"Shake it... so your skirt don't fall"

Here’s the skinny on the last couple of days:
On Friday we “learned” tswana. And by learned I mean we had someone write 2 sentences down for us, that we then used on every villager we found. We are still working on mapping the village, and the sentences translated to something like: Who’s house is this, what is their first and last name. It was a crazy tongue twister. There was one word that was almost impossible to say in the flow: gago (where the “g” makes the chchchch sound that you hear in Hebrew, the clearing your throat sound when something not so pretty is lodged in it- thank goodness for our jewish backgrounds). After meeting the villagers/making a fool of ourselves we have no idea what we did. But we like to think it was good. And we remember being really hungry after this period of so-called goodness. That night we had a ladies night planned, but unexpectedly a meeting stumbled into the middle of our living room. A family from the village was called for a meeting because the dad was raping his step-daughters. As always, it was amazing to watch the data gathering, assessment, intervention and treatment process unfold within 30 minutes. It was also interesting to note that Gestalt therapy was often used (splitting of personalities, and referring to each one as an independent entity- maybe you should check wickipedia for a better description). Therefore, there was the good dad who loved his family, and the broken dad who turned into a monster. The answer isn’t as easy as removing the father. He is the sole bread winner in the family. Without him they would starve. Also, CPS cannot be called bc the mom would also be arrested for knowledge of the abuse. Finally, if the girls were to testify against their father, they would be killed by their uncles. Taking the entire family unit into consideration, a solution was created: the girls would move into their own house in the village, that they could lock at night, and yet still be close to their mother. We thought it was pretty brilliant, considering all of the restrictions and limitations of the situation. As you can imagine, it was heavy heavy heavier. After everyone left we did a little haiku writing therapy for ourselves.

Ilene being overrun by babies at soccer practice


our living room- where the meeting went down- minus the chairs bc there were about 10 people sitting in a circle


On Saturday, we became Sporty Spice incarnate (you remember the spice girls, neh?). We did karate in the morning, which started with a mile run around the cemetery where a lot of the children’s parents are buried. Then we karate chopped and kicked for a while until we got to “21 moves.” We had about 3 moves down and then we were dizzy, confused, and a little pooped. After karate, Ilene tried out her first yoga class with about 20 students from ages 6-15 (or 6-26 if you are counting us). A HUGE shout-out to all of those people who helped bring yoga to Botshabelo! Your hearts would have melted from the warmth of these kids' smiles. It was only about a 35 minute session, but just enough to give the kids a chance to connect with their breath and bodies. And challenge them a little bit with the Botshabelo favorite: crow pose. Plus, it was good for us to sit and remember to breathe for a while. After yoga it was soccer practice. Which was in a word: frustration. Player Ilene turned into babysitter Ilene very quickly when it became apparent that the babies were running wild through our drills. However, after the babies were corralled, the boys ran wild through the girls’ only practice (and the babies ran wild over Ilene). No matter how hard Ayla tried to shoo them away with the proverbial broom, they would not listen. If soccer is to continue, big changes are needed. We are going straight to the Magogo to deal with the boys (Magogo is the tswana word for a badass granny who takes no prisoners, in this case, Marion). As if that wasn’t enough activity, we ended the day with volleyball. Ayla is not sure if her arms are still red from the sunburn a week ago, or if she has permanent volleyball bruises.
After volleyball, the couple from Holland generously made dinner for the family and us: beef stewy-ness, mashed potatoes, and boiled carrots. Dutch food, yum? As if we weren’t totally falling apart by the end of all that sportiness, we had to have a ladies night (bc it had already been postponed from the day before). The first half of ladies night was a dance party. After comparing modern moves, we had the girls teach us some traditional African dances. Forget the “21 Karate Moves,” these dances are intricate and our new goal. One of the dances was easy enough, and it came with a beautiful song. We asked the girls for a translation, which came to: shake it, so your skirt don’t fall. It seemed like such a sweet dance… Then we watched the Hannah Montana concert movie. The kids here are mad for that Miley Cyrus. Ayla, not so much… she only made it half way through before she needed to excuse herself before dying of boredom.

On Sunday, Ilene’s boyfriend’s family took us out to lunch. And it was delicious. We hadn’t seen that much good food in one place in a month. We ate at a restaurant in the Cradle of Human Kind Museum (it is supposed that the garden of eden was in south Africa, and that this is where human life began). Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to see the museum this go-round, but it is on our list of to-dos. After lunch we fell into a serious food coma (why o why did we go back for the second round of desserts at the buffet). Ilene was knocked out for 2 hours. That never happens. Ayla went outside to play with the kids, and found them happily snacking on a toothpaste treat. Yum, toothpaste... a la carte. That night we met with our friends (and the babies they were looking after), the highlight being when baby Tabise threw up on Ilene’s knee. And when baby Tabise could not hold back her very unfortunate and stinky gas. All in all, a success of a weekend.

Us standing in front of the Cradle of Mankind Museum (that hill behind us is the front of the museum-see the doors?)

-Ayla and Ilene