Unveiling

While we obviously live in Durban, we are, after all, in the province (or state) of KwaZulu-Natal. KZN is home of the Zulus and has more Zulu speakers than anywhere else in South Africa. You wouldnt know it by driving around the nicer neighborhoods in Durban, but the province is steeped in Zulu culture and tradition dating back thousands of years.

We felt very lucky to have been a small part of this tradition last weekend. Michael, a close friend to the family from whom we rent our house, invited us all out to his family's "unveiling." I have been a part of these ceremonies before, but still dont have a full understanding of what they are about. From what I can gather, it innvolves the slaughter goats or cows on a Friday evening, along with some ceremonial proceedings. These are usually watched over closely by a Sangoma (a Zulu witch doctor or traditional healer). Over night the animal is skinned, cut to pieces, and hung up to be drained. The next day an enormous party ensues as friends and family from all over come to eat the meat, vegetables, and drink lots and lots of beer.

Typically, I think this ceremony is meant to honor a deceased ancestor, as well as to honor a living family member. In this case, Michael's family was commemorating the one year anniversary of his mother's death, but also celebrating the life of his brother. Below are a few of the many pictures we took of Michael and his friendly family.

Lots and lots of meat. I am still doubtful that they were able to consume 2 whole cows over the course of 2 days, but they certainly made progress while we were there.The whole family.
I have now been to 3 of these parties in my lifetime. There is ALWAYS a group of men, off on their own, sitting around a pile of meat on a cutting board.
There also seems to be a tradition among the men to get totally wasted. As the afternoon wore on, the men in this tent became more and more intoxicated. They seemed to forget that they didnt speak English, and we understood next to no Zulu. This didnt stop them from having lenghty conversations with us.
The aforementioned tradition was also shared by many of the Zulu women.

The younger kids really seemed to look up to us. Especially when we were standing on chairs and taking their picture.

As we were leaving, we discovered that this woman's sweater was likely forged in our home state. We pointed to it and tried to explain that the shape she was wearing was a place called Texas. We even found a translator to explain it to her. I'm not sure, but I think she thought we were claiming to have once lived in her breasts. Either that, or she just wasnt very impressed. More likely the latter actually.

All in all, we had a great time with Michael's family. Despite the immense cultural barriers, and even more immense language barriers, they really made us feel at ease and welcomed us into their home. They very graciously shared as much food, beer, and cow as we were willing to eat. In exchange, we gave them the dozens of photos we took over the weekend and have now made them world famous by posting them on the internet.