training woes

For interest of time, I won’t write about how my permanent site is. It’s nice, but it’s not perfect. I’m really looking forward to working there for the next two years. You’ll probably read more about it then you’ll ever want to know! Instead, I will devote this post to talking more about training or the lack thereof.
During the supervisor's training, Kedibone (the training manager) gave me back my iPod. She said that my host mother apologizes for everything and asked if it was ok. I said, "It's fine."
When I came back to Moletji after visiting my site, I went to Joel’s home because he could tell me where my new host family lives. Unfortunately, I did not have a new host family and I started to prepare myself to spend the night at Joel’s house and figure it out in the morning. At about 7:30, Joel receives a call from Kedibone asking where I was and why wasn’t I with my host family. After explaining that I didn’t think I had a host family, I was told to walk to her home with Joel and all my stuff. Unfortunately for me, this ended up being a 40 minute walk in the dark. I felt like a walking target. Once I arrived at her home, I still didn't know what was going on and instead of explaining what was happening, I was interviewed and asked questions about whether I'm still committed to serving in the Peace Corps. At about 10 o'clock the interview was done and I finally figured out why I didn't have a new host family. When I said, "it's fine," Kedibone understood it to mean that I would live with that host family while I understood it as accepting her apology. Once the communication issue was explained, I was asked to write what I imagine my ideal host family to be (trustworthy) and told that my iPod disappearing is cultural, ie, I should get over it and live there any way. I kindly explained that I understood that if I leave my door open things might disappear into the four-year-old’s hands, but things disappearing from my locked room and locked bag was not a cultural occurrence. It doesn’t help that my host mother told me that money disappears out of her locked room all of the time. I finished my paper, and spent the night on sofa in Kedibone’s house. Luckily for me, I moved into a very nice family’s home the next day.

Training, in general, is not going well. We’ve been told very little new information and it seems that we’re going to be going into our villages knowing what we knew when we left for the Peace Corps. Nothing happens as it’s scheduled and we often do not have the information that we need. For a month the language trainers were not paid when they’re supposed to be paid biweekly, and it took four trips to Pretoria to figure out how much money we needed to travel to our permanent sites for a week. Almost all of the staff that work with us are new and the few language trainers that aren’t new say that this is the worst training they’ve ever encountered. While we were gone at our supervisor’s workshop, two people were fired from the training staff. People in our group that have served in the Peace Corps before say that it’s only Peace Corps South Africa that is this disorganized. I’m looking forward to going to my site and forgetting that the Peace Corps exists for awhile.
The one amazing thing is that although we’re not learning anything but spend all day doing it most people are in good spirits and all of the trainees are amazing people. I may forget about the Peace Corps staff for awhile, but I definitely plan on visiting the other future volunteers as much as I can.

From one host family. . .

Letter to my parents, dated September 2, 2005

So, this letter may contain information that seems like a war story. . . but don’t fear! I do love my time here and whatever negative thing I write is balanced out by at least two positive things. The negative things just seem so much more interesting to relate.

First, I think I told you that I’m living with a host family in Moletji with a mom, Rosina, a 12-year-old, Sydney, and a 4-year-old (5 on Monday!), Meipone. Pretty much all of the time, I lock the door to my bedroom for two reasons, privacy when I’m inside and to keep 4-year-old hands out of my clothes and away from my stash of cookies and power bars. My host mother works during the day and I’m away at classes almost all day. Sydney has keys to the outside lock to let himself and his sister inside after school. On Wednesday, I came home, unlocked my door, put some stuff in my room, and went back outside. Sydney is nowhere to be seen but that’s normal because he usually wanders around the village. My host mother came home, asks me to help her and as I’m helping, walks up to me holding my iPod in her hands asking, “what’s this?”
I put on my best shocked (because that’s what I was) and turned over the iPod to show her where my name is engraved on it, “It’s mine and my room is locked unless I’m at home.”
She tells me that she found it in Sydney’s room and comes to conclusion on her own that he took it from my room. I took my iPod back to my room and look around to notice that Sydney carefully searched my room for the iPod and then re-locked the door after himself. My host mothers instant solution, “I’m going to beat that boy.” A couple of hours later when he still hasn’t come home, she amends it to taking away his keys to the outside door, that way he can only get inside when if his mom or I am home. When he does come home, I’ve already gone to bed for the night and can hear some heated talking in SePedi. Apparently, Sydney told his mom that I let him borrow it and she told him that he was lying. Really, I think this is the best case scenario for this situation. My host-mom completely took my side and protected my stuff, my iPod works fine, and I don’t think she beat him badly. Meipone is amazing and I got a bonding experience with my host mom as well.

