Author: Tara Taft

Making a Pit Stop in Town

/ Tara Taft / Leave a comment

As we traveled throughout the cities and towns of South Africa, we ate at many first world restaurants with first world toilets, in Cape Town, Lady Grey, Ladybrand, Clarens, Durban and Sabie. And when we weren’t eating at a restaurant, finding a toilet was similar to finding one in the U.S. while traveling in an unfamiliar area. One has to ask.

After shopping in a small grocery store in the South African town of Ladybrand, I followed the cashier’s directions to the back of the store and entered its entrails. As I walked slowly, not sure where to go, a friendly young Afrikaans woman found me and told me to follow her. She walked quickly with authority, turning corners often, joking and laughing with employees we encountered along the way. Handing me the key, she left me with instructions to lock the door when I was done. The toilet was small but adequate, not unlike what I have encountered in supermarkets in the U.S. As I left, I locked the door and began walking, attempting to retrace my steps through the maze of corridors and boxes. The Afrikaans woman found me and escorted me to the front of the store where I found my family ready to leave.

Later that day we found a KFC with a clean and easily accessible restroom. Though not quite an adventure, stopping there was simple and reminded us of home.

At the Petrol Station

/ Tara Taft / Leave a comment

After several hours in the car, seeing only huts and termite mounds along the N2 highway in rural South Africa, my husband said he was going to have to pull over. No one liked the idea, stopping by the side of the road would make us vulnerable to other people and animals, but we had no choice. Then, just as we drove over the next hill, a petrol station appeared like a mirage, complete with toilets.

The boys approached the toilets first. With coin in hand, they followed the toothless smiling woman to the men’s room. A few minutes later it was our turn. My daughter and I smiled at the woman, saying hello in Xhosa, “Molo.” She smiled and laughed, offering us toilet paper and waiting outside the stall as we took turns using the clean, flush toilets.

Our next petrol station experience was cleaner and bigger. At the Shell Station Union City in Mthatha, we entered the large new and bright restroom and discovered several stalls with flush toilets. A woman attendant sat by the sinks, and we left our coins in the tip jar on the counter after washing our hands.

A few days later, as we drove north along the western boundary of Lesotho, we stopped in a small town looking for petrol and a place to relieve our bladders. It was early, about 9 a.m., and at the first station we stopped they didn’t have any petrol. We continued to the next station where we were told the same thing. Finally we found petrol at the town’s Shell Station. While my husband and son sat with the car, my daughter and I went in search of the toilet. We walked around the side of the building where one of the workers led us to an African man who controlled the keys. Skinny and older and speaking no English, he led us through a gate and down a walkway between high white walls. Reaching up to a ledge, he lowered a small cardboard box and held it out to us. The box contained toilet paper and somehow he made me understand that I was supposed to pay him and take whatever paper I needed. I paid him 2 rand, and he unlocked the “women’s room.” The large and spacious white tiled bathroom was filthy. One of the stalls had no door and no toilet seat. Inside the other stall was a door but no latch. The tile floor was broken, and the faucet didn’t work. We left in a hurry.

Doing Our Business in South Africa

/ Tara Taft / Leave a comment

South Africa is a country of contrasts, and as we traveled throughout its varied land, we experienced first world luxury and third world poverty and then some in between. We slept in rondavels (round thatched roof huts) and on futons, in apartments and cottages, in tent cabins, in game lodges and even in a tree house. We ate take out at the mall and fast food at the petrol station; we ate at a waterfront restaurant with heat lamps, and we self-catered, that is, we made our own food in communal or private kitchens where we were staying.

So where did we do our business? A necessity and sometimes a luxury, we explored and experienced a variety of toilets during our month long stay in South Africa. I will describe a few of the more interesting and unique toilets we used in the next few posts.

On the Wild Coast, we stayed at a hostel-like resort called Bulungula Lodge. The lodge is in the village of Bulungula, a village which has no electricity, no plumbing, and no mail service. We slept in our own rondavel with dirt floor, a window, a door and three futon beds, and whenever the need arose, we took a short walk outside and down a dirt path.

