Avuxeni!

Today I had my first official Tsonga lesson. My host family has been teaching me words here and there, mostly about relevant things like the words for spider and frog. There is something funny about saying, "I killed a puma with my bare hands." Just in case you were wondering, puma means spider in Tsonga! Another interesting aspect of the Tsonga language is the extensive greeting. It consists of about four phrases exchanged between two people who meet each other in passing on the street. It goes something like this (secretly, I had to check my notes in order to get the spelling right...):

Person 1: Avuxeni (Good morning)
Person 2: Aye (...No direct translation, but acknowledgment of the person)
Person 1: Minjhani? (How are you?)
Person 2: Na mina, hi pfukile. Na wena? (I am fine, and you?)

After learning these phrases, I am greeting everybody I see! The people in Bushbuckridge are extremely friendly and it makes them grin when I attempt to speak Tsonga. Even when I speak English, they wonder which language I am speaking (according to the man selling fresh bread at the bakery, we speak much to fast!).

I am now comfortably settled in to my homestay. My host mom (in the picture above) and her daughters have welcomed us (myself, Amaka, and My) into the family! The younger daughter is seventeen years old. She was home for the weekend, but is leaving for college in Pretoria for the rest of the time I will be here. The three of us from IHP sleep in the same room. We take bucket showers outside twice a day (which is completely necessary because of the heat and dust throughout the day!). The bucket shower is one of my favorite times of the day. There is a soundtrack of crowing roosters or chirping crickets, depending on the time of day and the water is always so refreshing after a day of 90+ degree weather! The toilet is a few hundred feet from the house, but at night, we are told to just go to the bathroom in a bucket inside the bedroom. None of us have been brave enough to use the bucket yet...

Despite the different toilet and shower situation, I feel so comfortable here in Bushbuckridge (specifically, I am in a village called Islington). A typical day for me begins at 6am, the only time that it is acceptably cool outside. I go for a short run to the homestay house where other IHP friends are staying. I quickly say hello to them and play with their one year old host brother before running back to my house. Then, I take my morning bucket shower (washing my hair is the biggest challenge!) and get ready for the day. Breakfast normally consists of sour porridge, which tastes great when you add a touch of peanut butter, and fresh bread. I eat a mango straight off the tree as I walk to the bus stop where I catch the van that takes me to the Southern African Wildlife College. As I walk to the bus stop, I see all the children heading to school in their plaid uniforms and they all shyly wave to us. The ride to school is another best part of my day. It takes about forty-five minutes to drive over the rocky streets and often we are delayed...the other day we had to stop and wait for a herd of giraffes to move out of the street! Because we drive partially into Kruger National Park each time we go to and from school, it feels like a safari! We see elephants nearly every day.

I've seen two baboons, dozens of giraffe and zebras (even a baby!), and hundreds of impala! Usually the animals are within arms reach. Remember, this is all without a fence separating us! Once I get to the college, I take one or two classes. Our afternoons are usually at a site visit. Yesterday we went to visit a traditional healer who told us about his remedies for all kinds of illnesses. It was certainly a fascinating experience that I wouldn't get anywhere else! After school, we head back to our homestays where we sit outside and chat with our families or do homework. Dinner is usually served around 8pm. By then, it's time to take our evening baths and then hop into bed for another full day!

This is my general routine, but many times we do things completely out of the ordinary! On Sunday, I went to the Maholoholo Wildlife Rehab Center and saw lions, leopards, vultures, and many other animals. I even pet a cheetah! I have photographic evidence to prove it! We have visited the market in Acornhoek several times where I buy the fruits and vegetables for my packed lunches. I even fetched water for the family today and learned that pushing a wheelbarrow is much, much harder than it looks!

The best excursion was when I went to another homestay family's house to celebrate my friend Sophie's birthday. The birthday tradition in the village is to douse the birthday girl or boy with buckets of water. Needless to say, Sophie got drenched from head to toe! At her house, we sat in a circle outside with the family and each kid performed a dance. I learned a few traditional Tsonga dances as well as some of the modern "club" dance moves like "the survivor" and "the runner." The evening quickly turned into a cultural exchange when the kids started begging us to perform "American dances." We were stumped on that challenge, so we ended up teaching them the infamous "Soldier Boy" routine. Afterwards, Swati danced Indian Garba, I did irish dance, and Amaka did traditional Nigerian dance for the enthralled crowd. It ended up being an incredibly fun night filled with laughter.

Academically, the program is starting to pick up pace. I have a written assignment due almost every day and our case studies are not far in the horizon. For Spring break, I have decided to go to Durban and then travel to Port St Johns in the Wild Coast region of South Africa where there are beautiful, secluded beaches and a ton of backpacking opportunities. It sounds like the ideal vacation to me!