I finally moved in with my homestay in Cato Manor, a large township outside of Durban. I'm living with a single mother named Ningi, but I call her mama (you call everyone roughly the age of your parents mama or baba out of respect). I have two brothers, Minenhle- hl is funny lisp noise in zulu so i call him Mino- who's 24 and seems pretty cool. He's obsessed with American R&B and rap and asked me if I thought Tupac was still alive in the first ten minutes of meeting me. The younger brother, Aslam, is 16, but lives down the road a little bit with his grandmother. Most of my American friends live within walking distance, which is really nice, and there are a lot of neighborhood kids who are a little too excited to see white people in Cato Manor. There are also a rooster across the road, which I am a little less excited about early in the morning.

S. African bathing is an adventure- there is a basin thing, and you heat water on the stove, and fill it up, then splash yourself. I'm sure eventually you get the hang of it. You are expected to bathe at least once a day, if not twice.

Almost all South Africans are truly obsessed with Barak Obama and Kentucky Fried Chicken, which is everywhere.

We've started classes, so I have Zulu, field study, and community health every day with professors from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, which you can walk to from the classroom. Classes are way more intense than I was expecting, but it's really interesting stuff, so that is a good thing. Plus we have internet every day at the classroom, which is a lot more than most of us were expecting.

Hamba Kahle! (good bye, literally stay well)

Kara

Sawubona!

That means hi in Zulu. it's the only Zulu word I've managed to remember so far.

We finally made it to Durban! My plane landed in Johannesburg, which is located sort of towards the middle of South Africa. The jet lag was pretty bad, but I think I'm finally getting used to South African time.

We stayed in Jo'burg for a few days and did some touristy stuff- random museums and history stuff- and other orientation things, and then made the 8 hour drive to Durban yesterday. The drive takes you through a good part of eastern South Africa, which is beautiful. I saw a zebra. We're staying in a backpacker hostel right now, but I'll move in with my host family tomorrow. Apparently they speak enough english, but converse primarily in Zulu, which could be a problem. We started zulu lessons, but so far, I'm pretty bad at it.

I think that's about everything exciting that's happened so far...

love,
Kara

so now i have a blog....

Hi friends!

I leave for South Africa tomorrow, which seems crazy, so tonight seemed like a good time to start a blog :-P. I make no promises about actually updating it, but I plan to try.

I fly out of JFK tomorrow night on a 17 1/2 hour flight, which stops in Dakar, Senegal, and then to Johannesburg, South Africa (sort of in the middle of the country). I'll be in Johannesburg for a couple days, and then we drive 350 miles to Durban, where i'll be more or less until may.

For those of you who keep asking for my contact info, I will have internet from time to time and am on skype (KHuselton), but email me (kara.huselton@gmail.com) and make a date before just randomly skyping me, because apparently internet is quite slow in Africa. You can send me snail mail if you like, but I think it takes a week or two to get there:

Kara Huselton
SIT Community Health
18 Alton Rd
Glenmore
Durban 4000
SOUTH AFRICA

i think that's about it...
keep me posted on what's happened in the US!

love,
Kara