The door of another hut opened to bright colors and murals of turtles, frogs, flowers and fish, each of six stalls personalized by its own mural in yellows, greens, oranges, blues, purples, pinks and reds. Each stall contained a composting toilet, a bucket of dirt and a shovel and driftwood holding a roll of toilet paper. The instructions on the back of the door told us what to do. These toilets were simpler than the composting toilets I’ve seen in the U.S., but the dirt covered the smell, so odors were not offensive. These were the only composting toilets we encountered in South Africa.

Snacks in South Africa

/ Tara Taft / 2 Comments

At home, we limit the sugared and processed food in our house. Soft drinks only appear at parties, potato chips are never bought and cookies are usually home made. But on vacation, we relax a little, especially when traveling in a unique place. Don’t you think eating the local food is part of the cultural experience, even if it’s not necessarily good for you?

I used to think the U.S. had all the choices, but in South Africa, my kids were overwhelmed and excited by the variety of potato chip flavors they’d never heard of or sampled before. The few times we stopped at a petrol station looking for a snack, they searched for the new and different. There were Korma Curry potato chips, Caribbean Onion and Balsamic Vinegar, Thai Sweet Chili, Beef and Biltong flavored potato chips and even Sweet Chili flavored Doritos. We each chose a bag and shared tastes, some preferring the more spicy chips, others the sweet.

Although pineapple Fanta was the kids’ favorite choice to wash down the salty chips, they also enjoyed orange and grape Fanta as well as Grapetisers and Appletisers, just juice and carbonation, no added sugar.

And of course we had to try the biltong. Similar to beef jerky, biltong is strips of meat that have been marinated or seasoned and then cured and dried. It is sold in small packages in grocery stores and convenience stores or you can buy it shredded at the mall or at the butchery where it is sold by weight. You can eat beef or kudu, ostrich or springbok, eland or gemsbok. The thickness and flavor of the biltong varies, depending on the meat, the cut and its preparation.

We tried biltong a few times. In Lady Grey, we bought beef biltong from a butchery, where the butcher filled a small brown paper bag with shredded pieces cut from a big slab of beef hanging from the ceiling. We bought packaged kudu and springbok biltong in Kruger National Park. I winced as I tried it, thinking of the kudu we’d just seen running by the side of the road.

If you can’t make it to South Africa and really want to try out biltong, try making it yourself (there are plenty of recipes online) or check out the website www.southafricanfood.us. Based in North Carolina, this company imports a few South African items for sale in the U.S. including biltong and Appletisers.

Fanta photo by Tommy Taft.

Playing Chicken on South African Roads

/ Tara Taft / Leave a comment

“Yap youeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” My husband yelled as we crested the top of the hill, perching over a steep decline. Down and down we drove, leveling only for a few seconds before climbing back up again. The roads were like roller coasters, rolling up and down, steep and narrow, with views far and near. We could see far and watch as impatient drivers moved into the oncoming lane, counting on speed and skill and luck to carry them beyond the slower car and safely back into the left lane only just in time.

We were driving in South Africa on the wrong side of the road (as far as we Americans were concerned) from the Wild Coast to Lesotho.

“Yap youeeeeeeee,” he yelled, as our speed increased to pass the slow moving truck, passing to the right, moving into the opposite lane, moving fast and faster, our speed well exceeding the speed limit until we slid in front of the truck just as that car coming toward us was getting near.

We played chicken more than once, so many times that it became blasé to the driver, my husband. Sometimes I shut my eyes, intimidated by the signs, “High Accident Zone,” intimidated by the website I’d stumbled across which detailed the roads with the highest fatalities (this was one of them). Or I’d look beyond the pavement, at the termite mounds, the grasses, the clothes lines adding color to the earthen shacks and huts around them, and hope for the best.

For road safety advice for foreigners driving in South Africa, check out the website: www.arrivealive.co.za.

The South African Balancing Act

/ Tara Taft / Leave a comment

Have you ever tried to carry anything on your head? Maybe a book to practice your good posture? What about a bunch of sticks or a 10-liter bucket of water? How about a large bag of maize?

In South Africa we saw women everywhere carrying everything and anything on their heads. Most of the time their hands were free and often babies were on their backs. According to one young woman, the girls begin learning the technique when they are 8-years old. My daughter was 13, and I was a few years older when we tried.

