Sawubona

party!

2007-06-08T08:58:00.000+02:00

My host father invited all of his family members for a party to celebrate their ancestors.
In preparation, Mma and her daughters made traditional beer out of ground mealies and amarula (a type of fruit). First, you mix the ingredients and leave them to ferment for five days (left). As it ferments, the thick mixture heats up and oozes air. It also smells like the bog of eternal stench.

The resulting sludge is strained (left, with two of my host sisters). The left over mealies are bunched into balls to ensure that all of the beer is drained (in the background of next two pictures).

Finally, the beer is ready to drink! Here, Mma scoops some into a calabash (the normal cup) to tease everyone about drinking it. You can also leave the beer out for several more days before drinking, that way it gets even stronger.

Mmamere and John (grandkids) playing with bubbles my Mom sent for Easter. Mmamere has Zack (great grandkid) on her back.

submitted application!

2007-06-07T11:46:00.000+02:00

I finished and submitted the AMCAS (medical school) application today! That means after many months of procrastinating and throwing away drafts of my personal statement, it is completed and I cannot worry about it any longer. Here is an excerpt of the essay:

Fine, reddish brown sand covers the ground. Thorn bushes block the sun. I start exercising by myself but I am never alone. Drivers honk and wave manically, trying to attract attention. Passing pedestrians start conversations, “Eish! Letsatsi wa fisha! [Wow! It is too hot today!]” Children line the streets, clap and chant, “Le-taa-bo! Le-taa-bo!” As I approach, the children chant louder, laugh and sprint alongside me. Many things have changed. My name is not Melissa; I am Lethabo. I do not live in the United States; I live in a rural South African village, serving as a Peace Corps volunteer.

Saturdays are reserved for funerals, at least two each week. Funerals seem to be the only reminder of HIV. It is feared, never discussed and occasionally gossiped about. Testing is seen as pointless. “Why know your status if there is no cure and face the stigma of the disease?” teachers ask me. No matter how much community members ignore HIV; it remains, casting a shadow over once-vibrant community members.

I met Margaret, my host mother's niece, as she was travelling to the hospital with her very ill mother. Her mother was completely dependent upon Margaret for moving, eating and using the toilet. My host mother and I offered assistance, but Margaret preferred independence to help, refusing any aid offered to her as if the offer was a rebuke against her abilities. Margaret was vibrant; she led the conversation and took over the household duties. Her presence could not be forgotten.

After her mother's death, Margaret repeated the journey from her village to the hospital. This time, the trip is for her and her sister who watches over her. Margaret's presence is again unforgettable, but for drastically different reasons. Her independence is gone. She is waif, constantly tired and calls me, not her sister, to help her eat, use the toilet and hug her. Margaret desires human contact as if to confirm that she is still human. Her eyes watch for hints of repulsion. Margaret, and other South Africans like her, has solidified my desire to study medicine.

I now have a few weeks until I start filling out secondary applications.
In other news, I will end my service here on September 14 and I should be at home in Wisconsin on the 15th!

surfing safari

2007-04-07T19:08:00.000+02:00

I just returned from Jeffrey's Bay, home of world-class winter-time waves. While there, I took a week-long surfing course with another volunteer. We started lessons on the beach with little two-foot high waves (that usually turned into white-wash by the time we tried them) and perfected standing on them. By the end of the week, we had graduated to real surf boards, big waves and paddling out. When I actually caught a wave and stood (rarely, but what can I expect from only surfing for a week?) it was amazing. So fast! I got caught underneath a few huge waves and it was almost enough for me to forget how cool surfing is. To the left is me with my 'real' board and our first instructor, Andrew.

View from our backpackers.

dating

2007-03-27T19:25:00.000+02:00

Host family members, teachers, South Africans in general are fascinated about who the white American is dating (if anyone) . Yesterday I went visiting with my Mma. We stopped at one of my teacher's houses and we interupted her, her husband and their preacher/grandmother's meal. The grandmother was fascinated with me and quickly declared that I was nice while she queried what kind of farm animals we have in the US. Mma started talking about how great am I, listing off how I'm always laughing and smiling, I help with dishes and with the goats, causing the teacher to laugh. The grandmother then asked if I have a boyfriend and informed me that it's good that I don't, all boyfriends have AIDS. I guess husbands don't?
Then, the husband, who's convinced that I will marry in South Africa and stay forever AND go home and teach all of America Sepedi, informed me that there are too many single, white men in town. ie, I should marry one of them.
We return to normal topics of conversation and another visitor arrives to talk to the husband. Once the visitor is done talking to the husband, he starts talking to me. His first question? 'Will you marry me?' I informed him that that is not the question to ask an American girl first off, and it's best to talk to me before (if ever) asking that. He agrees, we talk for five minutes. He asks, 'Now will you marry me? We've talked.'
Walking home, my fiesty Mma told me that I can't date anyone in the village. They're not good enough.

you can never go home again

2007-03-27T19:11:00.000+02:00

After being deemed healthy by the surgeon last Monday (benign and all those good words), I went back to my site. There were, of course, the normal feelings about going home. I'm not doing anything here, it's too hot, I want a shower, I don't have any friends; you get the idea. But, I received a HUGE mailing of books. Thanks to everyone at home that contributed to the book mailing, I feel rich! There was a massive wind storm while I was gone and it tore up my laundry tree. AND I have a new friend named Mina. Kittens, baby anything really, makes me happy. My host parents love and play with her too.

Above, my room with books. :D, left remains of tree with our pit toilet and neighbor's toilet in background

My old friends, the goats, with the top of the tree

MINA!

My host parents' great grandson, Zach, playing with Mina

finally holiday pics

2007-03-27T19:09:00.000+02:00

I've finally completed my post from my last trip! There's lots of text and pics and if you click on 'holiday' to the left you'll find it.

de-lumped

2007-03-15T10:20:00.000+02:00

Last week the Peace Corps doctor called and informed me that the main office in Washington DC approved the removal of the lump. I came down to Pretoria on Wednesday and met with a surgeon on Thursday. The surgeon did some training in Madison and was happy to hear that I'm from Wisconsin. The surgery itself was on Monday. The Peace Corps picked me up from the backpackers at 5:30 and dropped me at the Little Company of Mary (a private hospital here in Pretoria) and I filled out forms at procrastinated until the surgery at 3:30. An hour later, I woke up and in another half hour I could walk around. Just as I was falling asleep, a nurse came in to check on me and noticed a bunch of blood on my shirt; the bandage came off a little and the anastetic that was coming out leaked onto my shirt. Another bandage was added on top, and I fell into a nice, deep sleep.
The next morning the surgeon changed the bandage and discharged me and I've been staying at a guesthouse since. I have a private room, a comfy bed and if I want I can wander to the pool and smell the roses. I have been wandering around Pretoria to get food and use the internet, but I've been getting tired faster than normal and usual head back for a mid-afternoon nap.
I'm hardly in any pain and haven't been taking my pain medication. The lump was benign and there shouldn't be any scarring.
I should head back to my site on Monday or Tuesday and fall break starts Friday.

mirth through hello

2007-02-24T19:01:00.000+02:00

Today, I had the unique experience of causing shock through greeting.
At McDonald's this morning, the over-worked teller greeted me, "Dumela Mma. (hello Ma)" I replied, "Agee, le kae? (yes, where are you?)" "Re teng. Jo! (I am here. Jeez!) [laughter]" He was completely without malice, just a little harried and surprised that this lekgewa can greet in Setswana.
At the mall this afternoon, the bag girl said, "Dumela." I replied, "Agee, le kae?" Her eyes stretch to twice their normal size and she starts laughing. "A-ee, wena! O dira eng? (unh-unh, you! What are you doing?" I chastise. "Ke o teste! (I was testing you!) [more laughter]"

most action I've had in. . .

2007-02-22T14:05:00.000+02:00

On Sunday I, by chance, discovered a lump in my breast. On Monday, I spoke with medical and they made an appointment for a sonogram for today. I went, really nervous, derobed in the frigid office and laid down to get cold oil spread on my breast. The radiologist was nice and talkative, patiently explaining all of my silly questions. The lump is a fibro adenoma, a fibrous growth that is apparently very common in young women. Within the growth, are a pair of cysts and there's another cyst lurking outside of it. The growth is kinda big (about 2 cm in diameter) and just underneath the surface of the skin. The chances of it being cancerous are very low, but if it is not removed it could continue to grow and I have to get a sonogram every six to eight months to make sure it's still benign. Plus, having a lump in my breast makes me uncomfortable and kinda like a part of my body isn't really part of me any more. Other volunteers (female!) have been asking to feel the lump for their education purposes (I think) but I can't really imagine anyone touching the lump or my breast because they like me. . .I mean, it's a lump, gross. What could be less sexy? Both radiologists that looked at my scan whole-heartedly said, "Remove it!"
I came back to the office and talked to the doctor and she informed me that the Peace Corps office in Washington probably would not ok the surgery to have it removed but that she will write a letter asking them to approve it. It is considered an optional surgery and I'm 'so close' to my close of service (eight months is a long time! That's a third of my time here!). What will probably happen is I will get another sonogram right before I come home in September or October to make sure that nothing has changed and then I have to see a doctor at home and see if he/she suggests removing it. IF he/she comes to another conclusion, then the Peace Corps will not pay to have it removed. If I wanted to pay for the procedure myself to have it removed while I'm here, I could be violating the terms of my service and administratively separated. I was so excited to just get rid of the stupid thing that when I was told all this, I started to cry. To make it worse, the doctor doesn't have kleenex in her office. I've always suspected her being devoid of all sympathy. The doctor ended the meeting, and I rushed down the hall to get toilet paper from the bathroom. Two volunteers comforted me after the meeting, and pressured me into fighting the decision. I can't fight it. I'm just so tired. I just want the lump gone.

next eight months

2007-02-21T20:11:00.000+02:00

From last Tuesday

This morning I woke half-covered by my blanket. Instantly too hot, I threw it off and settled underneath my sheet for the last few minutes of sleep. Later, walking to the pit toilet, I contemplated what to wear. The weatherman claimed it would only be 30 C (86 F), I could wear heavier clothes. I laughed. Only 86, my pre-South Africa self would be melting and searching for a fan.
It's been six weeks since I used either a sheet or a blanket and I welcomed the cool morning as an early sign of fall. Ah, fall: those short weeks when it's no longer steaming hot at dusk and dawn, like summer, or freezing at night, like winter. It may be much colder at home right now, but I remember there being leak-proof roofs and windows, insulation and heating.
Fall also means that I'm closer to coming home. My official swearing-in date was October 13, 2005 meaning that my service officially ends on October 13 this year. For unknown reasons, my projected close of service (COS) date is October 6 and there's a rumor that we can COS a month early no-questions-asked. The COS date leaves all of us a few weeks to a month too late for the start of schools, either for teaching or continuing studies.
My back to the United States time-line looks something like this:June 1: earliest date to apply to medical schoolsSometime in June or July: COS conference, where the Peace Corps dispels all myths and fives us the date that we can officially leave this country. PLUS they give us a third of our settling in allowance (the remaining two thirds is sent to our permanent address on record). After the conference, we are back on travel restriction and not permitted to leave our sites. June 30–July 16: Winter school holidays. No set plans, I hope to go to Pretoria for a few days to complete medical school applications and start looking for jobs back in the US. Maybe I'll visit the Kalahari Desert too. . . September 22-October 1: Spring school holidays. I'm not allowed to travel. Sometime in September or October: Fly home! I may stop off and visit other places on my way.
I have four months to complete my application essay, 'Why do you want to be a doctor?' I've had several false starts: writing a page or two and then getting stuck. I have so many pre-Peace Corps experiences I could write about but I can't ignore two years spent in a land struggling with so many health and social issues. It seems fake to write about the country's issues with health when I have little to do with it other than waking to funeral dirges. My experiences here are too fresh and raw; I haven't figured out if there are more positives or negatives to my service, there's not an all-inclusive story when the story's still unfolding and any story I come up with starts with "I want to be a doctor so I can help people." As does anyone else who writes the essay. At that point, I flounder and give up for a couple of weeks.
So far I'm definitely applying to UW-Madison, Dartmouth, Georgetown and Jefferson with George Washington, Temple and Boston on the maybe list. I like aspects of all the schools and the more I research them, the more I realize that I haven't found a school that offers everything I'm looking for. I'm extending the search to Chicago schools this week and then ending my search.
Which brings me back to the present. I'm sitting outside with Orion, Sirius, the Milky Way and Southern Cross stretching over my head. Mma is a few feet away sitting on empty 50 kg mealie meal bags cleaning wash cloths. A dog barks and donkeys move and rattle the bells around their necks. My neighbors are blasting Thobela FM (all Sepedi language all the time), the shebeen (illegal bar) is bopping down the street and another neighbor is competing for the loudest music award. I can hear my host father inside on his cell phone watching the Sepedi news and someone is trying to fix their car. The cool (hopefully summer won't return) air surrounds me and I can smell fresh scones in the air. Good, bad, aggravating; this is Ga-Monyeki village etching itself onto my memory. I look forward to using a blanket tonight.

plastic mabele

2007-02-07T09:31:00.000+02:00

There's been a recent up-swing in my demenor coinciding with poor internet connections, meaning that all of you hear from me less. Sorry. Below is my Mma grinding mabele (sorgum) and a bag made out of plastic bags that kept me busy for many nights. Mma has continued to complain about my host father, mainly about how he doesn't like meat and how he's cheap. She also wants me to give her the plastic bag bag!

holiday

2007-01-24T10:02:00.000+02:00

December 9- Travel to Pretoria from my site to meet up with travelling companions, Jillian, Meagan and Kelsey. I waited four hours for the taxi to fill only to have an unfixable flat tire 25 miles outside of my closest town and to wait another two hours for another taxi to come from town. Eish. Nothing like a stressful start to a holiday but at least this time I remembered my credit card. That evening we watched The Holiday.

