After Nylsvley we headed to learn about the history and culture of south africa and experience life in the small villages. We went to Wits Rural Facility which is 30 km from Kruger Park in the North Eastern part of the country. Here we had lectures about the Apartheid from a professor who lived through it and was politically active during it. We also heard lectures about HIV/AIDs crisis in South Africa especially the villages as well as resource use and sustainability and rural villages in the country. We went to a Shangaan village for a morning where we split into groups and taken to different houses in the village. There we experienced life as a woman doing all of the typical daily chores. We fetched water, made murilla beer, cooked pourage, crushed peanuts for protein for dinner. My hostess was a 21 year old woman who had stopped going to school and lived in the village with her mom. Her dad had died and she was longing to go to tech college which is like junior college in america so she can learn how to work computers. She said she didnt have the money so until then she would be in the village. There are very few jobs for villagers though and income is very hard to come by. They are incredibly resourceful despite their limited resources. Each village has land around it that belongs to the village and the cheif decides how much each family can use. Everyone relies on the surrounding vegetation for food, shelter, fire to cook over, and even medicine. We also went to an Induna which is a natural healer who uses plants to help the people who are sick. induna's rely on their ancestors for answers to ailments. In addition we went to a Sangoma's house. A sangoma throws bones to tell what a person's problem is. Once they find out the sickness of a person they help by telling that person how to fix it. The Sangoma can tell the future also by throwing the bones. I had my future told and it was quite an exciting experience. Overall being in the village gave me more of an idea of culture in South Africa and issues like poverty and sustainability and conservation. It was also interesting because one of our faculty members is from a Shangaan village and he told me his stories about growing up in a village with nothing. He went to a bush camp during the apartheid and told me horrifying stories about how terrible African Americans were treated. He trained to be a park ranger so he could support his family and now he works 2 jobs and goes to school so he can continue to support his own familoy and his mother. There was so much to understand and absorb about race and class in the country. It is also an interesting time to be here due to the elections and the power shortage. The power is randomly turned off in different parts of the country every day in order to conserve power. Overall the five days in Wits were overwelming but a once in a life time experience.