Paper Chains

Well today is the day! At midnight tonight (the second September 6, 2007 ends) I cease to be a Peace Corps Volunteer! For the past three months, leaving Peace Corps and returning home is what I have been looking for. I felt finished with my job here, I wanted it to end. I remember way back in May I had a wonderful idea. Even back then I was dreaming about leaving, and so I made a paper chain. During the advent season of Christmas when I was a kid, we always made paper chains and would tear off a link each night. The chain would get shorter and shorter, indicating the shorter time it was until Christmas arrived. When I first began my paper chain, I had maybe 150 links on it. The chain stretched the entire perimeter of my room, and my host family exclaimed about how pretty my new room decoration was (I did not tell them what it was really for...). Now, I only have one link left.

It is so strange, really. For months I had been looking forward to leaving Buffelshoek and leaving PC. I did enjoy my PC experience, but I was just tired of it. Two years is a long time, and I was ready to go back to the US. But when the time finally came to leave, I was sad. I knew I did not want to stay, but I did not want to leave either. I think I can honestly say that leaving Buffelshoek- my host family, my teachers, the kids I have taught, my fellow PCVs, all the people that I have learned to love in the past two years- was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. For two years, my co workers and host family and my friends in PC were my world. The people I met and interacted with here were my family, and I don't know when or if I will ever see them again. This realization came crashing down on me during my farewell function, pretty much causing me to cry buckets when I said good bye to everyone. I will miss everyone so much.

Despite all of my hardships during Peace Corps- the physical living hardships, the mental hardships and the difficulties I faced at work- I have no regrets. I do not regret neither joining Peace Corps nor accepting the position to work in education in South Africa, because the last two years have been filled with some of the most rewarding experiences in my life. I gained a whole new family while being here, and new friends that I will have forever. Despite all of the things I went through in the past two years, I can say that the hardest thing about Peace Corps was leaving.

So, this is it. I have talked to everyone I need to talk to, have been medically cleared to leave the country (I'm healthier now than when I first arrived!) and my PC ID has been punched, rendering it void. Wow. Who would have thought that it would end? I cannot believe that two years have gone, and this episode of my life is over. But, after this nice sappy post, I am going to end on a positive note! My adventures are not over yet! I am not coming straight back to the United States. Actually, I will not be back in the US until November. Instead, I am packing up my bag and traveling! I am going with my friend Emily, and in the next two months we are hitting Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania. Our goal: see as much as possible in the next two months, climb Mt. Kilimanjaro and be home in time for Thanksgiving! So, stay tuned for more adventures... who know what the next two months will bring?

Changes

My two years in PC is pretty much at an end, and last week as I was getting ready to leave my site I was astounded about how many changes I have witnessed. My time in Buffelshoek varied between going super fast and agonizingly slow, but somehow the 24 months passed and now I am on the way out. I think the physical village changed the least. There are a few more buildings, a few more water towers, a few more animals, a few less trees but largely the village is the same. The road remain as dusty as when I first arrived; cows, chickens and goats still wander around the houses and in the streets; the mosquitoes are still present and will always be there; we are still hauling our water from the nearest water tap a kilometer away. This largely remain the same.

Changes in School? Well, I must admit that there aren't as many as I would have liked. The teachers still use corporal punishment, but maybe a little less than before I started making a big stint about it. There is a library in one of my schools now, a computer in the other, and a photocopy machine at the third. All of my schools now have boreholes, and the children play with the taps and in the water during break now, when two years ago they had to walk as much as a kilometer to get a drink of water. There are new fences to keep the goats and chickens away, more teachers are making lesson plans and long term plans for their classes, and more teachers are using outcomes based education- and actually enjoying it. Some teachers still do not go to class, and some teachers still do not come to school. I know this will continue-somethings do not change no matter how hard you want them to.

The people have changed the most. I still remember when I first met my host sister Lethabo. She was a bubbly 13-year-old with pigtails and a jumper playing jump rope with our neighbors. Now she is 15, still bubbly but more interested in make-up and music than jump rope. Lerato was 17 when I arrived and was your typical teenager who couldn't care less about school and worried more about her social life than her grades. Now she is more serious- she has buckled down in her studies and is busy planning her life for when she graduates high school next year. My youngest host sister, Leago, was 9 when I first arrived and is now 11. She has remained largely the same, maybe a little taller but still the sweet little girl she always was. My "cousins" Thabang and Tsepho, 14 and 15 respectively when I arrived are now much taller and both are sporting (or trying to sport) mustaches-freaky if you ask me. I have seen 4 babies born into my host family in my two years here- Mmpele, Lithle, Koketso and Tuka and they have grown the most noticeably from the teeny babies I held when they were only a few days old. Now all of them are walking and somewhat talking. My host mother is still the same- maybe a little older but still the same woman who greeted me with open arms two years ago.

Then there is me. I know for certain that I have changed. If I met the person who got on the plane in New York City two years ago today, I would not recognize them. In some ways I am still me, but in other ways I know I have changed forever. Unfortunately I am not as optimistic as I once was, but I thought I was patient before but here I learned what REAL patience is. I am more realistic now and not as naive as I once was. I have grown more introspective and less materialistic. I have a strong appreciation for running water and flush toilets, and I realize how much I took for granted in my life in the US. I know what it's like to live in poverty and I know what its like to be a minority now and also I know what racism really is after having witnessed it for the past two years. Honestly, after everything I have seen and done living in South Africa, I do not know how I will adjust to living in the United States. We will have to see, I guess. I have always had a difficult time with change, but after working in the developing world, I have a better appreciation for it. Change is hard, but it is inevitable, and it is necessary for growth...

