eCabazini the Zulu Village

This weekend we went to a traditional South African Homestead!! It was really interesting to see how a lot of the rural people in South Africa still live. We stayed there from Saturday to Sunday afternoon. We slept in these awesome little huts, had a couple campfires to cook our food, and got to see what day-to-day life was/is like! The pictures do a much better job explaining!

When we first arrived at the homestead

In South Africa they say "hoot the hooter" instead of "honk the horn"

The scenery, you can see a little grass hut if you look hard

The Zulu man that came to greet us and bring us down to the homestead

The homestead where we all stayed

The fences go around all of the huts, and there is a 2nd fence inside for the cattle to stay

There are several different types of the round huts. The all grass one is the older, and the mud/plaster is obviously the newer version

This is a third type with stones and grass

I was elected to be the representative of our group to ask the Zulu people for permission to be welcomed into their homestead. I had to do it in Zulu so I was really nervous!
I said, Sanibona! Sicela ukhuluma nathi.
Apparently I did okay because they let us in :)

This is the hut I stayed in

My prarie dress I wore because in the Zulu culture females don't wear "man trousers"

The inside of the hut, my roomies were Kristina, Janelle, and Leanne

The view from our hut of the lake

All of us walking to the lake

It was really pretty and reminded me of something I would see in the Northern part of America

Megan and I running down the hill to go swimming, this reminded Adam of the Little House on the Prairie

Going swimming in the muddy lake

We got 1/3 of the way into the lake, and it was still below our waist...

...so we ran back out

By the fire waiting for dinner, Adam and Joey posing with the Zulus in their traditional clothes

Sitting by my friend Sipho. It was fun practicing my isiZulu

Still waiting for dinner :)

Apparently I was the only one who thought it would be a good idea to wear prairie clothes

Finally dinner! Raw cow cooking on an open flame

It turned out delicious!

My dinner group: Ronnie, Rachel, Carrie, Bethany, Brittany, Kristina, and Me

After dinner they performed some traditional Zulu dancing

The guys got up to try it

Some were pretty good, Adam got really into it

The next morning the cows were in the cattle crawl

This little baby calf was so cute

The different markings are really unique and are completely symetrical

Waiting for breakfast the next day

Brittany and I

Ronnie and Kristina

Rachel and Brittany

Bethany, Megan (my isiZulu buddy), and Alle

Kat and I

Byron and Adam

Showing us how they make straw mats (beds)

A bunch of random traditional Zulu items

Adam's favorite part of the whole day... spreading fresh cow dung on the floor to fill in the cracks

Adam even volunteered to try!

He was actually pretty good!

All cleaned up... hopefully

One of the many beautiful plants we saw that weekend

Inside one of the home; they keep their tools in the thatching of their roofs

An herb garden outside the house. Raised up to keep things from eating it

We found this random sausage tree that had hanging sausages all over it

Megan decided to lick one of the sausages

After a tour of the traditional homes of the other Zulu people, we had a chance to make traditional Zulu pottery. Rachel, Me, Alle, and Megan

My finished pot (it's now a pencil holder on my desk!)

After our pots we got to make traditional bracelets

I made a flower!

Lastly we did some stick fighting. Adam wanted to try his had at this as well

So did I!

We had a traditional shield and then just a plain stick

One of my favorite parts of the day!

Videos:

The cattle chewing their cud


The Zulu lady spreading fresh cow dung all over the floor to repair the cracks
(They do this every single week on Sundays)

Adam playing with cow dung on the floor of a traditional Zulu hut

Adam's Dung Contest- Results: Lost

The Traditional Stick-fighting Demo


Adam Stick-fighting!