Freezing in Africa?!?

On Thursday, April 2nd, we moved into our new home in Pietermaritzburg where we live in a huge house with several young South Africans (3 doctors who just finished med school and who are interning in the nearby hospital, 1 sports business entrepreneur, and 1 coffee shop entrepreneur). They are all very welcoming and fun to live with. The house also has a pool which we have been enjoying.

On Friday and Saturday, we attended a workshop at a nearby lodge that the Ujamaa Center was holding to train facilitators to do Contextual Bible Studies in their communities. Ujamaa (www.ujamaa.org.za) is the organization that Becky is researching and so we learned a lot about what they do and what they believe by attending the workshop. It was also really nice to spend the weekend with the group of about 15 people because they were of all different ages (some young undergrads) and occupations (theology PhD students, ministers and community workers) from all different places (Kenya, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and all over South Africa). To help you more fully understand the work and effects of Ujamaa we will share a story from one of the participants:
Nonhlanhla (not her real name) was a black South African in her late 20s/early 30s who had been involved with Ujamaa as a community worker for a couple of years. She shared with Stephanie that a year ago her 19 year old cousin’s boyfriend intentionally burnt her cousin. She had been 7 months pregnant at the time, suffered from severe burns over 95% of her body, lost the baby, and ended up dying two months later. Nonhlanhla said that her work and experience with Ujamaa empowered her to demand and fight for justice using every means possible including television and newspaper interviews. Even though the other women at her church told her to leave the boyfriend alone or he would hurt her too, Nonhlanhla knew that by not doing anything she would be letting him get away with it and setting a precedent for all men that they could do whatever they wanted to women without being punished. Due to her brave efforts, the boyfriend is now in jail and she continues to spread the idea and example of women’s empowerment throughout her community.

So Ujamaa is a pretty impressive organization that seems to be making real changes in the communities it works with. We definitely were impressed by the workshop.

On Sunday we went back to Durban for the homestay family goodbye lunch. We got there a little early so we had time to walk around a Chinatown-ish area in the city (we have barely seen any Asians except the many who owned stores in this area…its interesting). We also went to an outside market that is a combination of a thrift and outlet store with slightly damaged clothing. There is just so much fun shopping in Durban! After lunch we walked around for a bit with our sisters in a different part of town to do a little gift shopping for them. It was sad to leave them but we plan on visiting again before we leave S. Africa.

Back in Pietermaritzburg on Monday through Wednesday, when we weren’t working on our literature reviews, we got to spend some time getting to know our new roommates. We went to see “The Little Shop of Horrors” (very funny and definitely worth seeing if you get the chance!) at a playhouse in Durban one night and to a cute garden restaurant another day. We also spent a day at the university campus because Stephanie had a 4pm meeting with her advisor (who is an incredibly intelligent female Lutheran minister from Zimbabwe who is a Women and Gender Studies Ph.D. student). In order to get to campus, we catch a ride with one of our roommates at 7:30am when she goes to work at the hospital. From the hospital we catch a minibus into the center of town where we can catch another minibus to campus…it’s quite an adventure. Because we had to wait the entire day for the meeting, we snuck into an empty Afrikaner language classroom with our computers, books, and bag full of food, to work on our papers all day. =)