On the “Women’s Power Tour” in Bulungula on the Wild Coast of South Africa, our guide, Mtomboxolo, took us to the village spring. She gave us each a small container (margarine size) and told us to fill it up with water, cover it with a lid, then put it on our heads before carrying it up the hill on a rooted dirt path. Tentatively, I put the tub on my head and walked up the hill, both hands by my sides. A few minutes later we arrived at the hut, our water intact. Proud of myself, I turned to see Mtomboxolo carrying a much larger container on her head.

Now it was time to gather wood. We walked to a wooded area with small trees and shrubs and gathered dead branches. Mtomboxolo gave us fabric to tie up our bundle, then, to my surprise, told us to carry the bundles on our heads as well. I retied mine, placed it on my head and balanced the lopsided bundle back up the hill.

Around a fire that night, we spoke to an orthopedist who volunteers in the village. She told us that many women come to her with back pain yet even after telling them to stop using only their heads, she will see them later that day, balancing heavy loads, their arms and hands empty and free.

Playing Marbles on the Wild Coast

/ Tara Taft / Leave a comment

We played marbles, my daughter, a young African boy, and I, one sunny morning on the Wild Coast of South Africa.

I meandered along the fine sandy beach, the morning sun’s warmth increasing, the wind less than the day before. My daughter walked near me, searching for shells or some creatures of the sea.

Around the curve of the coast, a little boy appeared near us, his black eyes big and friendly. Picking up a round seed, the size of a marble, he flicked the seed with his thumb, shooting it far along the wet sand. My daughter followed, taking her turn and learning quickly. He saw me watching and gave me a seed and motioned for me to play, too. Using a stick to create a line in the sand or his hands to dig a shallow hole, he showed us what to do, flicking the seed as if it were a marble. Shooting and flicking and sometimes tossing the marble, we followed his lead, doing what he showed us with no words.

He told us his name was Paul and that he was 6 years old. He counted to 100 in English and drew the alphabet in the sand, reciting each letter as he wrote with a stick for a pencil. He wore a torn Michigan sweatshirt and sweatpants and bare feet and when he tried on my daughter’s sunglasses, he posed in a typical “cool” manner, leaning back, his arms crossed until we laughed.

Around the corner from where we played, several women appeared, with tall buckets on their heads. Wearing long skirts and shirts, their heads covered in fabric, they walked with their hands free, nodding as they passed, continuing on beyond the river mouth to the colorful thatched roof huts on the hills.

When it was time for us to go, we said good bye to Paul and left him playing on the beach, marble in hand.

Bulungula

/ Tara Taft / Leave a comment

From the fenced dirt parking lot, we followed the hand painted signs pointing the way to Bulungula. Lugging our daypacks and rolling our small suitcases behind us, we walked the 500 meters to the lodge along a narrow dirt path, bordered by green colored huts to our left and the steep rise of a hill to our right.

We found the lodge at the end of the path: a rectangular building painted turquoise on the outside, brightly painted on the inside. Futon couches surrounded low tables, pillows littered the floor near a book case, large picture windows brought the ocean and the river inside. In the main lodge we found the kitchen, complete with communal refrigerator, a cooking area for guests and a separate kitchen for the village chefs.

A young woman of the village, Andiswa, showed us our room, a peach colored rondavel where the four of us slept on futons. Down the path, between the main lodge and our hut, were the bathrooms, one hut for the composted toilets and another for the rocket showers.

During our 3 days, the boys in our family chose to fish in the surf while the girls learned to grind maize; the four of us paddled the Xhora River, sighting kingfishers and mangroves. We ate curried butternut squash and chicken crepes for lunch, the only diners in the local restaurant’s rondavel. We sat around the fire in the evening, walked along the beach at sunrise and took a village tour. Andiswa introduced us to the healer of the village. We watched village children dance and sing. We learned about the local customs, watched children playing soccer, tasted sorghum beer and walked back to the lodge in the moonlight.

Over dinner, we joined other guests and the owners. We met backpackers, families from Colorado and France, and doctors from South Africa who were volunteering their talents and efforts to help the people of the local villages. We learned about the new preschool and the Bulungula Incubator, a non government organization (NGO), and its efforts to improve village life in the areas of education, health and nutrition, sustainable livelihoods, and basic services (including water quality and access to electricity).

There are things we didn’t do, like horseback riding on the beach, hiking, gathering herbs with a local healer, swimming in the ocean or trying out the solar shower. Next trip we’ll spend a week at Bulungula.

