Cooking a Goat and Playing with Lions.

The weather is now starting to get cold here as winter approaches. The warm weather didn’t seem to last long enough but I arrived at the end of summer.

This last weekend one of my friends took me to his family's funereal celebration for his cousin that passed away 6 months ago. Wow! This was truly and African experience! When someone dies, there is 4 months of mourning. During this mourning period the mother of the person who died can’t leave the house and she can’t change her clothes. She can wash her clothes at night, but she has to wear the same ones for 4 months. Then after the mourning period is up, there is a cleansing celebration, which is what we went to. This celebration is the end of the mourning period. During this celebration they bought a live goat, slaughtered it and then got it ready for the feast. By the end of the day the entire goat must be consumed. The intestines the heart, the head, the feet, everything must be eaten! Nothing goes to waist. They use the fur to make a coat or a mat.

 During the celebrations the women were in the kitchen cooking the goat for themselves and the men were outside cooking their meat over the barbeque. The men don’t go cook in the kitchen and the women don’t barbeque. So when I got there I was put to work cooking goat feet and goat head. The goat meat was actually very delicious and the day was spent cooking and dancing.

The people there said it was good luck for them to have a 'white girl' come to their party. It’s very unusual for a white person to be in a township hanging around with the' black people', but  it’s a great experience to spend time with people from a different culture. White snobs are missing out. The people were  so open and welcoming; they really are the friendliest people that I’ve ever met. It’s been a lot of fun living here and being involved in their way of life.

Yesterday, I finally got to see African wildlife and I got to play with baby lions. My roommate and I went with a friend, who drove us to a nearby lion park.  It’s truly amazing being so close to such beautiful creatures and watching them in their natural habitat. The park had Leopards,  White Lions, Hyenas, Zebras and Giraffes, and it didn’t cost hardly anything to get in. The baby lions were very sleepy because it was the middle of the day, but it was fun to be near them and to pet them.