Ingwavum'ing It

So here it is 3:06 on an idle Wednesday in the middle of No-Man's Land, post-World Cup South Africa, in the rurals.  This is my first attempt at blogging, and it feels very unnatural, having just come back from camping in the middle of the Twilight Zone.  I've just spent the past week and a half in a little village called eManyeseni.  No running water.  No electricity.  Cows, roosters and schoolchildren intersect with tumbleweeds at a dusty crossroads where the Sugarcan Man hacks off stalks for school kids to chomp on during their long, dusty walks home. 

Before I give you a little snapshot of life in eManyeseni, I have to tell you how I was introduced to this little village.  As soon as people found out I was going there, their eyes would open wide and they would start in with the cautionary tales of this head-cutting, vagina-stealing serial killer.  Over the past two weeks I've been able to create a makeshift patchwork of what the story is, though it changes with every telling and teller.  Apparently, about five months ago some women went missing and when their bodies were discovered they were minus their female parts, heads, eyeballs and tongues.  They caught the man behind the slayings, but it seems he was heading a larger ring who were using female genitalia to create vaginal bracelets to display on their forearms in order to perform witchcraft and black magic that was supposed to augment their financial success.   Today someone told me they use the uterus to make themselves underpants.  This is no way to get she-power! Though the man was arrested, he was either released on bail, or bribed the King of Kwazulu-Natal (depending which version you hear) and is now in hiding somewhere in Johannesburg.  [Welcome to South African justice.]  It is all very Heart of Darkness/Silence of the Lambs.  Not the types of stories I need to be hearing, as I head into the bush!  At first I thought these were all 'rural legends' but my neighbour, Gama, who is a police officer, says it is true.  Needless to say, I don't go out at night and at dusk, I only travel with Sipo the Security Guard, and his machete!

Witchcraft serial killing aside, eManyeseni seems to be a peaceful little dustmost of a town.  There are three little tuck shops that lead like pebbles to the big istolo where they sell everything from mealie meal to batteries to face cream.  Chickens and cows and sheep wander underfoot and school kids gather in little clusters by the JoJo tanks or the water pump, or at the crossroads, buying SugarCane for 2 rand.  In the mornings I go running with Muzi, who's part of the Drama Team I'm here with, and we are surrounded by schoolchildren who point and laugh and imitate us.  Jogging isn't really 'in' over here. I don't think people quite get it, as in, why would you be purposefully expending good energy?  On a little side note, when I first arrived in Ingwavuma (my home base) I was interested in keeping up with my running, so I asked the security guard MKalipo what might be a good, safe route for running.  He pointed east and shook his head vehemently, miming throat slashing.  I repeated the gesture and said, "What does this mean?"
"This side...cutting of the heads".
"Cutting of the heads?  Okay...well, this isn't good.  Is there another way where they don't chop off peoples' heads?"
"Yes," he said, pointing the opposite way, "This side.  No problem."  And that was the genesis of me starting the Ingwavuma Running Club, in which I only run with the guys.  When I asked my neighbor Gama to run with me he said, "Yes.  I will run with you, and I will bring my pistol."
Running in Ingwavuma looks something like this:  We run for about 10 minutes, see someone we know, have a small chat, the village children see a white person and run away screaming because they are afraid I am coming to give them an injection, the cows and goats skitter and shadowbox us, and then after about 20 minutes we get into a good clip, during which I'm left in the dust by the African men, even when they are wearing slops!  Mkwaza runs with us sometimes.  She has asthma and  we are running in steep mountains, but when I asked her about a puffer, she told me "Ai, I threw it away.  I heard a woman forgot her puffer once and died.  So I don't use."  She was chugging along up the mountain like the Little Engine That Could, puffing, "I can't run!  My shoes are bigger than me!"  After a jog in eManyeseni, I have a little sponge bath out in the aluminum shack (kitchen) where Aunty stokes the campfire.  'Aunty' is a local woman with knee-high striped socks, a kerchief, and frilly white apron, who cooks us breakfast and tea on the large, black three-legged cauldron.  She usually cooks porridge, which we mix with rama (margarine) and sugar, stiff pop (mealie meal/maize) and fish stock, rice and beans, potatoes and eggs with toast.  Oh, but by and far the most exciting part of eating here has to be the chickens.  I may very well be on my way to becoming a vegetarian.  One day, Aunty bought a chicken at the tuck shop and he was wandering around the creche, trembling and poohing everywhere.  He obviously knew he was going to be that night's meal.  The Drama Team wanted me to slaughter him as my initiation, poor little soul.  It was bad enough seeing the little critter playing in the nursery school one minute, then  lying headless with a bloody knife in a basin the next.  I couldn't bring myself to eat him.  It reminded me of that time in Japan when my friends brought me to a special restaurant where they serve the fish to you live, its sides carved and served on the same plate where the rest of the fish is staring up at you, gape-mouthed and open-gilled.  One day, my neighbour Dieudonne invited me to his cottage (I use the term 'cottage' here loosely, but we'll get to that in a minute), for a 'special meal'.  Now, before I tell you about that, I have to paint you a little picture of Dieudonne.  He is a refugee from Rwanda, whose parents were sadly killed in the genocide.  He's well-educated, a poet laureate and consummate learner, and extremely, extremely GQ.  Even in dusty Camp eManyeseni he wears pressed white trousers, stiff-brimmed little chapeauss and shiny-buckled D & G belts.  So, do I not come back to the cottages one day to see Dieudonne, outfitted just the way I've described, holding a chicken at arm's length over the basin, not taking one big swipe the way you see in the movies, but hacking and see-sawing away at the chicken's neck.  I ran into my cottage to get some things, and when I came back out, he was still hacking away.  I said, "Dieudonne!  Seriously!  Is that the same chicken? How long is this going to go on!?"  Needless to say, I could not eat that chicken either, despite Dieudonne's wide-eyed assurances later that night that the chicken tastes 'so natural'.  Ai!  My new rule is that I cannot eat a chicken if I've looked him in the eye, live.  In the twisted justice system that is my head, this seems to work for me.

