A Very Cultural Day

Today I was very immersed in South African culture.  After arriving at the plot we had a meeting with the program directors and overseers to plan out in greater detail our work at St. Martin’s.  Wednesdays and Fridays are to be sports days where we will facilitate soccer and netball.  On Saturdays we will have tournaments with prizes of jerseys, jackets and sports bags for the winners.  Monday and Wednesday mornings Jenna and I will accompany the social auxiliaries on the home visits they conduct in Kwa Zenzele.  The social auxiliaries visit the sick in the township to assess their situation and decide how best to assist them. This will be challenging, but I hope eye-opening experience. 

After our meeting, Jenna and I accompanied Br. Dominic and the St. Martin’s board members to the home of a woman who works at St. Martin’s.  Her son died a few days ago and we went to console her.  It felt strange going to the home of a woman I didn’t know to console her for the loss of a son I also didn’t know.  But Br. Dominic invited me and I’m glad he did.  When we arrived at the house, we went right in without knocking while my companions sang something in Zulu.  The mother was sitting on a mattress placed on the floor with blankets over her.  There was a brief prayer.  After the prayer, we were seated and talked (mostly in Zulu) for a while.  The chairman of St. Martin’s got up several times and told stories about how we all must leave this life at some time and that her son had now gone home.  As Brother explained to me earlier, tears are not shed at funerals or at these consolation visits.  Rather, they are a time to celebrate the life of the one who passed away.  Some sort of juice and biscuits were brought for us to eat while a picture of the deceased and his brother.  He must have been in his twenties.  I later learned that both sons had died of HIV/AIDS.  Each of us knelt down and clasped her hand or embraced me, offering our condolences before we departed.  

 Returning to the plot, Jenna and I went over the kitchen to see if we could help.  The cooks and caregivers asked us if we had ever had Mogudu before.  When we asked what that was they laughed and brought us over to the pot on the stove.  Lifting the lid, they told us Mogudu was cow intestine.  Jenna and I were not particularly eager to try this popular “meat,” but they insisted.  We each had a small bit of the rubber, greenish-brown looking substance.  Honestly, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting, a little salty, but not as revolting as I’d thought intestine would be.  That being said, I don’t think I’ll be ordering it at a restaurant anytime soon.