On Doing Nothing

April 28, 2006

I think that one of the hardest things about being a Peace Corps Volunteer is getting used to boredom. There are weeks here in South Africa where I am incredibly busy, and every afternoon I have somewhere to be or something to do. But those weeks of productivity are often followed by the more dreaded weeks of nothingness. All South African PCVs seem to have the same story- weeks of events up the wazoo, then a dry spell, where letters home and books read increase. When I joined PC, I expected an adventure, and it has been an adventure for the most part. Our official job as PCVs is, in a nutshell: a) to learn about other cultures and ways of life; b) to teach people from other countries more about Americans and American culture; and c) to help with developmental or community projects to help enhance the quality of life for our counterparts. Yet in between doing these three things, there is a whole lot of nothing. And this nothing is not what I defined nothing as in the United States. There doing "nothing" consisted of playing around on my computer, flipping through the channels of the TV, reading, or hanging out with friends. Here in South Africa, doing nothing really means doing NOTHING. And while I felt like I was really good at doing nothing in the United States, here in South Africa I suck at it.
I suppose while I seem busy during the day, I end up doing a lot of trivial things. I get up at 6AM (I know... me who loves to sleep late gets up at 6 every weekday, and no later than 7:30 on the weekends. What is the world coming to?) and get ready for school, which to get there on time I have to be out the door no later than 7. I ride my bicycle or walk to school, and then spend the next six hours with the teachers. If I am really lucky, maybe I will have a few teachers who ask me for help, ask me to teach a demonstration lesson, or simply want to sit and chat. Then the days are productive, and I leave school feeling happy that I was useful that day. Then there are the days where I end up sitting in the staff room, being visible and available if anyone needed help, but I pretty much twiddle my thumbs and try not to go insane. That is one of the most maddening parts of my job. The teachers need to come to me for help, I cannot force myself upon them or they will end up being resentful. It was one of the things that was stressed during our training- we cannot FORCE people to change, our teachers have to want to change for real improvement in the schools to occur. While completely understandable, this clause unfortunately leaves us PCVs with long days of boredom if no one in our schools actually asks for help. These days have happened to me quite a bit. The school day ends at 1:30 PM, and unless I do a workshop for the teachers (I have done a few, during my productive weeks), everyone scatters to go home. That leaves me to go home as well, and no matter how long I drag out that bike ride, I am back no later than 2:30. Some afternoons I am busy; some days I have to go to town, others I visit our local clinic that has recently started a youth group, and some days I have to prepare things for school. Then there are the days where I do not have anything real to do. I normally go to bed at 9 (yes, and I've also become an old lady as well. What has PC done to me), which means that upon my return home from school, I have between 6.5 and 7 hours looming before me.
There are a lot of things I do to avoid just sitting and being bored. I read a lot, I write in my journal and I write letters, I go for long walks around my village, and I crochet or sew. Unfortunately, there are only so many times a person can do these things before it gets old. After that there really is nothing to do, and I cannot handle it. I get absolutely twitchy and fidgety, and feel like I am losing my mind... but maybe I am, I don't know. A few weeks ago we had an Emergency evacuation exercise where the volunteers in my area had to consolidate in our nearest city, Nelspruit. There, I got to talking with a PCV who had already done two years in the Ukraine. She talked a lot about the things she did there to keep sane, and then the things she does here. She also claimed that for some reason or another, it is much more difficult in South Africa to avoid doing nothing. Since we have been at site, she has crocheted two plastic rugs, read dozens of books and in a last ditch attempt to remain busy, began watching the Soap operas on TV. She decided that this is ok so far, but if she ever begins to watch the WWE (fake wrestling that is one of the most popular things here to watch- I once tried to explain to my host sisters that it was not real, but they did not believe me) then she knows it is time for her to go home. For a time in the beginning, when I got bored doing all of my normal activities, I began to watch mindless TV with my host sisters. For awhile there, I am ashamed to admit it, I watched Passions, a show my host sisters love, but as far television shows go, it is the absolute worst. However, it was something to do. Yet after a few weeks of watching, I realized that if I continued on this destructive path, I really would go insane- that or my IQ would drop drastically. So, I broke away, and tried to find other things to do. Right now I am in a slow point of activities. We have just come back from Fall Break, and it takes awhile to get things back and running again after the holidays. So, that means a lot of boredom. Just this morning, I tried to read a book, but got so antsy; I could not get into it. I went outside, but did not feel like going for a walk, so I just sat and stared at a column of ants moving a dead worm or caterpillar or something for 15 minutes. I then had an epiphany: this is what it is to really do nothing. Not moving for a quarter of an hour and being entertained by insects. The absolutely terrifying thing: I was perfectly content doing so. So perhaps I am adjusting to doing nothing- I have a year and a half of service more, I'm certain I will do a lot of it. But then again, maybe I am just going insane. After eight months in Peace Corps, who can really tell?

