Culture

I had an amazing weekend. I slept over my friend Tumi’s house, while my host parents were away on business. Tumi and Kwena are the children of a family friend, Carrie. Tumi is 16 and Kwena is 20. My host family and I first went to their house a couple of weeks ago for dinner. We all connected very quickly, and decided that Gary and Lucy's business trip would be a great time for me to spend some more time with them. 

Me to Tumi: "Let's take a picture in the middle of the street"

Their entire family are vegetarians, so I had very nice vegetarian meals for much of the weekend. The first night, though, we ordered Chinese; so I got to cheat on my vegetarian filled weekend by having beef and broccoli. Another night we had corn and salad for dinner. I didn’t think I would get full on such a healthy and seemingly light meal, but I did! The last night I stayed, we had veggie sandwiches. I had cucumber, tomato, lettuce, avocado, cheddar cheese, and onions, on a ciabatta roll with olive oil and black pepper. It was the best sandwich ever. I can’t wait until we go grocery shopping, so that I can have it again. 

My veggie sandwich 

After that, Ivana (Kwena’s girlfriend) made Nutella milkshakes. It was absolutely the best milkshake I’ve ever had (I've placed the recipe at the end of this post for your enjoyment).

Over the weekend I did lots of new and interesting things. Tumi, her friend Dylan, and I, went on a walk. Tumi likes to eat things she finds in her neighborhood; leaves off of bushes and fruit off of trees. She said she eats them all the time and that they were all edible, so I gave them a shot. I figured she’s a vegetarian, and she lives here, so she knows all about the right things in nature to eat in this area. I tried two different types of leaves, Mulberries, another type of berry, and we were going to have wild figs, but they weren’t ripe yet. The mulberries were quite nice; the less rich in color they looked, the sweeter they were, and the more purple they were, the more bitter/sour they tasted.

The unknown berry that I tasted

I also did a workout with Kwena and Ivana. We power walked around the block, did pushups, sit ups, jumping jacks, and planks.  I am still sore from that workout. Lucy and I are suppose to start a squat challenge but we keep “forgetting” about it. I want to start doing planks every morning but I just keep “forgetting” about it (Clearly we will "remember" when we get serious about it).

Before we started our power walk 

Tumi and Philippe (Carrie’s boyfriend) went to see a healer one day while I was there. I asked Tumi about how her sessions go. She said she was going to get her mind and body ready for her exams that she will be taking soon. She said the healer sent positive spirits her way. Kwena told me that when he went, the healer healed his back pain. Tumi also told the healer about some bad spirits that were going around Ivana’s house, and the healer gave Tumi 2 incense and a piece of rose quartz to give to Ivana. She instructed her to light the incense around her house and to put the rose quartz under her bed. I think that the idea of a healer is really fascinating, and I hope that I can go to a session while I’m here. 

On Saturday, Ivana and I walked 3.3 km to an outlet mall because we wanted to get out of the house. Carrie is in the States, and Philippe was at a market selling his artwork (he’s a French artist). In South Africa, you can’t start learning to drive until you’re 17, and then you can get your license at 18. I was surprised when I learned this, because in the states you can start learning at 15, and get your license at 16. I got some fantastic deals at the mall. We went to this store called Cotton On and I got the most comfortable pair of sweatpants. I have an obsession with sweatpants (they’re just so comfy) and I couldn’t bring many to SA, because they would have taken up too much space in my luggage. 

All in all, it was a really fun weekend, hanging out with other teenagers, and being exposed to other aspects of the environment here in SA! 

Here’s the recipe to the world's greatest milkshake:
Ingredients:
1/3 Cup of Nutella
1 cup of milk/skim milk
3 big scoops of vanilla ice cream/3 big scoops of low fat vanilla frozen yogurt

Directions:
Prep time 5 minutes
Add all ingredients in blender and blend 
Serve immediately (makes 2 10 ounce milkshakes)

Source:The Little Kitchen 

Bon Appetite!