Jess writes:
This past Tuesday (April 27th) was Freedom Day in South Africa. Historically, Freedom Day celebrates the first post-Apartheid elections held in South Africa in 1994. The elections were the first in nearly fifty years in which the majority population – the black South Africans – had the right to vote. In case you were wondering, they voted in Nelson Mandela and, thus, marked this historic election as one for Freedom.
For Adam and I, Freedom Day stood for something far less monumental, but nonetheless important for us – our own home!!!! That’s right, the Mthombeni family (with whom we have been residing the last month) finally completed their move to their new home in Hazyview and moved virtually all belongings out of this home (minus a couple items that they are slowly picking up each day). You see, the Mthombeni family has generously offered their 3-bedroom home to the Peace Corps to house us and one South African boy, Leonard, who is an OVC at the SwaVana Youth Project. However, as plans tend to go in South Africa, their intended move-out date (March 25th) was pushed further and further back due to, well, we’re not quite sure of all the specifics. But anyways, they are now 98% moved and as of Tuesday – Freedom Day – Adam and I began the arduous but oh-so-rewarding process of moving ourselves in completely!!! Let’s see, how did this all go:
Last Friday we travelled to Hazyview to do our BIG “Home Shopping Day”. This included the purchase of a rather large fridge and the interesting experience of describing to the delivery people where we lived based on dirt roads, large trees, and different color rooftops. We also spent the majority of our PC allotted move-in allowance on other necessities, such as kitchenwares, laundry materials, bathroom items and lots of groceries! With the help of the Mthombeni’s vehicle trunk, we actually managed to get all of it home and had a little leftover cash for a splurge item – French Press & ground coffee!! YUM!
Saturday & Sunday were spent trying to stay out of the way of the 5-person family and their extended relatives as the house was slowly but surely torn to shreds and moved, piece by piece, via small cars and some bakkies. It was a bit hectic and Sunday did not end until 1:30am, when, after a very long weekend, all the children and the majority of the furniture were somewhere in or en route to Hazyview… what an eerily quiet evening!
Monday marked an installed refrigerator and thus, one more return trip to Hazyview to finally purchase the cool items requiring refrigeration. Upon arrival to Hazyview, we celebrated the beginning of our nesting mode with some pastries and strong coffee at La Patissier, the Belgian bakery at Perry’s Bridge. We then completed our shopping and returned to Huntington, way too many bags in tow, and fell asleep earlier than we had in a month.
Finally, Tuesday… Freedom Day. We awoke to the sound of trucks delivering more furniture – our furniture! – and soon thereafter, the smell of Dysol cleaning agent for the walls and floors. On hands and knees, Adam and I swept, scrubbed and mopped all the rooms – a living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, 3 bedrooms, and a garage – and slowly began organizing the larger pieces of furniture into their respective rooms. And this processed continued for a while… but by Wednesday night, we had successfully moved from the “Guest” room to our new room (the parent’s old bedroom, which is much larger, and therefore slightly odd-feeling, but nevertheless very comfortable), organized the entire kitchen (minus the need for the last two tables to be delivered to serve as counterspace), organized the entire living room (minus Leonard’s chair & couch set which will be moved in over the weekend), prepared the dining room for a large table (to be provided by SwaVana) and enough seating for six, organized and cleaned out the entire garage, rearranged the patio area and made room for some porch furniture (to be purchased sometime in the near future), cleaned out the room that will be used by Leonard, and cleaned out our old room which can now officially be used as the Guest room. Whew!
While we still await some primary furniture items, we are contented in knowing that we have cleaned, arranged and polished all those items for which we were responsible – bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, garage, and outdoor areas (garden, braii pit and compost pile to be started soon!) – and will be very happy when we can finally finish filling some of those larger (and currently somewhat empty) rooms – living room, dining room, Leonard’s room, Guest room.
Slowly but surely, we are starting to dig out the matching sheet sets and find curtains to work in every room; slowly but surely we are assigning each corner of each room to its new and proper function; slowly but surely, we are remembering where we put the tea cups, the ironing board, the extra towels, and the laundry bins; slowly but surely, the perfect places for a mirror, a poster, or a cushy seat are making themselves known; slowly but surely the air is finding its way from open windows to every knook and cranny and erasing what was in preparation for what will be inside these walls and slowly but surely, those old smells are replaced by ones more familiar, ones more personal, ones of “home”.
I think I’ll call this the start of our Freedom… :-)
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
RWO: Some Slang, Fo Sho
Jess writes:
Just as we have adapted certain slang words from Hip Hop culture (such as “bling” and “-izzle”), South Africans have adapted such slang from their own “gangster” (or “Tsotsi”) culture. The most common of these are “Heita” (which means “Hey”), “Howzit” (which means “How is it”), and “Sharp” (pronounced “Shop”, which means “Cool”). These have become so engrained in common culture that Lonely Planet actually lists the South African greeting as “Howzit” and you will often here the Gogos (grandmothers) saying “Sharp” to one another! It’s hysterical!!
Just as we have adapted certain slang words from Hip Hop culture (such as “bling” and “-izzle”), South Africans have adapted such slang from their own “gangster” (or “Tsotsi”) culture. The most common of these are “Heita” (which means “Hey”), “Howzit” (which means “How is it”), and “Sharp” (pronounced “Shop”, which means “Cool”). These have become so engrained in common culture that Lonely Planet actually lists the South African greeting as “Howzit” and you will often here the Gogos (grandmothers) saying “Sharp” to one another! It’s hysterical!!
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Here is Amazing
Adam writes:
I just wanted to right a bit of an update for all of you who are reading. We have been at site now for almost a month and I know that I have been conspicuously silent on the blog. To be honest, it was mostly because I wasn’t in the best place, I felt, to be writing to all of you. We have been living in a single room in a house with a family of five since we have arrived. We were told by Peace Corps that they would move out by the first week of April. And since we are still living with them that obviously didn’t happen.
