Jess writes:
“Now”, almost never actually means “now”. Here, we are on “African Time”, so “now” quite literally translates to “probably not in the foreseeable future, at all.” In fact, there is a common phrase, “Now, now”, which translates to “possibly sometime soon.” And we have actually heard someone use the phrase “Now, now, now, now” and were surprised to find out that this legitimately meant “seriously, pretty soon.” It’s wonderfully unique… and confusing.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
RWO: Freaking Inkhukhu (This one goes out to our buddy, Ted Shu)
Adam writes:
Roosters do not crow at dawn, and they do not say “cock-a-doodle-do.” They crow whenever the hell they feel like it and it sounds more like “CaAAaWaaAaaAKaA” (which sounds something similar to someone beating the damn thing with a machete). Shut up already.
Roosters do not crow at dawn, and they do not say “cock-a-doodle-do.” They crow whenever the hell they feel like it and it sounds more like “CaAAaWaaAaaAKaA” (which sounds something similar to someone beating the damn thing with a machete). Shut up already.
South Africa & The Pandemic
Jess writes:
As Adam and I begin our “Organization & Community Needs Assessment” report, I am reminded (rather repetitively, and usually daily) of how much the HIV/AIDS pandemic has had an impact on this society. So of course, I’m blogging about it…
This country has literally been devastated by this illness and worse yet, South Africa has had little success with any significant means of combating its effects. All in all, HIV/AIDS seems to pervade every aspect of life here – adults are too sick from minor illnesses to work, children lose their parents and relatives, and our most critical asset – health workers – are undertrained and overwhelmed with patients. This is not an uphill battle, it is a losing battle. How do we continue to fight it?
I felt it was important to include this post, however depressing it may seem, because the issues included here are ones that we face everyday, sometimes in small but usually in big ways. And each day we seem to learn a little more about how HIV/AIDS is crippling this country and why things have gotten so bad. The statistics are staggering, the myths are truly frightening, treatments are often utterly inefficient at combating the whole pandemic, and stigma about HIV/AIDS has created a population more scared to know the truth than to live in denial. If you want, read on to see what I mean:
SOUTH AFRICAN STATISTICS:
As Adam and I begin our “Organization & Community Needs Assessment” report, I am reminded (rather repetitively, and usually daily) of how much the HIV/AIDS pandemic has had an impact on this society. So of course, I’m blogging about it…
This country has literally been devastated by this illness and worse yet, South Africa has had little success with any significant means of combating its effects. All in all, HIV/AIDS seems to pervade every aspect of life here – adults are too sick from minor illnesses to work, children lose their parents and relatives, and our most critical asset – health workers – are undertrained and overwhelmed with patients. This is not an uphill battle, it is a losing battle. How do we continue to fight it?
I felt it was important to include this post, however depressing it may seem, because the issues included here are ones that we face everyday, sometimes in small but usually in big ways. And each day we seem to learn a little more about how HIV/AIDS is crippling this country and why things have gotten so bad. The statistics are staggering, the myths are truly frightening, treatments are often utterly inefficient at combating the whole pandemic, and stigma about HIV/AIDS has created a population more scared to know the truth than to live in denial. If you want, read on to see what I mean:
SOUTH AFRICAN STATISTICS:
- South Africa is ranked #1 in deaths from HIV/AIDS worldwide
- 67% of Sub-Saharan Africa (including South Africa) is HIV+
- Mmpumalanga’s (known, i.e. tested) HIV+ population is over 15%
- 1 in every 3 females in South Africa is HIV+
SOUTH AFRICAN MYTHS:
- HIV does not cause AIDS
- Mosquitos can transmit HIV
- Unprotected sex with a virgin (or a small child) can cure AIDS
- Condoms are infected with HIV by the government
- HIV is caused by sex during the mourning period of a spouse’s death
- Whites created AIDS to kill blacks and gays
- The rich people have a cure for AIDS, but they will not share it with the poor people
- No one actually dies of AIDS, they just die of the “flu”
SOUTH AFRICAN TREATMENTS (this is the technical stuff):
- ARTs begin at a CD4 Count of 250 (not 350, as in the U.S.) – this is super low!
- There are far less ARVs available in South Africa
- There are only 2 common HAART regiments (compared to the 20+ in the U.S.)
- Resistance is EXTREMELY common and often, untreatable thereafter
To make all matters worse, stigma is a HUGE problem in South Africa. So the majority of people that suspect that they or someone they know may be positive, will often avoid getting tested. Furthermore, if a person tests positive, they will often deny their status, refuse treatment, and refrain from sharing this information with any partners, friends, or family.
