“Wait, I go to the bathroom where?” was my response to the first shocking development of my trip to Mary’s home. I was surprised to find out that not only was the bathroom not inside but they did not have a sewer system. Both Mary and her brother France giggled together uncontrollably and Mary responded “yes my dear, we do not have a toilet here.” I stumbled through the darkness to find a little outdoor hut with a concrete seat and a hole dug into the ground. Taking a deep sigh, I thought: hey, this is what I came to South Africa for, to experience their world. Experience South Africa was certainly what I did that weekend.
Having forgotten that it is winter in South Africa, because in my apartment I am lucky to have heat, I did not pack as many heavy clothes as I should of. At night in their unheated rooms I piled on all of my clothes and jumped under the blankets, thinking about how unprepared I was for just how cold the winter nights could become. Mary’s house consisted of 4 separate buildings, each small and each unheated. One was the kitchen, the sitting room, and the other two were bedrooms. Travelling between each at night was a daunting task and so I tried to stay in one building as long as I could before absolutely needing to move to another one. I will also spare you the details of what we did for a bathroom at night so that we didn’t have outside in the dark.
When we first arrived at Mary’s home I stepped out of the car to completely shocked faces and speechless bodies. Mary had told only her brother that she was bringing a visitor home and had told them nothing about where I was from or what I looked like. To my surprise as well, I was really the only white visitor that the village had seen and her family was surprised and delighted to see a white face with an American accent walk into their house. We had arrived the night before the funeral the next day and so the only people in the house were two of her four brothers and her dad. Her brother France started laughing and hugging me saying that I will be the talk of the town tomorrow. Her father just laughed, not knowing much English he spoke through Mary saying he was shocked I was there, that I will bring good luck to the house, and that he didn’t want me to take Mary away to the US. Mary’s mom was at the house of the deceased staying the night to wake up at two and prepare food for the family. Needing keys to the room we would be sharing with her mom we drove over to the house and when the door opened for me to great her mom she gasped and grabbed me close, squeezing me so tight and laughing that I myself became shocked that I was there. She kept hugging me and telling Mary how happy she was, and how shocked she was. Her mother knew absolutely no English and I know limited Spedi yet, through the language barrier, we fell in love with each other that night.
Being exhausted from the trip, and knowing that we would need to leave the house at 7 tomorrow morning for the funeral Mary and I fell into bed and dozed off. However, I woke soon after falling asleep to the sound of her dogs fighting outside of the window and constantly burst awake at the sound of the rooster crowing through the night not having experienced sleeping on a farm before. Because of this restless sleep it was difficult to pull myself from the bed and into the cold morning air. Mary brought in a wash basin with some hot water in it and told me to wash myself. “What?” I responded she laughed and said “we don’t have a shower here or a bathtub; this is how we clean ourselves.” I turned to her and said “how do I use it?” There was certainly not enough room for me to sit in it, nor enough water. She told me to get a washcloth and bathe my face, my chest and then my legs. However, I had not come prepared with a washcloth and so the process of bathing became a more difficult task than Mary had explained. Finally dressed in our skirts Mary took the scarf that she had told me to bring and wrapped it around my head so that all my hair was covered. We were on our way to my first South African funeral, and walked up the dirt road to a paved road where a taxi would take us to the next dirt road we needed to travel on.
We reached the ceremony a little late and stood outside of the tent at the house where different people were preaching and women were singing. While there were people on stage I as the spectacle, all eyes turned to this white young face that they had never seen before and stared. I tried to not pay attention to the looks I was receiving, but it was difficult, I was a sight to be held. Mary and France both said, “I told you so, you are a celebrity.” At the end of the ceremony at the house we all walked, following the Hurst carrying the body to the cemetery and everyone surrounded it singing. It was honestly very beautiful to be a part of the walk. People surrounded me exclaimed “oh look, she can even tie a tuke.” The cemetery was filled with more preaching and the women sang as the men shoveled gravel onto the coffin. One of the granddaughters who were living with her grandmother was overcome with grief and had to be carried away. It was an odd feeling for me, because I could feel the sadness but also the warmth that surrounded the family and the burying of the body.
After her grave was covered it was a dash back to the house to stand in line for the food that we would be eating. Mary’s mom was introducing me to everyone as the white girl her daughter brought and was shocked that I ate all of the food that they had offered. I stuffed my plate with rice, beef, cabbage, squash, and biscuits and took a seat. The eating was interrupted however, by the constant introductions from Mary’s mom to everyone and the stares of all of the onlookers at the white girl who attended a black woman’s funeral in a black village.
I had the opportunity to meet the family at the time of the meal, and became very worried about their wellbeing. The woman who died had left behind grandchildren that she was caring for to be the responsibility of her daughter. Her daughter had just had a baby and had no job, no longer had her mother’s money she got from the state, and no husband. She told Mary’s brother, her cousin, that she was worried that they would starve. The baby was held by me, but her health worried me as she was always throwing up. I left the house feeling concerned about the future of the child, the grandchildren, and the daughter.
Mary and I went home to sleep and rest from the full morning that we had just experienced. Upon waking Mary dragged me to another farm in her village as we bought live chicken and I carried back one of the chickens that I would be having for dinner that night. I refused, however, to watch it be killed, but I did watch as Mary cooked it. Not wanting to waste any part of the chicken, everything was cooked and eaten. Her dad preferring the intestines had them in his room. It took all afternoon to kill and prepare the chicken and by the evening we had promised her brother, who owned the local pub, that we would make an appearance.
We walked into the pub and I was greeted by more hugs, everyone wanted to know where I was from and why I was there. They exclaimed that they had seen me at the funeral earlier and were so happy I had come. We sat in the back where it was warmer and me and Mary’s brother France danced to the African music. Between the back and the rest of the pub there were bars, and all of the onlookers came to see the white girl. Watching them look at me through the bars I had the odd feeling that I was similar to an animal in a zoo.
That night I slept straight through, exhausted from the day’s events and too cold to
move from under my blanket. In the morning we were leaving, and her family made us promise we would come back in July for the celebration of France’s daughter finishing her girl’s introductory school. They were already preparing the traditional clothing that I would be wearing at the ceremony. On the way home I experienced my last shocking thing. In South Africa there are these worms that they dry and cook, Mary was eating them and offered a dry worm to me. “Why not” I thought and I grabbed it and bit into it. I thought to myself as I finished the worm that tasted a bit like a nut: no one at home will believe the experiences I just had.