Staring Contests

One of the more annoying things many of us have dealt with since being here in South Africa is the staring aspect. I grew accustomed- actually rather quickly- of being THE minority in my village. Not only was I the only white girl in the village, but I was the only white girl in about a ten mile radius, and the nearest other white people in the area were other volunteers. I understood quickly why people stare, I'm kind of an oddity. Villagers in Buffelshoek and Okkernootboom were not used to seeing white people wandering around the village, let alone having one live with them for two years. I understood all of this when I arrived two years ago. However, I fully expected the novelty and staring to fade away as people got used to me. Yeah, that didn't happen. Two years of living as a resident of Buffelshoek, and still I was called "lehua" (white person) instead of my name, and people still stared.

People did not just stare- they BLATANTLY stared. In the US as a kid I was always taught that staring was rude, so if I did want to get a closer look at someone, I always tried to do it discreetly. Obviously that's just an American cultural thing, because staring can definitely not be considered rude here. Little kids have stared with mouths open, people have stopped conversations to follow me with their eyes and my personal favorite, people standing by the side of the road actually turn their bodies, not just their heads, to stare at me when I walk by. It is rather disconcerting. Normally I just ignore the staring, but then I literally feel the eyes boring into my back as I walk away, and that just gets me annoyed. My friend Amanda has a different method of dealing with staring: she stares back. She assured me that it is actually very refreshing, but obviously I was raised a little too well, because not only does being stared at make me uncomfortable, but staring at others makes me uncomfortable as well. Just a few weeks ago, I was sitting in a function and I noticed this maybe ten-year-old boy staring at me. After ignoring him for a few minutes and realizing that yes, he was still staring, I got annoyed. I was kind of bored, (functions can last hours with nothing but speeches, normally in languages I do not understand), so I decided to try an experiment. As a kid, I was very good at staring contests with my friends, mainly because I am just too stubborn to quit. I decided to try and out stare this boy. I made my face completely blank (no smiling, I was not going to encourage this type of behavior) and turned my eyes on the boy.

So, he had been staring at me for several minutes without me noticing (he thought) so he seemed a bit surprised when he saw me turn and look at him. We stared at each other. Kept staring. Kept staring. Kept staring. He finally looked away. At that point, I decided to keep staring, just to give him a taste of his own medicine. After a few seconds he turned back and noticed I was still staring. He looked down in his lap, then sneaked a peak back. I stared. He looked back at the speaker for a bit. I stared. He fidgeted his fingers. I propped my chin up with my hand and stared. He snuck another peak. I stared. He squirmed in his seat. I stared. He made a pained expression. I stared. He squirmed harder. I stared. Finally, he turned abruptly in his seat so that his back was too me. He avoided looking at me for the entire rest of the function. Yeah, that's right kid. Being stared at isn't fun, is it? It makes you uncomfortable, doesn't it? Maybe you'll think twice before you stare at someone again, won't you? My work there was done. Hah!

Pony-Treking

Lesotho is famous for its outside activities. Hiking, pony-trekking, caving, rafting... you can do it all in Lesotho! And just because it was winter, it did not mean that I wasn't going to partake in the activities. In fact, the only time I was actually warm in Lesotho was when I went on a three hour hike up the mountains. I was definitely moving faster than normal to keep warm during the hike. It was the only time in the four days I spent in the country that I actually shed my fleece jackets. But, what I really wanted to do in Lesotho was one of the things that Lesotho is really known for: pony trekking.

Pony trekking is a "fancy" word for horse-back riding. I really wanted to go and see some San rock paintings that were over a thousand years old and so decided to kill two birds with one stone and do both of them in one trip. I was given a horse and a guide, and although I have not been riding for like seven years, I think I did all right. Except for the fact that the horse did not like me. He kept trying to turn around and bite my leg. Of course, I should have expected something like that from a horse whose name literally translates to "witch doctor." The ride was really fun despite my irritable horse, and the San paintings were really awesome. I would highly recommend pony trekking if anyone ever visits Lesotho. Just give your horse an interview before you do anything else...

Freezing in Lesotho

I dropped Allison off at the airport in Jo-burg after an exhausting two weeks of mad touring. I had a wonderful time, but I was tired! I also had a week left of vacation before school re-opened (the strike finally ended, but we were now in the middle of winter break). I could not face going back to the village yet, so I decided to extend my vacation and pop down to Lesotho. I had spent time in Swaziland, Mozambique and of course South Africa, and am planning to hit most of the other countries in Southern Africa after I COS. However, Lesotho was still on my list to visit, and recognizing that this might be my only chance, I decided to sight see for a few days before heading back home.

Lesotho is a mountainous country completely landlocked by South Africa. It was a former British protectorate, and fortunately did not go the route of apartheid like South Africa did, mainly because the population is primarily of the Basotho ethnicity. Lesotho is beautiful, but also very poor compared to South Africa and is still developing. However, it has a very welcoming and laid-back atmosphere, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. When I crossed the border, I headed straight for Malealea, a small village about two hours south of the capital of Maseru. Malealea is a unique place in that it has a lodge and backpackers in the midst of the village, and the lodge works heavily with development of the surrounding areas. A good portion of the proceeds goes to village projects, and the lodge offers many opportunities for employment for the surrounding inhabitants.

