Having spent a mere two days visiting my PST host family
before IST in June, I was looking forward to spending a full four days there
enjoying the holiday season in the village. I arrived after about 2 hours on a taxi and found my 12-year-old
host brother, Sello, waiting for me on the side of the tar road off of which
their house is situated. I jumped
out of the taxi as quickly as my huge backpack would allow me and went to greet
him. He welcomed me with a
controlled nonchalance. “Hi
Goitsi!” he said, giving me a one-armed hug as I had to harness all of my
willpower to match his coolness and keep from smothering him in a bear
hug. Neighbors began to laugh at
the exchange. “Eish Sello say hello to her! You’ve missed her!” they urged
then, turning to me added “Goitsi, he’s been sitting there ALL DAY LONG waiting
for you!”. Sello looked mortified
as his friends began to tease him so naturally, I used his embarrassment to
give him the twirling hug that I had been planning for days. So much for staying cool!
Holidays in the village are enormously different from the
cozy, warm, fire-lit, tree-side, eggnog saturated affair that I had grown up
experiencing. My entire stay in
Machipe was embellished markedly by visiting neighbors, cooking parties, and
daily trips to community centers nearby where the children, who were out of
school at this time, could frolic around in the open spaces and go swimming
while the adults proceeded to get absolutely annihilated with ‘holiday
spirit’. 
It was a blast. We spent hours braaing, drinking,
socializing and dancing, Ashma and Tebogo ever watchful of me and the
invariable line of inebriated suitors who would follow the “white girl” around
with coolers of hard cider and beer balanced somehow on their lurching
shoulders. As much fun as I had there, and as joyous a reunion as Christmas
inevitably was for me, after three days of straight village partying I found
myself in desperate need of a break from the 3-day hysteria of celebrity, and
decided to depart a day early and allow myself to unwind with a “buffer” 48
hours in Pretoria preceding my flight to Cape Town.
Next Time: Bringing in 2013 Cape Town style!
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