A Day in the Life of a PCV… Again... At Present

Jess writes:

I realized recently that even though I’ve done this type of post a couple of times, at various different stages in our time here, I hadn’t ever taken the time to write one out for our new site in Nkomazi. And since, therefore, we seem to get a lot of “So, what exactly are you doing now?” questions from friends and family, I figured I’d delve into at least one more of these before the holidays. Here goes…

While Adam and I are no longer in one of the three official Peace Corps training phases (PST, Community Integration – aka Lockdown, or IST), site change to Schoemansdal has put us in a weird limbo between the “Community Integration” phase and the actual, post-training “Service” phase. Thus, our lives have very quickly settled into a routine at our new site, but we are always finding new things that we want to do, see, etc. And even though we are still overcoming all the cultural and locational difficulties of a new site/family/work/etc., we are always thankful to be in this new, (much prettier and much friendlier) community!! So, as with all the previous PCV phases before, I present to you a typical “Day in the Life” of our present Peace Corps life… Enjoy!

7:00AM - Wake up. But often times earlier than this, because A) I have insomnia and B) our little house gets really damn hot in the morning nowadays. With a tin roof, the inside starts heating up pretty quick in the mornings and, simply put, it’s just impossible to sleep in that kind of heat. Next, as at almost any site, we have to make sure anything related to water is taken care of – so if it’s a water day, we begin collecting, filling, filtering, etc. (refer back to one of my most detailed previous posts)! Next we pull up the mosquito netting (it hangs just below the bed sheets, so it makes getting in and out of bed difficult if it’s down all day) and make the bed… which Adam hates that I want to do every morning! Then there’s time for tea, some granola or cereal, and usually a little time online to check email/news or reading some of my Time magazines to catch up on other global issues – of course, Adam usually uses this time to read his bike-maintenance books or biker mags!

8:30AM - We’ll usually get around to locking up the house and saying goodbye to Siyanda, our host brother, in the yard on our way out. If we want to be to work by 9:00am, or a little after, we have to be leaving by 8:30am since our walk to Thembalethu is just over a 2km (30 minute) walk. As long as it’s still this early, the heat usually isn’t so bad yet, and luckily the lengthy walk is almost entirely flat, so at least there’s no hiking involved in order to get there! On the way, we always greet the fruit & veg lady at the stand located just off our road – she greets us very loudly and very slowly so that we can practice our SiSwati – so cute!! We also pass all the little shops and convenience stops (food stands, car washes, barbershops, etc.) along the way, so there’s plenty of other people to greet during the walk. There’s also a plethora of animals to avoid along the way – mainly cows with their enormously large horns – that like to stand stubbornly in the road or path in everyone’s way… how convenient! When we get to the Way Inn Plaza, we’ve almost arrived at the Thembalethu compound and we can see the Wildly African building and its brightly painted exterior and all of my favorite little goats walking around in the shade outside (and yes, I have one little goat that is “my goat” and he was about the size of a cat when we first arrived and now he is getting soooo big. Oh, they grow up so fast, don’t they?).

9:00AM - Arrive at work (of course, we’re often on “African Time”, so this varies) and begin greeting the many, many people that work on the Thembalethu compound. First, there’s Vusi (the Drama Team coordinator) and the Drama Team members, they almost always sit at the little picnic table at the entrance before they begin their rehearsals in the great hall; next is the Wildly African staff – consisting of Thabo & Sizakele (in the Fabric Painting Department), Johan, Ndumiso & Moosa (in the Wirework and Recycledwork Department) and Idah, Fortunate, Nomiah & Mirriam (in the Beadwork & Sewing/Embroidery Departments) – they’ll be found either outside the WA building cleaning in the morning or in their workshops prepping for the day’s art projects; then there’s Joseph & Dumisani, two of our organization’s drivers, that are usually working on some form of car motor-part in the main driveway; next is Patrick, our IT Coordinator and computer lab “Chief” (we quite literally call him “Chief my Chief”), who is usually meandering around the compound in the shade before having to take over supervision of the lab; closely behind we usually find Cleopas, our Deputy CEO and Peer-Education Coordinator, along with Vincent, Zachele, Nomcebo & Rosy, our Peer-Education Facilitators, between offices to organize lesson plans at their four local schools; then comes the kitchen & cleaning staff, supervised by Koekie (pronounced ‘Cookie’) bringing hotpots and teacups to the various admin offices and sweeping along all the dirt walkways outside; in the conference center are all the pre-schoolers and our two Crèche coordinators, Jane & Sonto, attempting to organize all the little ones into some type of song or morning exercise; next is the admin office, where Sandra and Lorraine are chatting inside with piles of paperwork strewn on the desks; across the way are all our HBC and OVC coordinators – Thabi who organizes all logistics for Home Based Care, Margaret who oversees all the admin processes, Sphiwe who manages the medroom and clinical visits, Cynthia who handles all carer-to-patient counseling for both adults and orphans/vulnerable children, Jabu who organizes all trainings for new & current carers, Busie who oversees all logistics for the Orphans & Vulnerable Children program (and who is the counterpart that accompanied me to LST), as well as additional support staff in charge of housing, prevention, outreach, and treatment; and finally is Sally’s office, our organization’s CEO, at the very edge of the office row under some leafy trees to provide much-needed shade, where you can find just about any coordinator or employee in a meeting with her throughout the day. Now that’s a lot of hello’s if I do say so myself!!