Malealea is called "Lesotho in a Nutshell," mostly because it boasts so many of the things that attracts tourists to the country in the first place. The village is situated in the mountains, overlooking a vast valley with the Drakensberg in the distance. The view is gorgeous and the place is serene. I spent my time there relaxing... and also freezing my butt off. It is the Southern Africa winter right now, and Lesotho is nothing but mountains. My blood has thinned remarkably in the past two years and I am a little ashamed to admit it but when the temperature drops below 70 degrees I pull on a fleece... or maybe even two. Lesotho was extremely cold, cold enough for a bit of snow to be on the frozen ground and the streams to partially freeze over. I spent quite a bit of time shivering and making tea or cocoa. And also going around in layers. At one point, I was wearing a pair of tights, two pairs of pants, a thermal undershirt, a t-shirt, a long-sleeve shirt, and two fleece jackets. Not to mention wool socks, a hat and gloves. what made things worse was the people also staying at the lodge. That sentence makes it sound like they were horrible, but actually they were extremely nice and friendly. However, there was this one couple from Norway. While I was sitting around shivering in my five layers, they were prancing about in t-shirts and sandals. Stupid Norwegians.

Kruger... AGAIN

I am certain that people are tired of me talking about Kruger National Park. I have already spent a great deal of time talking about it, and in fact I am a bit tired of it myself. But, Kruger was the third stop of the Davis Sisters Tour. We left Grahamstown bright and early in the pouring rain and made our way to the Northeast area of the country-the area where I live and spend a great deal of my time. The plan was to spend a little time in the village so that Allison could meet my host family, browse a bit in the surrounding area, then head into Kruger for 3 days so that Allison could get a safari fix. Of course, not everything went according to plan, but even with the shouting match, car trouble, fight with the host family and an angry hyena, we had a good time. The only thing I am really going to say about Kruger was a wonderful and delightful song Allison and I wrote to sum up our Kruger trip. Keep in mind, though, we were both deliriously tired after having been kept up most of the night before in the backpackers by the absolute worst snorer I have ever heard in my life. He sounded like a whistling and snorting pig. A LOUD whistling and snorting pig. It was all I could do to keep from smothering him. Whistling and snorting pig aside, Kruger was excellent and I certainly hope you all enjoy our musical rendition of this stage in our journey. For those of you more musically inclined, our song is sung to the tune of "The Twelve Days of Christmas."

The Three Days in Kruger

In the three days in Kruger, the good park gave to me: A leopard by a tree!
In the three days in Kruger, the good park gave to me: Two wild dogs, and A leopard by a tree!
In the three days in Kruger, the good park gave to me: Three lions, Two wild dogs, and A leopard by a tree!
In the three days in Kruger, the good park gave to me: Four hyenas, Three lions, Two wild dogs, and A leopard by a tree!
In the three days in Kruger, the good park gave to me: Five Warthog Butts! Four hyenas, Three lions, Two wild dogs, and A leopard by a tree!
In the three days in Kruger, the good park gave to me: Six rhinos laying, Five Warthog Butts! Four hyenas, Three lions, Two wild dogs, and A leopard by a tree!
In the three days in Kruger, the good park gave to me: Seven Hippos swimming, Six rhinos laying, Five Warthog Butts! Four hyenas, Three lions, Two wild dogs, and A leopard by a tree!
In the three days in Kruger, the good park gave to me: Eight sables leaping, Seven Hippos swimming, Six rhinos laying, Five Warthog Butts! Four hyenas, Three lions, Two wild dogs, and A leopard by a tree!
In the three days in Kruger, the good park gave to me: Nine giraffes running, Eight sables leaping, Seven Hippos swimming, Six rhinos laying, Five Warthog Butts! Four hyenas, Three lions, Two wild dogs, and A leopard by a tree!
In the three days in Kruger, the good park gave to me: Ten elephants drinking, Nine giraffes running, Eight sables leaping, Seven Hippos swimming, Six rhinos laying, Five Warthog Butts! Four hyenas, Three lions, Two wild dogs, and A leopard by a tree!
In the three days in Kruger, the good park gave to me: Eleven buffalo crossing, ten elephants drinking, Nine giraffes running, Eight sables leaping, Seven Hippos swimming, Six rhinos laying, Five Warthog Butts! Four hyenas, Three lions, Two wild dogs, and A leopard by a tree!
In the three days in Kruger, the good park gave to me: TOO MANY IMPALA, eleven buffalo crossing, ten elephants drinking, Nine giraffes running, Eight sables leaping, Seven Hippos swimming, Six rhinos laying, Five Warthog Butts! Four hyenas, Three lions, Two wild dogs, and A leopard by a tree!

Grahamstown Arts Festival

The second stop of the Davis Sisters' Grand Tour of South Africa was Grahamstown. Grahamstown is a sleepy, quiet college town in the Eastern Cape. It boasts one of the oldest colleges in South Africa, but its real claim to fame is the Grahamstown Arts Festival. Every year at the end of June and beginning of July, artists from around the world flock to grahamstown for two weeks of music, dancing, drama and art exhibits. The population of the town triples during these weeks as tourists follow the artists, booking accomodations months in advance. The festival is a lively, crowded occassion, but also is incredibly fun. As both Allison and I have artsy tendencies and as I have heard rave reviews from South Africans and other Peace Corps volunteers alike about the festival, we decided to spend a few days in the vicinity of Grahamstown to soak up a little bit of culture.

Grahamstown was absolutely clogged with merry-makers. It reminded me of state fairs in the United States, minus the rides and cotton candy. In relacement were stages for performers, stalls for visual arts and food stands that did not serve the fair staples but instead every type of ethnic and cultural food found all over the world. They were even selling kudu burgers (kudu is a type of South African antelope) that Allison and I decided to indulge in. It was rather good. We spent our time in Grahamstown with several other volunteers, sampling foods, browsing the art stalls, and saw a play, dance show and jazz concert. The festival was full of fun and had its own unique quality that I believe appealed to all who visited it. It certainly appealed to me, and I could have easily spent a week there just to soak up the art from around the world.

