Cobham Weekend/Impendle

So Saturday we went to Cobham which is in the Drakensburg Mountains for the weekend. We stayed in a little summer camp type lodge. The first day, Saturday, we went exploring a bit finding parts of the river we could swim in. On our hike to find these places we had to cross the river and I tragically lost one of my flip flops. Seeing as though this was the only pair I had I made a heroic attempt to rescue them. I threw my camera and other flip flop at someone and ran down the river barefooted through possibly snake infested waters. I caught up to my flip flop and rescued it, it was epic. I caught up to the group and we went swimming in the river for a bit. Then we cooked out some hot dogs and corn and what not, had some tots around the fire. Went to sleep at our usual 8:30/9:30pm. Woke up the next morning and Zed led those who wanted to come on a hike. So we went off on our hike around 8am through the grasslands. There is no forest really. We stopped to swim in the river and see some Bushmen paintings. We hiked pretty far up..it was rough. I should probably get in better shape. We saw tons of Bushmen paintings and then some of us – including me of course – decided to go all the way up to the top. The top was amazing. I’ve been to tops of mountains before but I don’t quite know if I’ve seen a view like this with all the greenery and what not. We also saw baboons on the way up and little baby baboons. Then we hiked down and got back around 4:30pm. It was a long day! We cooked out again. I made a grilled crunchy peanut butter and banana sandwich. It was delicious.

From there, Monday morning my group went to Impendle to our next rural homestay. I went with Rebecca on this homestay and our mama is awesome! We stayed with mama her daughter Nelly and her other daughter’s son Lethle who was four and adorable. Their “land” has four little houses with two of them being round circular huts with thatched roofs in which one of them is for calling the ancestors. They fed us a crap ton as usual and we watched Generations as usual. They also had electricity just no running water. Then we watched some traditional Zulu dancing on a DVD. I asked Nelly, who is 19 by the way and who would know – she acts like shes 30 but mainly because she has to, anywho we asked her if she knew how to dance and she said yes and that she would do it for us the next day.

The next day, Tuesday, we went to do a gardening project. My group of four went to a preschool, called a cresh, and planted all kinds of herbs and vegetables for the people to maintain and have as food. Essentially we are trying to help the community grow and develop into a self-sustainable community. Then we ate traditional meal at a school in which some of the students put on a performance for us. Then we met a traditional healer or sangoma and she talked to us about what she does and how she works with the Department of Health and she called the ancestors for us. When she did that we all legit heard something back so that was interesting. We got back to our homestay and Nelly said people were coming over to dance for us. So 20 of the neighborhood kids came and taught us Zulu dances and had so much fun they wanted to come over the next day and do it again and told us we should prepare some American dances to teach them.

Wednesday, we visited the local clinic which is actually pretty well equipped. We also talked to an old Zulu lady who started a hospice program to comfort all the patients with HIV at home and she has this whole program which the caregivers don’t get paid for the work they do. We ate some more then visited Sam’s community. Sam is an American who has been living in South Africa in her own community of a few families. They practice permaculture and live off the land basically. She is trying to empower the community of Impendle and help them been self sustainable. That night 30 kids came over. We taught them the Macarena and electric slide. One of the girls brought over the traditional beads and things the women wear and we put those on and danced. Also we visited some local crafters and met a lady who wanted Rebecca and I to come over that night. We did and she fed us a whole lot and we came home and got fed again…2 dinners! They wanted to just keep feeding us because we weren’t staying long enough to try all the traditional meals.

Next morning Nelly taught us how to carry water on our heads and gather wood and bundle it and also carry it on our heads. Mama, who by the way doesn’t speak a lick of English, sent us off with a crocheted water bottle holder that is baller! We came back to Cato Thursday and debriefed and reunited with our Cato mamas who all missed us greatly.

This weekend we really want to go see a movie and eventually go to a soccer game but probs not this weekend. Also I think I am going to church on Sunday with Emma and her mama. This Monday-Thursday I will be at Mthwalume..our last rural homestay.