An Innocent Death
Sitting outside on a sunny afternoon with the ladies of the Drop-In Centre, our silence was suddenly interrupted by a sharp squeal. Turning around I see Sister Marion pulling away in fear from the object which frightened her, and instantly everyone around me screams in a similar manner and does one of two things- runs away to the safety of Mamalume’s stoop, or jumps on top of their chairs. I remain seated and calmly look for whatever devil creature had caused such a scare- and to my surprise- I found a harmless little chameleon to be the source. It was kind of cute, blending in with the dusty yard and walking slowly toward me. “Heather, are you not afraid of it?” I was asked by my co-workers. Well, I can not think of the last instance when a chameleon did harm to me or any of my acquaintances, so no, I am not afraid of it. But they were. So Mamalume, being the brave one of the group, comes off of her stoop with the end of a broom in hand, and slowly approaches the creature. She puts the end under the chameleon, and starts flipping him up in the air toward the gate to get him outside. Once he is out of our gate, I thought it was over- that he could go on with his normal life of blending in, just not with anything in our yard. But no, apparently this chameleon was so frightening and repulsive to these ladies that he couldn’t just be sent away, his life must end, which is a logic that I apply to spiders. So Mamalume proceeds to pick up large stones and throw them upon the little chameleon until he was no more. That is when I screamed. IS THIS REALLY MY LIFE?
Impromptu Safari Tour
It is a Sunday afternoon and we are on our way to a joint wedding party of some friends. Piled in a large blue truck, we are flying down dirt roads in an attempt to make it to the wedding reception on time. The pastor who is driving decides to take a short cut he knew from four years back when he lived and worked in this area, so instead of following the dirt road which forks to the left, we take the dirt road which forks to the right. A little ways down this road it becomes clear that this passage has not been well travelled recently- for the sweet thorn bushes have overgrown into the road, and as our large blue truck whipped down this road, we all sat listening to the painful sound of the spikes scraping our car. After twenty minute of this scratching, we come to the place where this road is supposed to hook up with the other road and continue toward our destination. But there is a problem- at some point in the last four years a new fence was placed around the perimeter of the land we were on. That doesn’t stop us! In order to ensure that the last 20 minutes of our lives and the scratches on the car where not done in vain, we proceed to jump off the dirt road and begin driving through the high prairie grass- dodging bushes and large ant piles and looking for some kind of gate. Another 10 minutes passed, and we are now in the middle of nowhere with our only trail back being the inconvenient fence which we are desperately trying to break through. After asking a local across the fence for the location of the nearest gate, we turn around only to find out that we were lied to. Accepting our defeat, we proceed back through the prairie grass, ant hills, and spiky bushes to the narrow dirt road and when we arrive back where this story started, we decided to take the left fork. Off-roading through the plains of Limpopo with a pastor- IS THIS REALLY MY LIFE?
Celebrity Status
Arriving at our final destination of the wedding party, we find ourselves in a very rural setting at the foothills of a mountain in Limpopo. Much to our surprise, we arrive to hundreds of cars surrounding a house and large party tent which is housing the wedding party already in session. We walk in late (after our safari excursion), and are standing at the outskirts of the tent with the hundred other people looking in on the festivities occurring, but we are instantly spotted, called out, and drug inside the tent- front and center. After forcing some other ladies to relinquish their seats, the man with the microphone sits Andrew and I right beside the bride and groom who we do not know in the front. Looking around, I know that there are countless eyes on me and Andrew, not to mention the video cameras, regular cameras, and cell phones which are snapping picture after picture of us. Why? We are different- we are white. A rural area like this does not see many outside visitors, so our presence gave us somewhat of a celebrity status- something which I am not used to and do not really enjoy. But all you can do is smile at the cameras and laugh at the situation that you are in. At a wedding of someone whose name you can’t even pronounce and you are all of the sudden drawn into the wedding party to be gawked at by hundreds of onlookers. IS THIS REALLY MY LIFE?
When the ceremony was over, we ran quickly out of the tent for some fresh air and hopefully to sit in a little less conspicuous location. But our presence was already well known, so we were found and greeted by many people. Unfortunately as with most parties, some had been celebrating a little too much and approached us with a semi-drunken air. Politely we shook their hands and listened to their slurred Sepedi (which makes it infinitely more challenging to understand), and usually they smiled and moved on. However, there was one man who was enjoying his one-sided conversation with us a little too much, and he refused to leave. A man we were with kindly asked him to step away from us and give us some air, which swung him into a violent rage where he started hitting our friend and saying that he had no right to tell him what to do! Luckily, his intoxicated state resulted in him not being able to maintain his balance, so his punches did not have much force behind them or else he would have thrown himself to the ground. Another man from the wedding party came and escorted him away, and no one was seriously injured. But, a pastor just got punched at a wedding celebration- IS THIS REALLY MY LIFE? Video footage from the Wedding Party
No Hooting
Riding in a taxi around my area of Limpopo you frequently hear the horn sounded. Whether it is to ask people walking down roads if they want transport, to honk at other cars on the roads, or even to get cows goats and chickens out of the road, the horn is one of the most important means of communication for a taxi driver. Riding in this particular taxi I notice a general silence- the horn in our taxi is not functioning. No worries though because over head the taxi driver had placed a yellow vuvuzela to pull down and blow whenever he needed to honk! One of the many uses of the vuvuzela…. IS THIS REALLY MY LIFE?
~Heather Anne Nelson
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