Wild Coast Hike

When Allison came, we had an exhausting two weeks planned. I don't know really how far we travelled, but we literally went from one side of the country to the other using a variety of planes, buses, taxis, and cars. Oh yeah, and out feet. The first plan of our vacation was a hike. When travelling with my parents back in December, we spent a few days on the Wild Coast in the former Transkei. The Wild Coast for me is really a magical place. Rolling hills and mountains plummet down to the Indian Ocean and the hills are dotted with traditional villages. It is peaceful, relaxing and breathtakingly beautiful. Knowing that I wanted to re-visit the area, Allison found a four-day Wild Coast hike along the Indian Ocean. This hike was amazing.

The plan was to take was the organizer called a "leisurely walk" along the ocean. I wonder if this man has ever been on this leisurely walk because it was anything but easy. I am sure that nearly all of us have been to the beach. Walking in the sand along the beach can sometimes get tiring, only because one tends to sink into the sand. Add on your back a 30-pound backpack and on your feet hiking shoes and you might see the problem. The first time I stepped onto the beach with my pack on I sank a good couple of inches into the sand. In the end, I just weaved my way across the beach in a search for hard sand. if anyone was watching from overhead, I am sure that they would ahve thought that I was drunk, as there was absolutely no straight line that I was following! Occasionally the trail led us inland to the rolling hills along the coast. Now, this was more like the hikes I was used to, although I have never had to shimmy my way under barbed wire fences other the other hikes I have been on in South Africa! Now I thought the hill hiking would be the easy part- until we got on top of the hill and realized that the wind had picked up with like 50 mph gales threatening to throw us off the cliff...

I think the most unique encounter Allison and I had on this hike happened on our first day. The first day was easy-only about five or six kilometers to walk, crossing a river on a ferry before we reached our stop for the night. Of course, we did not plan for the irate cattle. Allison and I were not the only ones planning to cross the river on the ferry. next to us were several herdsmen, planning to take across two of the meanest bulls I have ever seen in South Africa. I always thought that the cattle here were very mild mannered and docile. I have never seen a truly violent and dangerous cow until we reached the Kei River and Planned to Cross it. It must have taken a good forty minutes to get these two bulls onto the ferry. The bulls were determined to have nothing to do with the ferry and every time the herdsmen nudged them towards the ramp to the ferry the bulls erupted in a fury-complete with charging, stamping feet, tossing heads, running and braying. It was a bit terrifying. while Allison and I made sure to stand a good distance away, I was worried that eventually one of the bulls would turn our way and suddenly the situation would escalate into a Spanish Running of the Bulls, ending with either Allison or I, or even both of us getting gorged to death on the mean looking horns. Then my parents would have killed me because only a few days earlier my father made me promise to take good care of my sister while she was in Africa. Finally, after much cajoling and urging, the bulls found their way onto the ferry, and the ferry driver ushered Allison and I onto the ferry as well. I was a bit worried sharing such a cramped space with these two enormous and furious bulls, but surprisingly enough as soon as they got on the ferry the bulls calmed down and stood placidly until we reached the other side. Then they both threw a fit again when they realized they needed to leave the ferry. Allison and I left the bulls and cattle herders to their respective jobs and went on our way, remarking about the ridiculousness of the situation.

Poor Tourists

The public servants strike im my opinion really got out of hand. It was an interesting experience, I must admit though. I've never been in a country where the entire public service section just shuts down compltely, but the fact that it lasted 4 weeks was insane. Checking out of the village and heading in to Pretoria was probably the best decision I've made- especially since I got a little bit of down time before picking up my sister at the airport to begin a whilrwind vacation of South Africa.

Unlike my parents, Allison has vacationed before in developming countries, but she has never been to Africa. It excited me to show her around, especially things that I never got to show my parents. While I loved the vacation with my parents back in December- they were really determined to spoil me, and I was content to let them- it seemed to me a shame that they only really saw the "tourist South Africa." They never got to use public transportation, or eat street food, or even really see what the rural areas and townships were like. With Allison the vacation was different in that we were both poor. There was no way we could afford to rent a car for the entire two weeks she was here, and no way I was shelling out big bucks for more than a backpackers. So, we did things the poor Peace Corps way. While I do enjoy having a bit of luxury in my life-especially after doing without for such a long time- I have found that I actually prefer to travel light and cheap. There is so much character of a country a person can miss if they go the touristy route. While it can get extremely annoying at times, I do enjoy using public transport and sleeping in backpackers and going to cheap route for food, because I get to see more and meet more people than regular tourists do.

Apartheid Museum and Soweto

The last time I journeyed to Pretoria, I decided to finally go on a tour of the Apartheid Museum and Soweto; things that I have wanted to do since I first arrived to South Africa, but as of yet had not had the chance. After Apartheid ended officially in 1994 with the first multi-party elections that brought Nelson Mandela and the ANC to power, the new government decided that remembering Apartheid was just as important as ending it. History has a very nasty habit of repeating itself, and unless certain events, no matter how horrible they may be, are remembered, they run the risk of reoccurring. The government decided to build a remembrance museum, both to tell the history of apartheid and to honor the men and women who struggled to end it.

The moment a visitor enters the museum, he or she is given a card. On the card is written “white,” “black,” “Coloured,” or “Asian.” These were the four official races under Apartheid and everyone living in South Africa was classified to a race. A person’s race determined their status in life. Everything in South Africa under Apartheid revolved around the color of a person’s skin. Once receiving the card, the visitor proceeds to the true entrance of the museum, two doors, one labeled “White” the other labeled “Non-white.” The visitor enters the museum according to the card they were given at the gate. Through the doors are two identical hallways, only one for the “whites” and the other for the “non-whites.” The hallways are separated by a thick metal and mesh fence. This entrance gives the visitor an impression of what apartheid was like for the people living under it. Eventually the hallways end and the museum continue, telling the story of apartheid chronologically, beginning when white settlers first arrived in South Africa and continuing until the 1990s. The museum is pretty intense, and not geared to be taken lightly or for a quick run-through. A visitor could easily spend all day there because there is so much to read and absorb. Unfortunately, that is where the Apartheid Museum has its main flaw. While I did not mind the reading-intensity of the museum, all of the information in the museum was written in English, and none of the other eleven official languages of South Africa. So many people- South Africans even, will not be able to appreciate the museum for what it is or really learn everything that it has to offer only because the information is so in-depth reading and in complicated English. It really is a sad thing.

