Hygiene is not the most important thing in the world in this part of the world. Even though it is important to bathe every day to look presentable, every other aspect of healthy living is - for the most part - ignored. Take for example, today. We had a huge party at our school, where we were celebrating the graduation of the kindergarden students. Everyone and their mother was there (quite literally, I might add) and we had to feed everyone who attended (part of the culture). Well, as it turns out, trying to plan to feed 1000 mouths is not an easy feat, especially in a culture where planning isn't really that important. In America, we would be obligated to make sure that everyone had their own fork/knife/spoon combo, everyone had their own plate/cup, enough tables/chairs were at the venue so that people could sit down comfortably and the food service company had to be licensed through the proper channels. Here, it is a completely different story.
No one except the esteemed guests gets their own plate/cup, let alone silverware (which is just a spoon here). Instead, the cooks (who are just the educators and a few community members) just use large buckets and/or trash cans to serve the food in. No joke, all of the juice today was stored into this huge 50-gallon trash can, labeled "REFUSE ONLY - MAMPUNGA PRIMARY," and then they scooped it into smaller containers from there. I asked if it was a new trash can and the cook looked at me dead in the eye and said, "We washed it, don't worry Mvelo." She then proceeded to bustle off, yelling at kids to help with this or help with that. Quite a comical scene, if I may say so myself. This picture below sort of shows you what I'm talking about... they just use buckets for everything.
Also, another big difference is that food is served communally here. The men eat in one area and the women in another. Mixing is heavily frowned upon. This is a picture of all of us waiting around to be served.
That huge caldron is what they boil all of the meat in. They also brew traditional Zulu beer from corn and they also make this amazing steamed bread in that cast-iron caldron. Once the meat is finished cooking, they serve it up on plates (oftentimes it's just rusting pieces of metal sheeting), you circle around the plate/rusting sheet and it is portioned up between everyone squatting around. Here's are a few examples of what I'm talking about:
Sides are, more often than not, served in buckets, like you can see in the below picture. I saw this at school today and I couldn't help taking a picture. I can't even begin to imagine what was in this bucket before the beans made their debut.
If you think about it in the proper context, however, it may make sense. The nearest clinic is at least an hour walk away, why not build up your immune system in order to prevent yourself from getting sick? The strongest survive. Not everything is a choice, though. Some things, frankly, the people in my community have no control over. Take, for example, the water situation. Talk about sediment:
You really have to have a strong immune system to ward off what all you are inevitably ingesting. Not everything can be controlled, and there is a lot of reason behind the surface-level madness here, I will give these people that. However, there are examples of unsafe practices that are commonplace. Many of these things, Americans would cringe at the very thought of these things happening. Traditional healers and/or witchdoctors are usually involved in these procedures. One of the most pervasive and in-your-face things that I still have a hard time understanding is the demand for cheap abortions. I was reading the paper the other day and I decided to peruse the classifieds section... this is what I found:
The abortion section took up 2/3 of the classified advertisements, some asking for as little as $14 for a "safe, pain free, same-day abortion." Crazy, ne? Another ordinary ritual that is performed in my area is ceremonial cutting, wherein a traditional healer or witchdoctor will take a razor or knife and slice into peoples' skin so they can rub traditional medicine into the cuts. Most of the time, it's just charcoal and vaseline, but it still doesn't seem like the safest practice to me. To top it off, they won't even clean the razor or knife between uses. Talk about a great way to spread infections, right?
When I first arrived in South Africa, I was mortified by the vastly unsanitary conditions in which a lot of people live. Now, however, I have found an inner peace. I figure that if the people here can live in these conditions, there is no reason that I can't survive. Plus, it adds a little spice and adventure to my life. I'll just try and stay away from the ceremonial cutting and the Zulu tattoo artists haha. Worse comes to worse, I've got some great pictures to take back home to show friends and family!
Uxolo. Mvelo.
Peace. Chad.
