Braai Rant and Date Night

We’ve been meaning to do date nights for awhile now, and this week we agreed that Friday night we’d get someone to babysit and we’d go to a movie, (something i haven’t done since before Iona was born) Everything was set until our house church decided to have a social on the same night. Both of us are keen socializers, but we also felt we also wanted to not mess up our first date night, so we decided to catch a 10:00 film so we could be at the social for most of the evening (seeing as it started at 6:30)
So the social was a Braai, south african for Barbeque, but really there is no translation adequate.
There are certain things charactaristic of a Braai which i found myself greatly annoyed at last night.
1. Huge amounts of meat, massive amounts, which is in itself, fine. I don’t have a problem with eating meat. What annoys me is the wide eyes paniced question of “oh no! what will you eat???” The thing is, I don’t like making an issue out of my not eating meat, but I find if other people make an issue of it, then all my defenses come out flying, and I end up going on about dead animals and stuff….which I know is like…totally not how to win friends and influence people…but for some reason, it gets me nearly every time.
2. the whole men and women being separate thing. It’s like a rule. The women either sit or stand around the kitchen chatting, and the men all busy themselves around the fire. Now the thing is, that may be a slightly normal thing when couples get together, however, don’t try to break the rules on this one. I went and stood by the fire to get warm, and stand by Jon for a moment, and I notice the conversation goes totally silent, and one of the men suddenly starts explaining to me how the fire is going as though I have come to inspect it.
3. The not eating until 10:00 at night thing. Well, technically. Jon plopped my stuffed butternut squash down on the table for me to eat around 8:45 and not knowing what time it was I got slightly annoyed at him and told him I was going to wait and eat with everyone. So the women and I started talking and the time went on and suddenly it was 9:45!! I asked Jon if we were going to leave soon and he said “yes have you eaten?” and all this time, the men had been eating off the fire, as the meat was done. however the women were sitting in the kitchen talking, waiting for the meat to be cooked so we could all eat together. Sides and salads all ready and waiting…untouched.
So what ended up happening was me getting annoyed and making another defensive comment about the merits of vegetables.
We still made the film, which was “Mama Mia” where we were the only ones in the whole theatre except for one guy on his own. It was one of these very funny but very emotional things as well. I got all freaked out and sad again about missing Louise’s wedding, and then got all emotional thinking about when Iona will someday grow up. Leaving the cinema was scary. Here we are in the dreaded south africa walking through a shopping mall that’s all closed down, then into a car park with no car guards. We ran a few red lights on our way back home….:)
Noluthandu was babysitting, and when Iona woke up this morning and saw her sleeping on the bed next to her, she was so excited. Noluthandu got her out of her cot and she came running into my room with a huge smile on her face saying “ce ce na na” (meaning, ce ce is there in my room!!”) it was soo sweet. I tried to pay Noluthandu for babysitting, as I saw it as a means to bless her. She totally refused. I insisted, but she kept refusing and saying “no, april, not from you…..not from you” and I said “I don’t want you to feel like i’m using you” and she said “No, it’s me who uses you!! you come and fetch us all the time and do so much for us…” I was humbled. Here this girl gets 250 rand a month as a thankyou for volunteering at HDC, that’s it. That’s £17. I was offering her 50 rand….and she still refused.
So although our first attempt at a date night was a bit “hectic” as they say here…we’ll try again!
It was still a blessing to be out.