After visiting the Apartheid Museum, we continued on the other part of our tour, that is, to Soweto. Soweto is a huge black township outside of Johannesburg, home to Nelson Mandela, Winnie Mandela and Desmond Tutu. It is the only place in the entire world that has two Nobel Peace Prize winners living on the same street (Mandela and Tutu). It also has 4.5 million residents, the largest hospital in the world and the largest taxi rank as well. Soweto also made history on June 16, 1976 in the struggle for apartheid. School children in Soweto staged a protest against the use of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in Secondary Schools. Afrikaans is the language of the descendants of white Dutch settlers to South Africa, and many of the youth viewed Afrikaans as the language of their oppressors as the Apartheid government was largely made of Afrikaans men. The youth decided to stage a peaceful demonstration through the Soweto streets to display their anger and dismay at having to be taught in Afrikaans. Not long after their march started, South African army personnel and police officers called in to stop the protest opened fire on the crowd of children. The first boy to die was twelve-year-old Hector Peterson, and dozens of others followed. The Soweto Uprising was one of the key events that made the world aware of what was happening in South Africa and also further encouraged the ANC to step up their protests against the Apartheid government. I enjoyed visiting Soweto probably more than I did visiting the Apartheid museum. As a history buff I like seeing the places where events occurred as well as reading about them. Walking by the schools where most of the children involved in the Soweto Uprising/Massacre attended and seeing the memorial to Hector Peterson at the place he died was powerful in a way different to the Apartheid Museum.

STRIKE!!!!

One of the more interesting experiences I’ve had in South Africa occurred continuously over the last month or so. Interesting not in the form of exciting- in fact I was bored to the extent where I wanted to bang my head against the wall- but rather interesting in the “wow, that would never happen at home!” sort of way. The experience I am talking about was the huge public servant strike. For about a month prior to the strike the unions and government were in a stalemate. The workers union, COSATU, and all of the unions affiliated to it were demanding a 12% increase in wages for all public servants including nurses, police officers, doctors, court officials, teachers and many others that I have now forgotten. The government balked at the 12% and instead offered 6%. Now, having worked in the schools in SA for two years and seeing just exactly what many of the teachers here consider “work,” I thought that the 6% the government offered was more than reasonable. In fact, it was extremely generous! If I had my way, a number of teachers would have their salaries removed permanently (I mean come on, they think that they can sit in the staff room drinking tea all day without doing their job of teaching the children and still deserve a nice paycheck at the end of the month?) and the money then given to the teachers who really deserve it. But, I do not think that the government would have been interested in listening to my views of the situation, nor any of my teachers for that matter. The negotiations soon became a matter of pride, and then degenerated. Neither side wanted to back down and the unions soon declared a strike if the government did not cave to their wishes. The government stuck to its 6% and a nation-wide public servant strike began on the 1st of June.

In the US, there are occasional strikes- normally by small company employees and the like. The workers strike for a few weeks, but it does not affect the entire country. I have never, ever been in a situation where an entire country goes on strike! And that is what it seemed like. For the four weeks the strike lasted (That’s right, everybody- FOUR WEEKS!) nurses refused to go to work, courts did not operating, and probably about 80% of SAs schools closed or worked with a minimal staff. All three of my schools closed, as were the schools of all of SAs Education PCVs. So, suddenly out of work with an impromptu holiday (and no way of knowing how long it would last) I suddenly had a great deal of time on my hands. I must admit, I really enjoyed not having to go to school. I got to sleep late (well, I cannot sleep past 7:30 anymore, but I did not have to wake up via alarm clock!) and to enjoy a leisure day spent reading, walking, or whatever else suited my fancy. The only problem was that all my host sisters and my host mother (a vice-principal) also had nowhere to go and nothing to do. I love my host sisters, but spending all day with them became too much after day 4. Especially when during the middle of Week One Lethabo started putting one song on repeat on her stereo and letting it play ALL DAY LONG. At the end of Week One I counted, in one day, how many times we listened to it. The 32nd time it played I pulled big sister rank and turned the CD off. That did not go down very well with Lethabo, but I think she would have preferred having the music stop to me murdering her, which I was a hair breadth away from doing. People undergoing torture cannot be responsible for their actions. By the middle of Week Two I ascertained that I was going crazy, and by Week Three I decided to leave the village and head to Pretoria. I had to pick up my sister at the airport at the end of the week, so I decided to start my real vacation a bit early.

By the end of Week Four, everyone was tired of the strike. The news tired of covering the protesting workers, and everyone tired of hearing about them. After four weeks, the workers themselves seemed ready to call it quits- demonstrations every day just get old (and I think they fully realized that striking workers are not paid workers and they were losing a lot of money every day the strike continued). So, the unions and the government finally worked out a deal: all public servants would receive a 7.5% wage increase plus medical and pension benefits. Finally, everyone returned to work. Now, I have to admit that despite the ridiculous extent that the strike was taken, I was pretty impressed by the stubbornness displayed by all players. Honestly, no one expected the strike to last more than a few days, yet everyone stuck to their guns for a month. It was interesting to see, as it was an event that I would never see at home.

