i hope giving away your heart makes it grow

today is the first day back after the rural homestay.

Ahhhh... I have so much to say, so much I've journaled about in the last few days, and I don't even know where to begin, so I'll try to give a rough picture.

We stayed in pairs for the rural homestay, which was 1.5 hours north of Durban, along the coast in a 'reserve' still heavily influenced by a Zulu chief. In fact, SIT (Langa is a full time staff who is Zulu) had to negotiate with the chief to decide if and where we could stay. SIT toured the homes the chief okayed, and placed us in homes that met their stamp of approval.

I'm pretty sure my homestay partner Jaharra and I were matched because we are/have a preference for vegetarian food, even though I asked that Nokothula cook whatever she wanted.

Our home was by far the nicest in the area. It was the same size, if not bigger, than my home in Durban. A pink house behind a cornfield, with two rondavels (round hut structures made out of cement and thatched/aluminum roof), a garage, a structure with an outhouse/outdoor bath. I refered to the big rondavel as the "man cave", because only boys over the age of 11 lived in it. There were two permanent boys, Spha (15) and Kheta (13), that slept in there, but they were frequently joined by two 19 yr olds, an 11 yr old, and a 10 yr old. All of the boys call each other 'brothers', but when we dissected what that really meant (for example, why are three of you named Spha?) it came out that they were cousins. Spha was adament, however, that they are the same as brothers, and they really are. It is a testament to how family is viewed.

In the house there was me, Jaharra, Zenele, Nokothula, and her 4 yr old boy Kwanele. Zenele, the owner of the house, was gone the entire week at nursing school, and Nokothula took excellent care of us- feeding us until I thought I would burst (every meal was a challenge), insisting we take off our shirts before school so she could iron them, insisting we hand over our dirty clothes, etc.

Also around the house were Sum (female:13) and her mama, who we all called "gogo" (grandma). Sum wasn't of any relation, so the boys called her a cousin. We taught them all UNO, which they loved, and we'd spend a long time around the dinner table playing. Spha went to a nearby school, and his English was excellent, so we'd have long discussions about his life- he wants to be an agricultural scientist.

heart-throb

inside the man cave

on the list of important things i taught kwa

My real buddy was Kwanele, the four year old. When I first met him he wouldn't smile, and Nokothula said, "He'll smile tomorrow." And he did! We first heard him laugh the day after he smiled, and from then on, as soon as I woke up or got home from school I'd hear a tiny voice yell, "HI!!!!", the one English word he knew. With my broken Zulu, and the language of poking and smiles and tickling that doesn't need words, we were good friends and played for hours everyday. At the end of the week, we needed to meet the vans at the high school we taught at (a central meeting place for everyone). It was a 7 minute walk from my house, and I was fine carrying my bags, but instead our family accompanied us. Nokothula and Gogo put our suitcases on top of their heads, similar to the 5 gallon buckets of water they carried earlier that morning. Spha carried my bulging backpack, another family friend carried my rolled towel... Leaving me with just my purse and Kwa's hand in mine. I felt overwhelmed by sadness on the way back to the school... thinking how part of my heart had been claimed by this family and I hadn't even known. I didn't want Kwa to see me crying, so I tried to smile at the pure love of the family taking time to see us off. When we got to the vans, I asked one of the women to tell Kwa in Zulu how much I would miss him. She did, and said we were going, and he started pouting. I held him in my arms, his tiny head on my shoulder, and eventually I gave him to Nokothula. When I turned back he was sobbing, as was little Spha... Teenage Spha had fled the scene, so I suspect he was feeling sad as well (He told Jaharra, "This is an awful day, a terrible day..")

I knew I would be leaving parts of my heart in Africa, I just thought I would have some control over that. But now I'm realizing I never really have control of my heart once I decide to open it. Living with love means great joy and sadness, always missing someone, always rejoicing at the blessing of being with someone. While I'm here I'm simultaneously mourning the separation between my friends and family back home and rejoicing in the new friendships and families I'm forming here. The prospect of going home holds both the joy of reunion and sorrow of separation of these new people in my life. It is a good problem to have, to always be loving someone.

My family is a quilt of all the people in my life that I love. All the people I have loved, all the people I will ever love, God has stitched these together for me and covered me with the warmth of love in this quilt.

I carry your heart [I carry it in my heart]