Daily Life in Zululand

After nearly four months in South Africa, Michelle and I are now understanding what a day in the life of most South Africans or Zulus is like. We see people's daily life in and around Tugela Ferry and in the mountains on our weekend hikes. First off, African life is at a much, much slower pace than American life. If you are a professional, which most people are not, meetings are always on "African time", which means that meetings can start an hour to 2 1/2 hours late. Believe us, we have both been invited to meetings that have started more than 2 hours late!  There are some organizations who have a lot of professionals, like Michelle's NGO, that do operate much like an American company and start on time but that is rare.

Since more than 76% of the people in our region are unemployed, there really isn't much of a rush to do anything. Also, more than 97% of the population is rural which means that the average day starts when the sun comes up since more than 92% of the homes do not have electricity. It is Fall here in South Africa so the days are getting shorter with sunrise at 7:00am and sunset at 5:00pm. This means that most families are getting up in the dark using candles and paraffin oil lamps to get dressed and bathed. If kids go to school, schools often start at 7:00am or 7:30am  so kids have to get up early, especially since most  walk long distances to the nearest school.  What amazes both of us is how families, especially the children, who are living in homes made mostly of mud, without running water or electricity, can still be so clean. I see school kids coming out of mud homes with clean, pressed school uniforms looking like they have just stepped out of any of our modern American home. Most Africans take great pride in looking clean and wearing "pressed" clothes and polished shoes.

When we have hiked in the mountains, clothes, however, are not so clean since water sources are as far as 5 kilometers away and water is a premium, especially for clothes washing. School kids here usually walk long distances to school first on rocky mountain path and then on dirt roads. We have seen kids walk as far as 10 kilometers or 6-7 miles.  Many of the schools do not have water which means that students have to begin the school day by "fetching" water for the school. Michelle visited a school last week where students early in the morning walked to a farmers yard to fetch the water for the school that day. By 1:00 that day, all the water in the barrel for drinking or cleaning was gone. There are no "Nalgene" bottles in this part of Africa! Imagine asking our kids to walk  6-7 miles to school each day and then asking them to walk across a field to fetch the water for the school. Oh by the way, girls or women never carry water by hand, since everything is carried on the head by a woman or girl. I have seen women carry remarkable loads of groceries, wood, water on their heads, including "purses". This "carrying things on the head"  is an African skill learned very early by all women!

If you are a woman in Africa, you do all the work! This means all child rearing, fetching the water, washing the clothes, going into the mountains to chop wood for cooking, walking miles and miles to the closest village to buy essentials, cooking the food, growing the food in the garden, fetching water for watering whatever is planted in the garden, and going to market to sell whatever you grow or make. All of this work, of course, is done with a baby or toddler strapped with a towel to her back. Women, here, often have 5-10 children. Men, unfortunately, in South Africa, are comfortable with women doing all the work around the house, or should I say, "hut". This is not true of all men but it is the majority. More than 75% of men are unemployed so this means men are usually sitting under trees or going to the closest "shabeen", to drink all day on the government pensions. It is very common to see men sitting under trees talking, drinking, and hanging out while women are chopping wood in the dense mountains or hoeing the family garden.

In Tugela Ferry, hundreds of women each day line the streets selling vegetables from community gardens or their own private garden. This means that they wake up extremely early, make Pap (corn meal) for the family breakfast, fetch the daily water, and then walk or find a ride to town with all of their vegetables. The women sit out in the hot sun all day, often painted with a chalky substance to protect their faces from the sun, and try to sell whatever they can. Needless to say, we buy a lot of local, fresh vegetables each day to support these women. Most families, however, cannot grow any extra vegetables and use all that they grow to survive. This is called "subsistence" farming or living which means that families try to grow or raise everything that they need to live on. Most families try to have gardens if there is water, and all raise goats, chickens, and cows. There are many families that rarely go to town and may go to a village like Tugela Ferry once a month. I know of several families or clusters of Zulu homes that are miles from the nearest road and then walk 7-8 miles on the road to the village one way! A trip to town is a full day of travel, usually by foot. No malls or super box stores here! By the way, I haven't seen a "drive-thru" or Starbucks either.

Weekends are filled with chores, church, funerals and hanging out. Zulus are quite religious so a lot of families go to church. Church services here are all in Zulu and last anywhere from 2-5 hours. It is not uncommon for families to bring a bite to eat since the services go for 5 hours. There are also lot of funerals on Sunday due to all the people dying of AIDS and Tuberculosis. Since the infection rate here in KwaZulu-Natal and Tugela Ferry is 36% and the average life expectancy is 43, people do not live long. Kids do not have much to do on weekends except to play whatever games they can with sticks and cans and balls if the family can afford one. All boys like soccer but very few families can afford a soccer ball. Since the terrain is very mountainous around us, there aren't a lot of level play areas for sports like soccer or netball. Netball is a game like basketball which a lot of girls play here. There are baskets at both ends of a court, usually in a field, and the ball is passed around without dribbling. It is fast pace and girls love the game. Many of the boys make small cars out of wire, with a long handle to control the steering. They race them up and down roads or on made up tracks.

On a typical weekend, the women and girls fetch lots of water for doing the laundry. Since over 50% of the water still comes from rivers or streams, laundry is often done on the riverside which means that the laundry has to be carried to the river. The rivers here are not clean since there is a lot of erosion, run off from cow and goat manure, and also human waste. Over 50%of the homes still do not have pit toilets. Since only 2% of the homes have water, that means that there are a lot of homes with pit toilets or no toilets. You can figure out for yourself where people go to the bathroom when there isn't a pit toilet!
The average day of an African or Zulu is simple but this is what people have been doing for centuries!  Due to all the poverty, this is all that people can also afford to do!  We continue to be amazed how people accept this standard of living and still remain happy, especially the children! You will see photos of children that will steal your heart away!
Well, enough for now. Very soon, we will share you the live in the day of Sphiwe (Michelle) and Sipho (Chuck). Believe it or not, we are both quite busy!

Sala Kahle, which in Zulu, is "Stay Well", Miss you all, Chuck and Michelle