Venda Venda Venda

As expected there are many things that are different from what i have seen before. i will try and list or explain some of the things.. many of these are some of the things i have become most fond of...

- for example, my house does not have a ceiling. all the rooms have walls and doors but no ceiling. it just looks up to the rafters which hold up the roof. And the rafters/ structure which holds up the roof is definately questionable. i look at in the morning and just wonder how it was done... b/c there is no way it is to code, it actually makes me laugh b/c some boards overlap in weird ways etc... but what is so funny about no ceiling is we all can talk throughout the house at anytime. Like my 7 yr old brother , who speaks some english, loves to chat with me over the walls when he is in the bath tub. This kid is so funny... he always makes me smile.
Also b/c their is no ceiling all noise echos throughout.. so i am getting really good at sleeping with peoples cell phones ringing at 5 am or wrestling on TV at 9 pm. Yes i am in bed before 9.
the sun goes down and you come inside... and when i have to get up and walk to school by 6:30 am, i go to be EARLY!

I have also noticed people here dont really hug each other, little affection in general. i dont see mom's hugging their children etc. My sister here was telling me to show respect for your parents children kneel to greet them.
But what is interesting is that grown men will hold hands as they walk or are standing, it is purely to show friendship. or one man will place his hand on the other man's shoulder. But you dont see couples holding hands or hugging.

I have also noticed children are pretty self sufficent in general. little children 4 or so will walk around together or be outside the house playing together. Even younger are walking around with the 4 yr olds. I think you learn at a young age to take care of your younger siblings and also yourself. you also rarely see cry babies. I am not sure why. But i rarely see it.

Oh second language translation of things is always entertaining. So if we are all sitting in the living room watcing TV and someone gets up the will say "Christa!... I am coming..." as they leave... i realized they say this to mean " i will be back" :)
Or when it is night time and they enter the house they say "good night"... and i realized we only use this when we are leaving or going to bed.

My favorite which took me a couple of days to figure out and is still hard to inturpret. when people ask you questions and you are explaining something.. they will say " Okay.." but in a slow drawn out skeptical way. This is their way of saying " I see... " and let you know they are listening. but from out side it seems like they are interested or dont believe you.
In general the venda language is actually a demanding language , please and thank you are not really apart of it. so therefore when they translate into english it often comes across. This has taken time to get used to as well, b/c they dont mean to sound demanding it is just their understanding of how to interpret.

i love going to the grocery store here. Reading the labels and signs on things is priceless I have decided that if we had some of these in america we wouldnt eat them. So on the margarine it says FAT SPREAD... which is what it is but yikes. and Glucose biscuits... sugar cookies.. again true but they woudl not sell in the US , well maybe they would.
Oh everyone was worried about me loosing weight in Africa. I dont think that will happen. THey love sweets and fatty food here. Cookies (biscuits), candy, cake soft serve ice cream are everywhere, and i do have to say. so good! Fries are served with every meal at resturants.
Hence the running. :)