Getting Lost in the African Bush

4/21/2006

I spent my last entry raving about the Fanie Botha trail and the beauty of the Klein Drakensberg- and while this is still true I feel that I should comment a bit further on the trail itself. The Fanie Botha starts outside of Sabie and twines its way through a jumble of pine plantations, mountains, and forests. In some areas the trail drops drastically 400 meters, and then climbs just as drastically 700 meters- much to the chagrin of exhausted hikers. One of the more interesting things about the trail is that for such a gorgeous and fun hike, it is very poorly maintained. It is not the sleeping huts that are so poor- on the contrary, they are well taken care of with flower gardens, running water, and flush toilets (amazing that I had to go hiking in the African bush to have a toilet that flushed). But the trail itself is another story. The first few days were not so bad, but the last two ended up being the most ambiguously marked trails ever. The Fanie Botha is marked by white paint splotches, looking somewhat like foot prints. Of course, these foot prints are not the very best markers. We came across lichen on rocks that looked so similar to the foot prints that we ended up following them and getting off the trail. In a particularly hilarious moment, we stumbled across a logging forest- each and every tree carefully marked with a patch of white paint to indicate its coming doom, and our trail markings lost somewhere in the middle. The very last day we even walked into a crossroad, complete with five white footprints on the ground-each one pointing in a separate direction. Now, with such a marked trail, it is logical to assume that hikers would get lost-and we did. Multiple times. In a few cases we ended up half a kilometer or more off the path- unknowingly heading into thorn bushes, or in our hindsight imaginations, some leopard den (while hiking with my family in Alaska taught me how to scare away bears on the trail- talk loudly and make a lot of noise- and how to deal with bears you might meet- DON'T RUN!- Peace Corps neglected to tell us during training what to do if we happen to come across the path of a leopard, lion, or another African big cat. Thinking back, I feel like this would be very good advice to know. But I suppose PC doesn't expect us to go traipsing off into the bush). While hiking, my group had several tiny moments of getting lost- bushwhacking through grasses taller than our heads, walking right past the trail to end up in a shanty town, and not seeing the sign for the new path of the trail as it was hidden behind a tree- but fortunately only one major incident of serious direction miscalculation. One of our group was hiking ahead and managed to get off the trail and hopelessly lost on the side of a mountain in a thick forest. Luckily, he has a good head on his shoulders and instead of panicking, continued down the mountain to find the MacMac River that ran through the valley. Following the river upstream, he managed to reconnect with the hiking trail and emerging triumphant from the forest to greet the rest of our group sitting by the side of the river and contemplating our choices and chances of finding our lost companion.
The week we were hiking we were not the only ones on the trail. The first few days were we joined by a family of three, and for five of the six days we hiked alongside of a group of rowdy South African teenaged boys. The boys were on school holiday-like the rest of us- and although pretty immature and loud (well, they were only sixteen, so it was natural) they were all right kids. Except for the fact that they let one of their members- who had never been hiking before- get seriously lost, then proceeded to leave him behind. On one part of the trail there is a good 2-3 kilometers of a grass forest. The grass was taller than ourselves, and unless hikers really watched their feet and the trail anyone could get lost very quickly. This is what happened to the boy. Their group was supposed to be hiking in groups of two, but as he was a slow hiker, his partner left him behind. He then proceeded to get off the trail, and when he realized that he was lost, panicked. The poor boy was certain that he would die in the forest, and no one would find him; and with that thought in his mind began to run. This is not a very easy thing to do when carrying a heavy pack, and very soon, he found himself tangled in a thorn bush. Now, if he took a few breaths and managed to calm down, he might have been able to free himself from the thorns. But, in his frantic efforts to free himself he only made the situation worse, and began screaming for help. When lost and alone in the woods, it is a good idea to make a lot of noise and bring attention to yourself- but apparently the way he was screaming made it sound like he was hurt, or being eaten by a leopard. And at that moment, a few of our group of hikers came along the trail and heard his frantic screams for help. Alarmed, they followed the sounds of his calls until they came to the outskirts of the thicket he was caught in. They could still not see him, but in calling to him and his answers ("Help me, I can't move!") it sounded as if he was seriously injured. So, one of our group entered the thicket, prepared to see a compound fracture, a severed limb, or worse, but instead found a terrified kid tangled up in the thorns. They managed to untangle him, and calm him down, just as the rest of the kids' group finally came looking for him. While it did seem as if his hiking group felt a little guilty about leaving him behind, it did not take them long (much to our annoyance) to start ribbing him about getting lost. It was not the kids’ fault that he got lost and he was a good sport about the teasing but I still think he felt a bit embarrassed by the whole situation. Apparently, a South African getting lost in the African bush and having to be saved by a group of clueless Americans is just plain wrong.