December 10-Travel from Pretoria to Malealea Lodge in Lesotho with detours to the airport to drop off Meagan’s friend and grocery shop. The little red polo that we hired had a packed boot and any food that we bought ended up crowding those sitting in the back seat. Our five CDs were on constant rotation, and tiresome at the end of the trip, while a silver snowflake ornament dangled from the rear-view mirror and a “Happy Holidays” snowman magnetized to the boot. At the border crossing between South Africa and Lesotho I got hassled because my South African visa says that it expired on April 6, 2005 when it doesn’t expire until November 2007. The guard joked (I think? He sounded rather serious) that they should detain me overnight for questioning. [picture in our little car, driving through the Free State]

December 11, 12, 13- Pony trekking. Jillian is able to walk for hours day in and day out, but horse riding was not for her. I loved it. The four of us were led by guides along roads and passes into rural Lesotho. The ride was scary at times, along mountain sides with nothing to prevent the occasional slip over the loose rocks to turn into a 100 meter stumble down a cliff and our horses racing (mine liked to bite and kick) so that they weren’t the last horse that ended up getting hit with a switch. The first night we stayed in a very remote village. It seemed that the people living there spend most of their day merely sustaining life: fetching water, herding sheep, growing vegetables and cooking. As soon as the sun went down, everyone went to sleep. What else do you do when there’s no electricity and you worked hard all day? In the morning, a grandmother tending to two toddlers called me into her house. After greetings, she told me to take her baby with me when I left. How hard is your life when you offer your child to a passing stranger? The second day we re-traced our steps a little, going down a mountain pass we went up the day before: a thin path in a small crevice between peaks. All along the path calla lilies grew wild, in some places forming a white blanket of flowers. The second village we stopped in was visited more often by pony trekking tourists and the family had bought a solar generator for their speakers and boom box, ah, progress. From that village it was a short walk to a tall waterfall where we tried to bathe in the freezing water at its base. Back at the village, Kelsey made friends with one of the many long, curly-haired goats that men in the village shepherd into the mountains each morning and back into an enclosure at night. The last day we returned to the lodge (my horse and I were quarantined from the other horses because of his desire to kick everyone else) with a better taste of the superb mountain views and poverty that is Lesotho. The villages were different from the villages in South Africa because they never were moved from one location to the next due to Apartheid. The houses were spread out over greater distances, allowing more space between the houses for grazing animals and growing crops. People were kind and everyone wanted sweets. [from top: Jillian, me, Kelsey on our horses; best pit-toilet view in the world; village where we slept our first night; goats and sheep outside of second village; me, Jillian, Kelsey with waterfall]

December 14-Hike to Cascades with new friends we met at the lodge. We reluctantly took three young boys as our guides to the Cascades, telling them that we would not give them any money. The hike down was harrowing, the path was non-existent and often more similar to rock scrambling than walking. The Cascades themselves were awesome: a series of short waterfalls into shallow pools. From the top, you could slide down into the next pool as long as you didn’t mind losing a little skin on the not-quite-smooth rock. The walk back had us using trees as support over crevices and scrambling over more rocks. Our guides at the end of the hike decided to charge us 60 rand each, which we refused to pay, instead we shared our lunch and the friends we met at the lodge took them for cold drink and fat cakes. [pics, Cascades with our guides and friends of the day; chilling at lodge]

December 15-Drive to Semonkong, another lodge in Lesotho. The drive consisted of going almost back to Maseru (the capital where we crossed the border into Lesotho) and then down a road that deteriorated the further we drove. By the end of the drive, the bottom of the car scraped on rocks as we dodged potholes and drove through two-foot deep puddles. The road is considered one of the better ones in Lesotho and was improved over its condition a few months before. We wanted to find a good grocery store because we only bought food for the pony trek and were left eating rice, bran flakes and what we could scrounge from the village shops (not much). Alas, the best we could find was some more rice.

December 16, 17- Day hikes to huge waterfall. Semonkong Lodge is situated along a river and up a hill. Most of the accommodation was higher end but we stayed in the only dorm up at the top of the hill next to the end of the road. I liked to compare it to Rivendell as the last comely house before the wilds. It was comely. The dorm was large with eight comfortable mattresses and a nice shower for the four of us to share. During the day we would hike to a waterfall about an hour’s walk from our dorm. The Maletsunyane waterfall boasted the world’s longest abseil (you are roped into a harness and are lowered down along the sheer rock face) in the world, 209 m. It was a little too expensive for any of us to abseil but it was an awesome sight. At night we would listen to music, cook rice, stare at the stars and have serious chats. I’m learning a mix of Sepedi and Setswana at my site and I loved being able to kinda talk in Lesotho (they speak Sesotho, similar to both Sepedi and Setswana). [pic: Jillian, Meagan, Kelsey with waterfall]

December 18-Drive from Lesotho to Kestell in the Free State, back to the capital then out of the country! Kestell is a tiny little town close to the Golden Gate National Park and the northern Drakensburg. There’s a few Mom and Pop grocery stores, restaurants and a large square dominated by a church. Karma Lodge was lovely, we had the place to ourselves again and feasted on Christmas cookies that we made and jam made by the owner. Dessert seemed to dominate our meals, we started a vacation-long tradition of amarula and ice cream.

December 19-Day hike in the northern Drakensburg Mountains. After much debate (a group of four with different views on the ideal time to spend hiking) we choose to do a short hike featuring lots of little waterfalls and a scramble up ‘The Crevice.’ A good day.

December 20- We left the mountains in a LONG drive from Kestell to Kosi Bay. Kosi Bay is in KwaZulu-Natal along the Indian Ocean almost on the border with Mozambique. We stopped in Durban for lunch and groceries and along the way we stopped for road-side pineapple. Yummy.

December 21, 22- On both days the owner of the backpackers drove us (and other people staying at the backpackers) to Kosi Bay mouth where there is the most beautiful beach I think I have ever seen and a protected inlet. In the inlet, there are some rocks where tropical fish live (at some point it was probably a coral reef, but too many people have touched and moved the rocks and sand to keep the coral alive). The snorkelling was like sticking your head in a salt water fish tank: the fish might hide but they are so close that you could touch them. There were moray eels, lion fish, red fish, blue fish and aggressive ones that liked to chase after you and bite. The beach itself was practically deserted, clean and had great waves for playing in. We all got really sun-burnt. On the first night, three of us went on a tour to see leatherback sea turtles nesting. What happens is you walk up and down the beach looking for turtle tracks in the sand leading from the ocean up past the high tide mark. If you’re lucky, the turtle is still laying her eggs and hasn’t returned to the ocean. We saw one turtle right after she finished laying her eggs when she was busy filling in the hole and ‘disguising’ the spot where she laid her eggs. Disguising is a stretch, there is no way that a 500 pound animal designed for water can hide where she’s been on damp sand. It ended up being more of a dramatic flailing of limbs that kicked sand everywhere (including into the turtle’s eyes, onto her back and 15 feet away) and seemed more effective as a method to completely bury the turtle and the nest. Once done, she returned quickly to the ocean. She walked surprisingly fast on the sand and occasionally got side-tracked by flashing cameras. We kept walking and saw another turtle returning to the ocean. Loggerhead sea turtles also nest here, but they are much shyer and avoid coming up onto the ocean when they think there might be human, animal or bad weather present. [ pics: our sleeping hut; me, Meagan and Kelsey; turtle]

December 23- While Kosi Bay mouth beach was heaven, paying for the 4-wheel drive trip there and dealing with the owner of the lodge, who wasn’t consistent in charging for rooms or the drive and tried to be cool and friends with everyone (a recipe for disaster) was not. We left Kosi Bay with Nadine, our German friend. She did not have a way to get from Kosi Bay to St. Lucia and needed to be saved from the owner of the backpackers who was not-so-subtly trying to get into her pants. The drive was short and we had time for an evening boat tour in the St. Lucia estuary. St. Lucia is a system of lakes that empty into the Indian Ocean and brags over 500 hippopotami and 70 percent of South Africa’s crocodile population. The tour was short and we saw lots of hippos yawning, sleeping eating reeds in the water, a few crocodiles’ snouts, it was too hot for them to be any where but submerged in the water, and lots and lots of birds. There are so many hippopotami that they wander the streets at night and crocodile attacks are a reality! [pics: hippo, Nadine, Kelsey, me on hippo/croc tour]

December 24, 25-We met up with two more volunteers, Emily and Jenny, making seven people in the little red polo to and from St. Lucia beach. St. Lucia was much more crowded with a stronger under current (less fun to play in the waves). The water was sandy from the outlet of the estuary. Still pretty, it was a let-down after gorgeous Kosi Bay. The town itself reminds me of my hometown with lots of restaurants, hotels and beach shops catering towards summer-holiday tourists. We were doing what all affluent South Africans do: spend Christmas on the beach with a braai (barbeque) at night. Kelsey surprised us with home-made stockings beside our beds when we awoke on Christmas morning!

December 26-We read that Cape Vidal was a beautiful beach set in a nature reserve about 20 miles outside of St. Lucia. The seven of us got up early and packed into the little polo hoping that we would get to the entrance gates to the park early enough to be let in. The park was having water issues and they would only let 20 cars into the park. When we pulled up to the line, we realized that the gates actually opened two hours before we arrived and there was little hope in making it into the park. Jillian scouted out the situation and spotted a near-empty 10-passenger van in the front of the line with only two people in it. She asked if we could join them, and they happily agreed. We hopped into their car, called the park officials to discuss the water situation and 30 minutes later were on our way into the park. The drive to the beach was interesting: lots of grassy planes with a few trees and lots of stumps as if the park rangers had burned a second-growth forest of non-indigenous trees. There were plenty of impala, which we quickly got bored of seeing and antsy for the beach. Then, we saw a rhinoceros about 10 feet off the side of the road lazily munching on grass and taking his time further into the bush. My first wild rhinoceros sighting! We continued to the beach, white sand, tall dunes and lots of deep sea fishing boats. We played in the waves and a little bit of Frisbee. The trucks and trailers that drove the fishing boats in had trouble driving up from the beach because they had to make it over a sand dune, almost like watching 50 trucks and manly men trying to look good while getting in a car accident, over and over again. One of the boats caught a 500 pound black marlin, enough fish for someone to be eating for years and trophy large too big for most houses. On the way out, we stopped at another beach in the reserve, Mission Rocks. It was very different from Cape Vidal with rock formations instead of sand. We saw another rhinoceros as we left. [pic: rhino on way to beach]

December 27-We left Nadine in St. Lucia and Jenny and Emily on their way to Mozambique so the four of us rode off in the polo back to the mountains. The drive to Swaziland was uneventful but with a few detours. One was to the largest supermarket in Swaziland (I think the only reason that it was the largest is because the counted the furniture store next door as part of the grocery store). The other was a scenic route to our hostel, we got lost. Sondezela Backpackers calls itself the ‘Rolls Royce of Southern Africa backpackers.’ It was nice. Clean beds and kitchen (complete with working refrigerator without food thieves unlike St. Lucia), a gorgeous view of green mountains and set in the middle of a game reserve (without any of the dangerous animals, ostriches and warthogs would routinely come into the backpackers).

December 28, 29, 30, 31- To my surprise and delight Becca and Alicia, the two volunteers closest to me, and Becca’s friend, Dawn, happened to be staying at Sondezela as well. The next couple of days followed a very relaxed pattern. In the morning, we would normally make an effort to go to a craft market or get some yummy coffee in town and in the afternoon there were short hikes in game reserve where we could get within three feet of warthogs and deer like things. (It was too close for my comfort, warthogs have tusks! They could seriously hurt me!) In the evenings, we would cook, swim and take in the amazing views and cool mountain air. One afternoon we went to a little Ncwala ceremony, a pre-curser to the most sacred of Swazi rituals and the beginning of the harvest season. The scandalous head princess of the royal family led the singing and dancing and to watch, we had to take part. I don’t really know how to describe it. The songs were slow and solemn and the dancing matched the pace of the songs. Much more interesting was the princess, she is known for being overtly sexual and wearing teeny-tiny skirts. She routinely gets in trouble in the press. On New Year’s Eve, Kelsey and Becca got really sick with fever, chills and diarrhoea. With a heavy heart (and listening to Kelsey’s worries that it was malaria) we went to a New Year’s Eve bash at the House on Fire called “Hollywood, Swazi-style”. In the daylight, House on Fire is awesome with elaborate art deco flairs and poetry on the walls. At night, it’s like any other club (sometimes they hold plays), packed with revelry except with a surprisingly white crowd. We danced some until the count-down. Once 30 seconds to midnight arrived, the DJ went crazy and started counting down as fast as he could, often having to start over from 30 because he counted to fast. I didn’t really realize that it was the New Year because I was laughing too hard at the DJ until I saw fireworks filling the sky. Afterwards, there was more dancing and pressure to stay until the House on Fire closed at 5 AM. We didn't stay that long! [pics: up-close and personal with warthogs and zebra; me, Meagan, Jillian joking after walk with warthogs]

January 1- Woke up too early after dancing and was a complete bitch for most of the morning. Unfortunately, we had to leave Swaziland and drive up to Kruger National Park so I wasn’t able to fester and get over myself alone and ended up snipping at everyone else. Alicia (Becca and Dawn are going elsewhere once Becca gets over the flu) is joining our group for Kruger, it is Alicia’s and my first trip there. Kelsey was getting healthier even though her appetite hadn’t returned. At this point, I had had enough of travelling with the same people for a month (as I’m sure, they had had enough of me). They’re all great, but I don’t think I like anyone enough to spend a month in their almost constant company. The border crossing was quick, and we spent a very short amount of time driving in South Africa before entering Kruger. Once in the park, we established a pattern: oh and ah over animals then realize that we need to hurry to our lodging before 6:30 to avoid a huge fine. We stayed in a little six rondavel area which had a good kitchen but without electricity, pots, utensils or plates. We managed by borrowing pots from neighbors and using Tupperware and pot lids for plates. Outside of the enclosure, spotted hyenas would circle because of the meat that they smelled. Their den was a few minute drive from where we slept. [pic: spotted hyena mom and cub outside of their den]

January 2- Drive around Kruger. We saw plenty of animals: white rhinoceros, cape buffalo, ground hornbills, spotted hyenas, impala, waterbuck, zebra, elephants, wildebeest, nyala, giraffe, crocodiles, warthogs, baboons, vervet monkeys and a lioness but there was a lot of time in between sittings and it just wasn’t as cool as getting up-close like we did in Swaziland. We kept stopping at a larger lodge to see the sightings board in hopes that we would happen along cheetah, leopard or wild dogs after guidance from other people. But, there were a lot of baby animals (baby wildebeest are surprisingly cute) and I got to drive the manual car for a little bit without scaring anyone too badly. That night, we could hear lions off in the distance.

January 3-We left early, with a couple of hours to drive around the park. Afterwards, we dropped Alicia off in Nelspruit, ate lunch at the mall, dropped Kelsey off at her site and finally arrived at The Oaks, Jillian’s village. Jillian has a cute square-devol to herself and a good relationship with her family and especially her family’s dog for the walks she takes it on.

January 4- Jillian and Meagan dropped me off in Tzaneen from which I took several taxis back to my site. I was lucky: each taxi left within 30 minutes of my arrival. My host mom greeted me with a smile and a hug, and I had a large stack of never-read before books collected from Jillian and mailed from home. It was a great vacation and yet I’m so happy it’s over.

Happy New Year!

2007-01-17T10:24:00.000+02:00

It’s the start of a new school year! It’s the beginning of the end for my time in South Africa! Yay! I’m excited about coming home but nervous because I have no idea what I want to do or where to live. Add in the self-esteem black hole called medical school applications and my return stateside seems like it’s going to be a crash course in stress. The educators at my schools remembered that I’ll be going home in the coming months and have (kinda) committed to working more with me for the next school terms. We had a productive meeting about starting a library at my key school yesterday and my fingers are crossed that the momentum will carry throughout the year. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of teachers that want to work on a library at that school!