Second, I think you have a general idea that South Africa isn’t as safe as the United States. One prime example occurred Saturday afternoon. A group of six men were some how involved with fraud against the local tribe in Moletji. The understaffed, underpaid, and undertrained police caught 5 of the 6 men, but the tribe caught the sixth. At the shabeen (bar) three blocks from my house he was beat to death with a hammer in broad daylight and plenty of witnesses. If volunteers went into a shabeen, the local people and schoolteachers would not treat us with respect so we don’t go into them in our villages. Besides, the shabeens in the villages are not safe, but in the cities they’re as safe as any bar in the US.

Third, we were 88 trainees and now we’re only 87. A NGO/health trainee decided to go home after three days sick and some time in the hospital. She was getting better and could have stayed, but after discussing her options with the Peace Corps doctors she’s decided to go home. I don’t think she had made any real friends amongst her fellow trainees and probably didn’t have the best support system when she did get sick. I think her sickness had something to do with the food and her diet. The only other person that has been sick is one of the other two people in my training group, Caitlin. She ate something bad, couldn’t wash her hands well, or there was something in her water and ended up with fever, chills, and stuff coming out of both ends. She saw a doctor that afternoon and was better the next day. I think I’m getting better health care here than in the United States.

Alright, onto other topics. I’m having trouble getting news here. I’m so busy during the day and at I night I listen to the radio but it’s all in SePedi. Yesterday, the Peace Corps gave us the last month’s worth of Newsweek. I have never been that excited to hold a month old news glossy in my hands.

I’ve been hanging around with the people in my language group recently. There’s Joel (Lehlotlo, walking stick), our language instructor, Becca (Tlou, elephant), and Caitlin (Mogadi, no meaning). My SePedi name is Lethabo, happiness. Joel is a young South African who grew up in the township outside of the closest city, Polokwane. Most of the language trainers are 25 to 35 year-olds who have teaching experience. The ones that I’ve gotten to know a little are funny and way too over-protective of us. For example, while in Moletji Joel will walk to our houses and make sure that we are still ok. Most of the time he’ll visit after seeing us an hour earlier. Caitlin and I have similar backgrounds, she just graduated from Harvard in biochemistry. Becca spent the last couple of years in Texas working as a primary school teacher. They’re both really nice but I haven’t really become friends with them yet.

On Monday we’re all leaving Moletji for three different locales, 10 education trainees will travel to the Northwest Province and attend supervisor’s training at the Lion’s Den. The rest of the education trainees are going to Oasis outside of Polokwane. The NGO/health trainees are going to a resort outside of Pretoria. While we’re all going to different locales, we’ll all be doing similar things. Monday morning we’re all told the site that we’ll be serving at for the next two years. After we’re told, we’ll travel to our respective supervisor training locations and spend three days working with our supervisors. For education volunteers, the two or three principals that we’ll be working with will be there. After training, wining, and dining, we’ll travel to our sites with our supervisors. We’ll spend the next three days living and negotiating with the family that we’ll be staying with for the next two years and visiting the schools or NGOs that we’ll work with. After that we’ll stay with a current volunteer for three days. Finally, we’ll travel in the taxis back to Moletji. I think everyone is really excited to find out where they’re serving but we’re not ready language-wise. Almost everyone that we’ll work with speaks English but so many of the side conversations occur in the local language. When we return, there will only be four weeks left of training, it’s so short!

