Today my friend Lauren and I volunteered to help with a Habitat for Humanity group here in Cape Town. We from town around 8:45am and drove to a far away township which was our worksite for the day. There were a bunch of guys from the township already working there and then we showed up as two white girls ready to work. There was also a UCT graduate, Ian, with us. All morning we mixed cement and moved cinderblocks around until a group of addicts came to volunteer for the day. The first thing they told us was that they were in rehab. Some were drug addicts, some were alcoholics, one was anorexic and then they said there was even sex addicts living in the rehab house! Lauren and I found it quite interesting to hear all their stories all day. The most interesting part for me was the fact that this one rehab center of 25 people treated all these kinds of addicts and druggies. I feel like they are all very different problems and should be dealt with differently instead of all together under one house. So anyways, some of them helped out at the sight but others were too small or just really didn’t want to work. One lady worked really hard and one guy walked around all day with his shirt off getting a tan instead of helping! Halfway through the day we had a tea break and found out that one of the girls was a police officer in England for 6 years, was a rehab counselor but is now in rehab herself! It was a very interesting day but they left early before lunch. Throughout the day Lauren and I talked with the neighbors who were helping and learned a lot about the Zulu culture. When the wife gets married, the ceremony is held at the husband’s house. She wears a black head scarf and black clothing as a sign of respect during the ceremony. This respect is towards her husbands ancestors. Everything is done to protect the husband’s ancestors and never the wife’s. For the first week after the marriage, the wife must sleep with the husbands elders and then go back to her husband the second week to get pregnant. Once the women are married, they must always wear a head scarf and something around their waste to show respect. After the rehab people left, we had chicken curry made by the neighbors which was fabulous! So we ate lunch and then left right after because we were tired and sun burned! Overall it was a really fun day because hey, we built a house!!!
South African Fact: respect is a big part of Xhosa culture. Must respect husband's ancestors, yours don’t matter. Even if it’s a cross-cultural marriage, you have to obey and respect the ancestors of the husbands’ side and no one else.
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