Village Visit

Last Friday afternoon, Lacey, Vanessa, and I had the pleasure of going to a village with Melanie (our host). Melanie was going to visit some friends and she invited us to come along.  We drove about 30 minutes to reach the village of Mmanduyane (I am not positive on the spelling).

The village consisted of many small square houses and two or three small stores. Along the bumpy dirt road roamed small herds of goats. When we were leaving the village we passed a cart that was pulled by four donkeys.  We also passed by the village kgotla, the traditional tribal meeting place.

The home that we visited consisted of three very small square buildings of mud and concrete that were enclosed by a fence made of wood and wire. One of the buildings had an addition low mud wall around it.  Colorfully feathered chickens ran freely though the yard.

The houses seemed very spread out, each with their own sizable yard. The spacing of the buildings was part of the motif of a slow, easy pace that I felt throughout the village. I loved that the only modes of transportation were walking or perhaps a donkey cart. It made the place seem very authentic and real. Even in our out-of-place car, it took a while to drive down the bumpy dirt road. The forced, yet natural pace of the village really gives a person room to breathe. 

When we were first driving into the village, I didn’t know what I thought of it, or what I should think of it. Should I be struck by and concerned with the enormous contrast between these houses and living conditions of my own back in the US?  I didn’t want to feel pity for these people, that seemed so condescending and it ignores the good things that their lifestyle has to offer. This is the way they live, and how their grandparents and great-grandparents lived before them. Melanie told us that some villages now have access to running water and electricity, but some people choose not to use it. They have been living without these things for centuries, why do they need them now? This forces me to ask “when is enough enough?”.  I feel that much of the westernized world refuses to answer, or simply ignores this question.

Once I actually got out of the car and was able to sit with Melanie’s friends for a little bit, I was able find my first impression of the village: it was homey. I can’t explain it, but the village just felt very homey. The tiny houses, mud walls, free range goats and chickens, and slow pace all felt very inviting and homelike. I liked that everything was so open. Unlike in town, fences are small wood, wire, or mud constructions, not the large view-blocking-walls-with-electrical-wire-on-top that are everywhere in the cities. I understand that big walls are important for security in cities, but they are so inhospitable and uninviting.  I’ve heard from different people how on the weekends people from the cities go to villages to visit family. This is where home is, where they can connect with a community. My very brief glimpse of the village allowed me to begin to understand the pull the slow paced village life has for the faster, more crowded lives of city workers.

I don’t know how well I would deal with the constant lack of running water, no plumbing, and the extreme temperatures of daytime summer and nighttime winter, but I would be very interested in experiencing the community life of a village.

I really liked visiting the village because it was finally a glimpse at a lifestyle that is utterly different from my own. Not to say that life in southern African cities is the same as life in the US. In Goshen, IN, there are not street venders everywhere like in Francistown, but in Francistown you can also visit a Spar or Pick n’ Pay and buy groceries much like you would in the US. Cars, albeit smaller and older cars, are everywhere in Francistown.  But the village was truly new and different for me. It was amazing to see a way of life that has remained unchanged for centuries.  Sadly, our visit was extremely short and we did not get to experience anything of village life outside of what can be simply observed with the eyes in a short period of time. I wish that we had been able to stay there longer. 

Leah