9:30AM - Let the meetings begin! At the beginning of the month, this is usually a very lengthy organizational meeting in which every coordinator (there are quite a few, as I just mentioned) provides a summary of their current programs, numbers, stats, etc. Throughout the rest of the month, for Adam and myself, this time is usually taken up by meetings with the Wildly African staff, fellow volunteers that are providing support to our current projects, or other coordinators with whom we are working on specific program goals. Meetings can last anywhere from 30 minutes (unlikely) to 3 hours (more likely) as the agendas are usually somewhat unorganized, meandering, and often lend themselves to off-the-topic discussions. Not to mention we have to spend half the time translating into two at least two, sometimes three, different languages. But hey, that’s Africa, right?

11:00AM - Depending on the previous meetings, around this time we are hopefully starting on the day’s “to-do’s”. And, again, depending on the previous meetings, this can vary greatly! For example, I currently spend a lot of time in the computer lab working on a complete revamping of our current Thembalethu.org website, as well as the expansion and upkeep of our newly-created Thembalethu Home Based Care official facebook page (please find us and “Like” us!!!). A lot of this work involves taking photos, collecting information about the organization, meeting with coordinators to go over project descriptions, and of course formatting, formatting, formatting. I also assist with proposal and grant-writing related tasks with the Thembalethu admin (related to just about anything, really) and am often called out of my current work for impromptu meetings in Sally’s office to discuss wording, benchmarks, beneficiaries and all the other wonderfully tedious little tidbits related to funding requests. Finally, my last – but primary – project is everything related to the Wildly African project. At some point (perhaps in the new year, when we actually have more a plan in place) I can write more about the work related to this project, but just suffice to say it can range from working with individual artisans on a new jewelry design to emailing with retailers in England about consignment orders. Eish!! And Adam, while he does not have the concrete-type projects that I have (or should I say, have created for myself…), he is incredibly patient and acquiescent with all of my requests and pleas for favors related to those projects described above. Not to mention the fact that the Thembalethu staff have found plenty of other tasks for Adam to tackle on a day-to-day basis. First and foremost, he has become the go-to-guy for anything computer related on the compound (did you know that Adam is a computer specialist…?? Well, neither did he!). Nevertheless, he is often trying to solve any and all issues related to virus protection, lost files, hard drive formatting, and of course, the ever-dreaded, Blue Screen of Death. More often than not, he’ll usually try to escape these technical jobs to assist Joseph & Dumisani with sporadic jobs around the compound – mainly because they often relate to car maintenance and Adam loves any excuse to play with motor parts. And finally, he also gets called down to Jeppes’ Reef on occasion to install software, assist with reporting, or to provide advice/training on basic monitoring and evaluation. So… we keep pretty busy, for the most part.

1:00PM - By this time, we’re usually starving (and the computer lab is usually stifling), so Adam and I will head to our “regular” spot for our “regular” lunch together. Our “regular” spot is a crumbly stone table and bench under an extremely scraggly tree just beyond the computer lab, on the outskirts of the compound. It’s cooler than most places on the compound, the least busy by far, and offers a view of the street so that we can watch all the gogos walking to and fro with all sorts of goods and materials on their head. Our “regular” lunch is a meat and cheese sandwich, with lettuce and mayo or mustard (we found a great whole-seed French mustard that is actually cheaper than South Africa’s version of French’s Mustard… go figure) and, on special occasions (or at least once a month when I’m craving chocoloate…) we have leftover brownies as well. And yes, when we have brownies, I lick every little morsel out of the bag!

