We spent a few days last week at our friend's village helping with a

gardening project and working with teachers at the primary school on

alternatives to corporal punishment. For the gardening part I helped

organize their intended garden into these things called 'cloves'.

This is actually a new gardening technique invented by a South African

to grow in areas such as this with such poor soil and half a year of

drought. It involves building what looks like a clover of 3 1-meter

wide circles (if you are looking from above). Each of these circles

is dug out and refilled with soil and compost with a 2-liter soda

bottle buried in the middle of each hole. These bottles are filled

only a couple times a week that leak out under the soil allowing the

plants to really take advantage of the limited water. So far I tried

one in my village last week and the plants have already started to

sprout. This method works surprisingly well and can accommodate many

plants in a limited space with such little water. (try it.)

Unfortunately we could not plant during my time being that the rains

are just starting (speaking of which) and all would be drowned. After

my sessions, Laura was working on alternatives to corporal punishment

with the teachers...which would have been a better session if the

teachers actually used that method, which thankfully they do not. The

principal had told our friend that yes, the teachers would like to

talk about alternatives to corporal punishment being that they

currently use corporal punishment with the children. When Laura

arrived to talk about the 'errors of their ways' and good alternatives

and positive reinforcement and such they looked at her with

confusion. Turned out, the principal had not only not told the

teachers, but did not even know that they did not use corporal

punishment...effective management. It worked out well after all; they

really liked the idea of 'time-out' as an effective punishment tool.

Unfortunately because they had not planned properly to meet with

Laura, they decided to just send the children home early in the middle

of the day...effective time out.

It's been a month since the last blog entry and since then we reached

our 8 month point of our service and 6 months in our village (ever-so-

slight pat on the back). Yesterday I was talking to an old [drunk]

man and discovered that he was keeping bug in his pocket in a little

bag for the past two months (so he said). The bug had come out and

seemed to be fine walking around and whatnot before he stuffed it back

in its sack. He also claimed not to have fed it anything yet still

seemed to thrive. After 8 months here, I see the same thing…I see a

people and community thrive in spite of being stuffed in a sack and

forgotten. Or rather Africa does that to itself – something can

flourish and can also be eaten up. That is the irony here that almost

anything grows and almost anything can die. I have been working on a

new gardening technique with various groups in our village and nearby

and while I have been preaching the new method as a solution to a

continuing lack of water, it seems as though local flora grows in some

of the worst soil imaginable. I talk about double digging and raised

beds yet people throw almost any seed into what could pass as beach

sand and soak it in water or let it dry out, and it flourishes. The

past month has been a lot of this…a lot of seeing that in spite of my

efforts, it will continue on its path. This is fine with me, and I

think we are okay with this defining our service. Coming to terms

with this yields a sense of stability through the days. There are

countless African villages stretching across this continent that cycle

through in this same way – that find stability through life and

through death. I find that the more time passes here, the less pity I

have and the more my breath finds it proper pace. I guess that goes

with all things, even with an insect living in a sack.

People in my village think I am crazy. Surprisingly I have no qualms about this. They mostly laugh at me when I take Lucy on a run. Me…a legoa (white person)…in a University at Buffalo T-shirt…running…with my pet dog…on a leash. Not only is everyone I pass along the way wearing a winter coat, hat and scarf, but also South Africans prefer not to move if not completely necessary which certainly rules out exercise. They also do not have pets so the concept of a leash is therefore not even in their framework and thus downright silly. I must be quite the sight.

As much as we have helped Lucy she has helped us through these last few months as well. Life is very lonely at times, even with the two of us, and Lucy has been a great companion. Every day I look forward to letting Lucy off her leash and taking her for a walk. (She is now trained enough to walk with us through the village without a leash.) Sometimes David and I take her out together. We walk back behind the village where there are several acres of unused land against a backdrop of mountains in the distance. There is a pretty tree in the middle of the fields where we like to bring Lucy. David climbs up the tree and I sit below, watching Lucy sniff around. Each walk, just like our long walks in Buffalo, Florida and Boston, is a chance to think, to reflect on our time here, and dream about what is to come. It is a chance to revamp and get back into the present. In these moments I have learned to appreciate that we live in the middle of nowhere – in complete peace and quiet. Well, at least quiet. Until a donkey cart comes rolling down the path and Lucy goes crazy. I can’t tell if she loves or hates those donkeys!

In the past few weeks I have gone from needing a sweater all day to being uncomfortably hot even at night. A more startling realization that the seasons are changing came one day when three different dogs came to “visit” Lucy. Spring was apparently, shockingly, without reservation, in the air. I could keep my composure as long as I could avoid a direct visual and the courting dog ran away when I came outside. Well, when one such dog, specifically the large, body-building type dog who lives across the street, claimed Lucy as his own and set up camp, it was a different story. This dog is a fierce monster of an animal. As soon as you invade his territory and make eye contact this thing charges at you at full speed, growling, teeth bared. Seriously, it may as well be a lion (which would actually make for a much more exciting story). So, over about a three day period, whenever any one of us, our old host go-go’s (grandmothers), or our three year old little host sister tried to go out back to fetch water or what have you, this dog would charge, chasing us, panicked and screaming, back into our houses. Then we would scope out the scene for a safe moment to emerge, run across the street to get the neighbor to please come get his dog, and to please, try to tie him up better this time. Come on now. After a few days of this nonsense, we found the neighbor was not even home to collect his dog (damn that 8% of the population with jobs!)…we decided to go to the headman in the village (similar to a chief), who was receptive and understanding. He promised to talk to this man right away. Feeling as though we had handled the situation well, of course on our way back home David and I see the dog in our front yard, marching around, blocking our way in. We inched forward, ducking behind thorn bushes, avoiding eye contact, gathering large rocks should the need arise to pound this jerk of a dog to the ground. Yes. Me, Laura. Preparing to stone a dog. South Africa is very very bad or your morals and ethical standards of behavior. Among other things. Such as toenails. The first thing I am going to do when I get home is have a pedicure. Anyway, eventually some men came and tied up the beast with a chain and oversized pad-locks. Of course now it comes full circle and I feel guilty about the life this poor dog is leading. Plus I think Lucy liked him. C’est la vie.

Almost a month ago (it's been a long hiatus from the blog) we went on

a trip down to Cape Town. At first Laura and I questioned the trip,

would it be worth it? Should we be going somewhere with more culture

– somewhere that offers what we could not get back in the States? We

were surprised to find out that Cape Town was definitely a worthwhile

experience especially after living here in the village. Sure it was

nice to take hot showers and go out at night and just kind of blend

in, but the best part, and this took some digging to find, was the

progressive society that we have not seen elsewhere in this country.We started off in Pretoria and made our way south through the Free

State Province around Lesotho to this amazing place called Hogsback.

Apparently as the story goes, this is where J.R.R. Tolkien was

inspired to write The Hobbit. The mountains create a unique ecosystem

sheltered from the relatively windswept bush that surrounds the area.

You begin the hike and descend into a canyon with rare cape monkeys

and parrots as you make your way to these magnificent waterfalls. I

did not really get the 'hobbit' vibe but it was definitely a beautiful

place. From there we went to the South Africa National Arts Festival

in Grahamstown. Well I should clarify that we missed all the

performances that make the festival famous but rather went to the

large craft market where we (Chris and I…not Laura) ate Kudu Burgers

(the high point of the day). After a slight hiccup involving three of

the four tires of the car going flat, we made it to the Garden Route,

which is the southern coastal route to Cape Town. We stopped in a

place called Jeffery's Bay famous for its 'right' breaking wave …or

maybe it's 'left' breaking. I don't really know what that means, but

our surfer friend Chris who was on the trip, was enthralled by this

fact. During one of the days in Jeffery's Bay we went to the Lion

Sanctuary which is this reserve of sorts for lions as well as other

wildlife. There is a standard game park (not for hunting despite the

name) which had wildebeest, giraffe, antelope of different kind, and

other herbivores. The lions apparently had a tendency to kill their

cubs shortly after birth so the reserve would take the cubs away and

raise them separately. You can go into their pen and play with the

cubs – this is where we took our famous 'lion cub' photos. The lions

that we played with were only six or so weeks old so no bigger than a

small dog though with sharp claws. While they were small and

relatively harmless, they did have a nature about them that was

extremely feral, even at only six weeks.While at Jeffery's Bay we met some very 'dude'-like Aussies who told

us about the world's largest bungee jump on the way to Cape Town. In

fact we would drive over the bridge that I would later jump off so I

guess it doesn't get much more 'on the way'. Chris and I decided spur

of the moment to do the jump while Laura and our other friend Heather

stayed back to watch. For the jump, you have this special harness

around your torso as a safety though all first time jumpers jump are

tied around their ankles for some reason. You walk on a suspended

grated walkway hanging on the underside of the bridge to the apex of

the curved bridge support. That was by far the scariest part walking

while on this grated metal walkway looking down at the bottom of the

canyon below your feet. Once at the jumping station they have music

playing and lots of really positive employees taking care of

everything very expediently to make sure you don't freak out and run

back. Things go very quickly from calling out your number to tying

you in to lifting you to the edge so that your toes are hanging off

with your arms out to your sides to jumping 710 feet down into the

canyon. The experience was amazing and surprisingly peaceful once

your feet leave the bridge.Arriving in Cape Town we had the wonderful experience of meeting some

terrific Couch Surfers who hosted all four of us for a night. They

took us around the city on a little night tour and took us up to this

place called Signal Hill to get a view of the city. They had a great

perspective on the city and talked about Cape Town as the only city

they would ever live in. After so long of people talking about

getting away from Jo'Burg and the crime around the country and the

problems everywhere, it was refreshing to hear people talk about their

home with affection.Being in Cape Town was overall just as refreshing as the first night.

We saw a city that recognizes its history – both the good and the

bad. They celebrate the very old culture of the city in pre-Apartheid

days and also look at the tragic toll the Apartheid regime had on the

people of the city. We visited the District Six museum chronicling

the history of this neighborhood: District Six. At some point during

Apartheid, the government of Cape Town made the decision that the

vibrant multicultural community in District Six would become a white

area and thus all the people living there – some 60,000 would be

forced to move to other 'more appropriate' areas. After razing the

buildings, nothing was built and even today most of District Six is

empty land, visible even from the top of Table Mountain.The city's diversity does not cloak the past but rather seems to be

working towards a better future, one that the rest of South Africa can

at some point embrace. Mind you, this does not exclude Cape Town from

the rest of the country's problems. It is not as so many think of it

'the city south of South Africa.' The townships of the Cape Flats out

on the barren lands east of the city are some of the biggest in all of

Africa and some of the most dangerous. The crime rate is appalling in

those areas and has filtered through into Cape Town, which was once

believed to be relatively immune from the crime and violence that

other South African cities face. As you drive down one of the

highways entering the city you pass miles and miles of these townships

hidden behind a concrete wall. The World Cup commission here in South

Africa was going to build the new stadium in one of these townships to

promote an 'access to all' approach but as it goes, it was placed on

the waterfront in a trendy, expensive area. In spite of these

problems, Cape Town-ians are willing to talk about the problems this

country faces and their own role in it – regardless of the racial

group, there is a feeling of communal responsibility. This is

hopefully something that given time, will spread to other areas.Since returning to the village we went through a whole emotional

rollercoaster. We returned with post-trip blues wishing we were in

the relaxation of our trip not having to deal with the stresses of the

village and the harsh realities of life here. That 'down' gave way to

a more optimistic two weeks as we have re-focused our energies on the

students at the high school. Last week was our first week doing the

after-school programs. While we had a good response on our sign-up

sheets last month, the students seemed to be intimidated to meet with

us, that or did not understand what they were signing up for (which

could be the case). Last week on Tuesday Laura had the first drama

club where she did several improv games with about 15 students while I

did some drawing exercises with a couple of 12th graders. We were

pretty content with that day thinking that would be a consistent

turnout for the rest of the clubs though few people came the rest of

the week. One problem is that the students just do not understand

that we are doing this for them. There has never been anything like

this at the high school and most of the teachers zip out as the final

bell rings so they are unused to a student-focused program. With

time, our presence will become more familiar and the kids will be more

willing to trust us and join us. Also, our counterparts in the

village that we are working with on this project do not have the same

commitment to the program as we do, which is completely

understandable. None of them work and are in the process of trying to

develop a baking cooperative, so I can not ask them to put the

students before their own livelihoods. As time goes on, we will see

what Laura and I can support and what our counterparts can put in.Sustainability is a tricky thing because this program needs to be more

than our project – it needs to be something that others are responsive

to and care for. In spite of all the troubles in the community, there

is a feeling that the members want positive change. When Laura and I

did a food and water survey in the village, people had such difficulty

answering the 'greatest strength of the community' question, yet no

problem with 'what does the community need?' They could not see the

assets but they all had answers for what they thought would help.Today we had our second drawing and drama clubs and with some gentle

prodding of the loitering students, we had a lot of participants. I

had a whole classroom of kids in the drawing club working on a still

life while Laura had more kids than she could handle doing improv

games. She asked the students what they wanted to do for a community

play, as in what social issue do they want to tackle to present to the

greater community. They said everything from teen pregnancy to

poverty to HIV/AIDS to TB. It was incredible that the students

recognize all the threats that this community faces. Positive days

like today are rare but have a lasting effect. It is definitely hard

to see that from the outside – to think that one good day can out way

ten bad ones. It is something that I barely could recognize when I

first arrived and I can even see it in the new volunteers that just

arrived last week.

We have a dog. Her name is Lucy (think Lucille from Arrested Development). Lucy has fleas. And ticks. And a multitude of other unknown critters. The are eating her. She hadn’t eaten anything in a very long time. We are trying to fix all of that.

