Keeping up with the Ingwavumites

From arrival until now there has never been a dull moment in the Voomles thanks to its colourful people. From biting gogo’s, seductive service men to honesty hour HR managers – We’ve got them all! So its about time you meet the Ingwavoomites - for the love of ethics, human rights and the public protection of information act names have been adapted (but if you ask nicely I may just tell you).

Ketiwe:

The legendary Ketiwe

In my first week in the Voomles I was blessed with a guardian angel Ketiwe, she was on her way out of community service and on her way into a new adventure. She was my running buddy for a week giving me that “encouragement” tap every now and then to keep going up the hill.  

General running experience at 17:30 in The Voomsies versus CT

So-fizzle:

So-fizzle is the worlds’ cutest and most AMAZING domestic worker. We affectionately refer to her as ama-So-fizzle because her work force is equivalent to an army (in Zulu "ama" is plural....just so btw). Every Thursday I have the privilege of coming home to find two little piles of washing all ironed and folded, right on top is my underwear folded and ironed neatly into little blocks. 

So-fizzle doing her thing

The Sunbeams:

These are the young lovelies I spend most of my time with. They bring sunshine, buckets of laughs, chocolates and other such like for example spectacular treats. 

From left to right: Baby Spice, my housemate The Chrin, Dr Yang, Ton-Dawg & Dusk (my other house mate)

The Gems:

The Gems are the people I may not encounter on a day to day basis-they do, however provide me with quotable quotes, memorable moments, blunders, laughs and gasps. 

Quotable quotes:

• The HR dude who looked at me intently upon first meeting and after hearing my voice said “oh, your voice! The hormones of your father are strong”. 
• HR dude (again) stops me in the middle of the garden path and says “Sister, we have to fill out employee statistics and we were not sure where you fit in.” I look at him with a blank stare, knowing what he is asking, he continues. “Like me, I am…bl…I am…african, I am black. Now you, what are you? We weren’t sure if you were with us or the Indians” Uhm, yes, now I can add black/Indian to the list of possible races I could pass for. 

Laughs and Gasps:

• A favourite pass time of men in the Voomles is to shout “I love you baby” to anything remotely female who is walking on two legs. My fellow Ingwavumites go shopping and compare how many proposals and declarations of love we receive in one trip. Recently I had to reluctantly refuse the opportunity to become the second wife of the Telkom man..,sorry guy, I’m holding out for the DSTV man ;)
• The other day I went to my patient, introduced myself and greeted her in perfect zulu-she responds by telling me "I am dead already, leave me alone! I know why you are here-you want to sacrifice me in a ritual". After explaining what physio's do, I tried to uncover her leg-she responded with "hey wena! voetsek! voetsek!" and promptly hit my hand THRICE-the price we pay for helping people.
• African time...'nuff said! I came 10 minutes late to a meeting to find that I was the first one there-Only in Africa