Walking Through Middle Earth

4/19/2006

I never realized how lucky I was to get a site in the Bohlabela district of Limpopo Province. Bohlabela is located in the southeast of Limpopo, a tiny area squished between Kruger National Park and the northernmost part of Mpumalanga Province. The district is the most densely populated rural area in South Africa, and the schools are overflowing with more than a million school children. When I first visited my site, it did not look any different than our training area- lots and lots of brown expanse. But then the rainy season came, and the entire area blossomed into a sea of green, turning a drab land into a gorgeous exotic area. As I grew more confident on public transport and traveled around the area more, I discovered more and more of the beauty of Bohlabela. While I live in the Lowveld, aka the lowlands, from my front yard I can see the outline of the Klein Drakensberg Mountains, not fifteen kilometers away. Visiting friends to the south of my site takes a taxi ride through the twisting and turning mountain roads, allowing us riders a breathtaking view of the mountains tumbling abruptly into the low, flatlands.
It was the beauty of my area that prompted me to spend my first official South African vacation not hanging out on the beach in Cape Town, or skydiving in Durban as others chose to do, but instead to travel only 1 hour from my site into the heart of the Klein Drakensberg to tackle the Fanie Botha Hiking Trail. The Fanie Botha runs from Sabie to Graskop in Mpumalanga Province, and through its 70-some kilometers, the trail takes hikers through mountains, valleys, exotic forests, and meadows. And throughout all of the kilometers, I felt as if I was hiking through JRR Tolkeins Lord of the Rings (Tolkein is in fact South African. The crazy scenery that he imagined for his books is actually based upon the Drakensberg Mountains in Kwa-Zulu Natal and the Eastern Cape. It is actually a bit disappointing that Peter Jackson decided to film in New Zealand instead of South Africa). The scenery was so reminiscent of the movies that scarcely an hour went by when the other LOTR fans, like myself (ok, call us nerds) commented on, "Look! There's the Forbidden Pool!" "That looks exactly like Fangorn Forest," or "We're definitely passing through Rohan now." I suppose it helped that during a particularly rainy day all of us were mysteriously transformed into wizards and hobbits when we donned our flowing ponchos and rain jackets to keep dry- two in our group even bought carved walking sticks that became wizard staffs. The hike inspired us so much that on Easter Sunday we rented the three LOTRs movies and proceeded to watch them all in succession (those of you amazed that we could spend 9 hours sitting on our butts in front of a TV, be reminded of 2 things: one, it is not very often that we are in close proximity to a video rental place or a VCR/DVD player to play movies on; and two, six days of hiking seriously butchered our feet and muscles, so that many of us could not move even if we wanted to). So, for six days I joined 12 other Peace Corps volunteers on this trail, which ranged from easy ("we're here already? That was nothing!") to hard ("I'm going to die!!!"), and truthfully, I could never have asked for a better vacation. Hiking the trail was an absolute blast, even when it included fording streams and getting our hiking boots- and ourselves- soaked, climbing sheer mountain sides and despairing over the fact that the top was no where in site, dealing with blisters upon blisters upon blisters, getting stuck in a spectacular rain and hail storm, and climbing over fallen trees in the middle of the path. Not only did I get to share an amazing experience with amazing people, but I grew to appreciate even more the gorgeous area in which I live.

