cover their heads and wear long skirts. They have a tough life and work extremely hard – responsible for all aspects of maintaining the household, family, keeping their husband happy etc.
– The boys undergo a ceremony in their teens where they symbolically become men. They go for a long time (I think several weeks) into the bush, and stay in a temporary structure that is built just for this use. As part of the ceremony they are circumcised and taught how to be men.
– One tradition that is dying out is facial scarring. I think they used to do it to babies. I can’t find anything online that explains why.