Before we brought her home she was living at the poultry cooperative/project where David is working. He was there for a meeting to which his attention was paid more to the starving dog then to what was being discussed. The dog in reference at the meeting has been living there at the project for our entire 3 months here at site. The poultry project is a fenced hectare of land (yet to be developed) that is completely cleared so there is no place for the dog to go and no way to even hunt its food. The members of the project do not feed her enough and you can see how weak she is. As kind of impulse David decided to offer the man who claimed to own the dog some money just to get the dog out of that fenced area. The man considered the offer (50 Rand is a lot of money in the village – especially for a dog, and a weak dog that is starving at that) and said no, he “likes the dog” (?!?) He said David can have “that one,” pointing to a new arrival that David had not seen before. The man said this other dog was dropped off by someone in the village earlier that day who no longer wanted her and she (the dog) was carting around a piece of scrap metal to keep her from running off. David says yes and took the dog home – she could barely make it home considering she really was a skeleton with skin. She was in even worse case than the dog first considered. Lucy is extremely malnourished and is infested (really infested) with these little weevil-like bugs. David went first thing Friday morning to our shopping town to get dog food and medicine which as we discovered today, has already started to kill whatever it was that has been plaguing her. She seems to be doing better and with time she will regain her strength and health!

Dogs are not pets in South Africa. People keep dogs for protection, and although there is a lot of crime, this is laughable. If you don’t feed your dog and you throw rocks at it whenever it comes near you, it will inevitably become useless as a guard dog, and just run away from intruders for fear of being stoned to death.

Bored children find entertainment in hurting the most docile of animals: kittens, starving dogs, old cows who don’t move very fast. In the States we call that Conduct Disorder, the childhood precursor to Anti-Social Personality Disorder.

Being a vegetarian in the States is pretty easy. It’s not that weird. Being a vegan in the States can be stressful and not always enjoyable. Sure, you can create some delicious food with a lot of effort and imagination. And yes, you can enjoy the occasional nice meal out with a lot of money and patience (and only if you are willing to lose a good chunk of dignity by asking too many questions about each vegetarian menu item). The hardest part is missing out on the most enjoyable things about food, like downing a whole pizza (ok, in our case two large pizzas), strolling with an ice cream cone in hand on a summer night, and most difficult, not being able to share in a meal with friends and family. In the States I was able to say that I found comfort in things other than food, and that I shared many fond memories with people I care about even if we were not eating the same thing at the same time. Now, living across the world, in a different culture, without family or friends nearby, feeling more stress than I ever have in my entire life, and my thoughts focused on the plight of the people around me, I do not feel even a twinge of guilt when I drink my over-pasteurized, long-life milk. In fact, for a while I wasn’t even thinking about it. And then I did think about it and I didn’t have enough emotional energy left for it to bother me.

Don’t get me wrong, I still become livid and nearly cry when I see kids hitting a calf with sticks, or when I see rocks hurtling towards a beautiful rooster. However, while I used to gingerly usher spiders onto a soft tissue and walk them outside, I have now become quite proficient at squashing cockroaches with one quick pound of my bare fist.

Our counterparts in the Next Step project sort of snickered when we told them we bought medicine for a dog. Thankfully our host family is not like that. They have been feeding Lucy their left over chicken bones and even gave us some extra corrugated tin and bricks they had lying around to build her a little dog house out back. In the States, dog houses look like miniature versions of people houses they sit behind, and apparently this is also true in Africa. If we can’t take her with us when we leave, we know she will have a nice home here.

Here’s a little update on the Next Step program: Last week we gave sign up sheets to the teachers at the high school for the first clubs we are going to start: soccer, women’s soccer, drama, drawing, dancing and indigenous sports. A huge number of students signed up! Many more than we expected! Next week we are going to Cape Town, and we plan to start up the clubs when we return.

We wanted to share a new idea of ours... we call it Next Step, and

will involve working with the high school learners here in our village

on developing their hobbies and desired professional skills, and

getting them more information (and hopefully more motivation) on

applying to university, getting scholarships, interviewing for jobs,

writing CVs etc so that after matric they aren't sitting at home with

nothing to do all day, resorting to drinking and engaging in

transactional relationships to survive. Now of course we have a name

for the program - what would an idea be without a name, and a logo

(it's a really corny). We've decided to start this program with the

high school because the years after high school into the mid twenties

are when South Africans are most at risk for contracting HIV.

However, I hope that if this gets off the ground, we can eventually

involve lower grades in developing communication skills, computer

skills, and hobbies.Last week we, along with our two local counterparts, met with the 11th

and 12th graders and asked them some questions in an attempt to get

them thinking about their futures and to gain more insight on how this

program can be most useful to them. Specifically we spent time

talking about what most people do after matric, what they personally

want to do, what challenges they think they might face, what their

options are, etc. A general consensus is that many people stay home

and sit around doing nothing all day after matric - the challenges

being lack of money, lack of information on how to get scholarships,

where to look for jobs, not knowing how to market themselves to jobs

or universities, etc. They all wrote down their professional

aspirations and hobbies they would want to improve and we got some

great results. First of all, they all have interests and hopes for

the future. We got answers from doctor, pilot, mechanical

engineering, analytical chemistry to starting a small business,

acting, carpentry, auto mechanics etc etc....so things that required

them to have either formal or informal education. One kid has designed

a car engine that runs on high pressured air and would like to see

that get off the ground... In addition there are so many high

schoolers interested in music, writing, drama, art, sports - things

that could be fulfilling hobbies or things that they could pursue

professionally with some education or at least getting into a

university to make some connections. As far as the education system

goes, their role in all of this is limited. They do not provide

extensive information or guidance on applying to university, or how to

get scholarships. They also don't provide the learners with much

opportunity to realize or develop their unique talents and skills.We are going to start holding weekly office hours at the school so

that learners can help us develop this program, and so we can be there

as a resource for kids who have specific questions. Once we get

things organized we are going to hold workshops on things like

interviewing skills, writing a CV, maybe even computer skills if we

can use the ones at the school. This past week we have been

contacting universities throughout the country requesting information

on undergraduate degree programs, the application process, admission

requirements, financial aid, and scholarships. We also plan to invite

representatives from universities to speak with the learners about

different educational opportunities and give the kids a better idea of

what different programs involve and what careers path they can lead

to. The next step of the process will be finding man power to

dedicate to helping the learners develop their hobbies. We are going

to do this in several ways, 1 is to find community members here who

are willing to help out teaching kids how to dance, coach a netball

team, teach traditional Ndebele beadwork, and the like. 2 is to

contact organizations such as the Department of Traditional Sports, a

municipal youth sports organization, and drama groups who do outreach

in rural communities. We are also going to reach out to community

members who would be willing to take on a sort of apprentice, for

example carpenters, electricians, and auto mechanics. We have been

trying to find some assistance in putting on a youth theater

performance...it would be great if the students could put on a play on

social issues such as drinking and HIV/AIDS for the community. It is

a popular way to get messages across in Central and Eastern Africa but

has not yet taken hold here in South Africa. There was a really

strong response for acting and drama at the school so hopefully that

is something that we can pursue.We will have to see what really pans out, though at least we have the

name down

My life has become one big pulley system. Thanks to my husband's

handiness/extensive Boy Scout training, in the States everything in

our apartment hung from a nail in the wall. Here, everything hangs

from rope strung over the rafters that support our roof (no ceiling –

just tin and planks of wood.) So, want an orange? Maybe an avocado?

Grapefruit? Conveniently hanging from the ceiling. Need to put the

mosquito net down before you go to bed? Just unhook this handy rope,

loop it over the bar and there you go. Want to take a shower? Wait,

did I just say shower? Yes, we are now the proud owners of a Super

Solar Shower. No more buckets baths for the Kulicks! Anyway, all you

have to do is fill up the shower bag from the spigot outside and let

it hang on the tree for about 8 hours. Once back inside, hook the

shower bag to the rope, pull down with all your might/get David to do

it, but be careful that the rope doesn't slip off the piece of scrap

metal wrapped around the rafter beam (then you are really in trouble),

shimmy to the left a bit, hook the appropriate loop David has

designated for your height over the door knob, attach the tube with

the little shower head thing, and…viola! Hop in! The water is almost

room temperature!The other day I got to thinking about my old hygiene routines and

realized that I could actually go through the whole thing in just one

room. Shower, sink, toilet, its all right there in the bathroom,

right where you need it. Here, on the other hand, I can't even do all

those things inside the house, and everything requires many more

steps. For example, a morning routine in the USA: Wake up, go to

bathroom, pee, flush, brush teeth and wash face in sink. Done. A

morning routine in SA: Wake up, check to see if the pee bucket is too

full from the night before. No? You're in luck, go ahead. If it is,

put on a sweater because it is freezing, unlock the front door (three

different keys in two doors – you better not have to go that badly),

grab the pee bucket, put on shoes, walk out to the pit latrine, dump

out bucket down the hole, put bucket down outside while you pee, grab

bucket again and take it to the spigot out back, rinse it out, go back

inside. Grab the toothbrushes and toothpaste from where they live in

the big neon green cup on the dresser in the bedroom. Go into the

other room. Using the water pitcher, take some water from the giant

industrial drum (that says "granular chlorine" followed by several

health warnings) and pour water into the cup. Put toothpaste on the

toothbrush, grab the cup and walk outside, around to the back of the

house where there is a nice patch of grass. Brush teeth, rinse, spit

on ground, walk over to the spigot behind the other house, rinse out

the brush and cup, go back inside. Using the water pitcher again,

take water from another water container and pour into the small blue

bucket on the bedroom floor, kneel on the hard, cold, cement floor,

wash face in water. Carry bucket with water outside, dump water,

carry bucket over to spigot, rinse out and wipe down with washcloth,

go back inside. Not that I'm complaining, at least we have water and

that nice china cabinet in the second room full of beautiful sets of

dishes just incase there is a funeral.Taking a lot of time to do everything was hard to adjust to coming

from our always busy lives at home, but it has also been a huge lesson

in patience, and in some instances it adds to the experience. About a

month ago we started a garden in the back yard. Nothing extreme, just

a small patch of land that will be enough to provide some vegetables

for us and the family we live with to supplement our groceries. This

we began truly from scratch, and will take a lot of time and patience

to create. To start, we raked out a good path to get through the

grass to the garden. This is not the plush grass you find in the

States but rather what they call 'scrub grass' which is very tough and

course with a very deep root system. Next, we used knives and a

machete to cut down some of the tall grass in the way. We determined

a perimeter for the garden, and tilled the soil around the perimeter,

then used braches we gathered from the bush to burn that soil, to keep

the grass from growling back there. The next step was a little sad:

our host mothers decided that with Fall arriving, they did not want to

rake up all the leaves from the trees, so instead they had someone

come while we were at work one day and saw off all the branches on all

the trees in the yard. Our compound looks ugly and creepy now. I'm

sure we would have said "yes, of course we will help you rake the

leaves" if they had asked, but they didn't. This did, however, give

us enough natural material to build a fence for the garden. So, David

got right on that and sawed off the branches to the same length.

While he took on the tedious job of driving each branch into the

ground (maybe about 115 of them) using a homemade stake and mallet, I

took on the equally tedious job of digging a hole. My compost hole,

which I am now very proud of. It is really hard to dig a good hole!

Anyway, after David got all the posts for the fence up, we went to

work weaving smaller branches horizontally through the tall ones,

giving them support and hopefully keeping out some bigger animals.

Seeing as the family cat likes to play by jumping into the garden

through the holes in our fence while we build it, our next job is to

go out into the bush and gather some thorny bush branches to set at

the bottom of the fence. When this thing actually turns into a garden

it will be so satisfying!Last weekend we had a little sleep over with some fellow PCVs from the

area. Whenever PCVs visit each other sleeping over is a must. First

of all, you probably spent a few hours and a good chunk of chelete

(money) to get there. Plus, you would have to leave with a few hours

to spare before dark, so really you might only have a few hours to

visit. So, inevitably, we all revert to our 10 year old selves and

make a good old slumber party out of it, complete with sleeping bags

and backpacks strewn about wherever there is room. On Saturday, David

and I and a PCV friend of ours went for a hike out to "The Dam," which

is really just a large lake, near our village. It was about 6 miles

each way, mostly through bush, only cattle trails to lead us in the

general direction. It was tempting to jump in as soon as we saw the

water, but of course there are probably crocodiles in there so we

stood our ground at shore, and stared off into the big beautiful blue

lake, listening to all the different kinds of birds and spotting them

through binoculars. On the way back the arrows of Impala poop we had

crafted along the way, combined with David's top notch tracking skills

(Thanks again, Boy Scouts of America) helped us navigate our way from

the water to the village. Suddenly David halted in his tracks in

front of me, put his arms out and gasped, "STOP!" – now I must

interject here that this is a regular occurrence on our hikes, and

more importantly, does nothing to help my anxiety and paranoia that

something scary and dangerous is around every bend. My usual reaction

is to stop and sort of curl up in a standing ball as if someone is

about to attack me from any direction, I probably lift one foot up off

the ground incase the feared predator strikes from below. I would

like to think that I regain my composure before David has time to turn

around and see the look on my face. Anyway, on Saturday this was a

good "STOP!" - it continued with "ZEBRA!" I looked to my left and in

the distance saw a group of Zebra through the bush…and seconds later,

saw David sprinting after them. Our friend and I looked at each

other, sort of half heartedly called out "David!…um….alright" shrugged

our shoulders and went running after them too. About thirty seconds

later David was up in a tree with the binoculars, counting Zebras. It

is one thing to see cool animals at the Buffalo Zoo and a completely

different thing entirely to see them out in the wild, in Africa, no

cages, running freely. And the best part was that this was just a few

miles from our house – a moment like that makes everything else all

worth it.

So after a hectic week, back in forth to Pretoria twice for medical appointments I am more struck by the state of so many South Africans than when I first arrived. When I disembarked from the airplane in Jo’Burg, I expected to be shocked, by the lack of resources, by not having water, by the poverty…the whole thing. Well I settled into things and then I had to travel to Pretoria last week. I got to the bus stop at one of the many times people told me to arrive there. ‘Maybe 5’, ‘maybe 7’, ‘what bus?’ So I am out there and I catch a bus to Pretoria, and when it arrives someone throws a ticket onto the ground from a window on the bus. Slightly confused, I pick up the ticket and get on the bus and the driver punches a hole in the ticket. Someone starts yelling at me for 33Rand and I realize the whole plan by which someone buys a ticket for 31Rand, sells it to someone without a ticket for 33Rand versus the 35Rand you would pay the driver. This scheme yields the ticket holder 2Rand, yet there are people and I encountered that ride the buses back and forth to Pretoria making 2Rand by selling tickets.

