Whindemer is still amazing. This past week has been rainy; the lightning storms over the ocean and the beach have been absolutely incredible at night and it, been a little easier to work on homework rather than lay on the beach.
This weekend I went back to Cato to visit and I’m so glad I went. I don’t think I would have truly appreciated the opportunity that I had if I had not left. I now can go visit and truly appreciated how amazing the Zondi family is and relish every conversation, with my mama and brothers, the neighbors and friends. I just get to treasure moments like being taught how to play Sudoku with Ayanda’s dad, or having a debate on politics, and multiple relationships with Spa, Mlu and Ayanda, or dancing with beautiful Bule when her two incredible twins slept. It was so good to come back to mamas cooking and my room, and have S’bahle wake me up in the morning and ask if I would play race cars. I still feel guilty not living there because I made a conscious decision that took away part of their monthly income. I also at the moment feel like I am a tourist who is posing as a student. I have to remember that is still South Africa, just a different part, when else and I going to get the opportunity to wake up in the morning, go swimming, running, and sun tan, and then be back in my apartment writing a paper all before 8:30.
Bread! I learned that I can make some pretty tasty bread without a recipe. Water, oil, salt, flour, yeast, and a little sugar and you are set. I have been having fun making bread for my apartment mates. Our apartment became a home with a little help from smell of freshly baked bread.
Our friend Bongani, has theater connections at Durban’s theater and got us free tickets to the mellow drama ‘mating birds’ at Durban’s Play House. It was fun to go out to the theater and experience a different part of Durban, Monday and Bongani are hilarious university students who are studying here. Let’s just say I’m still processing it. “A black man and white woman meet at the beach and end up making love. When this is discovered, a case of rape is wrongfully declared, and the made is sentenced to death. It was set during apartheid and highlighted some of the issues around race, rape, cultural assumptions.
Every day I try to do at least two things. 1) I always to a cart wheel, this has happened every day since I have been in Africa and 2) have a completely new experience, they do not necessarily need to be epic events but in their own way each one is. When I return to the states I’m going to keep up these goals. So new experiences this week, there are many more I just need some time to remember them:
Living in my own apartment for the first time in my life
Baking bread without a recipe
Figuring out the public transportation mini-bus system between Cato Manor and my apartment
Going to a mellow drama
Playing with match box cars for 3 solid hours with my little brother
Nina’s “bachelorette” 21st birthday party
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