We had an early wake-up call this morning (5:30) so we could go to visit the village and school while the sun was not so hot. It is very hot and dry here. After breakfast, we jumped into the Nissan trucks and drove for about 15 minutes until we could transfer to our small bus. We stopped at the ranger station to pick up the village supplies and school supplies that we had left there. We drove for about 45 minutes to a village that has 520 homesteads or between 4000-6000. Just before getting to the village, Vimbai stopped at a small store (Maano-Maano) to buy milk for our tea. Each homestead is a family group of some kind. This family had the totem of the impala. Vimbai had given each of us a totem name tag to wear. I had Masibanda (Ma for female and sibanda for lion) and Dave had Dube (zebra). We had to ask the villagers what our African names meant as Vimbai wouldn't tell us. The village was made up of a number of houses, a store house, indoor and outdoor kitchens, an indoor dining room in case of rain, individual sleeping houses, corrals, a chicken coop, etc. The children move to their own communal houses - one for boys and one for girls - when they are 10. Younger children sleep with their parents. The women of the household came out to greet us with a song. One of the young women was carrying a very cute 2-year old boy. I tried to get him to smile by showing him my dog finger puppet, but he seemed quite shy so I put it away. There was a 15 year old girl in the group and apparently she did not go to school today as her shoes were broken and are at the cobblers. Later we learned that many of the children go to school barefoot so we think she just wanted to stay home to see us. The eldest daughter of this household showed us around the compound. She showed us her sleeping quarters. She had a bed, but she said many people slept on mats on the floor. The walls are made of blocks made from cement mixed with river sand and then stuccoed. The outside was painted orange and the inside was mostly painted white to maximize the light inside the hut. The roof was thatched. The floors (for those houses that did not have pounded dirt floors) were made of termite mound soil mixed with cow dung. She had to pay 2 goats to have her floor done. A goat is worth $40 and cows are worth $600. They use the cows for milk and not meat. The cows are their bank account. They also keep chickens (for eggs) and three roosters. We went into the indoor kitchen and they had some things cooking over the fire. They use mopane wood for firewood because it produces less smoke than other woods. The kitchen was a circular building. They make them this way so that if an evil spirit comes in, it has no corner to hide in and therefore the food is safe to eat. The headman of this household has the impala totem. His brother is the head man of the whole village. He has a wife, 5 children and 6 grandchildren. We shared tea and cookies with the ladies and Mr. Impala and his youngest son, Shalom, who is 24 and studying to be a guide. We also shared our mopane worms, which were cooked with tomatoes and onions. I passed as I didn’t want to upset my stomach. Dave said that were strong tasting. We talked about the roles of men and women and also about marriages. They wanted to know if the men had to pay a dowry when we got married. When we were ready to leave, we unloaded all of the goods that we picked up at the grocery store yesterday onto a mat on the ground. I think they were very happy with what we had brought them. We had handshakes and hugs all around and boarded the bus - the women all sang and danced following our bus out of the compound.
Our next stop was the school. We were greeted by the headmistress, who explained that she had 24 teachers for 834 children. The first grade class we popped into had 53 students! I just can’t imagine!! The children all greeted us in English - “Good morning, visitors” and then performed a song for us - “One, two, buckle my shoe”. They were all very cute. Our next visit was to a 4th grade classroom where we sat with the children on their benches. I had three boys who were curious about where we lived, how we got here, had we seen tall mountains, and what did we eat. Two of the boys said their favorite subject was mathematics so I gave them high fives and told them that was what I taught. I asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up: policeman, pilot, and soldier. They spoke English very well and did a nice job reading. We went back to the staff room to present our gifts to the headmistress. She will distribute them where they are needed most. She said she would add my books to the small library they have at the school. Grand Circle Foundation, which is the parent company of Overseas Adventure Travel, recently donated 30 computers to the school. Each class gets two 30 minute sessions per week in the computer room. The kids are taught word processing and spreadsheets. They cannot afford to have internet service at the school as it costs $92 per month. Each student is supposed to pay $15 per term, but many of the parents cannot afford that much so they are always short of money.
I just heard an elephant trumpeting not too far away. Juanita just came in and said that while we were out this morning they had a mysterious visitor. Someone had taken bites out of an apple they had in the tent and there were some kleenexes strewn around. Juanita started looking around and couldn’t see anything, but when she looked under the bed, she saw a pair of eyes looking back at her. It turned out that their visitor was a tree squirrel. Greg was in the shower so Juanita opened the door and started jumping on the bed and yelling. Greg came out to help and they finally got him to go out the door. There is always something exciting going on! I just took a picture of a plated lizard sitting by the birdbath. He was about 8 inches long, but they can get to be 2 1/2 feet.
