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Redefining happiness and a 12-cow marriage proposal [Days 19-20]

At home it’s easy to get caught up in the physical things that will make you happy.  Maybe a new pair of shoes? Or tickets to a sporting event? Maybe more money? A bigger house?

This weekend 10 of us went to Bulungula Lodge – a backpacker’s (hippie’s?) haven nestled in an old Xhosa (the Xh is pronounced with a click) village – where, as Natalia perfectly puts it, happiness is a way of living.

Angry chicken in the bathroom.

As soon as we got there we received an in-depth introduction to the intricacies of their toilet and shower systems. Everything there is whittled down to the bare essentials. There are no pipes running water to the lodge and there’s no gas or electricity heating up the water. But, at the same time, these were some of the nicest showers and hole-in-the-ground toilets I’ve ever seen.  Every single stall was painted differently and every single shower tiled in a different pattern.

After getting over the initial shock of finding an angry chicken in the bathroom, I joined the rest of the team for a walking tour of the village.

A traditional Xhosa home. The black line indicates that the man of the house passed away.

Our guide Zaza took us through the village making stops along the way to describe how space is allocated to people who want to build a home (the headman tells them where they can build), how the houses are actually built (by hand out of bricks that are made with dirt and cow dung), and how each family has their own garden that’s used to grow vegetables for them to use and trade with other families.

After a quick stop at the medicine man’s house (ironically, he wasn’t there because he needed to see a doctor at the hospital to treat his asthma) and s top at the local store, we started a long hike up to go to the “bar” and try some traditional Xhosa beer.

Xhosa boys assuming the "traditional" gangster pose

On our way there were kids and people everywhere. I used to think that when foreigners would come to Africa and take pictures of the locals it was a little silly. All I could think was, “What? You’ve never seen a black person before?”  What I learned on this trip is that that assumption was completely wrong.

Everyone we met along our walk stopped us and asked us to take their picture. Even 4-year old kids would point to our cameras and pose. Then as soon as we were done they would pull our arms down so they could see the picture! It was insane. I guess it’s indication of just how many tourists this village receives that even the kids are aware of how a digital camera works.

By the time we reached the bar we were all a little more than a little thirsty and were looking forward to a nice cold drink. We obviously weren’t thinking straight.

The “bar” was one round room with men sitting on one side, and women on the other.  And the “beer” was an instant mix made the day before in a large barrel. (We’re still trying to figure out how something made out of an instant powder can actually have alcohol content…)

The bucket.

R3 ($0.40) for 1 liter or R12 ($1.60) for 5 liters. It was a tough decision, but always in for a deal our group of seven decided to splurge and go for 5-liters served in a bucket that was passed around the room Kiddush-cup style.

The locals really seemed to enjoy it, so we all thought we were in for a treat.

We were wrong. You know sourdough bread? Take that, liquefy it and you’ll have a rough idea what a tastier version of this drink would be.

While the beer wasn’t the deliciousness we thought we were in for, the company was definitely better than expected.  With Zaza as our translator we spent a little over an hour just hanging out with locals politely sipping from the bucket as it was passed to us and learning a little bit more about what life in the village is like.

We learned about marriage customs – if a man wants to marry someone he needs to pay an average of 6 cows to the woman’s family – at which point they started asking each of us what a man needed to do to get a wife in our countries.  I tried to explain the concept of a ring (and how sometimes it could cost as much as 6 cows) but they just thought that was ridiculous. I mean, what function does a ring have?

Then they started asking each of us how old we were and whether or not we were married.

The headman and proposal number 1.

Natalia, Anna, and I were all certain that they would consider us to be old maids, but were pleasantly surprised to hear them tell us that we were all too young and still had plenty of time to get married.

To make things even better, after divulging I was single, I received two marriage offers! The first man was, sadly, already married and his wife wasn’t too keen on sharing him.  The second man made an offer of 12 cows.  I told him I’d need to talk it over with my family and let him know. Mom, dad? Thoughts?

The rest of the weekend was a bit of a happy, relaxing blur.

That night we sat around a fire, looked at the stars, and drank cider and woke up the next morning to a rainy day that gave us an opportunity to relax, read books, drink tea, and play a rousing game of Trivial Pursuit: South African edition.

If you’re ever in South Africa, I say rent a car and give this place a visit. Just be warned the road there might be bumpy (literally), but the destination is definitely worth it in the end.

#ibmcsc South Africa

Synagogue; not Senegal [Day 16]

Me: “Hey guys. Count me out for dinner tonight. I’m going to synagogue.”
Teammate: “You’re going to SENEGAL?!?”
Me: “No… Synagogue.”
[insert blank stare]
Me: “Jewish Church”
Teammate: “Ahhhhhhhh.”

I had that conversation at least 3 times. I’m guessing it’s a language barrier thing – my American accent is throwing people off? Or maybe since Judaism isn’t as pervasive in other cultures, a lack of exposure?

In any case, I took Marco (from Germany) to synagogue a couple nights ago to celebrate Purim.  He mentioned he was really interested in seeing what it was like and he had access to a car that could get us there.

So, we went to shul to celebrate.