Sandile, one of our Training LCFs, explained the AIDS pandemic in South Africa best by offering the following story:
“In South Africa, when a snake enters a home, we first kill the snake to protect our family and then go outside to try to find where the snake came from. But for some reason, when the snake that was AIDS entered our home, we ran outside to find where it came from and meanwhile, it was inside killing our children.”
So how do we continue to fight it? I’m not quite sure we have an answer for this yet, and maybe we won’t have an answer after two years…
Every morning, I just remind myself that working with children is always a good place to start, whatever the circumstances... A place to start.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
RWO: Meaty Crisps
Jess writes:
South Africans are obsessed with meat-flavored potato chips and, much to our surprise, they’re extremely good at making them! Some of our tasty flavor favorites have been, “Smokey Beef” and “BBQ Pork Ribs”. However, Adam swears the best are “Sweet Chili” Doritos! My vote is still out, but I’m leaning toward some of the more vegetarian options, such as “Sour Cream & Chive”. Such a stellar combo! And oh so yummy!
South Africans are obsessed with meat-flavored potato chips and, much to our surprise, they’re extremely good at making them! Some of our tasty flavor favorites have been, “Smokey Beef” and “BBQ Pork Ribs”. However, Adam swears the best are “Sweet Chili” Doritos! My vote is still out, but I’m leaning toward some of the more vegetarian options, such as “Sour Cream & Chive”. Such a stellar combo! And oh so yummy!
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Settling In
Jess writes:
It’s been two weeks since the family moved out and Adam and I are finally starting to feel “settled in” to our new home. Our South African roommate, Leonard, was moved in over a week ago and we’re beginning to make a day-to-day schedule of somewhat normal, “family”, happenings – Leonard plays music in the mornings, we play music in the evenings, we trade-off sweeping days, we all share in washing dishes, the boys collect water and I distribute water (to the kitchen, bathroom, etc.), and since we’ve been experiencing a bit of snack-addiction as of late, we’ve introduced Leonard to the gloriousness of buttered popcorn and ice-cold Coke – what could be better!
As you can probably tell from Facebook photos, the house is coming along quite nicely – I think it’s really starting to look like a “home”, in fact! (I’m neglecting to mention here that our dining room looks a bit too much like a make-shift conference room, with its perfectly white table cloth and perfectly black chairs, surrounded by very educational maps and breakdowns of local government – ha!) Outside, we are beginning to plan out where the soon-to-be-built Braii pit will go (this will be super helpful on the weekends with no electricity) and how exactly we want to plot our mega-garden (we are calling it this because mom has bought us one of every known vegetable and a selection of fruits – so excited!).
At work, the kids have finally stopped chanting “Malungu” (“White Person”) whenever we enter the Center and have taken warmly to high-fives and “Sharp” thumbs instead… it’s a nice change! We are slowly getting to know some of the individual kids and have also had some great moments with the staff as of late. On the kid front, Adam has taken to a little guy that is too young to tell us his name, so we just call him “Sharp Sharp”, because he will seek out Adam to get to the thumb – ha! I have two little followers – the smallest one named Siyabonga and the slightly taller one (lol!) named Princess. On the staff front, the carers are finally calling us by name (instead of just “Ma”, etc.) and this last week we played “dress up” with some donated clothes for laughs. Slowly but surely we’re making headway at this Center, where we still don’t speak the language and still aren’t quite sure what our actual hour-to-hour responsibilities are. But it’s working!
As for the actual work part, Adam and I are in the initial phases of our “Organizational & Community Needs Assessment Report” as part of Phase II of Peace Corps Training. The report covers everything from government & infrastructure in Huntington (and at Swa Vana) to issues relating to health, education, transportation, social organization, communications and environment. In the end, we hope to have a report that will not only suffice as a Peace Corps requirement, but also serve as a document to help direct our work and the future work of Swa Vana, in relation to the needs of the Huntington community. I am also becoming more and more involved each day with the Girl’s Club’s “Bottle Project” (see bottle photos in our Facebook albums) and am beginning to outline some of the necessary steps in getting this project actually off the ground (its fumbling it’s way off the ground currently) and hopefully making it a sustainable, income-generating activity for the girls and the organization. Adam and the Boy’s Club are still awaiting further training on the “Brick Project” which will focus first and foremost on building the new Drop-In Center and then establishing a business plan as a second income-generating activity. Along the way, we’ve been assisting here and there with some of the high-schoolers academic projects, organizing some games, and making some initial attempts to feel out the staff and kid’s perceptions of currently available HIV/AIDS education and awareness programs. Suffice it to say, there’s not much being done in this respect at present, but it will obviously be a primary focus of ours to ensure that some education and awareness programs take shape at the Center.