Today’s lecture is on polygamy. I am going to try to type while we are listening instead of writing it down and transcribing after as I seem to be getting behind on the blog. Mafuka is doing the talking today. He is 76 and married to 3 wives at the moment. He had 4 but divorced one. He had 10 children with the 3 wives, 21 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren and 1 daughter with the divorced wife. If you get married in a church, you can have one wife. African custom says you can marry any number of wives. You must pay the bride price or dowry for each one. He pays in installments of cows. He has not finished paying for all of his wives. You are expected to have children in a year or two. Children are valued. If a woman cannot have children she is no good. She may however ask her sister to have children with the man - she becomes the second wife. The first wife must approve of the ensuing wives. The other wives are submissive to the first wife. They have to live in harmony as a team. Children are all brothers and sisters even if they have different mothers. The mothers treat all of the children as their own. He considers himself a lucky man. His wife initiated the polygamy. He thinks she wanted the company while he is gone as guides work for 3 months and then get 3 weeks off with an additional month off each year. HIs grandfather had 15 wives and his father had only one. The wife called her cousin to come and stay with them. She persuaded him to take the cousin as a second wife. His second wife had two children. His third wife was not related - a nurse at a local hospital. He chose this one. He was a bit apprehensive about introducing her to the other wives. There was no problem. They became very good friends. He chose a 4th wife, but that was a mistake. She didn’t respect the other wives. They were quarreling. Eventually his sisters and aunts came to his home and they said if you want a happy marriage, you have to get rid of your new wife. Each wife has her own hut and kitchen. Meals are prepared separately, but they eat all together. Each of the wives prepares a plate for the husband so you have to be very careful. You eat from each plate, just a little bit, until you are full. You don't have to rich to be a polygamous man. It is better, however, to be in a rural area where you can grow your own food. He has 90 acres. He grows tobacco (a cash crop) and maize, sunflowers, peanuts, cabbages, carrots, beets, tomatoes, onions, squash, cucumbers, etc. He sells the surplus to send the children to school. They have many hands to work the fields so they don’t have to hire. The first wife keeps the roster about who he sleeps with each night. He is a Shauna and 55% of that tribe are polygamists. Most of the younger generation are not for polygamy, but the new trend is that 90% of the new generation have mistresses, but the wife doesn’t know about the others (or at least they pretend not to know). They are fine as long as they are supported. There is a saying - Don’t try to climb a mountain to look for baboons for if you do, you may find them. Ages of his wives are from 49 to 68. His oldest son has a mistress with 3 children, but his wife doesn't know. There is some competition. Each wife wants to be the best in terms of food, clothing for the husbands, etc. If he passes away, the wives will stay together unless they want to get remarried, then they will move out. The last born boy becomes the owner of the 90 acres. If a woman becomes divorced they go home and will be taken in by their families. to divorce a wife, you give her 10 cents and say I divorced you. The coin is a token of the divorce. You still have to support the minor children.
After tea and the talk on polygamy, we went for our afternoon game drive. Abiot stopped next to an abandoned termite mound, which had big holes in it. He said it was probably inhabited by mongooses now, but if not them, snakes (certainly not at the same time). We saw a white-browed sparrow weaver bird, a red-billed hornbill, some warthogs, impalas, lots of guinea fowl (so lovely with their blue heads), and some great large baobab trees. The guinea fowl here are numerous. Their main predators are eagles and leopards. We stopped at the lodge veranda on the national park and looking down spotted a rock hydras, He looks like a large rodent, but Abiot says he is closely related to the elephant despite his small size. Down in the valley at the waterhole, we saw five zebras, a saddle-backed stork, and a warthog. On our way again, we stopped at a hammerlock nest that had been abandoned. Abiot said an owl has taken it over and is nesting with some chicks. She did not show herself when we were there. We saw some baboons up on the ridge. They were turning over rocks and hunting for scorpions to eat. Apparently they know the trick to not get stung as they eat them. We saw a huge flock of red-billed quitter birds. They are very small, but travel in groups numbering in the hundreds to thousands. They can land in a wheat field and decimate it is a matter of hours. Dan spotted a small croc in the river. We spotted a slender mongoose running away (he is so much bigger than the dwarf mongoose and very much smaller than the white-tailed mongoose. The slender mongoose usually travels alone or at the most in pairs. Even though he is small, he can take on a snake that is 4 to 5 feet long. We stopped to watch 28 elephants getting a drink at a natural spring. They are so large, yet graceful at the same time. In case I haven’t mentioned it before, a group of warthogs is called a sounder and a group of mongooses is called a business or a mob. Our last stop was to watch a group of baboons. One of the larger ones was chasing one of the smaller ones. He was being very aggressive and the younger one was screeching. I’m not sure what he did wrong, but he was certainly being disciplined quite hard.
When we got back to camp, we were given our customary wet facecloths to get the dust from our faces and arms. I must say this is the dustiest and driest of all the camps. The ride is also very bumpy in places - a great African massage. We came back in time for dinner. After dinner, Spencer, one of the dining attendants, gave a demonstration on carving vegetable ivory. He is very talented. He takes the fruit of the palm trees, takes the outer husk off and then carves the nut vegetable ivory). He carved an elephant and a giraffe. It only took him about 10 to 15 minutes. I may buy one to hang on our Christmas tree.
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