Bulungula

These past four days marked my last "trip" in South Africa, but it could have not been more unique an interesting!  Myself, my roommate Heidi, and our good friends Johanna and Parker decided to spend two nights and three days in a remote isiXhosa village about six hours from Port Elizabeth.  When I say "remote" that is an UNDERSTATEMENT.  It took us TWENTY hours to get from Port Elizabeth, leaving at 3:30am, and finally arriving in Bulungula at nearly midnight!  We took a bus from P.E to East London, which was about four hours, (and just like usual here in South Africa, the bus was late) then from East London we took another bus to Umtata.  Then, when we arrived in Umtata at about 2:30pm, our next step was to find a long distance taxi at the taxi rank in the center of town..HOWEVER, to get to the taxi rank we had to first find a short distance taxi to take us there.  Which literally meant hitchhiking on the side of the road.  This wouldnt usually be a big deal, BUT, we ended up getting separated since Heidi and I jumped in one taxi, thinking Parker and Johanna were right behind us, when at the same exact time, they did the same thing!  However, they didnt quite see us jump into the taxi, apparently, it looked like we just vanished!  So, thinking Heidi and I were lost/kidnapped/GONE, THEY WENT TO THE POLICE STATION AND REPORTED US MISSING. haha!  Eventually however, they got a hold of us on our cell phones, and all was fine.  We ended up each taking two seperate long distance taxi's from Umtata to Elliotsdale, meeting up with them and then all being together the last leg of the trip.  The last "leg" however, was the four of us, SHOVED into the back of a tiny, tiny truck with a topper and about twenty other South African's AND TONS of food.  It was honestly absurd how much was stuffed into the back of this truck.  It was the most uncomfortable I have ever been in my entire life, but, hey, everything is an adventure!  After FOUR more hours along the WORST roads I have ever seen we finally were at Bulungula!

Immediately in the morning we walked along the beach and watched the sunrise, which was beautiful and very peaceful!

 After watching the sunrise and eating some breakfast, we decided to follow/help a isiXhosa women for a day!  We got our hair wrapped up in their traditional scarves, our faces painted like isiXhosa women usually do and then helped with all the chores she usually does on a regular basis.  We carried buckets of water on our heads, (or attempted to at least! haha!) piles of sticks on our heads (again, attempted) helped grind maize for a traditional isiXhosa meal called pup and then we also helped to make the meal too!  Being a isiXhosa women is TOUGH!  Bulungula is paradise and I thought really laid back, but it is eye opening that these women work all day just for a single meal for themselves and their families!  Everything is very simple, but also, because there is no technology everything is a process and a lot of back-breaking work.  This experience is one I will always carry with me, because I literally got to see, first hand, what it is like to be a women in a completely different culture.

These are the bricks that isiXhosa women MAKE
themselves and then build huts out of.
One hut can take years to make.

A traditional isiXhosa Women's headwrap!

Traditional isiXhosa face paint.
Made from different colored clay and water.

Grinding maize to make pup!

Its DEFIANTLY harder than it looks! 

Pup with cabbage- a traditional isiXhosa meal!
This took 5 hours to make because we had to gather wood to make
a fire, water to boil the ground maize in, we had to pick the cabbage
and grind the maize before we could even start cooking!

After spending the day with the isiXhosa women, we spent some time hiking within the village, which was of course, beautiful!  Although beautiful, some parts were not glamorous!  We hiked though thigh-high think, wet muck for quite a long ways, rivers up to our waist and also up some pretty steep hills!  Again, an adventure!

After hiking and being busy all day, we spent a little time studying before dinner (since we do actually have finals this week still! haha!) and then got up this morning for one last beautiful sunrise!

Bulungula is truly a place I will never forget.  It was so hectic to get there, but also such a fun, exciting and at time, scary adventure.  I am so blessed to have lived in and experienced a culture so different than my own.  The people of Bulungula are some of the kindest, nicest people I have ever met and I am so thankful for their hospitality!  I even got to practice a BUNCH of isiXhosa, which will hopefully come in handy for my final exam on Wednesday! (Crossing my fingers!)  It was so funny and interesting to see the looks on the village people's faces when I would greet them and talk to them in isiXhosa.  They defiantly did not expect it!   All in all, Bulungula was the perfect "last trip" here in South Africa!