Enkose

Song for this post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPLvH6FONqQ

"Enkose" is Xhosa for Thank you and Wamkelekele is your welcome.

Today I met the other volunteers: our lead from Poland is Dorota - a full time Global Volunteer worker in Poland, Jason is 35 from NY (long Island) and works in mental health care and Amy who I have talked to via email before coming here is a buisness owner from Minneapolis. Everyone has pretty much just arrived to the country and boy am I glad I had some time to adjust first prior to arrivin to our new and very different home. We are greeted by Nkulie and Bonke who are going to be our host country guides while in Malungeni. They are very intrested in our safty and will not let us go anywhere with out being introduced or escorted. Everything is very slow here. Life is slower and just not as fast. On our way to Malungeni which is 3 hours a way, we stop at Nkulie's sisters house who's husband works for the SA government. This means they are pretty affluent and have a large ranch home. They were so happy for us to come in and see the house and have a chance to talk to the Americans about politics, American life and about our up coming experience. We chatted to the men in the house as the women stayed in the kitchen and fetched us juice. They were so proud to be having us there and even gave us all a bottle of wine as a SA tradition of not leaving someone house with out something which seems opposite of what I am use to. So inviting. So I gave them all a big " Enkose" as that was the first word i learned in Xhosa. They all died laughing. I assume at my pronounciation. Well I guess I can only get better!