I live in an area called kwandebele. The dominant language is Isndeble as well as the dominant tribe of this area. This is considered the Ndebele homeland. About 1.1 million people speak Isndebele in South Africa, the least spoken of all the South African languages. Most of them live here.

Because of several factors, including that kwandebele is about 45 minutes from Pretoria, there is little development there. There are no big malls or big grocery stores. There are no movie theaters and no big stores. There are two or three shopping centers that do not have much and that is about it. A comparison of several PCVs has shown I have the 2nd worst shopping town, the worst one being the other shopping town in kwandebele which doesn't even have our bank there.

However, since Christmas. I have seen some small changes. When I got back from America, my trip to my site took longer because they were building a tar road connecting my village to the next. They have been working on it for at least five months now, and it probably wont be done before I go, but still, progress. In my shopping town, two stores which had been selling low market goods have been replaced with stores selling much higher market goods, a Mr. Price and a Street Sheet. And on my last trip out, I saw a sign for the construction of a regional mall, in the village about 45 minutes away.

These are all small things, but in the life the life of a peace corps volunteer, it feels good to know that my adopted homeland is growing and dveloping.

Here, its all about the little victories. I haven't been writing recently because it seem that even the little victories I have had are few and far between and the failures numerous and great. This seems to be known in Peace Corps as the "Mid Service Slump". Having finished Mid Service Training a couple weeks ago, me and several volunteers in my class were definitely in it.

In Bundu, , I had to go back to the drawing board. I had an incident at the middle school which made me realize that I am not a teacher and that it doesn't make me happy. Luckily, I am not in the education program :).

But somehow coming up with new things to do doesn't seem as daunting as it did a year ago. Maybe its the fact that Bundu feels like home now or just the fact after a really tough learning curve, I've realized how to be a PCV. More importantly, how I want to be as a PCV. I've had a project idea since the beginning of my service that I finally feel like I've gained enough clout to actually do. I have contacts with the other schools in my area and I'll start reaching out to them. I'll keep on doing my old standbys.

One thing that surprised me was that MST was much less of a brag fest than I expected. People would only tell you about their successes if heavily prodded, most just wanted to relax and have fun. And of my group, SA 25, I am proud. Because the truth is, as a group, we have had a lot of success stories. A lot of growth and a lot of learning. 

So little victories. Right now I'm proud that I have taught my little sister to say please and thank you. Maybe next blog entry I'll have more

One Year

As I sat saturday on the steps of the bank, waiting for Alyssa and Colin to get their money, my only thought was "how the hell am I going to make it through another year?"

Don't worry, this post gets more optimistic. However, my thoughts for the last week have definitely run the gamut.

One year, This time last year I was living in a little rondaval with another trainee, across from a married couple, spending days in long sessions and nights handing out with other trainees. I didn't even know was isndbele was, having no idea about the language that would continue to befuddle me. I remember meeting Sbongile for the first time, not yet knowing I was going to be the one to replace her. She looked impecable in a long flowy skirt and a tanktop while I sweated profusely in my business casual.

It's been a year and I haven't been able to replicate Sbongile's style or sense of calm or ease. However, I have made my own style in bundu, my sweaty, goofy, terrible isndebele, goofing with kids style. Bundu is my home. I teach, I run my gogo's group, I do random projects. I help in the garden. I talk. I have coffee. I play with the kids. I try to find new stuff to do.

Its pleasant and nice and fun and feels like life. I'm not the best or most hardworking peace corps volunteer, but I've done a bit. All but two of the students in my grade 9 english class passed. My gogo's are trying to get their group registered as an NPO. We are working on the IGA stuff. I'm teaching life orientation this term. My boyfriend is coming to visit in 17 days.

I'll make it through this year like I did the last. One day at a time.

After about a month of leave, I am finally home in Bundu. Will describe the leave by all the different types

Administrative- Took the GRE. Did pretty decently. Looking into getting my master's of public affairs/policy or urban planning. Spent my downtime in Pretoria hanging out with friends who were passing through. Saw many of my friends who started PCSA a year ahead of me go through their Close of Service Conference. Some have left already. That's going to be me in a year...eish

Holiday- Met up with my friend Emily and took a 12 hour bus ride to our friend Dan's house outside Richard's Bay. It was wonderful, we went to St. Lucia to see turtles (saw one lay a hundred or so eggs), went to the beach everyday, saw the hobbit, met many of Dan's friends and coworkers and had a ton of really wonderful meals with wonderful company. The last day I boarded the plane and headed home

Annual- America. What can I say. I spent time with my family, friends and boyfriend, ate delicious food, explored wonderful places, enjoyed being with the people I loved.
I felt a little out of sorts in America. I realize that in South Africa I always have a purpose to my life there. In america, I felt somewhat lost. It was a vacation, but I missed knowing what I was there to do. It reaffirmed my decision to stay in Africa...I just wanted to bring some people back with me. Thankfully my family is visiting in June and my boyfriend even sooner so I'll be able to see as many people as I can.