It’s also the end of summer holidays. For affluent South Africans, Christmas and New Year’s means a braii (barbeque) on a beach. I’m happy to report that I celebrated my best Boxing Day ever (December 26) by going to a beautiful, deserted beach surrounded by a game reserve (we saw a rhinoceros on our drive to the beach) then returned to pink champagne, dinner and chocolate cake. Hope that Boxing Day next year will be just as good. (And on a beach. I love beaches.)

I won’t bore you with all of the details about my holidays. I’m working on a complete version with a few pictures, but it will take me awhile to complete. The trip wasn’t entirely without worry. About a week into holidays I got a text message from my supervisor reminding me to report all of the days that I was a vacation to her. It got me wondering why she would remind us and the Peace Corps South Africa rumor mill went into full force. I heard that four people had been administratively separated and sent home because they did not report their travels. I started to worry about all of my friends and debated over text message where people were and whether they reported their days. In the end, it wasn’t anyone I know. The newest group of South African volunteers swore into service in October, meaning that they could not travel from their sites until December 22 (it’s a Peace Corps policy, no travel for the first three or last three months of service). A group of four decided to break travel restrictions and went hiking in the Drakensburg Mountains, close to Lesotho (far, far away from their sites). One morning they woke up to discover that all of their belongings had been stolen during the night. They called the Peace Corps office for help, got air-lifted out of the mountains and tried (in vain) to explain that it really wasn’t their fault that they left their sites without telling the office where they were going while on travel restriction. If they had waited a week to start hiking and told the office, they wouldn’t have been sent home.

The trip back to site was long, but the transition from vacation to village life has been made easier by a huge stack of books that I picked up from one of the women I travelled with and packages of books from Joanna and Cara. Thanks! I can’t think of anything better than escaping into a good book.

A few days after I returned from my holiday, my host mom started telling me about all of the food that they didn’t have (basically, there was mealie meal for porridge and they needed everything else) and I felt pressure to buy food for everyone. Since that wasn’t the original deal that I set-up with my host family, I can’t afford to feed myself and my host parents and they can afford their own food, I confronted my host father. We had a nice chat (even though it was difficult to hear him over the television) and he told me that the food that I buy is as an occasional ‘gift’ to the family. Basically, it’s an extra and I shouldn’t feel pressure to buy things. I wanted to tell him that I wanted to cook for myself all the time and buy all of my own food, but I chickened out and told him that I have eaten too much bogobe (hard porridge) over the past year and I will cook for myself on the nights that they eat bogobe. I don’t know what my host mom thinks of the new deal, but I feel great. There’s so much freedom in cooking for myself and I don’t have to worry about eating all of their food. Plus, I get to eat something other than bogobe and potatoes for dinner.

Hope all is well with everything at home. . .

I could level mountains with my good intentions

2006-12-05T10:27:00.000+02:00

I apologize for the long hiatus from this blog. I keep writing things down that I want to post, but then never actually post them. My good intentions could level a mountain.

I wrote about a teacher getting donations from businesses in town towards a bicycle for me. A few weeks ago she appears with a new bike for me. I was floored. She and my host family took it upon themselves to get me a new bike. It's blue and nice (but would require taking the brakes apart to fix a flat tire, which happens at least once a week) but I prefer the bike that I already have. I'm keeping both for the moment because my current bike is making distressing noises when I peddle.
If they can get a new bike without my help or motivational speeches, why don't they do so many other things? A library, getting along with other teachers at the school or lesson planning would be nice.

A teacher at Tshukudu organized a game drive through his church (the same church that Becca, my closest volunteer goes to) and invited me to come along. Becca and I both decided to go, assuming that we would be going to a game lodge and searching landscapes for animals would be the extent of our day.
We were wrong. We happily arrived at Lapalala Wilderness area (only 45 minutes late, a record) and discovered it specializes in taking school groups from surrounding villages and introducing the learners to flora and fauna that they only see on TV even though the animals live a 30 minute drive away. The group we were with was mostly children from grades 1 to 7 (they prefer seventh to tenth graders) and we didn't have enough adults (they prefer to have teachers so they can go back and teach other learners). Instead of the hiking that was planned, we took a short walk to the river and in the afternoon played a game emphasizing that decisions communities and game farms make effect each other and they should work together for world peace. We ended the day with a quick game drive spotting zebra and white rhinoceros and stopped to feed a domesticated black rhinoceros. The difference, I learned, between a white rhinoceros and a black rhinoceros are what they eat and their lips. White rhinoceroses have flat, normal lips perfect for grazing grass. Black rhinoceroses prefer the leaves off of trees and have adapted an upper lip similar to an up-side down tonge perfect for ripping leaves off of branches. This rhinoceros was an abandoned three year-old who made adorable (I know, who would have thought adorable and rhinoceros belong in the same sentence?) mewing noises. We were given a handful of food and held it up to her and she scooped it out of our hands with her lip.
On my way back to my house, there was another animal encounter: a goose attack. I was walking, minding my own business, a little giddy from the adorable rhinoceros mewing, when a big, white goose starts waddling towards me with its beak wide open and looking for some flesh. I could hear my dad, "goose bites hurt" in the back of my mind and I did by best diversionary tactics. I waved my arms, screamed and ran the other direction. It worked great. The goose knows who's boss and hasn't bothered me since. A good day.

My host parents are old. 76 and 73. Their grandkids are always coming by, cooking, cleaning and delivering messages between their parents and my parents. A constant visitor is Lefenya, AKA Finky. Finky just finished grade 7 and has the interesting preference of playing with girls in grade 3 instead of children her own age. She's also 5' 11" and towers over everyone. Finky decided to visit some friends in Shongoane 2 about an hour walk from where she lives. Her friends got a lift back to Shongoane 3, but she decided to walk home alone even though it was dark. She gets to Shongoane 3, but still has another 30 or 40 minutes to walk in order to get to her house when some men in a car stop. The men demand that they get in the car, she refuses and they smack her and drag her into the car. They drop her off in the bush and she walks for the next day and a half without food or water through the bush. She was too afraid to walk on the road.
Back in Shongoane 3, her family is looking every where for her and thoughts atomatically turn for the worst. I thought of rape, murder, abduction and using her body for muti. People who believe in traditional medicine (and all sorts of other traditional things) believe that body parts of other people will heal them, make them better businessmen or give them good luck. I've heard of people whose brains were taken so that a business will have two brains and thus be twice as successful. Not many people believe in it, but enough do to make it a possibility.
After she walked back she was tired, but ok. The men were bored and simply wanted to have a little fun by abducting a girl.

Last Monday, my host mother's sister died. The sister had visited our house several times and I was always shocked at the state of her health. She couldn't walk, her voice was hoarse that she usually choose not to speak and she gave up on eating about a month ago. I thought she was 80, but she really was only 59. Her family took her to clinics and hospitals multiple times but all the doctors and nurses were able to do was give her a feeding tube to plump her up a little and send her home. I'm not clear on what the cause of death was, but my host father said it was the 'illness' (AIDS).
My Mma went to her house and spent the week cooking, cleaning, staying up all night singing, getting ready for the funeral and mourning. She came back yesterday, exhausted.
Back at our house, things weren't cheery either. I am a young woman. My host father is an old man. Guess who cooks, cleans and serves? Guess who wasn't happy about it? We were almost out of food (except for mealies to make hard porridge, which I refuse to cook ) and I went to town to get food. I bought rice, pasta and potatoes for my host father expecting to be paid back (I buy electricity for the whole family and most of my own food. This food was for him.). Instead I come home to him telling me that he really wanted eggs with no offer of paying me back. And I had to cook dinner, then serve it to him on the table, finishing off with washing the dishes and cleaning up after the granddaughters who had visited earlier in the day. I know I shouldn't be so upset, how I am any better than all of the other women who willing do this for him? But I was. I refused to eat with him and discovered a way that he would do some of the work himself: I cook and clean only for myself. If he gets hungry, I say "I've already eaten" and I'm off the hook. PLUS I get to eat whatever I want instead of hard porridge and potatoes. The house was dirtier than I like it, but hey, at least I didn't have to serve an old man who is perfectly capable of helping me or taking care of himself.

My, no, Alicia's, no, the Peace Corps' Bike

2006-10-20T12:28:00.000+02:00

A few weeks ago one of my teachers came by with a donation request she wanted me to read. I went into proof-reading mode and tackle the letter. The letter is different from any other one I have read (her use of Sepedi grammar with English words is common) because it's about me.

The 12 year-old that stole my bike was running a bicycle chop-shop complete with associates in other villages so that stolen bikes are never found. The police never found mine and no one in the village has seen it either. Luckily, Alicia (a near-by volunteer) never uses hers and was happy to get it out of her room and give it to me. Because the Peace Corps bought the bikes, my old one and its replacement are exactly the same. The look-a-likes tricked a lot of people into thinking that the original bike was found.

My host parents are unhappy with the police for their commitment after the day that the bike was stolen. The police visited our house again only after they heard that my host father was unhappy with them. My host parents decided that I should get a new bike and called the teacher to help them. Together, they are trying to show their appreciation for me and what I'm supposed to be doing here. The teacher wrote the donning letter and took it to town to solicit donations.

I didn't know about the new bike plan until after she solicited businesses. When I found out, I explained that I don't really need a new bike. Alicia never wants to see the bike again. I asked if there is a better place to spend the donation money. After that discussion, I never heard about the donations again. I haven't seen any money either.

Above is a picture of me with the bike. The outfit is the same every day except a different t-shirt. I replaced the original intertubes with thorn-resistant tubes and I haven't had a flat tire in months; before I had a flat twice a week. I also up-graded the tire pump provided by the Peace Corps to one that actually works. You can't tell in the picture, but the pedals are bent funny from the rocks in the road and each rotation of the pedals causes a worrisome creaking and clatter. If this one falls apart maybe Becca (another neighboring volunteer) will give me her bike?

SCORPIAN

2006-10-20T12:12:00.000+02:00

One morning I found this guy despartly trying to escapr our bathtub, either by scaling the walls or sinking down the drain. I decided to take its picture and then wait for my host mom to wake up and kill it. She did and I was very happy to be living with people and not on my own!
His body (not including legs or tail) was about the size of my thumb.

Bloody Shirt

2006-09-22T12:14:00.000+02:00

For 66 days there's been singing in town, with no end in sight. Shoprite and Checkers grocery store employees throughout South Africa are on strike and they sit, dance and sing outside of the store (although other towns' strikers no longer go to the strike). Early on into the strike workers lined the walk-way into the store, intimidating shoppers. A week into the strike, police and security guards started patrolling the area in front of the store, kicking the strikers across the street. Across the street is not far enough to keep the store and shoppers safe.

Within the store, all is quiet. Black community members are afraid to enter the store because the strikers (or strike supporters) will beat them up. Without 80 percent of their customers, supplies of food aren't ordered, fruit goes bad before it's bought and a store-worth of employees were hired. My mma needed special cooking oil (only available at Shoprite) for my host father. Because she is afraid of entering Shoprite, she asked me to buy it for her.

The store itself isn't safe either. Shoprite Ellisras offered 50,000 rand for information leading to the arrest of persons responsible for recent bomb threats.

Strikes are a new experience for me. In the States, strikes were only in history books and sometimes on the TV in cities far away. Here, strikes, like everything else, become a social commentary. Strike songs and rhetoric are phrased the same way as anti-Apartheid demonstrations. Strikers want the support of the black community and at least in Ellisras, intimidation keeps people from thinking about whether they should support the strike or shop any way. Waving a bloody shirt keeps the blacks away, but it doesn't bring the rainbow nation closer together or help create jobs in an area with 40 percent unemployment.

Crossing cultures

2006-08-29T09:50:00.000+02:00

Thursday night my key school principal came to my house to discuss a few things. My host mom complained to a teacher who told the principal that I've been keeping food in my room. I didn't when I first came to live here, but I noticed how fast food disappeared when I left it in the kitchen. If you're American, you're probably asking yourself, "Why does it matter if Melissa keeps food in her room?" That is the whole problem.

I, being American, asked, "Why does it matter if I keep food in my room?"

"It's our culture to keep food seperate from where we sleep."

I start imagining dorm rooms with refridgerators back at college and one-room tin shacks that dot my village and fill townships across South Africa. But I keep my mouth shut. "It's not my culture. I am an American."

I could say, "It's not my culture" to so many things. The fundamentals are different. American culture focuses on the individual. My food. My room. My money. The culture of villages on the community, especially large extended families. Everything is shared, no questions asked. Not rocking the boat is an admirable quality.

It's not my culture to formally greet everyone I see. Walking to school each morning requiers greeting 20 people. Once at school I need to greet all the teachers. No longer can I start a conversation with a nod, smile, or "hey." Little children have a formal greeting too; they calp twice then wait for their hands to be kissed or shook.

It's my culture to talk softly unless angry. Now I yell, "Could you talk a little bit softer? You're giving me a headache."

It's my culture to compliment people on their increasing fitness level. Instead, "Ooooo, Lethabo! You're getting fat! South Africa loves you!" is a compliment. I've started to explain that regardless of South Africa's love for me, to never call me fat.

I spend time alone in my room: reading, writing, plotting diabolic plans to stop the music from the shebeen (illegal bar) a block away. But it's not my host family's culture. They think I'm sleeping or sick. They think I'm angry.

My principal and I go to rehash our conversation with my host parents. Mma says that I'll go home for two months in October 2007 but I'll come back to live in the village forever. It takes all my will-power to restrain myself from saying, "No. I miss blending in and strangers ignoring my presence. I miss refridgerators, fans, washing machines, dryers, running water and snow. I want a roof AND a ceiling over my head. I'm tired of hearing what everyone else is doing in the house because the walls stop a foot below the roof. I want disturbing the peace ordinances and neighbors who obey ordinances. I want tex-mex, Chinese and cheese. I want more than one radio station. I'd like to not read tv. If I lived in South Africa, which isn't going to happen, I'd live in a city. With air conditioning. And good internet.

Instead, I smile. "I'm an American. I want to go home."

"You must hate South Africa."

"No, there's just something about where you grew up. Do you want to leave South Africa and never see your family again?"

By now, you must be thinking that I'm miserable and 30 seconds from taking the next plane to JFK international. I'm not. I like my life here. Really, I do. I like sharing and greeting. I see so much potential for South Africa to grow and change. I see all the citizens of this beautiful land entering the first world, not just the ones in cities and tourist hot-spots. The problem is a universal one: culture.

My principal ends the conversation. "I respect your culture. Just go back to doing what you were before." Don't expect exceptions in our culture to be made for you. We're not going to change. Assimilate, Lethabo. Just. Blend. In.

But Americans would never ask anyone to assimilate, right?

Anniversary

2006-08-19T17:51:00.000+02:00

August 18th marked a whole year that I've been here in South Africa (October 13th will be my first year of service). I thought this was a good time for a general up-date on how things are going.

