Meatloaf Hops the Pond

Usually, we chow down on some variation of African curry with chicken (think mixed veggies, gravy, and chicken living in happy stovetop harmony) with pap (imagine if grits could be prepared in dry mashed potato form but be derived from corn) in Cato, but last night I got to play chef! I decided on meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and broccoli: the epitome of Midwest American fine cuisine. Everything turned out fantastically although I kept on confusing my family by refusing to call catsup tomato sauce. I even got my twelve year old sister to say that she liked the broccoli. (Whether that was truthful or not is another matter!)

Food in Cato is not done “family style” where everyone makes their own plate, but one person dishes in the kitchen and brings the food out to the rest of the family. I can’t tell how much of this is due to the fact that tables are actually coffee tables in living rooms (due to lack of space for separate seating) and how much of this is due to tradition. Either way, the disher (usually a younger member of the family) asks everyone else “how many spoons” they want to find out how hungry they are. (This led to much confusion on my part the first time I was asked.) The number of spoons is the number of (huge!) spoons of rice/pap/other starch you want on your plate and everyone gets roughly the same amount of curry after that. At first I was amazed at how much my family members ate (mama regularly gets 4-6 spoons which makes for a 3-dimensionally heaping plate), but have since realized that they don’t usually eat much during the day, so huge amounts of starch are good, cheap energy.

That aside aside (bad puns like these are the reason why I should not be allowed a blog), mama had about 4 spoons last night (and two pieces of meatloaf) and happily declared afterward, “That was good. I want more!” I think it was a success!

P.S. It was hilarious a) to see super American food sitting on the coffee table last night while we watched the news in Zulu and b) to see my host sister look for forks for 5 minutes because she insisted that we had to eat my food with a fork.

A Day in the Life

A lot of my life right now is just settling into the same routine so, given a lack of new and exciting events to share, here’s my day to day life:

*Wake up at 6:10, dash to the kitchen so that if mama Lucy made porridge (cream of wheat or oatmeal) I can dish my own and put WAY less (full cream) milk and sugar on than she would.

*Grab the pot of hot water mama has so kindly heated on the stove for me, dump it in the bath tub, and add an appropriate amount of cold water for a refreshing (sponge-ish) bath.

*Grab my stuff and head across the street to walk with Katie P. (my house is the one on the left and this picture was taken while waiting for Katie)to the pickup point and eagerly await Thula’s arrival.



*At 8:30 classes start. Zulu language class and a lecture by the one and only Kathy alternate between filling the first two hour time slot. Chances are either way, we are ready for a break by the time lunch rolls around as Zulu leaves our tongues twisted and Kathy leaves our minds twisted. (She’s fond of speaking of the BARKING MADNESS of history.)

*Lunch time comes at 1 so the kitchen gets nice and crowded before people migrate to the pool or take a stroll around the neighborhood.



*Afternoon lecture starts at 2. Here is when we usually have guest lecturers or field trips. By the time lecture is over, we have a little down time, then it’s time to go back to Cato Manor!

*Walking back in the afternoon is an experience, as all of the kids are home from school and we are usually greeted with a chorus of “Hello!”. (For some reason they are so determined to speak English to us and we’re so determined to speak Zulu to them.) I’m always greeted by my little brother Simphiwe running out of the door to say hello while Londiwe waits inside.



*Dinner usually comes around 6:30 which is conveniently time for Rhythm City, a fantastic soapie (aka soap opera). The big drama now is that Stone left his girlfriend/fiancé/wife at the alter of the in church wedding after going through the Zulu wedding because he couldn’t deny any longer that he was in love with his best (man) friend. Every episode, a lot of snot runs down is face. Then comes the evening news, and GENERATIONS, the biggest soapie in South Africa. I can’t even start to explain how wonderfully bad it is. It will truly be missed back in the States.

*After that it’s just homework time and then I make my Zulu teachers proud by declaring, “Ngidinga ukulale!” (I need to sleep!) before heading to bed!

This may sound unglamorous at best and boring at worst, but Zed (our program director) would back me in saying that the true gems of experience are found in the everyday.

Umdeni wami wakwaZulu Natal (My kwaZulu Natal Family)

I’ve been living with my homestay family in Cato Manor (a township in KZN that was torn down during apartheid due to too much racial mixing but was rebuilt by Mandela et al.) for a week now. We originally just got a basic information sheet, so I knew that I was going to be staying with mama Lucy who had an 12-year old granddaughter Londiwe (pronounced LawnDEEway). Needless to say, we were all nervous, having so little information and isiZulu language comprehension skills. As Thula (our trusty program administrative assistant/language teacher/comic relief/driver) snaked through Cato Manor and dropped off girls, our butterflies calmed down when we saw girl after girl getting a warm reception from their mama. (They were told beforehand that us Americans like hugs!)

When my turn came I was surprised, excited, and (let’s be honest) a little scared to see an adorable two year old greeting me. (This was not on the information sheet!) It turns out that two year old Simphwe (pronounced SimPEEway) and his mom Nobuhle (NoBUHle…but the hl makes a spitty retainer sound) have been living with mama Lucy (who is actually Nobuhle’s aunt).

I have a hunch that Mama Lucy is actually one of the coolest people I will get to know on this trip, but it’s going to be hard work to prove it. She has basic English skills, but I struggle with talking just with her because Londiwe is fluent and much easier to converse with. (Obviously I haven’t gotten past “Hi. How are you?” in Zulu.)

