Welcome to the rondo...

This was an interesting weekend to say the least.  Lots of unplanned adventures.  Worth telling in parts.  Also gives me the opportunity to introduce some of the leading lovely ladies in my life.  Let us begin with Friday, and the part of the weekend that actually went according to plan...

Tim went to Jo'burg for the weekend to visit some friends.  Without Tim and his car it was either get stuck up here on the farm or down in town.  So, I opted not to spend the weekend alone on the farm with no way out and I made myself some plans aka mooched myself onto all my friends. :)  First stop, Claire's place!

Claire is a local Peace Corps volunteer and our hook-up with all the other PCVs in the area, hence all the white people at our parties, or I guess I should say more their hook-up to us and our hot, running water, and nice comfy beds.  Anyways, Claire's the bestest.  We met early on in my stay and became fast friends.  I think we were both grateful to have someone to relate to and some good quality female companionship.  She is also a California girl so we clicked pretty instantly.  Cali love!

Claire showing off her awesome Cali dance skills at one of our parties

Now, Claire is bad ass, as can be told from the above picture, but not just for her amazing dance moves.  First of all, she has been here over nine months now so has a really good lay of the land, making her a great reference about South Africa, and Mtuba in particular.  Her length of stay and ridiculous language brain have lent to her speaking some solid Zulu, which thoroughly impresses the locals, along with myself.  Though it does lead to me getting a lot of "Why can't you speak like that?  She must teach you!"  Thanks Claire, thanks.  Now, Claire works at a less than functioning local NGO, pretty typical Peace Corps material, which she finds slightly frustrating.  But, she's a fighter!  And so she continues to go in everyday to try to make something of it.  I totally admire her determination and motivation.  To take some of the edge off she has been spending some time at Mpilonhle with hopes to build a partnership with her community.  Another reason I love Claire is one aspect of her involvement is helping me with my most trying project, the development of a digital health database.  Yay Claire!  You're awesome!  Thank God for Claire.

Now, also in typical Peace Corps style, Claire is living in a local village with a local family, roughing it, you might say.  And while she has stayed over here quite often and we have picked her up and dropped her off at her place, we have never had an elongated stay there, though she is always more than gracious about inviting us, both as a generous hostess but also for the opportunity to experience village life.  So, this weekend, when I knew I was going to be on my own, I called up Claire: "Sooooo, whtacha doing on Friday....?" She ever so charitably invited me to come over and stay the night, and was even so kind as to tell me that she was excited about it.  Such a sweetheart!

So, on Friday I met Claire at Spar, a cheaper, more traditional grocery store, to pick up a few items with her, which was an experience in and of itself at 5 pm on a Friday.  The grocery store was popping!  When we made it out of there alive we piled into a taxi with a few other women from the village and a crapload of stuff.  People here LOVE to buy in bulk.  And the taxi drivers LOVE to see how many people and how much stuff they can fit in one load.  The whole taxi system, from the organization, to the payment, to packing in like sardines, reminded me a lot of Ethiopia.  Pretty much the same deal.  And from what I hear, it is the same set-up all over Africa, no matter where you go.  So you know one, you know them all.

We took the taxi into the village and got dropped off right in front of her house because everybody, including the taxi drivers, all know Claire, the friendly white girl.  In the village Claire goes by Sipiwe, her Zulu name which means gift.  So, the taxi drivers bid us adieu, "Buhbye Sipiwe!" (because Zulus always say buhbye, never just bye).  And after we put our stuff down and quickly met her family, we went for a walk around the village and were greeted wherever we went with "Hi Sipiwe!".  Every so often I got "Hi other umlungu!" which means "Hi other white person!"  Claire quickly informed them that my name is Nontokozo.  So then it was "Hi Nontokozo!"  And they remembered!  As we were walking in the village the next morning I got many "Hi Nontokozo!"s.  It was pretty amazing.  Claire is quite the celebrity, clearly well loved in the village.  She says it's what makes it all worth it.  And also makes her feel very safe.  The people watch out for her, they care for her, she is THEIR friendly white girl.

As safe as she feels, after visiting another PCV down the road, we headed home to get back before dark.  It is still South Africa friends.  When we got back we spent a little time with the family.  So there is the Mama who lives in the "big" main house and she has one of her grandsons living with her, who is about 11.  His mom, Mama's daughter, lives and works in Jo'burg.  This is a pretty common set-up, with kids living with and being raised by their grandmothers, especially the maternal grandmother.  Mama is a little quirky but her name is Rose, so she's awesome.  Obvi.

In the house behind her lives her son, his wife, their two little ones, and the wife's sister who helps takes care of the munchkins.  Mama's son is a local high school teacher.  The older of their two little ones is the largest and cutest two year old I've ever seen:

Baby love!

Now, Claire lives in a rondoval, or rondo, adjacent to their houses.

The rondo is the traditional housing style of the Zulu, though Claire lives in a particularly fancy looking one, which she is a little bashful about.  The most basic ones are simply a circular structure with a thatched roof.  Pictures of those to come in future posts

They don't have running water in her village which means collecting water that they keep in a cistern and using a pit toilet:

Sweet!  It makes washing dishes and bathing yourself particularly entertaining.  Like I said, Claire is a tough cookie.  This isn't like a week, or even a couple months, this is two years.  For two years, this is her life.  And she totally embraces it.  It's awesome.  I'm not sure I could do it.  Peace Corps volunteers are brave and resilient souls.  More power to them!

After getting my baby quota, Claire made a delicious dinner of sweet and sour lentils with rice and avocado.  Soooo good!  Things get pretty quiet after dark, so we watched a movie (I introduced Claire to Trevor Noah and she LOVED him, obvi) and passed out.  We woke up the next morning at six to house music pumping from her neighbor's place.  Awesomely fantastic.  Oh yeah, cause Zulus cannot sleep in from what I can tell.  Pretty much everybody is up by six or seven, every morning.  Impressive.  We had a lovely breakfast of eggs, washed up, and then headed back into town, thanks to another one of Sipiwe's taxi driver friends who picked us up on the way.  At this point, another leg of my adventure began as I joined my Zulu crew, and all plans go out the window...

But, this is not the last you will hear of Claire.  She has become a regular fixture in my life here, including a trip to Mozambique over Christmas with some of her Peace Corps friends.  Woot woot!  Beautiful beaches and lots of amazing diving!  I'm soooooooo excited!  So, the conclusion of all this is, Claire is awesome.  Yay Claire!  We love you!