I’m getting more of an idea of what life is like for an average child here and it sure is nothing compared to the average kid on the block back home. The fact that there is no “block” here with a shopping centre, movie house, toy shop, café, chemist or sports centre on the next corner is the most obvious difference. No-one has a proper address, like the corner of 2nd and Main Road and I haven’t learnt the names of all the settlement villages so I just refer to someone living either over this hill or over that hill. The upside of not having an address is no junk post but the downside is not getting your online order for a new mortar and pestle delivered to your door so you go without. In fact, people here kinda go without everything which city people consider essential. If you don’t happen to have your own Kenwood to crush your plantation of mielies into maize meal , then you could always load up as many bagfuls as you can carry and go to the guy in Centane who parks his cement like contraption in front of Pep Stores and will crush your mielies for a small fee.
Most people don’t farm here anymore so they just buy their maize meal from Boxer or Shoprite in Centane. Apparently, in the past, the boys used to keep the cattle out of the mielie fields but now that they go to school (well actually not all do), no one watches the cows so over time, the people stopped farming since the cattle just ate up the crops. Putting up a fence around a vegetable garden would probably cost 2 months government grant, which is the only income for most people here. Bushes and branches used to work as fencing in the past but the people seem to have lost their desire and motivation and anyway, a government grant is much easier. I’ve been told that if the boys don’t fetch the cows in the afternoons then they wonder into the forest and die from eating plants before sunrise. Either these were muslin cows celebrating Ramadam or I lost the thread of the story. The fact that there are poisonous Ink bushes growing everywhere hasn’t come up. The Xhosa people here don’t keep their cattle the conventional way of on ones property. They open the kraal gates in the morning and the cows wander around wherever they find grazing. They are not milking cows and the vet doesn’t pop around to help during calving season or tick infestations. Animal husbandry is left to nature and the ancestors.
Going to school is the highlight of most primary school children’s day. They get to see their friends and are fed a hot meal every day. (There are limited spoons at school so I’ve gotten used to watching many of them eating samp and beans with their hands, a ruler or protractor). After school boys fetch cows or goats while girls fetch water or smear a fresh layer of dung on the floor. All children over the age of 10 have to wash their own school clothes. Most children live with their grandmothers but I’m not sure how many are because their parents have died of Aids or because their parents work somewhere else. About 40% of children drop out of school before high school (which starts at grade 10). I have recently found out that faction fighting amongst the boys from different villages definitely does exist. In fact a few weeks ago, 3 boys from our school had to deal with this problem en route to school since they walk through another village to get to school. The one who was too old (twice the age of the others in his class) dropped out of school, the other moved to another family member’s home to avoid walking through the wrong village and the third, well he is still too frightened to come back to school.
Weekends consist of church, soccer, funerals and family visits. Xhosa family is not the same as the western term of family and everyone here talks about extended family. All those excuses that your cleaning lady gave you that she has to attend her sisters funeral, are probably true. Families begin with biological members and extend to just about the whole village in fact. Clan names are more important than surnames and members of the same clan are considered family. Clan names originate by someone important and all descendants of that person, even if you marry someone and your surname changes, are family. You aren’t allowed to marry your brother or sister even though they are not necessarily biological family members but you have to, without fail, attend everyone’s funeral.
Funerals are a whole topic on their own which I’ll leave for another time. Now its time for me to do another load of washing in my fancy upmarket Sputnik washing machine.
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Most people don’t farm here anymore so they just buy their maize meal from Boxer or Shoprite in Centane. Apparently, in the past, the boys used to keep the cattle out of the mielie fields but now that they go to school (well actually not all do), no one watches the cows so over time, the people stopped farming since the cattle just ate up the crops. Putting up a fence around a vegetable garden would probably cost 2 months government grant, which is the only income for most people here. Bushes and branches used to work as fencing in the past but the people seem to have lost their desire and motivation and anyway, a government grant is much easier. I’ve been told that if the boys don’t fetch the cows in the afternoons then they wonder into the forest and die from eating plants before sunrise. Either these were muslin cows celebrating Ramadam or I lost the thread of the story. The fact that there are poisonous Ink bushes growing everywhere hasn’t come up. The Xhosa people here don’t keep their cattle the conventional way of on ones property. They open the kraal gates in the morning and the cows wander around wherever they find grazing. They are not milking cows and the vet doesn’t pop around to help during calving season or tick infestations. Animal husbandry is left to nature and the ancestors.
Going to school is the highlight of most primary school children’s day. They get to see their friends and are fed a hot meal every day. (There are limited spoons at school so I’ve gotten used to watching many of them eating samp and beans with their hands, a ruler or protractor). After school boys fetch cows or goats while girls fetch water or smear a fresh layer of dung on the floor. All children over the age of 10 have to wash their own school clothes. Most children live with their grandmothers but I’m not sure how many are because their parents have died of Aids or because their parents work somewhere else. About 40% of children drop out of school before high school (which starts at grade 10). I have recently found out that faction fighting amongst the boys from different villages definitely does exist. In fact a few weeks ago, 3 boys from our school had to deal with this problem en route to school since they walk through another village to get to school. The one who was too old (twice the age of the others in his class) dropped out of school, the other moved to another family member’s home to avoid walking through the wrong village and the third, well he is still too frightened to come back to school.
Weekends consist of church, soccer, funerals and family visits. Xhosa family is not the same as the western term of family and everyone here talks about extended family. All those excuses that your cleaning lady gave you that she has to attend her sisters funeral, are probably true. Families begin with biological members and extend to just about the whole village in fact. Clan names are more important than surnames and members of the same clan are considered family. Clan names originate by someone important and all descendants of that person, even if you marry someone and your surname changes, are family. You aren’t allowed to marry your brother or sister even though they are not necessarily biological family members but you have to, without fail, attend everyone’s funeral.
Funerals are a whole topic on their own which I’ll leave for another time. Now its time for me to do another load of washing in my fancy upmarket Sputnik washing machine.
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