A Day in the Life of a PCV… At Present

Jess writes:

Adam and I are in the cozy phase of Peace Corps service called “Training Phase 2”, also called “Community Integration Period”, also called (more commonly) “Lockdown”. After our initial training phase, this 3-month chunk (actually 4 months, due to the timing of World Cup) is meant to ease the PCV into community life by requiring the new volunteer to partake in the day-to-day life of the community, observe work at our host organization, and accumulate enough information and self-guided research to fill a “Community & Organizational Needs Assessment.” At times, this life does indeed feel rather at ease, but then again, there is plenty to this phase that is not always so easy. So, as I’ve done in the past, I’m including here a “typical” day in our PCV life, during this “Lockdown” phase, (although I’m not so sure anything here is entirely “typical”…) Anyways, here goes:

7:30AM- Wake, usually to the sound of chickens in the backyard or the cows coming down the road – yes, with cowbells! Begin water-related chores (remember, everything in Huntington revolves around such chores), such as hauling water to the kitchen for dishes or to the bathroom for bathing, heating water for washing or for making tea, stacking empty jugs in the garage, or carrying out handled jugs for filling later in the day. If time permits, I try to get on a pot of water to boil for drinking (it takes about 45 minutes to get boiling long enough to get it “clean” and most of the day to cool enough for filtering) – what a process. Tidy up the house and/or yard – this sometimes involves sweeping, gr. – and open windows (if its cool enough and not rainy). Pit stop at the latrine, of course, and getting dressed, etc. for the day.

8:15AM- Lock up the house (we have a lot of locks: bedroom door, front door, burglar door, porch door, garage door, and front gate… on days when all need locking, it takes forever!). Walk to work, avoiding any angry cows hoofing at the ground (eeek!). The walk to work is short and rather flat, so no real trekking. But it is in the direction of the sun… so summer mornings are brutal!!! Along the way, we usually run into at least a couple of Gogo’s waiting for the local coombies to pick them up on the way to the 4-Way or Mkhuhlu, as well as other workers in Kruger National Park or Sabi Sands Game Reserve uniforms headed to the tar road to catch a ride in one of the employee safari trucks. We also typically get caught up in at least one group of pre-schoolers headed to the crèche in their unmatching red shirts. The annoying little ones still like to chant “We-Na-Malungu” as we walk by, but most of them now are more excited about waving and shouting “I’m fiiiiine” very lyrically before we even ask how they are doing. Too funny!

8:30AM- Arrive at work (although we’re often on our own form of “African Time” or “Volunteer Time” and thus, this fluctuates). Greet the LIMA Development workers sweeping outside the Center, greet the SwaVana workers preparing breakfast or tidying up the courtyard, greet the Home-Based Care workers sitting on the porch before home visits, greet Happy in the office, and greet the kids running around before school. Line up the water jugs by the concrete wall to be filled later and hauled back at the end of the day.

9:00AM- Head across the courtyard to the Center’s kitchen to get breakfast – wheat bread with Rama butter and apricot jam, with tea (unfortunately no milk, so we have to used the powdered stuff that never melts completely… shame.) And yes, it is the same breakfast for us each morning, but hey, it’s breakfast! Back to the office for morning work – this can range greatly from checking emails and Facebook, scheduling the week events with Happy, updating charts and numbers on bottle/brick projects, or simply chatting about “to do’s” for Peace Corps-related items (i.e., the needs assessment report).

10:00AM- Carry the water jugs across the yard, under the fence, and through the adjacent gate to Henna Pre-School, where we have access to a borehole for water. Water filling is a long and somewhat arduous process, as we have to wheelbarrow all the full jugs back up the path to the Center. But nevertheless, we get water without having to stand in line every 2 weeks when the taps are turned on for a few hours, or on the days the water truck comes in to make a stop on our road… so we don’t complain!!! Plus, while we wait for the filling, we get to chat with the pre-schoolers and watch the Henna carers cook over an open fire, so it’s not all bad!