1:30PM - Back to all that work described before, with some haphazard interruptions throughout the day for various (usually random, but usually entertaining) things. For example: a reporter will come by to get the scoop on some new funding we’ve received or the start of a new project hosted by the organization (this usually involves photos and is always on a day that we’re not dressed accordingly); the Drama Team will sometimes put on a mini-performance of a new song or portion of their awareness skit in the main hall for our critique and approval; Dumisani will have to make a run to the local clinic or government offices and will offer to drive us to the post office, plaza, or other convenient location to save us on time and energy (thank you!!); donors will stop by the compound to discuss ongoing projects or new ideas with management and the volunteers (aka, us); there will be an afternoon staff training on computer skills or, my favorite, “How to Use Facebook Responsibly” (probably my fault for introducing the whole facebook thing… he he!); tourists will randomly drive in to shop at the Wildly African store (at present, it is often in a very makeshift state, ugh) and they’ll get a complimentary tour of the artisan workshops and compound before they go; and sometimes our breaks just consist of taking a stroll by all the offices, stopping in to say hi to people who are having mid-afternoon tea breaks, enjoying the purple-covered ground caused by the post-blooming jacaranda trees and – if you time it just right – peeking in at the preschoolers as they all snuggle, five to a mat, for naptime.

3:00PM - Although the organization technically stays open until 4-5pm most days (except Friday, when we close at 2pm), Adam and I usually start winding up a bit early so that we have enough time to get our other “chores” done for the day. Our walk back home is usually quite a bit hotter than our morning jaunt, so it usually takes us a bit longer as well. And at this time of year, we physically feel as though we are melting on our return trip, so the whole right-foot-left-foot-right-foot thing that we call “walking” becomes really, really, r-e-a-l-l-y hard. Also, because of this lovely time of year, we’ll sometimes get caught in rogue, mid-afternoon downpours on our way back. This usually involves timing the return trip in a way that allows for you to huddle under a very large tree or one of the small, cement bus stops with about a thousand other people until the road that has become a river is raging more slowly and we can begin the walk home again. Oh… summertime. But we can also make use of the walk back for some random grocery needs (bread, eggs, and long-life milk at the Jabulani market) or the occasional fresh produce purchase (oranges and apples from our fruit and veg lady).

3:30PM - Or later… we arrive home. I told you, it takes longer on the way back – kinda like flying west. Anyways, our first to-do is to turn on all fans, open all windows and get our little oven of a house to cool down as quickly as possible before we suffocate. Sounds fun, huh? Needless to say, the house heats up convection-style during the day, so we have to hope that there is a cross-breeze strong enough to push out the sauna-like feel of our two rooms in the afternoon.

4:00PM - Next, comes any chores that require a significant exertion of energy – simply because you want to get them out of the way so that you can just lay down and sweat, instead of stand and sweat. This includes washing dishes (oh how we miss our dishwasher), sweeping the house, hauling in any last-minute buckets of water, etc.

4:30PM - Now drenched in sweat from our walk home and miniscule house tasks, we usually seek out any form of moving air or cool water that will bring our temperatures back down to normal. Several techniques that we have discovered are: standing anywhere, inside or outside, in the shade, where any form of a breeze exists; splashing water on all extremities, including face, head, chest, back and neck; sitting on the end of the bed, about two feet from the fan, with the setting on high; or, when all else fails… filling the bath basin with water, removing all unnecessary clothes, and sitting on the edge of the bed, while splashing our feet in the water, about two feet from the fan, with the setting on high. Yeah, we’ve gotten pretty desperate.

5:00PM - This is usually about the time that we break out the computer. As you’ve probably figured out at this point, our computer is not only our blog-writing, finance-tracking, and picture-organizing processor, it is also our only source of mindless entertainment via the endless viewing of movies and TV shows. And mindless – and I mean completely mindless – entertainment is just about the only thing that will allow you to survive the last few hours of heat in the day. Thus, Adam and I have become virtual virtuosos at not only quoting several movies almost line-by-line, but also singing the theme songs to several popular TV series – of which, the proudest of my most recent memorization accomplishments has been the theme song to “The Big Bang Theory”. Do you know how fast that theme song is?!? No seriously… you should really try it sometime!! (“We built the pyramids!!!!!!”)

6:00PM - Our brains have usually cooled enough at this point to start thinking of food once again, so we start the long discussion of “what’s for dinner”. Weighing out the options usually involve a lot of consideration of other factors, such as: How much of this will require heating (and thus making the house hotter)? How much of this will require time (because it’s starting to get late)? And most important… How much of this will require actual work (because we simply don’t want to do it)? But, nevertheless, dinner always gets made (mostly by Adam, because we all know I suck at cooking) and it varies quite a bit – from our laziest days of pasta and garlic bread to our more ambitious days of roasted pork topped with onions and garlic. Of course, there are also those days when it’s still over 100F at 6pm and then we usually just resort to cereal… or ice cubes.

