Marimba makes me move!

I smiled ear to ear during the whole marimba workshop so I wanted to share it with my follower :D  I hope it loads alright for you.

A new week

This morning I woke with a headache that turned out to be an advantage.  At the Haven two people were asked to do something other than paint, and due to my aching head, I offered not to paint.  I had the most fun I’ve had at House!  I worked in the kitchen all morning, and the time flew!  I met many of the house moms as they came in to grab things or ask questions.  We worked with Owelda, whose mother explained her name by saying, “Well, your father was a welder,” to get lunch on the table by noon.  She was quite worried that lunch would be late, because she was late in the kitchen.  Another volunteer and I helped her cut butternut squash (not a job for the weak at hand), clean beans, peel and chop carrots, mash potatoes, and make anchovy meatballs as she called them, but they resembled a salmon patty with anchovies. Owelda was so grateful for our help, encouraging us even more about the service we’re giving at House. 

I left house feeling great, but as soon as I got back to Langerry, I laid on my bed for “just a minute” and woke up an hour later.  I ran down to grab my laundry and made a PB&J before catching a bus to our music field trip to St. Dominic’s Priory, a very nice private school in a nearby suburb.  The grade 8 and grade 12 students gave us a marimba workshop.

The marimba is like a xylophone, played by striking mallets on wooden pieces positioned over long wooden compartments for the sound to vibrate and make noise.  About seven kids played five different marimbas to songs like “Just Dance” by Lady Gaga, “Tonight’s Gonna be a Good Night” by Black-Eyed Peas, traditional South African and Zimbabwean songs, The Flag Song from the soccer World Cup, and other pop songs.  After we watched, we tried out a few rhythms, and I even had a go at the drum!

We got home from the workshop and I led a speed workout with some of the girls in the group.   Then I accompanied another friend to a Protestant gathering at a church down the road.  Some Irish friends invited us, and we met some more South Africans and some other American students studying at NMMU.  It is exciting to keep meeting more people and finding new activities to try.  We are hoping to do some ballroom dancing and adventure boot camp workouts with some of the people we met tonight.  Yay!

Culture for Bruce

Connie, the playschool teacher came into the kitchen around 10am.  The kids are meant to have a snack of juice and sandwiches at that time, and Owelda hadn’t made the sandwiches.  Each house mom must rotate to different jobs at House, and Owelda was obviously flustered in her kitchen rotation.  Connie started shouting, “It doesn’t matter if you started late.  My children need their bread.  The children always come first.”  I was not excited to be present for a yelling-match, but my heart quickened as I anticipated tension building in the room.  Instead of yelling back, another house-mom, Liluthani, started laughing, saying, “Oh you goin’ now Connie.”  Connie got a sly look in her eye.  Owelda just cocked her hip back with a little attitude and gave a smart remark that I don’t remember, because I realized at that time that Owelda had no visible teeth.  The tension dissipated as Connie grabbed bread to make the children their sandwiches, smiling, and I began to understand that Connie got her point across in an animated and what I would perceive to be a very confrontational manner, but Owelda’s feelings did not seem hurt at all.  For a person accustomed to “Minnesota Nice” otherwise known as “Midwest Passive-Aggressive” attitudes that skirt around problems, avoiding confrontation, it was interesting to see conflict resolution in a totally different way.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday (Al Rocher anyone?)

This morning we met Suvi at the pier and lay out on the beach for hours.  It was a beautiful day.  The beach was covered with children running around, families under big umbrellas, and boys of all ages playing pick-up games of cricket and rugby in the swash.  After thoroughly sunning ourselves with intermittent ventures into the very cold, crashing waves, we went back to Langerry for a late lunch.

After a bite to eat, I invited Norma, the co-program director and some of the girls I play volleyball with to some yoga on the roof.  The wind whipped our towels around a bit, but it was still nice to attempt to breathe through seemingly impossible hip-opener poses with a few friends.

Culture for Bruce

We capped off the night by heading back to campus for a church service.  The music at the service was gorgeous.  It was cool to see the rhythm and counting concepts we learned about in music show up at Mass.  The small group of about thirty students sang like an amazing choir.  There were many different voice parts and two different melodies, one in two time, one in three time for each Mass part and song.  The music was adapted from the hymns brought over with missionaries to fit the Xhosa people’s musical style and language.  Some of the songs we sang were in English, while others were in Xhosa.  Despite the location in a basement classroom, the energy and friendliness of the students created a pretty service.

