Food

Going shopping is quite hard without a car especially because I live so far, 54 kilometers, from my shopping town of Thohoyandou. 

The stores have excellent juice including many 100% mixed juice blends.  Many juices and brands of milk come in waxed cardboard containers and need no refrigeration until opened.  The milk is called long-life milk and comes in full cream and reduced fat.  The coffee that I have had here is instant.  I have also seen coffee and chicory blends, but it is hard to find coffee in the store and I have not seen a coffee maker for sale anywhere I have been, although I am sure they have them somewhere.  Some people have told me they bought French presses but I have not seen one of those either.  Jessica had given me some Starbucks Via instant coffee I brought with me and I made my first cup of relatively real coffee in a long time.  It was very strong.  It seems no matter how much of the South African instant coffee you put in your cup it never gets strong.  I read on the Peace Corps wiki that there is a company that will send Peace Corps volunteers free coffee. 

Some grocery stores do not carry cheese and when you do find cheese it is processed cheese, cheddar, gouda or feta.  I have found other cheeses in one store in Pretoria but they are very expensive.  Cheddar and gouda are quite expensive here in our shopping town (R69.99-72.99/Kg) compared to in Pretoria (R49.99-59.99/Kg on sale).  Big bags of ruffled potato chips are nonexistent as far as I know, even in Pretoria.  They have lots of little bags and most are flavored, but I have only seen larger bags of cheese puffs.  I guess that is their preferred method of cheese intake.

I do not think they have gotten the health food awareness education that we have in the states.  Brown bread actually costs less than white and I have yet to find a peanut butter without hydrogenated oil.  Also all the yogurt I have found contains sweeteners.  Sugary sweets are quite popular as a treat. 

It seems that pap, bread, yogurt and chicken are the rural SA staple foods.  They also eat a lot of cabbage, butternut squash, beetroot, beans and eggs.  Pap is made from corn ground very fine and cooked in water.  There is a special tool used to stir pap so there are no lumps.  When prepared It is very stiff and sticks together.  You can pick it up in one piece if separated into individual servings when first made and you are careful.  Another name for pap is porridge.  It is made thinner and eaten with sugar for cereal, but thick is the preferred method of preparation.  A lot of people eat it for 2-3 meals a day along with a gravy and meat and/or one or more of the foods I mentioned above.  Dried whole kernel corn is called samp and is usually cooked with beans. 
 
In school every week every lunch includes huge portions of pap, which is quit bland like bread or potatoes.  One Monday there was pap with roasted termites – a delicacy.  

Tomato gravy, roasted termites and pap

I was told you have to watch how you eat them and they are the kind of food that is used on the Fear Factor TV show. I did not try them.  I had wondered why there were huge termites mounds everywhere and no one did anything about them.  

On the other days of that week they had chicken feet and gravy, chicken necks and gravy, cooked squash leaves with scrambled eggs and fish cooked in tomatoes along with their pap.  These were special meals cooked for the teachers.  The students ate samp and beans which is really quite good and nutritious.  There were also oranges all week long.  They must be ripe this time of the season.  I hear mangos will be ripe in the summer about December.

I was in town one Saturday shopping and there were many street vendors.  They sold a lot of things especially fruits and vegetables.  Women were doing bead work; men had set up huge speakers and were singing to music.  Street vendors were selling dried worms which they claim taste better than crabmeat and are very nutritious.  A lot of people I meet ask if I have eaten the Venda worms yet.  They look like caterpillars to me and I plan to put off eating them as long as possible.  I have been told you have to watch how you eat them also but not as much as the termites. 

I first heard about these worms in Makapanstad when I told them I was going to Limpopo.  They told me that there were many fruits and worms there that are very delicious.  In Limpopo I was shown a tree in the school yard that the worms come onto and was told it will have lots of worms.  So maybe I can get some great pictures of them while they are alive.  I think they are very colorful.

People have shown me some of the things they learned to eat to survive when there was no food.  They have really learned what they can and cannot eat from their environment like the experts on the shows that teach you how to survive.  It is hard for me to imagine what these people have gone through in the past.       

Some of my realities of living in rural South Africa

People make bricks from the dirt.
Everywhere I have been the dirt is red.

A community is relatively well off if water is plentiful.
Water requires a lot of energy and time to gather.  The norm is for people to go to a community tap and fill up water buckets to take home.
Women carry large heavy containers of water on their heads up and down mountain roads because wheel barrels are harder to use on steep slopes or because they are used to it.

Primary and Secondary School students are called learners.
Learners walk to school or take a taxi they pay for themselves.
Learners wear uniforms to public schools.  Student is a word reserved for those attending higher education institutions.
Learners are taught in their native language until 3rd grade.  From 4th grade on they are taught in English.
Learners may carry a shoe brush and clean their shoes without being told to do so.
Many younger people who were schooled after Apartheid speak multiple languages and some older people do also.
Learners help with school chores such as sweeping and cleaning the floors, watering the gardens, cleaning dinner plates, bringing firewood to school for the cooks, cleaning the toilets or anything else you ask them to do.  They even offer to help with things when not asked.

Most people lock their gates and do not go out after dark.
Domestic animals, cows, pigs and goats, are everywhere.  Yards are fenced to keep them out - to protect vegetation - and for security purposes.
Dogs are not pets and are not named or brought into the house.  They are kept for protection.  Cats are kept to catch salamanders and other small critters.
People walk a lot and long distances.  Most people do not have cars and those that do may take public transportation because of the price of fuel called petrol.
Taxis are large vans that can carry up to 14 people seated and more standing.
Buses that travel to and from town are 2 bus lengths long and you need to get to the bus first to get a seat.
Most roads are unpaved and covered with fine powdery red dirt – tar roads are wonderful.  The closest tar road is where you go to catch public transport.
Road rage is virtually nonexistent even though cars share the road with taxis and buses, which are constantly pulling off and onto the road to pick up and drop off people.  Cows and goats pay no attention to cars,buses and taxis and will walk out in front of them, stop in the middle of the road and even sleep on roads at night.
People drive their cars with the windows up and will tell you to put the window up even if the temperature is in the high 80s F.  Windows in taxis and buses are usually closed and if you open one do not be surprised if some tells you to close it.

When I am sweating South Africans are not and they may even be wearing a jacket.
Houses with thatched roofs are cool inside when it is hot outside and vice versa.

People who can afford it have their own cell phone but there are few, if any, land lines.
The majority of people have electricity they use for cooking and watching television and they love to watch soap operas which may have characters who speak multiple languages.

People help each other out and you can ask children to fetch or do things.  They willingly help and you are not supposed to pay them because people are supposed to help each other.
Everyone greets you and you greet everyone and every time you see them you greet them again.
People touch each other and will touch you even if they do not know you and they stand and sit very close.

Women sweep their yards and clean the fine dirt off the harder surface below and may sweep daily.
Women will always dress nice and then wrap towels around themselves to carry babies on their backs.
Women carry bags in each hand and something on their head without dropping anything and they will stop and talk to you while doing so.