The weather, you ask? Well it’s “Fall-to-Winter-ish” right now… but we’re coming to realize that this means little on most days. Our best guess is that this last week averaged somewhere between 34-38C, which should translate roughly to the mid-80s-90s. So… not quite winter yet. Although we do hear tales that it can get down to the 20sC… I’ll believe it when I see it. As for rain – oh that glorious, glorious rain – we don’t really have any anymore. So sad. It seems that most rain occurs in the Spring and Summer months (October – March) and not much at all in the… what do they call this… oh right, Fall and Winter (ha!). Sadly, this means that our beautiful JoJo is no longer collecting much water and the majority of our bath and dishwashing needs are met with 15L jugs that we haul to a borehole tap at the local Pre-School. Luckily, Swa Vana’s bakkie (truck) is now housed in our garage, so this actually makes getting the full jugs back to the house feasible on days that the bakkie is out and about!!
Finally, we’ve been able to spend some great time with local PCVs in the recent weeks. We typically meet up with our closest PCV, Jules, when we head into Hazyview for grocery and house shopping (she lives only a short walk from the main shopping center). We’ll usually make plans to meet at one of several eateries at the mall – Maxi’s, Nando’s, Debonair’s or Steer’s – and indulge (and by indulge I mean over-indulge) in a rather large and greasy burger and chips combo. Usually, this also means we’re quite physically ill in the following couple hours (our stomachs are definitely not accustomed to that hobby anymore!) and so, we try to plan lunch for the end of the shopping day, when only a coombie ride and some walking stands between us and our wonderful pit latrine!!! We also spent a stupendous “Ocho de Mayo” (yes, we were working on “Cinco de Mayo”) with a bunch of local PCVs from the SA18 and SA21 groups! Just picture it: toasty tortillas, spiced chicken and peppers, Mexican rice, minced meat, mounds of guacamole, mild and spicy pico de gallo, real sour cream (REAL!!), refried beans AND black beans (oh my!), and some good ‘ol Margaritas!!!! Yes, we were sick after this meal too – lol! But its soooooo worth every second of gut-wrenching pain (literally, gut-wrenching) to enjoy a Mexican feast! And of course, time spent with fellow-PCVs is always thoroughly enjoyable – filled with lots of stories, lots of complaints, and always tons and tons of laughter about the ridiculous situations we often find ourselves in! And yes, just as this paragraph suggests, we spent a lot of time thinking about food, so yes again, time spent with other PCVers is often filled with not only eating, but talking also, about all sorts of food!!! We’re sort of slaves to good food in this country!!
So let’s see… house, roommate, work, actual work, weather, food, fellow PCVs, and more food… I think I’ve covered it all! As always, we’ll be sure to keep you posted with our Peace Corps happenings, and of course a selection of “Random Weekly Observations” whenever they pop up. And also as always, we love to see your comments and get your messages via Blogger or Facebook, so be sure to keep in touch!
We love and miss you all – Sala kahle!
It’s been two weeks since the family moved out and Adam and I are finally starting to feel “settled in” to our new home. Our South African roommate, Leonard, was moved in over a week ago and we’re beginning to make a day-to-day schedule of somewhat normal, “family”, happenings – Leonard plays music in the mornings, we play music in the evenings, we trade-off sweeping days, we all share in washing dishes, the boys collect water and I distribute water (to the kitchen, bathroom, etc.), and since we’ve been experiencing a bit of snack-addiction as of late, we’ve introduced Leonard to the gloriousness of buttered popcorn and ice-cold Coke – what could be better!
As you can probably tell from Facebook photos, the house is coming along quite nicely – I think it’s really starting to look like a “home”, in fact! (I’m neglecting to mention here that our dining room looks a bit too much like a make-shift conference room, with its perfectly white table cloth and perfectly black chairs, surrounded by very educational maps and breakdowns of local government – ha!) Outside, we are beginning to plan out where the soon-to-be-built Braii pit will go (this will be super helpful on the weekends with no electricity) and how exactly we want to plot our mega-garden (we are calling it this because mom has bought us one of every known vegetable and a selection of fruits – so excited!).