I am on the bus, sitting in the isle cramped as usual as the bus flies down dirt roads over bumps down into ditches – they should make it into an amusement park ride. Within a couple of hours I arrive in a different world. Pretoria (in certain parts) is like the United States. There is an area near the university with restaurants, college bars, movie theatres, nice malls, the whole gambit. I could not really place myself at that moment, going from the third world to the first world so quickly. I expected this in coming to Africa, but not in a two hour bus ride. I had no electricity the night before, and bathed in a bucket, but arrive at a place with Smart Cars and vegan food options in the grocery stores. The disparity seems to be ignored by all. The white population in the cities never venture to the villages – they have never driven through or seen the villages, do not know what it is like, and could never ever imagine traveling on the bus or Kombi as we do. There is such a disconnect between the way they live in the nice areas of Pretoria and the world that exists for most South Africans.

Perhaps this is what fuels the dazzling crime in this country, the disconnect. Disparity exists in so much of the world – in India, in the US, everywhere, yet the disconnect between the rich and the poor, the have and the have nots seems to triumph here. When I say disconnect I mean a recognition of the lack of resources of so many, of alleviating the poverty, and fighting disease. The haves cut themselves off from the world that exists throughout South Africa. Those that have lifted themselves out of such poverty to education and opportunity do the same thing and create the same separation. For years, the people who had the wealth, the white population under Apartheid had a systemized method of separating the poor majority from themselves: they forced them to live in townships. These townships were essentially a pot of poverty with its lid put on tight – no way out and the result would have to be expected…crime. Well after Apartheid ended and ‘separateness’ ended, this pot of crime suddenly spilled over – it spilled to the cities, and then to the villages. It stemmed from years of inequality combined with forced separation. I think this contributes to the crime that exists here and not in other countries of equal inequality, an oppressive disparity. Well now, those with the wealth put up walls and on top of the walls, barb wire and then on top of that, electric fences. Walking through Pretoria I imagined it would be quite a beautiful city if not for the walls – if you could see the homes you are walking next to. Mind you, these levels of protection are extremely necessary in such a place – though they are re-enforcing. More crime, more walls, more crime.

During this trip, the issue of safety was hyped up even more than it is in the village. In the village we are aware of our surroundings, of the bush, making sure we are not alone, keeping an eye on the sun and when it will get dark, but in Pretoria time was almost overbearing. I would have to make sure everything was done according to a time: I would have to walk to the Peace Corps office, but making sure it was planned so as to not be caught in the wrong area during middle of the day when the trains are letting out – that is when I passer-bys are targeted. Making sure if I had an appointment I would have to get to the office to get back to the hostel in time before dark. If we went out, walking to the main shopping area before dark. If it was after dark out at a bar, making sure there were 5 of more people to walk 8 blocks home, or if not, taking a 30Rand taxi. Always knowing where I am, always sizing people up and their potential danger they may pose…it is exhausting. Never have I been so conscious of time and where I need to be at what time to avoid the muggings that happen to so many. Coupled with this, I am hyper aware of race in Pretoria – more so than in the village where Laura and I are the only white people. In Pretoria there is such a divide between races that live next to one another that I see the difference so clearly. In the village, I am the outsider, the American, the foreigner, so I expect there to be a divide, but in the cities, you can almost feel the racial tension. The term ‘rainbow nation’ that is used to describe South Africa is almost correct in that it are many races and peoples living together, though the lines between each one, between each color are so distinct.

The disconnect between the haves and have nots even exists within the same city, there is no need to travel 2 hours on a bus. Outside of one of the taxi ranks in Pretoria where all the taxis queue there was a woman changing her baby on an old cardboard box using an old newspaper to clean the child. That was only 30 minutes from being in a nice grocery store looking at the 100 different kind of cheeses for sale. This woman changing her baby really struck me, because it did not seem to be an issue to anyone – the poverty was accepted and ‘okay’.

The day before I left for Pretoria last week I was visiting one of the farms within my organization in a neighboring village, where I came across a poster on a shop for an ‘AIDS Cure’. The poster claimed that by sticking to this traditional healer’s regiment your CD4 count would go up and you would be completely cured. Apparently she also cures cancer, infertility, stokes, and epilepsy. This poster appealed to those that have so little resources, who look at the poster and think that is the solution. Our village has no access to ARV’s – for someone to obtain them, they must go to the regional hospital 16Rand and up to 2 hours away. The clinic does what it can but is under-funded and in desperate need of repairs in so many ways. The waiting room is full first thing in the morning with people patiently waiting to be seen, with the receptionist’s office doubling as the weighing room. This is what the population has to depend on. Though I take a 2 hour bus ride and arrive at my doctor’s appointment in a private hospital in a really nice area of Pretoria. Traversing these two worlds is difficult because it shows me the divide that so many either cannot see or refuse to see. The doctors are extremely efficient – so much more so than in the States. I had a doctor do my ultrasound and explain what he saw while he was doing the whole thing. The X-Ray machine was digital and when I asked why I was not given a protective apron, the technician proceeds to do a demonstration on a blank X-Ray showing how there are no scattered particles. That is more of explanation than I have ever received before in my life. The change was so striking from a ‘cure’ for AIDS by a tradition healer named ‘Dr Mary’ to cutting edge technology. In one world, people are dependent on what little care if any they can get, while in the first world, not only is the care assumed, but also the information that goes with it. While I was in Pretoria, Laura went around with the Home Based Care workers to a home of an older man dying of what was obviously AIDS. He had active Tuberculosis and claimed that he had been tested for HIV and was negative though he his waist was the size of Laura’s leg – he was withering away and refused to admit it. In spite of failing to recognize the virus, the care provided to him was inadequate. But as with the woman changing the baby with the newspaper, the standard of disparity seems almost accepted.

So yesterday (after my second trip to Pretoria in one week) I head home. After getting dropped off at the wrong bus stop by a taxi, I am saved from by the kindness of an old woman. When I discovered that I was dropped off at the wrong bus stop to go to my village, I realized there is no way I could make it to where I needed to be without everything of mine being stolen. As soon as I got out of the taxi and evaluated the sketchiness of the area I did the safest I could do, I started talking to an old woman. Old African women are the most respected people in their communities and even in a dangerous area, they are your best bet for safety. I explained in Setswana what I was doing there, where I was going, what I do in the village, etc. She was understanding and stopped what she is doing to escort me to the other bus stop. At the other bus stop, she sat me between these two old woman, who again made sure I was safe and set. When the bus arrived I was in for another surprise. There were metal isles on the side of the bus lane where people could queue, similar to lines at an airport, yet when the bus pulled up it became a mad dash. Everyone was pushing everyone and running for the door. People shoved each other off the steps of the bus as though there was something terrifying chasing them or perhaps something wonderful waiting…neither. I waited until this madness subsided and took one of the dozen or so empty seats still left. I sat there thinking that perhaps these people were just scrambling to get on the bus to get away from the confusion of the haves and have nots. In the village, there is no false hope, accomplishments can only be real and from within.

Well, it’s election day – and a milestone in our service. We knew about this day (tentatively) before we arrived and they announced the official election day during our Pre-Service Training. When they first announced the day, we thought things might break down during the elections, a ‘who knows what to expect’ opinion. Well we do not know the results yet, but according to the news articles we have seen, it is looking as though ANC will remain in power. Our host mother during training was more political so at the time, we felt the pressure of the election bearing down. Since then, our village (from what we have experienced) is more uninvolved so we have not had that countdown feeling. As of soon we will see what the next five years will bring South Africa. Some we have talked to think it will be much of the same, some think the next term will bring dramatic change. One opinion we heard was that it will take at least 50 years to change the ways things are run – to get past the prevailing views of those that lived under Apartheid to a new way of thinking. We tend to avoid the political conversations because they can get heated and it can negatively affect our place in the community to choose sides. For now at least, during integration, it is best to have more pleasant interactions. Such as…

One day last week David was called over to the neighbor’s house to see a snake they had just caught and killed. I was uninterested/a little grossed out to see a dead snake so I didn’t go – well I regretted my decision when it turned out to be a 7 foot Python, but by the time I found out it was already dark and too late to go back over. The following day we came home to hear that a different neighbor had caught another snake! I was excited that I got another chance to see a cool African snake (and also a little surprised that this was turning into a daily occurrence), so we quickly walked over. Well, it turned out to be the same snake as the day before, except I got to see it with a wire tied around its neck, tongue sticking out, hanging upside down from a tree, skinned (it’s skin, still perfectly intact, was hanging casually over a nearby branch), while two men were slicing it open with a blunt knife, yanking its guts out and throwing them on the ground. They invited us over to eat it with them after they let it dry out for a few days, claiming that it “tastes just like chicken!” They said they would be eating it on Saturday, but we got back from our shopping town late, so I figured I was in the clear. Then on Monday David’s coworker said they hadn’t eaten the snake yet, and that she would bring some over for us that night. Nothing. Yesterday the same woman said, “They are frying it today. They ate it all yesterday.” Not sure what that means, but thankfully I have avoided eating any snake as of yet.

Since we left training and entered the real world of South Africa, we have noticed so many strange new things. One thing that I find unsettling is that people think Afrikaaners live everywhere, that Afrikaans is spoken everywhere. People ask me if I speak Afrikaans even after I have known them for a little while and they know that I am American. When I explain that Afrikaans is only spoken here, that Afrikaaners, other than those who have emigrated, only exist in South Africa, people are absolutely shocked. One woman said to me, “Those people were so cruel, I thought they were doing these things all over the world.” I can’t imagine how devastating it must be to have lived through a period of such oppression, thinking that the rest of the world is going through the same thing you are, and then suddenly finding out, years later, that it only happened here, in one small country, only to you, while the rest of the world carried on. You would think, how could people not know that Apartheid was only happening here? Well the history was written by those in charge and the education was dictated by the government in Pretoria. The education system in the rural villages was teaching the population a ‘lesser education’ known as Bantu education. The education system was based on the belief that the black South African population was less capable of learning and would not need or utilize the education, so therefore why teach subjects that would not be productive. On top of that, it was not correct to question what was taught, so not only were people taught inadequately, but they were never allowed to expand their interests. For 50 years this not include world affairs, history, or politics, so you will now encounter a whole generation that lost years of connection with the rest of the world – jumping from the world of oppression to the world of WWF on the TV with no explanation or answers along the way.

We have been here for three weeks, and have started to get a sense of projects we want to work on. There is a aide at the clinic who is passionate about the youth of this community, and I’ve had a few conversations with her about possible project ideas. One of them is to get community members involved in a program where they would teach their skills to school aged kids. There are groups of people in the community who garden, sew, make peanut butter, bead, do welding and woodwork. Skills like these would be beneficial to students once they graduate from high school, giving young people something to do with their hands and heads, and something to rely on as a source of income being that the unemployment rate is so high. Old women are the ones who were raised learning how to crochet, bead, garden, use their hands in any way, and the aide at the clinic is afraid that these skills are soon going to die with these “grannies.” David and I also want to tie in hobbies to this program – working on personal talents and interests will be just as important to these students, to work on developing themselves and finding passion and motivation for something. Just having a way to keep busy is actually very important here in this tiny village – there is literally nothing to do if you don’t have a hobby. Teenagers are bored and have nothing to do after school and on the weekends besides drinking. David and I visited the high school last week to talk to the learners about our idea. It was a wonderful experience, and we received a different reception than at other schools we have visited. The principal was very welcoming, introduced us to all the teachers who were hard at work, and had a couple members of the student council take us around to each classroom so we could meet the learners. We introduced ourselves, explained why were are here, and encouraged them to introduce themselves to us when they see us walking down the street, ask us questions about HIV and AIDS, and share ideas they have for their community. When we ran by them this idea of starting a program in which they could learn skills and work on their hobbies and interests, they were happy about the idea and said they would be interested in participating. Of course, as high school students anywhere they weren’t jumping up and down or anything, but we could tell we had their attention. As we were leaving the school two boys came up to us. One said that he likes to draw and the other that he likes to dance, and that these are things they want to work on. YES! We really had captured their interest, and maybe we had something to work with. Later that night another group of 3 boys came over to the house looking for David (Keletso). They also wanted to talk to him about their interests: one is writing a book and would like some help with it, and the others are part of a hip-hop group who is trying to put out a demo tape, and they want to write a song about HIV to help out in our initiative! That was an exciting moment. It felt great to know that we can get other people excited about our ideas, and that there are people here who care about their community, and who want to be active in fighting HIV and AIDS.

It dawned on me a few days ago that I am living in third world Africa – I had sort of forgotten that fact as I’ve been settling into life over the past three weeks. It also occurred to me that I can’t really understand what living in third world Africa means. Maybe the electricity in our house, or our cell phones, or having access to the internet makes me forget that this place is still third world – we don’t have running water, most of the village doesn’t have water at all besides the sparse taps on the sides of the road, provided by the municipality, which often don’t work for up to a month, during which time people have to buy water from donkey carts passing through the village. Beyond that the water is not clean (we filter our drinking water). Cholera is now spreading down through SA’s water sources. Yesterday all doctors in SA, besides the private practice ones, went on strike (Even writing this now, I am still baffled by that. Don’t doctors have to take some sort of oath? Am I remembering that correctly?) I bathe and pee in a bucket (don’t worry, different buckets). The unemployment rate is at least 70%. Oh yes, and 25% of the population has HIV. The thing is, already all of this has become part of the routine of life; I simply don’t think about them, unless I am struck by something profound at the moment. I think we all (or maybe just all PCV’s) have had daydreams about living in such a place, the beautiful African countryside. Maybe washing clothes on a washboard on a clear blue day against a background of beautiful wildflowers and mountains. This actually would be what you saw if you took a picture of me on any given Sunday, but believe me, the moment you are no longer in a fantasy and are actually in real life schlepping gallons of water from behind the dung house to do a weeks worth of laundry by hand, in the same small bucket that you will bathe in (probably not until a few days later) in the blazing sun, which takes about an hour and by the end of which your hands are developing blisters, you’re sweating profusely, and the back of your neck is burned, and you still have to hang everything and wait for it to dry, you’re not basking in the wonderment of the simple life anymore than you would ponder the great achievements of technology while throwing a load of laundry into the machine in your basement. Anyways, I guess my point is that, even though I am living here, living this life, I cannot ever completely understand what it is like for everyone else here. Not only because I am coming from a different perspective, but because I am choosing this. Furthermore, at any point I could chose to leave, to go back to the States. The people here certainly did not chose this and they do not have an alternative. This is where they were plopped down into the world, and that’s that.

