Xhosa culture

I’ve been here a month now; I’m in my new house and have taken over my new ward. It has been a fascinating month and there is a lot to tell. I’d like to start with a word about Xhosa culture.

The most striking feature is the sense of community and willingness to share that the Xhosa show. It doesn’t seem to matter what their place is within a family, any money that someone has is always shared amongst the family. It is normal for a large family to be supported by a grandmother’s pension or someone else’s disability grant or a child support grant. It’s not as if the grants amount to much, maybe as little as £15 a month seems to be enough to keep quite a few people going.

The Xhosa seem to enjoy a party. We had a leaving do for one of the doctors this week and loads of people turned up and danced like no-one was watching, everyone seems to have rhythm (which makes the Brits stand out even more). Interestingly the party started at around 5pm and by 7:30 everyone had packed up and gone home. Also most of the men were drinking alcohol, but only the older women drink alcohol. I’m not sure why but I think it is not the done thing for young women to drink (which makes the Brits stand out even more).

Their society is clearly much closer to death than Western society and it isn’t perhaps surprising that people are more fatalistic about death. It is common for children to die at home without anyone making an effort to bring them to hospital and also fairly common for adults (often with advanced HIV) to refuse to come to hospital and die at home. That’s not to say that there is no mourning. When a married man dies his wife wears all blue or all black for a set period, it seems to vary for how long but can be a year. I haven’t seen any men dressed in black for a year though. The funeral is also a big deal and people save considerable sums to make sure that their family is able to provide a suitable feast when they die.

The strike is now officially over- I've no idea how many people died as a result but even one is too many. Hopefully we can move on now.....