So I wrote this earlier and just held back to give a bit of a break between stories for added effect... now, where were we? Oh yes, day two of our Vuk Africa tour...........
We woke up on Friday morning to a beautiful sunrise over the Valley of 1000 Hills, where KwaNyuswa is situated. It’s soooo pretty there! Honestly, just rolling hills for miles with houses and huts dotted all over them. We had a (surprising) cheese and polony toasted sandwiches with Rooibos (South African no caffeine tea) for breakfast. Polony, as I learnt from google when I got home, is like ‘baloney’ in the US, and is basically just a bright pink sandwich meat that is really popular here. It’s good, just hard to ignore the fact it’s pink!! After brekky, and thanking Sibongile with beanies and Australian pencils (care of Elsa), Siyanda took us to meet the local medicine woman, the Sangoma. She showed us the tools of her trade: various potions, powders, bits of plants and incense (read burning twigs!!). It was really interesting to ‘talk’ (through Siyanda speaking in Zulu) to her about what she does, what it means to the community and how it works in with Western medicine. It was a shame to miss out on private readings, but she was busy healing someone else so fair enough! The next stop was to meet some local women who make jewellery out of beads, which were so beautiful we nearly bought the place out! I’ve seen plenty of beaded jewellery here in South Africa, but their stuff was just so nice! The end of our tour was at ‘the rock’, where Katie drove us on the top of a mountain. It has stunning views into the hills, with Inanda Dam and also looks down to some of the houses of KwaNyuswa. I’m so glad we did that tour with Vuk Africa, it was just so interesting and something I would not have the chance to experience anywhere else while here.
On Friday afternoon, Elsa and I went back into Durban to see the beach one last time before we went back to Joburg. We swam in the beautifully warm Indian Ocean... it’s amazing, how warm it really is, even in April!! The waves were massive right next to the shore too (big dumpers!), so it was a really different experience to the beaches I’m used to at home. It was SO nice though, and I’ll probably be in Durban again when I travel after exams too. We went back to have dinner at Katie’s but had an early night after being tired out from the tour!
On Saturday morning, Elsa & Katie had a meeting and I stayed at Valley Trust, the place where we were staying. This place was fascinating as well, I’m still not exactly sure what it is, but there were kids running around and there were various clinics (like a ‘regular’ doctor’s clinic and a HIV clinic). It’s not normally a place for public accommodation, but Katie and other volunteers I have met have stayed there too. It was nice and quiet, and I was glad to have a lazy morning to catch up with Sean and write in my diary.
Once Elsa got back, we picked up Samke (Katie’s friend) and Siyanda (our tour guide), and went for a picnic at Inanda Dam. We played Snap and ate chicken sandwiches (which we were a bit iffy about, after the tour!) by the water. It was a nice afternoon, and great to hang out with the others outside of the tour situation. That night, Katie took us for dinner at Samke’s house. She lives with her grandma, brother, sister and sister’s daughter. Samke’s parents live in Durban, and her grandma feeds and houses all of her grandchildren on her pension. It’s obviously a really difficult situation for everyone, and Katie has been helping Samke to find a part-time job to help her grandma out. Their house was very modest, a lot less extravagant than the house we had stayed at on our tour. They were such lovely people, and it was nice of them to have us there even though we were absolute strangers. We had what you might call an ‘interesting’ spinach dish, predominately spinach and salt (and salt and salt). We ate our meals as best we could and were so grateful for them, especially as Samke’s grandma told us that their spinach crop was running out (maybe even a ground roots example of climate change?). The meal would have been a real gesture to us as guests and friends of Katie, who does a lot for them. In saying this, I probably won’t be eating salty spinach for a little while to come...
Before leaving for Joburg on Sunday morning, we visited the Sunday school that Katie and her housemates run in KwaNyuswa. The kids were absolutely gorgeous, and as much as it bothers me how very very Christian it was (to the point where in Australia it would be considered indoctrination), it was good to see the kids being so keen and learning to read in the process. We made them some polony sandwiches and soon were on our way back up the freeway to Gauteng province. After a few obstacles along the way, a map being thrown out the window and low petrol scare (BUT I PROMISE I AM FINE!), I was back in Room 205, Block D, Monash South Africa. It was a bit painful being back in ‘the cage’, but I had comfort in the fact that I was totally wrecked from an amazing two weeks away!
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