When I got back, I spent some days in Pretoria, getting over jetlag and clearing up some medical issues (Mango Schisto Sunshine...now Acid Reflux?) I still felt a little out of sorts until I got to Bundu on Sunday, when as soon as I saw my village over the hill, I felt like I had come home.

In about ten days I'll hit my year mark, which will be followed in a month by the halfway mark and the less than a year mark. Makes me contemplative, wondering what I have done this last year and what will I do after Peace Corps. Whatever happens, I'll try to enjoy the ride

It's December already?

Time has definitely flown. According to my calendar, I have one week until my vacation starts (the first part involves taking the GRE, so not quite the relaxing experience), a week and a half until I head down south to KZN to the south african part of my vacation (turtles! Beach! Friends!) and a little over two weeks before I head to the USA for my three week sojourn home.

Bundu has been pretty slow these last couple weeks as schools had exams and then closed, a long with most everything else.  I have spent my way too much free time watching lots of tv shows, GRE studying and turning my room into a part time daycare. The kids in my neighborhood love every version of toy story, coloring (both on paper and using microsoft paint) and using the photobooth application on my computer. Surprisingly, they aren't big fans of the lion king.

I've also been spending most of my weekends with other volunteers. Early in the month, I went to a provincial conference in Nelspruit. While small, it was fun and educational and included a huge game of Simon Says in Siswati that involved the whole backpackers, staff included. Needless to say, I was out pretty quickly. The next weekend we had Thanksgiving.  I went to Polokwane with about 40 other volunteers and we celebrated American Style. PCVs can cook! Everything was absolutely delicious and I came out wishing I had another stomach.

Last Tuesday was my birthday! I celebrated by eating a pizza and watching Top Chef at the local internet cafe and eating the last remnants of my care package. I felt very loved as I received so many calls, emails, facebook posts, BBMs and cards from friends in the US and South Africa. Saturday, my friend Alyssa and I had a belated birthday celebration in Groblersdaal, where we got the restaurant to sing to us and give us free ice cream and balloons! Year 23 was definitely the best year of my life so far and I'm think 24 will be even better.

Right now, I'm just getting really excited for my trip to america. 20 days, five states and hopefully tons of delicious food. I'm probably most excited about celebrating my first christmas. As my family is jewish and observant we always celebrate hanukkah . I never gt the big commercial christmas that I see in movies and commercials. But this year I do! I'm even getting my own stocking!

The Things They Carried

Been Rereading the "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien recently. If you haven't read it, I suggest you stop reading this, go ASAP to your local bookstore/library/amazon.com/e-reader, whatever and read it. Actually I don't suggest, I request. It's a decently short read.

Anyways, the first chapter is about the men in this unit and the things they carried during the vietnam war and how it described them as people. I thought about my own stuff that I carry everyday and thought it would make for a good blog entry.

I'm removing the obvious stuff that I carry (wallet, phone, kindle, keys) because that's pretty darn obvious. And a bit boring. But here are six things I carry with me every day

My Fake Wedding Ring

A week before I went to South Africa, my dad asked me to get a wedding ring. From his research, he figured that it would help keep some of the men away if they thought I was married. I was a little freaked out at the time, as I had just broken up with my then boyfriend and the idea of being married, even fake married, freaked me out. But he kept on insisting and since it was one of the two things he asked during that period* I went out and with the help of my best friend who was visiting at the time, went wedding ring shopping. Going into a jewelry store and asking the salespeople to help me find a fake wedding ring was pretty entertaining. We ended up picking this one out, a simple silver band that I ended up putting on my right hand. However, while in africa, I have never taken it off and put it on my left hand. One reason is that I stayed in my training village. Saying I was married in my training village with 30 plus trainees and lots of gossiping sounded like a bad idea, plus I was always with at least one other trainee, so men hit on us less often. Once I was unmarried I couldn't really be suddenly married. And I guess I was uncomfortable with being married, even fake married. Thus, I needed a fake boyfriend. My friend Wyatt readily agreed, and for the early part of my service, I told everyone who asked he was my boyfriend and showed pictures of him when asked. Wy, thanks for that, I owe you a beer. Around June things started to get complicated...but that's for later in the entry. 

