Read: -Things Fall Apart- by Chinua Achebe

There were seven men in Obierika’s hut when Okonkwo returned. The suitor was a young man of about twenty-five, and with him were his father and uncle. On Obierika’s side were his two elder brothers and Maduka, his sixteen-year-old son….
Akueke moved to the other end of the hut and began to remove the waist-beads. It had to be done slowly and carefully, taking each string separately, else it would break and the thousand tiny rings would have to be strung together again. She rubbed each string downwards with her palms until it passed the buttocks and slipped down to the floor around her feet.
The men in the obi had already begun to drink the palm-wine which Akueke’s suitor had brought. It was a very good wine and powerful, for in spite of the palm fruit hung across the mouth of the pot to restrain the lively liquor, white foam rose and spilled over…
As the men drank, they talked about everything except the thing for which they had gathered. It was only after the pot had been emptied that the suitor’s father cleared his voice and announced the object of their visit.
Obierika then presented to him a small bundle of short broomsticks. Ukegbu counted them.
“They are thirty?” he asked.
Obierika nodded in agreement.
“We are at last getting somewhere,” Ukegbu said, and then turning to his brother and his son he said: “Let us go out and whisper together.” The three rose and went outside. When they returned Ukegbu handed the bundle of sticks back to Obierika. He counted them; instead of thirty there were now only fifteen. He passed them over to his eldest brother, Machi, who also counted them and said:
“We had not thought to go below thirty. Bus as the dog said, ‘If I fall down for you and you fall down for me, it is play’. Marriage should be a play and not a fight; so we are falling down again.” He then added ten sticks to the fifteen and the bundle to Ukegbu.
In this way Akuke’s bride-price was finally settled at twenty bags of cowries. It was already dusk when the two parties came to this agreement.
“Go and tell Akueke’s mother that we have finished,” Obierika said to his son, Maduka. Almost immediately the women came in with a big bowl of foo-foo. Obierika’s second wife followed with a pot of soup, and Maduka brought in a pot of palm-wine.
As the men ate and drank palm-wine they talked about the cusoms of their neighbors.
“It was only this morning,” said Obierika, “that Okonkwo and I were talking about Abame and Aninta, where titled men climb trees and pound foo-foo for their wives.”
“All their customs are upside-down. They do not decide bride-price as we do, with sticks. They haggle and bargain as if they were buying a goat or a cow in the market.”
“That is very bad,” said Obierika’s eldest brother. “But what is good in one place is bad in another place. In Umunso they do not bargain at all, not even with broomsticks. The suitor just goes on bringing bags of cowries until his in-laws tell him to stop. It is a bad custom because it always leads to a quarrel.”
“The world is large,” said Okonkwo. “I have even heard that in some tribes a man’s children belong to his wife and her family.”
“That cannot be,” sid Machi. “You might as well say that the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the children.”

Name that Poo!

*Use the information provided below to figure out whose poo belongs to who in the above photos.

Lion: long in shape, somewhat similar looking to human feces, can sometimes see digested hair

White Rhino: white rhino dig large ditches called middens in which to defecate and urinate in, this marks their territory and signals to other rhino who the stronger of the bulls in the area are; female white rhino, as well as calves, do not defecate in the midden; nor do they break their feces apart, for fear of mixing their scents and signals with the bull’s

Elephant: large grassy clumps (actually referred to as pellets despite their size); with time the dung will lighten and fall apart, showing more and more grass

Baby Elephant: small and round grassy clumps; early on a mother will feed her baby small bits of poo so the little one gets used to digesting the grass and nutrients

Black Rhino: large mound with some grass, but also twigs and sticks; the twigs are cut at a 45 degree angle because of the placement of the rhino’s teeth; black rhino are free roaming and do not dig middens in which to defecate

Hyena: long in length (somewhat similar to lion) but hard and crumbly, will turn white as time passes because of the calcium from the bones of their kill

Giraffe: piles of oval, marble-sized pellets

*Download the .pdf to check your answers.

Learned: Xitsonga Language (Shangan)

Good Morning: Avuxeni

How are you?: Ku njhani?
I’m fine: Ndzi kona

Good Afternoon: I nhlikanhi
Good Evening: Ri perile

Goodbye (Stay Well): Sala kahle
Go Well (Have a safe journey): Famba kahle

water: mati
meat: nyama

Xitsonga is spoken by people that inhabit the eastern littoral belt of Southern Africa, from Kosi Bay northwards to Sofala in Mozambique. As a result of the Difaqane war some groups moved westwards and settled in an area immediately south of Venda which was known as Gazankulu. The people who speak the language are more correctly known as Vatsonga and the language they speak is referred to as Xitsonga.

from “South Africa ‘Phrased’: A Quick Reference Guide to South Africa’s Eleven Official Languages”

Safari

Walking in the wild reminds you that you are living. Ten of us marched, single-file, with our water bottles, our cheese and sausages, our hiking boots laced tightly against our ankles. We stopped every few meters to examine dung, and when we could find them, prints in the dusty earth. We murmured to each other softly, moved softly, and mostly just listened. We were tracking them. Game. Animals. Rustles in the grass alerted us, fresh tracks in the sand told us last night’s story and, we hoped, tipped us off to this morning’s activity.  Spotting the dung of a black rhino was almost as exciting as finding the beast itself. Lost in this world of poo and prints, I began to notice the boot marks we left behind, and soon imagined the outline of my own foot in the sand, the stamp left by the sole and round balls of my toes, and then the look of a pile of human feces as it might compare to the calcified hyena’s baking in the sun. I imagined them tracking us.

When we stopped for our snacks (because living means hunger) the two male buffalo that were working their way down the koppi, a small rocky outcrop, hardly noticed our presence. These were dagga boys, slower, older males that have been pushed back from the herd. We stopped all rattling of wrappers and tongues and watched them approach, slowly, casually, grazing their way down the hill. When they were close they lifted their heads from the grass, raised their nostrils, and froze. It was as if they were squinting, trying to make out these foreign figures perched on the boulder before them, the source of the strange scent they were now beginning to whiff. Just then the birds in the trees around us began to squeal, and the bulls bolted, having been alerted by their feathered partners that yes, danger lurked.

The rhino were not so intimidated. A bull accompanied a female and young male, and, our guide told us, he was acting fearless for a reason. It was clear that the two adults had recently mated (because living means sex) and this bull was now attempting to prove to the female that he was unafraid, and therefore worthy. Of course, a rhino whose blood is running with testosterone is not the safest companion, and our group soon had a plan to scurry up the closest boulder if he were to become too overweening.

Spared by the randy rhino, we gathered around the campfire that night after dinner, exhausted and satisfied. Suddenly our conversation was interrupted by a terrible roar, coming from directly beyond the camp, next to the animals’ watering hole. The roar was answered by the vibrating nasal scream of an elephant who stood just as close to us. By the time we reached the spare fence the two were gone, the water still. It wasn’t until the next morning that we gathered the clues to understand the night’s drama.  Not far from the watering hole was a mitten, a large ditch dug by rhino in order to defecate and mark his territory, as well as several elephant dung piles. Most noteworthy was a baby’s small pile, its three balls of poo still wet in the morning air. The argument at the watering hole was surely the act of a mother’s protection, because living means survival.

A few more safari photos…