Rivers of tears

We have had the pleasure of spending some time over the festive period with Zulu families. On Boxing Day we visited the house of Sophie, our cleaner. She had many of her family staying. This included cousins, nieces and nephews.

Family life is very different in Zululand. Far greater importance is placed on the wider family unit – cousins, aunts, uncles. In fact, these words don’t really exist in Zulu. Cousins are brothers or sisters. Aunts and uncles become second parents. From an outsiders perspective this can be difficult. Mary and I often find ourselves spending time trying to identify the core family unit of a patient/child. But we are beginning to realise that it is a pointless exercise. Clearly a cousin is a brother or sister if named and treated accordingly.

This closeness of the wider family unit is extremely special. It seems to defy geography. Increasingly, Zulus are living across SA. Of course the main driving factor for dispersal is the search for work. Ingwavuma grew up as a mining town. There are no mines in Ingwavuma itself. But men were driven to mines in the surrounding areas. Now these have closed. And little work remains outside of the schools and hospitals. Some families are unwilling to uproot. The result is either that the males do not work or that they leave the family for long periods of time.

The regular absence of men is one of the underlying causes of the spread of HIV. Though this hideous disease has many dire consequences it does seem to keep the wider family glued together when living far apart. Funerals of close family members happen with sickening regularity.* Afterwards the bereaved are scooped up and looked after by the wider family.

All of the above provides a long prelude to the main point of today’s ramblings – that Zulu must be a very poetic language. (I am learning it slowly. But at a very basic level. I am a long way off tackling a work of literature.) My assumption is based on the English spoken by educated Zulus. Sophie’s family are terrific. The adults have fought very hard to ensure the children are well educated. And their sentences are packed with similes, metaphors and analogies. Some of these are great. My favourite was said by one big sister to her little sister. Little sister had spent most of the day crying and running to her dad. Finally, after the umpteenth occurrence – older sister turned to us and said (with a serious face) ‘Don’t worry. She is fine. She has a river where she gets the tears.’ Not for the first time I burst out laughing.


* Indeed, such is their frequency that death becomes big business. All the banks compete to sell funeral plans (insurance to cover costs of a big send-off) to their customers.