On Monday we went around with a few home based care workers to conduct a survey about general demographics, how many people per household, how many people work, where do they get their food, how do they get water, do they grow their own food, why if not, and what they think are the greatest strengths and needs of the community. We went to four homes, and asked everyone the same questions. Some of the responses were expected, others were interesting. What was expected was that there were orphans living in two of the homes, all homes were populated mostly by women, only two people grow their own food and they only grow meadie (their version of corn) and beans, nobody has enough water, and what they saw the community as needing the most is water and jobs. What was unexpected was the reason others do not grow food is because they do not have enough money to buy fencing or to have someone come to plough their land (which definitely could be ploughed by hand), and that each and every person had to stop and think for several minutes to come up with a strength of the community. Eventually their answers were the schools, the home based care workers, and the fact that the government came in and gave everyone new pit latrines. The survey we came up with was asking questions on possibilities and development – it came from our perspective, that of Peace Corps Volunteers. It was humbling to realize that our project ideas were ours and even the questions we asked were for us. We implemented the survey to create a baseline from which to start, but how do we start something for someone who lives on 200 Rand a month for a family of four? The possibility for change is not just about suggestions we realized but mindsets – changing the status quo from acceptance to what if. These are the moments of struggle along the way, moments that are not so picturesque and romantic, but real.

Though, we do occasionally have those picture-perfect moments. When I wake up in the morning and go outside as the sun is still rising, casting that glow over the grass, it is the perfect temperature, and there is no sounds other than birds and the cattle are just starting to graze. When I walk into the clinic just as the patients are starting the morning prayer and their singing is so moving that you can feel the hope in the room. To see one of David’s co-workers working in the fields of the vegetable garden, with her baby on her back, and the mountains in the distance. On the way to our shopping town we pass by fields and fields of tall yellow sunflowers and keep a constant watch to try to spot a giraffe.

On such journeys in the combis, we have come to recognize something different about time. Living in the States, time is a possession – it is something that you own and if disrupted…well we all know how we can get. Here in the village and in villages like it across the region, time is not a possession of one, but the shared property of many. When we are on the combi traveling from place to place (I actually calculated that we could have traveled the 50 km to our shopping town at a moderate run in about the same time as the drive) we notice ourselves not getting so angered and frustrated as we may have in the past. Waiting for the combi to fill is dependent on many other schedules – doing anything is not just about the pace you would enjoy, but about the shared actions of the group. This change of pace allows things to slow down, or maybe we are just adjusting to the pace a little better. As things progress, we are able to settle into this new way of life. We know some of the habits will stick when we return back to the States, and I am sure, some we will be excited to shed, perhaps the need to say ‘is it?’ as a response to almost everything. Or maybe bringing back to the States the universal friendliness that still prevails here in the rural villages of greeting everyone, even if you do not know them.

Well, it’s election day – and a milestone in our service. We knew about this day (tentatively) before we arrived and they announced the official election day during our Pre-Service Training. When they first announced the day, we thought things might break down during the elections, a ‘who knows what to expect’ opinion. Well we do not know the results yet, but according to the news articles we have seen, it is looking as though ANC will remain in power. Our host mother during training was more political so at the time, we felt the pressure of the election bearing down. Since then, our village (from what we have experienced) is more uninvolved so we have not had that countdown feeling. As of soon we will see what the next five years will bring South Africa. Some we have talked to think it will be much of the same, some think the next term will bring dramatic change. One opinion we heard was that it will take at least 50 years to change the ways things are run – to get past the prevailing views of those that lived under Apartheid to a new way of thinking. We tend to avoid the political conversations because they can get heated and it can negatively affect our place in the community to choose sides. For now at least, during integration, it is best to have more pleasant interactions. Such as…

One day last week David was called over to the neighbor’s house to see a snake they had just caught and killed. I was uninterested/a little grossed out to see a dead snake so I didn’t go – well I regretted my decision when it turned out to be a 7 foot Python, but by the time I found out it was already dark and too late to go back over. The following day we came home to hear that a different neighbor had caught another snake! I was excited that I got another chance to see a cool African snake (and also a little surprised that this was turning into a daily occurrence), so we quickly walked over. Well, it turned out to be the same snake as the day before, except I got to see it with a wire tied around its neck, tongue sticking out, hanging upside down from a tree, skinned (it’s skin, still perfectly intact, was hanging casually over a nearby branch), while two men were slicing it open with a blunt knife, yanking its guts out and throwing them on the ground. They invited us over to eat it with them after they let it dry out for a few days, claiming that it “tastes just like chicken!” They said they would be eating it on Saturday, but we got back from our shopping town late, so I figured I was in the clear. Then on Monday David’s coworker said they hadn’t eaten the snake yet, and that she would bring some over for us that night. Nothing. Yesterday the same woman said, “They are frying it today. They ate it all yesterday.” Not sure what that means, but thankfully I have avoided eating any snake as of yet.

Since we left training and entered the real world of South Africa, we have noticed so many strange new things. One thing that I find unsettling is that people think Afrikaaners live everywhere, that Afrikaans is spoken everywhere. People ask me if I speak Afrikaans even after I have known them for a little while and they know that I am American. When I explain that Afrikaans is only spoken here, that Afrikaaners, other than those who have emigrated, only exist in South Africa, people are absolutely shocked. One woman said to me, “Those people were so cruel, I thought they were doing these things all over the world.” I can’t imagine how devastating it must be to have lived through a period of such oppression, thinking that the rest of the world is going through the same thing you are, and then suddenly finding out, years later, that it only happened here, in one small country, only to you, while the rest of the world carried on. You would think, how could people not know that Apartheid was only happening here? Well the history was written by those in charge and the education was dictated by the government in Pretoria. The education system in the rural villages was teaching the population a ‘lesser education’ known as Bantu education. The education system was based on the belief that the black South African population was less capable of learning and would not need or utilize the education, so therefore why teach subjects that would not be productive. On top of that, it was not correct to question what was taught, so not only were people taught inadequately, but they were never allowed to expand their interests. For 50 years this not include world affairs, history, or politics, so you will now encounter a whole generation that lost years of connection with the rest of the world – jumping from the world of oppression to the world of WWF on the TV with no explanation or answers along the way.

We have been here for three weeks, and have started to get a sense of projects we want to work on. There is a aide at the clinic who is passionate about the youth of this community, and I’ve had a few conversations with her about possible project ideas. One of them is to get community members involved in a program where they would teach their skills to school aged kids. There are groups of people in the community who garden, sew, make peanut butter, bead, do welding and woodwork. Skills like these would be beneficial to students once they graduate from high school, giving young people something to do with their hands and heads, and something to rely on as a source of income being that the unemployment rate is so high. Old women are the ones who were raised learning how to crochet, bead, garden, use their hands in any way, and the aide at the clinic is afraid that these skills are soon going to die with these “grannies.” David and I also want to tie in hobbies to this program – working on personal talents and interests will be just as important to these students, to work on developing themselves and finding passion and motivation for something. Just having a way to keep busy is actually very important here in this tiny village – there is literally nothing to do if you don’t have a hobby. Teenagers are bored and have nothing to do after school and on the weekends besides drinking. David and I visited the high school last week to talk to the learners about our idea. It was a wonderful experience, and we received a different reception than at other schools we have visited. The principal was very welcoming, introduced us to all the teachers who were hard at work, and had a couple members of the student council take us around to each classroom so we could meet the learners. We introduced ourselves, explained why were are here, and encouraged them to introduce themselves to us when they see us walking down the street, ask us questions about HIV and AIDS, and share ideas they have for their community. When we ran by them this idea of starting a program in which they could learn skills and work on their hobbies and interests, they were happy about the idea and said they would be interested in participating. Of course, as high school students anywhere they weren’t jumping up and down or anything, but we could tell we had their attention. As we were leaving the school two boys came up to us. One said that he likes to draw and the other that he likes to dance, and that these are things they want to work on. YES! We really had captured their interest, and maybe we had something to work with. Later that night another group of 3 boys came over to the house looking for David (Keletso). They also wanted to talk to him about their interests: one is writing a book and would like some help with it, and the others are part of a hip-hop group who is trying to put out a demo tape, and they want to write a song about HIV to help out in our initiative! That was an exciting moment. It felt great to know that we can get other people excited about our ideas, and that there are people here who care about their community, and who want to be active in fighting HIV and AIDS.

It dawned on me a few days ago that I am living in third world Africa – I had sort of forgotten that fact as I’ve been settling into life over the past three weeks. It also occurred to me that I can’t really understand what living in third world Africa means. Maybe the electricity in our house, or our cell phones, or having access to the internet makes me forget that this place is still third world – we don’t have running water, most of the village doesn’t have water at all besides the sparse taps on the sides of the road, provided by the municipality, which often don’t work for up to a month, during which time people have to buy water from donkey carts passing through the village. Beyond that the water is not clean (we filter our drinking water). Cholera is now spreading down through SA’s water sources. Yesterday all doctors in SA, besides the private practice ones, went on strike (Even writing this now, I am still baffled by that. Don’t doctors have to take some sort of oath? Am I remembering that correctly?) I bathe and pee in a bucket (don’t worry, different buckets). The unemployment rate is at least 70%. Oh yes, and 25% of the population has HIV. The thing is, already all of this has become part of the routine of life; I simply don’t think about them, unless I am struck by something profound at the moment. I think we all (or maybe just all PCV’s) have had daydreams about living in such a place, the beautiful African countryside. Maybe washing clothes on a washboard on a clear blue day against a background of beautiful wildflowers and mountains. This actually would be what you saw if you took a picture of me on any given Sunday, but believe me, the moment you are no longer in a fantasy and are actually in real life schlepping gallons of water from behind the dung house to do a weeks worth of laundry by hand, in the same small bucket that you will bathe in (probably not until a few days later) in the blazing sun, which takes about an hour and by the end of which your hands are developing blisters, you’re sweating profusely, and the back of your neck is burned, and you still have to hang everything and wait for it to dry, you’re not basking in the wonderment of the simple life anymore than you would ponder the great achievements of technology while throwing a load of laundry into the machine in your basement. Anyways, I guess my point is that, even though I am living here, living this life, I cannot ever completely understand what it is like for everyone else here. Not only because I am coming from a different perspective, but because I am choosing this. Furthermore, at any point I could chose to leave, to go back to the States. The people here certainly did not chose this and they do not have an alternative. This is where they were plopped down into the world, and that’s that.

On Monday we went around with a few home based care workers to conduct a survey about general demographics, how many people per household, how many people work, where do they get their food, how do they get water, do they grow their own food, why if not, and what they think are the greatest strengths and needs of the community. We went to four homes, and asked everyone the same questions. Some of the responses were expected, others were interesting. What was expected was that there were orphans living in two of the homes, all homes were populated mostly by women, only two people grow their own food and they only grow meadie (their version of corn) and beans, nobody has enough water, and what they saw the community as needing the most is water and jobs. What was unexpected was the reason others do not grow food is because they do not have enough money to buy fencing or to have someone come to plough their land (which definitely could be ploughed by hand), and that each and every person had to stop and think for several minutes to come up with a strength of the community. Eventually their answers were the schools, the home based care workers, and the fact that the government came in and gave everyone new pit latrines. The survey we came up with was asking questions on possibilities and development – it came from our perspective, that of Peace Corps Volunteers. It was humbling to realize that our project ideas were ours and even the questions we asked were for us. We implemented the survey to create a baseline from which to start, but how do we start something for someone who lives on 200 Rand a month for a family of four? The possibility for change is not just about suggestions we realized but mindsets – changing the status quo from acceptance to what if. These are the moments of struggle along the way, moments that are not so picturesque and romantic, but real.

Though, we do occasionally have those picture-perfect moments. When I wake up in the morning and go outside as the sun is still rising, casting that glow over the grass, it is the perfect temperature, and there is no sounds other than birds and the cattle are just starting to graze. When I walk into the clinic just as the patients are starting the morning prayer and their singing is so moving that you can feel the hope in the room. To see one of David’s co-workers working in the fields of the vegetable garden, with her baby on her back, and the mountains in the distance. On the way to our shopping town we pass by fields and fields of tall yellow sunflowers and keep a constant watch to try to spot a giraffe.

On such journeys in the combis, we have come to recognize something different about time. Living in the States, time is a possession – it is something that you own and if disrupted…well we all know how we can get. Here in the village and in villages like it across the region, time is not a possession of one, but the shared property of many. When we are on the combi traveling from place to place (I actually calculated that we could have traveled the 50 km to our shopping town at a moderate run in about the same time as the drive) we notice ourselves not getting so angered and frustrated as we may have in the past. Waiting for the combi to fill is dependent on many other schedules – doing anything is not just about the pace you would enjoy, but about the shared actions of the group. This change of pace allows things to slow down, or maybe we are just adjusting to the pace a little better. As things progress, we are able to settle into this new way of life. We know some of the habits will stick when we return back to the States, and I am sure, some we will be excited to shed, perhaps the need to say ‘is it?’ as a response to almost everything. Or maybe bringing back to the States the universal friendliness that still prevails here in the rural villages of greeting everyone, even if you do not know them.