I continue to be amazed by my host mom. She likes to be constantly busy (despite her 73 years) and when she finally finished her work in the fields, she started going to funeral preparations or chasing the cows across the countryside. In addition, she continues to do the cooking and washing of clothes (she's smart and has convinced a granddaughter to clean the house for her). My host father has been at the hospital since late May. I get the impression that he's suffering from the getting-old-disease. Getting old is fatal, but nobody can guess when. He was supposed to come back this weekend, but the date keeps getting pushed later and later. I like it in the house when he's not there because it's so quiet!

The road work and my hatred of riding the bike continues. There are conflicting stories that the part of the road that I use will be finished in January or it will be finished in October (just in time for me to leave South Africa!). Unfortunately, almost everyone drives on the new road and it is now just as bumpy and sandy as the detour. At least I have a story to tell to children when they complain about how awful their lives are. I can hear it now, "Well, I had to ride my bike in 110 degree weather through sand and bumps a foot deep!" It's even getting exaggerated already. :)

On the other hand, winter has remained for longer than normal and I couldn't be happier. An average winter day in my village is 40 in the morning with highs in the mid-80s. It's glorious. It makes riding the bike almost pleasant.

In the schools, my teachers have finally started to trust me. They are beginning to tell me what they really think instead of what they think I want to hear. A big step forward. At each school I'm working on a different main project:
Tshukudu: RNCS, revised national curriculum statement. It's a plan designed by the department of education to help the teachers with lesson planning so that their lessons are learner-centered instead of teacher-centered. Really boring but really important.
Ramojapudi: Individual computer lessons for the teachers. 3 of the 17 teachers have used a computer before. The principal hopes that they will be able to do all of their record keeping on the computer by next year. About half of the teachers pick it up really quickly, while others struggle. I thank my Gramma for all her computer questions back at home that taught me a little patience. She should be proud that she is a much quicker learner than a handful of teachers.
Mmera: Writing and implementing a school-wide discipline plan. The plan covers everything from school hours to rules and specific actions to take when a learner misbehaves. This is a continuation of the alternatives to corporal punishment workshop held in May. I'm hoping that between me and the teachers we can eradicate corporal punishment at this school and I can take the lessons I've learned to the other two.
All of the projects at the schools take a longer time than they would in the US. Even though I'm not accomplishing much every week, I hope that the few changes I help to instill last a long time.

Finally, what have I been keeping myself busy with since April? MCAT studying! It's over! I'm free! I actually really liked studying because it gave me a specific goal to do each day and I could go to sleep at night feeling like I accomplished something. I took the exam today. . . I feel like I did after I took a practice exam and I'm hoping the results will be good. I'll find out in October. Of course, the logistics were not without problems. I woke up at 3:45 this morning with a dull anticipation of the test. (Similar to how I'd feel before a steeplechase. Well prepared but anxious to start.) I got ready, slowly, and listened to my iPod. Called a taxi and headed towards the testing center. Unfortunately, neither the driver or I had any real idea where the testing center was and we ended up asking for directions at gas stations twice. The second time he even bought gas. I was freaking out because I was already ten minutes late. When I arrived, I found out it didn't matter that I was late because there was a line to register for the test. Registration involved scanning my driver's license, taking digital fingerprints and a photo. Everything worked great and the workers clicked 'okay' to send the information in just as they realized that my age was 63 on the form! My driver's license scanned wrong on my birth date was 2/26/1943. They assured me that's it's fixed now.

That's as much of an up-date I can think of! Leave a comment if there's something you're dying to know more about that I left out. I miss you all!

Tourism

2006-07-27T11:18:00.001+02:00

A friend recently mailed me an article from the Washington Post about tourism in South Africa and asked what I thought. It mainly talked about the big attractions that South Africa has to offer, "Big cats, Zulus and big cities make South African tourism boom," alluding to ample wildlife, culture and cities like Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban.
It's true: there are plenty of opportunities to view wildlife. But at private game lodges or national parks because the big animals are fenced-in. An escaped elephant or hippopotamus is worthy of news coverage and many people in my village have never seen one of the big five (lion, leopard, water buffalo, elephant, and rhinoceros) although all of these animals are 20 km from the village.
It's also true that the Rainbow nation offers diverse and interesting cultural displays including a wide variety of food, dances, songs and clothing. But the opportunities to see these cultural displays are usually at 'cultural villages' like Lesedi Culture Village and Shakaland. Traditional culture is slowly fading out of the rural villages as villagers move away and adopt more and more Western culture into their own.
Cape Town is beautiful. Johannesburg is big and brash and offers a glimpse into the country's history. Durban offers a mile of beaches and tons of delicious Indian food.
Tourism is about to become the largest economic sector in South Africa and it will continue to grow as the 2010 soccer world cup approaches. But, the exceptions are large. Few South Africans are able to enjoy what their country offers or aware of its assets. Few tourists visit or know how the majority of South Africans live (in a township or former homeland with very little money). In tourism (like most of South African life) there are two South Africas, the one that the world sees that is dynamic and moving into the 21st century and every where else.

Ultimate Power

2006-07-18T09:14:00.000+02:00

I, who flinch when a labrador retreiver runs to me for an ear scratch, have discovered the ultimate power. I can make any dog in my village stop in its tracks. How? Simple. Yell, "Fucek!" and the dog stops (sometimes it even puts its tail between its legs and sulks). Fucek is Afrikaans for piss off, or well, you know.

Children have this power too. Imagine: kids playing in the street. I run by and they yell, "Lethabo! Lethabo!" A dog starts barking and chasing me and they yell, "Fucek! Fucek!" and surround the dog. The bewildered dog tries to shrink back into the ground.

Ah, the power of swearing in a foreign language.

Zambia 'The Real Africa'

2006-07-11T14:17:00.000+02:00

After forgetting/losing my credit card in my village, talking to many South African Airways representatives (much of it on hold and being told "thanks for your patience!"), I successfully boarded a plane with Alicia, Kelsey, Becca, and Becca's friend from home, Romaira. We flew from Johannesburg over our villages (you can see them from the plane, they're the reddish/brown patches that glitter surrounded by bush) to Livingstone, Zambia. Zambia calls itself 'The Real Africa' and it was much more like the Africa I imagined from the States then what I see in South Africa.
The airport had two gates: domestic and international. We decided that ANY airport in the US is bigger. Kelsey's sister-in-law met us at the airport and whisked us away to her lodge, Natural Mystic. Above is a view of the walk to our chalets.
From left, Romaira, Kelsey, me, Alicia, Becca in the Natural Mystic chariot.
The first day, we spent exploring the Zambian side of Victoria Falls. The mist/spray from the falls was so strong that it was raining all over the bridges and overlooks! It was really pretty and I kept thinking, "I could volunteer here! I'm sure they need my help!"
Outside of the official Falls park, is a market. The vendors really like to talk and would call you into their shop and wouldn't really let you go until you either bought something or promised to come back. I wasn't so good at not talking, and by the end of the day the vendors knew my name and would call to me! To the left is me (talking) and babboons cleaning each other on the roof.

After the market, we walked to the up-scale hotels. At the Zambezi Sun there are zebras and giraffe that walk around. Alicia got a bit too close for my comfort. . .
but I'm more than comfortable with the hippo!

The next day we went whitewater rafting on the Zambezi river. I don't have photographic evidence but it was a lot of fun. The Zambezi is ranked as one of the top ten rafting locals in the world, and it's always changing because of the differing water levels with the seasons. My favorite part was when we would be at the top of wave and looking straight across to another wave eight feet high! Becca was the only one that fell out of the raft. She took a 'short' swim, before Kelsey saved her. Kelsey, Becca, and I took the option of climing out of the raft, up a cliff, and then jumping off of it. They took the short one (5 m), and I took the high one (6 m). Really scary, and then really fun. You should try it.

Over the next couple of days, we split up. Kelsey and I did a two-day trip to Choebe National Park in Botswana. There were so many elephants!

We were lucky enough to see a pair of lionesses right before sunset. To the left are quilla. There were thousands of them and they would dart through the air forming clouds and following each other in schooling patterns. They were beautiful.

After the sunset, we had to hurry back to camp because night drives are prohibited within the park. On our way back, we saw several Land Cruisers (full of tourists) staring into the bushes and taking lots of pictures. The road was surrounded by a huge herd of water buffalo and a group of seven lions had killed a baby! We stopped to watch the lions feed, and a male buffalo charged the lions. After making sure the buffalo wouldn't kill them, the lions started eating again. We watched until the park rangers pulled up behind us in a massive army truck carrying AK47s and quickly returned to camp.
Kelsey showing off our lavish pit toilet at camp.
The next day we did another game drive in the morning, and saw another lioness. I saw a hyena (briefly) too. To the left are babboons. They were searching for elephant poop so they could look for bugs and seeds in it.

In the afternoon we went on a boat cruise in the park. We saw more elephants, and watched them swim across the river. They would walk/swim and then lift their trunks out of the water when they wanted air. The baby to the left is less than three weeks old. You can tell because the edges of its ears and trunk are still pink. It's feeding from its mom, the udder is in between the front legs.
After Choebe, we returned to the lodge for a couple of chill days. There's nothing quite like relaxing next to the Zambezi river, being seranaded by hippos, reading, and eating delicious food.
Our last morning at the lodge. From left, Alicia, Kelsey, and me in front of the Zambezi.

Pictures from Cape to Pretoria trip

2006-06-30T09:34:00.000+02:00

For my first vacation in South Africa, my boyfriend (Drew) came to visit and we took a road trip from Cape Town, along the Indian Ocean and up through the Drakensburg, to Pretoria. The vacation was way back in the beginning of April, but I have difficulties up-loading pictures. I'm sorry for the delay! To the left, is an African penguin in Simon's Town, just south of Cape Town. The penguins have earned themselves the name 'Jackass' because of the loud donkey-like call that they make.

To the left is the Cape of Good Hope. The park is beautiful with lots of tourists.
If you tilt your head to the left, you can see one of the many waterfalls in Hogsback. Hogsback proudly proclaims to be the inspiration for JRR Tolkein's The Hobbitt, even though he left South Africa when he was five! Regardless, with the lush rainforested hills it isn't hard to imagine a hobbitt living here.
Cows on the beach in Port St. John's. Nice warm water, chill marajauna-smoking hosts, and more forested green hills.
View of the Drakensburg Mountains. We hiked up to the top the Amphitheater to see Tugula Falls, the longest waterfall in South Africa falling 5K. The day was foggy, so the pics of the falls themselves aren't very impressive.
Wild dogs competing for meat in De Wildt Cheetah and Research Center outside of Pretoria. Really close-up to wild dogs and cheetahs and a decent substitute for a game drive.

Petting a king cheetah at De Wildt. Some of the cheetahs are taken to schools and farms around South Africa for educational purposes.

We also stopped at the Valley of Desolation (not great pictures) but it was amazing.

The highlights of the trip for me was the excellent food we had every where along the way and NOT being the local celebrity for two weeks! I'm going to Victoria Falls with some volunteers on Monday. . . I hope to post pictures sooner and make all of you want to come!

Fish are Friends not Food. Well...

2006-06-30T09:22:00.000+02:00

It's official. My five years of vegetarianism are over. To the left is a picture of me chomping into a burger at Maxi's while in town with Becca and Alicia. It didn't taste great.

Why am I eating meat? My diet in the village consists of yogurt and muesli for breakfast, peanut butter and jelly with apples for lunch, pap (hard mealie porridge) with potatoes for dinner. Where's the variety? The iron? Plus, I've noticed that I get really tired and kinda cranky after exercising (especially after riding that evil contraption some people call a bicycle) and that's not normal for me.

In the end, I just want to be healthy. But I don't think I'll be enjoying meat any time soon.

Youth Day a Success?

2006-06-21T10:04:00.001+02:00

This morning I bathed, ate, and hurried of to school. On my way, I wondered where all the learners were. Normally, I'm surrounded by a thousand children every morning but this morning there were none. I asked the principal, "Why aren't there learners today?"

He replied that the teachers are busy doing schedules (ie, marking exams from last week and reporting the scores) and can not be in the classrooms. Because the teachers cannot be in the classrooms, the learners don't want to come to school (or is it that teachers don't want to deal with them this week?). Plus there isn't school lunch this week, so learners don't want to come when they aren't fed.

Despite the conditions at that school, another of my school is feeding their learners this week and expects them to be there. There may not be much teaching going on, but the teachers keep the learners busy, grade papers, and record marks all at the same time.

Last Friday was Youth Day, commerating the youth up-risings on June 16, 1976 across South Africa. The children protested against the use of Afrikaans in schools (which many of the educators and learners did not speak) and the educational gap between the schools that the white children go to and that the black children attend. The police told the learners to disperse, but they did not. The police fired tear gas into the crowd as children threw rocks. Then a shot fired. And another. Officially 23 children died others estimated that 200 children died. A full history

My teachers are proud of Youth Day. They should be. Regardless, they are part of a system that that is just as bad as the conditions of 30 years ago. The South Africa Human Rights Commision released a report a few days before the 30th anniversary of Youth Day detailing how there are still two systems of education in South Africa: one of the former white-only schools in cities and affluent suburbs (former model C schools) and one for rural or township schools in poor communities for the majority of students. The schools in rural communities (like the ones that Peace Corps Volunteers are working with) experience high levels of violence (mostly corporal punishment and sexual abuse of female learners), learners have difficulty understanding the language of instruction, low levels of community involvement (because schools are viewed as autocratic and alienating by community members), and that educator moral is low, many are underqualified and underperforming. Poverty is a hinderance, but with all of these other problems it cannot be an excuse. Full Report

So where does this leave the schools? I told my principal that I want the schools that I work with to be as good as former model C schools. He didn't think that it's possible. He's right, it's not possible tomorrow. But if all of the teachers actively make little changes every day those changes would add up. Yes be proud of Youth Day, but realize that the fight for good education is not over.

Women's Rights

2006-06-14T09:07:00.000+02:00

A recent text message from Becca:

hi girls! i miss home! last night we had a bit of a family dispute @ house. long story.. Stephen's [host cousin living with Becca] sis left gran & has been gone 4 weeks. Gran has been with us. They found Stephen's sister last nite @ boyfriends. older bro brought her here late last night while we were sleepn & uncle ripped some of her hair out! thats when we woke up. boyfriend threatened older bro with gun. matome [host brother], jack [worker of family living with family], older bro, uncle, took sis back 2 grans last nite (where we had xmas party) & beat up boyfriends ( i guess there r many) 2day jack & matome said they should have killed the boys, then matome told me he would shoot his gf or wife if they ever "made a mistake"! ahhh! hope u r bettr!

Becca's life is more like living in the news stories from the Sun [a sensationalist newspaper that is extremely popular in my village], but her message depicts a problems in South Africa: women's rights and domestic disputes. In South Africa, a woman is shot dead by a current or former partner every 18 hours.

The problems extend beyond boyfriends and girlfriends. Every 26 seconds a woman is raped in South Africa. Of those whom press charges, seven percent of cases reach conviction. Look at the trial of former Vice President Jacob Zuma. He was acquitted of rape charges on May 8th, but the trial itself conjured memories of the OJ Simpson trial back home. Every South African watched the trial on TV and knew the outcome. Learners skipped school to see the eight hours of coverage on SABC2 on the day of the verdict. Citizens are divided on his innocence and there is still talk of him becoming the next president of South Africa (although he still faces corruption charges).