Shanglish

I recently discovered that during our COS (Close of Service) Conference my group would be tested on our language ability. I must admit, I felt a moment of sheer panic. My language ability in Northern Sotho and Shangaan is worse than bad, it is just plain horrendous! I can "hear" some Northern Sotho and Shangaan but answer and speak in English. I mix my African languages with English (using mostly English I must admit) until I have a conversation of what I affectionately call "Shanglish." however, I do not believe PC will be impressed with this ability at all. Now, you would think that after two years I should be more proficient in at least one of my sites two languages, but not so. Then again, I suppose I should not sell myself short. I AM proficient in introducing myself, greeting people, saying where I am going and where I am from, and "It's hot" or "It's cold" depending on the day's weather. Surprisingly, I've managed to get by on that and a handful of vocabulary words. I am afraid that my situation has made me lazy. My host family is fluent in English and my counterparts are as well. Most people in my village address me in English and speak it well. Things would be so much different if no one spoke English and I was forced to learn and not be able to fall back on English in sticky situations.

My situation is also very interesting. I live on the cusp of two culture groups: the Northern Sotho and the Shangaan and interact then with people using two different mother tongues. I normally get the proper greetings right. The tar road splits my site neatly in two, and also acts as the boundary between the two culture groups. I cater my greetings depending on which side of the road I am on. However, this does not always work, and if I use the wrong language the person I am speaking with will definitely let me know. There is a certain pride in the mother tongues here in South Africa. It is certainly understandable considering how the cultures and languages were suppressed under Apartheid. Of course, this pride has its extremes at times. My host mother is Northern Sotho, but one day we were called to my Shangaan school for a meeting. I automatically greeted all of my Shangaan teachers in Shangaan- it was second nature to me by this point in time. When I finished, Mma turned to me crossly and said "You speak Shangaan, but you do not speak Sotho!" I hastened to assure her that this was not the case- I could not speak EITHER language.

Northern Sotho and Shangaan are somewhat difficult to learn, mainly because they belong to an entirely different language group than any other language I have studied; so there are no similarities to be found with English. However, they are also fun languages because they are so literal. I will write some examples. To greet in Sotho, there is a certain order of phrases. It begins:
Dumelang
Answer: Agee
Then: Le Kae?
Answer: Re gona.
This exchange is equivalent to the English Hi, how are you? I'm fine yadda yadda yadda. Yet, literally this can be translated as:
Dumelang: I am greeting you.
Agee: Yes, you are.
Le Kae? Where are you?
Re gona: I am here.
This is one of the best parts about the greetings- I love this stating the obvious and never needing to lie about my state of mind or health! I could be having the absolute shittiest day ever, and yet, when asked "Le Kae?" I can basically answer "Well, I'm here at least." It's great!

I do regret though, that I did not learn more of my adopted languages as it would have made my Peace Corps experience different than what I experience now. Yet, despite this regret, I have gotten along with my Shanglish and my village has accepted this part of me. They also find it very amusing. My first instinct when hearing of our impending language test was to crack down, open my dust covered language books and study; but I decided against this course of action. I am going to enjoy my last three months and not worry about how correctly (or incorrectly as the case may be) my language ability is.

You Are What You Eat?

When I first heard the term "You are what you eat," I took it rather literally. I spent time fantasizing about what would really happen if a person literally WAS what they ate. The world would be populated with food. I actually imagined a city full of walking Snicker's bars, large cucumbers teaching school, and blocks of cheese driving cars. It was a fun day dream, I must admit. As I grew older and actually began to understand the meaning behind "You are what you eat" I still cling to my childhood dream, but South Africa has taught me to alter the dream somewhat- no longer is a city populated with my favorite foods and the foods are not longer animated. Instead, they are sitting on plates in the kitchen of my Maryland home, patiently waiting for me to return and indulge in them once more.

It may come as a surprise, but incidents involving food are a definite part of the cultural conflicts PCVs face between us and our counterparts. There are so many different tastes between us as Americans and our South African families and friends that there are bound to be clashes. For example, during our training my group all lived with home-stay families. As part of our cultural immersion, we were expected to eat our meals with our families and partake in South African rural cuisine. Many of us lost weight during training. Now, I am not saying all SA traditional food is bad- in fact, some of it is very good. But, there are still some food items that even after two years I still cannot stomach.

Basic South African rural cuisine revolves directly around "pap"- also knows as vuswa, bogobe, porridge, sadza and to some of the guys in my PC group, "God's gift to mankind." Pap is nothing really fancy. It is composed of only two ingredients: mielie (corn) meal and water, but then it is literally beaten as it is cooking to create a very stiff porridge. To eat pap, you break off a piece and roll it around in your hand, creating a ball, dipping it into some sort of gravy, then eating it. There really is not much taste to pap, but for some strange reason, it grows on you. I have a very good relationship with pap-I enjoy eating it very much. However, my fondness of pap ends at a reasonable level... Some of my friends take their pap enjoyment to the point of worshipful obsession. Songs and poems have been written to gush over pap's many wonderful qualities, new recipes are examined critically and exclaimed over, and a cartoon of "Pap-Man" and "Bogobe Boy" kept us all very much entertained during our training. Pap is the staple of South Africa; meaning that pap is on the menu basically every single day in rural homes. My host mother once told me that a "meal without pap is not a meal at all." Running out of mielie meal is synonymous to disaster. A normal South African rural meal consists of a plate of pap, and some side dishes. Now, like I said previously, I have a good relationship with pap... it is the side dishes that I do not have a good relationship with.