For me, this has been hard. We have very little personal space and are unable to fully settle in and become comfortable. There is a lot I could say about how the living situation has been hard on me, but I think I can sum it up by saying, it has prevented us from making this place our home. I still feel like we are visitors here and that is probably a feeling that will continue as we learn the language and begin to make friends here. But to at least be able to have a home to make our own would go a long way to making me feel more comfortable in our new surroundings.
On a lighter note, I am writing this mostly because I have been feeling a lot better about things as of late. The family is still at least another couple of weeks from moving out, but Jess and I have finally got into a rhythm and have settled into a schedule, and that helps. Also, the weather has finally shifted into deep autumn and soon winter, so we have had overcast with cooler temperatures lately and it seems to have settled into sunny days that still push towards 90, but then cool quickly in the afternoons and evenings. The weather is actually quite enjoyable at the moment. (Maybe we are acclimatizing again.)
So what is it that we have been doing since we arrived at site? So far we have been at Swa Vana most days. We have spent days at all three centers spending time with the kids. They have been on spring break for the last two weeks. They are starting to get used to seeing our faces around. I have also helped pick up the meat order for the kids lunches with Happy, our supervisor. And this week we have spent the mornings doing home visits to the children’s houses. This entailed walking through almost all of our village. It turns out that once you get a little bit away from our house, our village is actually quite pretty.
Starting next week Jess and I will start collecting the data and information we need to write our Community Needs Assessment. This is a report assigned to us by Peace Corps that will help us better understand our community and what they see as their primary needs for development. It will require a lot of work and it promises to keep the two of us fairly busy.
We have also tentatively started to learn some Tsonga, though a more dedicated effort will start next week. It seems to share a lot in come with SiSwati which should be helpful to us. Also, we are trying to identify a tutor for both languages.
So far though, things have moved fairly slowly here with a lot of down time. This coupled with the fact that we are already looking to secure dates and then tickets to come home towards the end of August or early September for Kimmie and Brian’s wedding, and I have had a lot of time to sit around thinking about home and how much I miss my friends and family. These few weeks have been very hard. Thank you to all of you who have been maintaining some amount of contact through Facebook, it has been extremely helpful. And the weekly phone conversations with family have been invaluable.
When you have to go outside and use a pit latrine to go to the bathroom (and yes, they smell exactly how you’d imagine they would), when water has to be carried in jugs and boiled and filtered to be drinkable, when cooking is a difficult task because the kitchen is always full of people and it is setup for necessity and not ease of use, and when you understand very little of what’s going on around you because you were taught the wrong language, it is very hard to understand what it is you are doing here.
When you think about being surrounded by family and friends, being able to go out for the evening, riding your motorcycle, eating your favorite foods, having the luxury of running water and a flush toilet one room over that you can use at night (South Africans lock up their homes around 8 o’clock and no one leaves till morning), and having a washer and dryer, it is hard to understand why you are staying here.
But very recently, I have been reminded that we are here because we are living our dreams. We are on a great adventure and along the way we will do some good here. As I look out my window now I am reminded that we are living a world away in a wonderful and beautiful place. We are in Africa. And even though that is mud shacks with tin roofs, and pit latrines, and kids with little to eat and no clean water, it is still gorgeous and filled with people that are filled with a sense of community and are happy to share their lives and culture with you. It really is pretty amazing here.
And soon the family will move out and we will settle in. We will set up our kitchen and plant a garden. We will continue to learn the language and begin to understand people. We will begin to really work with our organization and begin programs that might make a real difference. And by the time we come home for the wedding I will have forgotten my anger and frustration about living in a room with a family. We will be bursting with excitement to see you all and share with you what we are accomplishing here. We will be dying to catch up with all of you and do those things listed above that we are so desperately missing here. And we will be sad when we realize that our visit was only too short and over too soon. But we will be excited about getting back to our home here and continuing our work. We will be excited to see the kids at the organization and our friends here in our village.
It has been this realization that recently has helped me rediscover why it is that I am here. Things are not perfect here and I am not always happy and smiling from ear to ear. But I do want to be here, and here is amazing.
Please continue to stay in contact as hearing from you always brightens our day. I love and miss you all!
I just wanted to right a bit of an update for all of you who are reading. We have been at site now for almost a month and I know that I have been conspicuously silent on the blog. To be honest, it was mostly because I wasn’t in the best place, I felt, to be writing to all of you. We have been living in a single room in a house with a family of five since we have arrived. We were told by Peace Corps that they would move out by the first week of April. And since we are still living with them that obviously didn’t happen.
For me, this has been hard. We have very little personal space and are unable to fully settle in and become comfortable. There is a lot I could say about how the living situation has been hard on me, but I think I can sum it up by saying, it has prevented us from making this place our home. I still feel like we are visitors here and that is probably a feeling that will continue as we learn the language and begin to make friends here. But to at least be able to have a home to make our own would go a long way to making me feel more comfortable in our new surroundings.
On a lighter note, I am writing this mostly because I have been feeling a lot better about things as of late. The family is still at least another couple of weeks from moving out, but Jess and I have finally got into a rhythm and have settled into a schedule, and that helps. Also, the weather has finally shifted into deep autumn and soon winter, so we have had overcast with cooler temperatures lately and it seems to have settled into sunny days that still push towards 90, but then cool quickly in the afternoons and evenings. The weather is actually quite enjoyable at the moment. (Maybe we are acclimatizing again.)
So what is it that we have been doing since we arrived at site? So far we have been at Swa Vana most days. We have spent days at all three centers spending time with the kids. They have been on spring break for the last two weeks. They are starting to get used to seeing our faces around. I have also helped pick up the meat order for the kids lunches with Happy, our supervisor. And this week we have spent the mornings doing home visits to the children’s houses. This entailed walking through almost all of our village. It turns out that once you get a little bit away from our house, our village is actually quite pretty.
Starting next week Jess and I will start collecting the data and information we need to write our Community Needs Assessment. This is a report assigned to us by Peace Corps that will help us better understand our community and what they see as their primary needs for development. It will require a lot of work and it promises to keep the two of us fairly busy.
We have also tentatively started to learn some Tsonga, though a more dedicated effort will start next week. It seems to share a lot in come with SiSwati which should be helpful to us. Also, we are trying to identify a tutor for both languages.