Longtom Marathon

April 8, 2006

It is interesting that my first participation in a marathon of any kind happened as a PCV in South Africa. It is interesting because first, running and I do not mix. I know some people love to run- they say it is soothing and a good stress relief. Unfortunately I am not one of these people. I have tried to pick up running in the past, multiple times. But I just cannot get into it. In fact, I have a good deal of animosity towards running. We are not friends. Second, the Longtom Marathon is no ordinary marathon, and indeed not the first one I would choose for myself. The Longtom is a race of 56km from Sabie to Lydenburg in Mpumalanga, South Africa. That in itself is not out of the ordinary- sounds like a regular marathon, right? Well, here is the clincher: Sabie is 1000 meters above sea level, and Lydenburg is 1220 meters above sea level. Still doesn't sound too impressive? Well, through the course of the marathon, the runners end up running up and down mountain sides, the highest point on the entire trail being Mauchsberg, 2160 meters tall- or for all my American buddies about 6500 ft. While us PCVs only ran the half marathon, 21km of nearly all downhill, that alone was tough. By the end, the majority of us were so sore we could not walk, only waddle. And we did the easy part of the marathon, and the majority of us only walked! It absolutely floored me to see the runners of the real marathon breeze in after three hours of demanding uphill running. Some were not even breathing hard and looked as if they started the race ten minutes previously. It was absolutely astounding.
Our participation in the marathon was not a spur of the moment thing. The Longtom is an annual event, but just last year PC South Africa decided to piggy-back on the marathon to create our own foundation- the Kgwale le Mollo (www.kgwalelemollo.org). The KLM was created by two of our former education volunteers, who wanted to give rural children an opportunity to attend five years of exceptional secondary schooling at Uplands College in Nelspruit (rated as one of the best private high schools in all of South Africa). Unfortunately, rural schools in South Africa are not the models of education. They have many circumstances working against them, mainly poor communities, the after effects of Apartheid-era Bantu education, and a general sense of apathy. While the government of SA is attempting to rectify this problem, the solutions are slow, few and far between. It will be many years before the rural schools become outstanding schools several have the potential to be. But for the children that attend these schools now, they get shafted with poor education. The pass rate for many of these schools is embarrassingly low, and motivation amongst the students to excel in school is next to non-existent. Yet, there are some students who, despite the circumstances of their living environment, do have the motivation and desire to learn. The KLM hopes to give these children a chance of an excellent education, an education that due to their circumstances would otherwise elude them.
So, using the Longtom, PCVs in SA raised money donations from friends and family back home in the United States to create a scholarship for these children to attend Uplands. 2005 was PC SAs first participation in the marathon, and through the generous contributions, raised enough money to send our first student to Uplands College. Refilwe began school this January, after being chosen from hundreds of applicants, and has become an amazing success story. She has adjusted to Uplands incredibly well, has become popular with her peers and teachers, and is excelling in her studies. This year, PC once again participated in the marathon, in the hopes to send our next student to Nelspruit. Recently we learned that if we raise enough money for one student, a South African business will donate enough money to pay for the entire education of a third student- so perhaps next January if we are lucky, the KLM will send two students on their way to extraordinary education instead of just one. If anyone would like to contribute (every little bit helps, but no pressure) donations are still being accepted through May 21st, 2006. All of the money donated will be used to give a South African child a real chance at life.

