I could level mountains with my good intentions

I apologize for the long hiatus from this blog. I keep writing things down that I want to post, but then never actually post them. My good intentions could level a mountain.

I wrote about a teacher getting donations from businesses in town towards a bicycle for me. A few weeks ago she appears with a new bike for me. I was floored. She and my host family took it upon themselves to get me a new bike. It's blue and nice (but would require taking the brakes apart to fix a flat tire, which happens at least once a week) but I prefer the bike that I already have. I'm keeping both for the moment because my current bike is making distressing noises when I peddle.
If they can get a new bike without my help or motivational speeches, why don't they do so many other things? A library, getting along with other teachers at the school or lesson planning would be nice.

A teacher at Tshukudu organized a game drive through his church (the same church that Becca, my closest volunteer goes to) and invited me to come along. Becca and I both decided to go, assuming that we would be going to a game lodge and searching landscapes for animals would be the extent of our day.
We were wrong. We happily arrived at Lapalala Wilderness area (only 45 minutes late, a record) and discovered it specializes in taking school groups from surrounding villages and introducing the learners to flora and fauna that they only see on TV even though the animals live a 30 minute drive away. The group we were with was mostly children from grades 1 to 7 (they prefer seventh to tenth graders) and we didn't have enough adults (they prefer to have teachers so they can go back and teach other learners). Instead of the hiking that was planned, we took a short walk to the river and in the afternoon played a game emphasizing that decisions communities and game farms make effect each other and they should work together for world peace. We ended the day with a quick game drive spotting zebra and white rhinoceros and stopped to feed a domesticated black rhinoceros. The difference, I learned, between a white rhinoceros and a black rhinoceros are what they eat and their lips. White rhinoceroses have flat, normal lips perfect for grazing grass. Black rhinoceroses prefer the leaves off of trees and have adapted an upper lip similar to an up-side down tonge perfect for ripping leaves off of branches. This rhinoceros was an abandoned three year-old who made adorable (I know, who would have thought adorable and rhinoceros belong in the same sentence?) mewing noises. We were given a handful of food and held it up to her and she scooped it out of our hands with her lip.
On my way back to my house, there was another animal encounter: a goose attack. I was walking, minding my own business, a little giddy from the adorable rhinoceros mewing, when a big, white goose starts waddling towards me with its beak wide open and looking for some flesh. I could hear my dad, "goose bites hurt" in the back of my mind and I did by best diversionary tactics. I waved my arms, screamed and ran the other direction. It worked great. The goose knows who's boss and hasn't bothered me since. A good day.

My host parents are old. 76 and 73. Their grandkids are always coming by, cooking, cleaning and delivering messages between their parents and my parents. A constant visitor is Lefenya, AKA Finky. Finky just finished grade 7 and has the interesting preference of playing with girls in grade 3 instead of children her own age. She's also 5' 11" and towers over everyone. Finky decided to visit some friends in Shongoane 2 about an hour walk from where she lives. Her friends got a lift back to Shongoane 3, but she decided to walk home alone even though it was dark. She gets to Shongoane 3, but still has another 30 or 40 minutes to walk in order to get to her house when some men in a car stop. The men demand that they get in the car, she refuses and they smack her and drag her into the car. They drop her off in the bush and she walks for the next day and a half without food or water through the bush. She was too afraid to walk on the road.
Back in Shongoane 3, her family is looking every where for her and thoughts atomatically turn for the worst. I thought of rape, murder, abduction and using her body for muti. People who believe in traditional medicine (and all sorts of other traditional things) believe that body parts of other people will heal them, make them better businessmen or give them good luck. I've heard of people whose brains were taken so that a business will have two brains and thus be twice as successful. Not many people believe in it, but enough do to make it a possibility.
After she walked back she was tired, but ok. The men were bored and simply wanted to have a little fun by abducting a girl.

Last Monday, my host mother's sister died. The sister had visited our house several times and I was always shocked at the state of her health. She couldn't walk, her voice was hoarse that she usually choose not to speak and she gave up on eating about a month ago. I thought she was 80, but she really was only 59. Her family took her to clinics and hospitals multiple times but all the doctors and nurses were able to do was give her a feeding tube to plump her up a little and send her home. I'm not clear on what the cause of death was, but my host father said it was the 'illness' (AIDS).
My Mma went to her house and spent the week cooking, cleaning, staying up all night singing, getting ready for the funeral and mourning. She came back yesterday, exhausted.
Back at our house, things weren't cheery either. I am a young woman. My host father is an old man. Guess who cooks, cleans and serves? Guess who wasn't happy about it? We were almost out of food (except for mealies to make hard porridge, which I refuse to cook ) and I went to town to get food. I bought rice, pasta and potatoes for my host father expecting to be paid back (I buy electricity for the whole family and most of my own food. This food was for him.). Instead I come home to him telling me that he really wanted eggs with no offer of paying me back. And I had to cook dinner, then serve it to him on the table, finishing off with washing the dishes and cleaning up after the granddaughters who had visited earlier in the day. I know I shouldn't be so upset, how I am any better than all of the other women who willing do this for him? But I was. I refused to eat with him and discovered a way that he would do some of the work himself: I cook and clean only for myself. If he gets hungry, I say "I've already eaten" and I'm off the hook. PLUS I get to eat whatever I want instead of hard porridge and potatoes. The house was dirtier than I like it, but hey, at least I didn't have to serve an old man who is perfectly capable of helping me or taking care of himself.