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).