Diwali here I come!
My friend Lee and I picked up our new sari blouses today for Diwali this weekend. Diwali is a huge festival of lights; it’s essentially the Hindu equivalent of Christmas. There will be fireworks and traditional prayers and lots of food (all vegetarian). I’m super excited to see the festival and to get to spend it with such a fun and welcoming family. I also try to speak Zulu with their maid Lucy’s adorable son, although Lucy’s English is far better than my Zulu will ever be.
I also got to go to the BAT Center this week with a friend of mine who runs LifeCheck (the biggest event on the Durban hip-hop scene), whose events are all at the BAT, meaning he knows some of the artists. The center is a free art space for visual artists who are just starting out and a multipurpose performance space with murals of the jazz greats from South Africa. It’s such a cool building. One of the etching artists was working on a piece he’s been doing for 2 weeks, carving out bit by bit, and it’s so beautiful! There were handmade drums, busts of Nelson Mandela, and all kinds of paintings. The center is such a cultural experience and it’s beautiful!
Also went grocery shopping today with an Afrikaans school principal. She’s so sweet, and grocery shopping is hilarious. She told me she needed plasters and asked me to fetch them, but had to spend 5 minutes trying to explain what a plaster is. It’s a band-aid. Heehee. We finished up with some fresh mango juice afterward. Yummy. If you're ever in South Africa and you need a q-tip, ask for an ear bud. If you need a band-aid ask for a plaster; if you are talking about a traffic light, say robot. A line is called a queue and you don't confirm or inquire by asking, "oh really?" you just say, "is it?" Haha, you do have to re-learn English here a bit, starting with the greeting "Howzit?"
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