It’s summa’ time baby

Culture Questions for Bruce (Paragraph 1)

It is dangerous to assume.  We walked to campus today for Campus Life Festival which was described to us as the Involvement fair at CSB.  So, we expected tables for each club on campus and sign-up sheets to join their clubs.  What we encountered was much different.  The five biggest societies on campus were having a spirit contest with the new nguni style music we learned about in music class.  There were two parts in each chant/song-- one part in two-time and the opposing part in three-time.  The groups sounded great, but I am quite certain that my ear drums were going to burst and the roof of the athletic complex blow off in order to make space for the resounding pressure and huge energy put forth by the students.  If I had to judge between CSB’s involvement fair and NMMU’s campus life festival, I would say that CSB students do a lot of activities, because it’s busy, but there is not nearly the amount of passion.   At NMMU, students may only do one or two clubs, but there is more vibrancy and energy than I could have fathomed for those activities.  Although I did not find the booth I was looking for today, I found a true sense of the African concept of community, with so many voices raised together.

We took a kombi home from NMMU and went to the pool in the beach-side complex front of Langerry.  For those of you skeptical about my use of the pool while I'm so close to the ocean.  I will briefly explain the luxury of the pool.  There is turf to lie comfortably and sun oneself, without sand slicing up one's bod, alongside sea-water pools that are deep enough to fully submerse oneself without the constant thrashing of waves and fear of riptides.  Taylor and I lay out with the occasional dip in the pool for about four hours.  The best part of the day may be the coconut, banana, rum scented suntan lotion which was gracefully rubbed in without the added grit of sand the prematurely shed skin cells, oooo-wee how I love that smell. It was a lovely time.

We returned to Langerry to make salads for a Braai with Norma and Bruce our directors.  We were treated with chicken, coleslaw, peppadews (spicy little South African jarred peppers), Greek salad, these fabulous little bread rolls that closely resemble the ones from the business Bradley helped to establish in the townships but today’s were grilled on the braai, grilled polenta (my 1^st experiment) and a South African adaptation of the “Snicker salad” (Granny Smith apples, cool whip, and snicker bars) that I shall call the “Tempo salad” (Granny Smith apples, plain yogurt + vanilla extract, Tempo bars= my 2^nd experiment) after the candy bars I used.   We all came back to the room full and quite tired from a day in the sun.

I am reading A Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela’s political auto-biography, and copying some indigenous South African recipes and ostrich recipes before I return my library books next week.  I also had the good fortune of having a long, meaningful, funny, and much-needed convo with my sissy tonight.  Thanks Al :)

More exploring

Today, when we finally got up and got going, we took a cab up to Walmer, a suburb of PE for some shopping.  The mall sprawled and sprawled giving a very American feel to our jaunt -- except that I have yet to see a place where South Africans will not go barefoot.  (Walking around town, in grocery stores, and even at the mall.  And I am not talking like just people who cannot afford shoes, anyone would walk barefoot where ever she pleases.  Dad would love it here!)  I enjoyed the whole afternoon, but some of the best highlights were a grocery in Woolworth's, a South African department store.  The grocery had high quality, tasteful food cheaper than what we pay in the area we live for poorer quality, boring food.  I was floating on a cloud.  

Considering my already elevated state, you can imagine my vision of the golden gates of heaven swinging upon when feasting my eyes on the Fruit and Veg, a warehouse of wholesale fruits, vegetables, fruit drinks and sparkling flavored waters, nuts, marinated meats, and a bakery.  I picked up a bag of sweet potatoes for R8 (less than $1), granny smith apples, a litchi flavored water that was deeee-lish, a milk tart (like flan or dolce-de-leche in a pie crust with a thick coat of cinnamon on the top), the best focaccia bread I've ever had with mushrooms, peppers, cheese and onion baked into the top lekker (South African for cool!), and prawn garlic bread that tastes similarly to a focaccia-like (as opposed to really cheesy, greasy, buttery) garlic bread found in the US but had an added element of flavor with prawn (like shrimp) essence baked in the top.  To bring us back into the South African spirit of things, we waited about a half-hour for our cab to bring us back to the flat.  Nothing like African time, eh?