So far though, things have moved fairly slowly here with a lot of down time. This coupled with the fact that we are already looking to secure dates and then tickets to come home towards the end of August or early September for Kimmie and Brian’s wedding, and I have had a lot of time to sit around thinking about home and how much I miss my friends and family. These few weeks have been very hard. Thank you to all of you who have been maintaining some amount of contact through Facebook, it has been extremely helpful. And the weekly phone conversations with family have been invaluable.
When you have to go outside and use a pit latrine to go to the bathroom (and yes, they smell exactly how you’d imagine they would), when water has to be carried in jugs and boiled and filtered to be drinkable, when cooking is a difficult task because the kitchen is always full of people and it is setup for necessity and not ease of use, and when you understand very little of what’s going on around you because you were taught the wrong language, it is very hard to understand what it is you are doing here.
When you think about being surrounded by family and friends, being able to go out for the evening, riding your motorcycle, eating your favorite foods, having the luxury of running water and a flush toilet one room over that you can use at night (South Africans lock up their homes around 8 o’clock and no one leaves till morning), and having a washer and dryer, it is hard to understand why you are staying here.
But very recently, I have been reminded that we are here because we are living our dreams. We are on a great adventure and along the way we will do some good here. As I look out my window now I am reminded that we are living a world away in a wonderful and beautiful place. We are in Africa. And even though that is mud shacks with tin roofs, and pit latrines, and kids with little to eat and no clean water, it is still gorgeous and filled with people that are filled with a sense of community and are happy to share their lives and culture with you. It really is pretty amazing here.
And soon the family will move out and we will settle in. We will set up our kitchen and plant a garden. We will continue to learn the language and begin to understand people. We will begin to really work with our organization and begin programs that might make a real difference. And by the time we come home for the wedding I will have forgotten my anger and frustration about living in a room with a family. We will be bursting with excitement to see you all and share with you what we are accomplishing here. We will be dying to catch up with all of you and do those things listed above that we are so desperately missing here. And we will be sad when we realize that our visit was only too short and over too soon. But we will be excited about getting back to our home here and continuing our work. We will be excited to see the kids at the organization and our friends here in our village.
It has been this realization that recently has helped me rediscover why it is that I am here. Things are not perfect here and I am not always happy and smiling from ear to ear. But I do want to be here, and here is amazing.
Please continue to stay in contact as hearing from you always brightens our day. I love and miss you all!
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
RWO: Put 'Er There Pal
Adam writes:
There are a couple types of handshakes here and it’s very important to know the difference. They are as follows:
1) The Normal, Western Handshake – the one that we are accustomed to
2) The Normal, South African Handshake – which involves switching from the Western Handshake, to a sort-of-thumb embrace, back to the Western Handshake
3) The Child’s Handshake – which involves the adult shaking both hands of the child (clasped together) at the same time with one of the adult hands
and finally...
4) The Creepy Handshake – this one looks like the Western Handshake, but involves tickling the other person’s palm with your middle finger, in order to indicate that you would like to have sex with them… yeah. It’s creepy.
There are a couple types of handshakes here and it’s very important to know the difference. They are as follows:
1) The Normal, Western Handshake – the one that we are accustomed to
2) The Normal, South African Handshake – which involves switching from the Western Handshake, to a sort-of-thumb embrace, back to the Western Handshake
3) The Child’s Handshake – which involves the adult shaking both hands of the child (clasped together) at the same time with one of the adult hands
and finally...
4) The Creepy Handshake – this one looks like the Western Handshake, but involves tickling the other person’s palm with your middle finger, in order to indicate that you would like to have sex with them… yeah. It’s creepy.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
RWO: People Actually Say “Hakunamatata” Here!
Jess & Adam write:
So we’ve decided to start a new mini-series of super-random observations on, well, everything – language, culture, and life in general here in South Africa. We will title these little quips, “Random Weekly Observations”, or “RWOs” (in the spirit of Peace Corps initialisms), and we hope to keep this going for the full two years. Of course, we invite comments & counter-observations on all of these… that’s cross-cultural exchange, right?
So here’s our first RWO:
People actually say Hakunamatata here!! No, we’re serious, our supervisor says it on an almost daily basis – and not just to us, as a joke, but to other locals, as a typical response to almost any comment about day-to-day life!! (I mean, come on, that’s like the French saying “Bon Apetit!”) The first time he said it, we almost lost it laughing… I think he was confused. We made the reference to The Lion King and he just kinda shrugged, like, “Yeah, I think I’ve heard that in the movie, but… we kinda had it first…” Ha! Anyways, it’s awesome and as many times as we’ve heard it, it still always makes us chuckle a bit!
So we’ve decided to start a new mini-series of super-random observations on, well, everything – language, culture, and life in general here in South Africa. We will title these little quips, “Random Weekly Observations”, or “RWOs” (in the spirit of Peace Corps initialisms), and we hope to keep this going for the full two years. Of course, we invite comments & counter-observations on all of these… that’s cross-cultural exchange, right?
So here’s our first RWO:
People actually say Hakunamatata here!! No, we’re serious, our supervisor says it on an almost daily basis – and not just to us, as a joke, but to other locals, as a typical response to almost any comment about day-to-day life!! (I mean, come on, that’s like the French saying “Bon Apetit!”) The first time he said it, we almost lost it laughing… I think he was confused. We made the reference to The Lion King and he just kinda shrugged, like, “Yeah, I think I’ve heard that in the movie, but… we kinda had it first…” Ha! Anyways, it’s awesome and as many times as we’ve heard it, it still always makes us chuckle a bit!
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Shoooooosholoza...
Jess writes:
In the spirit of the upcoming World Cup games and to do my part for “Ayoba” (the South African “spirit” of hosting the World Cup), I wanted to include the most common sporting events song in the country, “Shosholoza”. This is a Zulu song with, not surprisingly, a rather sad history…
The song was first sung by miners during the gold and diamond rush in South Africa, when mostly whites (Afrikaaners and British) were put in charge of running the mines and mostly blacks (native Africans) were used for labor. In order to cover such a large area of minerals, however, those in charge of the South African mines began sending trains to the northern bordering countries (Mozambique, Zimbabwe, et all) in order to import their needed workers. “Shosholoza” became a worker’s song, much the way field songs of the Southern American slaves were born.
