Happy Human Rights Day!

Today is Human Rights Day here in South Africa. It is a public holiday so didn't have to work. Before I talk about what I did today, let me back up to Monday.

Monday we didn't get much done at the office. They are replacing a whole bunch of things at the office so it really is an inconvenience. There was lots of construction that at times was so loud we could barely hear each other speak. I decided to focus on my Zulu. I spent all morning learning my numbers 1-10. I kept going to my coworkers and reciting to them like a 7 year old in English class. I finally got them down and I was pumped! I then realized, after some thinking...no one uses the Zulu numbers when speaking in normal conversation. Everyone just says them in English. I felt rather stupid for wasting all that time and just like that, I erased them from my memory bank. 

Tuesday was a bit more interesting. I found out that a bunch of us were going to go to a Thandazo's home village. The purpose of this trip was to meet with the Chieftain, members of the village and youth to discuss issues in the community. We were supposed to be there at 11 am. It was another case of Zulu/Buntu time. We arrived at 12:30 pm. The meeting didn't begin until 1:00 pm. Yeah, talk about late. I attempted to introduce myself to the group in Zulu but completely butchered it. Embarrassing. The discussion was led by Thandazo and it was completely in Zulu. I tried my best to follow along but had some trouble. Luckily Thandazo was taking notes next to me so I was able to see some of the issues. An example of the issues that were discussed were: child abuse, alcohol abuse and teenage pregnancy. You know a discussion is going well when the facilitator doesn't have to do a lot of talking and the members of the group are doing the most of it. The chief was talking, different men and women spoke, the teenagers got involved. After an hour and a half, it came to a close with a prayer. I, like always, had the camera on me and was able to snag some pictures with the chief and village members. 

The Chieftain and yours truly

Guess I didn't get the memo to not smile.

The building where the forum was held. The current hall was under construction so had to use this building.

Sign for Thandazo's old high school that was next to where we were.

Hard to tell, but down that road was the high school. Pretty nice back drop, though.

We then hopped into a truck taxi. I got my first taste of typical taxi travel which is cramming into a covered bed of a truck with 10 other people while traveling over unpaved, dirt roads. Big headache afterwards. Instead of heading back to the office, I went home seeing as we didn't get back until 3:45 pm. 

Lwazi found out that the car Child Care owns, which has been in the shop for 3 weeks, was ready in Durban. Lwazi and I hopped a van taxi and made it to Durban by 8 pm. We were picked up by Lwazi's mother at a McDonalds (yes we ate there and their spicy chicken sandwich was legit spicy) and we went to her house. There was the car but it still wasn't fully fixed. It's nickname was Dimples because of all the dents it used to have. It also had a hole in the roof from rust. All that has been fixed and it looks as good as new. Except for the fact that it doesn't start. Have to give it a push and hop into gear for it to run. That still needs to be fixed. This morning, Lwazi had errands to run in Durban so I hung out with his mother. I talked with his mother, watched the President give a speech for Human Rights Day and I read. Pretty chill day. We left Durban late in the afternoon and had a nice surprise when we came home. The kitchen was flooded with water. The next 2 hours were spent cleaning up the water. It was caused by poor plumbing work done recently but the contractor was able to fix it.

Big thanks to my brother for lending me his camera! I carry it everywhere I go and have been enjoying taking pictures. New hobby perhaps???