Meat, and I use this term loosely, is the first side dish. A normal meat side is chicken or boerworst (sausage). And when I say chicken, I mean the WHOLE chicken. Not just the breast and drumsticks, but the head, neck, thighs, innards and feet can be the side of choice for the meal. Now, I have tried all types of chicken with varying degrees of enthusiasm. The chicken breast, thighs and drumsticks are all good. The neck is not so bad. The head, innards and feet though are just plain unpalatable! The head normally still has eyes when put into the pot, and quite honestly I have a great aversion to eating things that are looking at me. The chicken innards- the intestines, liver, kidneys, stomach- I have tasted and opted to never taste again. The feet- well, I feel that chicken feet deserve some sort of tribute to how incredibly unappealing they are. Imagine a chicken (actually, any bird will do) and now imagine their feet- scaly skin, skinny bones, and claws. That is exactly what a chicken foot looks like when it comes out of the pot and put on a plate to eat. There is absolutely no meat-just skin, bones and claws. The one and only time I had a chicken foot was during training in my very first week. My training host mother put on my plate next to my pap this claw. I poked at it a bit to build up my nerve to actually eat it then took a tiny bite crunched down on a nail, and lost my appetite for the next day.

The vegetables that go with pap are normally all right. The cabbage, butternut, beetroot and salad are all wonderful additions to a pap meal. Normally though, the meal of choice is morogo- wild greens. I always find it amazing how many different types of morogo can be found in and around my village. My host mother always has me sample the morogo that she makes and for the most part I enjoy it- except for guswa. Guswa is morogo cooked with baking soda and I am afraid that I cannot handle it at all. The baking soda makes the morogo slippery so that it had the exact same consistency of mucus. I cannot even keep it on my pap long enough to get it to my mouth! I tend to shy away from it whatever the cost.

I have learned to appreciate food so much more since coming to PC. So many food items that I took for granted in the states I will never do so again- just like I will never take for granted running water, flush toilets and central heating. Occasionally I fall back into my old daydream of "you are what you eat"- but I imagine pap people and walking chicken feet parading through my village. I don't think I would like to turn into South African food items.

Not-Quite-Venda

Only two weeks into this new term, we had a lovely 5-day weekend due to two national holidays: Freedom Day (April 27, to celebrate the first democratic elections held in SA in 1994) and Workers Day on May 1. Since I didn’t go anywhere during the long school holiday, and due to the fact that I was going stir-crazy in my village, I decided to go on a mini-holiday and visit Emily, a fellow-PCV, who lives in the northern part of SA near the border to Zimbabwe and near to Venda. The Venda region of South Africa is the traditional home of the Venda people. The area is very conservative and traditional and really is a neat place to visit. My area further south is definitely more westernized- most of the people wear western clothing and live in new fashionable houses rather than the traditional homes. But in Venda, it is different. Married women often dress traditionally (including a necklace that has two large white cones attached to the back of the neck) and still bow to the men to show respect. Most of the villages I saw consisted mostly of rondavels (a circular hut with a thatched roof) as well. Instead of a large home, most families that I saw seemed to have a courtyard surrounded by 3 or 4 one-room rondavels that the families slept and lived in. Venda gets the reputation of being traditional, but unfortunately it also gets the reputation of having more witches and witchcraft. Perhaps because traditional beliefs are so strong, but the belief in witches remains stronger in Venda than in other places as well. Occasionally stories are told of witches in Venda kidnapping people and chopping them up to use their body parts as muthi- for casting spells on members of the victims family. For the spells against people to work, witches need the body parts- normally the lips, tongue, or genitals- of an immediate family member (brothers are very popular to use). Unfortunately, I am not making this up. Although rare, it still happens. Of course, Venda is not the only place in SA where witchcraft is still practiced, but it seems to get the bad reputation anyway. Despite all of its reputations, I enjoyed going to Venda. Visiting the region, seeing more rondavels than newer homes and more people dressed in traditional clothing than not was an interesting experience to me.

So, I have talked about Venda, but where does the “Not-Quite-Venda” come in? This is a nick-name that we have for Emily’s site stemming from training. During training, Emily and a few others were placed in the Venda learning group because they would be living in the Vehmbe district, where Venda is. So, for several weeks they learned Tsi-Venda and Venda traditions and culture. That was, at least until Emily went to her site visit and discovered that she lives on the outskirts of Venda, in a Shangaan village where no-one speaks Tsi-Venda or practices Venda culture. When we returned to our training sites and were sharing horror stories of our site visits, Emily told us that she was not ever going to use anything she learned in the Venda language group because she was not living in Venda. So, in order to laugh about it we gave her site the name “Not-Quite-Venda.” She’s so close to Venda, and yet she is so far away. Shame.

Fast Food

I think that here in South Africa fast food chains and restaurants can be linked to development in that particular area. In the United States every city, town, village and hamlet has a fast-food joint. Not so in South Africa. Here, there seems to be a certain hierarchy as to where fast food places can be found. I tend to avoid fast-food as much as possible-especially the chains. McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Wendy’s- all the burger places where you can guarantee that the food is full of artery-clogging grease I steer clear of. I admit, some fast food isn’t so bad- I happen to like Subway and Dominos; but for those two I either see my food being prepared in front of me and thus can control the contents, or I know that the food is made just for me and hasn’t been sitting in a warmer or pot of grease all day. Anyway, back to SA. The fast-food chains here are a little different. There are McDonalds (which is everywhere in the entire world so I am not surprised) and Kentucky Fried Chicken (which was a little surprising to see at first; but it is more popular than McDonalds). Who would have figured. There are also a range of South African chains- Nando’s, King Pie and Chickin’ Lickin’. Nando’s is really not so bad, King Pie is so rich my stomach cannot handle it (but some of my guy friends can eat 4 of their pies at one sitting) and at Chickin’ Lickin’ I tend to stick with their huge 2 rand (think 30 cents) ice-cream cones.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this entry before I went off on my ever-present tangents, fast-food chains can be linked to development in SA. South African living areas can be classified into rural villages, townships, towns, and cities. Each one of these living areas has their own class of fast-food. When the area gets a new fast-food restaurant, it is safe to bump them up to the next category. I’ll explain further. Rural villages there are no fast-food joints. If you stay in a place where the nearest fast-food restaurant is like 20km away, it is safe to say that you live in a village (Buffelshoek, where I live, has no fast food- it is a village). Townships are mini-towns and during Apartheid were the towns of the black people. If the area you are visiting has only a Chickin’ Lickin’ or a King Pie, it is safe to say it is a township. Towns are larger than townships, have more supermarkets and stores, can have a Chickin’ Lickin’ or King Pie, but they also can have a Nando’s or KFC. If the area has a Nando’s or KFC, it is a town. Finally, the cities. You know you are in a city when there is all of the fast-food chains mentioned above plus a McDonalds. McDonalds really is not found anywhere else other than a city.