Postscript, Monday, September 5

So. . . last night I decided to charge my iPod before taking it with me on this mini-training trip. I borrowed a luggage lock from a friend and locked my iPod in there along with my passport and leatherman. Low and behold my iPod was missing (but only the iPod) although I keep my room locked and it was in a locked bag. My host mom wasn’t home when I discovered it, and I couldn’t stay in the house any longer. I went to tell Joel, my language trainer and liaison to all Peace Corps staff, and also found a couple of friends. With Joel’s help, the plan was set to pack all of my belongings, leave the things I don’t need this week at his house, and get a new family when I come back. I was pretty upset, and decided to have a nice, chill dinner with Peace Corps trainee friends (an older married couple, Tom and Brooke, and Caitlin from my language group). Dinner lasted until about 7:45, when Kedibone, the training manager, pulls up to Tom and Brooke’s and asks to talk to me. The first thing she does is berate me for not being at home and asking my host mother for permission to eat with my friends. I end up apologizing for being out past dark, but it really wasn’t what I needed at the time. Sydney had not been home all weekend (he’s only 12!) and the host mother really could not have reacted better to my telling her that my iPod was missing again. She stayed home from work this morning to try to locate it.
This brings my tally of moving to seven times in the past month. I’m trying to look on the bright side of things and say that I get to meet a new family and will just get introduced to a wider slice of life but it’s hard because I really like my host mother and sister.

Disclaimer

Let me take this opportunity to remind any readers that these posts are my personal opinions and experiences in Peace Corps South Africa. There are good days and bad days, which will be reflected in my writing. Please do not base all of your opinions about either South Africa or the Peace Corps on any of my posts.

home again

On Saturday morning, I was informed that my grandfather passed away. Lalo, another trainee, listened to me, hugged at the appropriate moments, and took a walk with me when we should have been in a training session. I waited four hours to call my parents so that they would be awake. Because he is not an immediate family member and I'm still a Peace Corps trainee, I do not have emergency leave to go home but I have been given the vacation time. I decided to take the vacation because I cannot imagine not being at home with my family. The most difficult thing is trying to find a ticket. My parents could not buy one for me and I need a credit card in my hand in order to buy one for myself. Lisa Ellis, the country director, is going to buy my ticket for me and my parents are going to reimburse her. I will be flying out of Johannesburg on Tuesday night (about the same time that the funeral will be occuring at home) and start flying back on the 27th.
Although all of my time has been spent waiting and trying to organize a ticket, my fellow trainees and the current volunteers have been extremely supportive and I love everyone here. Pretoria is unreal compared to the villages that I have been spending time in. I'm nervous about missing training and adjusting back to the life here when I get home. Hopefully, I will up-date some more while I am at home.

Settling In August 28,2005

The following update is from Melissa's letter dated August 28th. I received it on Monday, September 12th. Her new address is: Melissa Leedle, PO Box 737, Lephalale 0555, South Africa. She requested I enter it on her blogsite. Mom

---

I've made a couple of friends. It's strange to have friends that are guys, again. For some reason I share more common interests with the guys. Is it bad that I find conversations about the lack of datable men, make-up, and drinking alcohol boring? It is hard though because most of the friends that I made are learning other languages. This means that I don't see them as much during training and they will live farther away. The Sepedi language group (20 education trainees) will all be placed closer together in Limpopo province in a location close to Polokwane. My friends are learning Tswana (northern Limpopo), and Venda (Limpopo next to Kruger National Park). Some of the Non-Government Organization (NGO/health) volunteers are learning Zulu (living in Kwazulu-Natal) and Swati (in Mpumalanga) along with the other languages and areas I mentioned above.

We found out our languages on the last day of orientation and we traveled from Mokopane to Moltjie that afternoon (usually an hour drive but it took 2.5 hours in our buses). There was a welcome ceremony with singing . . . then waiting for your name to be called to your host mother (mma in Sepedi). I waited . . . and waited . . . eventually it was clear that my host family didn't show up and the coordinators had to find me a new place to live. The problem with finding me (and 2 other poor, famililess souls) a home was that they wanted to place everyone close to their language trainer (there are about 20 trainers) and some of the families live 10 miles away from the center of the village. It all has worked out though and I have a family.