BOS /bos/ noun, adj & verb. -n. 1. deliciously refreshing organic ice tea made entirely in South Africa with enormous integrity and care. -adj.  I voted it as the most beautiful thing in South Africa 2011 by texting the competition's number on the poll I linked on my blog yesterday.  The refresh is a flavored sparkling water in recyclable container and the accompanying delicious-looking dessert is milk tart explained above.

 

Prawn garlic bread

The world's best focaccia, who thought it would be in SA?!

We were at the flat long enough to have a bite to eat and touch base with the directors.  Norma invited us over for a braai tomorrow afternoon.  We’ll have chicken on the grill, coleslaw, and some other summer salads to round out the traditional backyard feast.  We are looking forward to it!  A few minutes after accepting the invitation we headed to the Nelson Mandela Stadium (constructed for the World Cup) for a PE Kings rugby match.  We were fortunate enough to witness our first winning sporting event in South Africa.  (Third time’s the charm ;))  The Kings slaughtered a provincial Namibian team.

Watching the rugby match at Nelson Mandela Stadium.  I sat next to a Wisconsinite who likes Walker's governing, so it made for some interesting conversation.  Small world, eh?

Lining up at the end of the game.

We took a cab back to the flat to chill for a bit before the time was right to venture into night life.  After a few misfires we ended up at Barney’s, whose pub-like atmosphere with live bands every night of the week draws in a young and attractive crowd yet unseen to us before tonight.  We met our Finnish friends, Sari and Jan (Suvi went home after the rugby game for some r&r), new Nigerian and Norwegian friends, and Flo, the Austrian who came with us on Bradley’s townships tour.  We chilled the night away with great conversation, discovering the hilarities of translating simple Finnish phrases into long and exhausting English phrases in order to convey the whole meaning.  Tomorrow our group will attend the Campus Life festival together to discover how we can join university teams, societies (aka clubs), and activities to get to know some more South African students. 

Culture Question for Bruce

 This might be silly, but I can't get over the male South African hair-dos.  I inevitably see a the classic gelled on-top-to-look-like-I-just-got-out-of-bed-or-out-of-my-windy-convertible combo longish-mullet-in-the-back-to-protect-my-neck-from-the-sun, and I think, "What a bro."  I feel silly because cab drivers always drive right up to us when we call because they can pick out the Americans, and we look out of place because of our clothing (and probably our hair styles too) at class, in the night life, and around town.  Members of our group are continually questioned, "Have you just exercised?" with the most likely reply, "Nope, I just like to be comfortable."  My point is, I am the one who is out of style and goofy-looking, not guys with surfer hair.  I have an impression of how men normally wear their hair.  My Midwestern perceptions may even be challenged by the surfers much closer to home in Cali, so I should expect South Africans who are so "foreign" to be "exotic" and challenge my perceptions of "right," shouldn't I?  Well, my most sincere hope is to break down the "foreigner" walls and actually have a conversation with a dude with surfer hair, and I will see if the gelled mullet penetrates "bro-ness" deeper than skin level, jk, haha.  I have a sneaking suspicion that how one wears his or her hair has very little to do with the substance of his or her being.  It's kind of ridiculous that I had to type this whole paragraph out to reason that much, but I am one step closer to just reaching out my hand and introducing myself to a person who I previously would have received a one-eyebrow-raised "you're such a bro" look.  How's that for breaking down prejudice?  Stay tuned and maybe next week I work on the skater-brand-names-on-everything discrimination .

Natural sciences calm me (cough-nerd-ahem)

Today I went to biology in the morning instead of attending a grueling political science class in the afternoon.  The change was a great decision.  I’ll be studying Marine Biology of South Africa, covering mostly the “macrofauna” (bugs and stuff) of sandy beaches and rocky shores.  It’s amazing how be interested in class material can 180 an experience.  With the class change I will have about 200 less pages per week to get through.  Probably the most exciting part about the change is the atmosphere set by bio profs who are completely passionate about tiny bugs because of the specific way they’re able to borrow into sand or use the sun to orientate which direction land and sea are when they are so small that they cannot see anything except a desert of sandy beach around them.  It is no secret that I have an odd affinity for impassioned people.  It's like a moth drawn to light; I can't take my attention off of them.  One of the best parts of class was when the prof asked if any of us surf, obvious enough to me, no hands shot up.  She pleaded, “Boys!  Why don’t you surf?!”  We kindly explained the lack of oceanic coast in the Midwest and she reluctantly dropped the subject.  After class at noon I was done for the week!

