A Weekend in Zululand

Zulu Word of the Day:

Umndeni - Family

Out and About

This past weekend was all about Zululand. In a number of different fashions we were able to learn and live the more traditional way of Zulu life. Our home for the weekend was the house of Delani’s father. Though this is Delani’s first mention in the blog, he has been an amazing friend and character in our journey so far. He and his wife picked us up from the airport, taught us our first Zulu words, and patiently watched as we grew comfortable with KZN (the KwaZulu-Natal Region). Delani is an old friend of Garey’s and brings a calm vibe that is absolutely wonderful. Any chance to be with Delani, we want. Yet another form of his generosity and spirit of Umbuntu (a concept we promise to explain further in future blogs), Delani connected us with his father and helped us fully experience Zululand.

Umndeni (family), our word for the day, is the core of our “cultural lesson” of Zululand. It is central because the inner operations of a Zulu family are essential to life here. When we met Delani’s father, we were immediately accepted into the family. To respectfully address Delani’s father in his house was to call him Baba (father). To respectfully appreciate Baba was to take all that he offered and to be with him and listen to him. These simple practices explain a lot about Zulu family. Try for a second not to process this through US eyes and really understand that Baba is the center, second only to his own father. Baba controls his family not in a dictator sense (that’s a US eye), but through the Zulu idea of blood, pride, knowledge, and power. Baba is the head of his house and family because he is the main carrier of the blood which runs through the rest of his line. Zulus see family mostly through the father. Fathers will take main responsibility of children and their growth. Mothers are mainly seen as vessels…don’t cringe…try to understand that this is not intended to be seen by a non-Zulu. A mother has a well respected place and there is also a strong African-feminist movement and thought in South Africa. We maintain the focus on Baba because it’s the way we observed our surroundings; as we see more we will be better equipped to explain our perceived role of other family members.

That said, traditional Zulu families center on Baba. Examples:

• Baba’s brother is not called “uncle” but rather ubabomkhulu (Bigger Baba for an older brother) or ubabomncane (Little Baba for a younger brother)

• If a child is in need, whether it be financial, marital, spiritual, legal, etc. no family member will give assistance, support, or advice if not first referred by Baba. If a child is aloof from his/her father, a disconnect will form between the elders of the family and that person. This is so because for an uncle, sibling, cousin, etc to step in without consultation of Baba, is a huge disrespect.

These examples all allude to the fact that Baba carries a large amount of responsibility for a family. Especially in marriage situations and the “success” of a child, the father is seen as a vital factor. Our experiences with Delani’s family were great, in the sense that everyone was willing to share stories and thoughts, and actively sought relationships with us. While the weekend sparked comparisons and some struggles to understand, our observations come from a spirit of sharing, so that the program can actually communicate the experiences.

The first morning that we woke up the youngest daughter and son of Baba were working around the house. The daughter was fixing water for all of the guests. Water in Zululand (also called the Bush or countryside) is largely collected from rainfall. The water is then stored, boiled at some point, and used for bathing, cooking, etc. The daughter then fed the chickens and roosters, cleaned up around the house, watered the garden, and other small duties. The son was also busy making concrete bricks, which John and Whitney both gave a try.

For meals you’re expected to share and serve everyone. If one person gets up for a drink of water, it is customary to ask everyone else and then serve those who have asked. Meals are only started once everyone is present at the table and each dish is ready.

Our short but full visit to Zululand feels necessary to share but difficult. One weekend makes us all far from experts and it’s likely none of us will ever reach that level of understanding. We wish to document the journey in hopes of continued insight and with the truth that we are mere outsiders, looking in with foreign eyes. In our quest for the meaning of “building bridges”, umndeni reflects the depth of Zulu culture and our own; both seen as the roots of a person.

A Lesson in Brick Building

Classroom Update

In addition to spending time with Delani's family, our weekend also consisted of visiting the Mseleni Hospital not far from their home. We first visited with a physician who solely provides services for those affected by HIV and AIDS. As this relates to the classroom component of our program, we were all excited to get his perspective on things we have been learning during our sessions with Dr. Webster. He explained that he grew up and completed his medical education in the UK, and has been practicing in South Africa for about a year. Though HIV/AIDS was an interest of his upon completing medical school, he came to rural KwaZulu-Natal because of the death of a friend with a serious dedication to the cause. As one of seven international physicians that see about 70,000 patients, he and his colleagues depend greatly on the support and work of the nursing staff. On a normal day, he said that he sees 20 patients in the ward during the morning, and about 40 clinic patients in the afternoon. The doctor described his patients as ranging "from newborns to old ladies," and added that their HIV status is often coupled with the most difficult opportunistic infections to treat, such as MDR-TB (multidrug resistant tuberculosis).

As he talked, he expressed the many challenges that he faces on a daily basis. Basic human needs, such as food, are not met for many of the people he treats. To counter this, Mseleni has started a program in which patients are provided with food for themselves and their families. In addition to addressing health issues in this part of the Bush, Mseleni is addressing other needs and structural problems with this program.

The doctor described that many of the patients he sees for the first time are not just HIV-positive, but have also progressed to AIDS by the time they reach Mseleni, reflecting an absence of testing, and therefore a lapse in treatment. Though rapid testing has helped in providing community members with a more efficient way of knowing their HIV status, there are still struggles in this area, particularly with newborns. Babies produce their mother's antibodies for the first parts of their lives, so if a mother is HIV-positive, a newborn's antibody test will show up positive for the first six months of their life. For this reason, a DNA test must be used to truly determine the HIV status of a newborn, and HIV DNA tests require a waiting period of at least a few weeks. The doctor explained that many do not return to find out results of their child's test, leaving countless families unaware of the status of their children.

