Jerard finding things he never could have anticipated

Let me start off by stating the obvious; South Africa is wildly different from America. Besides obvious things like the history, the makeup of the people, or the culture of country, South Africa has things that I would never expect to find in America. For instance, I would never expect, in America, to go to a restaurant order $70 worth of meat and expect to serve almost 20 people. I could also never hope to go out to lunch during the middle of a Sunday and without leaving the restaurant end up at a block party complete with a DJ, rap battles, and dancing lessons. I experienced all of this and more on my trip to Mzoli’s last weekend. Mzoli’s is a restaurant in a township where patrons order an incredible amount of meat before battling for one of the few tables in the restaurant. We knew that Sundays were supposed to be their busiest days, but nothing could have prepared us for just how crazy things would get.

                 

After looking for about 20 minutes to no avail our group of about 20 people eventually ended up crowding around a table that was already occupied by four other people. We kind of expected that these people would grow uncomfortable and move to a different location. To our surprise and extreme joy this was not the case. The music was blaring all around us and we began to feel the beat. The individuals that were there before us found our antics and enthusiasm to be very amusing. They eventually began teaching us some of their dance moves, and like any good cultural exchange we reciprocated. We laughed and danced with our new friends and had a joyous time devouring all of the food that was served to us. After finishing our meals and growing weary of all the dancing we stepped outside to prepare to go home. Upon immediately exiting the establishment we saw that a stage had been erected and a cadre of lyricists and poets were queuing up to showcase their skills. We were fully sucked into this new and exciting experience. Some of the rappers only rapped in Xhosa or Afrikaans, but it all held the same entertainment value as if we they were speaking English. In fact we even got to hear a few American rappers step up to the mic and do their thing. It is experiences like this one that I hope to take back to share with my loved ones and home and will most likely only ever find here in South Africa. So while some things are the same, many of the things here in South Africa are once in a lifetime.