Now, why have I spent the past 2 paragraphs talking about fast food? Well, several months ago, my nearest shopping area did some major renovations. Acornhoek was a township- it had both a Chickin’ Lickin and a King Pie. But, a few months ago it also added…. a KFC! Acornhoek can now, in my opinion at least, be labeled a town. A small town to be sure, but a town none-the-less. Only a few weeks ago I met one of my friends at KFC and did something that I had not done since I was 12-years-old: ordered a meal. Much to my surprise, it was not so bad. I guess a little indulgence is not so bad- even if it is artery-clogging and a heart attack waiting to happen.

Long Tom Again

I think that one of the very first blog entries that I wrote had to do with the Long Tom Marathon last year. As a refresher, the Long Tom is an Ultra (56 km) or Half (21 km) marathon that runs from Sabie to Lydenburg, following the Long Tom Pass: a road that winds through the mountains of Mpumalanga. For the past 3 year, PC SA has been using this marathon as a fund raiser. PCVs run or walk the half-marathon and friends and family from home give donations for us to do so. The money then goes to the Kgwele Le Mollo Fund. Kgwele Le Mollo is raises money to send exceptional but poor rural students to five years of high school at Uplands College in Nelspruit; one of the most prestigious high schools in all of South Africa. Two years ago we sent our first student, and then beginning last January we sent two more. All three students have adjusted and are happy, and are doing very well in their new challenging classes. This year, we plan to send two more students and once again we piggy-backed on the Long Tom Marathon to fundraise. This year was a little different for me though, because I decided to run the marathon.

Now, one thing that you should know about me is that I REALLY dislike running. My sister is the runner in the family, not me! My pure loathing for the sport is not as strong as it once was, but I still do not harbor very kind feelings for it. I walked the marathon last year, but this year I decided to try something new. I figured that if I was going to ask my friends and family to shell out money for this good cause, I might as well do a bit of sacrificing on my part. So, I began training for the marathon (which took place on March 30) back in October. The first few training sessions I was wondering what the hell I was doing… especially since I started my training when summer was just starting, so I was running in +90 degree weather. It really didn’t help when the people in my village would state the obvious and call to me as I was running, “Oh, you are running!” But, I decided to stick to it, grew not to hate running as much, and even started getting up at 5:30AM to do my training, thus avoiding both the heat and the obnoxious questions. Finally, it was race day!

We left for the start of our portion of the trek at 5:30 and got there at 6. Our portion began on the highest peak of the entire course (maybe about 1700 meters) and it was FREEZING! It must have been about 55degrees- a far cry from the 90degrees I was used to running in. As the race didn’t start until 7, we spent an hour huddling together for warmth and jumping up and down to keep our muscles from freezing up. Finally the race started! The first 2 km weren’t bad at all-a gradually sloping downhill. Very nice. Then at 3km we hit our first hill. Not so nice. But, the hill wasn’t so bad, and at the top was our first water station-busy passing out not just water, but chocolates as well. I collected some chocolate at every station, and by 10km I was cursing myself for not brining a bag because I had no more room in my hands for the FREE! chocolate I was accumulating. I digress though. Kilometers 4-6 were not bad, mostly level and gradually downhill. The sun was peaking out of the clouds and I had shed my sweatshirt and was enjoying the scenery, managing to keep a steady pace at about 10km per hour. I was actually enjoying myself as well-much to my surprise. At Km 6 we reached our second hill- barely anything. Km 7 I stopped for a quick bathroom break (they had portable pit-toilets all along the race). Km 9 I hit another hill. This one was torture. It was steep uphill and just kept going! I slowed my running down and now looking back I think I could have walked up that hill faster than I could have run it. The hill finally ended at about Km 11, thank goodness because I desperately needed some water and was wondering what the hell was the matter with me that I decided to run this torture trap. But, that was the last hill and at Km 12, we hit steep downhill running. I love running downhill, and I floored it. I thought I was home-free, no more hills! It was downhill for the next 6 km and I was enjoying myself keeping pace in about 4 minute km. That was until about km 16 when my joints and muscles began to hurt and my adrenalin-rush started to give out. Km 17 started to level off and I slowed down my running to accommodate my aching body. By km 18, only three more to go, I started wanting to die. I was tired and I HURT! I got rather cranky, so it was good that at that time I was running by myself. Km 19 I started chanting a mantra to keep myself moving. At km 20 I changed my mantra from “Keep Moving” to “Almost There” and then… it was all over! I crossed the finish line with a time for 2 hours 18 minutes and spent the next several days nursing my sore muscles and joints. But, I did my part and ran the entire half-marathon. And I am NEVER doing that again!