So it has finally arrived after all this time – no more buffer zone – we are here at our permanent site! When we first applied we had time (so much of it) that it seemed that we would never be volunteers; eternal Peace Corps applicants… But on Thursday we swore in to become the 19th group to serve as volunteers here in South Africa.

Since we last updated everyone there has been a whirlwind of changes. Two weeks ago all of us Peace Corps Trainees parted ways to head off to our site visit. This site visit was preceded by a short conference with our supervisors at a snazzy hotel in the middle of the Mpumalanga province. Little did I know that would be my last shower for a long time… Anyways, we headed off to our sites – Laura and I going to finally get a glimpse of our home for the next two years.

The four days we were here were filled with mixed emotions – expectations from our site; from our home to be; from the community. We both were able to see what our organizations were like (kind of), and we could hypothesize on our role with them over the next two years. We walked away with both discouragement and excitement – that our organizations seemed to lack a fitted niche for us, while on the other hand these gaps provided such potential for project implementation. Laura’s work will be more fluid between the Home Based Care organization based at the clinic and the clinic itself. After this learning/observation period over the next 3 months, she will have a better sense of the needs and gaps in the organizations and how she can provide resources for dealing with the HIV/AIDS affected population and those others that the clinic serves. I will be working at local co-op that umbrellas other cooperatives primarily focused on agriculture. The organization is based just down the road at the primary vegetable farm from which the whole organization developed. My main objective is to address food security in the community by working to teach people to grow and maintain their own personal gardens at home and to work with Laura to build a garden at the school to serve as a food source for the students, especially the OVCs (orphans and vulnerable children). Mind you, our exposure to our organizations has been limited so perhaps our goals, and ultimate objectives will change within the coming weeks.

After four days away we excitedly returned to our training village to share/vent/blabber about the new site. A week and half passed during which training took a dramatic slowdown. All the issues with sites seemed to take top priority in everyone’s mind. The next big step in training was the final language examination that everyone was required to take. The test was an oral examination in which you would have to carry on a conversation with a tester in the target language and just to make it fun, it was recorded. Well we passed and we are happy about that – we will retake the test at the end of our service, but by that point we will be speaking another language – Sepedi…maybe. Interestingly enough, while our permanent site is extremely close to our former training site, the language spoken here is not Setswana (what we studied) but one of either Ndebele, Tsonga, Sotho, some Zulu, and Sepedi. This means we will be learning another language or some mixture thereof. During the Apartheid era, our training village was in the Setswana homeland designated for the Setswana speaking people. Upon moving to our permanent site, we pass out of the former homeland and into an area that is a mixed salad of languages. I will great somebody in Setswana: Dumela, a response back in Zulu: Yebo, then I back in Zulu: Njani?, then they respond: I am well. The whole thing is like a tower of Babel that never seemed to collapse.

After we were back at our training site, on the Saturday before this past, we had a farewell ceremony for the host families that housed us during training. On the morning of the farewell, some families and some of us volunteers arrived early to help prepare. The families brought with them huge pots for cooking bogobe (bo-chh-o-bay) or pap for some 200 people and what appeared to be an entire cow and sheep (the insides only – it gets better). My friend and I decided to offer our services to some gogo’s (grandmother’s) who took us up on the offer and had some tea while we prepared about 100 pounds of the inside of this cow and sheep. Laura was lucky enough to have the job of preparing the salad! We each had a knife and spent about an hour and a half cleaning out the stomach, intestines, liver, and other organs that were indiscernible from one another. The smell did seem to stick with me for some time, especially since I could not really wash too well (the water was not working at the training site where the farewell was taking place). Despite all of this, I was actually quite satisfied with my work and that I undertook such an endeavor. I was hoping to eat some of the cooked innards to bring the whole experience full circle, but the cooked intestines actually smelled worse than raw so I was unable to muster the courage. Though after the farewell lunch we did enjoy some dried caterpillars which are a common treat among the community!

Following the farewell on Tuesday we had what most of the trainees believe was the most stressful day of this experience to date. Not leaving for two years, or coming into a foreign culture, not learning a new language or preparing the innards of a cow…but going to a Pretoria mall to shop for our new site - the infamous ‘shopping day.’ What would be a stressful experience in the States – buying everything you need for your home for two years in 3 hours – suddenly became a band-aid being pulled off after 8 weeks of living on the rural South African clock. We have been getting used to the pace of life with bucket baths and corner stores for bread to what seemed like and episode of ‘Shop till you Drop!’ After our trip to the Pretoria mall we went back to our host family for one final night. We gave our host Mma a photo of the three of us in an ‘I heart NY’ picture frame, which she was so pleased with. She said she would keep it in her car and show it to all of her passengers.

On Thursday morning we all dressed in our best Peace Corps attire to attend our swearing in ceremony. I do wonder what our clothes will look like after two years! Maybe our close of service ceremony will be casual with shoes ‘optional.’ We took our official oath with a representative from the US Embassy and within an hour afterwards, we all parted ways to head off to site with our supervisors. The first three months at site are what is called ‘community integration’ a period during which we are more or less bound to our site for the purpose of…integration. This time allows us to build relationships within the community up until our In-Service-Training or IST after which we can travel! It was definitely a big leap to leave to our new community and say goodbye to our new friends for another 3 months. The reality struck me just a few days before swearing in. After all the work we put in to get here – all the hoops we had to jump through and all the obstacles along the way, we were finally going to arrive to our official service. We were no longer trainees but volunteers; there was no more buffer zone between our actual role in South Africa. At home in the States there seemed to be an endless time before we left, then their was staging, then orientation, then training, then preparation for swearing in, and now, we are living in our community.

SO, our community is about 500 people give or take, situated about 2 km from another larger village of about 5,000. There are two stores in the neighboring village that sell some dry goods and canned foods, some small Spaza shops (selling candy, cold drink, and sandwiches) out of homes, a clinic, a primary, middle and high school, and of course a tavern. The sandwiches I mentioned are some combination of the following: cheese, fries, egg (omelet), bologna, a hot dog, and pickled mango – it is surprisingly a good combination. Our home is over in the smaller village with a wonderful host family (two older sisters) that gives us our space and time to deal with all the stresses of the day and adjusting to our new life. For this we have to be thankful; many other volunteers have families that insist they eat with them and walk them everywhere. Our host Mma’s understand our needs and understand the finicky nature of Americans. We have a two room building about 30 feet from the main home where our host Mma’s live. There is a fire pit in between the two homes used to build a fire to cook food and boil water for bathing. About 300 feet on the other side of their home is a pit latrine, which is doable during the day, and scary at night.

We had a nice conversation with one of our host Mma’s sons this past weekend and he informed us that there is a plethora of wild African animals that live in the bush just behind our home. This is definitely a perk for us that we may get the chance to see some of them. South of our village is about 5 miles of open bush before you hit a river in which live an array of kudu, springbok, warthogs, snakes, jackals, and apparently giraffe! He is returning in a couple of weeks and wants to take me out hunting for a warthog…that will be a whole other blog entry right there.

Our home has electricity when it is working and we share a spigot out back for water. We decided that rather than constantly go back and forth getting water all the time, we bought an old industrial drum used for pool Chlorine and fill it with water in our home. From this we draw water for bathing, for cooking, drinking, and cleaning. We have another pail which collects the dirty water and is emptied into the pit latrine. This system has worked great so far. We bathe every other day with only a couple inches of water in a large bucket – perhaps it is not actually bathing but rather a slight cleaning routine. Laura and I are quite surprised how easy it has been to adapt to the water/latrine/pee in a bucket at night situation. We have even managed to connect to the internet! During shopping day, we purchased a phone that has internet capabilities that can connect using prepaid airtime. I put the phone next to the computer and connect the two together and viola, I am online. The speed is determined by the network in the area which you can imagine is not all that fast. Unfortunately it does not look like we can upload photos or download them, send email attachments or anything besides simple text. We purchased a small oven thing that is about the size of microwave with two burners on top. We have some basic kitchen utensils and last Saturday we purchased a mini-fridge in our shopping town, which I question if it will ever come. There are no addresses in this village or in most for that matter. There are no street names so I just had to describe directions: four kilometers then left, then right, then left-ish.

On Saturday when we went to our shopping town, we were able to finish purchasing most of the household items we will be needing here at site. We left for our Kombi at about 7:30 in the morning. The neighboring village is our larger connecting point to our shopping town and is only about 10 km away but it can take a ridiculous amount of time to get there. On Friday we waited an hour for transport, though Saturday we were lucky enough to catch one within about 5 minutes. Now as Kombis go, unless you hail one down on the street, you wait until they are full (and I mean full) at a taxi rank before they leave. Going to our shopping town, we waited an hour for the Kombi to fill – the wait could be 2 or even 3 hours depending on the amount of people going. The Kombi could comfortably seat 8, when cramped it can fit 12, though somehow it fits 16. On our way back from our shopping town after stocking up supplies, we packed ourselves into the sardine can and waited for more to arrive. Thankfully there was another Kombi heading back home that had just enough open spots to squeeze us in and we got home without much of a wait. Then…when we arrive back at the neighboring village, we wait again for the Kombi to fill for the 10km trip. This trip as the others is dependent on how many people are traveling. On Friday we were unlucky and hung around an hour while the van filled. The Kombi on Friday seemed to have some difficulties; at one point the driver lifted the floor under Laura’s feet and sparked what appeared to be battery after which the Kombi billowed with smoke. I would like to think that the kombi at that point would be ‘unroadworthy’ but alas, four tires and some seats make for an 8 Rand trip.

So here we are at our site with plenty of time to think about our life and our choices. We are definitely trying to keep a positive attitude and give it time. The difficulties of our jobs and our adjustment should improve as we get more comfortable. It is only to be assumed that this is a difficult experience, so we are taking it in small steps with small foreseeable timelines. Thankfully we give each other stability and motivation when we are feeling down. We have come to see that it is necessary to live in the moment and appreciate the little joys. With such a change in life, culture, and environment, the little joys are what tip the scale towards the positive, such as giraffes in the bush, fun/scary Kombi rides, and sandwiches with fries and cheese! All the best to everyone!!

P.S. we have a new address:

PO Box 902

Skilpadfontein 0431

South Africa

If it is a package – it is best to write ‘donated educational material’ or ‘religious material’ or something like that to avoid a hassle with customs :)

Also, we have telephones: You dial 011 to get out the US, then 027 for the country code and the number. 72-712-9930 for David and 71-278-4964 for Laura…so all together 011-027-72-712-9930 or 011-027-71-278-4964.

For cheap ways to call you can use skype (if we are both on at the same time, it is free), rebtel.com, or callingcards.com.

Hello everyone! I thought I’d give just a general update on what we’ve been up to. Every week there are new PCV’s (Peace Corps Volunteers from SA16, 17, and 18 (we are SA19 or the 19th group to come to South Africa with the Peace Corps) who come to our training to lead sessions and share their experiences and knowledge with us. It has been very interesting to hear about their varied experiences based on what type of organization the volunteers are placed with, how developed the area is, etc. We have been learning about a few types of NGO’s that we as CHOP volunteers will possibly be placed with: home-based care organizations, OVC centers, and clinics. Home-based cares are organizations whose primary objective are to send caregivers out to the homes of people living with HIV/AIDS and/or TB to help meet some of their needs that clinics or private doctors may not provide. OVC stands for orphans and vulnerable children. These centers cater to children who have lost one or more parent (many to AIDS), or whose parents are unemployed. The way the family system works here, a grandmother or aunt is almost always able to step in a raise the children of the family, but there are still a number of children living on the street who have no one to care for them. These centers mostly provide after school care, meals, and possibly a place to sleep.

Official funding for these agencies is pretty spotty, as most of it comes in the form of grants from the department of health, PEPFAR, and other small grants. So, to keep these organizations running, many have instituted income-generating projects (IGP's). These projects could include a bakery, a poultry farm, and a vegetable garden, to name a few. Such projects are ventures that we as PCV’s can help get off the ground at our organizations – we are both really excited about the prospect of a veggie garden! However, these projects do not always guarantee that the employees are paid – in fact it is common for employees of an agency to go without pay for months at a time, waiting for the next grant to go through. This can be the cause of an organization to fail as employees wait for pay that may never come from dried up funding sources. Members of communities also start these sorts of IGP’s when there is a need in their community and people are out of work. For example, our host mother started a toilet paper making project. She employs residents of our village and sells the toilet paper to the community and local schools at a reduced cost – we often have kids coming by the house in the evening to buy rolls and rolls of toilet paper.

We were able to visit one such local IGP – a bakery - last week in a neighboring village. It consisted of seven women who had started the business 4 years ago. The project began because bread companies were not delivering loaves to the local tuck shops (small corner stores, often run out of someone’s home) on time, or at all. This made it difficult and more expensive for the community to buy bread elsewhere. So, one woman offered her kitchen and about 12 women started baking bread and selling it to the local shops. The operation was limited to this one woman’s kitchen until two months ago when they received a government grant and moved into an empty building. They were able to buy the proper equipment to increase their production. These women start working at 1AM every day and work until 4 or 6 in the evening. Their numbers have dwindled down to seven from the original 12 because they have never earned enough money to actually pay themselves. (Can you believe that! Working 15-hour days for 4 years, and never earning any income!) We pried a little into the financial piece of this, and found that they are selling the bread to the tuck shops for much less than the commercial bread companies, and then the shops raise the price and make a profit off of it. When asked why they didn’t raise the price of the bread, even by a small amount, so that they could make a little profit, they said they had not though about doing that yet. They seemed to be in the beginning stages of really having a large distribution base, but it was still hard to hear that these women could be making some money but are not. We asked the women what kept them coming to work every day and they replied that it was the strength they receive from each other and from God. Our Mma and her employees also have not been able to pay themselves for some time.

