25 May 2006
25 May 2006
Well, another two weeks have whizzed by us…and we are now on the entrance to June. Everyone knows what June means. More vacation beginning the 20 something of June!!! The past two weeks continued to be interesting to say the least.
The lobola party was exciting to say the least. The family got the payment and clothes and food and livestock…and we proceeded to eat 2 or 3 sheep on Sunday. I was part of the malome (Setswana for the eldest uncle who plays the important role in the payment of the lobola) which is the men! I consider myself a man’s man but even I was out of place. For the lobola party, the men and women eat separately – I don’t know why, it’s just tradition. So being a man and seeing as our host father wants us to experience the culture, I was out back with the men when the food was served. Let me talk about the food first…my gosh it was A LOT. 2 sheep and dombe (which is a traditional bread made over the cooking meat kind of like dumplings and my personal favorite) and I don’t even know how many pumpkins! When the food was ready the men circled up the chairs out in the back of the house and a giant bowl with the chest of the sheep and a mound of dombe are place in front of us. I sit there waiting for the plates to come out but everyone else starts clawing at this huge hunk of meat with their bare hands. So, being hungry I too dug in. The uncle next to me sees that I am not as ferocious as every else and asks if I am ok. Sure I am, I reply. Then he asks if I had brought a knife. Interesting question….but no I didn’t as I thought it would be included with the meal. But the host father stepped in and allowed me the use of his knife so I could get in there and (no not fight the others off) cut off some good chunks of meat. Suffice to say, I now know what lions are thinking when they are all standing over the kill!
This last weekend included a funeral. It is just the second we have attended but people have been dying all over the place in large number in my eyes. The village celebrates the life and then continues on. Sunday they buried a mother to four of the learners at our host school. One of the boys I play soccer with all the time and it is just sad to see these kids as orphans now. Our host mother may adopt one or two. We told her that we would be more than willing to give her some money to do so. I think $30-40 will feed one kid for a month (think about that).
In the land of our lives getting more bizarre, yet another step has been taken. Our host family is wealthy according to village standards, but they are still working on getting running water in the house as it is a big expense to get the well drilled and the water tank up. They have built a bathroom with a tub for when they do get water. Running water would be, for me, one of the first things get. NOPE. A family friend gave our host family her old TV. This TV has AV inputs on it so they can now hook up the DVD player along with the Playstation (our host brother left it at home when he came and visited at Chirstmas). Yes, I now can play Playstation but have to crap in a hole….bizzaro world.
Other than that, the bone chilling temperatures continue to persist. They say we are in a cold spell, I believe them. The nightly temperature when going to bed is around 45. And again…that is air temperature in the room. And bed time is like 9:30. I don’t know what the low is for the night but it takes a good 2 hours of sun to melt off the frost (frost in Africa….what the #$*%^#*$)! Good news is the days warm up to 60s and I get a lot of use out of those 3 long sleeve shirts! People keep telling us they have never seen it this cold…great! Boy, I miss central heating…or any heating for that matter.
Thabo
Well, another two weeks have whizzed by us…and we are now on the entrance to June. Everyone knows what June means. More vacation beginning the 20 something of June!!! The past two weeks continued to be interesting to say the least.
The lobola party was exciting to say the least. The family got the payment and clothes and food and livestock…and we proceeded to eat 2 or 3 sheep on Sunday. I was part of the malome (Setswana for the eldest uncle who plays the important role in the payment of the lobola) which is the men! I consider myself a man’s man but even I was out of place. For the lobola party, the men and women eat separately – I don’t know why, it’s just tradition. So being a man and seeing as our host father wants us to experience the culture, I was out back with the men when the food was served. Let me talk about the food first…my gosh it was A LOT. 2 sheep and dombe (which is a traditional bread made over the cooking meat kind of like dumplings and my personal favorite) and I don’t even know how many pumpkins! When the food was ready the men circled up the chairs out in the back of the house and a giant bowl with the chest of the sheep and a mound of dombe are place in front of us. I sit there waiting for the plates to come out but everyone else starts clawing at this huge hunk of meat with their bare hands. So, being hungry I too dug in. The uncle next to me sees that I am not as ferocious as every else and asks if I am ok. Sure I am, I reply. Then he asks if I had brought a knife. Interesting question….but no I didn’t as I thought it would be included with the meal. But the host father stepped in and allowed me the use of his knife so I could get in there and (no not fight the others off) cut off some good chunks of meat. Suffice to say, I now know what lions are thinking when they are all standing over the kill!
This last weekend included a funeral. It is just the second we have attended but people have been dying all over the place in large number in my eyes. The village celebrates the life and then continues on. Sunday they buried a mother to four of the learners at our host school. One of the boys I play soccer with all the time and it is just sad to see these kids as orphans now. Our host mother may adopt one or two. We told her that we would be more than willing to give her some money to do so. I think $30-40 will feed one kid for a month (think about that).
In the land of our lives getting more bizarre, yet another step has been taken. Our host family is wealthy according to village standards, but they are still working on getting running water in the house as it is a big expense to get the well drilled and the water tank up. They have built a bathroom with a tub for when they do get water. Running water would be, for me, one of the first things get. NOPE. A family friend gave our host family her old TV. This TV has AV inputs on it so they can now hook up the DVD player along with the Playstation (our host brother left it at home when he came and visited at Chirstmas). Yes, I now can play Playstation but have to crap in a hole….bizzaro world.
Other than that, the bone chilling temperatures continue to persist. They say we are in a cold spell, I believe them. The nightly temperature when going to bed is around 45. And again…that is air temperature in the room. And bed time is like 9:30. I don’t know what the low is for the night but it takes a good 2 hours of sun to melt off the frost (frost in Africa….what the #$*%^#*$)! Good news is the days warm up to 60s and I get a lot of use out of those 3 long sleeve shirts! People keep telling us they have never seen it this cold…great! Boy, I miss central heating…or any heating for that matter.
Thabo
posted by aliberatinsa at 1:30 AM
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