Nevertheless, nowadays the song is a truly proud tune, signifying the endurance of the black spirit. Thus, it is commonly sung to support the endurance of the many South African sports teams, specifically running and soccer. I wanted to include the song in our blog because it has played such a large role in our training (we sing this with staff) and our community integration (this song seems to unite even the most unlikely candidates – i.e., brand new volunteers – with our host families and friends). However, to truly appreciate the song, I highly suggest searching the tune on YouTube – the melody is really unbelievably beautiful:
Shosholoza (Go on now)
Shosholoza kulezantaba (Go now to the mountains)
Stimela sphum eSouth Africa (Here comes the train from S.A.)
Wen’uyabaleka (Run away now)
Wen’uyabaleka kulezantaba (Run away to the mountains)
Stimela sphum eSouth Africa (Here comes the train from S.A.)
Before I forget… I remember humming this song one of our first nights in South Africa, at the training college, and wondering where I got the tune from (I’m sure it was sung by the LCFs and other staff on one of our first meetings). But this song has since been one of my favorites here; its sound is addictive and the way in which it is sung, especially by the South Africans, somehow seems to embody something –
I’m not quite sure what it is – that I really appreciate about this place and these people.
I’m sorry that everyone can’t hear it the way we have heard it, in its spontaneous and resounding character, but at least I can share it somehow. I hope you enjoy it as we have!
In the spirit of the upcoming World Cup games and to do my part for “Ayoba” (the South African “spirit” of hosting the World Cup), I wanted to include the most common sporting events song in the country, “Shosholoza”. This is a Zulu song with, not surprisingly, a rather sad history…
The song was first sung by miners during the gold and diamond rush in South Africa, when mostly whites (Afrikaaners and British) were put in charge of running the mines and mostly blacks (native Africans) were used for labor. In order to cover such a large area of minerals, however, those in charge of the South African mines began sending trains to the northern bordering countries (Mozambique, Zimbabwe, et all) in order to import their needed workers. “Shosholoza” became a worker’s song, much the way field songs of the Southern American slaves were born.
Nevertheless, nowadays the song is a truly proud tune, signifying the endurance of the black spirit. Thus, it is commonly sung to support the endurance of the many South African sports teams, specifically running and soccer. I wanted to include the song in our blog because it has played such a large role in our training (we sing this with staff) and our community integration (this song seems to unite even the most unlikely candidates – i.e., brand new volunteers – with our host families and friends). However, to truly appreciate the song, I highly suggest searching the tune on YouTube – the melody is really unbelievably beautiful:
Shosholoza (Go on now)
Shosholoza kulezantaba (Go now to the mountains)
Stimela sphum eSouth Africa (Here comes the train from S.A.)
Wen’uyabaleka (Run away now)
Wen’uyabaleka kulezantaba (Run away to the mountains)
Stimela sphum eSouth Africa (Here comes the train from S.A.)
Before I forget… I remember humming this song one of our first nights in South Africa, at the training college, and wondering where I got the tune from (I’m sure it was sung by the LCFs and other staff on one of our first meetings). But this song has since been one of my favorites here; its sound is addictive and the way in which it is sung, especially by the South Africans, somehow seems to embody something –
I’m not quite sure what it is – that I really appreciate about this place and these people.
I’m sorry that everyone can’t hear it the way we have heard it, in its spontaneous and resounding character, but at least I can share it somehow. I hope you enjoy it as we have!
Friday, April 9, 2010
"All the 411" (Episode 2)
Jess writes:
New site, new organization, new home… so we have some new tidbits of contact information and other little randoms as well. We’ve copied over the pertinent sections here (from the first post) that require some updating.
So, as promised, here’s the newest episode of our informational mini-series, "All the 411"!! Be sure to keep in touch!
Time Difference:
• To make things simple, just know that currently we are +6 hours from EST, +7 hours from CST, and +9 hours from PST. We will update again when your daylight saving time ends, so no one’s brain explodes… he he!
Follow Us:
• Our Stories: Blogging is reasonably painless (i.e., not too expensive), so we will continue to do so as often as possible! Enjoy!!
• Our Photos: Photo uploads are a little bit pricier, but not exorbitant. So we will continue to update all photos in the "Albums" section of Jess's Facebook page (find link at right), whenever possible.
• Other Chit-Chat: We check our Facebook pages (find links at right) on almost a daily basis, as our internet phone has a great Facebook app. This is the easiest way to contact us, and much faster and more efficient than even our email accounts. So leave us FB comments, messages and good ol’ love and we will do our best to get back to you!!
Phone Us:
• WE HAVE CELL PHONES!!! Don’t forget to dial 011 to dial out of the country and South Africa’s calling code is +27, so it should work like this:
Jess: 011.27.72.180.7656
Adam: 011.27.79.341.0847
• See previous “All the 411” post for other phone-related details, including all emergency contact numbers for Peace Corps South Africa.
Skype Us:
• Turns out, Skype can be a bit pricey on our end, especially if we attempt to do the video chat. So for now, we’re relying more on Facebook and phones… but, we’ll let you know if we plan any Skype marathons at the end of the month (when we may have extra data on our hands to burn)! • See previous “All the 411” post for other Skype-related details.
Mail Us:
• Mail has gotten a little complicated… We are trying to get a P.O. Box in a nearby town… and we will let you know when that occurs… if ever… Grrrr South Africa.
• See previous “All the 411” post for other mail-related details and we’ll update later with specifics at our new postal locations (hopefully).
Alphabet Soup:
As you may have read last time, Peace Corps service is a wondrous world of abbreviations, acronyms and “initialisms” (our friend Paula’s favorite term! Ha!).