Throughout the trial, the plantiff was held in the witness protection program, endured heckling and insults -- and saw her image burnt as she made her way into and out of court, and had to listen to her past sexual history discussed and displayed for the court and nation. She used to consider Zuma a father-figure. From him she heard that her skirt was an invitation to sex and although he did not wear a condom, his shower after intercourse protected him from HIV infection (the plantiff is HIV positive).

Men usually rape to show power over women. Including power over the former oppressor and over women who have become educated and hold positions of power and respect in the community. When I discuss it with teachers, they usually explain to me how rape is a woman's fault and that men are just being men. I tell them it's not.

Despite the high levels of violence in general and against women, I feel safe. There are a few men that I know to avoid but everyone else looks out for my safety and well-being. In the village I can't walk outside my door without yells of 'Lethabo!' and greeting multiple grannies. In town, waiters, ice cream scoopers, grocery store clerks, well, almost everyone, seems to know where I stay and why I'm in South Africa. They are looking out for me and I look out for myself.

Apologies

2006-05-23T14:45:00.000+02:00

I'm sorry that I haven't up-dated recently. It's not that I have nothing to say or down in the dumps. Actually, I have quite a bit to say and am doing pretty well(excpet for my normal complaints about bathingwhen it's cold and the evil bicycle). I promise pictures and observations/commentary are coming. AND I love hearing from all of you, in letter, e-mail, or post format. I just have a hard time believing that all of your lives keep going even when I'm not there to witness it! lots of love

IST

2006-03-15T10:24:00.000+02:00

In-service training started on my birthday. The few days before Alicia, Becca, and I visited one of my teachers and played with her adorable children (I'm holding/tickling Palesa, pronounced like Melissa except with a P, left). Then we went to IST and quickly started to the other education volunteers in my group as if we saw each other every day, not once in five months. They greeted me with 'Happy Birthdays!' and even sang.

Despite the good beginning, the first part of IST wasn't exciting. On most days, we listened to a speaker, we politely asked if the speaker could direct their talk to what we actually are doing, the speaker got confused and continued talking, we verbally shambocked (a reference to the stick with a piece of rubber on the end popular with the teachers for corporal punishment) the speaker, we gave up, we stopped listening, and the speaker kept talking. I have to admit that a room with 40 Americans is a little intimidating especially to a South African not used to people who voice their displeasure if the topic isn't exactly what was expected.

At night, we would go to a bar and dance (Heidi and Hossam busting a move below) or chat. Plus, there was a mini-performance of the Vagina Monologues. I did the monologue about the angry vagina, believing that there is nothing wrong with a woman who is angry, but still knows exactly what she wants (including sex). It was a lot of fun and everyone seemed to enjoy the performance because they kept asking (me especially) if we had acting experience and saying that we should act when we get back to the US. The second half of IST was better. Each volunteer invited a counterpart from their village (usually a teacher) and we were trained to facilitate discussions/sessions using the Life Skills hand book provided by the Peace Corps. Part of the training was to facilitate sessions for our peers during which I actually heard the teachers comment on their culture and HIV/AIDS without changing the topic, a welcome change compared to my village. My favorite sessions including discussing gender roles and another mimicking what it's like to wait to be tested for HIV. Because of the good time that I had at IST I expected to be a little depressed when I got back to my village. I'm not. My teachers are the same as before, but I'm starting to do little things around the school. Yesterday I helped the teachers with self-evaluations for the circuit. I'm hoping that by filling out the evaluations, they get good ideas about what I can help them with. It's a slow process, but maybe there's a little light?

on the run

2006-03-15T10:03:00.000+02:00

At IST, I started running again. It was nice to run with people. It reminded me how much I like running and that I actually do miss it. The reason I stopped? Well, I have a bunch of excuses. It is hot. I wake up way too early in the morning to run before school. The shebeens are full at dusk. I'm lazy. . .

But, after talking to Jesse (a fellow peace corps volunteer) at IST and making plans to run the Longtom and Comrades ultra marathons next year have inspired me to start again. I'm pleasantly surprised. I started running at dusk and oddly enough the drunk men don't bother me. Instead, kids run next to me for about 30 seconds then say, "Ke lapile!" (I'm tired!) and stop. Grannies and kids greet me and cheer me on; there's nothing like hearing your name chanted at the end of a run. It's cooled a little (usually around 30 C [88 F] at dusk) and with all the rain the landscape has finally changed from brown and ugly to pretty. The picture below shows a field of flowers on one of the paths I run down. The field alternates between pink and white splotches and smells kinda like lavender. I also run past fields planted with mealies and surprise the men and women still working there. I hope the rains never stop!

bike up-date

2006-03-15T09:47:00.000+02:00

Yes, my bike is still missing but that doesn't clear up all of my questions.

I was expecting the police to say something like, "Well, you didn't lock it. It's kinda your fault. There's nothing we can do." Instead, they keep looking for it in earnest. There could be a couple of reasons: 1. Bikes are expensive, 2. I'm considered a respected member of the community, 3. All thefts are treated very seriously. I think it's a combination, but it's hard for me to forget my teacher telling me that the people who stole it will be punished (she didn't mention anything about my bike being found). The earnest search made me think that it would be good. The police have come and asked me if two bikes are mine. Neither were. I told them the exact make of the bicycle and described the colors on it (red with a little gray). The bikes that they have shown me were blue or a unique comibination of black and neon. Both were in such bad shape that I would be happy to have the bike stolen.

Also, the Saturday night after my bike was stolen three men were shot and killed in Shongoane 1 at a soccer tornament. (Two villages away from mine and where all of my village's infrastructure is. I come here every week to use internet.) The argument was over a girl that the shooter accussed the others of sleeping with. A few days later, the killer committed suicide. My bike is taken so seriously but the police are also dealing with murders? I mean, it's ok if my bike is never found again if it prevents people from getting shot.

Alicia, one of the two closest volunteers, has given me her bike. It is exactly the same as my previous one. It is currently locked inside our house in a closet.

E kae bicycle?

2006-02-22T10:54:00.000+02:00

On Thursday night, I remembered that the most crimes occur during the first and last three months of service. Except for my iPOD debacle during training and the amount of unwanted attention/verging on harrassment from men, I counted myself lucky. True, I have stories but my health and possessions were intact. I crawled beneath the mosquito net and fell asleep to the sounds of TV in the next room.
While I slept, Mma checked on her merogo. That day, she gathered a bag of the almost-spinach leaves at ther masemo (garden), washed them when she returned home, and finally laid them out to dry in the shed. After checking, she came back inside and questioned Papa. "Where's Lethabo's bike?" (Well, she really said, "E kae bicycle?" Mma doesn't speak English.)
"It's not in the shed?" Papa replied.
"No."
"She must have moved it into her room."

My room is the last place I want my bike. There ins't a good place for it. Every where I put it I end up crawling over it, knocking it over, getting cuts and bruises, and swearing. The mornings that I use it, I wake up before the sun and anyone else in the house repeating swears while I maneuver it around four doors, two of which only open half-way. I repeat the process after coming home, this time dripping sweat and contemplating the next time I'll pee after drinking two Nalgenes (usually three hours later). The shed only has one door and I don't to crawl over it in there. My bike remained in the shed for the past three months.

Friday arrived. I woke up a little surly (it was pre-dawn, I'm entitled) but start the morning routine any way. As I'm heating up water for my bath, I go outside to retreive my bike. It wasn't there. Mma bustled in the outdoor kitchen next to the shed, preparing for her 1.5 mile journey to the masemo.
"Mma, e kae bicycle?"
"I don't know."
Since I'd exhausted my relevant Sepedi vocabulary, I found Papa inside so that I could query in English. I assumed someone borrowed my bike without asking. But that's not the answer I got.
"It's not in your room?"
Confused, I shoke my head. I was told of Mma and her late-night merogo checking and the missing bicycle. Papa decided to call the police. I decided to SMS (text) my principal and tell him what happened, send outraged SMSs to other PCVs, and inform Lydia (associate Peace Corps Director) of the situation. The police on their way and supervisors and friends notified, I hid in my room for a quick woe-is-me sniffle.
"Thabie?"
"Ke eng, Papa?" I dry my eyes and enter the hall-way.
Papa showed me a note Mma found. On one side is a numbered list, the other a name of a girl. It says things like:
1. I love you, Eiva.
2. Ke o rata love. (I love you love)
3. Ke nna ____. (I am ____)
6. Kiss to sex.
Since the note didn't mention me, I'm relieved. The writer can't express himself in English or Sepedi and I started imagining an 18 year-old that should have gone to better schools. Mma already had plenty of time to contemplate and called for Papa and I to follow her.
Mma led the way with the side-to-side sway of someone who doesn't bend her knees any more. Papa was second with a slow shuffle as if each step is pain. I bring up the rear, trying not to giggle at the sight we must make. We followed bike tracks around the yard. The perp took a wide loop around before exiting through the front gate. He must have been riding around as we watched TV and ate dinner.

The police came 45 minutes later. They quickly realized that I only really speak English well, not a useful language like Sepedi or Afrikaans and spent most of the time questioning my parents. I got to giggle again under my breath as they followed Mma around the yard (they looked bored). When Papa explained the note, one officer sped off to find the girl's family and left another officer with us to write down the report.
I spent the next hour hearing 'bicycle' surrounded by words that I don't know. Every once in awhile, Papa would translate the highlights.
The other police officer returned with two 12 year-olds. They had written the note (12 year-olds asking for sex!!) and were pushed to follow the tire tracks around the yard. I didn't giggle, the boys looked way to scared. The police officer drove off again with the boys in tow.
Another hour passes. Neighbors started to come and get the story. Mma was in her element, talking fast and the center of attention. Bicycle kept trickling to my ears, but I didn't hear the rest. The driving officer returns to pick up the marooned officer and they sped off to the station.

The rest of the day passed. Mma related the story to as many people as she could. Papa translated little bits so that I wasn't completely lost and made faces to perk up my spirits. I got calls from the Peace Corps, principals, and SMSs from PCVs commisserating and offering suggestions. At the end of the day, the driving officer returned with two more boys and asked me the color of my bicycle: he had found a blue bicycle that none of the boys owned. Alas, my bike was red.

Now, it's Wednesday. Still no bicycle and it looks like the boys were released. The mother of one of the boys came by last night and received a lecture from my host father (no cliff notes translation though). Because everything happens in Sepedi, I rarely know what is going on. It doesn't look like the thief/thieves are able to use my bike because everyone knows that it's mine and that it was stolen but it doesn't look like it's coming back either. Ah well. I'll get another bike, keep it safer, AND I got another story out of the deal.

miss you all

You say it's your birthday

2006-02-08T08:47:00.000+02:00

Today is the 76th birthday of my host father, John Monyeki. In honor of the day, here's a little more about my host parents.

Papa, as I've mentioned before, is fairly sick. He has adult on-set diabetes, high blood pressure, and arthritis. His kidneys sometimes bother him, but it's not diagnosed. Despite this, he says that he's not goingto complain about his health any more because it will get him no where. He continues to go to meetings several times a week for his induna duties, and leads Sunday services at the African Methodist Episcopalian Church. But he has started skipping Saturday funerals because he knows that he can't walk as far as he used to. He returned from three weeks in Hammonskral at the hospital about as new as a 76 year-old can be.

He cooks for himself occassionaly without complaint unlike any other South African male I know. He enjoys to eat one type of food for about two months, and then switches to something new. When I arrived at site, he was in a cabbage kick (with bogobe) and he switched to mazaban (a kind of boiled potato dish with onions and tomatoes or carrots) with bogobe.

He loves watching and listening to the news (except in English) and discusses local news with me when no one else is around. His favorite phrase: 'fuck 'em.'

Mma is my co-conspirator. Usually I do my best faces and impersonate people (especially Papa) for her benefit and mutual laughter. She especially enjoys my terminally cute moments.

She is the cooker and cleaner of the household (like all the gogos I know) but leaves work for her granddaughters to do when they visit.

TV and radio do not entice her, but she loves to talk and visits neighbors and relatives as often as she can. I'm afraid of what she tells them because she's convinced that when I leave and go back to America, that I will take her with me. She's even growing out her hair so that she can impress everyone there. She does not speak English and I don't think that she will enjoy the hustle and bustle of an American day. My least favorite thought is that she thinks that I will buy her plane ticket.

The final member of my immediate host family is Lefie, our cat. Papa ignores him but keeps Lefie around because he is good at catching bugs, lizards, birds, and large rodents. Mma enjoys pestering him and getting him to lash out and try to bite and scratch her. I scratch his ears occassionally making me his favorite person (he follows me almost every where including the pit toilet).

Pretoria

2006-02-01T10:16:00.000+02:00

Unfortunately I don't have much to report this week. I went to Pretoria to check out the office and picked up a few books on education (including 101 Kid's Chemistry Experiments) and few fiction books. I ran into a couple of other volunteers there and we spent the weekend feasting on food that I remember from home (I really want a bagel with cream cheese but I couldn't find any), watching movies, and wandering around the largest mall in the Southern hemisphere. We also went out and danced at night and ended up at a predominately Afrikaner club called "Drop Zone." The place always makes me laugh because of the wierd mix of music, Afrikaans folk song leading into gangster rap, and the attempts at dancing by Afrikaner men that look like they've had a few too many steriods. Regardless, I had fun primarily because the other Peace Corps Volunteers are so cool. Without them, Pretoria is a place to buy delicious food and feel very lonely.

In the office, there were a pair of med-evacs: one from Botswana and another from Madagascar. When I say that Peace Corps volunteers are simply happy for no apparent reason in other countries, Madagascar is one of the places I'm speaking of. The volunteer had been at her site for the same amount of time as I have but only had positive things to say and had never contemplated going home. I'm happier, but still jealous.

Home life. . .

2006-01-25T10:57:00.000+02:00

My host father has been in Hammanscraal for the past two weeks. He's been in a hospital for either high blood pressure, dibetes, or his kidney problems. He doesn't know when he'll be able to come home. I hope he gets better! With him away, my host mom visits neighbors more and I'm free to cook my own food and lounge about without feeling guilty for not sharing or be lazy. I even had the house to myself for a night when my Mma went to a funeral.

My host brother, Hans, who works in Johannesburg came home late last night (it's at least a four hour trip). He has a bandage around his right forearm covering stitches. He says that a machine did it. I don't really know Hans, but I do know that he's gone a lot when he's home (drinking?). Aloso, he caused property damage at one of the shebeens. It was enough damage that the police kept coming to our house and requesting that someone goes to pay it before they have to take action. Hans didn't take care of it himself, but waited for my host parents to take care of it.

Some eighth graders have been coming to visit me lately. They like to teach me traditional dances and learn simple ballet steps. Recently they've been coming to work on Sudoku puzzles with me. Maybe by learning logic they'll also learn critical thinking?

