4th/5th Week - Afrikaans, Port Alfred and PE

Here in South Africa, there are 11 official languages, of which English, isiXhosa, and Afrikaans are mainly spoken in the Eastern Cape. Xhosa is mainly spoken by the black population and Afrikaans is more common among the white population. We have the opportunity to learn Afrikaans, which is much easier and fortunately similar to German. However, the pronunciation sounds more like Dutch, for example, 'Goeie more' (Good morning), which is pronounced as 'Chuje more'. It takes some getting used to, but Afrikaans is definitely easier to learn compared to Xhosa, which includes clicking sounds.

So this week we had our first Afrikaans lesson, which took place at the home of an older, warm-hearted woman, just 5 minutes away from the school. After the lesson, which was more like a cozy get-together, we had coffee and cake, and then we left the house with cookies in hand. From now on, we will be taken care of once a week and gradually learn about her life story and learn some Afrikaans along the way.

On Friday, we invited our mentors, Annetjie and Arno, to have dinner with us. We thought long and hard about which typical German dishes we could make, using ingredients that are also available here. Additionally, there had to be a lot of meat in the food, as they do not consider a meal complete without meat. After much consideration, we rolled Schupfnudeln (German potato noodles) the day before and made Bolognese sauce as the meat. During the meal, the two of them started telling us about snakes like the Cape Cobra, Puff Adder, Boomslang, or Rinkals. The animals are now slowly coming out of their winter hiding places and all of them are venomous and even deadly, but fortunately, snake bites do not happen very often. Besides the snakes, they also warned us about a few venomous spiders, such as the Black and Brown Widow, but it is unlikely to be bitten by one of those spiders.

On Saturday, we spent time in the nearest bigger town. A teacher from the school where we usually work drove us there, briefly showed us around the town by car, and then picked us up again in the afternoon. On the way to Port Alfred, there was a game reserve on the side of the road where I could see a Kudu (antelope) from a distance (unfortunately, I wasn't able to take a photo of the animals while driving). There were also several monkeys sitting right by the road, on the guardrail and on the shoulder (unfortunately, I couldn't manage to take a photo of the animals while driving). On the route between Port Alfred and Alexandria, part of the road was single-lane. However, the own direction of travel was not indicated by traffic lights, as in Germany. There was someone next to a large sign who turned a sign with 'STOP' and 'GO' every 10 minutes. In Port Alfred, we spent the whole day in a rather small mall, where I bought 6 books and me and my fellow volunteers went to the cinema because spending a whole day in such a small mall was too much time.

In Alexandria, there are about 6 churches, including the Life Church, which we visit every week, then an Afrikaans Church, where the service is conducted in Afrikaans, a Coloured Church, and a Blacks Church. In Alexandria, there are 2 locations (townships where the houses have solid walls), one for Blacks and one for Coloureds, as the society, even though apartheid is officially over, still lives very segregated. Each location also has its own church, the aforementioned Coloured and Black churches. In order to get to know the different cultures in South Africa and not just socialize with white people, we would like to attend other services. When I asked our pastor if it would be possible for white people to go to the churches of the Coloureds and Blacks, he explained to me that the service at the Blacks Church would probably be boring for us, as it is conducted in Xhosa and lasts quite long. They preach with the Bible and believe in God, but at the same time believe that their ancestors remain on earth after death and must always be in a good mood so that nothing bad happens to them. In addition, animal sacrifices are made and they sometimes offer food or drinks that you would prefer not to try. In contrast, the Coloured Church would hardly be a problem and the service is very similar to that of Life Church, with a lot of singing and preaching, all in English and Afrikaans.

On Wednesday, it was my fellow volunteer's 21st birthday, which was celebrated in a big way at school, as turning 21 is considered adulthood here, even though all legal freedoms are already enjoyed at 18. So in school, we had cake, drank a syrup-like, sweet juice, and invited a few people. On the same day, a German journalist came who is writing an article about the school, which is intended to attract sponsors so that the children whose parents cannot afford the school fees can continue to learn here and graduate. After school, we went to our neighbors' art exhibition. Maureen Quin creates sculptures, has won several art awards, has a 4-meter horse sculpture in Dubai, has exhibited in Germany, and has worked with Nelson Mandela. But at the same time, she is an older woman who has stayed grounded and does not boast about her achievements.

Friday started off as usual, with our trip to PE (Port Elizabeth) to visit other volunteers who are here with the same organization, but it was canceled for today because it didn't work out to ride with acquaintances of our mentors. So we planned to go to PE on Saturday and relax for another day. However, during school, our mentor suddenly approached us and said that we could go to PE now and that we had to pack our things and leave. An hour and a half later, we were sitting in the cargo bed of a pickup truck and on our way to the airport, where we had rented a car for the holiday next week.

We then took a taxi to the apartment of 2 other volunteers in the city and found a cheaper driver in the taxi driver who will take us from Alexandria to PE to get to our car next week. Later, 2 other volunteers from PE joined us, so there were 8 of us staying in the apartment. Unfortunately, the apartment only had a bathtub and no shower, and due to the current water shortage in PE, the tub is filled with 5-10 cm of water for washing. The rather funny problem arose with the toilet, where several people went one after the other because the cistern takes 15 minutes to fill up.

The next day, we were once again at a mall because bad weather was forecasted. The Baywest Center is a huge mall that offers clothing stores, a food court, an ice rink, an arcade, a bowling alley, bumper cars, and a cinema.

After another night in PE, on Sunday we went to the church there and were warmly welcomed, hugged, and provided with 'vetkoek' (a traditional South African fried bread) as the 'volunteers from Alexandria'. Later, we took a taxi to the Greenacres Mall because our taxi driver could only pick us up from there to go back to Alexandria. We survived the short ride to the mall, even though the car was a bit older, kept jerking strangely, and the driver didn't take us to the desired main entrance. I was relieved when I had solid ground under my feet again.