Taylor and I walked home in the hottest part of the day.  It’s always peculiar to me that all of the PE-ers tend to cash out under a big shad tree from noon ‘til 2, and the visiting Americans, aka me!, haven’t caught on to dealing with the weather.  I have a nice red badge of courage (uhm.. I guess?), sweat, and toil from our walk home today.  We recovered from the slug home with some water and sunscreen and headed to read on the beach for a bit.  Believe it or not we were actually cold on the beach.  The sun went behind a gargantuan cloud for twenty minutes and the wind gave us all goosebumps.  We went inside to gather sustenance and after a while went for a run.  It was a fun day, and I look forward to hanging around PE this weekend and continuing the search for bikes.

Culture Questions for Bruce

As we left the beach today, a woman was showering like I would shower in the privacy of my bathroom, except she was in a spigot meant, as far as I know, to wash sand off when leaving the beach.  This woman obviously had some personality, because she had been chasing her small children around with a crab she had caught, and they giggled furiously and her games with the clawed animal.  After the initial shock, I had to wonder if she had limited water resources or maybe no running water.  If she lived in the townships chances are that she does not have any running water, so the trade-off between a few unsuspecting beach goers interrupting her hygiene session and missing a chance to have a full body wash with clean water may have been a no-brainer to her.  Obviously these are guesses on my part, but I wonder what it would take for me to shower completely naked on a lightly populated yet public beach?  Questions like that always prove to me that I have no idea of the kinds of choices one has to make when living without the modern conveniences I enjoy.

Everyday schtuff in SA

Vote for the most beautiful object in South Africa!

http://mg.co.za/multimedia/2011-02-23-the-most-beautiful-object-in-south-africa/

There are some really gorgeous things, not least of which is a chair crafted over eight weeks by women in Kwazulu-Natal.  The chair looks as if it has wings each in the shape of Africa.  People around the world have had the opportunity to sit and dream in the chair called “Dreams for Africa Chair.”

The chair was used as a revenue-generating project for women in the community.  We see the women of Africa stepping up to make positive change.  In literature we have talked about the emasculation of men as a result of the Apartheid.  Men were not able to serve their role in a patriarchal society of protecting their families and providing for them.  We even read a story about a man who was forced to buy his child’s body from the police under the Apartheid regime because the officer who killed the child with a random bullet meant to intimidate confiscated the body when he realized what he had done.  The legacy of Apartheid continues to prevent black communities from exceling and women seem to be the best hope.  In Bradley’s tours of PE in the townships he showed us enterprises begun and supported by woman including a 5-star “backpacker” (hostile).  There is an article from the New York Times about the promise of third-world success lying in women who tend to spend their money on children’s education and community development (http://www.pbk.org/home/FocusNews.aspx?id=662 ).

I followed the theme for the day and took some pictures of things that are beautiful to me in South Africa, or at least make up my days.  There is a painting of a township that I picked up at the Sunday market, my swimwear, journal, travel and cook books, school ID, water bottle, and the newly-found trans-fat free peanut butter “Black Cat.”

I also took a picture of some foods that I have been trying out.  This shows litchi juice, a nectar of the gods withheld from my taste buds for twenty years.   The juice is a litchi puree with grape or pear juice.  Litchis look like woody strawberries and have a white colored blueberry-like texture on the interior.  The juice is also creamy-looking, but it is fresh and tasty.  Also pictured is rooibos tea, known as red tea, which is indigenous to South Africa.  There are whole and cut-up papaya and a whole mango.  Papaya is not as flavorful as I had imagined, but mixed with mango or with some yogurt they are great.  Mango is awesome alone, in fruit salads, in chutney, or even as a meat-tenderizing agent baked with chicken.

This is the blue pumpkin that I bought at the market in the township.  I don't have knives big enough to chop a vege like this, so I baked it with a banana and some mango juice to add a bit of sweetness and I have been having it for dinner with noodles, pesto and walnuts.  I also tried it with a nut and raisin mix with some cinnamon to kind of mirror a hearty sweet-potato casserole, but pumpkin has a much milder flavor than pumpkin.  It was fun to try blue pumpkin though, how often can you eat a natural food with blue in the title?  Maybe blue wildebeest will be my next experiment :O ?!?