Tshabo

We spent the last two weeks traveling around South Africa. One March 6th we flew from Cape Town to East London. From there we drove about 2 hours to our rural homestay, about 45 minutes of the drive was on dirt roads. Most of us stayed in a village called Tshabo, which is divided up into different blocks and we were in block 2. A few others from the group stayed in a neighboring village called Dongwe.

The village had it’s own school system and several churches. The homes all had electricity, something that was brought to them after the end of apartheid. However there was no running water in each of the homes, but there were water taps dispersed throughout the village.
Tshabo was really an amazing place and if I ever get the chance to come back to South Africa, it will be one of the first stops on my list. The village was beautiful, located at the top of the hill with an amazing view. Goats, chickens, and cattle roamed freely throughout the village. I was scared of the cows since they were bigger than I had ever seen and all had horns, but we did have some fun attempting to stare them down off of different pathways. I also attempted several times to catch a chicken with my bare hands, but I was unsuccessful. However I did help a little boy to catch one in a giant group effort that consisted of us surrounding a few families of chickens and leaping wildly at them, it was quite a sight.

Most of us were paired up with another student for this homestay. I lived with another girl from Minnesota. Our family consisted of our Mama, her 35-year-old son, and 3 of her granddaughters (grade 5, grade 1, and 2-years-old). The house was a bit smaller than my house in Langa, but a fairly similar setup. There were 5 rooms: a kitchen (without a fridge or a sink), a living room (complete of course with a tv and a stereo), and 3 bedrooms. One of the bedrooms was about the size of a closet and contained only a single bed, which was all that could fit in the room, that room belonged to the son. Another room was shared by the 3 girls and it contained a double bed and a couple of wardrobes, the room that Sarah and I stayed in was actually the mothers room and was very nice. It had a double bed, a wardrobe, 2 nightstands, a dresser, TV, and a vanity table. It was kind of ironic that the first time we would be able to look in a mirror whenever we wanted coincided with the first time we would be living in an area with no running water and therefore limited bathing opportunities.
It was amazing how much certain aspects of Tshabo reminded me of my Voyageurs trip, in which I spent a month in northern Canada. Oddly enough I felt at home immediately in Tshabo. Something about peeing outside and brushing your teeth with water from a water bottle is oddly invigorating.

The first day we were there we had a family day, so we were able to just hang out and get a feel for the area. We learned some new games from the kids, and also were to some degree put on display for them as they poked and prodded at us. They were very open about our bodies, and curious and would often grab at us in ways that neither Sarah nor I were used to. Apparently in their culture breasts are not a private thing, and therefore often they were talked about and kids kept grabbing our shirts to look down them.
We talked the kids into taking us on a walk and we explored the valley that lay at the back of our house and separated us from Tshabo 1. It was breathtaking, and I could have spent all day in the fields there, except some of the largest cows I have ever seen came up and I got scared and had to run away. We found some of the other students in our group in a field across from the high school. They were with most of the kids from the village. Some were playing soccer while others were sitting on the ground being mobbed by kids. I played soccer. It was a lot of fun, but also one of the biggest workouts of my life. The grass there is never cut, except by the cows. The nets were wooden posts with a log balanced across the top of them, and a couple times I had to have kids stand on my shoulders to place the logs back up. The field was also located on a hill so half of it was up and the other was down. Due to the long grass, I cut my foot open kicking rocks instead of the ball. The ball was flat but it still worked. Despite the challenges we had an amazing time playing with the kids, and the kids were very good.

The next day we had a lecture at the school on education in the area, although I missed half of the lecture because I got distracted playing stickball with the kids outside and no one notified me that we were starting up again. The rest of the afternoon we had free to do as we pleased. So a group of us explored the area again and even walked to the next village in Dongwe.

On Sunday Sarah and I walked to Dongwe to attend church with some of our friends whose host sibling was singing in church. It was an amazing service, although it was given in Xhosa, so I didn’t comprehend most of it, but I loved listening to the songs.

After church a large group of us walked the long walk back to Tshabo in the heat of the mid afternoon. It took about an hour and a half to walk there and pretty much all of it was uphill. We walked on a dirt path through long grass in open fields and I started singing “Climb every Mountain” because it felt very similar to that scene in The Sound of Music.

We spent 5 days in Tshabo and each day we had different activities planned in the morning, and then an open afternoon. Our activities were aimed at learning about life in Tshabo. One day was spent working in the fields and learning about their agricultural challenges. Oddly enough, I felt at home there and Dad I know that our leader would have loved talking to you about different gardening strategies. Another day we learned to bead things, since that is a big trade for many of the women in the community. I made my own necklace and hope that it doesn’t break before I get home. We also had a day that we spent in the schools, this day was very disheartening. Many of the 11th graders didn’t know basic math and had trouble with easy algebra problems. They had to use calculators to do the simplest of multiplication and we spent about an hour and a half trying to tutor kids through 3 problems. Some were good at it, but the majority of the students in the class were not beyond a 4th grade math level.
The majority of my time in Tshabo was actually spent in the yard of some of my friends homestay families. They had a big yard and their grass was cut so we could lay in it. It is also where most of the kids spent there time, so we learned a ton of new games and basically laughed and played outside all day. It really brought me back, and I don’t think I’ve ever been sadder to leave a place before. A lot of us cried as we drove away and I really felt like part of my heart was staying in Tshabo.