A day in the life

To spend the day at a Zulu village homestead was pretty awesome. This homestead was about an hour away from the school. It ended up being located in between mountains and a small valley. The whole group was excited and a bit nervous because everyone thought we were just going to be thrown into rural Zululand. One we arrived we were befriended by three amiable and excited dogs. From there we were shown our hut and the grounds. I was placed with five other girls in one big hut. It was so cute inside, it was like a scene from Snow White. When she walks up stairs with the forest animals and notices the little beds. After that I got to explore the village grounds. There was this beautiful lake that glistened when the sun was setting. Our guide who showed us around and gave us great information about the Zulu culture was extremely friendly. Dave was his name. He told us how inventive and resourceful the Zulu people are. The most interesting thing I found out was that they don't kill cattle for the meat but in fact they would just use all of the cattle for many things.

Some of those things were for instance its dung as natural gas and floor polish. He said that since the cattle aren't given hormones but only grass their dung doesn't smell as badly as we are used to. He then showed us these trees that had tons and tons of yellow birds that were flying back and forth with long blades of grass. Turns out that these birds were the males making nests to attract a mate. Then it was up to the female to choose which nest was the best. What was so awesome was how strong and intricate these nests turned out. These male birds made them with only their beaks and grass. I was completely amazed how meticulous they were. After that we were sitting around a camp fire talking about everything and taking pictures. That was relaxing, then they served us a traditional dinner. Dave explained that the women would never eat barbecued meat because they were the child bearers and if something went wrong with the food it could affect the child. We ate pieces of steak and had a vegetable platter. It was good :]

After that we got to see them dance traditional dances and some of the guys from the group learned Zulu dances. The night ended with some sliced oranges and lots of laughter and silliness. The next morning we were showed how to make a traditional pottery. That was extremely sad for me because I was not able to get the right shape of the clay pot. I actually had to try two times and the end product did not look like my example. The whole weekend was awesome, just to learn something about the culture and just relax for a little bit