Athletics

2006-01-25T10:36:00.000+02:00

Track and Field season is here! At all three of my schools they are holding try-outs to see who's the fastest. The fastest learners will be trained and will race. If they are really good, they will be able to compete at the regional, provincal, and national level. Some of the kids were really fast! It was great to see people running and I'd love to help train the learners (although I really don't know how much an 8 year-old should be trained. I think they should just have fun). Unfortunately, it's also an excellent opportunity to see corporal punishment. Yesterday I watched learners pinched on the upper, inner thigh, hit with wooden switch, chased with an umbrella, and hit with a rope tied to a stick (to make a whip). From what I could tell the learners received punishments for being late, running slow, or playing a game while waiting their turn. It was especially hard for me to watche learners wince and jump as perfect lines appeared on their skin from the wooden switch.

Becca, Alicia, and I are planning on doing a corporal punishment workshop which will be presented at each of our schools. Topics will include the history of corporal punishment (it was encouraged during Apartheid to teach the learners to fear authority), results of corporal punishment, and an introduction to positive reinforcement. I can't expect corporal punishment to go away, but maybe my teachers will think about it in a new light.

New Year's

2006-01-18T11:27:00.000+02:00

For New Year's, Becca, Alicia, (the two closest volunteers) and I travelled to visit some friends in the Northwest Province. Some highlights:

-We spent a whole day travelling each way. The Northwest has landscape that reminds me of home with green, irrigated fields, silos, and holsteins. The only thing that reminded me that we were in South Africa were the occasional thorn bush fields, the cramped, hot taxi, and villages composed of corrogated steel shacks.

-Lalo made delicious refried beans and spanish rice for us. We helped with fresh guacomole and flour tortillas.

-In Kimberly, we had to wake up early in order to travel to meet up with the other volunteers. We couldn't find the night watchmen for our hotel, and we ended up climbing over a fence in order to get out. Kinda felt like a prison escape. . . Alicia is laughing up high with Lalo reaching to help her down. Becca is in the lower right of the picture.

-On the train from Kimberly to Hartswater there were men walking the aisles selling beer, cold drink (soda), hats, toys, and chips. There were also a pair of men singing accompanied by an accordian. None of the men were employees of the train, but sold things in order to pay for their ticket and hopefully make a profit. On the seat next to us were five or six drunk men (normally I'd be surprised to find people drinking at 9 AM but to completely wasted is another story). Sometimes they would start to yell at each other or slouch down next to the toilet to smoke.

-New Year's itself was a lot of fun. There was alcohol, friends, card games, and dancing at an Afrikaner bar. Just before we went to sleep, we raced shopping carts down a hill. I held my own with the lighter person and a bright red cart.

-The adjustment to being alone and in my village was really hard. For four whole days I was completely happy and then I returned to nothing.

It's raining. . .

2006-01-18T11:05:00.000+02:00

Will it rain or will the clouds disperse as soon as they get overhead? Clouds form almost every day but they always seem to blow away before anything can happen. Novemberish through February is the rainy/hot season and there have been two big rainstorms and ten or so sprinkles this summer. I was told that February is either unbearable hot or extremely rainy. These clouds sprinkled for five minutes. On the ground you can see the outdoor cooking area, our shed (looks like a shack), a big pile of wood for cooking, the neighbors' home, and a red taxi that Pele, my neighbor drives.

school woes

2006-01-18T10:12:00.001+02:00

School started again and I was welcomed by warm hugs, queries into how my holidays went, and comments to how I'm getting fat and the number of pimples on my face. I have gained a little weight (bored eating and less running than when I was in college) but not enough for anyone but me to notice. One teacher told me that I lost weight. I'm convinced that the comments on my size and complexion are as meaningful as discussing the weather. I'm trying to smile and ignore the comments plus tell myself that anyone bigger than me isn't allowed to tell me that I'm fat. Since only big mamas inform me of my size. . . this plan seems to work well.

For the first couple of days I was busy, actually busy, working on the school timetable for two of my schools. At the third, they had already completed it. I looked it over (not hard to do when it's on the chalkboard and in the staff room) and proceeded to ask questions. My big points: why do some classes have more periods than the national guidelines and the number of periods per subject differ per class? I should have expected the answers. More time is spent on languages because a lot of learners can't read in grades 4-7. The extra periods were taken from Maths, natural science, and social studies. I argued my best for more time in all three, but it was in vain. The time allocation per subject is unbalanced because the last three periods on Friday are not taught and any old subject was thrown in to fill the space. The reason that the last three periods aren't taught is that everyone from the circuit down doesn't work on Friday afternoons. Specifically, one of the teacher's unions supports the Friday afternoons off. I've already noticed that none of my teachers take work home at night and workshops, meetings, and athletics are scheduled during school hours cancelling classes. Grading and class planning is either not done or done in class leaving breaks free for gossip. This translates into four six hour workdays and Friday mornings. And I wonder why they think I'm working so hard when I'd define it as doing nothing. I keep planting the seed that teaching is a hard job and that good American teachers work just as hard outside of school hours as during. I'll keep trying to think up alternative phrasing.

Another issue is Limpopo Province's insistence on temporary teachers. Temporary teachers fill a postion in the school and work as teachers just like the permanent ones. The difference is that they face losing their jobs at the end of each term if the school can't justify their exsistence. Many of the temporary teachers in my schools have been teaching at that school for over five years. Each school should have a learner to teacher ration of 35:1 (translating into classes of 30-55 in real life) and the temporary teachers keept the ration close to what the government says it should be. In December, I discussed planning for the coming school year but the principals and teachers were wary because they didn't know how many teachers they would have in 2006. The decision was finally made in January and the schools started on January sixth for the teachers. Mmera was told by the circuit office to welcome two teachers from a school that closed (last year it had 18 learners and this year none came). They were quickly given a class, introduced to the rest of the teachers, and started to get used to the new environment. This morning, the circuit manager came and told them thtat they need to go to another school. The new teacher cried!

Finally, I've started to notice the different school management policies at my schools. My key school has the school management team (SMT) make all the decisions: assigning classes and committees to teachers, how many classes in each grade, and which things to spend the school budget on. The decisions are then told to the rest of the teachers with little discussion. The SMT even set it up so that they taught less periods per week than the other teachers. The other teachers accepted the changes, but weren't happy that they were excluded from the decision making process. At my other schools, the teachers all sat down and decisions weren't made until there was a concensus. All the teachers need to be present and nothing happens until they are. At one school I comforted the teachers who felt jipped and at the others I pushed the teachers to move ahead.

post-holidays update

2006-01-18T09:55:00.000+02:00

The holidays weren't quite what I was expecting. . . I suppose I was hoping for the American-style family days except in hot weather. The festive season brought people home who are working in Gauteng Province. Almost everyone spent their time at the local shebeens until they passed out or their money ran out. Plus, there were firecrackers going off at random times of the day accompanied by shouts of, "Happy!" The first time I heard them I thought they were gunshots!

Internet is now only 5 rand on hour! A whole hour is about the same price as mailing a letter, a little less than a dollar. I haven't been feeling the letter writing business lately. It's not that I have more to fill my time (I don't); it's more that I realized that I'm living beyond my meager peace corps means and the amount of letters each week was getting pricey and it takes so long for a letter to get here and even longer for it to arrive home. Plus, my life is dull. I swear. I spend mutliple hours reading each day with highlights of selected telephone calls and text message conversations with other peace corps volunteers.

With that said, a few people have mentioned plans of packages. Could you post a comment or e-mail me if you have sent one with when you sent it and to which address. If I know about it, I can corner the post office workers.

Happy Holidays

2005-12-15T11:27:00.000+02:00

The internet place that I use every Wednesday is closing for the holidays! They say that I can call them and they'll open it just for me, but that makes me feel guilty. If I don't up-date in the next three weeks, don't worry. I'm happy and not dead although probably extremely bored.

But, that just means I get to say Happy Holidays now!

Free SMSes!

2005-12-15T11:15:00.000+02:00

That's right! Send me a text on the internet. . . Benefits:
1. It's free.
2. I never turn my phone off.
3. Did I mention it's free?

Simply log onto Vodacom4Me. Username: 0765312149 Password: 735674
Scroll down to where it says "»Free SMS's left = 20 of 20 " on the right-hand side. Click on "send now." Type my username into the number slot (my cell number) and type your message.

I can receive 20 free messages a day. Come on. . . you know you want to!

holiday gifts

2005-12-14T11:37:00.000+02:00

Last Thursday Becca, Alicia, and I went into town to get flu shots (it's not flu season, the US government thinks that the regular flu shot will prevent Avian Flu). I came home, expecting to find everything as normal. Instead, our living/dining room is filled with plastic bags full of tea, coffee, sugar, mealie meal, soup mix, corned beef, biscuits, pasta, oil, candles, matches, and jam. 51 packages were left for the elderly people in my community donated by the local Afrikaner farmers. I'm pretty sure that Elna and Jan-Paul's church got all of the packages together.

Elna volunteers at the pre-school in my village. She and her husband, Jan-Paul, grow cabbages to give to the elderly in their "peace garden." Neither are completely bias-free when it comes to race, but my they and my host parents respect each other. It's refreshing to see Elna driving around the village on errands (alone) when the other Afrikaners I've met are afraid to come into town. Equally refreshing is that her family is trying something to give back to the community and reduce the negative memories of Apartheid. I can see the vast economic differences between the two groups of people added to the recent history of repression I don't think I'd like Afrikaners either. Elna has a simple complaint: most people in the village won't give her a glass of water. If I asked would they share their water with me?

Above is a picture of an elderly woman carrying away her holiday food bag on her head just outside our gate. Below is all of the bags in our living/dining room.

Celebration of Meat

2005-12-14T10:42:00.000+02:00

To bid adieu to the teachers and learners going to Mmera, the teachers at Ramojapudi planned a farewell function for them. Although they prepared for three months, the schedule, guest speaker, and photographer were decided upon two days before the event. I’ve been to events that ran on a strict schedule, but this was not one of them. Luckily for my cynical eyes, Becca came to enjoy the day as well. The original program is below, with my comments in italics and pictures included where I could.

PROGRAMME OF FAIRWELL FUNCTION

DATE : 27 OCTOBER 2005
TIME :09H00
Female teachers started cooking early in the morning and continued throughout the program. The program started at 9, so that’s when people started to arrive. Drum majorettes in bright green and yellow uniforms and furry hats escorted everyone inside. They even escorted cars! At 10:30, the principal told the programme director (MC) to start the program. People (including the guest speaker) continued to arrive until noon.

Programme Director: Molokomme N.L

1. Opening Prayer: Makgae G.D
What meeting, function, meal, or anything really would be complete without a prayer? Just as the prayer started, the sound system stopped working. She continues the prayer and it’s fixed during the welcome.
2. Remarks
3. Welcome : Molekwa A
4. Introduction of guests: Boya N.T
The guests, who include all of the teachers from other schools, Becca, the induna, and myself, are listed off.
5. Musical item: School Choir
6. Speech: School Principal
Between each item is about 10 minutes, spent waiting for the speaker or group to appear.
7. Musical item: Khutsong Care Center
Gogos from the local home-based-care center. They are extremely excited to be here and especially to sing! Grannies not part of the group yell, “eii eii eii!,” if they really like the song or run up to the group, paw the ground and yell, “kga kga kga.”

8. Messages of support
8.1 Ntone, Poetry, Masakana
Guests who arrived late are introduced. Ntone and Masakana are traditional dances. The dances were very similar to the ones in Moletji, except they wore different clothes. The gogos really enjoyed it and yelled a lot from the sidelines. Poetry is skipped. In-between the dances, the induna interrupts the program to speak. I think he talked about the importance of welcoming me into the community, but I couldn’t really tell. During the speech, the photographer comes.

8.2 SAP, Gumboots
Long speech by a South Africa Police officer followed by a group of boys. The boys were dressed in their father’s work jumpsuits and rubber boots. It’s kind of like Stomp, with rhythms beat on the boots with their hands and the boots stomping on the ground. They pantomimed a boss beating his worker to huge laughs.

8.3 Inspector
1. Beauty contest
Young girls in swimsuits doing their best cat walk. It was really funny to see the grannies get up and cheer when their relatives walked by. The gogos got much closer than in the picture below!

2. Funny
Boys dressed as girls and boys dressed as girls. The boys hit on the girls then the girls either except or decline getting big laughs.

9. Musical item: Mmera Primary School
10. Speech: Mmera Principal
11. Item: Aerobics
Exactly that. Odd to see girls in bicycle shorts kicking in the red dirt.

Drama
A grade R play . . .cute but all in Sepedi and lost to me.
12. Introduction of Guest Speaker: Shapo MP
13. Keynote address: Guest Speaker
Guest speaker in his hood and bat robe. His speech is long, and he doesn’t seem to really understand who’s leaving and why. It was getting hot and I was getting really bitter.
14. Items: Kwaito 1 &2
South African hip-hop dancing. The music was kind of like Michael Jackson’s Thriller without the words and the dancing was a combination of break dancing and crunking. Unfortunately I couldn’t get a good picture. The learners were amazing!
15. Presentation of gifts & Manganyi S.V
Presentation of awards by: Modise M.J
: Morumudi M.J
Awards in academics, athletics, attendance, and cleanliness. The gogos were very excited whenever a family member was called!
16. Musical item : School choir
17. Vote of thanks: Mabetwa N.M
18. Announcement: Mello M.M
19. Singing of national anthem

20.LUNCH*********LUNCH*******LUNCH*******LUNCH********
There was rice, bogobe, coleslaw, potato salad, mashed potatoes, beans, tomato gravy, beets, butternut squash, lettuce salad, beef, and chicken AND lots of cold drink and juice! I ate very well. Teachers and guests ate first and then learners and community members had whatever was left.

On Monday, Ramojapudi invited Mmera to lunch because they still had too much food! I went with the teachers from Mmera but I didn’t enjoy it as much as they did. All that was leftover was bogobe and nama. I ate a small amount of bogobe but the teachers each filled half of their plate with bogobe and the other half with meat. I think they each ate a pound of beef. Many teachers were shocked that I don’t eat meat and kept saying, “but you’ll die!” or “you’ll eat meat today!” I replied, “but if I don’t eat meat, there is simply more for you to enjoy!”

finally, pictures!

2005-12-07T12:05:00.000+02:00

Scroll down to October 26th and see them!

World AIDS Day

2005-12-07T11:06:00.000+02:00

Last Thursday, December 1, was World AIDS Day. There was a benefit hosted by Will Smith and Nelson Mandela in Jo’burg and it aired on TV. Special debates and shows were shown throughout the day. I spend the afternoon at a memorial for one of Becca’s teachers.

It was my second memorial service for a teacher, the first was for one of Alicia’s teachers, but the message was a little different. For both services teachers throughout the district came, a pastor prayed, family members and co-workers gave small speeches remembering the dead, and there was a song sung by the whole group in-between each speech. Both teachers died after a long illness but were in their late 30s to early 40s. At neither service did anyone directly state the cause of death. But at the service on World AIDS day, the circuit manager gave a long speech talking about the ABCs of HIV/AIDS prevention:
A abstain
B be faithful
C condomise.