7:00PM - Eating, computer-watching, snacking, internet-checking, you get the point… But noteworthy around this time is the drums that start up. You see, we have several Sangomas (traditional healers) in our area and, once the sun has gone down, they begin their rhythmic rituals. And while Sangomas are not our closest allies in Peace Corps service (a lot of their practice hinders our preventative work with HIV/AIDS), there is something about their drumming and ritualizing that makes me visualize an older South Africa, a more African South Africa, a time not so long ago that lingers still, but just in the backdrop – like I said, after the sun goes down.

8:00PM - It’s finally cooled off enough by this time that a bucket bath will actually keep you somewhat clean for the remainder of the evening. So, we begin filling our bath bucket, hauling in the bath basin, and laying down the towel to catch the water before it goes under the bed (so that we don’t attract any more mosquitoes than are already calling our little home, ‘home’). We also have to heat up at least enough water to not be shaking when the fan swivels towards us, but as the summer progresses, we’re finding that we can easily bathe with less, and less, and much less heated water!! Since it takes over an hour for us to both complete the somewhat tedious bucket bathing process (pouring single cups of water over your head does not wash out conditioner very quickly…), we usually use this time to also make last minute updates on facebook, check email, or chat with our families back home – and by the way, these phone calls are later at this time of year since South Africa doesn’t observe daylight savings time, so our families are now an additional hour behind us. Oh South Africa.

9:30PM - Round about this time we hit the nightly dilemma of whether or not we start a movie (and push our bedtime to a startling 11:00pm, what?!?) or stick with TV shows to ensure an earlier turn-in time. Wow… we have given a whole new meaning to “old married couple” haven’t we? But irregardless of what we watch, we always end up spending at least a portion of our time getting sidetracked by some sort of discussion. We talk about our homes back home, our new home here, our work, our projects, our little glimpses of change and excitement about possibilities, of course our frustrations as well… in general, the life that is Peace Corps and how now, nearing almost a year into this whole crazy endeavor, we still seem to have so much to learn and so much to figure out… but that’s life, right?

10:00PM - This is about the time I start to zonk out… but there’s a background story here (of course). Unfortunately – mostly for Adam, but also for me – I’m on a different antimalarial medication than he, due to counter-interactions with other medications. The problem is, my antimalarials make me a bit of a crazy person… well, to be exact, the side effects primarily cause anxiety, paranoia, overly-OCD tendencies, and bordering on slight psychophrenia. Oh, and worst of all, they make me a raging insomniac. Great wife, hey? [Damn Mefloquin.] For this reason, Peace Corps has chosen wisely to prescribe a counter medication that calms, relaxes, and just about knocks me out at night! Ah, lovely little pill! So while Adam finds out the result of horrible credit card debt on Marshall & Lily’s relationship in season 3 of “How I Met Your Mother”, I slip serenely into my drug-induced sleep! (Kinda gives a whole new meaning to “old married couple”, doesn’t it??) But what is the added bonus of this little miracle medication you ask? Well I’ll tell you: now, when it’s pouring rain at night and I wake to the thought that it is extremely likely that our house is presently flooding due to all the leaks in the tin roof… I just don’t really care. He he! It’s kinda like a less A-typish version of myself – not too shabby!

10:30PM - I wake to Adam putting away the computer, hard drive and speakers and have to at least pull myself out of bed long enough to spray down the top sheet with bug spray, brush off all the bugs that subsequently die, and unclip the mosquito netting so that it sits nicely along the outside of the bed. And have I mentioned how glorious that mosquito net truly is? Aside from the itchy bites and mysterious “visitors” that it prevents, it’s just such a wonderful thing to not have any flying critters buzzing incessantly in your ears all night!! Oh, I love you mosquito net!

11:00PM - Hopefully sleeping…

And, as always, weekends are a grab-bag, but almost always include at least something related to collecting water, doing laundry, collecting more water, grocery shopping, and maybe finding a not-so-needed excuse to have a drink or two with fellow PCVs… oh yeah, and probably something else related to water.

And that, folks, is all she wrote.

So I’ll just end this by repeating something I’ve written in a similar post before: It’s not an American-style life, nor is it really an African-style life, but hey, it’s our life… at present!