So here’s an update to the on-going list of such shortenings to keep you "in the know" (and make reading our blogs possible!!):
• APCD: Associate Peace Corps Directors (current for CHOP: Matseke & Kori)
• CBO: Community-Based Organization (Grassroots, usually non-profit)
• CDO: Country Desk Officer (current: Fernando Moyle)
• CHOP: Community HIV/AIDS Outreach Program (our service program)
• CIP: Comm. Integration Period (current 3 months; aka “Lockdown”)
• DIC: Drop-In Center (for children; Swa Vana has 3 of these in our area)
• ET: Early Termination (personal decision to leave Peace Corps)
• HBC: Home-Based Care (a common health program in SA)
• HC: Host Country (i.e., South Africa)
• HCA: Host Country Agency (ours is “Swa Vana Youth Project”)
• HCN: Host Country National
• ICD or CD: In-Country Director (current: McGrath Jean Thomas)
• IGA: Income Generating Activities (a primary focus for Swa Vana)
• IRC: In-Country Resource Center
• IST: In-Service Training (short stints during service, as needed)
• KZN: Kwa-Zulu Nataal Province (other CHOP volunteers' province)
• LCF: Language & Culture Facilitator (ours was MamaSimongele)
• LP: Limpopo Province (other CHOP volunteers' province)
• MI: Master's International Program (my Master's Program)
• MP: Mmpumalanga Province (the province in which we reside)
• MST: Mid-Service Training (ours will be held January, 2011)
• MTCT: Mother-to-Child-Transmission (primary HIV transmission cause)
• NGO: Non-Governmental Organization (synonymous in SA with CBO)
• NPO: Non-Profit Organization (synonymous in South Africa with CBO)
• OVC: Orphans and Vulnerable Children (the primary focus of Swa Vana)
• PA: Program Assistant (current: Jan Molomo)
• PC: Peace Corps
• PCD: Peace Corps Director (current: Aaron S. Williams)
• PCI: Peace Corps Inductee (prior to staging & departure)
• PCMO: Peace Corps Medical Office
• PCPP: Peace Corps Partnership Program (donor program for PC)
• PCT: Peace Corps Trainee (during Training)
• PCV: Peace Corps Volunteer (current)
• PST: Pre-Service Training (2 months prior to service)
• PTO: Programming & Training Officer (current: Lisa Jordan)
• RPCV: Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (alumni)
• SA or ZA: South Africa
• TM: Training Manager (current: Victor Baker)
• WWS: World Wise Schools (correspondance program with U.S. schools)
As always, we’ll keep you posted!!!
New site, new organization, new home… so we have some new tidbits of contact information and other little randoms as well. We’ve copied over the pertinent sections here (from the first post) that require some updating.
So, as promised, here’s the newest episode of our informational mini-series, "All the 411"!! Be sure to keep in touch!
Time Difference:
• To make things simple, just know that currently we are +6 hours from EST, +7 hours from CST, and +9 hours from PST. We will update again when your daylight saving time ends, so no one’s brain explodes… he he!
Follow Us:
• Our Stories: Blogging is reasonably painless (i.e., not too expensive), so we will continue to do so as often as possible! Enjoy!!
• Our Photos: Photo uploads are a little bit pricier, but not exorbitant. So we will continue to update all photos in the "Albums" section of Jess's Facebook page (find link at right), whenever possible.
• Other Chit-Chat: We check our Facebook pages (find links at right) on almost a daily basis, as our internet phone has a great Facebook app. This is the easiest way to contact us, and much faster and more efficient than even our email accounts. So leave us FB comments, messages and good ol’ love and we will do our best to get back to you!!
Phone Us:
• WE HAVE CELL PHONES!!! Don’t forget to dial 011 to dial out of the country and South Africa’s calling code is +27, so it should work like this:
Jess: 011.27.72.180.7656
Adam: 011.27.79.341.0847
• See previous “All the 411” post for other phone-related details, including all emergency contact numbers for Peace Corps South Africa.
Skype Us:
• Turns out, Skype can be a bit pricey on our end, especially if we attempt to do the video chat. So for now, we’re relying more on Facebook and phones… but, we’ll let you know if we plan any Skype marathons at the end of the month (when we may have extra data on our hands to burn)! • See previous “All the 411” post for other Skype-related details.
Mail Us:
• Mail has gotten a little complicated… We are trying to get a P.O. Box in a nearby town… and we will let you know when that occurs… if ever… Grrrr South Africa.
• See previous “All the 411” post for other mail-related details and we’ll update later with specifics at our new postal locations (hopefully).
Alphabet Soup:
As you may have read last time, Peace Corps service is a wondrous world of abbreviations, acronyms and “initialisms” (our friend Paula’s favorite term! Ha!).
So here’s an update to the on-going list of such shortenings to keep you "in the know" (and make reading our blogs possible!!):
• APCD: Associate Peace Corps Directors (current for CHOP: Matseke & Kori)
• CBO: Community-Based Organization (Grassroots, usually non-profit)
• CDO: Country Desk Officer (current: Fernando Moyle)
• CHOP: Community HIV/AIDS Outreach Program (our service program)
• CIP: Comm. Integration Period (current 3 months; aka “Lockdown”)
• DIC: Drop-In Center (for children; Swa Vana has 3 of these in our area)
• ET: Early Termination (personal decision to leave Peace Corps)
• HBC: Home-Based Care (a common health program in SA)
• HC: Host Country (i.e., South Africa)
• HCA: Host Country Agency (ours is “Swa Vana Youth Project”)
• HCN: Host Country National
• ICD or CD: In-Country Director (current: McGrath Jean Thomas)
• IGA: Income Generating Activities (a primary focus for Swa Vana)
• IRC: In-Country Resource Center
• IST: In-Service Training (short stints during service, as needed)
• KZN: Kwa-Zulu Nataal Province (other CHOP volunteers' province)
• LCF: Language & Culture Facilitator (ours was MamaSimongele)
• LP: Limpopo Province (other CHOP volunteers' province)
• MI: Master's International Program (my Master's Program)
• MP: Mmpumalanga Province (the province in which we reside)
• MST: Mid-Service Training (ours will be held January, 2011)
• MTCT: Mother-to-Child-Transmission (primary HIV transmission cause)
• NGO: Non-Governmental Organization (synonymous in SA with CBO)
• NPO: Non-Profit Organization (synonymous in South Africa with CBO)
• OVC: Orphans and Vulnerable Children (the primary focus of Swa Vana)
• PA: Program Assistant (current: Jan Molomo)
• PC: Peace Corps
• PCD: Peace Corps Director (current: Aaron S. Williams)
• PCI: Peace Corps Inductee (prior to staging & departure)
• PCMO: Peace Corps Medical Office
• PCPP: Peace Corps Partnership Program (donor program for PC)
• PCT: Peace Corps Trainee (during Training)
• PCV: Peace Corps Volunteer (current)
• PST: Pre-Service Training (2 months prior to service)
• PTO: Programming & Training Officer (current: Lisa Jordan)
• RPCV: Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (alumni)
• SA or ZA: South Africa
• TM: Training Manager (current: Victor Baker)
• WWS: World Wise Schools (correspondance program with U.S. schools)
As always, we’ll keep you posted!!!