11:00AM- Happy prepares to head out for site checks or supply pick-ups. This is where our “typical” day can go in a number of different directions: If Happy is heading to one of the shopping towns for monthly supplies of lunch meats or veggies (Mkhuhlu or Hazyview), we will often hitch a one-way ride with him to check our mail, get to the Cashbuild (think Home Depot) for house supplies, and visit the mall for groceries, toiletries, clothes and of course, a big greasy lunch before heading back to the bush! (A one-way hitch means that we head to the taxi rink at the end of the shopping day and pay for a coombie ride back home.) However, if Happy is heading to one of our local Drop-In Centers for site checks (Mabarhule, Justicia, or Lillydale), we will often utilize this route to hitch a ride to somewhere that might have information to provide on our “Community & Organizational Needs Assessment” – a local school to meet with students, teachers or admin staff to discuss issues of education; a local clinic or hospital to meet with nursing or doctor contacts to discuss issues of health and HIV/AIDS; a local government office to meet with municipal managers to discuss issues of service delivery and local politics; or to meet up with other local community members to converse with them about issues of social structure, community services, traditional government, and their ideas about bettering their own communities.

1:30PM- Make our way back to Huntington, about the time that kids from the closest schools (Henna Pre-School & Hundzukani Primary School) are arriving at the Center. Eventually most of the kids make their way to our office to ask for coloring paper, crayons, toys and Barbie dolls – they are very good at entertaining themselves with these supplies, albeit extremely loud and high on post-schoolday-adrenaline!!

2:00PM- Lunchtime! Depending on the day, lunch is always a bit different: Monday is stewed chicken and pap (always greasy and usually pretty tasty!); Tuesday is sugar beans and pap (definitely the most boring day, but pretty filling); Wednesday is beef or minced meat with rice, usually with a side of mashed pumpkin and shaved beetroot (this is our favorite day for sure!!); Thursday is wors (an Afrikaans sausage) and pap (usually pretty good!); and Friday is Pilchard’s canned fish, in a tomato broth, with pap (I don’t exactly know how to explain this one… it smells something like the fish docks after a hot weekend and it tastes pretty similar… needless to say, we usually skip Fridays!!!).

2:30PM- The older kids take over dish duty while the little ones start fighting for the soccer balls or other ill-fated sports equipment. This is about the time that the older girls begin filtering over to the porch to work on the Bottle Project, with each day’s bottle tasks depending on the stage of the bottles – newly washed, recently pasted, already glossed, in need of final cutting, etc. Adam has begun using this time to work with Leonard on plans for the Brick Project – meeting with boys, getting trained on concrete mixes, writing up plans for payments, etc. All in all, this is the last bit of our day, but usually the most productive in terms of actual projects with the OVCs. We often wish that could get more of this time, without taking them from school… but the day’s schedule doesn’t permit much time before the afternoon.

4:00PM- Heading out. Most of the younger kids start the walk home to avoid getting stuck on the roads as the sun goes down (some of these little ones have to walk 30-45 minutes to get home on the other side of town!). The older kids help clean up of the Bottle Project supplies and finish with the Brick Project plans, while Adam and I organize all the paperwork from our research on the “Community & Organizational Needs Assessment” and ensure that the computer and all its accessories get back to the backpack for the trip home. We say all our “Sala kahle’s” to the carers and remaining kids and finally, we struggle greatly to get all the filled water jugs into the bakkie before hopping in a free (and hopefully dry!) space for a ride back to the house. The ride back is usually consumed with conversations about what we will snack on or make for dinner at the house… yes, we just had lunch and we’re already talking about dinner... everything revolves around food in this country!