South Africans keep asking me if I like it here. I'll tell you the same answer I give them, "It's very different." Bad first: The bathroom/sanitation situation. There's a pit toilet outside that all families have. It can vary anywhere from a hole in the ground within a small outside room to an elaborate permanent porta-potty; each is different. Some families have built water tanks above their homes so that they have indoor plumbing. Regardless of the toilet situation, no one leaves their bedroom to pee at night. There's a chamber pot in each bedroom, but 'the big one goes outside.' The reason for staying inside is either that there are snakes outside at night or that witches will haunt you. I'm happy to tell you that neither has happened so far. This leads into bathing. Again, some families have set up running water but most use the basin method. When I wish to 'prepare myself' I heat up about 4 liters of water in a hot pot, pour into a laundry basin (about 16" in circumference), and add 2 liters cold water in the basin. The secret is to wash from your hair downwards and to let go of the notion that soap should all come off your body. The one exception is when you have your period, then the pelvic area gets saved for last. It's very dusty and grimy here but it never seems like there is a place to wash your hands (unless you want to go through the heating water routine and then wash without soap).

My 2nd bad thing is that it's difficult to go running here. I shouldn't run by myself, run in the dark, wear shorts that are too short, or spend too much time with men my own age (ideal running buddies because they're 'in shape' from soccer but could start rumors/ lose respect in my community/ be a general danger to myself. Unlike the sanitation/toilet one which takes some getting used to but is completely doable, this is one that I'm really struggling with. Add in the expectation that because I'm a young female I spend my free time handwashing clothes, cooking, and cleaning and it makes it difficult to even find daylight hours to run.

My final bad thing is that I shouldn't walk around alone, especially at night. During the day it's not so bad, just a few more suggestive comments than I'd like. I've noticed that if I'm with a group the comments completely disappear, especially if I'm with a group of some of the older volunteers. Night is a different story. It's as if I'm asking to be harrassed/robbed at night. At least there's an easy solution: don't walk alone at night!

Those are the not-so-fun differences. They're not bad, they'll just take some getting used to, precisely what training is for. Onto the good differences. . .

People here are SO happy when you greet them in the local language. They'll stop in the street to start a conversation with you and most try to teach you a few new words. The kids are especially amazing. I had already made friends with the neighbor children, meaning I get greeted with hugs and screams of, 'Melissa!' whenever I get home, but we seem to attract merry bands of children wherever we go.

Today I started to make friends with the 4-year old gin that I live with. Before this weekend I was having a hard time figuring out what my role in the the house was and determined that I was going to be perpetually confused because of the language barrier (the mother speaks some English but knew remarkably little about why I'm here). Now, I understand what the mother expects of me (to take care of myself cleaning and cooking wise) and she's starting to trust me more because her daughter thinks I'm hillarious. Mipone understands about as much English as I know Sepedi, but we get along great. The 12-year old boy, Sydney, says, "I hear you," but I don't think he understands me. While the neighborhood children play with me, he normally watches from the outskirts. He seems to not eat and often disappears for hours on end. The mother has an administration job in a near-by town, a 22-year old working for Johnson and Johnson doing chemical work nad a 15-year old in boarding school both in Jo-burg. The father was a taxi (really a 15-passenger van) driver but died of an illness (sometimes the polite way to say HIV/AIDS) last December.

Although the host mother knows very little about why I'm (or my peers) are here, she and about 100 other families have welcomed the Peace Corps trainees and language trainers into their homes. In exchange, the Peace Corps provides a bag of rice, apples, and vegetables each week (food that the families that we're staying with don't really need; they all have a comfortable income). I don't know of any community in the United States that would welcome a group this large as we have been welcomed here. For comparison, Moletjie is about the size of Walworth and Fontana without the supermarkets, hotels, and restaurants, and banks. (Mom's note: These 2 towns are resort towns located on the southwest side of Geneva Lake, if you take away all of the businesses that Melissa mentioned, there's just mostly homes left on a few streets on busy thoroughfares.) Add in a couple of roadside stalls, taxi loading areas, and leave in the bars and post office. My final good thing is that people here are remarkably optimistic and very resourceful. Most of the homes here have electricity, some have running water, but in each home the families reuse everything they possibly can before burning it with the rubbish. Water used for bathing is reused to wash socks, then used to water the plants outside. Children make toys out of discarded wire and wheels, and toilet paper is really newspaper (although I usually carry real toilet paper with me). People in shanty towns somehow manage to have perfectly clean and pressed clothes.

The landscape is beautiful, although mostly free of wildlife. Wandering goats and chickens are everywhere and cows are herded to the nature preserve each day.

All in all, I'm adjusting to my life here. It's slower, most conversations I don't understand, and I rarely know what I'm going to do tomorrow. Each of these things would have annoyed me at home but it's good here. The next time you hear from me I'll probably have visited my permanent site and figured out an exercise routine. Exciting Things!