I heard that teachers are the most effected profession by HIV/AIDS. 17 teachers have died this year in my district. Most of the teachers in my schools live in small cottages in front of the school and only see their families on the weekends, putting pressure on B. Add in the difficulties of telling your spouse (or anyone that you’ve been in a relationship with for a long time) to wear a condom and imagine the consequences, the whole nation linked.

Because of fear of being tested (why be tested if their isn’t a cure?), there isn’t’ firm data for the number of people with HIV/AIDS in South Africa. The disease also carries a stigma of ‘risky behaviors’ and people fear telling their friends and family if they test positive. Conservative estimates from SABC2 say that 20 percent of women and 11 percent of men from 18 to 45 years old are HIV positive with 300,000 people dying and 500,000 new cases each year.

Campaigns to prevent HIV/AIDS have a very-middle class view: high self-esteem will prevent the spread of the disease. Let’s help your self-esteem! But 50 percent of the nation lives in poverty. How will high self-esteem help a poor woman tell her husband who works far away to wear a condom the few times a year that he visits?

Regardless, I haven’t seen anyone in my village that looks less than healthy and HIV/AIDS isn’t a topic of discussion on most days. Bigger concerns are water and unemployment. At funerals, no one mentions the cause of death. The sheer number of funerals gives me alarm, there are usually 5 to 7 each weekend for my small village. Will the problem continue to grow until a whole generation is gone?

Unfortunately, I don’t know as much as I wish to know about HIV/AIDS (including the herbal remedy that you mentioned, Margaret). In the beginning of March there will be a weeklong training giving us more information.

A good movie is Yesterday. It takes place in KwaZulu-Natal which has the highest infection rate of any province. It’s a pretty good picture of HIV/AIDS in South Africa, but I haven’t seen anyone throwing stones! It was nominated this year for a best foreign film Oscar.

in the good old days. . .

2005-12-07T10:29:00.000+02:00

This is a bumper sticker on the inside of a taxi that I managed to ride on three days in a row. On the other side of the taxi there was another bumber sticker that sad, "Women are Opportunists." My favorite bumber sticker was on the glove comparent of another taxi. It said, "No heavyweights in the front seat!" with a graphic of two big mommas sitting and practically pushing the skinny driver out the window.

December 14: Alright, I've managed to ride this taxi two more times. . . Becca suggested that it be renamed the "Melissa taxi." When I rode it with Becca, the doors kept coming open from all of the bumps in the road and she almost fell out!

South Africa PVC links

2005-11-30T11:31:00.000+02:00

No random comments this week. . . I attempted to load more pictures, but I think it might take a few more weeks or until I'm in Pretoria for the few I have to be loaded.

On the left are links to other Peace Corps Volunteer blogs. It's interesting to read them because we all are having different and similar experiences at the same time (and some of them have pictures!). They're short and good to procrastinate with. :)

Thank you for all of the warm thoughts over the past week.

preconceptions

2005-11-23T08:56:00.000+02:00

I should like to save the Shire, if I could-though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or invasion of dragons would be good for them. But I don't feel that way now. I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again
-Frodo in The Fellowship of the Ring, JRR Tolkein

Instead, I'd begun to imagine my life in a foreign country, some faraway land where, if things went wrong, I could always blame someone else, saying that I never wanted to live there in the first place. Life might be difficult for a year or two, but I would tough it out because living in a foreign country is one of those things that everyone should try at least once. My understanding is that it completed a person, sanding down the rough provincial edges and transforming you into a citizen of the world.
-"See You Again Yesterday," Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris [the rest of the essay is hillarious!]

It's taken me awile to realize what I expected from Peace Corps service. I didn't really know which country I was going to, so I didn't contemplate a culture. Once I did find out where I was going, I searched for all of the information that I could coming up with 1. It's not safe in South Africa and 2. Everyone that has been here loved it.

It took me until October to realize that I expected a green, lush setting . Yes, the trees are green now that it's rained, but what about the brown fields and ground? And why is it brown for the majority of the year? Other volunteers brag about the avocado, mango, guava, and banana trees in their backyards. I have some scary chickens. I think the chickens know they're ugly and run around trying to avoid each other.

During training, volunteers came and told us to cherish the little happy things. My patience is better than it was at home (I swear Mom!), but there seems to be so much mediocre time just waiting to be filled with something. Relationships aren't built in a day; I didn't expect them to take more than a month either. I wait for people to warm up to me with an every-ready smile. I explain why I'm in South Africa for the thousandth time; I greet for the millionth. Yet, I am still waiting for the beginnings of relationships to grow into friendships or peer-working-relationships. Previous volunteers warned that it really takes a month or a year to form the type of realtionships I want. Patience. . .

I also didn't count on sticking out this much. I mean, I knew I would, but I always thought the joy of screaming, "Lekgowa!" (white person) would wear off and eventually I'd become Lethabo (my South African name). Even children screaming "Lethabo!" and waving gets old after awhile, but being labelled as the 'other' was never fun to begin with.

But unwanted attention from children is a small worry. Men (any where from 16 to 40) hit on me so often. At home, I'd flirt a little then walk away or tell the person to leave me alone as soon as I'd had enough and the person never failed to leave me alone. Here, I greet (it's rude not to) then suddenly, the situation turns for the worse. I spot blood-shot eyes and an open beer but without beer it can be just as bad. "I love you!" "When will I see you again?" "You're beautiful!" "Have my baby!" "Marry me!" play like a broken record. I fear talking to men. I'm even starting to wonder if there's something I'm doing wrong, but reason steps in and saves me from persuing that thought.

The nurse warned me that most Peace Corps volunteers lose their periods, "It's normal, don't worry if it happens to you." I just didn't really believe her.

I always imagined answering, "are you homesick?" with a resounding, "NO!" Instead, I say, "No, but I think about home a lot." I'd love teleportation to be worked out or to discover a wormhole down the street. I don't want to go home forever, just long enough to enjoy a movie, macaroni and cheese, brownies, (the current fantasy), feel the brisk air, or just giggle over any of the great things that happen here without a week's delay. I'm sick, but I don't want to go home.
Happy Thanksgiving! Look for a wormhole close to you. . .

Where?

2005-11-16T08:20:00.000+02:00

After reading a letter, I realized that I’ve mentioned that I live in a village and go to town, but never really explained what that means. Here’s the low-down on place names in South Africa:

TOWN - a city or any place that has a grocery store. Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, and Durban are the largest. Pretoria (where Peace Corps office and most embassies are located) is about six hours away. There, it’s easy to forget that you’re in Africa with the bars, restaurants, and the largest mall in the southern hemisphere. Lephalale (formally Ellisras although both names are used) is about 45 minutes away. There, I can do grocery shopping, get pictures developed, go to Clicks (think Walgreens), eat ice cream or macaroni and cheese, go to a one-screen movie theater, buy clothes at Pep (cheap) or Mr. Price (like Old Navy), buy books at CNA, or go the post office. There really isn’t an American equivalent to Lephalale. It’s the only place to buy groceries in a 100 km radius and other than the list I made above there are some bars and a ‘One Price’ stores (which sell random cheap things). There aren’t houses close to the stores and fewer people live in Lephalale than in any of my villages. Very first world, Peace Corps NGOs live in towns (some even in Durban!)

TOWNSHIP - kinda like a black suburb. During Apartheid, blacks were not allowed to be inside the towns at night and instead made their homes here. Soweto is the largest, outside of Johannesburg, and has a history of student and political demonstrations/riots. District 6 in Cape Town was a township completely emptied of its inhabitants during Apartheid and the current government is trying to repopulate the area. The options for shopping and thing to do are much fewer than in town, lots of shebeens (unlicensed bars) and shops selling mealie meal, bread, cold drink (soda), cell phone minutes, soap, and occasional fruits and vegetables. Usually, there are street vendors with a wider variety of fruits and vegetables, simba (chips), and sweets. Over the past ten years, there has been a rise of white-only suburbs outside of major cities (white flight, crime rates are high in cities and townships). They vary from Beverly Hills-esqe (where the diplomats live outside of Pretoria) to shanty towns and everything in-between. I’m not quite sure if the shanty towns are included in the township description or not, but they occur in the same locations. Most townships are nice places to live. In general, townships aren’t safe for white people although several Peace Corps NGOs live in townships.

LOCATION - a lot like a township except not outside a town. A place where black people were allowed to live, usually out in the middle of nowhere where no Afrikaners wanted the land. There aren’t townships outside of Lephalale (it’s too small) but there are several locations about 10 km outside of town. Similar shopping/things to do as townships. Pretty third world, Peace Corps NGO and education live here.

VILLAGE - this is where I live! Shongoane 3 (formally Ga-Monyeki) is laid out like any suburb would be; organized streets, houses on plots all about the same size, people greet each other in the streets, buses and taxis pick up along the two main roads, but there are some major differences. Shongoane 3 has about 20,000 people. There are four shops (like I described for the townships except none of them sell cell phone minutes for some reason), many homes double as shebeens (nothing like a drunken serenade at night and being woken up with one in the morning), and none of the roads are paved (making travel treacherous after heavy rain). There is one primary school and one high school. There’s a mechanic’s shop. Tons of goats, donkeys, and chickens wander the streets with occasional cows, turkeys, dogs, and pigeons. Even the taxis are run-down, imagine a 16-passenger van with doors that can only be opened from the outside (the handles stopped working), most seats lost the vinyl covering, and some are hot-wired. Truthfully, I’ve listed everything that there is in Ga-Monyeki. There aren’t many places to work here! Many people have jobs in Johannesburg and come home to their wives and children a few times a year. Other villages have much more to offer. Moletji was closer to a larger town, had street vendors, tow post offices, six primary schools, and a community center. Many community members had jobs either in the closest town or in the village. Shongoane 1 (formally Setateng) has internet (yay!), a post office, many more stores, a few clothes shops, and petrol. I go there whenever I want to use the internet. Homes in the villages can vary from running hot water and all the amenities to a two-room, no electricity, and concrete-brick building. But, people seem so happy in the villages and sometimes it's idylic. . . yesterday children were playing soccer in the street and I overheard my neighbor singing while in her pit toilet. Good times. Most Peace Corps Education live in villages, with a few NGOs living in villages as well.

FARMS - usually an Afrikaaner-owned tract of land employing people from the local villages, Mozambique, Botswana, or Zimbabwe. Farms grow tobacco, mealies, corn, watermelon, cabbage, and butternut in my area. There are also beef and game farms, along with a couple of tourist lodges. Some farms are large enough to have their own schools. I am only speaking about the farms in my area! First-world for the owners. . .

I almost forgot! The only thing as popular (and occuring as frequently) as shebeens are churches! All over towns, townships, locations, and villages. People are very accepting of Christian religions.

Now, Lend Me Some Snuff; I Am Your Neighbor!

2005-11-09T09:27:00.000+02:00

A collection of random observations. . .
-Since women don't traditionally smoke, I naively thought that I wouldn't see women using tobacco in the village. I haven't seen any women smoking, but snuff seems to be popular in the female 35 and over crowd. Twice, there's been a knock on our door and the person wanted to share (ie have) my Mma's snuff.
-Learners fetch/clean/send messages for the teachers. Pretty much, if anything except teaching needs to be doen, a learner does it. Need to sit? A learner gets a chair. Need to talk to another teacher? Have a learner get her. Need to clean your dishes? Wax the floor? Don't worry, a learner will do it. Nobody thinks it's a problem and the learners seem thrilled to do it (a way of showing respect is to do tasks for someone). There's even a verb for it, from the Peace Corps Volunteer-written Sepedi Manual, "roma. . . send a child to do meaningless tasks."
-I've seen a few mice but lizards are all over the place. Our cat eats insects, table scraps, and lizards. I'm still looking for a two tailed one.
-SMSs (text messages) are fantastic. . . My favorite converstion so far included pickles, cookies, mealier meal, crack, and magic carpets. It's up to your imagination to put them all together!
-'Them' is the worst word ever created. It's very hard not to use it, but it seems to be the one word that keeps racial stereotypes going. I've spent some time with Afrikaners and while everyone I met is completely sweet and kind to me, they're afraid of the villages and make broad, negative comments about the people living here. For example: 'Their children are lazy.' 'The men only want to drink and don't want to work.' 'They all smoke marajuana.' 'They don't understand that we work hard for everything that we have (as opposed to them who don't).' Add in the women who are completely subservient to the men, and it's like I'm in the late 1960s with modern conviences. I do my best to dispel these stereotypes and hopefully get people to interact. . . The stereotype about Americans, 'They're rich.' Give us money!
-Young children are the best ambassadors! The children at the cresch (pre-school) are willing to hug and play with anyone, regardless of their skin color. Plus, such unconditional love brightens any day.
-It's rained! It rains about 200 mm a year in my village (about 7 or 8 inches), and the first storm happened on Friday night. My Baba shut off the radio and tv and informed me that using my cell phone would attract lightning, but I continued to SMS any way. With our corrogated steel roof, the rain sounded more like hail. Even a light sprinkle sounds like heavy rain. On Saturday there was 41 mm (a little over an inch) of rain, heavy enough to destroy some houses in my village, create pools of water in the dry river-bed, and wash out some roads. It had been so hot that I couldn't sleep at night, but after it rains it's nice and cool! Hopefully it will start getting green too!
-Breasts are acceptable to slash in the village while thighs are not (unless exercising). It seems that the larger the woman, the more acceptable the flash. I really didn't need to breasts each the size of my torso. . .

A Day in the Life

2005-11-02T13:07:00.000+02:00

I've been trying to post pictures. . . I promise more are coming!

