Evening. Our water came back on last night (Saturday). Thanks and praise! This morning as I returned from the bathroom, the Xhosa lady who works here walked behind me and laughed “Everyone is smelling perfume today” and I said: “yes, everyone is clean today!”
Yesterday morning we went for a little bit of a chilly swim in the sea, more to get clean than anything else. It was refreshing enough to get us going after that with amazing avo, (all my Port St John’s avos of course ripe at the same time) bacon and cheese omelettes with coffee Italian style on the burner. The omelettes should feature on my Friendly Butternut Hut’s menu! It was the best we ate all week!
2 of my housemates of the house I stayed at for the 1st 2 weeks came by to ask me if I could photograph a wedding at the house later in the day. Gogo’s (the grandmother who’s house it is) daughter was getting married again.
Then we drove the 20km road to Ngcwanguba store to refill the gas, stock up on some drinking water and a couple of other things. On the way back we stopped for a while to watch a bit of a football match next to the road.
After that it was time to quickly photograph a little wedding, my first Transkei wedding! I hope there will be many more, even more traditional…
Then, it was across the road (slightly uphill) to Papazela’s, the pizza place with a view, where we watched a little bit of rugby before returning home to make another last little fire before Donovan and Brevan had to return home this morning. Strange to be all by myself again now, but I’ll adapt soon enough. Looking forward to Mama Miriam coming by tomorrow morning to do my washing! She’s also been making a beaded belt for me, which I suspect might also be finished tomorrow. It will definitely be good practice for my Xhosa, because Miriam doesn’t speak a word of English and she likes to chat. Awesome.
Today I really needed to go for a walk, but I must say it's kind of an issue for a girl to walk on her own around here, so I couldn't go too far. Just about all the people, young and old I met on the road asked me for money. I just can't quite completely understand it yet. They really expect you to give them money, like they think you must have an endless supply raining down from heaven. I don't know, do I? Even when I tell them I'm walking for exercise, I don't even have money on me. I really want to get to the point where I can have conversations with the people. I want to understand where this expectation comes from and where they can also understand that one can't just give money to every single person you meet on the road. It's a bit of a mystery to me.
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