This sentiment was shared with me during a one-year-old’s birthday party with at least 100 people. However, this concept has definitely applied to a lot more than people in the past week. Such as:
The More…
Talking
Food
Information
Music
Soccer (There are so many fields and signs and statues and decorations EVERYWHERE)
All of these things have come together in multiple forms to provide a wonderful start to these next 4 months. The places we visited and speakers we heard from last week provided us with so much to think about that we often have trouble straightening out our own opinions in our heads. This weekend we did our first homestay with families in Soweto and I know that even though we were separated from each other, we all gained valuable insight into the lives of South Africans.
It’s hard to know where to start, but since the homestay was the highlight so far, I’ll just give a brief overview of the places we’ve been since I wrote the first time.
Wednesday we started the morning out with two speakers at the Khotso House in downtown Johannesburg. We first heard from Eddie Mikue who is the Secretary General of the South African Council of Churches. Afterwards we heard from multiple members of the Khulumani Support Group. In the afternoon we headed to the Apartheid Museum. The museum takes patrons through the apartheid struggle from the time whites landed in the cape to present day.
On Thursday we heard from 2 representatives of the African National Congress (ANC), a member of the Democratic Alliance (DA), and a researcher on Nuclear issues in South Africa. The ANC is currently the ruling party in South Africa and has overwhelming majority support because they were the organization that led the freedom movement. The Democratic Alliance is the closest opposition party, but they only had about 20% of the vote in the last election. Finally, David Fig discussed with us the downside of using more nuclear energy in this country.
Friday, we heard from the Treatment Action Campaign which focuses on support and treatment of HIV and AIDS. We also visited Constitution Hill which holds an old jail, an old fort, and the new Constitutional Court. It is an important landmark for South Africans as it brings together the troubled past of the country and the new freedoms of today. After lunch at one of the biggest and nicest malls I’ve ever seen, we headed for our first homestay…
Claire, me, and my host family!
For this stay, we were paired with one other student and lived in a house in Soweto for about 2 ½ days. Fellow Valpo student Claire Simonpetri and I stayed with our host mother, Thandi, her 22-year-old son, Karabo, and her 12-year-old daughter, Kayise. From the moment we arrived, the family was sweet and welcoming. While Thandi was preparing dinner, Kayise took us around the neighborhood…or she was supposed to. We only go to the second house because the neighbor invited us in and we ended up talking for over an hour! We watched some cricket, too, so Claire and I think we’ve got the basics down. Hopefully there will be some more cricket-watching in the future. We just spent the rest of the night talking with our family and watching a movie with Karabo. Saturday we sat around for a little (because timing hardly ever matters, really) before heading to a mall. (Our fourth of the week, there’s lots of malls in Jo’burg) We walked around with Kayise while Thandi shopped at the grocery store which was in the mall! We stopped at McDonald’s on the way home where they had cream soda and it was green! After a stop at home, we eventually headed to the previously mentioned birthday party which was packed. I was told this is because when there is a party, the whole street is invited, and when you invite one person, you should really consider it as 10 people. There is no such thing as not being invited. And of course, a party with that many people needs plenty of food. About a half hour in was when they started serving the meal, and then food continued to be served for remaining 3 hours we were there. After dinner (which we were forced to eat despite being full) came a custard/ice cream/jello dessert followed by juice followed by cookies followed by alcohol. Once we hit cookies and juice, though, they were just continually served and replenished. Just when I was getting pretty tired and ready to go, the best part of the party occurred. Shakira’s Waka Waka began playing and the whole party went crazy. All of the little kids lined up and started doing the dance from the video and then continued to dance the rest of the time we were there. All of their moves were better than I could ever imagine and it was crazy and awesome. Our friends Helen and Lee showed up with their family and we all ended up attempting to dance for a little while. Saturday night wound down like Friday night and we headed to bed exhausted.
On Sunday we woke up around 8 because we were told that they usually leave for church around 8:40…but of course no one is ever really on time so we left for church at 9 when the service was supposed to start at 9. Thandi’s church is Roman Catholic where they only speak Sotho and Zulu, but she had gone to the 7 a.m. service so Karabo took us to Grace Bible Church where they speak English. It was quite an experience. I’ve only been to one semi-mega church in the United States, but this was definitely a full blown mega church. In fact, the pastor’s sermon was actually titled “Becoming a Mega Church.” We were actually seated in the overflow building which was a regular sized gymnasium with bleachers around the top which was also full. We watched the pastor from the screens on the front. It was a bit overwhelming, but also interesting to see so many people together worshiping at the same time. And everyone sang loudly and proudly and often danced as well. It was especially cool when the pastor invited people to pray with him and everyone was praying in their mother tongue. (side note: children are actually expected to learn the father’s tribal language, not the mother’s!) It was certainly an experience I’ll never forget. Sunday afternoon, we visited Thandi’s sister for lunch, then stopped by a friend’s house. Later that evening, a girl we had met at the party named Hope who is our age came over to say good-bye to us. Somehow she and Claire ended up talking about running through these fountains in front of Maponya Mall, and what do you know, 20 minutes later we went to the mall and did it! It was silly and spur of the moment, but so fun.
I learned so much over this weekend, but I was definitely impressed with how friendly everyone we met was. South Africans are very talkative, which was totally fine with us because there was so much to talk about! Even though almost every house is surrounded by outer walls and locked gates, the community ties around Soweto are very strong. There are always people in the streets during the day just playing or talking or working.
I know this was a long one, but I should be able to depend on more consistent internet connections in the near future. We are now in Pretoria, South Africa, until we leave for Namibia early Wednesday morning!
Yes, I am!