Doing the workshops with the kids here has been an eye-opening experience as well.  The team leads groups of Grade Seven students in a series of activities over a couple of weeks with the aim of exploring peer influence and peer pressure and the avoidance of contracting HIV.  During one of the activities, the students have to map out areas of the school where they feel oppressed.  One group was creating an image of their oppression at the soccer field.  I said, "Okay, explain your image to me.  How are you feeling oppressed?"
"We are oppressed at the soccer game."
"Okay.  What's the oppression?  Who are these guys in the image?"
"Ai, they are playing soccer and this boy, got a goal."
"Okay.  And what are the girls doing?"
"Cheering."
"So what's the oppression, then?"
"Ai, if the boy gets a goal the girl must go to have sex with him."
"Just for that?  Scoring a goal?  What if he gets two goals?"
"Then, the girl must have sex with him two times."
"And who made this 'tradition'?"
"Ai, I don't know."
"I think maybe the boys, no?"
They also were talking about the Oppression of "Three Doors"  which is an old abandonned house with three ramshackle windows where the boys take the girls to have sex.  The toilets were another 'area of oppression' which is crazy, considering the toilets here are outhouses and the odour is fetid! [On the outhouse note, one day I was using the outhouses outside my 'cottage' and one of the teachers exclaimed 'Ai! Jenny! Not that one.  That one is for the maids.'  I had to laugh.  They were both exactly the same.  Do they think ours will be cleaner than the maids'?  They're maids!]

Sofiso was leading the condom demonstration one day and he used a sorry looking broom to do his demonstration.  The condom just hung there like a shrivelled Ziplock baggie.  I said, :"Geez, Sofiso, why couldn't you use a banana?  These poor boys have no hope for the future!"

After the workshops and tea, I usually lead the team in a workshop and then we prepare the supper before nightfall.  Children of the Corn Time.  That's when I head out, after a candlelight supper, with Sipo, the Security Guard (and his machete) and the guys.  We are like an erstwhile SWAT team, against the Black Magic Serial Killer.  'Home' is my cottage, a simple concrete room with one mattress where I sleep and one mattress piled high with pots and pans, Business Management manuals from the eighties, assorted childrens' exercise books and a candle.  Oh yes, and the Mariah Carey lying in a field poster on the door.  At night I usually hang out with Dieudonne and Nolwazi next door, having tea and telling ghost stories (i.e. true life stories about their lives in South Africa) or I curl up with a good book.  For about four hours.  And such is a day in the life...ingwavum'ing it.