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Life as a Peace Corps Trainee
Jess writes:
HAPPY EASTER! We’ve had a great (long!) weekend of movie watching and catching up on photos and blogs, so here’s another tidbit for your enjoyment:
We get lots of questions from friends and family about what we’ve been up to for the last 2 months, that is, from those that haven’t got all the updates over the last 2 months. Arrival to Peace Corps is a bit chaotic… we arrive in South Africa in the middle of the night and then we are herded off, as one big confused group, to some undisclosed location for “training” for 8 weeks… what exactly were we doing all that time…? Well, we’ve crammed a lot into the last 8 weeks and to help illuminate our “training” schedule, I’ve included a typical day in the life of a PCT. Here we go:
6:30AM- Wake (the roosters will usually help you with this quite early), rinse off in a bucket and empty your bath/rinse water into the yard (it’s kinda gross, but the chickens love to wade in the bath water – ha!).
7:00AM- Eat some breakfast (usually toast or cereal), pack a lunch (usually consisting of hard boiled eggs, bread, peanut butter, apples, and if you’ve prepared the night before… some noodles with veggies), iron clothes and dress for the day, tidy up the room, pack up training supplies for the day (including training guides & language materials).
7:45PM- Walk to language group meeting house (our walk was bout 15mins., mostly in the shade, but one dreaded hill in complete sunlight… ugh.)
8:00AM- Language (and sometimes culture) classes with your LCF (Language & Culture Facilitator) and 2-4 other PCT’s training in your same language (our language was Zulu and then SiSwati).
10:00AM- Meet up with other language groups at your town’s pickup points (ours was at the one stop sign in town where the tar road and the dirt roads converged), wait for Peace Corps coombies (aka, vans) to arrive… keep waiting… keep waiting…, witness “Rush Hour in Machipe” (massive herds of cows and goats down the tar road), keep waiting (they are usually late, if you haven’t figured that out yet)… board combies to go to SS Skhosana (a private nature reserve, which was wonderful!).
10:30AM- Arrive at SS Skhosana, shoo away the monkeys from the trashbins and windows, make coffee/tea, catch up with other trainees.
11:00AM- Morning sessions begin, usually facilitated by PC staff, current PCVs, and sometimes country nationals. Sessions include the following: 1) Technical (HIV/AIDS training, NGO development & capacity building training, and a focus on the role of the PCV in sustainable development); 2) CORE (South African culture and cultural sensitivity, South African systems of leadership & power, techniques for PCV integration and immersion, and other related “dos” and “don’ts” for the PCV); 3) Medical (PCV Health, PCV medications, and South African medical concerns for PCVs and country nationals); and finally, 4) Safety & Security (PCV safety & security, safety & security guidelines for global Peace Corps, and South African safety & security concerns for PCVs).
12:30PM- One hour lunch (much needed break at this point!) Lunch also usually involves monkey avoidance (they like to eat your leftovers and steal your Tupperware containers!)
1:30PM- Afternoon sessions begin (see above).
3:30PM- PAL (Practical Application of Language) time – meet up with your language group again (and sometimes join with other groups in the same target language) and practice language studied that day and other conversational skills related to the taking of your LPI (Language Proficiency Interview) at the end of training. I should note, this time is often spent teaching each other inappropriate phrases with grammar and vocabulary learned earlier in the day… yes, we are children… ha!!
4:30PM- Afternoon announcements by Victor (Program & Training Manager), Mojobe (Language & Culture Coordinator), Baragile (Homestay & Transport Coordinator), and/or Jeff (current PCV & technical support helper… person… not sure of the title).
5:00PM- Coombies back to Machipe & Bundu begin loading – this again, involved a lot of waiting… and waiting… and waiting…
6:00PM- Back to homestay, chat with families, wash lunch dishes, unpack training bag & new materials, and a bit of time to de-stress in your room.
6:30PM- Help in the kitchen, eat dinner with host family (usually consisting of chicken, pap, a mushy mixture of greenbeans and mashed potatoes, salted spinach, and a cabbage and carrot combo, sometimes also a sauce for the chicken and pap).
7:00PM- (If you eat in the TV room… and if you have a TV): British news on SABC2 (There’s only 3 primary channels in South Africa – SABC1, SABC2, and SABC3. They each have their own cultural taglines, such as “Mzanzi fo sho”, which loosely translates to “South African for real” – ha!)
7:30PM- Zulu news and local weather on SABC2 (we always hope for numbers below 34C and of course, rain!!).
8:00PM- “Generations” on SABC1. Okay, “Generations” is the longest running soap opera – or “story” – in South Africa and it is truly addicting!! They also have American classics like “The Bold & The Beautiful” (we can’t stand this one!) and Afrikaaner soaps, such as “7 de Laan” (Adam loves this one!). There’s also a slew of copy-cats of “Generations” that somehow seem to always fall short, such as “Scandal”, “Hopeville”, and “Zone 41”. The greatest thing about “Generations” is how much you can learn about South African culture or confirm about what you are learning in training. For example, the primary conflicts in the story during our training period involved a couple dealing with HIV/AIDS, an abusive boyfriend, a son who is gay, a fight between a biological & non-biological father, extreme alcoholism, and organized crime – whew!!!
