Entries about zulu

Since the safari, nothing has seemed that exciting. It’s the last week of projects, and I’m ready to leave. Although I feel sad when I think about leaving, I think it’s just a natural part of saying goodbye – especially since I’ve been here for almost a month, which is a pretty long period of time. Those feelings are already fading, though. I find myself half-present during projects. Like I’m there, but my mind is wandering. I keep thinking about going home on weekends to cuddle with my pups, eat grilled food from my dad, and go for family boat rides (I’m also really looking forward to running on terrain that isn’t only hills and hopefully sometime after 6:00AM).

So this final week of project, I was a little disappointed because I have Holiday Club (similar to daycare) twice: Monday and Wednesday. I definitely left Holiday Club on Monday with snot on my shirt and saliva on my arms/hands. I also held hands with children who had their hands touching private parts. I tried to trade my Wednesday Holiday Club session with someone else, even going as far as offering to buy a milkshake if they did so, but no one would trade me. It’s just not a hot commodity. Yesterday afternoon we also had planning, where I was in charge of planning the clinic information sessions for the week. I happened to learn a lot about sinus infections, gout, and HIV during/after pregnancy. Actually it was very interesting.

Today, I had a morning session of home-based care, which is basically where we go to people’s houses and take their blood pressure, clean wounds, provide clinic transfers, and give painkillers/laxatives/multivitamins. I had some good and bad takeaways. Bad: once again it didn’t seem like we did much. For example, we went to a man whose hands were shaking badly and he had reddish urine and was constipated. We took his blood pressure and gave him laxatives (which later his grandson came out and showed us an entire bag of unused laxatives he already had). The translator/woman from the village who examines the patients thought he had something wrong with his kidney, but what we did didn’t seem very helpful. The good part, though, was actually really cool! I loved travelling throughout the village and having these intimate appointments with the patients. The patients were all smiling and so talkative, which is polar opposite from the feelings/observations I had in the clinic. The whole atmosphere was different when the patient was seen within the home. This is something I would be interested in the future; perhaps I could be a doctor in a rural town who does home visits. It would be more personal, and I could build stronger relationships with the patients.

Well, I’m going to start getting ready for bed, but I’m still thinking about souvenirs for people. I have a couple of non-food items (I need more but I’m still not exactly sure what people want) and some food items (also need more because you can never have too many). I realized that since I haven’t gone out to eat at all, I have a lot of money for souvenirs, so it’s time for a shopping spree. Treated myself to a 1 Liter bottle of Coca-Cola for tonight with my extra money (oh wait, hahah just remembered I forgot to bring my money so someone else payed for it) and played a little Balderdash (kind of fun) but I think a game everyone should try is 30 seconds! So fun!! 5 days left. Single-digits baby!

I’m a little surprised by myself. I keep waking up so tired and feeling unmotivated, but I stay dedicated and run each morning. I enjoy running so much and I am always grateful when I do it, but it’s so hard to get excited and pumped to run early in the morning. Most days, I think of my mom and how she works all day but continues to wake up every day at about 5 AM to do her runs. She motivates me to run the most out of anything, especially since she is running her first ½ marathon this weekend. She has no idea how proud I am of her. It’s making me so sad to not be there and I think of her accomplishments every day.

So something I’ve been talking about in my blogs a little bit is how I don’t feel welcomed in the community. Today, my perspective changed a little. I was walking around before dinner and realized that less people were staring at me and more were saying hello to me. I’ve noticed people are really happy when I greet them in Zulu. While walking, I decided that because I’m always out running/walking through town, people see me and recognize me (I stand out like a sore thumb with my hair/skin color) and have noticed I’m not just here for a week, but more permanent. As reinforcement of this point, I was almost home, and a security guard at the Lodge next door waved and stood up to talk to me more. He said he sees me running every morning and can tell I have an energy and love of running. I learned his name is Talent and that he lives in the nearby village Khula. I told him a little about myself and said I’d see him tomorrow! I left that conversation with renewed energy, just so happy.

Honestly, the biggest thing I think I’m learning from this trip is patience. Everything takes time. It took me about 2 weeks to stop feeling homesick and it took until almost the end of week 3 to feel welcomed in the community. It’s all just an adjustment.

Something I don’t think I’ll ever become accustomed to, though, is the germs that children carry!! This morning I was working at Holiday Club (basically day care). Here is just one example. A kid had come up to me wanting to hold hands and jump on me. I let him, of course. Then, five minutes later, I see him peeing in the grass and then fondling his junk for about 3 minutes. I’m still horrified. Needless to say, I disinfected up to my shoulders when I got home, because you know if one child is doing it, they all are.