Syndication Is Up and Running!

For anyone who uses news aggregation software like NetNewsWire or NewsFire or wants to subscribe to Melissa'a blog with an RSS reader, I just set up the Atom XML feed over on the left side underneath the "Archives."

Cheers,

--Drew

language

For three days, all of the trainees left the comforts of Moletji for a hotel to meet with our supervisors. For me, that meant going to a conference at Oasis and meeting three principals. The principal's initial reaction was to ask how old I am, their guess was 16.
Respect is assigned based on age and gender. As a young woman, the only people that I do not have to show respect to are children. If I was a black South African living here, I would probably still be in high school and have a child of my own. I would cook, clean, and fetch anything for the men and women who are older than me. Because I'm not South African, I do get out of some of the fetching and cleaning but I still end up thinking things like, "get your own water," and "spread your own margarine" too often for my liking.
The host family here consists of a grandmother and grandfather, and so far the grandmother is providing a lot of the cooking and cleaning but that will probably change as I become integrated into their lives. Both are kind individuals. Language is my first and largest barrier. English is spoken specially for me and few individuals in the community know it. Almost all of the conversations at my home and in the schools are in SePedi with bits of Afrikaans and Setswana thrown in. When I meet new people, they start talking in Afrikaans and whomever I'm with has to explain that I'm an American and don't understand. The grandmother knows as much English as I know SePedi while the grandfather knows enough for us to communicate generally but not enough to carry what I would call an intelligent conversation. Mma (mother in SePedi) will usually talk to me in SePedi and when I ask her to repeat what she said she will repeat it in Setswana, confusing me much more than is necessary. The community is convinced that I will be speaking like a native speaker in three months, SePedi, Setswana, and Afrikaans are easy to learn, and that English is the only difficult language.
As usual, I'm out of time. I've spent eight days here in Shongoane 3, and I'll go back to Moletji to finish training tomorrow. I'm looking forward to coming back and starting work, establishing myself as a community member and as an individual. Thanks for all of the comments and I miss you all!

Permanent site and address

I'm currently at the site where I will be serving the next two years. I'll be working with two seperate villages under the same chief, Shongoane 2 and Shongoane 3. There is another volunteer, Kelsey, serving in Shongoane 1. On the map to the right, I'm 50 km to the west of Lephalale on the road shown. I opened a post office box in Lephalale, and it should get extremely dependable mail service to it. I asked about weight limits on packages, and it's 30 kg. My address is. . .

Melissa Leedle
PO Box 737
Lephalale 0555
South Africa

The Pretoria address will work for as long as I'm a Peace Corps volunteer in South Africa, but I will get the mail more frequently from the above address.

I've uploaded a couple of pictures onto this page. There's a brief caption below each. I'm sorry that they're not in order.
Here's my host family's home. The host mother really enjoys flowers and tries to keep them growing around her home. The house is still in the process of being built and it still doesn't have ceilings.

Here's the view on my run this morning. There are trails around all of the mountains in the village.
Here are some men working in one of the roadside stands. You can't see it very well, but they're cooking chicken feet, a local delicacy. The other volunteers have been offered chicken heads, feet, cow intestine and stomach. I get out of all of it because I'm vegetarian.


Our group getting on the plane. There were six seats across and we couldn't get off the plane for 18 hours. For some reason the airline wasn't told that there were 10 vegetarians and one person who as allergic to gluten on the flight. I think I slept for about 45 minutes on the plane, but there were plenty of free movies to watch!
Here's the compound. In the morning I would do a loop around the outside of the building. During the day, we would get information on the South African education system, language lessons, culture lessons, medical information, and shots. After classes we would play ultimate frisbee with each other and with a couple of local boys.
Here's my table toasting each other at the dinner with the education minister in our honor. They gave each table two bottles of wine and a bottle of champagne. I'm in the pink shirt, to the right is Andrew, Cat, Sheila, Amanda, Slyvia (a language trainer), Erin, Cort, Hossam, and Sharon (a language trainer). Right after this the tables were cleared and we danced.
Here are all of us waiting to be placed to our host families. The grandmothers/mothers sat facing us and would dance and sing when their names were called to collect us.