December 4, 2010
A warm evening has turned to the clouds above my village grayish-pink, and a group of young women wearing striped, colorful blankets has returned, singing, through the front door of our house. The iqude, or initiation celebration for Gogo’s 19-year-old granddaughter, has officially come to a close.
It began two nights ago, when the same group, with the girl of the hour presumably shielded by their little circle, walked quietly away from the house in the late afternoon. No one was allowed to tell me where they went. That night they returned after sunset. And I was woken at 5 am (the iqude was a pretty big deal so I was luckily ready for anything) by the girls singing and beating a drum inside the back shed which had been set aside as their special sleeping quarters. The rain then drowned out their voices, even though the shed is right outside my window, pounding down thunder onto my tin roof. I didn’t see Gogo’s granddaughter all day – she has been concealed ever since that first night and will be for quite some time – while preparations for the big celebration were in full force. Luckily (I suppose) I was busy at a community event (more on that later) and did not get to witness the slaughtering of two sheep and a cow!
A friend was visiting me, a volunteer from a nearby village. We went on the coolest walk! We followed a long dirt path down through the wide fields, then turned off into the grasses and through a strip of trees (runty as tree clusters go). But the fields were gorgeous as the yellow sun lowered into the grasses ahead. And on our way back (the clouds were blue, pink, gold – there’s a lot of sky around here – we explored a ruined house and trespassed across an abandoned dairy farm!
Our dinner consisted in my favorite South African treats: sweet bread cakes, too many of them. People were everywhere, gogos sitting on colorful straw mats, kids everywhere, and very satisfied males barbecuing, sawing through carcasses, and hanging up parts of the cow. Blood was everywhere too, as the women were busy washing and emptying intestines and other savory innards!
We were very tired. But before bed, around 10 o’clock, the real fun began. I don’t know how into detail I am allowed to go. I guess Gogo’s granddaughter was still chilling in the shed, but just outside, on the lawn, there was drumming and dancing, an orange log fire, and we sat under the sharp white stars and watched (the only males present were about three). Lots of traditional singing in isiNdebele, lots of females having a good time.
Guess what woke me the next morning? You guessed it. The girls disappeared again and my friend and I (solemnly vowing not to gorge ourselves on cakes and, for my part, delightedly breaking that resolve) went to help with the preparations. While the Ndebele girls spent an uncomfortable day in the bush under a hot December sun, the Americans cut green beans and carrots. We also took pictures, of the gogos’ bright dresses and the huge black pots over the flames, one of which containing a gaping dinosaur jaw! Just kidding, but the cow’s ribs reminded us both of huge blunt teeth.
The guests/entire neighborhood who wasn’t already there arrived around twelve. The girls came back from the bush, only their heads showing above the blankets which still shielded the celebrated girl, who it seemed to me was missing out on her own party. She did get to listen, however, as the community announced the gifts that were set out before her, for everyone to look upon besides her. There was a large bed piled with bright pink pillows, placed on the lawn with its accompanying black wood chests of drawers, about twenty warm winter blankets, almost as many traditional straw mats, multiple towel sets in bathing buckets . . .
Before the presents were presented, the girls spent maybe twenty minutes under the tree, singing half-heartedly behind their thick blanket-wall. I could hardly blame them, two sleepless nights and a blazing exile in the bush explained the lyrics they were singing in isiNdebele: We are tired, we are hungry, we walked far, the sun is hot . . . I translated to my Sepedi-speaking fellow volunteer, making brilliant inferences about how these were traditional songs. Turns out the girls were coming up with chants at the spur of the moment, trying to hurry the process along: “Come on, father, come on grandmother, we’re tired, the sun is hot” . . . very creative!
Finally the men emerged, hopping enthusiastically and singing with knobbly sticks in their hands. They put a glass jar on the ground and stood in a group while a spokesperson announced how much money each community member was giving the girl: “Fifty rand from Baba Mahlangu, for school . . . two hundred rand from Baba Skosana, for house something-or-other” (I couldn’t understand everything). And after every offer the young woman chanted, “Eh, Baba __________, thank you,” with varying degrees of enthusiasm and embellishment depending on the amount of money. A drunk guy who strayed in late gave four rand and the girls were not impressed!
Well, then the men left and the women came. This part was really touching. There were tears as each woman ducked into the circle of blankets and emerged again. Gogo’s granddaughter was given her own traditional blanket to wear in the future. The presents were presented, the girls left, and the food began to make its rounds. Here in South Africa the women can get really into the commotion over serving food, practically shoving the line along and hollering out who should get served and how much. There was a lot: pap, beef, mashed potatoes with peas, mashed pumpkins, carrots and green beans (hold your applause, please), and mayonnaised cabbage with sweet raisins. It was excellent – even the beetroot, which I usually dislike, was sweetly mixed with bits of apple. There were tons of bottles of cold drink (soda).
Well there’s not too much else to tell about the inqude. It was so fun to see the tumbling kids in a line before the dancers, mimicking the young man who kicked up their legs and stomped down upon the grass. Keep in mind that the African fields stretched gold and green and blue to the far blurred horizon, beneath a lovely sky with white clouds to high to cast shadows!
Then there were impossible contests for the increasingly drunker men, like holding a 2 liter glass soda bottle (full) at straight arm’s length for six whole minutes, or hopping over little items while stretching down to touch your toes. Ridiculous. The other side of such glorious cultural events is that it’s harder to have privacy and people can be pretty blunt about how they feel about your actions. This one drunk guy was plaguing me for a strand of my hair! For like twenty minutes! Luckily I enlisted two young South African women to laugh with me and question him and explain to him that his efforts were in vain because “Nhanhla agafuni” (Nhlanhla doesn’t want to).
To get away from the guy and because the day was cooler now and the late afternoon sun was on the tall yellow grass that the herded cows walked by, as they passed thatched rondovals and barbed-wire fences. Ran into some kids, some of my learners, stopped to talk with a gogo and her daughter under a tree, helped some men push their car, accepted a peach from another kid (they’re everywhere these days) (both kids and peaches).
I think I’m done talking about that! Nice, huh?

December 4, 2010, but on another note . . .
The Healthy Living Project, the community-based youth HIV/AIDs awareness group that the former volunteer worked with, had an even yesterday for World Aids Day (which is actually Dec. 1). It was last-minute, I wouldn’t normally tried to organize so much in so little time but it worked out (not smoothly or exactly as expected, which was to be expected). My friend, who if you’ll remember was visiting, remarked that it was really good to see this kind of thing taking shape. The event was from 9-4. People started wandering in at 2 or so. It was stressful to get things to happen. But in the end, what made it worthwhile was that we got the young people, mostly teenagers along for the loud music and rapping, to get tested. There were local nurses, a mobile clinic from the municipality along with visitors from the Department of Health. And the other super encouraging thing was seeing the young guys take charge of the event, giving speeches, making posters . . .
A big part of my job, I’ve discovered, is trying to discover what my job actually is. It sounds strange, but I don’t want to end up doing everything, I want to empower the community and be a resource, but I still want to show that I’m working hard, and I want to integrate and figure out just how friendly to be. I need to keep emotionally sane, to adapt . . . the list gets long!
Anyway, the event was a success.