Heritage Day

24 September is a public holiday on which South Africans are encouraged to celebrate their cultural heritage and the diversity of their beliefs and traditions. South Africa is known as a "rainbow nation" which was coined to describe the nation after apartheid rule officially ended with the first fully democratic election in 1994.

We were invited to Obed Messiane Primary to celebrate Heritage Day and support our grade 7 girls from Girls Club. These are a few of our girls who danced. They were shocked to see us but ran up with excitement to greet us.

We were announced by the MC (master of ceremony) as guests from the States and treated with honor the whole day. We were seated with the other teachers where we had a good view of the performance. Teachers kept telling the children in front of us to hlalapantsi (sit) so that we could see.

There was singing and dancing representing many different cultures. Both girls and boys of all different ages participated. It was fun to experience traditional dancing and dress. I'm so thankful they didn't ask us to jiva (dance).

We were then invited to have a traditional African meal with the teachers. We were given a choice as to what we wanted to eat... (1) samp and tripe or (2) pap and chicken. But at first they used the Zulu word for tripe therefore we were not sure what they were offering. Then as they were explaining what it was they said tripe and that it was intestines. They brought us a plate with samp and tripe to try it as 30 teachers were looking to see our reaction. When asked what we thought, we said that it was pretty good but decided we would try chicken and pap. I think they were a little sad we didn't choose tripe.

Please check Amber's blog to hear about our contribution to lunch... American cultural food.

On the far right is Lize who is one of the two women helping us with Girls Club. All the teachers were in traditional clothing, which included Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi, Sotho, Tswana and Nigerian. They loved our South African skirts!

I'm thankful for this opportunity to spend time with the teachers of Obed Messiane and celebrate Heritage Day with them. They were so welcoming and appreciative of our support! Please be praying that they will allow us to continue with Girls Club next year. Our girls will finish school in December and a new group of Grade 7 will begin in January. Pray also that we would be able to continue to develop relationships with the teachers and share the love of Christ.

This is one of the videos of the children dancing... Zulu style!