It was just around this same time last week that David came down with a case of tick-bite fever…sometimes the PC is even more fun than it sounds! We think he was bit by the culprit tick (in the armpit) on Sunday, and by Monday morning his whole arm was throbbing and he had a fever. The fever is cyclical so it came in every night, cleared up by mid-morning, but became worse and worse each evening – similar to malaria. So our medical officers came to the rescue with a good dose of antibiotics and we were good to go by Saturday. This is also one of those fun bacteria that one does not develop an immunity to…so keep your fingers crossed that we don’t encounter it again! Speaking of malaria, there is only one small region in the east of South Africa where malaria is present. It turns out that some of our fellow PCT’s will be placed in this area, but we will not so we will not have to take malaria meds except when traveling (yay!)

On Friday we had members of the PCV diversity committee come to speak to us about underrepresented identities of PCV's. On the panel was a Black volunteer, an older volunteer (72 years old), a married volunteer, Jewish volunteer, and a gay volunteer. They spoke to us about the positives and negatives associated with these identities as a PCV and in South Africa. On Saturday the volunteers accompanied us to Johannesburg to see the Apartheid Museum. Usually we are not allowed in or around Jo-burg, but this was an organized trip with PC staff. The ride in (about 2.5 hours) was quite interesting as we drove by some very wealthy suburbs between Pretoria and Jo-burg. Every house, mall, Land Rover dealership, what have you, has an electric fence surrounding it on top of imposing walls and rolls of razor wire. Security in the big cities is reaching an increasing level of self-building paranoia. While Jo-burg is statistically a very dangerous city, the culture feeds into its own fear and creates more isolation and division between classes. The Apartheid Museum was helpful in piecing together the history we have learned over the past month. They had some amazing, powerful footage of the 1980’s riots in the Townships, photographs of women protesting, copies of passbooks, and interviews with men who were present during the infamous Soweto riot as children. The visual imagery helped to tie all of this information together, and created a better understanding of what it meant to live during Apartheid.

On Monday a panel of local community members came in to talk about Psycho Social support for PLWHA (people living with HIV and AIDS). There were some social workers from a local hospital and department of social services, a few nurses from a clinic, and three people who are living openly and positively with HIV. Here in SA, we have heard a lot of language about “living positively,” that is, people who are HIV positive and who are living fulfilling, productive, positive lives. There is still such stigma around the disease that very very few people are actually open about their status, and fewer still who are active in educating and campaigning about HIV. One woman shared her story with us: she is a widow, and has a few children. Before her children were born, she cared for her late sister’s two young children who had AIDS. She made a point of thoroughly educating herself about the disease when they were alive, and she remained active in the fight against it after they were gone. She was involved in research – interested in whether all private doctors provided the same pre and post HIV test counseling that was mandatory and provided by the public clinics. So, she went to her regular doctor for an HIV test, to see whether her doctor provided this mandatory counseling (which he did not) and about a week later when she went back to the doctor for the results (again no counseling), the results came back positive. She has no idea when or how she was infected. Another PLWHA on the panel was a young man who is attending university. He started taking ARV’s (anti retroviral) about 6 months ago – SA does not provide patients with ARV’s until their CD4 count is below 200, which is when one technically has AIDS. He is active on his campus educating his peers about HIV, especially around the idea of living positively, planning for the future, attending school, and striving to achieve their goals. He found out his status when he was at the doctor to get tested for TB, and was advised to also get tested for HIV. A third panelist was a woman who found out she was HIV positive in 1997. She went to the doctor to find out if she was pregnant and the doctor also performed an HIV test without her knowledge. When she went back into the office the doctor told her she was pregnant, she was HIV positive, and she therefore would have to have an abortion – she went in for the procedure a week later. She said there was so little information about HIV in the 90’s; she did not know anything about it so she kept it a secret from everyone in her life for 10 years until it was no longer bearable. Everyone on the panel discussed the need for a support system, although it is certainly harder for some to form than for others.

On a lighter note, we have been getting to know and love our host mother more over the past few weeks. The gogo’s (grandmothers – used to refer to any older woman) here tend to be slightly overbearing, to which many PCT’s can attest. I certainly hear my name screamed from her house across the yard day in and day out, and I deal with my fair share of “Why do you not put more milk in your tea? It is still brown.” “Put some more fish sauce on your rice.” “Why are you cooking this this way?” “Get David some more food.” “Why do you put so much of this on my plate?” “What am I going to do with all this food you do not eat?” All this aside, she is also quite a hoot. Some quick tid-bits of life with Mma Pitswane:

One day she comes home very excited, explaining that she has heard that in America we have a natural honey that comes from trees! At first I tried to explain the concept of raising bees in sort of man-made wooden structures that could possibly be mistaken for trees? After a few minutes I figured out that she was referring to maple syrup, and David explained to her the whole process, and no people do not put the syrup in the trees first, and no they don’t just grow everywhere, and we put syrup on pancakes, and what are pancakes, yada yada. So now she’s enthralled with this idea of maple syrup. She asks us questions about it quite often, and there is really not that much to say. The other day we had the map of the US out to show her daughter where the beautiful city of Buffalo is located. We were explaining how far it was from NYC, Niagara Falls, etc, and Mma interrupts to ask, “Yes, but where is the tree that produces the natural honey?!”

While her daughter and grandson were visiting last weekend the movie ‘The Incredibles’ was on TV – our usual dinnertime entertainment is the news – in English, then Setswana, then Zulu…all the same news…but since her grandson was there we got to watch something else. Well, Mma does not quite understand what animation is, so every time a new character came in she would start laughing hysterically and point at the TV and say, “What kind of human being is this?!” Her teenage grandson would sort of mumble something under his breath to the effect of “it’s animated, grandma” and roll his eyes. We got a good laugh out of it.

A few nights ago, after dark, a couple boys came knocking on our door because they thought they saw a big snake near our house (probably a poisonous cobra of some kind – apparently common they say?) David went out to investigate, but didn’t find anything. The next night David was outside between Mma’s house and our house for a minute. It was completely dark out, and all of a sudden Mma’s face appears at her bedroom window and she yells to David “Why are you outside, are you not afraid of the snake?”

Tuesday was Purim (the Jewish holiday celebrating the Book of Esther), so I baked some delicious hamentashen (traditional cookies for this holiday) for our training class. In the morning we gave some to our Mma, and David explained the story of Esther, how she saved the Jews and how the villain in the story wore a triangular hat, which is why the cookies are triangular. Mma was nodding along as if she was familiar with the book of Esther, but then asked, “Ah, is it not Jane Eyre?” hahaha…nope.

There are actually some weird associations about Jewish people that we have come across.. Our Mma assumes that we LOVE fish…because Jews love fish…obviously. Our friend’s Mma, when she learned that we were Jewish tried teaching our friend what she knew – it is the Jewish culture to have the green cloth and the red cloth (apparently an international kosher color scheme). I borrowed the cookie sheets from this same woman to make the hamentashen, and when our friend explained to her that it was a Jewish holiday, she got very excited and said to me “Ah! Yes! You have the green cloth, and the red cloth, and the white, and the fish! It is your culture!” These ~smile and nod~ conversations happen a lot.

This morning our language group went to visit a local high school. Our objective was just to get an idea of how schools are run and how classes are taught – to see how teaching is done by teachers who were themselves taught under the Bantu education system. Briefly, the Bantu education system was the official system of education for blacks under Apartheid SA created by the white government, which believed that since the black population was inferior, they would teach them at an inferior level so as to not encourage any academic pursuit that would be unattainable and unnecessary. This created a learning style in which the children did not question, did not ask, but only listened as they were taught by educators that believed that they were inferior. Many of the students have become teachers and subconsciously teach in the way they were taught. So, the school today has about 500 students and 23 teachers (which would mean that it ‘should’ be about classes of 20 students – not exactly so). When we arrived we met the principal, who was a very nice man, and then sent us with maybe half the teachers to the staff room to sit for a couple hours waiting to go observe their classes. They got such a kick out of hearing our Setswana names and us trying to speak the language to them. They loved asking us questions to see if we could answer them, and also asked us about what we are and will be doing in SA. The school itself is dramatically different from schools we are familiar with in the States – even the crummy ones. The school was made up of three buildings in a U-shape each one floor and one room deep. The walls lacked all the warm color and displays that US schools have – they were barren walls covered in Setsawana graffiti with broken windows. Despite the way the school looked, the students were all dressed very properly in uniforms (every school, rural or urban, has a strict colors and uniforms). The school was not a reflection of the quality of the student class as it can be in the US. Many rural schools in SA do not have the adequate funding to maintain well-groomed buildings with proper facilities (or perhaps it is a matter of inequality in spending rather than size of the budget). We have no idea the academic level of this particular school in line with the rest of the district, all we could see was a student body that was extremely polite and a very inquisitive staff. As soon as we arrived, teachers started asking us about when we will come back, if we could stay with them at the school for a week or a month, and if we could teach their students. Of course, with our training schedule we cannot commit to anything, and had to explain again and again that we were only here in the village for a few more weeks for training, which we have every day and do not have any time to give to the school. We sat in on a 10th grade Setswana class first. There were 50+ students crammed into a small classroom with one teacher, three students to two chairs, yet there did not seem to be any discipline problems (at least that we saw). The teacher introduced us and we just sat at the back of the class and listened to the lesson. At the end of class, student after student asked if they could thank us, they would stand up and address us, thanking us for coming to their school, wishing us well wherever we go, and saying that we must give other schools the opportunity to meet us. All the kids wanted to shake our hands and give us hugs as we left the classroom, and they too asked us when we would be back. Next, we visited a 12th grade Life Orientation class with the same teacher as from the 10th grade class. LO is a class that is taught from Kindergarten up, and includes everything from health and wellness, public speaking, career choices, basically everything life-skills related that does not fall into a category of another class. Again, we were introduced, and sat at the back of the class during the lesson, which was about lung cancer/smoking (kind of – but also included talk about floods, fires, disasters, un-roadworthy vehicles, and car accidents, and other unconnected points). The 12th grade class had maybe 20 students at most (we were told many students are held back because of failing so that was why the 10th grade class was so large and the 12th grade class was not). Half-way through class we were asked if we wanted to field some health related questions they had, since that was the topic for the day (kind of), so we spent some time answering questions about cancer, HIV and AIDS, pregnancy. All the questions asked were very good questions that most American students would not have the poise to ask. They were all very attentive to our answers – we were very direct with our explanations on why women have a higher rate of transmission of HIV than men, why condom use is so important, and how multiple long term partners can be an HIV superhighways. When we left the classroom the kids just clung onto us as before, asked for our autographs, and of course asked the painful question of when we were coming back. Before we left we met with the principal and the teacher we had been shadowing. She asked us if we could come back after lunch, around two, since we did not get to meet all the classes. According to our LCF (language and cross-cultural facilitator), the South African way of dodging this question would have been to say we were coming back and then not show up, but obviously we could not do that, so we explained that we would not be able to return. The principal then asked us again when we would be back, and both he and the teacher seemed so confused and personally hurt that coming to their school was not what we are here to do. We all tried to explain in as kind a way as possible why we would not be coming back, but it was a very painful/awkward conversation. We did not exactly understand what they wanted us at their school for – possibly to teach, or maybe just as permanent visitors.

We have encountered this feeling of being revered just for being American a few times before, and it brings up a lot of new, strange and difficult emotions. The teachers at this school thought that we would make their school better just by being there, just because we are from America. The kids immediately tell us they love us and want to give us hugs and praise, and want our autographs just because we are American. And it is so hard to explain otherwise! It’s so hard to explain why we cannot simply stay and why we really cannot magically improve anything for anyone, and why we don’t have funds to give out. Our LCF’s have told us that before they were hired by PC, they shared the same misconceptions about Americans as most South Africans do: that Americans are all wealthy, that we are all white (maybe except Obama?), that there is no crime in America, that there are no rural areas in America, that we all drive fancy cars and have important office jobs, we are all Christians, we are all good people who want to help others. They are not aware that Americans come from all different cultures, colors and religions, different economic and educational backgrounds, just like South Africans. It is hard to get through that barrier of assumptions about Americans and we hope that when we get to our permanent site people will have enough time to see us for the individuals we really are, for our merits and our faults, and not just this Hollywood vision of the American Dream.

Last week when we left you we had just gone to the Ndebele King. Beginning on the following Monday we started to really look at HIV/AIDS in our training sessions. While our job descriptions we received back in the States were ‘HIV/AIDS Community Outreach’, we have spent little time on the HIV/AIDS part, and most of our time on general community development, strategic planning, and organizational tools. We have been constantly circling around the idea of ‘need’ in the community, to avoid the danger that many PCV’s (Peace Corps Volunteers) fall into of thinking that we understand the community’s weaknesses without ever asking. These planning tools focus on analyzing specific areas that the community feels most despondent about, that they feel require the greatest attention. These needs could be more varied than simply promoting HIV awareness and prevention, but addressing the other array of problems that have developed over the past fifty years. Because of this, our study of HIV/AIDS has been much more technical and physiological; they are leaving the application to us. We have been studying the transmission methods and ARV (anti-retroviral) treatments, statistics, and myths and truths associated with the pandemic here in South Africa (and in America).

Last Monday, we had a session on such myths – many of which are similar to those we encountered in the US. Many people have notions that HIV is so easily transmissible – through a sneeze, through a hand shake, through a kiss, or through the toilet seat. Some people think that mosquitoes can transmit the virus. Some believe here it came from America; some believe it was intentional. Some believe it is a virus that only affects ‘high risk’ populations. Some believe it is easily avoidable, such as by showering after sex (which the last President of SA claimed). Unfortunately so many believe these myths, which simply fosters the growth of the pandemic and promotes unawareness. Here in this rural village, people do not discuss why there are so many deaths; rather, people are just sick. Even with a quarter of the population infected, the sense of urgency is not here, almost as though if you were to believe the myths strong enough, they will become true.