Based on the size of the city, I was expecting a very small, nondescript building. So, when we pulled up to an old synagogue complete with large stained glass Jewish star, I was shocked.  The building wasn’t huge, but it could hold at least 400 people.

Marco showing off his kippah and looking serious

By the time Megillah reading started there were maybe 70 people in the room with a kids section being directed by the Rabbi’s wife on when to make noise and when to stop after hearing Haman’s name. Also, since this was an orthodox shul, men and women sat separately, so I didn’t get to see Marco’s expression when the kids started shouting for the first time – a little jarring if you’re not expecting it.

After Megillah reading was done, I thought this was it.  There wasn’t space inside the building for people to hang out and eat (which is what usually happens during Jewish holidays). So, I thought we were done and was mildly disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to introduce Marco to Hamantaschen.

Kids getting ready to come in for the skit

But, suddenly we were ushered into the building next door, a dining hall (which doubles as a pre-school during the week), where we were told the kids were going to do a quick skit about the story of Purim which turned into one of the most adorable skits I’ve ever seen, but I’m a sucker for cute kids with accents.

Overall, the congregation was fairly welcoming. While munching on Hamantaschen (yay!), we talked to a few people who explained that the synagogue was established in 1898 but that the community has slowly been shrinking. The young people are moving to bigger cities and overseas and slowly the older people are following to be closer to their kids. To me it sounded sad, but everyone there seemed happy and hopeful.

It definitely wasn’t home and it wasn’t at all what I was expecting, but I’m happy I had a chance to experience a little bit of Jewish life while here.

Oh, and on a completely different note. I’m writing this at 6 a.m. (on day 18) after waking up to a hotel room that was covered in an inch of water.  All I’m hearing from upstairs right now is “Snails, Daniel! There are snails!”

#ibm csc South Africa

More Africans have access to mobile phones than to clean drinking water [Days 12-14]

After a relaxing weekend spent at the beach and cooking team dinners on a balcony over-looking the ocean (In case you can’t tell, this is me trying to make you jealous. Is it working?), we were back to work this morning.

Our sunset braai on the balcony

We started taking everything we learned last week, from our meetings and independent research, and putting them into revised documents to be approved by the people managing the projects.

Success! The first round of approval went off smoothly. Tomorrow morning will be the second and final round before working with the Education Management Information System (EMIS) team becomes official.

In preparation for that assignment we’ve started researching and found some pretty interesting facts:

• More Africans have access to a mobile phone than to clean drinking water
• There are more active sim cards than citizens
• 60% of the population has cell phones that can browse the internet but only 21% actually use it.
• 57% of mobile web users in South Africa have never used a desktop
• 1/3 of South Africa’s top 100 advertisers do not advertise online.
• 13.9% of the population uses the internet
• SA is ranked 5^th in the world for mobile data usage (ahead of the US)
• Facebook was used by 85% of mobile subscribers in 2010

Breakdown of technology use in South Africa

#ibmcsc South Africa

Adventures in baking abroad [Day 11]

We had a birthday in the group today (Happy birthday, Mohit)!

Somehow (I’m still not exactly sure how) I got wrangled into leading the charge in baking a cake. One problem: I don’t bake.

Ok. I’ve tried in the past and occasionally succeeded, but for the most part, baking and I don’t mix. Cooking, sure. Baking, no. In the past I’ve managed to double the amount of baking soda, leave out the sugar, use egg whites instead of egg yolks, think that I could get away with using just a ¼ cup less flour, etc… (Dear family, I promise to never try to bake those pumpkin chocolate chip cookies ever again.)

To me, baking is a science, but cooking is an art. Everything in baking needs to be precise. Too much oil, water, flour, sugar, and the whole thing turns into a mess.

So, I made my way to the local Spar (grocery store) to pick up some yellow cake mix and brownie mix (the safer way to bake). I found the boxes with the easiest set of instructions (along the lines of just add 2 eggs, 250 mL milk, 100 mL oil), thinking that we’d be able to find measuring cups and everything we needed back at the hotel’s kitchen.

I was wrong. There are no measuring cups.

So, we had to MacGyver our way through the process – in metric units.

Our base unit of measure became the 500 mL bottle of milk (thankfully I didn’t grab the 350 mL bottle at the store).

For the yellow cake, to get the 250 mL of milk was easy. We took two cylindrical glasses and split the milk evenly between them.  To get the 100 mL of water… meh, 2/3ish of the glass of milk. Given my history with using the word “meh” in baking, I was concerned. But, Natalia assured me that being off by 1-2 mL won’t hurt.

On to the brownies. 125 mL of oil; simple – just half the amount of leftover milk. And 60 mL of water is just half of the amount oil. No one else understood what I was trying to do, but to me it all made perfect sense.

250 mL of milk as our base measurement.

With some decorating help from a few of the other teammates, in the end it looked really pretty. I’ll try to update this post with a picture of the finished product soon, but people polished it off before I even had a chance to snap of photo. I guess that’s a good sign, right?

Here’s hoping my misadventures in baking end here because when I get back I might actually have to try some of the recipes that have made their way onto my Pinterest board – knowing full well that the end product will never look as good as it does in the pictures.

#ibmcsc south africa