9:00PMish- Homework, language practice, preparation for tomorrow’s training, and bucket bathes… Alright, bucket bathes work like this: you usually have two basins, a large one (3’ wide by 10” tall) in which you stand to collect the water and a smaller one (1.5’ wide by 6” tall) in which you keep your clean water for dunking (i.e., your hair) and soaping (i.e., your washcloth.) If you’re lucky, like Adam and me, we also had a bucket (about 5 gallons) where we would keep all our clean water for our final rinse. The whole process can take up to half an hour, especially if you have hair like mine to wash. All in all, you never get quite as clean as in a shower and it always takes way too long, but, as many PCVs have said, it’s sometimes more satisfying because you feel like you’re “really working for the clean” – ha!
10:00PM- Getting readying for sleep – this can mean adjusting your mosquito netting, moving your bath basins, getting clean water for brushing your teeth, and spraying Tabbard (a 100% Deet spray) throughout the room and avoiding breathing for a while – ick!
10:30PM- In bed, trying to fall asleep in the heat and humidity.
11:30PM- Usually asleep… hopefully! Here we go again!!!
So, as you can now understand, we’re pretty excited that Training is finally done. These three months of “Integration & Observation” won’t be any piece of cake… but anything’s better than that schedule!!
Hope all is well with everyone! Salani Kahle!
HAPPY EASTER! We’ve had a great (long!) weekend of movie watching and catching up on photos and blogs, so here’s another tidbit for your enjoyment:
We get lots of questions from friends and family about what we’ve been up to for the last 2 months, that is, from those that haven’t got all the updates over the last 2 months. Arrival to Peace Corps is a bit chaotic… we arrive in South Africa in the middle of the night and then we are herded off, as one big confused group, to some undisclosed location for “training” for 8 weeks… what exactly were we doing all that time…? Well, we’ve crammed a lot into the last 8 weeks and to help illuminate our “training” schedule, I’ve included a typical day in the life of a PCT. Here we go:
6:30AM- Wake (the roosters will usually help you with this quite early), rinse off in a bucket and empty your bath/rinse water into the yard (it’s kinda gross, but the chickens love to wade in the bath water – ha!).
7:00AM- Eat some breakfast (usually toast or cereal), pack a lunch (usually consisting of hard boiled eggs, bread, peanut butter, apples, and if you’ve prepared the night before… some noodles with veggies), iron clothes and dress for the day, tidy up the room, pack up training supplies for the day (including training guides & language materials).
7:45PM- Walk to language group meeting house (our walk was bout 15mins., mostly in the shade, but one dreaded hill in complete sunlight… ugh.)
8:00AM- Language (and sometimes culture) classes with your LCF (Language & Culture Facilitator) and 2-4 other PCT’s training in your same language (our language was Zulu and then SiSwati).
10:00AM- Meet up with other language groups at your town’s pickup points (ours was at the one stop sign in town where the tar road and the dirt roads converged), wait for Peace Corps coombies (aka, vans) to arrive… keep waiting… keep waiting…, witness “Rush Hour in Machipe” (massive herds of cows and goats down the tar road), keep waiting (they are usually late, if you haven’t figured that out yet)… board combies to go to SS Skhosana (a private nature reserve, which was wonderful!).
10:30AM- Arrive at SS Skhosana, shoo away the monkeys from the trashbins and windows, make coffee/tea, catch up with other trainees.
11:00AM- Morning sessions begin, usually facilitated by PC staff, current PCVs, and sometimes country nationals. Sessions include the following: 1) Technical (HIV/AIDS training, NGO development & capacity building training, and a focus on the role of the PCV in sustainable development); 2) CORE (South African culture and cultural sensitivity, South African systems of leadership & power, techniques for PCV integration and immersion, and other related “dos” and “don’ts” for the PCV); 3) Medical (PCV Health, PCV medications, and South African medical concerns for PCVs and country nationals); and finally, 4) Safety & Security (PCV safety & security, safety & security guidelines for global Peace Corps, and South African safety & security concerns for PCVs).
12:30PM- One hour lunch (much needed break at this point!) Lunch also usually involves monkey avoidance (they like to eat your leftovers and steal your Tupperware containers!)
1:30PM- Afternoon sessions begin (see above).
3:30PM- PAL (Practical Application of Language) time – meet up with your language group again (and sometimes join with other groups in the same target language) and practice language studied that day and other conversational skills related to the taking of your LPI (Language Proficiency Interview) at the end of training. I should note, this time is often spent teaching each other inappropriate phrases with grammar and vocabulary learned earlier in the day… yes, we are children… ha!!
4:30PM- Afternoon announcements by Victor (Program & Training Manager), Mojobe (Language & Culture Coordinator), Baragile (Homestay & Transport Coordinator), and/or Jeff (current PCV & technical support helper… person… not sure of the title).
5:00PM- Coombies back to Machipe & Bundu begin loading – this again, involved a lot of waiting… and waiting… and waiting…
6:00PM- Back to homestay, chat with families, wash lunch dishes, unpack training bag & new materials, and a bit of time to de-stress in your room.
6:30PM- Help in the kitchen, eat dinner with host family (usually consisting of chicken, pap, a mushy mixture of greenbeans and mashed potatoes, salted spinach, and a cabbage and carrot combo, sometimes also a sauce for the chicken and pap).
7:00PM- (If you eat in the TV room… and if you have a TV): British news on SABC2 (There’s only 3 primary channels in South Africa – SABC1, SABC2, and SABC3. They each have their own cultural taglines, such as “Mzanzi fo sho”, which loosely translates to “South African for real” – ha!)
7:30PM- Zulu news and local weather on SABC2 (we always hope for numbers below 34C and of course, rain!!).
