Beaten and broken, I staggered back to the homebase covered in dust after a grueling day of geo-coding. We had broken up into two teams this time, but my team’s GPS ran out of batteries early on. After taking a break to play 4-on-4 soccer in the sandy streets with some local kids, we decided to hunt for the other group. After spotting our companions up the street, I stood in the shade relaxing and waiting for them to approach. It was at this point that Pamela asked me earnestly what it felt like to stick out like a sore thumb everywhere I go, because obviously there were not many whites (makuwahs) around. I explained to him that after a while you get humorously used to it. Jimmy joked that he wanted a collage of the people’s faces after seeing us. In any case, I confidently told Pamela that it wasn’t a problem. Within seconds, my cool demeanor and confidence were put to the ultimate test as two girls around the age of 6 approached me.
It started with a point, followed by an amused smile, and then a single word that transforming into an immutable chant. “Makuwah! Makuwah!” The force of the words was deafening, and the pitch was at the limits of audible hearing. After the first two minutes, I realized that I had gotten myself into trouble. The eyes of locals began appearing from their houses. Children began appearing out of nowhere. Within 5 minutes, the chants had summoned around 20 children all beneath the age of 7 who all decided that the best thing to do with the makuwah was to hang onto his hand, arm, shoulder, neck, back. Fortunately, I was so much taller than most of them that my upperbody was protected… for awhile at least. After I had about 5 children on each arm pulling me I realized that I had to escape. After freeing myself, I began running as my teammates watched in hysterical delight as our geocoding team just reduced in size. As the children chased me, chanting “Makuwah! Makuwah!” and pointing, I tried to use my knowledge of the local dialect to protect me. First I tried saying “Wye?!”, meaning “Where!?”. I pretended to look as astonished as I could, then they pointed at me in response to my question. I slowly lifted my sleeves and screamed in feigned shock. The kids thought this was hilarious, but my jokes could not save me. I kept running, shouting at nearby kids, “Thusa!”, meaning “Help!”. Some of them just laughed, but others started running towards me. At first I thought they might help me, but then I realized I had just increased the size of the horde of kids who wanted to practice English, teach me Tshvenda, wear my hat, eat my orange, all the while possessing some ulterior motive involving smothering me.
Finally my companions and I realized it had gotten to the point where we would be prevented from continuing the work day. Khuthalani’s advice was to take the kids around to the next street so he the group could trek on. As I ran away, like my shadow, the children followed. I used the opportunity to practice my Tshivenda. “Ndo neta” – “I’m tired!” One of the first two girls who had spotted me acted friendly, and gestured for me to sit down in the shade. She sat next to me. Before I knew it, all of the other kids sat too. But they didn’t sit on the ground -- they sat on me! Their master plan had clearly been rehearsed, and perfected into an art. I was at the bottom of a dogpile, only managing to free one arm which reached to the sky in vain. Through the flailing limbs, my one last hope (Ryan) turned out to have cold feet. He just took a photo of the mayhem, proud that he had somehow managed to escape the onslaught.
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