MANDATORY ENTRY ON ANY XHOSA-RELATED BLOG...and thus on ours as well

January – EyoMqungu (month of the Tambuki Grass)
February – EyoMdumba (month of the swelling grain)
March – EyoKwindla (month of the first fruits)
April – UTshazimpuzi (month of the withering pumpkins)
May – UCanzibe (month of Canopus)
June – Isilimela (month of the Pleiades)
July – EyeKhala / EyeNtlaba (month of the aloes)
August – EyeThupha (month of the buds)
September – EyoMsintsi (month of the coast coral tree)
October – EyeDwarha (month of the lilypad)
November – EyeNkanga (month of the small yellow daisies)
December – EyoMnga (month of the mimosa thorn tree and simba)

By Anna

After almost three months of gross rudeness on our part, we can confirm: It is inappropriate to call your peers / elders by their given name. You can call them Mama, Tata, Sisi or Bhuti. If you want to differentiate between Mamas / Tatas / Sisis / Bhutis – you relate them to their family members. If you have children, you are referred to as mother / father of your child. For Daniel and I to show each other respect, we have to call each other Bhuti kaKerry and Sisi kaMaya, respectively.

By Anna

Daniel and I were recently invited to accompany Kate (the responsible adult of Jack the Dog) to a wedding to which she had just been invited – that of the youngest brother of a local chief. Having been assured that we would be most welcome, despite not knowing the groom, bride, or any of their relations, Kate lent me a skirt and we piled into her car.

On the way we were briefed: Kate had met the groom only once, on which occasion he had asked her to marry him. She had declined with the excuse that her inability to carry 25 litres of water on her head would make her a shoddy wife (he replied that that was no problem – he would buy her a car). Despite her scornful refusal, a few weeks later Kate was personally invited to his actual wedding.

We arrived on a sweltering morning to a huge blue and white striped tent teeming with guests, curious on-lookers, entertainers in traditional dress, waitresses stooping and squeezing in and out of the crowd and a sticky wedding organiser intent on preventing the whole occasion from turning into a disco before the wedding couple had even arrived.

Other than desperate glances between ourselves, we had no defence against what followed: White Preferential Treatment (of the highest order). We were pulled through the crowd into the shady relief of the tent, the inside of which was stuffed with fluffy white and pink chiffon and patient old men in tight rows. Seats were found for us right at the front, and we were brought bottles of cold coca cola and gold rimmed goblets on a tray. As if this wasn't enough, the head-mistress of the local school took it upon herself to find a second microphone and translate the whole afternoon's worth of speeches into english, just for our benefit. And, in every speech, we were personally thanked for coming: “Thank you to the Doctors from Zithulele – please raise your hands!”

But the moment of glory came right after the rings had been swapped and the previously very sombre looking groom began his speech. He spoke animatedly of the fact that his now-wife and he had been separated by the devil for almost three years, but as the bride now confirmed: “Aka namandla!” (He [the devil] doesn't have any power.) Then, his eyes lit up and he turned to face Kate directly, and shouted across the crowd: “Kate, my friend, I see you – and I don't want to marry you! I don't want you for my second wife!”

By Daniel

To celebrate the birthday of our friend, the local physio, we all trundled off to a weekend away at Hole in the Wall – icon of the OR Tambo tourist district for many years. While leaving, Nonkululeko (big sister on the Siyephu farm) told us that it was appropriate for us to slaughter a sheep in the birthday girl's honour. We laughed and said we'd rather slaughter a cake. We were to be a party of 25, predominantly those employed in the medical profession, but others too including some british gap-year volunteers, Anna and myself, and one Jack the dog.

Jack it seems, has a propensity for meat. Fresh meat. Live meat, in fact. So much so that he took it upon himself to obtain some for dinner. A local farmer's ewe was the victim, and so was her unborn baby lamb. As the stars came out to glow, it was our task to retrieve said corpse from the far end of the beach.

To kill a neighbour's sheep is a heinous crime, for which the farmer must be compensated. To negotiate a price, the 'man' in our party was called to the front – me. The farmer was alerted and came to make his claim. What ensued was a rather complicated affair of poorly spoken bargaining, some emergency phone calls to Tata Siyephu to ask the 'going rate' and a bit of good cop/bad cop thrown in. In the end, Jack put us out of some serious cash – the farmer agreed to the R750 we offered (R500 for the sheep, R250 for the lamb). The dissection/slaughtering was performed under the maglite glow of the local security guards' torch while the surgeon-at-scalpel amusedly tolerated the medical commentry from our academically keen party. Right up until the dead foetus was revealed. A sadness overtook him as he remarked that the lamb would likely have been born in about two weeks time.

The irony of Nonkululeko's demand was not lost on us as we adhered to traditional Xhosa custom and tucked into a delicious mutton potjie.