8:00PM- “Generations” on SABC1. Okay, “Generations” is the longest running soap opera – or “story” – in South Africa and it is truly addicting!! They also have American classics like “The Bold & The Beautiful” (we can’t stand this one!) and Afrikaaner soaps, such as “7 de Laan” (Adam loves this one!). There’s also a slew of copy-cats of “Generations” that somehow seem to always fall short, such as “Scandal”, “Hopeville”, and “Zone 41”. The greatest thing about “Generations” is how much you can learn about South African culture or confirm about what you are learning in training. For example, the primary conflicts in the story during our training period involved a couple dealing with HIV/AIDS, an abusive boyfriend, a son who is gay, a fight between a biological & non-biological father, extreme alcoholism, and organized crime – whew!!!
9:00PMish- Homework, language practice, preparation for tomorrow’s training, and bucket bathes… Alright, bucket bathes work like this: you usually have two basins, a large one (3’ wide by 10” tall) in which you stand to collect the water and a smaller one (1.5’ wide by 6” tall) in which you keep your clean water for dunking (i.e., your hair) and soaping (i.e., your washcloth.) If you’re lucky, like Adam and me, we also had a bucket (about 5 gallons) where we would keep all our clean water for our final rinse. The whole process can take up to half an hour, especially if you have hair like mine to wash. All in all, you never get quite as clean as in a shower and it always takes way too long, but, as many PCVs have said, it’s sometimes more satisfying because you feel like you’re “really working for the clean” – ha!
10:00PM- Getting readying for sleep – this can mean adjusting your mosquito netting, moving your bath basins, getting clean water for brushing your teeth, and spraying Tabbard (a 100% Deet spray) throughout the room and avoiding breathing for a while – ick!
10:30PM- In bed, trying to fall asleep in the heat and humidity.
11:30PM- Usually asleep… hopefully! Here we go again!!!
So, as you can now understand, we’re pretty excited that Training is finally done. These three months of “Integration & Observation” won’t be any piece of cake… but anything’s better than that schedule!!
Hope all is well with everyone! Salani Kahle!
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Gray is My New Favorite Color
Jess writes:
So you might have noticed a ‘brief’ mention about heat in our last post… in case you missed it, it’s hot here! (We’re sure you caught that though).
What we failed to mention was the water… or lack thereof. The water in our town is turned on only once every two weeks for a few hours – which means, all households that share one of the few water spickets in town are all expected to converge civilly on that location every fourteen days, haul their numerous five gallon jugs to the tap, and fill them in a calm and courteous manner… and then get them home, somehow. We’ve only witnessed tidbits of this epic adventure so far, but it seems to go less than smoothly on most occasions.
Thus, heat and water are an issue… in case you missed it again (ha!).
Now, let me tell you about the gloriousness of the color gray: First, gray skies in the morning means a slightly longer stay before the heat starts. Second, gray skies in the afternoon means an overcast day with glorious protection from that damned sun. Third, grayer skies means drizzle and the once annoying weather pattern that is drizzle now makes for beautifully cool and breezy days. Finally, even grayer skies means rain… rain means even more beautifully cool days and even cooler winds and… wait for it… WATER!! We collect rain water in buckets and basins in the yard and from the gutters into the JoJo - a water container attached to the gutter system. (I only wish I had 50 more buckets to cover our whole compound to collect this heavenly liquid!!) In fact, I’ve become so obsessed with rain that I’ve begun my own rain dance whenever I see gray skies looming long enough to possibly promise rain: “Ngicela Invula! Ngicela Invula!” To pronounce this correctly, be sure to use a soft click on the ‘c’ and you must raise both hands towards the sky while bending your knees in beat with the song – it’s actually a wonderfully embarrassing little dance. (The Africans in our training village saw me do this more than once and wondered what the crazy “Mlungu” was doing, but when it worked a couple times I began to create a following of crazy co-dancers! Ha!).
So you see, this ‘gray’ color that used to signify depressing days with an overcast sun and ominous clouds, now signifies, quite literally, our American salvation – it keeps me out of this so-not-American heat, it keeps my American skin away from this far-too-near sun, and it keeps my American hair clean… that is, from being washed more than once every 3 days!!
So bring on the clouds, bring on the rain, bring on those solemn days without sunshine… Bring on the gray!!
So you might have noticed a ‘brief’ mention about heat in our last post… in case you missed it, it’s hot here! (We’re sure you caught that though).
What we failed to mention was the water… or lack thereof. The water in our town is turned on only once every two weeks for a few hours – which means, all households that share one of the few water spickets in town are all expected to converge civilly on that location every fourteen days, haul their numerous five gallon jugs to the tap, and fill them in a calm and courteous manner… and then get them home, somehow. We’ve only witnessed tidbits of this epic adventure so far, but it seems to go less than smoothly on most occasions.
Thus, heat and water are an issue… in case you missed it again (ha!).
Now, let me tell you about the gloriousness of the color gray: First, gray skies in the morning means a slightly longer stay before the heat starts. Second, gray skies in the afternoon means an overcast day with glorious protection from that damned sun. Third, grayer skies means drizzle and the once annoying weather pattern that is drizzle now makes for beautifully cool and breezy days. Finally, even grayer skies means rain… rain means even more beautifully cool days and even cooler winds and… wait for it… WATER!! We collect rain water in buckets and basins in the yard and from the gutters into the JoJo - a water container attached to the gutter system. (I only wish I had 50 more buckets to cover our whole compound to collect this heavenly liquid!!) In fact, I’ve become so obsessed with rain that I’ve begun my own rain dance whenever I see gray skies looming long enough to possibly promise rain: “Ngicela Invula! Ngicela Invula!” To pronounce this correctly, be sure to use a soft click on the ‘c’ and you must raise both hands towards the sky while bending your knees in beat with the song – it’s actually a wonderfully embarrassing little dance. (The Africans in our training village saw me do this more than once and wondered what the crazy “Mlungu” was doing, but when it worked a couple times I began to create a following of crazy co-dancers! Ha!).
So you see, this ‘gray’ color that used to signify depressing days with an overcast sun and ominous clouds, now signifies, quite literally, our American salvation – it keeps me out of this so-not-American heat, it keeps my American skin away from this far-too-near sun, and it keeps my American hair clean… that is, from being washed more than once every 3 days!!
So bring on the clouds, bring on the rain, bring on those solemn days without sunshine… Bring on the gray!!
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