Julia Goes to South Africa: March 2010

So we went on a homestay to different villages within the Ha-Makuya region. I was with three other kids—Bryant, Kirst, and Sarah. We all chose to be together because we’re vegetarian and we thought that would make things easier. We stayed in a mud hut with a thatched roof and the floor outside was made of cow dung. The people were nice and there were lots of kids around all the time which was really fun. They taught me the song head shoulders knees and toes but in Venda, their language. We played lots of games with them—which were actually really hard but they were really good at them because they’ve been playing them all their lives. Every day we basically ate the same exact meals. For breakfast there was white bread with butter and sometimes jam. For lunch and dinner there was pup, a small white grain, (sometimes fermented) and this nasty green stuff which we were told by our guide was “mother of the juvenile pumpkin.” They also served mopane worms and locusts with a bunch of the meals. They also eat dried mopane worms as a snack. So the first day they had a bowl of them and they offered them to us and I politely refused. But then they insisted to the point that I really couldn’t say no. So I took the upper body of one of the worms—it looked like a full out caterpillar, nothing to disguise what it really was. And I put it in my mouth. I really really didn’t want to taste it and I couldn’t bring myself to chew, so I tried to swallow it like a pill with a huge gulp of water. But of course it was way bigger than a normal sized pill and had huge spikes. So I basically destroyed my throat. It scratched it all the way down and got stuck in the middle and I almost choked but luckily eventually got it all the way down. I was in pain for the next three days. Anyway, during the homestay we also went fishing at the river. All the little boys got completely naked which was slightly uncomfortable, but I taught them all how to make drip sand castles, which they loved, so that was nice. Also all the women got naked to bathe and wash their clothes. I remained clothed, obviously.
Also, one morning we went to go collect firewood. We walked 20 minutes away and chopped down a bunch of big branches from trees. The women then tied them together with wet strips from another tree’s trunk. We were given cloths to put on our heads and then we each carried a huge bundle of firewood, on our head, all the way back home. It was a bit challenging, but fun. On our way we passed this spider, and Desmond our guide goes “Do you see that spider? One drop of its venom can kill…maybe..HUNDREDS of men. Also, if it bites you, your entire body changes color.” So we made sure to not walk too close to it.
One evening, Eunice, the head of the household, came to us with a nice plump chicken (reminiscent of Helen, for those who know her.) They handed it to Bryant and were like, ok now kill this for our dinner. And he was like ummm but I’m vegetarian, that’s the whole reason we’re all together. But apparently no one had told them that we were veg, so they had been fattening up this chicken for us. So we gently declined and they looked incredibly disappointed. So eventually Bryant couldn’t take their disappointment anymore and he was like ok, I’ll kill and eat the chicken, breaking his 9 months of vegetarianism. So they give him a knife and they hold the chicken down for him. So he tries to do a big slice through its neck, but the knife is blunt so he doesn’t even cut in. At this point they show him that he has to saw the head off. So he takes the knife and cuts back and forth, slowly, until a string about an inch wide is left connecting the chicken to its head. They then rip that with their bare hands. It was kind of upsetting, but it just shows you how removed all of us are from what we’re actually eating. Then we watched/helped them prepare the chicken. I touched none of it. So they put it in hot water and plucked off all of its feathers. Then they cut it open to remove its organs—not to dispose of, but to eat separately. It was kind of like a dissection and at one point this bright green ball came out and I was like oh my god it’s the gall bladder!! I was so proud. So that night “we”, meaning the guide and Bryant, ate the chicken. At one point our guide, Desmond, lifts up a long strand of intestines and offers it to me. I said no thank you and he proceeded to dangle it above his mouth and slowly lower it in. Also that evening they had been frying up locusts. They called us into the kitchen and insisted that we try a locust head. I again tried to refuse and they wouldn’t let me. So I ate it. And this time I chewed—I had learned my lesson. It tasted almost good, kind of like a potato chip. But I don’t think I would ever eat it again. It’s a locust! Ew.
At the end of the home stay we went to a sangoma, a witch doctor. He had all this cool stuff like a bunch of bones and a leopard skin, etc. I asked him about my future and he said a lot about God and religion, which is clearly wrong. I asked him about my profession and he said after I finish my training, many professions will be available to me, which is nice to hear. I also asked him about my future family. He said that I will have a nice husband and that we will live close to where I grew up. I wanted to ask him more about my husband, but he was clearly getting a little tired of my specific questions. My friend Evan, who also went, had been studying sangomas so he had all these questions about sangoma training, which were interesting. He asked a lot about how they communicate with ancestors, etc. Also, at the end I asked why the sangoma prefers his practice to modern medicine. He said it’s because he gets his treatments directly from the source, like a medicinal plant, whereas modern medicine crushes up a bunch of stuff into a pill so it is diluted. He said his practice supplies a stronger treatment. Pictures are of our hut, me and our guide Desmond, me and some of the host fam, and the sangoma.