Mama Noks

A few weekends ago I took part in a township homestay, which is basically when you go stay with a family that lives in a township for a night. We went to the township of Guguletu and stayed with Mama Noks. She was really sweet and made us feel at home. I wasn’t sure what to expect, what kind of house, or food, or how safe I would feel. I knew it was safe, since homestays have been offered for a long time, but I knew that townships were often not the safest places. The house was pretty nice for a township. It had electricity and plumbing, although there was no hot water. It consisted of two bedrooms, a family room and a kitchen (I’ll try to put up pictures soon). Mama Noks told us the house was originally built as a one-room house with a toilet in the main room and was 25 square meters. She then received an anonymous donation to expand her house to include two bedrooms and a separate bathroom. She has two children, a 17-year-old daughter and an 8-year-old son. Her husband passed away several years ago. The house also had a television, dvd player, and a washing machine. Some people still wash clothes by hand in the township, so I was sort of surprised to see a washing machine. It’s also interesting that Mama Noks actually makes a lot of her money by hosting college students. There are a group of about 10 women who host students, and all of them get paid to do it. Mama Noks was also part of a group of people who were taught how to make jewelry by the Tear Fund, so she also sells jewelry to make money.

Mama Noks made us a wonderful dinner of squash, beef and potatoes, and pap (basically maize and milk and water). Then she surprised me by having us eat with our hands - think like eating mashed potatoes, meat, and gravy with your hands. I asked it she always ate like this, or just when students were there. She said she always did, unless it was something like soup, because this is a part of her culture. She actually originally comes from the Eastern Cape. She taught us a little Xhosa while we were there also. On Sunday we went to church with her, and she wanted us to be able to introduce ourselves in the native language, so she taught us to say “My name is Amanda. I come from America.” It was really fun to learn! On the way to church, Mama Noks said hello to everyone she saw. She said it was considered rude to not say hello (which is Molweni in Xhosa) and someone may think you were mad at them if you didn’t say hello. The service was a mixed-language service. Everything was in both English and Xhosa - someone would translate all the time. Sometimes this was frustrating, because sentences would be broken up in order to allow time to translate, but it was a great experience! However, the one thing that did bother me was that the church was the nicest building in the whole township. It was really big, had hot water, a computer, electric instruments, ect. I felt like maybe the money should have been used to make the people’s lives better, although I know that some people may argue that the church is the foundation of the people. I, however, think that we should make sure the people have food to eat and clothes to wear before building a huge, extremely nice church - a church can be anywhere, it doesn’t have to have a physical building.

After church we went to Mzoli’s, which is a restaurant in the township. It was a lot of fun! Basically, all it serves is meat. You go inside to a large deli-like counter where there are piles of different types of meat (pork, sausage, chicken, ect). You tell them how much you want of each kind, then they take it and grill it. It takes quite a while, as it is very busy on Sundays. You eat outside, under a big tent. A lot of people bring food with them, like chips and drinks - mostly alcohol, and plates/napkins as none of this is provided. There is loud music playing, sort of like a night club, only it’s during the day, and there were actually a number of people dancing off on the side. It was unlike anything I had ever seen. The food was really good and it was fun to just be with the locals for a while.