Day 4-7

ok, so internet is not as easy as I thought it'd be over here. I'm using up my internet allowance fast, and i make it go faster by uploading pictures, so I've come to find out.

So here's a brief summary of my last few days:

Day 4- Soweto
We took a day long tour of a city outside of Johannesburg called Soweto. It's definitely not the nicest part of Africa. We toured the slums and shanties, but we learned how they were affected by Apartheid. We went to a museum about the Soweto Massacre of 1975, which occurred after the government during Apartheid tried to impose Afrikaans, the White language, on all public schools. Poor schools, such as in Soweto, did not understand Afrikaans and thought that having to be taught in an unfamiliar language was unfair, so the young students began to riot. I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty moving.

My favorite part of the day was when we went to a Talk program at a local residence in town. They put us into groups of 4 students and 3 locals, and we talked about their culture. Then they asked us about ourselves and from there, they gave us an african name. My name was Thando, which means Love, since i want to work with people and help them and was smiling and laughing the whole time, I was radiating love. (sorry for the grammar mistakes, I'm on a time constraint). Then they told us how to say hello and my name is in Zulu, which is Sanibonani, igami lami ngu Thando. 

Day 5 and 6
Sunday, day 5, we had a free day where we went to a local outdoor market and started to work on new friendships.
Monday, day 6, we had our first classes. We had history of South Africa in the Morning and HIV and Crime rate in the afternoon. Then some of my new friends and I went to get a nice steak dinner.

Day 7- Class and Lesedi
Today, we had our history class, and she gave us Rooibos Tea, which is cultivated from a local red plant. It smelled gross, but tasted good. 
Later, we went to the Lesedi Cultural village where we learned about the different villages of South Africa, the Zulu, the Xhosa, the Pedi, and the Sotho. Nelson Mandela is from the Xhosa tribe, who have a clicking language. While I was at the Zulu village, they tried teaching us how to shake hands as a greeting. So I had 2 pictures taken with these girls and I tried do it, but i kept messing up. but they liked me and nicknamed me zandi? sansi? they said it fast. and I think it might mean many. but they might have said funny. they're accents are a little hard to understand. 
But it was still fascinating! they showed us their dancing rituals, brought us up to dance, we saw how they lived, i learned that if a man wanted to marry a woman he could buy her for 11 cows, and I ate ostrich, crocodile, and lamb. and One of the village men gave me a kiss on my hand. it was cute. 


And that's been a quick wrap up of my time here so far. Hopefully, I can get to a local restaurant with free Wi-Fi and can upload more pictures soon!