So after this session, we unexpectedly had a first hand experience hearing some of these myths we had just discussed. As a ‘field trip’ last Tuesday we went to two area high schools to introduce ourselves and get a glimpse of a rural area school. As it happened the school had arranged an assembly to talk to talk about STI (sexually transmitted infections) transmission run by on of the school’s youth groups. The skits and information were all done in Setswana so our understanding of what they were saying was limited. Following the skits, they had a question and answer period where the students could ask a local area nurse questions relating to STIs. The biggest shock was when a student asked where HIV came from (as in where it originated), to which the nurse said she had heard/read that it came from America from promiscuous behavior with monkeys. The virus was then brought over to Africa. It became awkward, when we were asked to ‘defend America’ to this accusation. When we responded to the student body, we decided that it was best not to contradict the nurse in front of the students to whom she is the medical authority, especially since her information as wrong as it was, did not affect the health of the students. While we did not dispute the claim of where the virus originated, we all recognized how prevalent the myths are about the virus, even in the medical community. Traditional rural communities create a secluded arena for the myths to echo through – our own host mother simply sighs when we ask about all the death cases. They were simply sick.

There has been so much invested in educating South Africans on the modes of transmission, to which some believe has led to an overexposure and over-awareness of the virus. This over stimulation just adds to the strong stigmas attached to HIV, not only in the rural communities, but in the urban areas as well. People believe it affects ‘high risk’ populations, but here in South Africa, with the highest HIV positive population in the world, everyone is ‘high risk’. (To add to that, SA has the highest incidence of tuberculosis in the world, which is the leading opportunistic infection that actually kills AIDS patients when their immune systems have collapsed.) There are many theories on why it has spread to the general population – to politicians, teachers, and farmers – a popular theory that is worth discussing is the concurrency theory. This theory says that many cultures in Sub-Saharan Africa are unique in that people maintain long-term concurrent partners. In general, South Africans and other cultures in the subcontinent are less promiscuous than Americans, but these long-term partnerships create HIV ‘highways’ for the virus. The unique part about these cultures is the acceptability that both men and women can have long term relationships with one, two, or three partners – habits reserved to men in many other societies in the world. In addition to this, Sub-Saharan Africans are for the most part uncircumcised, which dramatically increases transmission. There used to be a coming of age ritual called ‘initiation school’ during which adolescent boys would be circumcised – this has become much less common in the past generation. And since the viral load of HIV is so high within the first three months of contracting the virus (transmission is thousands of times higher during this period), concurrent partners create an easy way to spread the virus. In the past, these partners may have been married, but in the modern world, these relationships are not so defined but just as real. (There are some great books on this theory – The Invisible Cure is a good start.)

The massively quick growth of African economies has led to a first-world/third-world dichotomy between city and rural life, which has aided in spreading the virus from community to community and throughout the subcontinent with amazing speed. Small rural communities ceased being self-sufficient but instead, provided a massive migrant labor force for the growing economies. This migrating labor has created huge migrations of the pandemic to all parts of Southern Africa. The desire to be part of the growing first-world that South Africa exudes to the rest of the world, is drawing in people to the urban areas and creating further education inequalities in the rural areas. Rural areas that taught Bantu education for 50 years under Apartheid in which the black population was encouraged to believe that they were less capable and less intelligent than the white population, are still lacking in reliable education. South Africa is two places at once, one that becomes poorer and poorer with increasingly higher rates of transmission and lack of education opportunity, and one that contains shopping malls and gated communities. These rural villages provide the labor force that migrates daily, weekly, or monthly to the urban centers. The lack of sustainability and the lack of resources outside of the cities draws away education and prevention money and in turn allows traditional myths and understanding of the virus to prevail.

As to the origins of the virus, there are so many theories – one that I find to be convincing is that SIV (the monkey version of the virus – Simian Immunodeficiency Virus) can mutate to HIV over the course of several successive replications. What this means is that when someone contracts the HIV virus, their body replicates the virus millions and billions of times, during which there are many chances for mutations to occur creating different viruses. If one were to eat SIV infected meat, the body would duplicate the SIV and if there were rapid successive transmissions to other individuals, the virus could have made a ‘mistake’ during replication and created HIV. Some believe that small secluded communities in Africa may have developed the virus this way, but it would have stayed localized and therefore never expanded until the ‘opening up’ of the African continent to the European markets of the 20th century. The mutation to HIV could have happened in a closed community and been brought to the cities, or it could have occurred in the cities with the booming bush meat trade of the mid 20th century. Bush meat is primate meat, which was in high demand by the Europeans living in the urban areas of the African colonies. Just to clarify, this is only a theory, one of many, so do not take this as fact…

As volunteers we are trying to understand the virus in the modern context – how other PCVs have addressed it in their communities. It is so complex here in the rural areas and so intertwined with a plethora of other factors. We have ideas on projects and plans, but we want to keep ourselves expectation-free for what we will be doing at our permanent site. Here in the rural communities, the bridge between the third world and the first world is incredibly tenuous. Apartheid has created a massive inequality and an internally oppressed population, so how to help our community build its second world connection, is unknown at this point. (If anyone has any questions, please let us know)

We hope everyone is well back in the US!

Salang Sentle! (stay well)

2/22/09

We have had a very interesting weekend so far. On Saturday morning each language group participated in a “cultural activity” with our LCFs. Everyone learning Setswana attended a local funeral for a 6 year old girl who was killed in a car accident on the way to school. Funerals are attended by one’s entire community; the whole village will be there, as well as relatives and friends who travel hours to attend. Funerals happen very frequently here, we have heard of PCV’s who attend several a week, so I was glad to have been walked through my first one here with the group. (In fact there were two other funerals being held at the same time in the cemetery.) We have been told that funerals can be very loud and lively, and though this was much more lively than an American funeral, I think the mood was subdued a bit because of the circumstances. We gathered at the family’s house at 7AM (the time when most funerals begin) and then were given a ride to the burial site where the ceremony was held. A local church choir led the people in song, women wailed, and the men took part in the burial itself. Everywhere we go we have been welcomed warmly, and the funeral was no exception – the priest made a special point of welcoming us and thanking us for being there, and asked our LCF to speak to the gathering on our behalf. I felt like it was one step closer to feeling like a part of this community. After the ceremony we were given a ride back to the family’s home where a big meal of pap, chicken, beef, and vegetables was served - keep in mind that it is only 8:30AM at this point, and the whole thing was over by 9AM. We had the rest of the day to do laundry and play with the kids in our village.

Today (Sunday) we were scheduled to meet the Ndebele King and his royal family. The Ndebele are a tribe of people in South Africa, and about 5 other African countries. Ndebele is one of the 11 official languages of South Africa and as we mentioned in the previous blog, each language represents a specific culture/group with its own history and practice, so Ndebele is not only the language but also the people that speak it. The royal family represents the royalty for the whole Ndebele tribe from South Africa up to Tanzania, and dates back to 1500. The King oversees all the Chiefs of his tribe. The royal family lives about 45 minutes from where we are now, in another small village in Mpumalanga province. The ride there was absolutely beautiful – green mountains, and plains full of so many different trees, herds of cattle and goats in the distance…we arrived about 20 minutes late, and the King had already left to attend a meeting, so unfortunately we did not get to meet him personally. The event we were attending was a tribal meeting – there were around 250 people gathered outside, all dressed in traditional garb (we have some great pictures from the day, but the only internet connection we have is the one at our training college and is extremely slow so we will be lucky if we can get 1 or 2 pictures up). As with all traditional or ceremonious occasions, women must be in dresses or skirts that cover their knees, and must cover their head and shoulders with scarves. Men must wear dress slacks, a collared shirt, and a sport coat. It was also 30 degrees C (about 86 F?) today, so needless to say we were all quite sweltering. The Ndebele women in addition wore heavy blankets with the Ndebele colors around their shoulders – I don’t know how they did it! The men wore head pieces made from leopard skin and wore pelts around their necks. The setting surrounding us was like a backdrop in a movie – we sat in a clearing among a few shady trees, and behind the men the ground dropped off a bit and there was this expanse of green mountains and valleys. We were, once again, greeted very warmly. The prince who was running the meeting called us “our boys and girls of Obama” and invited us to a Ndebele festival in a month, where 8,000 Ndebele people will gather from all over the area to celebrate their heritage, and plan for the future of the tribe. We each had to stand in front of the whole crowd and introduce ourselves with our SA names, in the language we are learning! “Dumelang bogobo. Leina le ka ke Kopano Pitswane. Ke tswa New York. Ke nna ko Seabe. Ke a leboga.” “Hello everyone, my name is Kopano, I am from New York, I am staying in Seabe. Thank you.” So we forgot to mention that we were given South African names: Laura was given the Setswana name Kopano which means ‘unity’ and David was given the name Keletso which means ‘wish’. Everyone here gets a huge kick out of us trying to speak the language, and will not hesitate to laugh out loud in joy if we are able to get through the whole greeting series with them. We were then taught some traditional Ndebele songs and dances. During this meeting the women sat separately from the men, so the men danced and sang first, and then the women followed suit. There are specific dances for men and women – but I will get into more gender issues later. In usual South African fashion we were fed a meal (pap, chicken, and cabbage – a meal I eat probably 4 times a week) and then were given the opportunity to sit with the royal family and ask them questions about their culture.

Some very interesting and frustrating issues came up here, and not for the first time since we arrived in SA. Television is a big part of the rural culture – we eat dinner every night in the living room in front of the TV. Something that I have noticed is that the shows and commercials are completely irrelevant for the people in these rural villages. People with little electricity, no running water, very poor sanitary conditions, poor education, living with 70% poverty, 45% unemployment, 7/100 mortality rate for children under 5 years old, and where deaths due to HIV/AIDS are rampant, sit and watch Afrikaaner soap operas, commercials for expensive cleaning products and health insurance, and American rap videos. In short, the 3rd world watches the 1st world on TV – and they want it. American culture is portrayed as very materialistic, and the idea of a good quality of life is represented as having enough money to buy everything you want. The problem for a Peace Corps Volunteer? How do you work with a 3rd world community who is at point A on developing a way towards point B, when they want to jump right to point X? So…getting back to the Ndebele tribe…today the prince told us that what he wants for his people: he wants the new generation to embrace their cultural heritage while also embracing the newest technology and education. He wants to see a man wearing the traditional pelts around his neck while carrying a laptop bag over his shoulder. He wants to see a woman wearing the traditional colorful blanket around her shoulders while driving an expensive convertible – and I think that this is a totally plausible and wonderful vision for the future– many cultures and religious groups are able to fully live in the developed world and maintain cultural traditions. However, for a people such as the Ndebele tribe, in a place such as South Africa, there are so many steps to be taken along the way before you can approach that point. Successful societies that integrate traditional practices with modern technology have first developed a quality of life for all of its people.

A question was raised about why men and women sat separately during the ceremony, and even during this small gathering. Members of the family had a very hard time answering this question. One said it was out of respect. Another explained that men and women are not “50/50” but rather there are certain things a man can do that a woman cannot and visa versa. A woman’s bodily functions (i.e. menstruation) prohibits a man from sitting on a chair that a woman has sat on. During the ceremony the men would say “praise the prince” but women are not allowed to say that – instead they can only hoot/howl (it sounded sort of like a wolf noise) from afar – again out of respect. One man tried to explain this noise as one that can only be made when one is in a state of calm and peace, that it is a noise that comes from deep down in the body, and therefore is meaningful. The prince contributed his sentiment that there is no real reason for this separation and inequality – this is how they have lived for ages, and no young boy, when learning the culture, would ever ask “why?” One of the female South African Peace Corps staff tried to explain that this culture has come along way: a generation ago women were not even allowed to sit on chairs, they had to sit on the floor. We are much better off now, we can even sit on chairs, and this inequality does not harm anyone.

On the other hand, the Tswana people (whose language we are learning) have female chiefs, and the traditional dress for women is not early as modest as that of the Ndebele. In addition, the Venda tribe (one of the other official languages) has had women Queens. So, each African tribe has very different traditions and beliefs, and there are many of them. Historically there have been conflicts between some tribes for centuries over differences in culture.

This meeting was the first time many of my fellow female PCT’s had experienced this gender inequality in SA. I have only felt it slightly, and I think that is because I am married. For example, David came out of the house one day and our host mother looked at him and said, “maybe I should teach Laura how to iron today.” The way a man presents himself reflects back onto his wife.

Finally, the Ndebele prince appealed to us to help his people by finding ways for youth to study in the US, and to bring technology and education to them here. He explained that the Ndebele history is not well documented. They do not have enough educated people among them to be able to document it – he said he wished he could tell us to go to www.yadayada to find out more about their culture and to find answers to the questions we were asking but they do not have the resources to put something like that together. He explained that their youth are turning to violence and crime because it is not instilled in them that they must work hard for what they want – the educational needed for this is not available to them. Good land is left unused because people have no way to learn how to use it. Their nearest library is in Pretoria, maybe 80 miles from where we were.

Mid-speech the prince spun around and the men all jumped up with their sticks raised – there was a cobra right next to us!! Don’t worry moms and dads, David didn’t get too close. It was so Africa.

Anyway, these are the kind of vague, huge needs that may be expressed to us when we get to our site and our NGO’s. Thankfully a PCV from group 16 fought hard to include some technical training in these few months, and has been teaching us tools and approaches for community outreach. So for example, David and I may co-facilitate (along with our in-country counter parts) a community meeting about the village’s larger goals, to come up with a priority ranking of specific needs amongst different gender and age groups that need to be met in order to reach this larger long term goal. As an example – if we were aproched to ‘fix’ the training center that we go to everyday (which is in great need of repair), we would facilitate such a meeting to figure out the order in which we can address the smaller steps that it would take to reach the overall goal of improving the college. This seems intuitive, but the technical procedures we have learned will be very helpful when working with a large and divisive community.

The most important aspect of our work is that all the tools we are learning, like the priority ranking, are meant to enable the people in our community to identify their own needs, to work towards their own goals, and to learn the skills they need to do this so that they can continue to improve their community long after we have finished our service. And that is what this really is, and it helps through difficult days to keep in mind that we are here to serve.

2/20/09

Dumelang!

We finally made it…. after a year and half of waiting, we have joined the 19th Peace Corps group to come to South Africa! We are in week three of PST (pre-service training), a nine week training taking place here in the rural villages about two hours from Pretoria. Following this training, on April 2nd we will be swearing in for our full 2 years of service and then be shipped off to our permanent site.

