January 2007--Amazwi volunteers join Emerencia Mohlolo on a tour through her community.  Emerencia, with the help of Amazwi, designed this tour in 2005 to bring people into her community, supporting both crafters and herself.  Emerencia loves to share her community, it's history, and it's stories with visitors.  Check out her new website: www.communitywalk.org

Emerencia Mohlolo has spent her entire life in the community of Rooiboklaagte within the larger village of Acornhoek (South Africa).  When Emerencia isn't guiding tourists through her community, she works as the community liaison and in-house translator for Amazwi, a local nonprofit media organization, running a journalism school for women.  Emerencia is twenty-nine years old and the happy mom of Simphiwe, age seven. She loves to eat chocolate chip cookies, and chicken as much as she enjoys interacting with people from all over the world on her tours.  Emerencia is fluent in English and Tsonga (Shangaan), and speaks some Afrikaans.  With so many tourists visiting "cultural villages" while traveling, Emerencia hopes to offer a window into life as it is today, the good and the bad.  Feel free to e-mail her with any questions you may have at: emerencia@amazwi.org

LEFT & RIGHT:

Amazwi Volunteers sit inside Sangoma Thoko Makwakwa's  ndumba, where she connetcs with the ancestors to diagnose health (mental & physical), weath, marital, and spiritual issues or concerns.  Thoko--a tall, lean woman, missing two front teeth-- has been a sangoma for nearly a decade. 

Commonly known as masocietie (meaning "many businesses") is also a tavern owner.  She offers a unique amalgamation of western and traditional life for Amazwi's long-term volunteers during their first week in South Africa.

RIGHT:

Thoko's tavern --replacing her unlicensed shebeen-- opened in December 2006 after 18 months of construction with a jukebox and snooker table.

The women of Mapusha are amany people's highlight of Emerencia's tour.  Mapusha Weavers is a women's weaving cooperative, nearing thirty-five years of age.  Two generations of women (20s/30s & 50s/60s) filled the studio each day dying, spinning, weaving, and finishing.  Emerencia grew up inside these walls, watching her mother, a master weaver, plait magical creations!  Today, her daughter watches her grandmother who still weaves at the same loom.

Susan Mbetse, the daughter of an original Mpausha member and the mother of a child with disabilities, cooked for the new group of Amazwi volunteers, welcoming everyone into her home.    She wanted to provide her new friends with a common Shangaan and Sotho meal: pap (stiff white maize meal porridge), marojo (pumpkin leaves, tomato, and peanuts), and chicken over the firs (wings, breasts, feet and all!).