10 December 2006

05 December 2006
Already December…and today was the last day of work for the year. YEAH! We are very excited about our trip. We venture out tomorrow to see Cape Town and the coast of South Africa.

The past week has been jammed packed with our host brother’s wedding. This wasn’t a few day affair. Preparations began months ago but they turned to full speed beginning last Monday, 27 Nov. There were a minimum of 15 people working about 15 hour days preparing for the coming home of the bride.

The beginning of the week involved finishing any projects that could be finished (did some grout work along with some tiling of the front steps) and extensive cleaning (the kind of cleaning that would bring even my mother to tears). There were woman everywhere cleaning everything in their path. As Saturday (wedding day) neared, so did the number of people. Part of the unwritten agreement is if you help with the preparations, there is a hot meal reward. So the giant cast iron pots were in use for a week, turning out huge amounts of food. To get all this food, meat was needed. You don’t get meat from a store here, you make it yourself. Thursday was slaughtering day. It started in the morning with a sheep. And then another sheep in the early afternoon. But the excitement was still on the way. A cow was on the menu. I was interested because slaughtering things smaller than you isn’t a problem seeing as you can hold it down. I was interested to see how things work for large animals.

Boy, I wasn’t disappointed. The cow was delivered in the back of a small pickup truck. Once arrived, the slaughtering began quickly for a couple of reasons. One being is the sun was setting fast and it is easier to butcher something with light & two, the man with the truck still had two more deliveries to make…a goat and a sheep. As the cow laid tied up, it was killed with a knife to the back of the neck.

Then about 10 men started the process of skinning, gutting, and section up this big boy. It was a lot more work that a sheep just because of the size…duh!? But highly fascinating. My knife sharpener (thanks UB&AN) was used a LOT because these old men helping have knives that I don’t think you could cut through butter with. But everyone worked on. When the knife or even the saw was too dull to make the grade, someone would grab a large dull axe and start wailing away on the carcass. Things don’t seem too amazing as much anymore. One of out host father’s favorite saying for the week was, “there is more than one way to skin a cat!” Oh so true in rural life.

Saturday finally came…after working until about 1am both previous night!? It was very exciting. The day starts with both families meeting in a room with the bride and groom. The parents are not allowed to talk and the aunts and uncles lecture the new couple about how to treat each other along with other life lessons. Once that is complete, the bride leaves again for her main entrance.

The way the ceremony starts is the bride and her family begin walking from several blocks away. The groom leaves his house with all his family. Both groups are singing songs and walking towards each other until they meet in the middle. Joining together, they then walk as one big family back to the groom’s home where the tent was setup and the ceremony was to commence. My favorite part was after they had finally met in the middle, and a song broke out with the lyrics something like, “Bride show me your figure”, at which point the groom would spin her around to loud screams. This was a traditional wedding and both the bride and groom were decked out in modern traditional dress. The bride was once again stunning.

The ceremony was nothing out of the ordinary. There was a short church service done by the local Father. Then several speeches by various friends and family. The service began about 11 with the tent filled with people. By 1, the tent was packed and overflowing with people and children from all over the village. People just take a while to get going and get to the party. There were probably 400+ people by the time the food was being served. The children were sent to the back of the house to be served and everyone had a delicious meal served by those dedicated men and women who had been running around all week preparing!

Following food was pictures at a park. Followed by a BBQ at the house. The party ended kind of early (10) due to the fact that all of the workers were walking zombies by the end of the day. But don’t worry, Sunday morning, 6:30 things were up and running and large amount of food was again being cooked. Sunday was cleanup day…as the house and yard was trashed from the party. So all the people that had spent a week preparing, take all day Sunday to clean up and reassemble the house as it was.

