Hi Everyone. So I obviously haven't been blogging. Oops. Decided to copy and paste some of the emails I've sent. Hope this fills in some of the blanks in my travels. As always, I'll be home to chat :)

This is from sometime in early Feb:
Sawubona (literally I see you)

Yes, letting myself be lost isn't the goal but leaving my privilege and power that is my invisible knapsack is the task of the semester. Heading to the Eastern Cape on Friday until Tuesday. That's the long drop toilet stay. A weekend hike with the group then two days with two to a house, sharing and learning with this village. will be staying on for another 2 weeks in Cato Manor instead of going to a hostel during the transition between Cato Manor and ISP. My closest friend here, emma cordes and I are planning on going to a rural hospital/clinic (not really sure which) in the bush bush of nortern KZN near Mozambique. Good thing I have the malaria pills and net. Details to details still need to be worked out but I'm thinking about doing a few case studies about personalhood in medicine-a practictioner, a patient, a patient's family member(s), community health worker, maybe a chief (isikosi). Really loving the challenges though starting to recongize how trying and tiring it is.

Days are as follow:
530 wake up by a neighbor across the street's radio. Today it was Bob marley. Enjyoable but not at 530. And always accompanied by roosters. Chickens and roosters roam around freely though seem to know where they belong. Strict unwritten rules about who has rights to them. Very valuable property-for some, the only access to meat; not for my family though.

“Run” at 545 with my ‘brothers’ Lloyd and Keleo. Lloyd lives 2 houses down and is 15; Kelelo is my Mama’s grand-niece and is 13. My personal bodyguards around “town.” This age group internationally and cross-culturally is annoying at times, sweet, obsessed with farting noises and ready to please. The run is actually a sprint up the hill (paved) that the house is on, walk until Kelelo gets his breath, sprint on his command. Then walk. That’s all. Yesterday I introduced the idea of running at a constant pace, which was met by light bulbs going on.

Breakfast, sometimes a bath. 7 or 730 pick up outside my house. Class-Zulu, Community Health lecturer, usually a UKZN professor, a school princpal, a nutritionist, etc. We sit in the same seats all day with lunch breaks and others until r430 or 500.

Then home to Mama. Play in the streets, help with dinner. Eat with her and whatever other kids are around at the time. Clean up. Start “Rebecca’s Library”-about 2-3 hours every night where kids from the neighborhood come and hang between my house and the next hosue (where mama’s family lives 8-10 in the same size house literally 3 steps away) to do school work. I get help with Zulu and teach maths (yes with an s-short for mathematics), physics (for physical science), English spelling. Teachers use rote education tactics so even Lloyd, as a sophomore in high school, can’t read something and rephrase it in his own words. None of them know their multiplication tables. I’ve made one for everyone out of cereal boxes.

Don’t get any of my work done until the kids leave, so that brings me to about 11-12 or 9 when the days catch up to me. Noise pollution is everywhere so concentration is difficult.

Lots of love and thanks for this amazingly challenging experience. Always learning, always absorbing and considering naming my future daughter mbali (mmm like when humming ba as in ball lee as in lizzie’s last name) it means flower. My 21 year old “sister” is named mbali and she is beautiful and strong and empowered.

Salani kuhle Stay-you all well salani sounds like salami but with an n. kuhle is goo-shlay. K are a hard g/k mix that’s very hard to master.