Two interesting celebrations I took part in.

Amagqirha : Try to pronouce this wordAma  g(grr sound)-> Q (is the click using tongue of top of mouth) -> irh (kinda like you have a hair ball in the back of your throat) -> HA

The clicks I’ve gotten the hang of by now, there are three different kinds, Qha Qho words are a lot easier, but the q to the g took a while , and still have trouble.

This celebration doesn’t happen too often, and was very lucky to be invited to it. The traditional group of the area got together in classic look, beaded white hair, baboon headdress, multicoloured canes, distinctive face paint and a number of other cloths and beads that characterize Xhosa traditional attire. The local amagqirha/ sangoma/ traditional healer/ witch doctor was sick, and the passing of traditional healing rites was passed on that weekend to a new healer.

Many songs and dances were performed while others sat down with their usual blankets and canes, cheered with the now usual ALALALALALALA yell, drinking their Qumboti (trad. Beer)  a few talks by Umbongis, the traditional oral poets and finish off with usual excessive drinking of attendees and chewing down as much goat as possible. I say usual because although this celebration was different, many of the same events happen in all xhosa cultural events.

The diversity in the villages here is very complex and its difficult to explain how the Christian values/ traditional norms/ modern influence/ other nearby ethnic groups such as the Sotho stay interact. But one thing is for sure, in the middle of every sacred, traditional, cultural rite of passage, villager cell phones will always go off.

Thanksgiving

No turkey. There are no set rules for this one, but the celebration is most prominent when people go away to be educated in a post secondary education and land a job. At that point, like funerals, everyone comes back, even those you don’t know at all just so you can say Thank you. Give thanks to all the people who without, you wouldn’t have landed the job. And having a job here is something to celebrate about (I’m told unofficially 60%+ unemployment). Traditional dancers and a professional choir from East London performed continued through long speeches. The night time celebrations were fun I’ve learned a few of the jive dance moves with a crowd of kids chanting GO Nico! Go Nico! while I showed them a few jive steps. The video of typical Kwaito moves won’t load but please enjoy instead the non-kwaito dance moves of my crazy neighbour also named NicoHEREfunkydance.MOV . That night, the power went out in the entire village and myself and friend Eric led the nighttime choir in gospel prayer for electricity. Our prayers were not answered.