Block B: From Big Braais to Boo Bashes

Jess writes:

October has been the month to be in Block B – the town on the East Side of Nkomazi that one of our fellow PCVs calls home. And while Block B may not be the most convenient get together location for all, our Block B PCV happens to have the largest host family home in the area – hence, the place to eat, drink, and be merry! So, this month, Block B hosted two Nkomazi events: A BBQ, dubbed “The Newbie Braai”, and an oh-so-creative Halloween Bash!

The Newbie Braai brought together the last-few-standing SA19s (from January 2009), the feet-now-wet SA21s (us, from January 2010), and of course, the shiny-and-new SA22s (from July 2010). We were also joined by some Afrikaaner friends that were assisting with a video project in some of our PCV villages! Coming from the western reaches of Schoemansdal and the eastern reaches of Steenbok (as well as the civilizations of Pretoria), we gathered to cook way too much food and welcome our new Peace Corps family members. Beginning with Mexican food (what else?) on Saturday night and topping it off with an obscene amount of bbq-ed meat on Sunday, we managed to cover everything from Peace Corps paperwork requirements to the best shopping spots in “the pocket” (aka, Nkomazi)! All in all, it was a great way to get to know our newest neighbors. So, to Matt, Kristy, Andrew, Meg and John: Welcome!

The Halloween Bash was just that – as we joined with our Nkomazi crew, as well as some fellow 21s from far-away Mpumalanga lands (okay, not really far-away) and some of the other volunteers/residents from our own Thembalethu family! The highlight, of course, were the very creative and the not-so-creative costumes that accompanied the night. Bottoming out the list, sadly, was our own group from Schoemansdal – due mainly to the last-minute decision to join on our small budget – so… Adam dawned his Porkslap t-shirt and we called it a “beer snob” costume; I put on a skirt for the first time in almost 6 months and called myself a “Peace Corps Trainee”, Hank (the Dutch volunteer at Thembalethu) wore his normal clothes, which screams enough EU-ness to be considered a “Johnny Depp-ish” look; and Corey (our Thembalethu-based American resident) wore, well, nothing that resembled any form of costume, but gets more credit than the rest for driving us all over there in his wonderfully air conditioned car!! Next came the all-blue jumpsuit that designates the typical, South African “Eskom Worker”, made even better by the fact that the pants were more than a couple inches too short; followed by our resident “Cat Lady”, which was basically every-day wear as long as you were carrying around Savannah, the house cat; then the mosquito-netting-winged “Mosquito” costume, paired with a dozen mosquito-borne illnesses on index cards that were egregiously handed out throughout the evening; arriving fashionably late was our “Indian Couple”, complete with a bindi for the girl and a full turban for the guy; there was also a “Coombie”, yes, the entire coombie, made from cardboard and drawn-on with crayons, that fit not only the driver, but even a few raucous passengers; and finally, perhaps the most disturbing of all, was the… ummm… I have no idea what it was: Afrikaaner-esque short shorts, tall socks, sandals, a Springbok rugby jersey, a two-cup beer helmet, and to top it all off, an insanely tacky South African flag cape – circa World Cup 2010. Oh boy… now that was a sight to behold (I encourage everyone to see the Facebook photos for the full effect)!! In order to make the Halloween party as interesting as possible, our genteel Nkomazi government decided to cut the electricity until after dark, which conveniently added to the Haloweeney feel to our night. But as the dark got darker, we mustered all our night-trekking skills and gathered as much brush and as many random branches as possible in order to create some make-shift firelight in a braai pit in the courtyard – hey, you need at least a little light to keep eating, drinking, and making merry, right?

In the end, as October closed, we managed to celebrate not only a successful welcome party but also a happy Halloween afterall… Block B style… with just a little more than a bit of a South African flare!!