On Thursday we went to the Drakensburg mountains for a musical festival called Splashly Fen. The trip was organized by our Zulu teacher who is part of a group that runs the front gate at the festival. She arranged for us to work a few shifts in exchange for admission, food, and tents. It was a beautiful and crazy weekend. It apparently always rains (hence the name Splashy Fen) and makes the entire place incredibly muddy. We were given “gum boots” (rubber boots) and told they would be essential for the weekend. The first night when we walked down to the festival (a good 20 minute hike from where we were camped at the front gate) it wasn’t raining but within an hour a steady rain began and we wished desperately we had worn our boots!! But we enjoyed lots of good food (butternut soup, a chicken swarma, a chip twister (Steph’s favorite super-salty fried curly potato on a stick), and lots of hot chocolate). We also enjoyed dancing to the South African bands (it was an eclectic array of music). We headed back to our teeny-weeny wet tent around midnight. Fortunately we were thoroughly exhausted and fell asleep quickly because as you can imagine, it wasn’t the most comfortable sleeping situation. The temperatures actually drop to near freezing at night. But the sun fortunately came out the next day and dried things up. Friday we walked around the festival, looked at all the shops and enjoyed the music during the day because we worked the night shift. It wasn’t too bad because it didn’t rain and we sat around a fire when it wasn’t busy. Saturday was a glorious day- we spent it swimming in the freezing river and laying out in the hot sun. We ate lots of good food and got back massages at one of the stalls in the festival for R80 ($8). Sunday we went for a quick swim before we packed up our tents and headed home. Now we are finishing up our 8-10 page seminar papers which are due tomorrow!

a week in newlands east

Last week we moved into our 3rd homestay in a Colored community in Newlands East (about 15 minutes outside of the city). Once again we were both lucky and had wonderful families. Becky lived with a mom, a 20 yr old daughter named Michelle and an 8 yr old daughter named Micha. The dad was killed in front of the family a year ago in a carjacking. Extremely sad but the entire family was working hard to keep things as normal and happy as possible which was helped by the birth of Michelle’s baby on Wednesday which was on her 20th birthday! It was a very exciting week for the family and a lot of fun to be a part of. Stephanie lived in large family with a grandma, grandpa, feisty mom named Shenelle (who reminded me a lot of Amy), dad named Winston, 12 year old sister named Sheniel, 6 year old brother named Keano, and a 1 year old Rottweiler named Buster. Some interesting facts: both Shenelle and Winston work as police officers, Keano loves Ben 10, Sheniel got to spend the night at a friend’s house for the very first time Saturday night, and the entire family - from grandma to little brother - never stop talking (which made Stephanie feel right at home).
Now for a run-down of our family and program activities for the week. On Tuesday, we spent a half day at Spearman Primary School. We got to hear the 6th and 7th grade VIG’S (Very Important Girls) perform a couple of songs, were split up into different classrooms to talk about America, give lessons on Democracy, Biology or Peer Pressure, were generally mugged for hugs and signatures, and at the end got to see a Gumboot dance performance from a small group of the older boys. For the lesson section of the day, Stephanie and Becky were in the same 6th grade classroom where, after introducing ourselves, we talked about and took a quiz on peer pressure and then led a jeopardy game where the topics were South Africa, the US, Peer Pressure, Music and Other. It was really fun and incredibly exhausting. In fact, when Stephanie got home she immediately took a 2 ½ hour nap. On Wednesday, we traveled to Inanda and visited the John Dube home and school, a Shembe religious site and community, as well as the Pheonix Settlement where Gandhi stayed while in South Africa. On Friday, we had a lecture on Socio-ecological Transformation in South Durban- that title may be intimidating but the talk was really good. Our lecturer discussed the importance of the environment for all communities especially the urban poor. After the lecture, we traveled to an Indian market and a Hare Krishna Temple.
Throughout the week, we looked forward to coming home to chill with our families. This chilling included watching numerous Madea movies, braai-ing (BBQing), and looking with awe at the literally newborn baby. On Sunday, we had an amazing time picnicking at a Freshly Ground concert at the Botanical Gardens. Becky and Stephanie both woke up waaaay early Monday morning to get in a minibus taxi (at 6am) and head back off to Pietermaritzburg to work out logistics concerning our ISP’s. The trip was highly successful- we talked to Becky’s advisor and sat in on one of his classes, the coordinator of the Ujamaa Women and Gender Program, the Director of the Sinomlando Memory Box Project and the CEO of the Msunduzi Hospice. We are in full research-prep mode with our ISP proposals due on Friday.