We are part of a group of 25 other volunteers as part of CHOP (community HIV/AIDS outreach project) working in coordination with local NGO’s to address HIV/AIDS in the rural villages and towns. South Africa has the highest population of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world. The reported number is about 25% of the population though that could be lower than the actual number because of the stigmas attached and those that do not disclose. There are so many explanations for why there is such an enormous population living with HIV/AIDS and most of the arguments have some validity. It is a patchwork of reasons that we have only just begun to see. The country has such amazing beauty but in our brief time here we have seen that it is also an incredibly complicated place. There are 11 different official languages, each of which represents its own culture and people. These people distinguish themselves from each other very rigidly. The languages are descended from specific regions of the country and within those regions they are spoken by a very large majority of the population. This division in language is really just an offshoot of years of divisiveness among the different cultural groups by shades of race, history, and practice. The over 50 years of official discrimination of the majority of the population under Apartheid has had changed the foundational way of thinking of many here in South Africa. Since becoming a ‘rainbow nation’ in the past 14 years, South Africans identify publicly the plurality, when in fact there are many divisions that people cannot forget. Here where we are living, it is a rural village- hundreds and thousands like it across South Africa, which are entirely black (besides the foreign aid workers). These rural villages mirror a very similar life to the rest of African villages. While many think of South Africa as a modern 1st world country, that exists only in the cities and large townships. Outside of that, it becomes a 3rd world developing country with disease, crime, and shoddy infrastructure. The poverty in rural villages is up to 70% (according to the UN standard of living on less than $1 a day) and the unemployment is far above the national average of 45%. These areas are hardest hit by the opening up the South African economy so dramatically at then end of Apartheid. This lack of employment has led to an incredibly disenfranchised young population that is both underserved and under-motivated. In spite of these factors…this village we live in could not be more welcoming!

We live in a small village about two hours from Pretoria. Because of Peace Corps protocol, I cannot give the specific name. Our village is spread out and 60% of the other PCV’s (Peace Corps Volunteers) in our group live in this village. It is really hard to gauge the size; no one seems to know how many people live here or how large it is. The homes are small homes – some of brick, some of corrugated tin panels. The homes sit on dirt roads in which there seem to be constant grazing cows, chickens, and donkeys. Our host family is just one person – our host mother. She is a 72 year old women who has lived here all of her life. Her children are all grown and out so we have an entire home to ourselves a few feet from hers. She is amazingly self sufficient, tending to her corn field (which everyone has) and a dozen or so chickens which roam the yard. I was unaware that roosters will crow continuously throughout the day, some beginning as early as 4 AM. There is one rooster that seems to be tone deaf, and if anyone reading this knows what Ben Kulick’s dinosaur noise sounds like, well that’s it.

As a side note…we are writing this from our host home which we will later upload to the internet and we were just interrupted from writing to go watch our host mother remove the organs from one of the chicken she slaughtered earlier. She wanted Laura to pull up a chair next to her to watch and learn…I could only laugh. Tonight she is preparing the ‘innards’ and legs for us to eat. We will have to see how bold we are...

The place is more than enough for our needs and we are lucky enough to have a flush toilet! We are thankful everyday for that amenity. Most other PCV’s in training do not have toilets but rather latrines and almost every PCV at their permanent site uses a latrine. At night, you use a handy ‘pee bucket’ when you feel the need because it is unadvisable to go out at night unless you have to (which we will talk about later). As with anything, there are pitfalls to be expected. One night last week there was a torrential downpour during which we awoke at around 12 AM to discover several holes in the ceiling through which water was dripping down on our heads. We set up some buckets to collect the water and at around 2 AM, Laura shifted in her sleep spilling the bucket on the bed. Needless to say that was a bit of a long night.

So to walk you though our days here…we wake up in the morning at around 5:30-6:00 (Laura ambitiously goes for runs with another PCV living close by). We take our bucket baths, which are far easier than they may seem…you fill a bucket with a couple inches of water and there you go! While on the topic, our water comes from a large plastic tank in the yard on stilts called a JoJo, which is pumped up from a well just a few feet away. This is the source of most of our water here, though for washing clothes, we have used rain water (and a washboard in a bucket). At 8:00 AM we walk down the road with 2 other PCV’s who live in our area to our LCF’s (Language and Cross-Cultural Facilitator) host home. As you will discover, there is an abbreviation for every term in the Peace Corps – perhaps it saves money on printing. There are about 6 LCF’s here during PST, each one leading a different language group. The job is as you can imagine, to teach us the language and culture we are to be experiencing at our permanent site. Our language is Setswana, spoken by the Setswana people who mostly live in the North West Province of South Africa. Also, Setswana is spoken in Botswana, though in a different dialect. A great note: the common phrase which many people know from the Lion King – Hakuna Matata or ‘no worries’ is actually Setswana and in the non-anglicized Setswana is ‘Ga go na matata’ (the ‘g’ being pronounced the guttural ch). The other language groups include one learning SiSwati, spoken around Swaziland, one learning Zulu, spoken in the Kwazulu-Natal Province, and one group learning Sepedi, spoken in parts of the Limpopo Province and the Mpumalanga Province. Since we are learning Setswana, we can assume we will be placed in a village in the NW Province, which could be a two-day’s journey from here.

We have about 2 hours of language in the morning after which we head to the ‘College of Education’ outside the neighboring village. The college was a former teacher’s college used under Apartheid for black educators only. Since the end of Apartheid, the college has fallen into some disrepair though organizations still use some of the buildings (such as the Peace Corps). We spend about 6 hours at the college doing technical trainings on working with local NGO’s here in South Africa; sessions on appreciative inquiry, community mapping, participatory analysis for community action, and resource priority rankings. We have done some cross-cultural sessions on how to greet someone (with your right hand always and your left hand under the right elbow). Encounters we may have with traditional healers and the always-fun practice of riding in kombi’s or taxi-van/buses. These taxis run on Africa time as they say, so they wait for the van to be full – could be thirty minutes, could be three hours. (That is why it could take up to two days to get here from the NW Province.) I am sure as we use kombi’s in the future, we will have plenty of stories of unwanted attention and the many characters we will meet.

After these trainings, we have another couple of hours of language study after which we go back to the village. We get dropped off on the main road a few hundred meters up the dirt road from our home. When we get off the bus, there have been a growing number of children each day waiting to escort us home. They love teaching us Setswana and playing games that we do not entirely get. After an hour or two of games, we go inside to have dinner with our host Mma (Setswana for mother, though any older woman would get that title). The food here (at least in the villages and towns) is based on starches. There is a traditional and standard South African food called ‘bogobe’ (bo-chh-o-bay) or pap in English. It is a thick paste made from corn meal and water. This is eaten with chicken, another starch, or vegetables. Our Mma is from an older generation so she tends to eat more traditional meals. She made bogobe le mashi or pap with sour milk – a meal of pap with soured heavy cream. While this meal may seem filling to anyone, imagine a quarts worth. In this culture, you eat A LOT. Every time we pause in eating, we are told to eat more, we are spooned more meat and told we are too thin. It is a sign of beauty here to be told you are getting fatter, so our Mma is constantly awed by how little we eat compared to her (and mind you it is not a little). While South Africa grows a plethora of vegetables and fruit, the culture outside of the big cities is extremely different and has very traditional eating habits. Our Mma sticks to the foods she knows, including some very tasty root vegetables (looking like large cucumbers but tasting like artichokes). There are also pomegranate trees everywhere that can be picked by anyone.

This brings up the concept of ‘Ubuntu’ that means in Zulu, ‘I am because you are’. This is the foundation of South African culture, and again, this culture is that which exists outside the modern 1st world cities. Here in our village, food, while it may at times be scarce, is everybody’s, property is fluid, and time is even more fluid. You greet everyone you come across (including when you are running or running late): Dumela…agee, le kae…re teng, le kae….re teng….salang sentle…samaya sentle!. It is a communal society that cares and nurtures each other and in the case of HIV/AIDS, while many will not admit that the community members died from AIDS, they will still care for them. There was a funeral last Friday for a man who died of AIDS and the community (the whole village) was there. Ubuntu means respect and family and in the case of this village that includes us. Our host families here treat us all like their family and the community looks out for us. While we in America embrace our family, they seem here to embrace everyone’s family.

Everyone is quick to smile and wave when we pass by – even as awestruck as they are that there are white people in their village. Besides us Americans, there has never been a white person who has slept here. Some even greet us in Afrikaans – the language of the white Afrikaners. This is a true testament to the kindness of the rural villages. Even after over 50 years of oppression and discrimination by the white Afrikaner population under Apartheid, someone will still greet us who because of our white skin, are assumed to be Afrikaner. We are usually first to greet them in their language, which always yields a smile on their end as we try to explain that we are Americans here to learn their language and study in their village.

After dinner – our Mma really enjoys watching…if you can believe it WWF on TV. Apparently WWF and American wrestling are huge here. Wrestling is one of the two biggest American imports here – that and Obama! We go inside to do a couple hours of homework in Setswana or reading riveting community mapping – yesssss. In South Africa, it is unadvisable to go out after dark, wherever you may be. In the villages (especially the smaller ones like this) it would probably be okay to walk around if you needed to in the early night, but unadvisable all the same. In the townships and cities, especially Johannesburg you would never go out after dark. (In fact if we go to Johannesburg without permission, the Peace Corps will send us home from service). It is a change for us to go from a culture where we can be absolutely unaware of our surroundings on our cell phone walking through a city, to carrying money in your bra and sock to avoid being targeted for muggings. South Africa is a beautiful but troubled country and has had a continuing problem with crime and weak crime prevention. We have talked this issue over with the in-country staff and the other PCV’s who have been in South Africa for a year already. They have told us that you arrange your plans by the sun. If you need to travel you make sure you plan enough time to get back. If you are visiting a friend, you either spend the night or leave to get back before dark. This is a very abrupt change from America where so much of one’s relationships with friends happens at night. Here in South Africa, night time is time alone or with one’s family and you begin the day at first light. And as we have been told, it I about making smart decisions and planning ahead. (If anyone knows me, they know that I am slightly neurotic as is)

After talking with some PCV’s who are at their permanent site, we have learned that we will adjust to African time soon enough when we get to our permanent site. When it gets dark and you have to stay in, you learn to use your time in a different way – to write in your journal and read, learn an instrument or simply reflect. To be down the road from other Americans and not be able to visit them took some getting used to, but it also allows us to realize and reflect on all the great things we are going to be experiencing over the next 7 weeks and the following 2 years. We will update the blog next chance we get…We are meeting the local king/chief on Sunday, who from what we have heard will be slaughtering a cow in our honor – I am sure we will cover that in our next entry!

Salang Sentle – stay well

From what we have been told there is little outside communication while we are in the first 2 months of PST. There will be emergency access if needed, but we should expect not to have phone and/or internet access - just snail mail. For post, use the address in Pretoria as listed in the previous post - it will make its way to us eventually. But, no worries, we will be back on the map soon enough and most likely have frequent access to internet (phone service to be determined).

The purpose of the PST is to become immersed in the culture and society of our local community - the P.C. uses the community based training model of present-time events as teaching tools rather than past examples. It expedites language acquisition, cultural understanding and community awareness. This training coincides with daily language classes in one of four languages (depending on where we are placed): Sepedi, IsiZulul, IsiSwati, or Setswana. On the 2nd of April, we officially begin our two year placement at a site in South Africa (that location will be determined later). At that point, we will be considered full volunteers and will remain there for until the end of March, 2011...yikes!

Also, take a look at the recent article in the NY Times about the Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa....article from 1/24/09

Well, we have only 17 days until we depart for our journey, although it does not seem that close at all. Physically speaking we are pretty well prepared; We have our supplies, we are organized, we've practiced packing, and we have certainly eaten more meat in the past few months than any formerly-health-conscious-vegan would care to admit. I even had chicken wings the other night for the first time in over 10 years - and, yes, they were delicious:)

So now, in another realm of preparation we have been reading up on South Africa: the history, the cultures, expectations from the Peace Corps, and most importantly the AIDS pandemic. Below is an article from the New York Times about the South African government's current role in the problem. According to the article, 5.7 million South Africans are HIV positive, which is almost one in five adults. This makes South Africa the nation with the most HIV infected people in the world. There is also a link to the CIA's website on SA which has basic info on the population, government, geography, etc.

NY Times ArticleCIA Website

We are getting more and more excited for the challenge ahead of us!

So after a whirlwind in Buffalo, Boston, Orlando, Boston again, and now New York, we are headed just a few more places before we set off.

For all those interested we have found out some more information...there will be 27 people in our specific group (which is the 19th group to do the Peace Corps in South Africa). Our first 3 months will be outside of Pretoria for training - learning cultural skills and the language (there are 11 official languages in SA...so one of those). We do not know where specifically we will be stationed after that, but we know it will be in one of four provinces: North West, Limpopo, Mpuma-Langa, or Kwazulu-Natal. While there (at our permanent site)- we will be doing HIV/AIDS outreach - again, no further specifics as of yet. We are told we will get a better idea in training and then once at site when we see what our site needs our roll to be.

As for communication - we hope to have internet access (sporadically at least) and hopefully phone reception. We will purchase a cell there and have a local SA number. Check out www.rebtel.com - it will allow you here in the US to make calls to SA through a local number (no long distance charges). As for mail, the following address is where we can receive post throughout training in Pretoria. Mail sent to this address afterwards will be forwarded monthly to our site.

David and Laura Kulick, PCVU.S. Peace CorpsPO Box 9536Pretoria 0001South Africa

In addition - if you are sending mail, it is advised you send it airmail (there are stories of mail taking 6 months otherwise.) Also, if you do send a package, it is recommended that you use padded envelopes rather than any sort of box - less risk of theft or 'loss.' On the outside of the package, you should write 'educational material' or 'religious material.' Apparently this reduces the chances disappearing packages. Look out for our postcards and hidden caches of poached ivory!

Hello everyone!  We are writing this in Boston three days before we leave for Buffalo and then South Africa.  This is just a starting point - there will be plenty more later.