Hiking and Gwexintaba!

The first one is me and Laura at the edge of the continent of our hike. Thats the Indian Ocean...pretty sweet huh. The next is a hut in Gwexintaba. Not the one i slept in or even part of the series of huts my family lived in, but the same idea. They are clay with thatched roofs. The last is the 5th largest waterfall is ZA. This isnt the best shot, but it was in the right directions already. It goes down for forever and the view on the right side of the shot continues forever as well. Amazing!!

Gwexintaba-- I Couldnt make this stuff up if i tried

I'm going to make this beginning of this one quick, although it deserves more detail, so I can tell you all about the village, which was incredible:
Ok, so we stayed in a backpackers made up of huts for the first two nights. We braiied the first night. Then we went on an amazing hike through plains, to the edge of the continent. First we went to a cliff on the edge of the Indian ocean, then hiked over a small waterfall and river, to a waterfall that empties into the Indian ocean. Then we went swimming in the river we had passed earlier. On our way back we passed people heading to the ocean to look for a woman who had been musseling and pulled in to the water and had not been seen.
OK, the ridiculous part, on Sunday we started to head for the village with a few peoples stomachs unsettled, but the rain had made it impossible to get to this village (all dirt roads and very hilly) So instead we headed for a hostel nearby, and by near by i mean 2 hours our of the way. At the packbacker we enjoyed some karaoke and a very buggy night. I went to bed, woke up to one of my roomates vomiting, at which point i went to check on her. Another one of my roomates also came to check, then passed out, broke the door on her fall and started shaking. We called the director shed come to by the time he came, and I had checked her vital signs and her pupils. She seemed ok. terrifying though, I then tried to get some sleep but was continously woken up to one by one people heading to the toilet to vomit, and out the other end as well. Yeah, absurd I know. We think it may have been the water, were not sure though.
ok so only 10 of us out of a group of 22 ended up going to the village it is truly in the middle of no where and i understand why we didnt try to make it through these roads in the rain. We get to the village and take a tour and get to see the 5th largest water fall in south Africa, it was unreal, i didnt get to close to the edge for fear of falling over with nothing to catch me, but it went down and down for forever, then we dropped out stuff off with our host families. Then we went back to the house the assistant director of the program was staying in, it belings to some hippie from jo'berg who moved to this village when we got divorced 3 years ago, he wasnt there though. The director then left, and thats when i got really sick, which sucked. a band played some songs for us in Panda which is a mix of Xhosa and Zulu, most of which i spent going back and forth to the outhouse. awesome. We stayed in pairs at our homestays cause the men can be kinda sketchy in the rural places i guess. My friend sara and i had the most amazing host mom, she was hilarious. they speak xhosa and we speak english and we both speak a tiny bit of zulu so communicating was really hard, but this woman just laughed and laughed whenever there was a misunderstanding. And so we just laughed and laughed. It was such an awesome way to deal with the awkwardness. We watched her make corn in the cooking hut, and then moved with her to the eating hut, where we had cabbage and squash and beans and amazin bread. There were these baby goats that were running around inside the hut and we spent part of the deal with goats between our legs. There were also chickens everywhere. We did a pretty good job understand each other using zulu and the mama and her neice taught us some xhosa too. At one point after finding out that our ages were 21 and 20, the mama turned to us and asked us, "Why you so big (looking at sarah) and you so small." sarah by the way is not very big, which apparently means i am very small. o well. Oh, for the beginning of the night is was the mama, and her niece. Later the mamas husband showed up for a while during dinner, and her 12 year old son. The husband didnt stick around for long, but then Aunti as the mama was refered to by everyone, her niece and her son, helped us find our way from the eating hut to the hut we slept in. I've never seen so many stars in my entire life. EVER, it was unreal. Once we got to the sleeping hut, aunti, who was a dancer at ceremonies in the village, pulled out a knit skirt with bells on it and put it on and danced for us. Then she put the skirt on me and taught me how to dance. she then pulled out the beads she used to wear when dancing and put them all on me and showed me how i looked in a shard of mirror. Then when she took them off of me she handed me one and insisted I take it. its beautiful!! and such a cool gesture, and a memory of my dance lesson! Then they asked us to get ready for bed, which was a whole fiasco because we werent sure if only sarah and i were staying in the hut or if we all were, and then didnt look like they were sleeping there, but they also made no movements to leave, so sarah and i put boxers on under our skirts and then took our skirts off and got into our sleeping bags, and which point, the neice, who was fascinated by our sleeping bags zipped us alllllll the way up, and then down, and then up again. Then aunti pulled a bucket into the middle of the room, stood over it and pretended to pee, and laugh hysterically indicated it was used for if you needed to pee in the middle of the night. Sarah went to use the outhouse, and so she pulled out her flashlight, which also created entertainment for a while. Then they left, there were beds in the eating hut that i think they used for the night, and even that is fancy, most families have a sleeping hut where everyone in the family sleeps on the floor. We woke up the next mroning to a very insistant rooster at 6, and aunti prepared us a bucket of hot water for bathing. She was very pleased to see me wearing the necklace. She walked us part way down to the hippies hut and her son walked us the rest of the way. They were so wonderful and I wish I could have spent more time with them and felt 100 percent.
For all its ridiculousness I couldnt make this stuff up if i tried... sorry that one is so long, but ive already left out so much, overall it was an amazing weekends, with some of the biggest highs and biggest lows. Hope all is well stateside, I miss you all!