On the Way to the Wild Coast

/ Tara Taft / Leave a comment

Bumping and tilting, lurching and laughing, we eased over and through the rutted and pot hole filled dirt road on our way to Bulungula. Thankful for the clearance of our Renault Koleos, a small SUV sold in South Africa, we edged onward as the road dipped down and curved along the hill, taking us ever so slowly to our destination on the coast.

When our South African friends told us about Bulungula Lodge, they described it as a paradise, a beautiful, relaxing place where we could learn about the local people; after checking out the website, www.bulungula.com, I knew I had to go there. I wanted to experience this place that is solar powered and 40% owned by the village. I wanted to go to this place where I could learn to carry water on my head, eat South African food, walk on the beach and kayak on the river. We changed our itinerary, adapted our route and added an extra week to squeeze in a 3-night stay.

Before we left the U.S., we called David, the lodge’s owner, not once but twice, asking questions about the roads. We scrutinized websites and blogs which described the route and debated renting a 4 x 4. We considered leaving our car in Mthatha and taking the shuttle to the lodge. But David patiently reassured us. He told us that 60% of the people who stay at Bulungula use 2 x 4 cars to get there. We printed out the driving map and instructions from the website, left ourselves plenty of daylight hours, and hoped for the best.

After filling up on petrol, we took a left off the N2 and followed cars and open trucks crammed with people and women singing, passing small buildings and a telephone box before we turned off the tar road onto dirt. Colorful round huts and square buildings accented the rolling hills; a store, a school, cattle crossing, a dog, children yelling, “Sweets!” People walked only a little slower than we drove, and they smiled and waved as we passed by. The sky was blue and clear, the green hills rolling to the sea. A man in a suit walking by told us we were going the right way, and we continued, eventually seeing the peach and turquoise colored huts at the river mouth, our destination.

Getting to Bulungula Lodge isn’t easy, and that’s a good thing. It took us 3 hours to drive 79 kilometers (that’s only 49 miles) to reach Number 11 on the Rough Guide’s list of “Things Not to Miss in South Africa.”

Connecting

/ Tara Taft / Leave a comment

Blank faces met ours as we drove into the petrol station. Expressionless, the men pumped our cars. Until we tried to speak their language. “Molo,” we said in greeting. “Molweni,” he replied. We were practicing the few words we knew in Xhosa, the language of the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa.

Communicating in South Africa is easy for those of us who speak English. Most South Africans speak at least some English, one of the 11 official languages of the country. But according to the 2001 Census, English is the fifth most common language spoken, outspoken by Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, and Sethoto sa Leboa.

During our walking tour of Langa Township, Siviwe, our tour guide taught us a few words and even taught us how to click. Though the rest of us tried, only my daughter is able to click correctly, making the sound with her tongue as she pronounces the hard c sound in the word Xhosa. We learned the simple greeting, “molo,” when meeting one person, or “molweni,” when meeting more than one. And we learned how to say thank you, “enkosi.” As Siviwe brought us into the shantytown homes, we were able to greet those who lived there in their own language and to say thank you for allowing us to see their homes.

“Enkosi,” we said as we gave the man a tip for pumping the gas and cleaning our car windows. He smiled then grinned when my husband asked him if he was a Chiefs fan.

“Go Chiefs!” we all called out from the car, holding up our fingers in the American peace sign, also the sign for one of the biggest soccer teams in South Africa. He laughed and poked his friend who was a fan of the Chiefs biggest rival, the Pirates, and they cheered as we drove away.

We drove toward the coast, passing children walking down the dirt road. As we held our fingers up high with the sign for the Chiefs, they jumped up and down and ran after us yelling, “Chiefs! Chiefs!”

The people at Bulungula Lodge encouraged us to learn a few more words of Xhosa and to communicate with the people we encountered in the village. We learned to respond when someone asked how we were and to ask about their health as well.

I learned to say thank you in Sethotho (“galiboha”), and although my pronunciation was corrected by the women of the village, we all laughed together.

As we moved away from the coast, traveling to other provinces where Xhosa is not spoken and other languages are dominant, our lack of words separated us from the people. We never learned any Afrikaans or any Zulu, relying only on English to get us by. And although we attempted to smile and to talk to those we met, our response was most often a blank stare. Without knowing a few words, we had lost our connection and our individuality, becoming just another tourist in a sea of faces going by.