At work, the kids have finally stopped chanting “Malungu” (“White Person”) whenever we enter the Center and have taken warmly to high-fives and “Sharp” thumbs instead… it’s a nice change! We are slowly getting to know some of the individual kids and have also had some great moments with the staff as of late. On the kid front, Adam has taken to a little guy that is too young to tell us his name, so we just call him “Sharp Sharp”, because he will seek out Adam to get to the thumb – ha! I have two little followers – the smallest one named Siyabonga and the slightly taller one (lol!) named Princess. On the staff front, the carers are finally calling us by name (instead of just “Ma”, etc.) and this last week we played “dress up” with some donated clothes for laughs. Slowly but surely we’re making headway at this Center, where we still don’t speak the language and still aren’t quite sure what our actual hour-to-hour responsibilities are. But it’s working!
As for the actual work part, Adam and I are in the initial phases of our “Organizational & Community Needs Assessment Report” as part of Phase II of Peace Corps Training. The report covers everything from government & infrastructure in Huntington (and at Swa Vana) to issues relating to health, education, transportation, social organization, communications and environment. In the end, we hope to have a report that will not only suffice as a Peace Corps requirement, but also serve as a document to help direct our work and the future work of Swa Vana, in relation to the needs of the Huntington community. I am also becoming more and more involved each day with the Girl’s Club’s “Bottle Project” (see bottle photos in our Facebook albums) and am beginning to outline some of the necessary steps in getting this project actually off the ground (its fumbling it’s way off the ground currently) and hopefully making it a sustainable, income-generating activity for the girls and the organization. Adam and the Boy’s Club are still awaiting further training on the “Brick Project” which will focus first and foremost on building the new Drop-In Center and then establishing a business plan as a second income-generating activity. Along the way, we’ve been assisting here and there with some of the high-schoolers academic projects, organizing some games, and making some initial attempts to feel out the staff and kid’s perceptions of currently available HIV/AIDS education and awareness programs. Suffice it to say, there’s not much being done in this respect at present, but it will obviously be a primary focus of ours to ensure that some education and awareness programs take shape at the Center.
The weather, you ask? Well it’s “Fall-to-Winter-ish” right now… but we’re coming to realize that this means little on most days. Our best guess is that this last week averaged somewhere between 34-38C, which should translate roughly to the mid-80s-90s. So… not quite winter yet. Although we do hear tales that it can get down to the 20sC… I’ll believe it when I see it. As for rain – oh that glorious, glorious rain – we don’t really have any anymore. So sad. It seems that most rain occurs in the Spring and Summer months (October – March) and not much at all in the… what do they call this… oh right, Fall and Winter (ha!). Sadly, this means that our beautiful JoJo is no longer collecting much water and the majority of our bath and dishwashing needs are met with 15L jugs that we haul to a borehole tap at the local Pre-School. Luckily, Swa Vana’s bakkie (truck) is now housed in our garage, so this actually makes getting the full jugs back to the house feasible on days that the bakkie is out and about!!
Finally, we’ve been able to spend some great time with local PCVs in the recent weeks. We typically meet up with our closest PCV, Jules, when we head into Hazyview for grocery and house shopping (she lives only a short walk from the main shopping center). We’ll usually make plans to meet at one of several eateries at the mall – Maxi’s, Nando’s, Debonair’s or Steer’s – and indulge (and by indulge I mean over-indulge) in a rather large and greasy burger and chips combo. Usually, this also means we’re quite physically ill in the following couple hours (our stomachs are definitely not accustomed to that hobby anymore!) and so, we try to plan lunch for the end of the shopping day, when only a coombie ride and some walking stands between us and our wonderful pit latrine!!! We also spent a stupendous “Ocho de Mayo” (yes, we were working on “Cinco de Mayo”) with a bunch of local PCVs from the SA18 and SA21 groups! Just picture it: toasty tortillas, spiced chicken and peppers, Mexican rice, minced meat, mounds of guacamole, mild and spicy pico de gallo, real sour cream (REAL!!), refried beans AND black beans (oh my!), and some good ‘ol Margaritas!!!! Yes, we were sick after this meal too – lol! But its soooooo worth every second of gut-wrenching pain (literally, gut-wrenching) to enjoy a Mexican feast! And of course, time spent with fellow-PCVs is always thoroughly enjoyable – filled with lots of stories, lots of complaints, and always tons and tons of laughter about the ridiculous situations we often find ourselves in! And yes, just as this paragraph suggests, we spent a lot of time thinking about food, so yes again, time spent with other PCVers is often filled with not only eating, but talking also, about all sorts of food!!! We’re sort of slaves to good food in this country!!