Happy Valentines Day (be back tues)

Mawube nosuku oluhle iwezithandani! (Happy Valentines Day) I'm leaving tomorrow for the Eastern Cape. Its a five hour drive there, and then were camping out, hiking all day saturday and then staying with a host stay families in a local village for two nights. We will meet a sangoma (a traditional healer). I'm excited to get out of the SIT house, and this trip will be a good way to see if I want to do a rural or urban independent study project for the last month of the program. This is the most rural trip we will do, dung floors etc. The government did put in long drop tiolets (essentially crummy outhouses) though apparently some are overflowing (great visual huh) and others are used for storing pots and pans and not used at toilets. We shall see I think the language here is Xhosa, dont try to say it it has a click in it, which means my zulu wont be very helpful. It will most likley be a weekend with lots of time to catch up on work and spend way to much time thinking about life. Well, you can reach me on my ZA cell phone, and I should be online for a bit tomorrow morning usual time (1250 am your time) for a bit before we depart. Hope you all have a wonderful Valentines day. I already recieved a beautiful beaded bracelet from my Mama and a beautiful card from my real mama. Well, be back Tuesday...hambani kahle

A Picture!!(the kids next store)

Back to class!

Hi all, so I checked out dougs blog today an mine is infinitely less cool, and lacks pictures!! Sorry! Not totally my fault though, South Africa has really limited access to internet, so its incredibly slow, so downloading pictures takes years. Also, having a camera with you is asking to get mugged, so yeah. I did take some great pictures of the kids next store, but for know you'll have to imagine them.
The weekend was good On friday we went to stay at a hostel in downtown durban, it was a pretty nice hostel. I stayed in a room with 10 other girls from the program. At night we went out of the town. My, katie, molly and aiden went to a mexican resturant and had a quite large pitcher of margarita and lots and lots of nachos. The next morning we checked out an apartment to move into after we are done living with are homestays families, for our independent research projects. Beautiful!! on the water!! and with good access to buses etc, to get to work.
Im not sure if Ive said this yet, but I want to be working for a mobile clinic that tests and treats HIV/AIDS. Not sure yet if this will be a rural clinic or an urban clinic. Its all very up in the air now.
I cooked dinner for my mama on sunday, good ol baked mac and cheese, she loved it, infact she woke up early this morning and finished it.
So now I'm back at school and my homestay and staying there until Friday, when we take a 5 hour hike to the Eastern Cape, we'll then hike all day Sayturday, and then live in rural homestays until Tuesday, when we head back to our usual homestays in Cato Manor. Time for Class, more soon!

Out for the Weekend

I have to make this quick, were on our way to the university of kwazulu natal for a lecture, and then we get a night out in downtown Durban. The township were staying in is not near downtown, and not a safe place to walk around at night, so tonight we are staying at a hostel near the resturants and night clubs. I wanted to tell you about the school, but I have to go!! More about the school later

Weekend in Cato Manor

Sanibonani!! Ok so I spent the weekend with my host family. My mama is very quiet, but I've learned that if I go out in the neighborhood their are plenty of kids to play with. Bubbles are particularly popular, and kids will spend however long your willing to blow bubbles for, popping them. I also learned stones from some little girls next stone, its similar to jacks. you throw a stone in the air, and before you catch it, you remove as many stones from a circle as you can, then you throw the stone again and before you catch it, you put all but one stone back. If you do this successfully you get to keep that stone and go again...I failed to do this successfully most of the time. Life at home is SUPER quiet, but at least I've been doing all my homework :) It seems like some of the other Mamas are more chatty with their students, but eh, I'm well feed, lots of beets latley, but im almost learning to like them. We are all celebrities in the neighborhood, and we can't go anywhere without people waving and laughing at our zulu. On Wednesday we are going to visit special needs schools. the one I am visiting is for junior high school age kids that are physically handicapped. Then on friday we are staying at a hostel in downtown durban to blow off some steam and go out for a drink and maybe some beach time Saturday, before returning to Cato Manor which is pretty isolated, and not much is safely in walking distance for the rest of the weekend. The following weekend we are going for a five hour hike, and then staying in a remote village (dung floors etc.) I'm excited for the experience, and the hiking. I won't get ahead of myself. For now I have a week of pretty intense class at temperatures that feel around 95-98. Part of me feels like I missing out on some of the culture others are getting in their actual homes by having conversations in their homes, that seem rather forced (on my part) but there are always kids playing outside. I have a test tomorrow on South African health demographics...should be fun. Hmmm, can't think of anything else. Here's a new zulu word for you: I love you...Ngikuthanda. the n is silent well sort of, and the th sounds like a t. More, when more happens...I miss you all! Oh a quick history of cato manor. It was originally land designated to the Indian population who rented it to blacks who couldnt own their own land, then they were kicked out of the area and it remained vacant until independence in 1994 when blacks moved back to reclaim it, as all the violence that happened here during apartheid have made it famous...thats the simple version its vastly more complex and actually involves raging violence over beer...all that for another time :) -hamba kahle!