Circle of Life- The Journey to Messina

The first paragraph of this blog is a quick preface for those of you who have never read my blog before. If you know the background story feel free to skip the italicized paragraph and go straight to my description of my weekend in Messina. 

I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah to a white American woman and a black South African man. The last time I saw my biological father was when I was 3 years old. I spoke to him for the first time at 18. For the second time at 21. He passed away when I was 22. Finally at the age of 26, I am in his home land, South Africa. For the last three months I have been living and working in Vereeniging, South Africa which is the Gauteng Province. I have had the opportunity to meet and get to know about 5 of my family members. 1 uncle and 4 cousins. They also live in Gauteng. The rest of my father's family lives in Messina which is in the Limpopo Province, which is in north South Africa. The city borders Zimbabwe. I came to South Africa for two reasons: to teach with the Fulbright ETA program and to get to know my roots! Last weekend I got the chance to do just that! 

I went to see the rest of the Milanzi family last weekend! Messina (also spelled Musina) was incredibly hot but also incredibly beautiful and pure. 

View of Limpopo

We stopped along the way to meet up with my cousins, who live in Jozi, Upile, Mulanga, and Gundo!

After driving 7 hours and being stuck in traffic for 2, my roommates (they were super supportive the whole time) and I got out of the car to a welcoming committee of 40+ family members and family friends. All of them were wearing neon yellow and red shirts with 'welcome' on the front and 'Esther and Moroka' on the back.

Me, my aunt Staina, and Moroka

Who is Moroka? Well he is one of my uncle's sons. When Uncle Rodgers left for Canada back in the early 90's he left a pregnant woman here. She gave birth to Moroka and when he was three years old she passed away. At that time Rodgers was unable to get a hold of any of her family members and none of the Milanzi's knew she or the child existed. Finally after years of searching on both Moroka's and Rodgers' part they connected with each other earlier this year. Uncle Rodgers then called the rest of the family here in South Africa and asked them to bring him home to formally meet the family with me! So that was emotional and exciting for both of us! It was nice to not be the only one trying to remember names and faces! 

Moroka and I each had personalized shirts! :) 

I met soooo many people and felt really overwhelmed at first. Especially when I was hugging one woman who introduced me to my half brother Rodgers (8 years old), who I knew about, and before I had time to process seeing him in person for the first time, I was immediately introduced to my half-sister Elizabeth (16 years old) who I did not know about. EISH! Whew! That was all in the first 2-3 minutes after getting out of the car. Both Elizabeth and Rodgers are super sweet and we bonded right away! 

After the initial introduction, the family had an entire welcome program filled with a gospel concert performed by my aunt Kulumbi and her kids, a dance party, and lots and lots of soul food! 

After that we all piled in a bunch of cars and made our way to my Grandmother Esther's house (we were staying at my Aunt Staina's house- the mother of Gundo and Mulanga).

Aunt Staina's house 

My grandmother's house. This is where Aden, my biological father, used to live with Elizabeth, Rodgers and their mother.

Esther Barnes Milanzi (Grandmother) and Che Panesi Bakili Kangiomba Milanzi (Grandfather)

Funny Family Photo

After we toured my grandmother's house, we made our way back to Aunt Staina's. Once there we had more food and I was asleep by 8pm! PURE EXHAUSTION!

(Whew... Day 1 was amazing but I was already super tired)

The next day we spent the day lounging, eating and of course there was more dancing! I have a great video of everyone holding hands and dancing in a circle to "All of me" by John Legend. It was pretty epic.

Cousins hanging outside Aunt Kulumbi's house

Gundo, Uncle Winston, and Lebo dancing!

Naci and Cory after arm wrestling!

Naci showing off his moves!

Rodgers showing me some love!

Showing Rodgers some love!

Braids on Braids on Braids! 

Kelly and some of the kids! <3

And of course the night ended with a dance party!

Sunday, we went to their church. What a humble experience. It was building made of the same material as a shack but it was much wider and longer. Next to it were a pile of bricks, which are going to be used to build a real building for the church in the future. The entire choir was made up of Milanzi's. My aunt Staina, who is known as granny because she has taken in all of her brothers' and sisters' children, gave the opening message and prayer. There was more dancing! After 2 hours of singing, testimonies, dancing, and prayers, the pastor finally came up to the podium. He asked for the only US visitor to come to front and give a welcome speech! What?!?!! Ahhhhh! Of course I cried! LOL! So did my aunt!

Elizabeth, Me and Rodgers

After church we went to Aden's gravesite and said a muslim prayer in honor of him, his brother, Richard, who passed in 2006, and my grandparents who passed in 2005 and 2006. All of whom were muslim. The rest of the family converted to Christianity a few years ago. The majority of the living Milanzi's are Christians, but a few are still muslim. Surprisingly, I didnt cry here. I think it was because everyone was staring at me and telling me to talk to him and say everything I wanted to say. Like 20+ ppl came with us to the grave. Lol I was feeling a little bit on the spotlight! But I did feel a sense of peace which was nice and I am really glad that I went.

my grandmother's grave

my father's grave

We thought that was our last stop before we hit the road back to Vereeniging. HA! My aunt had us go to 3 houses to say goodbye to a bunch of ppl whom I still dont know how they are related. Then we went back to my aunt Kulumbi's house and they forced us all to eat before we left. Lol! Doesnt sound horrible but we had planned to get on the road by 1 or 2 and ended up leaving Musina at 5:30! EISH! Again I was exhausted! Thankfully my roommates took the first leg of driving back! This allowed me to pass out! :)

All in all it was an amazing trip and I will definitely be back, maybe sometime during my June or July break. We have another week long break that begins tomorrow, but I am doing absolutely nothing! I already bought enough food for the week, rented movies and tv shows and I am stocked up on books that I found at a used bookstore. All of my roomies are going on super exhausting hikes and adventures. I decided to save my money and catch up on sleep and give myself some R&R!

I'm so grateful for God giving me this opportunity! I definitely feel a sense of closure and peace. I feel healed in places I didnt even realize were wounded! I feel like I have come full circle and I am learning more and more what the concept Ubuntu really means! <3

Until next time

Love

Esty/Ubuntu