Friday, December 2, 2011

Crocodile Village

Our team spent four days and nights in the village of Ngwenya, which means crocodile.  Miles from any paved road, the area really consists of scattered humble mud and reed houses, surrounded by open grassy fields and small cultivated farm plots.  Electricity and running water have not reached this area.

We were invited by a pastor from that village who teaches at Volta a Biblia. He wanted us to be able to experience the life of rural Africans as close-up as possible.  We knew that we would be rising early with them to go to their fields, and to follow them through the activities of a normal day, participating as much as possible.  Foreign visitors had never spent the night with them before, and it was a great honor to them, and a moving, humbling experience for us.

When we arrived to a big welcome from the extended family and neighbors and local village authorities, we were divided into smaller groups and taken to one of four homes within shouting distance of each other to become members of our new “family.”  Some slept on reed mats on the dirt floor of tiny one-room houses, sharing space with their hosts and children. Others crowded into beds that had been vacated by their hosts.  Some slept in tents that we had brought along.  Without a common language for most, communication often consisted of smiles and gestures.  “It’s now time to eat.”  “It’s time for a bath”  (a warmed basin of water behind an outdoor reed screen).  We had already learned a few basic Shangaan greetings, but little by little the vocabulary grew to include “water”, food names, people’s names, and other important survival words.

When we woke up early in the morning, we found that the household had risen long before to sweep the compound and to work on making reed mats, their primary source of income.  They were eager to get to their fields by 5:30 a.m. to get in some hours of work before the sun got too hot.

Over the course of the four days, these were some of the things that became part of our African rhythm of life, and new skills learned:
·         Walking a mile to the farm plots to hoe and harvest cassava, sweet potatoes and greens
·         Passing by the river where the community gets its water, spear fishes with bamboo poles, ladies bathe and swim after working the fields and people wash clothes
·         Learning how to weave reed mats on an outdoor loom
·         Learning to pick a variety of greens to sort, slice, and prepare for meals (eaten with rice or “pap,” which is stiff cornmeal porridge)
·         Killing chickens! (Eleven had to be butchered for a farewell feast, and almost everyone on the team had a chance to dispatch one)
·         Plucking feathers from chickens you’ve just butchered
·          Cooking all meals over outdoor wood fires
·         Preparing “millies” (corn) from grain to table by the traditional African method - pounding,  grinding, mixing with water and cooking (involves LOTS of stirring)        
·         Learning new African songs and celebratory dances
·         Watching how children are cared for in a traditional setting: a communal effort
·          Being amazed at how skilled a five year old girl can be peeling cassava with a sharp knife
·         Seeing how the household community works in harmony with many daily chores
·         Observing that doing things together is the norm; being alone seems unacceptable
·         Being good-naturedly laughed at for not knowing “basic skills” of life
·         Seeing how no resource is wasted; every drop of water is hand carried from a distance  

Many mental images will remain from the stay in Crocodile village, including the sweet friendships that formed with the families who lavished us with love and laughter.  One that will stand out for me was this:  at the farewell feast (freshly butchered chicken, pap and rice), the pastor's wife thanked us for coming, and as we women on the team stood to the sound of singing, she took traditional African head scarves that matched the one she was wearing, and tied one on each of our heads.  It seemed like a fitting initiation ceremony into a way of life that had seemed strange and difficult the day we arrived, but now seemed almost normal to us.

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