Clarry, Larry, Sally, Charlie, Panama's Blog

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Hello, Clarry, Larry, Sally (three monkeys), Charlie (teddy) and Panama (tree frog) here! Today we had an early start to get ready for a day trip out to Kghodwana cultural village, about 90km from Siyabuswa. After breakfast with Bishop Hendrick and Evelyn at 8am we left to collect our cameras and water bottles before setting out at 9:45.

We arrived at Kghodwana (pronounced cod-wan-nee) cultural village which had been opened in 1990 and we were introduced to our tour guide who gave us an introduction to the culture of the Ndebele people starting from the 13th century up to modern day. We discovered more about the culture of the Ndebele as we went round the site. The traditional houses were round, starting with a wooden frame which was covered in a thatched roof, then a short wall of about 300mm made of earth and clay. The floor of the house was sealed with a mixture of earth and cow-dung (this reminded us of traditional wattle and daub houses in England). These homes would last up to ten years before needing to be re-thatched or replaced. We heard that it was the wife's role to decorate the inside and the outside of the home, the Ndebele designs are geometric and yet they were painted without the use of a ruler! The designs vary enormously and the colours are bright and cheerful - we have seen very few examples of this art work on modern day homes in Siyabuswa. The traditional houses continued to be constructed in the round shape until very recently, then the houses became rectangular and the roofing material changed from thatch (made from rhino grass) to corrugated steel. The Kghodwana museum also had a collection of ornaments, clothing, utensils and crafts. Bead work is a particular feature of Ndebele culture and many special bracelets and decorative items of clothing were embellished with beads.

After our informative trip round the cultural village, we had another cultural experience as we went for a traditional South African Brai (BBQ) which was delicious: enormous beef steaks, sausages, rice, pap, sauce, pumpkin, spinach, broccoli. Then for dessert we had ice cream! After that we were all ready for an afternoon nap - but our day was not over - on our way home we stopped at the Hope for Africa chicken farm. We saw the seven huge sheds that are used for raising the day old chicks. Each shed can hold 1500 chicks. We saw thirteen day old chicks which looked really cute and we saw some that were ready for market (they take 6 weeks to mature). After all the chickens have been sold, the shed is cleaned out and disinfected. We were pleased to see that the chicken manure is being used to help grow vegetables!

We ended the day by preparing teaching resources ready for our next trip to Grace School on Thursday.

Goodnight!

Amy, Clarry, Larry, Sally, Charlie and Panama

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