The Village Experience

Before I get into life in the village, I have one more strange difference I forgot to add in yesterday. So strange difference number four; they dont use toilet seat here. I have a flush toilet in my house, which is just like any toilet in America, expect it is missing the seat part. It has the lid and then just the porcalin rim. For the first day or so we all thought we were just supposed to squat over the seat, but after that we all basically said screw it and now everyone sits on the rim. You just need to make sure you don't sit too far back and fall right in.

Ok, now on to life in the village. It's pretty strange. Right now I am about two hours from Pretoria, which has a huge population of white people. However, said white people never ever come into the villages, which I find to be pretty sad. So given that, we are the first white people most of the villagers have ever seen. The majority of them can't afford to go to Pretoria or any of the other Africaaner cities so having a white person living in their village is pretty shocking. Eveen after three weeks here everyone stares at us when we walk by. I am the only person in my village with long blond hair and when I walk by people they point to my hair and then start whispering to each other. In South African culture you have to greet everyone you see on the street. There is a joke about how long it takes you to get to school or work depends on how many people you pass before you get there. It is extremely rude not to greet someone here, and the majority of the time a greeting turns into them telling you their life story. The Zulu greeting actaully translates to "I see you", so if you don't say hello to them you are litterally saying I don't see you which to them is not ok. So you spend a lot of time saying hi to people. The children are the most fun. When you pass them they will say hi and then start yelling "how are you". It is the one phrase that every kid knows. Most of the time before you can even answer they will respond with "I am fine", or even after you respond they will continue yelling "how are you" until you get far enough away they stop caring. With men it is about 50/50 whether it is going to be awkward or not after you say hello. You often say hi, and then as you continue walking you get the "I love you" or "marry me" cat calls that are uncomfortable for Americans. In this culture that is actually a pick up line. Men are very outspoken here to the point that most local females will end up giving their phone numbers to guys just to get them to shut up. In the not so distant past it was a common Zulu tradition for a man to kidnap a female that he was interested in until she agreed to marry him. Luckely that is now frowned upon, but they are still extremely presistant to everyone, not just then new white people in town. For the most part they are extremely nice and funny but every now and then you run into a guy who is just coming out of the tavern and then it is somewhat uncomfortable. Fortunately one of my good friends Andrea lives across the street from me so we never walk anywhere alone.