Pictures

Here are pictures that I took during training and in October. . . Sorry that they're not in order, but I've put a date on the bottom of each of them.

Mma sometimes cooks bogobe outside over the fire. Stirring hardening bogobe requires amazing strength! 10/28/2005

Here are my Baba and Mma in front of my house. They just finished eating bogobe and chicken feet. Notice the burglar bars on the my window. The Peace Corps requires burglar bars for any of the windows to a volunteer's room. They also stated that we shouldn't keep anything in our windows that marks the room as ours. But, my room is the only one in the house with burglar bars. . . marking it for the world to see! 10/21/2005.

Here is Pitsi, Kgaugalo, Kwena, and I. They were my host sisters in Moletji. They are fantastic! 10/10/2005

Most of the families in Moletji have water faucets outside of their homes which they pay for the water to come into. The families that don't go here. Notice the donkey carts for carting the water back to their homes. 10/9/2005

There was a fairwell ceremony for us in Moletji and there was groups of girls performing traditional Sepedi dances. At the beginning of the ceremony, the girls formed lines and danced closer to the enterance. 10/8/2005

Then they would dance and sing in a circle. . . 10/8/2005

With gogos (grandmothers) playing drums in the middle. 10/8/2005

Green! Blending in with everyone else! There's no way that I'm in Africa. . . Park in Frankfurt, I spent several hours here reading. 9/28/2005

Frankfurt skyline 9/28/2005

While on my site visit, I went to a choir competition with my Mma. Here she is waiting for the taxi with her friends. 9/10/2005


Morning assembly at Tshukudu primary! There are 1013 learners and 26 teachers at this school. Morning assembly consists of a couple songs, announcements, and the lord's prayer. There are five buildings like the two that you can see each holding four classrooms. 9/9/2005

mail and phone

There are three ways to get in contact with me. . .
1. Call or text message my phone, 027 76 531 2149. You can buy cheap calling cards on-line (just do a google search for South Africa cell calling cards). Make sure that any calling card you buy is to call a cell phone because the prices are different. If there is an emergency, it’s best to call the Peace Corps office in Washington DC first.
2. Leave a comment here or e-mail me. If you e-mail me, you’re more likely to get a letter in return than an e-mail.
3. Write me! I love receiving mail and I check it more often than I’ve been able to get on the internet. Letters take about five days to come to my post office box. Here’s my address again:

Melissa Leedle
Box 737
Lephalale 0555
South Africa

A few of you have mentioned that you would like to send me packages. I can get almost anything my heart desires here, but that doesn’t mean that I can afford it on the Peace Corps living allowance (on the Peace Corps web-site it says living wage for the area, so I have more bogobe, a hard porridge, cabbage, and meat then I will ever want to eat and enough to go to town occasionally). On some things, especially electronics, I have to pay a duty when it is shipped to me. The kinds of things I’d love to receive:
News, I’d love to hear about anything happening in the United States! This includes newspaper clippings, crossword and suduko puzzles, old Time magazines, trashy gossip magazines. . .
Running shoes, size 7.5 Asics 2100 or Gel Kyano or Adidas supercushion
Books! There has been some confusion on the kind of books I like. . . I usually like books that have positive reviews from the NY Times, are ‘classics,’ or are chick lit. If you’d like to see examples, here’s a (long) list of examples on Amazon:

Treats, pretty much anything from Trader Joes, dried fruit/berries, candy, granola bars, soft cookies, Gatorade powder, I could go on forever here

If you’d like to send something to help in the schools. . . Again, you can get pretty much anything here. What would help the most are supplies that I can use to make examples for the teachers. I’ll probably end up making flashcards, posters, and puzzles so that the teachers understand what I’m trying to explain. If I have something ready-made from America, the teachers will only say, “Esh, but we don’t have enough resources,” and won’t use what is at their disposal. Also, I should demonstrate positive reinforcement in workshops.
Colorful card stock
Contact paper
Clear packing tape
Markers
Stickers

Pula etla

Hello my dear friends and family! (Rain is coming in Sepedi)
I’m sorry that it has been so long since I’ve been able to update this. Since coming back to South Africa, I have been on the internet a few times but usually only long enough to see if I have new messages.
What’s happened in three weeks? Well, I’m officially a Peace Corps volunteer now. The end of training was bittersweet. I miss seeing 84 other Americans everyday and my host sisters in Moletji are amazing. The actual parts that were ‘training’ weren’t very helpful. The last Saturday of training there was a good-bye ceremony for us in Moletji. A pair of goats was slaughtered, community members came, two groups of little girls danced and sang traditional songs, and there were lots of speeches. During the training manager’s (Kedibone) speech, she said, “I knew that when I came to Moletji, I was bringing with me 88 children.” It suddenly became clear why she treated us with such disrespect; to her she was taking care of 88 very disobedient 10 year-olds although several of the volunteers have 10 year-old grandchildren. Training in South Africa means seven weeks of being treated as a child but immediately after training we need to be more grown-up then we ever have had to be in our lives.
On October 13, we officially swore in as Peace Corps volunteers. After the ceremony, our supervisors took us to our sites. I’m living with an induna (a headman, which is a traditional leader directly underneath the chief/king) and his wife. They’re grandparents whose children either have spouses and children or are working in Johannesburg. Mma, mother in Sepedi, speaks as much English as I speak Sepedi but we’ve got a system and she normally understands what I’m doing. I make her laugh so at least someone other than me thinks I’m funny. Baba, father, speaks more English and he will sometimes talk to me in broad strokes about how South Africa is right now. I think they’re very proud and happy to have me living with them.
I’m working with three schools, Tshukudu (rhinoceros), Ramojapudi (eater of goats), and Mmera (a surname). All three schools are grades R (kindergarten) to 7. Tshukudu has 1013 learners and 26 teachers, but only 18 classrooms. The learner to teacher ratio isn’t that bad, but 18 teachers are teaching at any given time. Ramojapudi had 1000 learners, but the buildings for Mmera were completed in August and 330 of the learners went there. Mmera hopes to have its own budget, permanent teachers, desks, books, and water next year. I’ve spent the first couple of weeks here doing very little, mostly sitting at school and reading. I plan on holding a meeting at each of the schools to introduce myself, explain the goals of Peace Corps South Africa, education, and have the teachers fill out a questionnaire about themselves and what they’d like help with. I’m also currently making a staff wall for each of the schools. I expect that each school will need something very different. I plan on doing ‘real’ things next year. The biggest task is to help the teachers with skills to teach the learners critical thinking but very few, if any, of the teachers have critical thinking skills. Any suggestions?
Sadly, from 88 we are now 84. Katherine went home for health reasons, Linda because she likes organization and wanted to teach directly, Gordon because his son is very ill, and Brittany because she wanted to be in/close to a city and didn’t feel like this was the job for her. From looking at previous South African groups, about 50 percent of South Africa volunteers complete there service (there are much higher retention rates in other countries, even countries in Southern Africa).