"judy on the farm, judy on the farm!"

To mama’s great surprise, I have returned from the rural area unharmed, and only my clothes are a little worse for the wear (and smelly). When I explained the rural area to her last Friday, she simply laughed around the house singing “judy on the farm, judy on the farm,” like I was about to become some kind of reality TV star (although to be quite honest, when we were told that we would be dropped off with 2 rolls of toilet paper, 5 liters of water, 1 candle, 1 box of matches and 1 can of bug spray, I wondered what kind of challenges I would have to incur to earn 12 grains of rice or a jack knife for making shelter). After packing the exact right amount (you all know this to be a boldface lie by now) we drove two hours in a mysterious direction and were dropped off with our new homestay families, graduating to a new level of difficulty with the communication barrier. I have become an expert at phraseology with my limited Zulu vocabulary (the Zulu teacher seems shocked that we are not fluent yet) and supplement the voids with sweeping hand gestures. Ex: where is your +gestures from abdomen to ground with simultaneous dance and painful look on face = where is the bathroom please?
The area was gorgeous, my only complaint was every morning I had to wake up and see the ocean and then eat breakfast while watching the sun finish rising over it. Speaking of breakfast, I HAD MY FIRST BOWL OF CEREAL WITH MILK over the homestay. It was brought to me and like a trooper I drained the cornflakes from the “full cream milk” and ate them. In all 21 years of my life, I have never, ever, had cereal with milk before because of the way milk upsets my stomach. Some of you may be eating fish, face and all, and some may be consuming more pork than the entire country of Israel (jokes) but I conquered the cereal and milk while abroad (only once, mind you). Other than that, food was pretty great, and once we were even give PB&J sandwiches on “brown bread.”
The family lived on a “homestead” as they’re called out here (I know this because I learned, at one point, the Zulu word for homestead) that consisted of a main house, a sleeping house, a cooking hut, a hut for mama to practice traditional healing, a second sleeping hut and a church hut. The huts were round and made of a mud pack with a thatched roof and pretty pastel colors painted on the outside. The two other vegetarians and I were all assigned the same homestay family, and we were given our own hut for the week we stayed there which was such a luxury. Our hut had two double beds, a TV (shocking, because this area only got electricity in the last decade) and one, very dim light bulb. That hut served all of our general purposes, including being the location of our bucket baths. In this scenario, we were given about one liter of warm water to bathe with daily. Needless to say, it was a super clean and hygienic experience and I never, not once, felt dirty. Also, the outhouse situation added to the general feelings of cleanliness as I enjoyed my cockroach friends company while taking care of business.
I taught economics class to 9-12 grade students at the village school, and fought the language barrier by using examples they would find more tangible (if the production of milk in the market increases, what happens to the market for Rama (the gross butter they put on everything, especially peanut butter sandwiches)). The students seemed to enjoy our presence and the opportunity to really practice their English, although the situation seemed somewhat desperate to me. For the most part, the students are educated in Zulu, but they must pass their grade 12 exam in English. Obviously, this poses many problems, and only 35% of the students at the school usually pass (that’s not even factoring the dropout rate, 9th grade was 100 students, 12th was about 25). The few days there culminated with a mini world cup soccer game, South Africa vs. the U.S. during which I had the highly dignified job of playing goalie and allowing the SA team to win (pre planned, duh). Thankfully I had some practice in goal from the days when, as the coaches daughter, I used to be volunteered as goalie.
I will spare you all the details, but the most significant part of the experience was when our 16 year old sister went into labor on our final night. Labor girl, mama, one sister and the three of us set off through the bush (yes, the girl in labor was walking) to the local clinic where we waited an 1:45 for an ambulance to come. Once the EMTs arrived, they continued to rush in this urgent situation by flirting with the American girls in the clinic. I’m not even sure they acknowledged the pregnant girl until Olivia said with some serious annoyance “aren’t you here to take her to the hospital.” To top off the comfort and humanity, no one was allowed to ride in the ambulance with our sister, and there was no other way to get to the hospital at 12:30 at night from the rural area, so naturally she went alone. I’m still not really sure how that situation played out, or whether it’s a girl or boy, because we had to leave early the next morning and no family members had been to or called the hospital yet. Also, every time I have tried to call for the last few days, the language barrier has made it too hard to actually figure out what happened.
We spent this past weekend at a game park, also along the north coast (I eventually figured out where I was) and donned our best safari outfits to spend some face time with wildlife. On safari, we became part of a giraffe migration (one in front, four behind), watched some water buffalo take mud-bathes, waved hi from afar to some elephants, sat five feet from Zebras, and a stone’s throw from a rhino. I also maintain that I saw a lion crouched in the bushes, though no one else did. Pretty standard stuff. Later that day, we took a boat cruise to say howdy to some hippos and catch up with crocodiles. Another day in Africa.

Lots of Love,
Judy