Last week though I had two great break-throughs. The first was initiated by mama who brought out her old apartheid-era passbook, some glasses lens cleaner (thanks!), and a catalogue of items made by an artists’ collective she’s a part of. She is (Bridget, get ready to be way jealous) in charge of making crocheted items out of used plastic bags. I tried to make the point that I want to learn really, really, really bad. Hopefully we can work that out. On top of that inconsistent income, she receives a government stipend for caring for Londiwe (whose father passed away eight years ago), money from SIT for taking in students (I’m her fourth), and money from her informal business of icy-pop selling out of the freezer (milkshake mix + water + sugar put in a sandwich bag and frozen…yum!).

The second great break-through was going to church with mama Lucy. That woman knows how to do church! When we were walking to church, I saw mama more excited than I had yet. She practically ran to the man recording the announcements to tell him that I was a guest (everyone in the church said “Obama Obama” when they found out that I was from the States) before rushing me to a seat. She’s a part of the special church ladies that dance in and out a few times (Mama knows how to get down!) so she joined me after a few minutes. She was sure to point out where we were in the service order book so I could stumble along in bad Zulu and grabbed my hand to dance with her at the end of the service.

Hopefully I can hop over to an internet café sometime and upload some pictures, but suffice to say that my family is fantastic!

A Note on Security

When I told people that I was going to South Africa, the first reaction of most was, “Be careful. No seriously, be careful.” With some of the highest rape and homicide rates in the world, this advice is certainly warranted and I expected to see cities that were run-down and forgotten much like places in the States that have high crime rates. I was expecting to see signs of insecurity. What I wasn’t expecting was a totally different conception of security.

Immediately upon entering a South African city, you notice fences and walls that we only see to keep inmates in prisons. Each house, business, and office that has enough money has a 10 foot wall or gate topped off with barbed wire or jagged spikes in addition to bars on the ground floor windows. Most of these gates have a pass code and, if the owners are affluent enough, a security guard and/or security camera. A large parking lot without a security guard probably means that you don’t want to leave your car, let alone frequent the business.

What is striking (besides the amazing ability of South Africans to make barbed wire and barred windows aesthetically appealing) is the simple fact that security here means keeping others out while in the States, security is intended to keep your assets in. We build fences to make sure our dogs don’t run away and occasionally to tell a neighbor what land is ours. So as you picture me frolicking in Durban, feel comforted (?) by the knowledge that security here is not a passive statement of ‘this is mine’ but the aggressive stance that ‘this isn’t yours’.

Greetings from Africa!

Well at long last I am settled down in Johannesburg and just enough of an insomniac (I've been awake since a phone went off at 4:30) to be able to monopolize the hostel computer for long enough to blog. The plane trip went off without a hitch and I managed to make friends with my Senegalese seat mate Gaba who showed me the joys of the little TV screens before MaryBeth hooked me up with some Dramamine for the second leg of the journey. All in all, my day of travel was 29 hours long (9 of these were spent waiting at JFK and one waiting on the runway in Dakar) and needless to say we all were excited for bed that night.

This week is orientation/tourist fun so yesterday we went to Soweto, the Joburg township whose claim to fame is the early homes of Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and a host of other apartheid resisters. We are in Johannesburg today as well and then will move to Durban, meeting our Cato Manor host families on Tuesday night (?). I'm excited to meet Mz. Lucy whose last name is escaping me and whose 11 year old grandaughter is also in the house.

So far, I have been bouncing between amazement at the beautiful scenery and weather and sadness at the degredation done to the land by apartheid. All 21 other girls and our program staff are fantastic so far. I give the drama another 3 weeks.

There are cities in Africa?

Quick parable: Once upon a time, a woman was completing her ethnography in Indonesia and found that the people she was living with were unusually anxious about her moving back to the United States. Upon further investigation, she realized that they were convinced that she would be either killed by John Wayne in a shootout or would be poisoned by a relative a-la Dynasty.

Moral of the story? Don’t believe everything you see on TV. Just like every American doesn’t duel for their honor or have the privilege of calling a horribly dysfunctional family theirs, not every African lives like the !Kung.

For better or worse, natural population growth shaped by the forces of colonialism, imperialism, and (now) globalization, has made South Africa into a country that in many ways looks quite European. The country is a little bigger than Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico combined and is home to about 47.9 million people.

I will be flying into Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city, and staying there for the first week of my trip. There we will have an orientation and take the (long) van ride to Durban where the majority of the program is housed.

Durban has about the same population as New York City, but is quite spread out (a little less than twice as big as NYC). It’s a popular vacation destination for South Africans, while Cape Town is usually the go-to vacation spot for non-South African tourists.

As the program is home stay centered, we will not have beachfront property, but will be staying in Cato Manor and taking vans to our lectures housed at the University of KwaZulu Natal (KZN being the province). More fun facts to come!

Home Base

If this isn't painfully self-explanatory, what you are reading is the tales of my journeys abroad. On January 22nd, I will be rocking out to Durban, South Africa for fifteen weeks to study Community Health. Although I have no clue what my packing list will include, I can assure you I will bring a pink camera and a trusty pair of Keds. And, as I'm not convinced that I will have internet every second of every day, I'll try to update as often as possible. Enjoy!