Ok! So once again I have been neglecting my blog and I sincerely apologize, but I've recently come across some technical difficulties which have inhibited me from updating. Anyway...

The rural homestay started on September 27th, a Saturday. I was dropped off with my SIT homestay partner, Sarah, at a homestead in Mangete, Ohwebede in the Amacambini traditional authority 2 hours North of Durban. There is much to much that went on during my ten-day stay there, but I'll give a few details.

My family consisted of my Gogo (grandmother) and her daughter Gugu, who has 5 children--Lindo (m; 14), Nthokozo (m; 11), Cebo (m; 9), Sisi (f; 6) and Sanele aka Gwenya [crocodile in Zulu] (m; 5). I adored spending time with them and developed a great relationship with my Gogo and siblings. Gugu worked eThekwini (in Durban) during the week and only returns to empaphandleni (the rural areas) to spend time with her children on the weekends. Sarah and I encountered a few minor hardships along the way-- ranging from pit toilets enclosed by flapping plastic sheets, 45-minute rides in tractor flatbeds with approximately 25 ululating Zulu women, standing for 6 hours at a high profile wedding where the main events are the giving of hundreds of "super soft" blankets and the drinking of utshwala besiZulu (traditional Zulu beer), and hiking down to the highway to hail a 18-wheeler tractor trailer for a cheap ride to the next town. I was able to experience many amazing things with my family aside from these hardships, including practising until i became relatively proficient in conversational Zulu, and walking down to the spectacularly beautiful, abandoned coastline to sit in the dunes and attempt to catch extremely intelligent purple izingalangala (crabs).

Aside from experiences with my family during the rural homestay, our group went on several educational field trips to different areas in and around the community. These included a visit to a traditional healer, sitting in on one of the Amacambini traditional authority's meetings, a tour of a highly successful rural high school and lecture on education in the rural areas, a visit to a rural prison and a discussion with prisoners about a restorative justice program called Phoenix Zululand, and a lunch at an unofficial orphanage started single-handedly by a woman named Mama Mthembu. I will elaborate on each of these experiences as much as I can remember in the next blog, beacuse this one is getting pretty long!