One of his biggest struggles was his negotiation of the intersection of traditional Zulu healing and Western medicine. Traditional Zulu practices involve seeking the advice of a sangoma or nyanga (traditional healers) for physical, emotional or spiritual ailments. Public and private hospitals in KZN operate from the auspices of Western medical care that we are accustomed to in the US. However, the doctor attested to the fact that many of his patients solicit sangomas or nyangas to help them deal with both HIV and the side effects caused by harsh medications. Though he wasn't necessarily critical of these practices, he did present this aspect of Zulu culture as a choice that one had to make (Western or traditional medicine), rather than an inseparable part of Zulu life and convention. So many parts of "Healing Our Differences" (the textbook for our course) came alive in this conversation, and we later debriefed our dialogue with the doctor, addressing the important roles that identity and culture play in the delivery of health care.

Unfortunately, our conversation with the doctor was cut short. He happened to be on call for the weekend and was paged from the hospital, so he had to leave abruptly, but invited us back if we had additional questions later in the day.

Before leaving, we also had a chance to meet with Delani's cousin, Sipho, who worked as a HIV counselor at Mseleni for six years. To supplement the work of other staff at Mseleni, the HIV counselors help patients socially and emotionally manage the disease. Unlike the entirely Western physician team, all of the HIV counselors are South African, and have a direct cultural connection to the communities they serve. Sipho shared that many of the counselors themselves are HIV positive, and are able to advise and counsel patients from an experienced frame of reference. Where conventional Zulu medicine is concerned, he explained that many people use traditional practices in combination with Western medicine, and it often presents a challenge to medical staff who are not indoctrinated to South African culture.

Our experience at Mseleni gave a practical application to our course work with Dr. Webster. The cultural prisms of both the doctor and Sipho indicate and dictate their perceptions of Zulu culture and the patients they work with. At the center of all health behavior is culture, and this became apparent in the stories and experiences shared by both the doctor and Sipho.

The Project

It was inevitable that our path would lead to Zululand.

Of course it’s true that a strengthening of the institutional linkage between George Mason University and the University of KwaZulu-Natal is a primary objective of the Building Bridges program. The deeper significance of the program, however—and also of the institutional linkages that are component to it—are to be found in the bridges built between persons. That is to say, we are successful only so far as we are able to intimately share in cultural exchange, to both gain and allow access to the precious confines of meaning, and to upon this foundation of cultural brotherhood endeavor to address grave social issues.

Inasmuch as this is true, it is inevitable that we will visit Zululand again; because in the province of KwaZulu-Natal—and to a lesser extent, in South Africa in general—Zulu culture is where meaning resides. South Africans are actually forced to learn both Afrikaans (a Dutch-derived language spoken by Afrikaners) and English as they make their way through primary and secondary schooling. Yet, it is the Zulu language that courses as lifeblood through the province. The flowing, almost musical intonations of this language can be heard from all corners and from people of all ethnic varieties. One quickly begins to understand the sign that greets him or her upon arrival at the airport: “Welcome to Zulu Country!” And if the province is Zulu country, Zululand is its heartland. It’s where many people of Zulu heritage live—whether the relatives of city-dwellers that subsist themselves on livestock and self-grown crops, or urban workers who themselves drive into the city from the rural areas.

Constantly we are told here that South Africa is not a nation, but rather the land of the Zulus, the Xhosa’s, the Sotho’s, the Swazi’s and so on. We are told that the loyalties and hearts of the people lie with the symbols and traditions of these ethnic groups, and not with the nation-state of South Africa. Nowhere is this more clear than in Zululand, where Zulu culture is so central (and “South Africa” so marginal) that it can sometimes make the glitzy cities of the province seem like the outskirts. Even those who live in the city regularly make the 4-6 hour trip out to Zululand. Ethnic groups, such as the Zulus, are conceived as alliances of families, reflecting the centrality of family in Zulu culture. In the cities, names take on secondary importance as people almost exclusively refer to even strangers as “bhuti” and “sissie”, or brother and sister. In this way, urban relations seem to draw from traditional family life.

This is just a snippet of the overwhelming sense one feels that Zulu culture is grounded in the serene villages and towns of Zululand. The humble plots, called “crawls” that pepper the rolling landscape always include several structures that have been built by hand and that draw from Zulu architecture. The bricks for the houses are made with cement mix and water. Stones are sometimes used for further insulation. Many of the houses are crowned with beautiful thatched roofs. The crawls will often also include a round hut-like structure made of lighter materials, to be used for storage and other purposes and a battery of guest houses, all built by hand. Gardens of sweet potatoes and many other crops, and chicken coupes that flutter with plump hens and regal cocks round out the crawls.

In Zululand, self-reliance prevails in ways so striking that it can be confusing for a westerner. This can be observed in the private confines of family life or just as easily in the numerous village centers and programs that address issues such as malnutrition and HIV/AIDS. Not only do tales of the great warrior-king Shaka Zulu abound throughout the land, but also does his spirit; the spirit of independence and groundedness in the wisdom of a culture that has withstood the test of time. We are not experts, and what we relay are the observations of infantile eyes and the record of ears that have been open to the wisdom of the people. And what they have seemed to tell us is that to understand any issue of the province—whether civil strife or HIV/AIDS—one must first begin to understand Zulu culture, and the heart of this culture is Zululand. The heart of the province is Zululand, and the more we set out to develop brotherhood and fellowship with not gaming reserves and beaches but the people and their own beloved symbols and traditions—symbols and traditions that have survived the encroachment of western impositions—the more we actually build the kind of bridges for which this program was established.

The little puppy that won everyone's heart, except Garey.