FRIDAY
Two weeks ago I set out for a long weekend visit to two PCVs’ sites
near Weenen Town and Tugela Ferry. Three uneventful taxi rides landed me in
Ezintendeni, a small township outside of Weenen. The township was covered in
dusty roads and cinderblock houses. Just beyond the hilly township, the
well-irrigated fields of white South African-owned farms bring meagre seasonal
employment and abundant produce to the area.
I was there to calm Allie’s nerves and lend a hand in her first event
as a PCV—a youth talent show designed to re-introduce the community to one of
the youth development organizations she works for.
The event was a huge success. Loads of kids and youth (18-35 in South
Africa) paid r3 to come into the community hall, gobble down snacks and perform.
In true South Africa fashion, the event was supposed to begin at 10am, but did
not get going until around 1pm. Flip-chart covered windows kept sneaky youth
from peeking in. A few local police attended not to police exactly, but to join
the throng of tiny community members in the audience.
The first act was probably my favourite—four tiny girls dressed in
their finest outfits walked slowly from one end of the hall to the other with
their hands on their hips. Although they had no real talent to judge, they were
pretending to be models and it was adorable.
The girls were followed by a slew of lip-syncing acts set to rap songs. All in all there must have been six separate
duos that came up to do pretty much the same act. Two traditional Zulu dance
troops performed, with lots of singing and traditional dance numbers in
between. Unlike American school or camp talent shows, it was common place for a
group to perform more than one number at a time. Each set of amateur
lip-syncing rappers performed three songs, one after the other. How strange and
hilarious, right? Another key difference was that no family members came to
watch their kids perform. In the States I remember talent shows would mostly be
attended by parents with video cameras and bouquets of flowers for their kids.
Here, most of the audience also performed. No parents or adults came.
I was on concession duty at the back of the hall during the show. Little
ones came again and again to buy sweeties (lollipops), nik naks (small bags of
corn puffs that turn your m
Although I didn’t perform, helping out was oddly exhausting. After we cleaned the place up, Allie, Melinda and I retreated to Allie’s one room house for chockiets dipped in high quality instant coffee (yes, Nescafe is the good stuff) and Melinda’s homemade pizza.
The next morning we packed up to visit Kathleen’s site, a bumpy 1 hour taxi ride through Weenen and up into the mountains.
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| A house on the edge of the township, with farmland just behind it. |
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| Youth performing traditional Zulu dances. |
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| Proud first palce winners. Thier talent? Lip-sycing rap songs. |
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| The adorable first act models. |
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| Ezintendeni Township, located just outside of Weenen, KZN |
