Sanibonani!

I finally made it to a rural village! It was pretty great. We left Friday, and spent Friday and Saturday night in Pholela, which is a hikers camping place in the Drakensburg, the mountains which run along the eastern coast of SA. We took a 6 hour hike in the mountains on Saturday, which was really hard, but real fun. This is a picture from the start of the hike- we hiked around the hill on the left and up to the top of a bigger hill behind it. The mountains in the distance with the cup in the middle is the border of the Kingdom of Lesotho, and allegedly the reason that Lesotho is the last remaining true kingdom in the world. Apparently Lesotho was the only kingdom that Shaka, the great Zulu warrior, failed to conquer. We actually were pretty close to those mountains by the time we turned around.


This is some bushman rock art we found at the top of the hike. The Bushmen, or Khoi-San (which literally means without land) were the only nomadic tribe in South Africa. The Zed version of Khoi-San history says that this art is probably around 200 years old, because the Khoi-San were killed off particularly fast after colonialism when the white settlers literally put a bounty on their heads, much like American settlers did for the Indians in some areas. So nobody really knows what any of this means, because they all died out or went into hiding and lost their culture in the process. Sad. This one looks like hunting to me, but you can use your imagination.

Sunday, about half of us went on a mini hike in the morning. We saw a whole herd of baboons, and then found this waterfall, which flows into a pond thing. So we named it baboon lagoon, and swam in it. It was fantastic. This is a particularly unflattering picture I rather enjoy of my classmates pretending to be baboons, with the waterfall in the background.

Sunday, after baboon lagoon, we left for the village of Impendle itself. It was particularly rainy on Sat, so promptly after arriving, the Thula Mobile, a 16 seater van which is our primary means of transportation in South Africa, got stuck in the mud. We got bailed out by Samantha, our American host for the weekend. I cannot even begin to describe Samantha. She’s about 35, born in Maryland, has ridiculous bleach blonde dreadlocks with beads and shells matted in, and has a masters in “peace studies,” whatever that is. She packed up and left America 12 years ago, built her own house in Impendle, and started a commune, which 10 other people have joined her on. She plays the guitar, is learning to fire dance, has not worn shoes for over a year, and when asked what she does here, stuttered around a bit and finally declared that she teaches natives to crochet waterbottle holders. She’s followed around by Cama, a former UCBerkeley employee, who wears nothing but purple. And has one giant dreadlock beehive, with excessive purple beading attached. Apparently when she cannot find the right shade of purple, she dyes her own clothing. The zulu villagers can’t quite figure out what their deal is (neither could we for that matter), but they tolerate them okay.

This picture is of my Zulu family’s homestead. There’s another house behind the traditional hut, and 11 people live there. They are considerably richer than my Cato family (doesn’t say much), but have no running water, because it’s a rural village. On the right, that shack is the kitchen hut, where they cook over a fire, and the veggie garden. Usually there was an abundance of chickens in the front yard- typically of most of South Africa that I’ve seen, and a longdrop toilet behind the kitchen hut.

We hung out with our families, had a crazy Zulu dance party (zulu’s know how to dance!), visited the clinic, hung out with some home-based care givers, and listened to a couple people from the clinic and various other development agencies talk about some more academic stuff. One of whom was a crazy old white guy who was also an AIDS denialist and spends his time running around trying to convince black people not to take their ARVs and buy his herbal remedies instead. At which point in the lecture, this crazy shopkeeper who had been following us around all weekend asked if drinking tea made of “the weeds you grow in your garden” would prolong your life if you had AIDS. When pressed, he finally specified dagga weed (marijuana). Tues, we were dragged by the head of environmental agency in Impedle to a school, where we planted like 4 flowers, and then the school had an assembly to thank us. It was one of the more uncomfortable experiences I’ve had here so far. Generally, its awkward to be a white American in predominantly black areas which have been oppressed by white people since about the 1400s, but this experience won for sure. So overall, and fairly educational but somewhat strange weekend.

That’s everything that’s been happening here. Keep me updated on your lives!

Cheers now,
Kara