Local news

Tonight, the girls were eating green beans and buttered potatoes. Sofia ate all her pototoes without hardly stopping. Sienna wasn't too thrilled to have the potatoes. We had them last night and Sofia begged me to make them again. She loves potatoes. Sienna ate everything but her potatoes. I told her to eat at least one side of the the two sections she had of the potatoes. Her plate was one of the divided ones into 3 parts. Two parts had potatoes. So, she quietly piled all the potatoes onto one side and came into the kitchen and told me she ate the one section of potatoes as I asked. I asked her to bring me the plate and one could very plainly see that there was now a HUGE heap in the one section. I told her that was lying to mamma and she should never lie.

Now, on to some local flavor....

The Comrades ultra marathon was this past Sunday. The marathon is approximately 56 miles long. Yes, that's right, runners run 56 miles. The winner was a man from Zimbabwe. He also won it last year. The marathon goes right in front of our office. I didn't take the girls to watch because of all the road closures and I wasn't sure how to get to the office so we could sit and watch. It puts the marathons in the US to shame- it is over twice as long.

I saw in the classifieds yesterday that spitting cobras are for sale for about $45 USD very close to where we live. Same neighborhood. I just hope they aren't catching them around here. I was amazed they were selling them so cheap.

On the same topic of snakes, there was a VERY interesting story today in the local weekly free paper. Last week, residents in Hillcrest were shocked when they saw a local Zulu woman walking down the main road carrying a 220 pound python. Mama Tole, a sangoma (medicine woman, witchcraft, etc), said she disappeared to the deep end to a nearby lake to get this python. You hear often about the sangomas (and sangomas in training) having to take on a very challenging feat in the ocean or in lakes. Anyway, she captured this python and carried it back to her village. She is living now with the snake, talks to it and sleeps with it. She says it is her ancestor- her late grandfather. She said her other ancestors protected her when she went into the lake "to fetch" her grandfather.

Now, this may seemed far "fetched" but this type of story is very, very common here. The ancestors are very important here. And the cultural beliefs run very deep. Another example is the epidemic of HIV/AIDS. So many people die because they don't think it is AIDS. They think that they have been cursed with witchcraft. You hear this more often than not.

Last Tuesday, a newborn was found on the road very near to our office. The baby is okay.

And finally back to us....today when we were going to the grocery store, a lady came up to me and asked about the girls. I get it so often- "are they twins", "yes, they are". She said, "I also have twins, or I did. One of them died last year, they were also both girls, 2 years old, she died because I didn't have money to get her the health care she needed". She was such a sweet lady. I felt so horrible and can't even imagine the pain of not being able to get the healthcare needed.