By Monday I was so tired I took two naps and still went to bed early. The wedding was a great success and a lot less chaotic to the other weddings that we have been to here. We had some guests as well, as an old friend of Andrea’s from high school and his wife (aka Erik and Rachel) came and joined us in the festivities. They are in SA for a few weeks of their around the world honeymoon (sounds like fun…they gave us some good advice!) They had some good timing to be able to join us for the wedding and it was fun to share all this craziness with them.

And today, the schools close for the year!!!!

Road Trip!!!
Thabo

Lots of Food means Lots of GIANT pots and lots of FIRE

Cow Head Anyone

Bride meeting the Groom on the streets of the village



The happy couple

Us and the African Parents

10 December 2006

29 November 2006

Happy Belated Thanksgiving to you all. I hope you got to celebrate with some loved ones and eat some good food. We got to do exactly that. All of Peace Corps South Africa was invited to Pretoria to celebrate with our new ambassador and his wife at their home – definitely a mansion by my current standards, and probably even my old ones. Their home is set up on top of a hill in a ritzy neighborhood with a great view of the city of Pretoria below, especially for those of us no longer used to hills. As he welcomed all of us, he gave us news that almost brought tears to my eyes. He said we deserved a traditional American dinner, and that they had even gone so far as to have Butterball turkeys and Kayro syrup (which doesn’t exist here) flown in from the US. He said he had been working with his Mozambiquan chef for the past few weeks to perfect pecan and pumpkin pies and things like stuffing and cranberry sauce. Then he told us to feel at home, go explore the house and the grounds, and pointed us in the direction of the two open bars. What a guy!! We thought it was going to be a large dinner for all the Embassy staff as well, but it turned out to be Peace Corps Volunteers and staff and a handful of others. We had a wonderful time, and ate until we were stuffed, and then had large platefuls of dessert. The pecan pie was to die for!! Thank god for Kayro syrup. When time was up, none of us wanted to leave – partly because it was a wonderful place with great food and free drinks, and partly because our stomachs were too full to move. Needless to say, it was a fabulous and very American experience, and we are forever indebted to this guy, even if he was appointed by Bush. :o)

We spent an extra day in Pretoria, allowing our stomachs to shrink back to normal size and using cheap internet and then headed home to our last full week of school. It’s a chaotic time, where teaching doesn’t exactly happen, but educators rush around trying to fill out last minute forms and report cards. The big happening in our life at the moment is the upcoming wedding #2 for our host brother. This Saturday, he will bring his bride home to her new family and they will basically have another wedding all over again, this time in our village. The number of people at our house increases daily as people come from near and far to help finish projects like tiling the front and back porches, cleaning EVERYTHING top to bottom, gathering all the giant cast iron pots from the neighbors along with enough firewood to keep them cooking for 3 days straight, and many other preparations. It’s organized chaos, and maybe not even so organized. I went to get a pitcher of water out of our family’s big water can yesterday, and instead came up with a pitcher of traditional beer. I can’t keep track of all the changes! We are also very excited to host my friend Erik from high school and his wife Rachel, who are in South Africa for part of a long honeymoon and are going to travel very far to visit us and experience this wedding chaos first hand.

I would like to say thanks to those of you who have sent us children’s books for our school’s libraries. We are keeping them all at our home for now, and plan to begin with the libraries next year. It is a project I am very excited about. I would just like to request that anyone else who wishes to send books does so by M-bag at the post office. We have had regular boxes sent and have had to pay LARGE fees to pick them up from the post office for whatever reason (customs and what not). And it’s cheaper for you, the sender, to send by M-bag as well – it’s $1/lb of books. Also, when they ask how much the books are worth, try to keep that amount small, especially if they’re used books, as we think the declared value has something to do with the amount we have to pay for pick up. Thanks!

Lastly I would like to give two quick shout-outs to friends at home. I have heard two pieces of happy news lately, so just wanted to say congrats to Katie H. on her engagement, and another congratulations to Andy & Colleen on their marriage. I wish you all the best.

Andrea


















The Spread

The Pad of the Ambassador....USA!