Oh the Places You'll Go: Zulu Experience

This past weekend I spent the night at a traditional Zulu homestead about 45 minutes outside of Pietermaritzburg. It was shocking, firstly, to see people living in such an extremely rural environment less than an hour away from such a modernized city as Pietermaritzburg. As I arrived at the homestead with 23 other APU students, (we had all split into two groups prior to our weekend fieldtrips, and half the group went on a safari that we will be doing this coming weekend) we were surprised to find out that our leaders were leaving us for the night. From what we could tell, the people running the place were straight up indigenous, decked out in traditional clothing and speaking little to no English—just Zulu. Here we were, a bunch of clueless college students with our little backpacks, flashlights, and cameras, ready to go but not sure where to begin.

Luckily, the man who ran the place spoke English quite well, and he guided us through our adventure for the next 24 hours. When we first got there, we were led to our individual huts that we shared with three other students. There was no electricity at the place, but there was a designated hut with running water, toilets, and showers (we were thankful for that). The girls all stayed within the confines of the homestead that was situated in a circular fashion with about five large huts around the perimeter, a kitchen to the side, a campfire in the middle, and below that a place for the cattle to come in and sleep at night (this was located in the very middle of the plot of land because cattle are the Zulus’ most important possession). The whole plot of land was angled up on a hillside so any drainage could flow downward. The view from our huts was beautiful because the homestead overlooked a quite large lake situated less than a quarter of a mile away.

There were three women and about five men that helped and entertained us that evening. They fed us an unbelievably tasty dinner of traditional Zulu food. Our first course consisted of steak and Zulu bread that they steam in a pot. It is pretty much the best bread ever, and the steak was so tasty. It was cooked right in front of us on the campfire. When it was finished, they cut it up into little pieces and placed it on a tray with the bread. Then we all sat around in a circle (by lamplight, of course) and took a piece of steak, dipped it in salt that was located in every corner of the tray, and then put it with the bread to eat. We devoured our tray within minutes. In order to receive our second course of the evening, we filed one by one into the open-air kitchen (boys first because that is the traditional Zulu way) and went around in a circle being served small helpings of each dish that was prepared. There were chicken legs, a kind of grits dish, a bean and chickpea type mixture, tomato and onion sauce, and a curried cabbage. Everything was delicious, and I was sufficiently stuffed.

After dinner we moved into the main hut at the top of the hill and had our own personal show and training in Zulu dance. We had seen this before, but I’m pretty sure that night’s performance was the best one yet. They also sang as they danced, and that was my favorite part by far. There is something about their voices and the harmonies and the drum and the dance all combined that is electrifying (especially in such a tiny room). After the dancing was done it was time for bed, and at this point we were all exhausted.

The next morning we had a breakfast that was almost as good as dinner, with bread that was toasted straight on the fire and coffee in the cutest mugs I had ever seen! The rest of the afternoon was spent making our own personal arts and crafts. One of the main women in the homestead taught us how to make our own clay pottery and beaded bracelets. Once 1 o’clock rolled around it was time to go and we left our new Zulu friends with heavy hearts. It was such a relaxing, entertaining, and beautiful weekend. I enjoyed every second of it.