[Sheri] So far this trip, Tom has blogged a couple of times about the business end of our work in Nzinga – about the collaborations, meetings, etc. I’d like to try to share my first-time visitor impressions of life in Nzinga, and introduce you to some of the villagers.
I knew from Tom’s photos and descriptions last year that life here is hard and that the people are warm, welcoming and beautiful. Those descriptions are so inadequate. Both the good and the bad here are so extreme.
Life here is unbelievably hard. Right now, it is cold and windy and dry. Dust blows into my eyes and lungs, and grit covers my skin. Every task takes an eternally long time. Although there is cell reception here, many can’t afford a cell phone, so communication often requires walking a long distance to someone’s house in order to tell them something. The terrain here is hilly and very rough and rocky, so even walking is slow. Meals take a long time because the process involves gathering wood and making a fire. Preparation is slow because there’s no pre-packaging, ready-to-eat, or popping anything into the microwave. Cleanup requires heating water over the fire and pouring it into two basins; one for washing and another for rinsing. The plates are scraped and the scraps are thrown over the fence to feed the chickens and goats.
I also experienced bathing in a bucket this week. A bath takes about an hour, even though I was in the water all of five minutes, because the water has to be heated over the fire after the dishes are clean. Also, I learned that baths are not very effective. I took a bucket bath on Monday and Thursday this week. To take a bucket bath, the water must be heated over the fire, then poured into a bucket. I had to carry my bucket of water to my room (a bucket of water is heavy!) then pour the water into a wider, shallower basin. There is no heat or insulation in the rooms, so it was very cold. After two days of working in the dirt and blowing wind, and smoke from the fires, I was grateful to emerge from my bucket bath feeling squeaky clean. However, the next steps in the bucket bath process are to dump the bathwater and put away the basin and bucket. So after drying off and dressing in clean clothes, I headed out with my bathwater. Now, mind you, there’s no time for a bath during the day, so baths must be taken after dinner, when it’s too dark to do any work. I had to walk about 30 yards in the dark, over uneven terrain with my bucket of water. And I’m not familiar with this path in the dark, nor the process. By the time I got to the place where I could dump the bucket, half the water had sloshed out onto my shoes. I dumped the water, rinsed out the basin at the pump, and went to the rondavel (round mud hut with a thatched roof) to put them away. The rondavel is where the fire is, and there is no chimney so it fills with smoke. I put the bucket and basin away and then returned to my room. The wind was blowing fiercely, and I could feel the dirt getting caked in my wet hair. By the time I got back inside my room, I was covered with dirt and smelled like smoke. So much for being clean!
So you have a sense of just how difficult the simple tasks of communicating, eating and bathing are. Just imagine how difficult some of the other tasks can be!
What amazes me is that no matter how difficult their lives are, and no matter how meager their supplies, the people of Nzinga remain happy, proud and hopeful. And they love and support each other like family.
I spent a few hours at a crèche (preschool) the other day, and still have difficulty digesting what I saw. About 10 children under the age of four, and a teacher who is an elderly woman meet every weekday from 8:30 – 1:30 p.m. in a little mud room that is about 8’ X 12’. In that room is one card table and two plastic chairs, a bag of handmade blocks, and one book that the teacher made herself out of some pieces of paper and cut-out magazine photos. What was most astonishing about this is that with no resources, and no teacher training, this woman manages to spend five hours a day engaging the children in singing, dancing, reciting poems, make-believe play, etc. these children can count, know their ABC’s, the days of the week, the months of the year, their colors, shapes, etc. and can say them all in Zulu and in English! Oddly enough, the old woman can’t speak any English; she just learns enough words that she can pass along to the children so that they have a head start when they reach grade R (equivalent to U.S. first grade). When I told this lady that we were coming back on Monday and would be bringing blocks, puzzles, books and games, she got up and danced a little jig. I told her we would be back every year. She asked me (through our interpreter, Nonjabulo) if it would be possible next year to bring two small plastic tables and 10 small plastic chairs. She explained that it often gets well below zero (Celsius), and that the children’s bottoms get raw and chapped because they have to sit on the frozen floor. This would never have occurred to me. We take the simplest things for granted, and nothing is simple in Nzinga.
The day we arrived in Nzinga, it was National Women’s Day in South Africa. There was no official celebration in Nzinga, although some women told me that they had had their own celebrations. The Zulu culture is paternalistic, and women have very little voice. However, I’ve noticed that women “make the world go ‘round” in Nzinga. The women are incredibly strong. When things need to be done, it’s the women who come forward to do it. The other day we put the word out that we needed some people to come help us hoe a garden. Right away, six old women arrived with their hoes, and got to work. One of them even used a cane, but that didn’t slow her down at all! And I was mortified that she covered twice as much area as I did, and broke up the earth twice as deep as I could!
The people of Nzinga must think I’m pretty hilarious, with my sunscreen and lip balm, and my weak attempts at Zulu language, but they’ve welcomed me like family and I know that I’ve made lifelong friends this week.