Site Visit - Dzimauli Mukondeni

Disclaimer:  This is a blog post entirely devoted to describing my home for the next 2 years.  If you want to be surprised when I actually get start living there, go ahead and skip this post.

After learning our site placements, we were all pretty stoked that we were about to spend almost a week at our site to meet people, check out our schools and learn.

My principal was extremely welcoming in taking me to the village and introducing me to my host father.  Thankfully (for now), my host father is an English teacher at the same school that I will be working at and therefore, he speaks pretty good English.  My host mom also has pretty good English skills and makes a mean pap.  Also living with me will be my 6 year-old brother Zwavhudi, my 12 year-old student and cousin Khumbera, my gogo (grandmother), and two, adorable 6 month-old babies (one of which is pictured below). 

My adorable host brother.

I will be living in a mountain village that resides literally on top of a small mountain.  The view from my backyard is breathtaking (and pictured below).  There is one small spaza (very tiny shop) in my village and then the next shopping establishment is a 20 minute drive (ha…drive) or 30 minute taxi ride to a very small store or an hour taxi ride to my “shopping town.”

The rondavel life will be mine for the next two years.  A rondavel is a circular hut used sometimes for housing.  My rondavel will serve as my bedroom, kitchen, living room, and bathing room, and I am honestly excited to have a space all to my own.

The congregation's happy dance for me.

The community I will be living in could not be more elated that I’m coming to stay.  I felt like a celebrity as I was paraded around the village meeting what seemed like every person there.  Several times, I was asked to be best friends with total strangers, people told me that they loved me, and children yelled “makuwa” at me.  (Makuwa=white person in tshivenda.)  At one of the church services I attended, the congregation even sang and danced a traditional African song to show me how happy they were to have me.  I was also stopped many times to take photos with people.  Unlike Moteti, everyone seemed to know why I was there.

I’m sure more details will come as soon as I actually move there, but this is all I remember for now since I wrote this quite a while after I visited. :)

My view from my backyard.