4:30PM- Back to our “Kaya Sweet Kaya”! Usually a quick run to the latrine for a much-needed pee break, before beginning again with water-related chores – this time for cooking, heating and cleaning. Last-minute yard chores (i.e. sweeping, etc.) before the sun goes down and quick treks to the tuck shop if we’re craving cold drink (Coke) or have a serious hankering for greasy food (we can get “slop chips” here, which are basically soggy French fries that you douse with a little salt and vinegar, top with achaar – and Indian spiced mango mix – and smash into sliced, white bread. Holy carbohydrates but oh-so-tasty!!!) Then, after the shops, finally, some relaxation!!! Relaxation at the African Aleksy home is usually marked by TV episodes of The West Wing and The Wire or epic marathons of Harry Potter movies or old Indiana Jones adventures! I’ll usually combo this with a cup of tea or crinkle crisps, while Adam usually pairs his viewing with peanuts or popcorn. Yummy!

5:30PM- Between the snacking and relaxing we usually start craving real food again (yes, food again! It really is amazing we’re actually getting smaller here…?) and begin making plans for dinner. Dinners are reasonably diverse after shopping days and become increasingly more repetitive and boring as the week goes on. A good dinner (i.e., night after shopping) might consist of fresh salad greens and a balsamic dressing with broccoli and cheese stuffed chicken cutlets (we can get these frozen in Hazyview!!) with rice – woohoo!!! A more typical and mundane dinner will consist of canned greenbeans and Raman-type noodles with some garlic-sprinkled toast. Still not too shabby, right??

6:00PM- Closing up the house (windows, doors, bars, gates, etc.) while dinner cooks to avoid both bugs and burglars after dark. Around this time we’ll be sure to filter any water that has cooled from the morning to be stored in our drinking jugs by the fridge and if there’s a stovetop spot open, we may boil a second round to cool for the morning (especially if we’re running low on drinking water).

6:30PM- Dinnertime with some more computer viewing, followed by an end-of-the-day glance at emails, Facebook, and BBC.com (I like my international news sources!!). The rest of our down-time is usually consumed with reading magazines sent from home, writing up grocery and shopping lists for the next trip to Hazyview, summarizing notes and creating outlines for our Peace Corps reporting, uploading and organizing photos, and dreaming about all the cool places we want to visit in South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Madagascar via our awesome Lonely Planet Africa edition.

8:00PM- Darkness is complete and at this time of year, it starts getting uber-cold (down to the 60’s at night!! Eish!!! Lol!). Around this time I inevitably end up on a cockroach hunt, since the little buggers don’t come out until it’s darker and cooler, and thus Adam and Leonard are reassured of my presence by the continuous smacks of my flip-flop on walls, countertops, tables, and bucket tops. I will kill them all… it may take all 2 years… but I will eventually kill them all. Gr.

9:00PM- The day finishes with some good ‘ol antimalarial medications, washed down with lemon creams or chocolate squares for dessert. Tubside in the bathroom for teeth brushing and face/foot washing (our feet get horribly, horribly dirty!!!) and then back to bed for a final episode or two of the evening’s series. Almost without fail, I will fall asleep before the second episode and will have to wake up to Adam putting away the “TV” (aka, computer)… because of this, I’m pretty sure Adam has seen roughly 20% more of almost every TV series or movie we watch in the evening. Ha! Oh well…

10:30PM- It may seem early, but we’re usually asleep not too long afterwards… we must be getting old… or African.

So there you have it, an overly-detailed account of a likely day here in Huntington, South Africa. You might want to know where in all that mess we get other important things done – like laundry, planning and prepping for the garden, calling home, visiting PCVs or getting visits from PCVs, or just walking around the community to “integrate” – well, that’s what the weekends are for. Laundry takes 1-2 hours, depending on the pairs of pants (they are the hardest to wash and the most difficult to wring out), and wet clothes take almost all-day to dry in our current, “wintery” weather, while garden plans and community walks get fit into the hours with light… remember, we can’t (and aren’t suppose to) do much of anything after it’s dark, so days are short! Finally, our families are great enough to work around our awkward schedule, so weekend nights are usually highlighted with calls from home and sometimes even a long-awaited video Skype with the month’s remaining data bundles.

We don’t necessarily feel that it’s an American-style life, nor is it entirely an African-style life, but it’s a reasonably comfy mix of both, so it works for us! I hope you enjoyed spending a day in our lives, at present!!

Keep in touch and Sala Kahle!!