Note: If you haven’t seen my previous blog post, I’m running a half marathon next month to help raise money for a Peace Corps Volunteer started organization Kgwale le Mollo to help send two rural South African kids to one of the best high schools in South Africa. Please consider helping me with a [...]
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Note: If you haven’t seen my previous blog post, I’m running a half marathon next month to help raise money for a Peace Corps Volunteer started organization Kgwale le Mollo to help send two rural South African kids to one of the best high schools in South Africa. Please consider helping me with a [...]
Once again this year the Peace Corps South Africa community is coming together help support the Kgwale le Mollo (KLM) Foundation. KLM is a non-profit started in 2004 by two SA-11 (I’m in SA-20) Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) to bring high quality education to young students who show exceptional potential but live in [...]
Nelson Mandel’s said “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” And he should know, South Africa is a country of 11 official languages. TV shows here have multiple languages in just once sentence! [...]
It really is a simple invention that in hindsight seems as obvious as the wheel, but apparently it wasn’t until 1861 that the putting wire mesh over a hole in the wall became common place. While it’s rare to find a house in the United States without window screens, it’s just as rare to [...]
Friends are often surprised to see how often I tweet or how frequently I’ll email back home. And in ways I find it amazing how I can know what’s happening in almost real time all over the world from my room, not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Peace [...]
During training we would often hear that life in South Africa was unique because of a concept fundamental to its culture: Ubuntu. In Nguni languages (isiZulu, siSwati, isiXhosa, isiNdebele) this is most often expressed through the adage “Umuntu ngaumntu ngabantu” – A person is a person through other persons”. We were told that because [...]
Wow it’s really been a long time since I’ve written anything here. And you know what, with a few exceptions, that seems to be the a general trend within the Peace Corps community. There are tones of blog posts about the leaving America transition as one contemplates all the unknowns in their next [...]
This week I returned to site after my second extended trip through South Africa. Traveling in South Africa is always great fun, partly because there are so many great things to do, great (cheap!) places to stay, and great things to see. The Rainbow Nation’s landscape and geography are even more diverse then its [...]
I got back yesterday from a week away from site. I spent all of last week with 10 other volunteers preparing for the next group of volunteers – SA20 – to arrive late next month at what Peace Corps calls General Training of Trainers or GTOT. This means I was at the training college [...]
The total entropy of any isolated thermodynamic system tends to increase over time, approaching a maximum value.
This is a rather depression fundamental truth when extended to its final most absolute conclusion. But for at least the next 6 Billion years or so we don’t have to worry about that fact and therefor actually have [...]
Today I went to help an 8th grader with his math assignment. He had to use a compass and straight edge to make angle bisectors, perpendicular bisectors, altitudes, and midpoint lines on triangles making inscribed and circumscribed circles. I was excited since I had loved doing this exact same stuff way back in 9th grade. [...]
The Umjindi Mumicipality hereby informs you that reticulation has been completed.
This was the beginning of a message that greeted me as I entered the small one room library in the location. Reading further down the announcement I found out that reticulation (what ever that actually is) was completed for Phase 2 and Extensions 15 [...]
Schools started back up this week after a two week hiatus between first and second terms. So much has happened in the last three weeks that it seems like almost half a year ago when I ran the Longtom marathon.
The week after the marathon was the science camp I’d been planning. For about [...]
So this is the second week of a two week school break. Last week was extremely busy with a science camp I did (my next blog entry and picture update will hopefully be about that) but this week nothing much is happening at the training center where I work. Today all the other [...]
Two weekends ago on the March 28th I ran a half marathon with about 70 other volunteers as part of an annual fundraiser for the KLM foundation. I would first like to thank everyone that helped support this wonderful project started by former volunteers over five years ago. Together everyone in Peace Corps [...]
This is going to be one of those post where I start by saying I haven’t been good at keeping up with posting, because its true. But to make up for it I’ve posted new photo’s of some things from around my township and town. You can check them out here. I’ll try [...]
One of the things that being in Africa has taught me is that life isn’t the meritocracy the American Dream teaches us. One where the son of a Boston candle maker can run away from home to start life in Philadelphia to one day become an emissary to kings and queens in Europe, [...]
So as part of our settling in allowance for the Peace Corps we were given R1,200 for a bike and helmet. I knew before seeing my site that I would want a bike since I love biking everywhere I possible can and was hoping to maybe do some really long bike rides. Everyone told me to [...]
On February 12th 1809 both Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born. I’m not really sure if anyone else finds that as fascinating as I do, but ever since I read an article about it way back in August I’ve thought it absolutely amazing. Really it shouldn’t be, since the chances that any two randomly [...]
Last week I got back from SA 18’s first in service training. This week long training marks the 6th month we’ve been here. It’s hard to believe its only been 6 short months (7 on the 14th) since I left, so much has happened in those months that I feel like I could pack [...]
So I’ve been back from vacation for three weeks now and haven’t posted a thing here yet even though I have so much to say. As far as I can tell that’s for two main reasons. First there is so much from the trip I want to talk about that it’s nearly impossible to [...]
There are aspects of your society that are so ingrained and habitual that you don’t notice them until you have the opportunity to live in another culture. Some of these are major things and pretty obvious to anyone with knowledge of both cultures. But some of them are really subtle and found only in the [...]
One of the first things we learned after setting foot in South Africa way back in July was that food is a big part of every event here. For the first 4 days before we went to our training home stays every meal was large enough to be a Thanksgiving feast and on top [...]
During training there was a wedding in the village my language group was staying at. The four members of my language group and a few volunteers from the neighboring village went to it. Weddings in rural South Africa are a very very big event. Family, extended family and friends came from all over the North [...]
One of the things I bought at Target before I left was I giant wall map of the world. It’s nothing special just the typical map you would see in any class room or geography book. Sometimes I wish I had more unusual map like the ones with Antarctica on the top or [...]
This was originally just going to be a small tweeter post and then so many insightful things emerged out of todays volleyball practice that I decided to make it a full post. First maybe a quick explanation of why I’m all of a sudden talking about volleyball. For the last 5-6 weeks I’ve [...]
Rainy season has most definitely come here. The last week while I was biking home I suddenly noticed how green the fields next to me were and remembered how just a week ago they had been brown and dry. And when I looked up at the surrounding mountains the trees that used to be [...]
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