Here Comes the Bride...South African style!

January 21, 2011
In the late afternoon we headed off to our weekend homestays. I was with another girl from our group, Becca, for the weekend. We were one of the first pairs dropped off, and we went to our host mom’s parents’ house in Orlando East, where she was waiting for her husband to get off work and come pick us up. We ended up waiting there for a few hours because our host dad somehow lost the keys to his car and had to get new keys or borrow someone’s car (I’m not exactly sure what was going on here). We watched some cricket and tried some new foods, among them pap (some sort of mealie-type food) and biscuit/cookie things. Can you tell that I didn’t really know what was going on all weekend? I’m pretty sure at half our meals I had no idea what I was eating. Our host mom was our program driver Moketsi’s sister, and he came back to the house after dropping everyone off. He explained that we had a regular eating schedule at St. Peter’s, and because it was a couple hours past that he thought we should get food soon. We got driven with our host mom (sorry, but I was never able to pronounce her name so I have no idea how to spell it) to Southgate Mall where we got pizza at the food court, which we took to the house because her husband finally arrived at the mall.
Our host family lived in Vosloorus, which is a community about 30 minutes to the east of Joburg. When we finally arrived at the house Friday night we met the rest of the family, our two siblings for the week. Ayanda is a six year old boy, who always has so much energy. He was bouncing off the walls, playing in the street, wandering around the mall. I don’t think he ever sat still for more than 10 minutes all weekend. Ngole (it’s a nickname) is a 16 year old girl, and she told us the first night that she liked to talk. That’s kind of an understatement! She’s soft-spoken, but has firm opinions and likes to talk a lot (as in, conversations with her were mostly one-sided). We talked with Ngole a little bit that night, and then I went to bed because I was exhausted from our long week.
Vosloorus is a fairly nice and safe neighborhood. All the homes have walls and gates surrounding their yards, and it was extremely quiet most of the weekend. Our house was very neat and well organized, but really small. The kitchen had a fridge, a mini oven, a microwave, not very much counter space, and a broken sink. There wasn’t a dining room, instead we ate on the perfectly matched couches in the tiny but immaculate living room. Becca and I shared the guest bedroom, which was sparse but nice. The house was full of contrasts.

January 22, 2011
After sleeping in, I got up and watched soapies (aka soap operas) with my host mom. She made breakfast of eggs, sausage (but not any kind of sausage I’ve ever had before), tomatoes, cucumbers, and cheese. It was an interesting combination of food for breakfast. We watched Rhythm City most of the morning, and it was hilarious because it was so ridiculous and cheesy and dramatic. Plot lines included: an abortion that wasn’t told to the grandparents, a rapper accused of murder, a couple putting out a professional hit on a manager, and a woman who wasn’t nominated to be the church choir conductor (scandalous!). It was entertaining, to say the least.
The original plan for the day was to hang out until our host dad got home from work, probably around noon, and then we would go to a market and the mall and see some other fun things. So we hung out in the yard with Ngole and some of her friends, just talking about all sorts of things, including politics and how they think some of the languages of South Africa are starting to die because, for example, they can’t speak Zulu without throwing in some English words. We also walked around the neighborhood, shared some chips (aka French fries), played random games with the neighborhood kids. It was fun, but I got really sunburned because we ended up being outside until about 4 because that was when our dad got back. I’m beginning to get the sense that African time is pretty similar to Trini time…
Anyways, we got to the market and China City and discovered that they were both closed for the night (we got there a little after 5), and the grocery store closed as we were leaving it around 6. I’m thinking it might be difficult to do much at night here. We ate dinner at Spurs, a Tex-Mex restaurant chain that’s big in South Africa. It was interesting to walk into the restaurant with all the cliché Native American decorations and stained glass windows everywhere. It’s definitely the kind of restaurant that would not be politically correct in the U.S.

January 23, 2011
Sunday morning we got up early to go to church with our family. We were told that the service started at 7, so we would leave at 6:45. Well, I was ready by 6:45, and then sat in the living room and waited. And waited. We finally left at 7:10, and arrived at the Vosloorus Methodist Church while they were still singing. The singing continued for a long time. Becca and I were welcomed with more singing, which apparently made the service 45 minutes longer than usual. They also translated the sermon into English for us, which was nice because otherwise the entire service was in Zulu or Tsutu (I can’t tell them apart). Afterwards we went to the Bruma Market, which is a cool outdoor market with lots of handmade crafts. We also visited China City, which is like a small Asian mall. We then headed home to get ready for the wedding!
The weekend of our homestay one of our neighbor’s sons was getting married, so we got to see all the wedding festivities. On Saturday we woke up to the sounds of the groom leaving, because on Saturdays there is a traditional Western wedding at the bride’s home, while on the Sunday is the traditional African wedding at the groom’s home. On Saturday workers came to set up a big tent in the street for the festivities. It blocked the entire street, so cars just parked in front of the tent and then people walked the rest of the way to their homes. I couldn’t imagine how people would have reacted if a party blocked their street. I feel like it wouldn’t be accepted. But here, everyone just joined in the celebration on Sunday. Most of the adults were wearing their traditional African outfits representing their tribal heritage. There were lots of people at the wedding, and we all just hung out in the street, waiting for the wedding party to arrive. They finally got there in the late afternoon, and the wedding party (the bride in her white dress) danced their way up the street into the tent. It was some sort of dance that everyone knew, and some old ladies tried to teach it to me, but I kind of failed. We watched some of the wedding, but then left to start our braai, which is meat that has been barbecued outside. I floated between the braai, the wedding, and reading the newspaper inside. Everyone in my family thought there was something wrong with me because I was sitting inside by myself. They all came by multiple times to see if I was ok, because they didn’t believe that I could be perfectly content to sit by myself while there was a party outside. Different cultural values, I guess.

January 24, 2011
Monday morning we woke up really early so we could commute to work with our host mom. Her bus left at 5:30 am, and we didn’t get to her work until after 7. She works as a teacher’s aide in a public school for those with special needs (like children with Down’s Syndrome). The bus ride was long, and people started singing hymns on the ride.
Visiting the school was definitely an experience, especially after our long week in Joburg. We went to the staff meeting so the principal and the staff could see our faces and know that we would be walking around the classrooms during the day. Walking into that staff room was kind of shocking. Every single teacher was white, so at first it was familiar to be sitting with people I looked like and thought I could communicate well with and understand. Well, the entire staff meeting was held in Afrikaans, so once again I was left feeling inadequate because I only speak one language fluently. It was also uncomfortable when I realized that while all the teachers were white, all the teacher’s aides were black. It made me wonder to what extent apartheid is truly gone from South Africa.
Although these issues were present in the back of my mind, it really seemed like there was good work being done in the school. There aren’t very many schools for students like this in Joburg, so students come from long distances to school every morning. One teacher pointed out that this makes it difficult for their parents to come to any meetings at the school, so when meetings are necessary they send around the school buses to pick up the parents. During our visit we saw a couple classrooms in each level, talked to the teachers, and saw what each class was focusing on. The main emphasis in each level was on teaching the students life skills, so they could learn how to function outside of school. According to the teachers, this is because many of the students will never progress past a certain point in their educational abilities, so it was better to teach them skills which they could potentially earn money at. Although it was a little sad to see so many students with disabilities, it was good to see what was being done for them.

Overall, my homestay was great. I loved my family; they really welcomed me into their home and provided me with good cultural experiences. I’m still nervous about our next homestay, because I’m going to be by myself with a family in Windhoek for 10 days. Hopefully it goes as well as this first homestay went!