On Pit Toilets

April 7, 2006

Upon our arrival in South Africa, we were told by current PCVs about all kinds of different experiences we would share. One of the things they insisted upon was that we would speak about our experiences with bodily functions and toilets more than anything else. Still running on my high of finally arriving in South Africa as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I refused to believe them. We were 88 bright, intelligent, and versatile people about to begin a fantastic adventure together. Surely we could find a number of things to talk about other than bodily functions. Now, eight months later, I realize with amusement just how right those PCVs in our training were. No matter how many times the volunteers in my group meet up to hang out together, the talk ultimately turns to our experiences with pit toilets, with our "buckets," and unfortunately, our bouts with runny stomachs (the polite South African way to describe the shits).
Before I go any further, perhaps I better describe in more detail the "pit toilet," every PCV's enemy or friend, depending on the situation. South African pit toilets can be classified into two groups, the absolutely crummy and the semi-decent. There is no such thing as a good pit toilet. In fact, a "good pit toilet" is an oxymoron. Even in the nicest pit toilets, there is one thing you cannot get around: you are still peeing in a pit. That said, South African pit toilets can be classified further as either being a "long drop" or a "short drop." The difference between the two is that with a long drop you are relatively safe- the hole is deep enough that you will be in no danger of being splashed by the contents that are being put into the toilet. With a short drop, you better get used to doing your business quickly, because you actually need to move out of the way to avoid having your business splash back on you. My apologies for stating the obvious, but the long drop pit toilets are far superior to the short drops. In fact, if your pit toilet is a short drop, it is automatically classified as an absolutely crummy pit toilet. It can have a door, fly tape, and even a toilet seat, but that drop is the clinch. Semi-decent pit toilets are surprisingly not too hard to find. Or, perhaps my standards are not too high. For me, any toilet that is a long drop, has a door, and has a minimum of flies is a semi-decent pit toilet. Crummy pit toilets include those with a short drop, no door, falling walls, a cesspool of flies, no toilet seat, or in the worst case scenario, all of the above. Now, some in my group have tried to beautify their pit toilets. They have added curtains, fly paper, flower-printed toilet seats, air freshener, and hand sanitizer to make the pit toilet experience more enjoyable. Me, I am not that ambitious: a pit toilet is a pit toilet is a pit toilet. Period. I prefer to go in, do my business as quickly as possible, and get out.
Having described the pit toilet, there is one more thing I must describe: the pee bucket, otherwise known as the chamber pot. When this was first described to us, I was certain this was some sort of cruel joke that the old PCVs play on us newbies. I mean, really, a chamber pot? Unfortunately, we all soon realized that no, it was not a joke, but a daily reality. While every rural household has a pit toilet somewhere on its compound, it is taboo here to visit the pit toilets after dark. The reasons for this taboo vary from rats, to snakes, to tarantulas, to witches who fly around on loaves of bread and snatch away people who are outside at night. No matter what the reason, unless it is an emergency, once it is completely dark there is no visiting the friendly pit toilet. Instead, each member of the household is given a bucket to do their business in. I must admit, the idea completely grossed me out. And in a cruel irony, the very first night I stayed with my host family I woke in the middle of the night needing to go. For several minutes I stared at the bucket, sitting innocuously in the corner of the room, but I could not handle the thought of actually using it. So, I decided to take my chances with the witches, the rats, and the tarantulas and sneak out to the pit toilet. So, I fumbled in the dark for my shoes and my flashlight, and then managed to unlock the door, before stumbling into the dark. The walk to our pit toilet from the back door is normally thirty seconds to a minute, depending on the need. However, in my bleary, sleep-induced state, that walk took nearly five. I almost fell into our garbage pit, got off the trail and bushwhacked my way through waist-high weeds, stumbled through mud and sand, was attacked my mosquitoes, all before reaching the door to the toilet. Then the real fun began. After shining my light around the room to ascertain that there were no scorpions or tarantulas around, it took me a good five minutes to build up my courage to sit on the toilet. The pit was completely dark, and for all I knew there could be a black mamba or something sitting just inside waiting for the stupid American to come out and use the toilet after dark. Finally, I held my breath, did my business, and got out. After going through the same ordeal with mosquitoes, mud, and weeds getting back to the house, I finally stumbled back into my room a good fifteen minutes after I left. I was covered in bites, burrs and seeds were sticking to my pajamas, and my feet were covered in mud. And, I was wide awake. It was then I realized the real reason people do not visit the pit toilet after dark: it is a hassle. After that, I sucked it up and used the bucket. Surprisingly, once you get used to the idea of having a chamber pot in the room, it is not that gross. And it is so handy!
Surprisingly enough after eight months of living in South Africa, I grew attached to our family pit toilet. Ours was a semi-decent one, with a toilet seat, a minimum of flies, doors, and a sturdy frame-or so I thought. While I still live for the times I get to go into the "big city" that has flushing toilets and running water, I did not mind so much using our pit toilet. Compared to some of the other pit toilets I had seen and used, it was pretty good. Then, the rainy season came. One day after a pretty big rainstorm, my host mother approached me and warned me not to use the pit toilet anymore. Confused, I asked why, and she explained that she was afraid that the rain would cause it to collapse. She claimed it was already sinking, and if I needed to use the toilet, I should go next door and use theirs. I am ashamed to admit it, but I wrote off her worries as ridiculous. My host mother is a wonderful woman, but has a tendency to worry about small and silly things. I just assumed this was one of them. Of course, for the next few days whenever I used the toilet, I would step carefully and send surreptitious glances at the walls and frame, making sure it would not sink in on me. Now that would be the most embarrassing way to die- just sitting innocently on the pit toilet when the entire thing collapsed and sank, drowning you in a pile of... well, you get the picture. But after several weeks of nothing happening, I forgot my host mother's worries, and life went on as usual. One day, I arrived back to my site after a week of IST (In-Service Training). My host sister Lethabo met me at the door to the yard to help me with my bags, and we chatted as we went to the back door of the house. As soon as we turned the corner, I stopped dead in shock. Our pit toilet was gone! In its place was a huge pile of rubble and a gaping hole. Lethabo must have seen the shocked look on my face, because she said nonchalantly, "Oh, our pit toilet fell down."
"How?" I finally gasped, still in shock. Lethabo shrugged.
"The rain," she said. Obviously this wasn't a big deal to her, and she continued on to the house. After a few minutes of shocked staring, I finally followed her. I no longer write off all of my host mother’s worries, and long for the day when we build another semi-decent pit toilet, especially every time I use the crummy pit toilet next door. Until then, perhaps I will become better friends with my bucket.