UMEMULO

Umemulo is a traditional Zulu coming of age ceremony for women, it is an important ritual that celebrates a young girl’s journey into womanhood. This ceremony is done by the girl’s family and it is conducted by the father of the girl or the old uncle if the father is not around.

This ritual involves a lot of work by so many people who are going to be part of it, there must be a cow when this ceremony is conducted and a Zulu traditional beer to please the ancestors. This ceremony is done when the woman is in her 21 years of age, people think that only a virgin young woman is allowed to have this kind of ceremony, women with children also gets this ceremony.

When is young woman undergoes this ceremony old women teach her the values of life and how to respect her body and culture, but most importantly how to respect her parents and even other parents who are not her parents, as we all know that saying that says ‘umntwana wam ngumntwana wakho’.

There are other young girls who accompany the celebrated woman and they sing and dance to traditional songs. The woman gets presents from her family and her friends, her head is filled with money as the people stick it in.

The father then spills the girl with bile from the cow and also teach her more values.

ZULU TRADITIONAL HEALER.

Traditional healers are practitioners of traditional African medicines in the country, they use their medicine to heal people who are sick and do not believe in the western medicine. There are different types of traditional healers, and they are Isangoma, Inyanga, and Umthandazi.

All these types of traditional healers play different roles in helping people, using different kinds of mutis/traditional medicines to heal people’s sicknesses. Isangoma is healer who believes in ancestors to help them with their work of helping people of their illness and spiritual difficulties. Traditional healers use traditional huts and they keep all their staff there and this room is called isigodlo. Not everyone is allowed in that room and there are certain rules one need to follow when entering isigodlo, one of those rules is to take off your shoes and a woman cannot enter with their trousers on they must show some respect for abantu abadala.

Isangoma uses bones and impepho (incense) when talking with their spiritual ancestors and when someone came to them for assistance and guidance, there are different ways that the izangoma take when they are initiating or ukuthwasa, some they do it in the waters and some they do it in the wild. Being a sangoma is a special gift one gets from okhokho (ancestors) and one must obey their ancestors (amadlozi) because they can get angry if their orders are not followed. Every now then a sangoma needs to make umqombothi (a Zulu traditional beer) and slaughter a chicken to please their ancestors. They get names from their mothers who initiates them like Makhosi or gogo or thwasa. In their wrists they wear skins of a cow or goat and traditional beads and they have their own clothes that they wear. They carry with them ishoba that they use every time the spirits talk to them.

 

THE AFRICAN PENGUINS!!!!!!

 

The African penguins are found off the coastlines of South Africa and Namibia, they breed on islands. Males and Female’s penguin look almost identical to each other so its kinder hard to tell which one is the male or female.

These penguins are vulnerable to extinction because of the oil spills that threatens the survival and also people would kill them for their eggs and that alone has led to the drop number of their population. The African penguins lay two eggs at a time and both parents take turns to incubate the eggs and in feeding the chicks. Chicks are the baby penguins, it takes between 38 and 42 days for the eggs to hatch.

The newly hatched chicks are blind and completely helpless and for the 30 days of the chicks lives the penguin parents protect and feed them until they are fully grown and can take care of themselves. These penguins can live under water for like 8 to 10 minutes without drowning.

They feed on small fish for survival and some ocean animals, they love busking in the sun to keep their bodies warm and staff. They kinder like look like birds hey when you like carelessly glance at them. African penguins used to be called the jackass penguins because of their braying call. I would like people to take a very good care of these animals as they can’t survive when they spilled with oil since their feathers are so short and cannot help them swim well in the waters.

Life in the streets

Living in the streets of East London is nothing new or scary anymore to the young man Xolile who’s only 20 years old. He moved from Centane to the big city to seek a better life, little did he know that the life he once dreamed of was just only a dream. He could go for days without food and sometimes he ate from the dustbins and that made him vomit and he had no choice but to go to bed on an empty stomach. He is living from begging people for food and money.

When things didn’t go as he imagined he resorted to drugs and pick pocketing people for a living. It is the survival of the fittest out there because not every day you get food and nice place to sleep on. It is dangerous even for the hobos at night, the old guys intimidate them and they beat them if they don’t follow their rules, like stealing for them.

In winter it’s even worse, there are no blankets to keep him warm from the cold. If I get lucky and find myself something warm to wear I pray wholeheartedly to the almighty even if the clothes are rags. I never imagined that I could be living from the streets and asking people for food let alone stealing from and sometimes it gets hard because I get forced to stab people when they try to resist me.

I cannot go back home, I don’t have money for transport and I don’t think I can be able to live without my drugs because they are inside my blood I live for them. I wouldn’t want my family to see me this way at least if I go back dead I won’t see the disappointment from my parents. I wish I can do better for myself and go back to school but it’s impossible, the drugs control my life. My life is so hard I sleep on concrete every night of my life with cupboards covering me, the police chase us from the streets and I find myself homeless for the second time. When I am high on my drugs nothing matters anymore I don’t feel anything, I don’t think about my family if they care or they’ve given up on thinking I am dead or something.