The afternoon was chill, though. I had gardening, my absolute favorite! All we did was water the community garden we had helped plant the first week. The plants are really growing quickly! Then we sat on a hill and chilled and talked while waiting for the bus. Dinner was great; I had beef (yay red meat!), and now we are just getting ready for karaoke night. Still not sure how to feel about it. I could totally go for just eating and playing sudoku while a movie plays in the background, but I’m sure this will be interesting too.

Update: Sang Hips Don't Lie and A Whole New World

I am currently stuffed. We have a lot of heavy seeming meals, like meals with sauces and rice or pasta. I then continue to snack until it’s time for bed. It’s just a way to pass the time, especially since the wifi went out again. I’m resigned to the fact that it will never be a constant in my time here.

Today was my first day off of exercise since being here. I swear when I don’t exercise my body becomes lethargic and I feel like a zombie. Feeling this way makes me nervous that I’m getting iron deficient, though, because my meals here haven’t included a lot of meat. Luckily, tonight’s dinner was chicken-based!!! Yay! I think it was good to take the day off though, even though I barely slept in because my internal clock is set to wake up early now.

My first session today was support group. Only two women came today because there is a flu going around. It was a little slow at first because the women were speaking in Zulu for about an hour, but after that, the translator explained their conversation. They were talking about marriage in Zulu culture. Once the woman is married, she is no longer part of her birth family; she is part of her husband’s family. Also, marriage is permanent; divorce doesn’t occur. So, the woman knows going into the marriage that if the husband cheats or forces the woman to quit her job to stay home and take care of the house and children, then she has to be strong and put up with it. Although divorce doesn’t happen, separation is becoming more popular among younger generations. I asked how it made the women feel, being in a relationship where the man has all of the control, and the response was that it made them feel badly. The problem is that even though they may not be happy, they value and respect their culture, which says marriage is permanent. It was really interesting to learn about.

Later we went to the community garden to work. This garden is for people in the support group facilitated by African Impact. I was in leggings and a t-shirt to cover my shoulders, in order to be respectful of the Zulu culture, so it was quite hot out there. We used a garden fork to lift the grass, hoed rows, and planted new seedlings in the rows. Working in the garden was my favorite session so far. I love being in the fresh air and being able to move around and not be confined to a chair for 4 hours.

Pretty good day. I still think about home, though. I’m not terribly sad, but I miss it and look forward to coming home.

So it has been a busy last couple of days. On Friday, I spent some time at a preschool teaching shapes and the alphabet and playing games and singing songs with the local children. In the afternoon, I helped lead an information session on HIV/AIDS at the local clinic to the village caregivers. I learned SO much about it. Like I didn’t know that you can live with HIV if you get treatment but once it progresses to AIDS, which is the 3rd stage of the disease, it is completely fatal.

Saturday started off as a really great day. I FINALLY SLEPT IN!!!!! Went for a run and met the rest of my cohort at the beach. A couple waves demolished me, but still had the time of my life! The beach is my happy place here. Went for a nice, long walk along the beach and saw a family slaughtering chickens on the shore. Supposedly it’s cleaner, so that’s why they do it. We then walked back to the lodge, about 30 minutes, and I was able to FaceTime audio my parents!! Hearing their voices made me start to tear up; it has been so long. I was so happy! I rode that mood to Zulu Cultural Night…where it quickly faded. It started to rain as soon as we arrived. The beginning of the night was kind of interesting because we got to learn about the traditional Zulu culture; we wore some of the traditional dress, partook in dancing, and at dinner, but it felt like they were selling their culture, which was a bit of a turnoff. The activities ended at 7:30 but we were there until 9AM the next morning. We sat around a bonfire and played Mafia and most of us didn’t sleep at all. It was a bit uncomfortable because we were in a really unsafe area. I could hear EDM music all night, animals howling and cooing, and then when I was lying in bed, one of the male employees walked into our hut on accident (yes, we stayed in the traditional huts), and it was very awkward. None of us felt comfortable the entire night and barely slept. I did make me grateful for the lodge though :D

Today was pretty good as well. Took a relaxing morning. Ran and saw some monkeys having sex and a snake. Tried to do laundry but the not so “7 days/week” laundromat was closed…guess I’ll do it tomorrow? Made avocado toast and eggs for lunch then got to not only talk to my parents but see them as well today because I found strong enough wifi to FaceTime. Tried to see the sunset at the jetty but just missed it. Whatever. I have many more days to make it happen. I’m so sad that I have to wake up early again tomorrow, but then it’ll make me more grateful for sleeping in on the weekends. Hopefully everyone back home is doing well. I think of you all often. XOXO