On Thursday, the seven of us ladies pilled in a car with Richard and headed to the Apartheid Museum right outside of Joburg.
*At this point I will pause for a moment to introduce, more thoroughly, the wonderful people who are staying on the property with us and who are missionaries here.
Richard and Lindsey--One of two couples who are full time missionaries here Brakpan, South Africa with WEC (the other long-term couple is on furlough in Australia and will return in the near future). They have a beautiful and very well behaved son named Andrew who is (I think) 7 months old. Richard and Lindsey are an amazing team and a lot of fun to work with. They have been helping us out in many ways since we've gotten to SA--taking us shopping, giving us culture lessons, teaching us how to tell stories to teach the Bible, etc. Richard is originally from Australia and Lindsey from South Africa. Words cannot describe how much fun it has been to spend time with them and how much of a blessing they have been to our team.
Rina (I think that's how you spell his name) and Ruth--They are a short-term couple who have been here for about a year and a half and will be leaving in August. They are both immensely kind and are quite helpful when it comes to the many questions we have. Ruth is from England and Rina from the Netherlands. A fun fact about Rina is that he is incredibly crafty and, thus, made a Sauna for the property because they are quite common in his country and he missed having one.
Sorry about that long interlude. I thought it important for you to know who I am talking about when I reference people from here. Now, back to the Apartheid Museum.... It was a really good, but hard experience, to be perfectly honest. I learned a lot that I didn't realize about Apartheid and Nelson Mandela (they had a special exhibit on him.
Afterwards, we went to get coffee at this cute cafe situated at the end of the museum. What we didn't realize, however, is that we were about to see a protective and a rather amusing side of Richard.
One of the men who was serving us our drinks kept making comments to us girls about wanting to see us again and whatnot. When we mentioned it to Richard, he 'mater of factly' informed us that all we needed to tell men who approached us is, "You won't be able to afford the number of cows my father will ask for me" and "My brother is waiting outside and he's a lot bigger than you".
So, let me explain. In Zulu culture, it is required/expected that a man who wants to ceremonially marry a woman pay a dowry to the family. Traditionally, it was paid in cows. Today, however, it is still discussed in the term of cows, but can be paid in a cash form depending on whether or not the woman's family would have need for them or not. Anyway, we all got a kick out of that. Richard ended up going back into the cafe later with our glasses and informed the man behind the counter that one of the girls on our team was worth 500 cows and that sure got the guy to back off :)
This is a picture of Ari (the girl who was worth 500 cows) and Richard.
Sorry about that long interlude. I thought it important for you to know who I am talking about when I reference people from here. Now, back to the Apartheid Museum.... It was a really good, but hard experience, to be perfectly honest. I learned a lot that I didn't realize about Apartheid and Nelson Mandela (they had a special exhibit on him.
Afterwards, we went to get coffee at this cute cafe situated at the end of the museum. What we didn't realize, however, is that we were about to see a protective and a rather amusing side of Richard.
One of the men who was serving us our drinks kept making comments to us girls about wanting to see us again and whatnot. When we mentioned it to Richard, he 'mater of factly' informed us that all we needed to tell men who approached us is, "You won't be able to afford the number of cows my father will ask for me" and "My brother is waiting outside and he's a lot bigger than you".
So, let me explain. In Zulu culture, it is required/expected that a man who wants to ceremonially marry a woman pay a dowry to the family. Traditionally, it was paid in cows. Today, however, it is still discussed in the term of cows, but can be paid in a cash form depending on whether or not the woman's family would have need for them or not. Anyway, we all got a kick out of that. Richard ended up going back into the cafe later with our glasses and informed the man behind the counter that one of the girls on our team was worth 500 cows and that sure got the guy to back off :)
This is a picture of Ari (the girl who was worth 500 cows) and Richard.
All this to say, it was a good day.
No comments:
Post a Comment