So let’s see… house, roommate, work, actual work, weather, food, fellow PCVs, and more food… I think I’ve covered it all! As always, we’ll be sure to keep you posted with our Peace Corps happenings, and of course a selection of “Random Weekly Observations” whenever they pop up. And also as always, we love to see your comments and get your messages via Blogger or Facebook, so be sure to keep in touch!
We love and miss you all – Sala kahle!
Monday, May 10, 2010
RWO: The Dirt Sweepers
Jess writes:
Women in this country love to sweep! Seriously, they will sweep just about anything! Every morning, usually rather early (since it gets so hot in the late morning), you will see all the village women emerge from their homes with their short, twig & bristle brooms and begin a very arduous-looking, very hunched-and-uncomfortable-looking, sweeping frenzy. And do you know what they’re sweeping? The dirt. Yup. Most of the “yards” in this country are nothing more than dirt, so the women like to make their yards look good by sweeping out all the leaves, pebbles & trash from the dirt. The result is that their dirt yards look amazingly well-groomed, in an almost Chinese-garden-esque fashion, with broom patterns of varying depths and lengths across the entire expanse of the ground. Even more astounding is when they continue outward from their yard to the length of the street in front of their house and even the public walking spaces along their fences and behind their homes. It’s truly incredible! By the end of the day, the artistically groomed areas are erased by the wind and littered with all form of contaminants – mostly leaves – and the ritual must be repeated the next morning to maintain sweeping appearances. It seems to be a tireless job… one that I’ve already decided won’t be an every-morning practice for myself! Yes, that’s right, I’m going to let our dirt go au natural… what will they say!
Women in this country love to sweep! Seriously, they will sweep just about anything! Every morning, usually rather early (since it gets so hot in the late morning), you will see all the village women emerge from their homes with their short, twig & bristle brooms and begin a very arduous-looking, very hunched-and-uncomfortable-looking, sweeping frenzy. And do you know what they’re sweeping? The dirt. Yup. Most of the “yards” in this country are nothing more than dirt, so the women like to make their yards look good by sweeping out all the leaves, pebbles & trash from the dirt. The result is that their dirt yards look amazingly well-groomed, in an almost Chinese-garden-esque fashion, with broom patterns of varying depths and lengths across the entire expanse of the ground. Even more astounding is when they continue outward from their yard to the length of the street in front of their house and even the public walking spaces along their fences and behind their homes. It’s truly incredible! By the end of the day, the artistically groomed areas are erased by the wind and littered with all form of contaminants – mostly leaves – and the ritual must be repeated the next morning to maintain sweeping appearances. It seems to be a tireless job… one that I’ve already decided won’t be an every-morning practice for myself! Yes, that’s right, I’m going to let our dirt go au natural… what will they say!
Sunday, May 2, 2010
RWO: Love Potion Number Nine
Jess writes:
Gender roles are still pretty prominent here. From what we can tell, women are still expected to cook, clean and care for the children, while possibly holding down a job at the same time. On the other hand, it seems that men are expected to, well, drink… and watch TV… hm. These gender roles are so engrained that we sometimes keep hush-hush about Adam being the primary cook in our home. In fact, MamaChristine was so stunned to find out that Adam was a good cook that when she ate anything of his doing, she would grin from ear to ear, chant, “Oh Jabu, Jabu, Jabu!”, and then would demand that he teach BabeJohannas to cook as well! Ha! And before our first week in country was even complete, I was actually accused (jokingly, by one of our LCFs) of being a witch and dosing Adam with a love potion when they discovered that he had helped me with our laundry!!! So all that domestic stuff that Adam helps with (and yes, he must help me with it!) we’ll just have to keep as our little secret… I really don’t want to end up at the stake!!
Gender roles are still pretty prominent here. From what we can tell, women are still expected to cook, clean and care for the children, while possibly holding down a job at the same time. On the other hand, it seems that men are expected to, well, drink… and watch TV… hm. These gender roles are so engrained that we sometimes keep hush-hush about Adam being the primary cook in our home. In fact, MamaChristine was so stunned to find out that Adam was a good cook that when she ate anything of his doing, she would grin from ear to ear, chant, “Oh Jabu, Jabu, Jabu!”, and then would demand that he teach BabeJohannas to cook as well! Ha! And before our first week in country was even complete, I was actually accused (jokingly, by one of our LCFs) of being a witch and dosing Adam with a love potion when they discovered that he had helped me with our laundry!!! So all that domestic stuff that Adam helps with (and yes, he must help me with it!) we’ll just have to keep as our little secret… I really don’t want to end up at the stake!!
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