Tomorrow will end my third week as a volunteer. Every day brings a new surprise; sometimes as an annoyance and others as a ray of sunshine. Regardless, my life has settled into a day to day routine:
05.00 Wake up and get yogurt out of freezer (my family doesn’t have a fridge). If I’m going to Ramojapudi or Mmera, start boiling water for a bath.
05.15 Bathe in the bathtub! The bathtub’s a big treat after only have the basin for so long. I still use the basin and simply put it inside the tub, but I can splash water around without getting the floor soaked. I use about 6 liters of water each morning (and it ends up filthy and me clean!). Get dressed.
05.40 Make lunch. . . Peanut butter and jelly!
05.50 Realize that I’m going to be late. Double check that I have everything, lock my bedroom and burglar door, eat yogurt and rice crispies.
06.00 Maneuver bike outside of shack/shed thing outside.
06.10 Bike to school. There’s only a very busy dirt road, so I say “ah-ah-ah-ah” from the bumps and get very dusty whenever a vehicle goes by.
06.35 Realize that I’m the first adult there.
06.45 School assembly starts. Learners stand in lines in the schoolyard and sing a few songs then recite the Lord’s prayer (in Sepedi or English). Announcements, then they run to class.
07.00 School starts. I begin reading something in the staff room. Occasionally, a teacher will interrupt me and start a conversation. I encourage every interruption! Sometimes I run out of Peace Corps stuff to read and write a letter or read for pleasure.
11.00 Long break. Learners get food from the school-feeding scheme, usually motepa (soft porridge) with dry milk powder. Occasionally there will be bogobe (hard porridge) with cabbage or beans instead. Teachers eat in the staff room (a plain half a loaf of bread with a cold drink, soda). They look at my lunch with pity.
12.00 foundation phase goes home (grades R to 3).
13.00 School ends for all learners. Teachers have the learners clean the classrooms or fetch them things. Lots of sitting and talking by the teachers. Almost all conversations are in Sepedi and only when they’re trying to be nice or working really hard to include me they speak in English.
14.00 Teachers knock off. At Ramojapudi, the teachers will stay and chat until 16.00. Sometimes teachers leave early to go to town. Bike home.
14.30 Arrive home.
15.00 Graze, sit with Mma and Baba outside in the shade, read.
18.30 Dark, TV gets turned on. Sometimes we continue to sit outside in the dark.
19.00 Dinner, usually bogobe and cabbage. Occasionally I make squash or there’s spinach, rice, or beans.
20.00 I retreat to my room. Pick up room, prepare bag for the next day, and listen to iPod while doing calisthenics, maybe read some more. No one in Shongoane has seen my iPod!
20.30-20.50 Go to sleep.

If I’m going to Tshukudu or anywhere else I go for a run. The schedule of events at Tshukudu is same except it starts an hour later and I walk there.
I have two options for runs, cattle paths next to the dry riverbed (which has green trees and some grass) or down the road past game farms (all brown). Both options are like running on a beach.

Wednesday’s are administrative days. I use the internet and go to town every other week.
On Saturdays and Sundays there’s more reading, occasional visitors and laundry. I am the rinse and spin cycle! Mwuhahahaha

Pictures

2005-10-26T09:02:00.000+02:00

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

2005-10-26T08:54:00.000+02:00

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

2005-10-26T08:48:00.000+02:00

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).

training woes

2005-09-27T19:45:00.000+02:00

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. . .

2005-09-27T19:40:00.000+02:00

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

2005-09-27T05:53:00.000+02:00

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

2005-09-19T09:55:00.000+02:00

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

2005-09-15T19:18:00.000+02:00

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!

2005-09-13T19:15:00.000+02:00

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

2005-09-13T11:28:00.000+02:00

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

2005-09-13T11:02:00.000+02:00

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.

2005-09-02T08:53:00.000+02:00

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.

thobela

2005-08-27T13:13:00.000+02:00

Hello in Sepedi! I'm sitting in an internet store in Polokwane in Limpopo province. Training started three days ago in Moletji (20 minute taxi ride from Polokwane). I'm learning Sepedi, aka Northern Sotho. I'll probably spend the next two years in Limpopo close to Polokwane.
I spent orientation at a former teacher's college in Mokopane, lovingly referred to as the compound. For our five days there, we were not allowed off of the grounds while children from the village came in and played ultimate frisbee with us. One night, we were herded into a bus and driven to the closest hotel for wining and dining with the Limpopo province education minister. It seems like every gathering of people has a MC, a prayer, three songs, and two superfluous speaches. After the speaches, we were given wine and American style food. With the aid of wine and spending too much time pent up at the compound, the gathering quickly turned into a dance party.
For training, we live with a host family. The first night I didn't have a host family and spent the night at the chief's crawl. Besides the throne in the living room, the cheif's place seemed like it was plucked out of the late 1970s without running water. There were several houses at the crawl, making it difficult to figure out where the food was coming from and who all the people that hung around were. From then on, I've moved in with another family. They are nice, but reply, "yes, I hear you," to about everything I say and don't seem to believe me when I say that I want to learn Sepedi. The neighbor children are great and spit words out to me rapidly and I feel like a collinder, only the really big pieces stick in my head and there aren't many of them.
There is so much more to say, I miss you all.

staging II

2005-08-17T14:02:00.000+02:00

I'm sitting in the hotel the morning before I leave on the plane for Joburg. There are 88 of us intwo programs (the education that I am in and a NGO health prgram). Our hotel has the nicest beds that I think I've ever slept on. It's close to South St. and the clubs that I went to with my friends last year. (Joy, I can see your brother's apartment from my window). The hotel also hosted the first annual masct induction into the hall of fame. Most of them hung out in the bar when not in character and watched themselves on tv. One of them gave my advice on how to make my cartwheels better/funnier.
The staging program seemed to have two parts that were interspersed, one where we filled in a book and listened to a leader talk about the words in the booklet, and anoter part where we played games to learn a lesson. I really enjoyed drawing my aspiations and anxities on a poster sheet and discussing all of them with my group. It was comforting that everyon shares common anxities and that the aspirations are very diverse. A lot of the drawings were humorous and it made a serious topic lighter. My other favorite activity involved breaking the group in half and telling onegroup that they are anthropologists that need to help 'the people' with a problem. The other group was told hat they have three rules that they must follow. 1. They can only answer ys or no questions, 2. Women can only talk to women, men to men, 3. questions that are asked when smiling recieve a yes answer and frowning a no. The anthropollogits would say "they" and "they don't talk" and with what they were told determined that some of us liked soccer anoters were pologymists.
I'm sorry fo rthe typing errors, but I need to check out and get shots. I will update around October15th. Check the comments to see that I've arrived safely.

well wishes

2005-08-15T05:40:00.000+02:00

I'm leaving for Philadelphia tomorrow and I'm pretty nervous. I'd like to thank everyone for the well wishes in e-mails, over the phone, and in person. I promise I won't get eaten by a lion, catch every communicable disease at the same time, or get trampled by an elephant. I will miss you all!

timeline, with correspondence forecasts

2005-08-09T05:28:00.000+02:00

Here's an outline of where I'll be when and how good the communication will be:

August 7-15, 2005: In Lake Geneva, WI; clear communication: available through cell and e-mail
August 15-17, 2005: Philadelphia, PA; partly sunny: available through cell
August 18- October 1, 2005: In Mokopane and Molkane, Limpopo, South Africa; overcast with slight breeze: available through mail

Melissa Leedle, PCV
US Peace Corps
PO Box 9536
Pretoria 0001
SOUTH AFRICA

October 1, 2005- October 1, 2007: In either Mpulanga, Limpopo, or Northwest Province; cloudy with periods of sun: hopefully available through cell phone, post office box (and address above for packages), and weekly to monthly internet access

correspondance

2005-08-03T20:23:00.000+02:00

Below is a lengthy letter from the Peace Corps explaining correspondance during Peace Corps service. It's rather long, so I've put the important parts in red text. During training I will not have access to the internet or a phone number. Enjoy!

July 2005

Dear Families and Friends,

Greetings from the South Africa Desk at the Peace Corps in Washington, D.C. It is with great pleasure that we welcome you to the Peace Corps circle of friendship. We receive many questions from family members and friends of Volunteers about life in South Africa, so we would like to offer you advice and assistance in advance.

1. Irregular Communication. (Please see #3 for the mailing address to Peace Corps' office in Pretoria the capital of South Africa) Mail from the United States to Pretoria is fairly reliable; however, mail service within South Africa is not as efficient and reliable. There is an enormous variation in the time it takes for mail and packages to arrive at Volunteers’ sites. Generally, Volunteers find that they receive mail and packages from the United States two to four weeks after it has been sent. The same is true in sending mail from South Africa. Of course, there are exceptional cases in which a letter or a package might arrive within a shorter period or be substantially delayed. Some mail may simply not arrive. The destination of mail for Volunteers is as varied as the length of time it takes for mail to arrive.

We suggest that in your first letters you ask the Volunteer to give an estimate of how long it takes for him/her to receive your letters, and then try to establish a predictable pattern of how often you will write to each other. We would also like to suggest that you consider the use of "aerograms," generally a blue sheet of paper which folds into an envelope. These are available in most stationary stores or post offices. Volunteers have had good success in receiving their mail in this form. Also, try numbering your letters so that the Volunteer knows if he/she has missed one.

Being a Peace Corps Volunteer is a rewarding experience; however, there will also be times when Volunteers may write home telling of their "war" stories. Letters might describe recent illnesses, frustration with work, isolation, lack of resources, etc. While the subject matter may be good reading material, it can often be misinterpreted on the home front. Volunteers have a support network in-country which includes counterparts and community members at their site, other Peace Corps Volunteers, as well as Peace Corps/South Africa staff. The Peace Corps’ highest priority is maintaining the health and safety of every Volunteer. Peace Corps/South Africa maintains a medical unit in Pretoria with two full-time medical officers, who care for the Volunteers’ primary health care needs. If the Volunteer requires medical care that is not available in South Africa, he/she will be medically evacuated to the United States. Fortunately, these are rare circumstances.

If for some reason your communication pattern is broken and you do not hear from your family member, you may want to contact the South Africa Desk or the Office of Special Services (OSS) at Peace Corps Washington at 1-800-424-8580, extension 1470. Also, in the case of an emergency at home (death in the family, sudden critical illness, etc.), please do not hesitate to call OSS immediately, so that a message can be sent to the Volunteer. Use the above number during regular business hours (9:00 am to 5:00 pm Eastern time, Monday through Friday). After hours, or during weekends, the Peace Corps Duty Officer may be reached at (202) 638-2574. Tell the operator your name, telephone number, and the nature of the emergency, and the Duty Officer will call you back.

2. Telephone Calls. The telephone system in South Africa is relatively good and service in and out of Pretoria to the United States is mostly reliable. In the interior of the country, where most of the Volunteers are located, phones are fewer in number and of decreased reliability. Volunteers do not have residential phones; however, many Volunteers choose to buy cell phones or use public phones to make and receive international calls. They will be able to inform you of the actual telephone numbers once they arrive at their permanent sites in the country.

The South Africa Desk maintains regular contact with the Peace Corps office in Pretoria through phone calls and e-mail. However, these communications are reserved for business only and cannot be used to relay personal messages. All communication between family members and the Volunteer should be done via international mail, personal phone calls, or e-mail. Many Volunteers are able to access e-mail at Internet cafes in larger cities and towns on a weekly or monthly basis, depending on their location.

3. Sending packages. Parents and Volunteers like to send and receive care packages through the mail. Unfortunately, sending packages can be a frustrating experience for all involved due to occasional thefts and heavy customs taxes. You may want to try to send inexpensive items through the mail, but there is no guarantee that these items will arrive. Even though many Volunteers choose to get local post office boxes, you may also use the following address to send letters and/or packages:

Name of Volunteer, PCV
US Peace Corps
PO Box 9536
Pretoria 0001
SOUTH AFRICA

It is recommended that packages be sent in padded envelopes if possible, as boxes tend to be taxed more frequently. For lightweight but important items (e.g. airline tickets), DHL (an express mail service) does operate in Pretoria. If you choose to send items through DHL, you must address the package to the Country Director, c/o U. S. Peace Corps, 126 Verdoorn Street, Sunnyside, Pretoria, South Africa (the phone number for the Peace Corps office in South Africa is (27) 12-344-4255, as DHL will need this information). If you send the item to the Country Director, no liability can be assumed. For more information about DHL, please call their toll free number, 1-800-CALL-DHL, or visit their web site at www.dhl.com. Other courier services may operate in Pretoria - DHL is only one possibility.

We hope this information is helpful to you during the time your family member or friend is serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in South Africa. We understand how frustrating it is to communicate with your family member overseas and we appreciate your using this information as a guideline. Please feel free to contact us at the South Africa Desk in Washington, D.C. if you have any further questions. Our phone number is 1-800-424-8580, ext. 2331/2, or locally, 202-692-2331/2.

Sincerely,

Alberto Sanchez-Perojo
South Africa Desk Officer
Ext: 2331

training

2005-08-03T19:25:00.000+02:00

After the three days of staging and a long flight, I will arrive in Johannesberg on August 18th for a two and a half hour drive to the training location. Training will take place outside of Mokopane (formally known as Potgietersrus), Limpopo. All of the people doing the program will be staying with families in smaller towns any where from 1 to 7 kilometers from Moletji (the training town). There's a picture of the area that I found above. I also found out a little bit of information on the area.
The Mokopane area is one of the richest for agriculture, with wheat, tobacco, cotton, beef, maize, peanuts, and citrus. It's also rich in minerals with diamond, platinum, and granite mines. Culturally, it is a mix of Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, Afrikaans, and English cultures. For tourists, you can see ancient caves (with drawings by the ancient San people) and the Big Five. In the early nineties, the town earned the nickname "the racist capital of South Africa" after local whites tried to prevent black children from entering schools that had been all-white during apartheid. Although that was ten years ago, "Club Members Only" signs persist over white filled bars and fighting over local services and amenities.
Training will consist of five major components: Language, Technical, Cross-Cultural, Health and Safety and Security. Most mornings will be spent learning one of the following langauges: SePedi, SeTswana, IsiZulu, TshiVenda, IsiSwati, and Xitsonga. The language that I'm taught will be one unique to the area that I will volunteer in and may not be spoken in Limpopo. I will also be assessed on my productive competence, motivation, emotional maturity, and social sensitivity. If everything goes well during training, I'll be sworn in on October 1st.

Staging. . .

2005-08-01T17:47:00.000+02:00

As my departure date draws closer, I've gotten much more nervous about this. Sure the Peace Corps sounds like a great idea: helping others, travel, and personal growth. Along with that comes two years of questionable communication and missing my friends and family. There are so many unknowns, but I'm slowly learning more about what I'll be doing until October 2007.

For example, I received a mailing stating that the staging city is Philadelphia. After flying home to Wisconsin on August 7, I will fly back to Philadelphia on August 15. Here, I'll stay at the posh Sheraton on Society Hill (to the right) and attend two days of conferences telling me more about my Peace Corps experience. Although I'm going to be learning more about the Peace Corps, none of it will include information on South Africa or my specific job there. All of that information is reserved for when I arrive there. A benefit to spending time before flying to Africa, is that there should be bonding time amoung the people that are serving in South Africa. I expect it to be like a conference, not much free time, instant friendships, and slow discoveries. We're also given a generous allowance for food and spending money. Nothing like a little buttering up before a long flight into a third world country.

On August 17, we fly to New York, then Dafur, Senegal, arrive in Johannesburg, then a two and a half hour drive to the training location.

Leaving. . .

2005-06-07T23:39:00.000+02:00

I'm leaving August 15th for the departure city and August 18th for South Africa. After that is 10 weeks training. Then, I will be placed in the final location, somewhere in Limpopo, North-West Province, or Mpumalanga. Once I'm in South Africa, I don't know if I'll have running water or electricity but internet should be available in large towns and cities. My job will be to serve as a resource for elementary teachers to help them with teaching methods, increasing their math/science/English knowledge, and with HIV/AIDS initiatives.
I'm currently TAing for general chemistry at Bryn Mawr. Thinking/getting ready for South Africa is so much more exciting then my current job!