My hair tie

This  is an easy one. It gets pretty darn hot in Bundu, so I tie my hair back in order to get some relief from the heat. Unlike almost every other peace corps girl in my group, my hair is still longer than shoulder length, so this hair tie gets used most everyday. Also my host sister loves tying my hair into knots using this hair tie. She is luckily cute enough to get away with it. 

My Vision Quest Bracelet

When I was finishing up my senior year of high school, half the senior class and I went on a vision quest. I sat in the desert by myself for three days, no food, no communication with anyone save a local coyote (school sponsored. Yes, I went to hippie school). Funnily enough, after three days in the desert starving, I got a lot of insights about myself and how I want to live my life. We all received commemeration bracelets after we came back together as a group. It's been more than five years and I still haven't taken mine off. Ever. Yeah, that was pretty important. Most people mistake it for a hairtie so I very rarely get questions about it. 

My community doll

My sister got me this doll for my birthday right before I left. It's the mascot of greendale community college, based in Colorado...which is the setting for one of our favorite tv shows, Community. I hold on to it because its tiny, reminds me of my family, makes me laugh and reminds me that I'm at least doing better than all of the characters on that show. Except for the people in the Air Conditioning Repair School, but hey they have a guaranteed job for life. You can't beat that. 

My Picture

This is a decently bad picture of my boyfriend. We met in May, started dating in June, he left the country in August...and we decided to keep on dating. Long distance relationships are well acknowledged as idiotic ideas, but we are both confessed idiots. He left this picture along with several other items in my house before he moved back to america (I still can't quite figure out the compression bag and the coffee maker), and I've been carrying around ever since. 

As you can see, I've been collecting many bug bites during my time. Most came during the time I went to see some friends to watch the election results. I'm now calling them obama love bites. 

*the other I didn't do and thus I'm apologizing for here, Dad, I should have been pack 24 hours before like you asked. As usual, you were right. I'm sorry 

Typical Day

Sorry readers (aka mom, dad and uncle gordon) there hasn't been a post in awhile. I actually wrote one October 24 but didn't post it until today. Still relevant

I've been having somewhat of a writer's block in blog posts. Which would explain my lack of updating and amazement at the volunteer in South Africa that I know who posts on her blog every single day. But then I realized yesterday was a pretty normal day and I hadn't talked about my normal day very often, so I'm going to write about that.

I wake up around sunrise. Usually that is anywhere between 515 and 6. My curtains have no protections against the sun, so if the sun is up, than so I am I. If its before 630, I let myself try to go back to sleep. Usually I fail.

Around 630 to 7, I get up, start making breakfastt (and by making I mean grabbing an apple or yogurt or bread) and make coffee. Whoever lovely person sends me a care package, can you please include some of those starbucks via instant coffee? The kind they have here isn't really cutting it anymore.

 I check facebook and the news by my blackberry. Found out the giants are going to the world series!  I usually don't have to go to work until 10, so I sometimes watch an episode of something. Yesterday was different as I had a skype date with a friend of mine. Using a modem, I can actually get on the internet in my little village. Unfortunately the connection is not that great. I think it cut out about 4 times during our hour long conversation, but it was really nice to chat with a friend.

After that, I polish up my lesson plan and start the ten minute walk to school. Two english classes to grade nines, with a lunch in between. My first class is typical. Incredibly rowdy and loud, so much of my teaching is done by walking over to the groups that are somewhat paying attention. The learners got their report cards back yesterday, I see five of them, and all of then have doubled their english scores since I've started teaching. The four who were failing are now passing.

That puts a smile on my face. However, while I'm basking in that, a fight breaks out. Although these learners can get rowdy, this does not look like a play fight. And the learners that are fighting are each at least five inches taller than me and outweigh me by at least 20 pounds. However, some of the larger learners break up the fight. I try to send the learners. That were fighting to the principal's office. But they won't go. I end up running to the principals office myself and getting him to break up the fight. Apparently those two learners are suspendeed.
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Class remains in chaos for the rest of the period. Even some of my best students found some money somewhere (seriously I have no idea where it came from and it wasn't mine) and started dancing around the classroom. I leave class five minutes are, rattled by the fight and their behavior.  Class is sometimes like getting pounded by a sumo wrestler. I go back home and lay on my bed and collect myself.


Leave for class and get there just as the principal is closing the gate. My second class is smaller, has more girls and is usually just better behaved. This time is no different. The lesson goes very well and I finish early, and give the class an impromtu talk about halloween, as its one of my favorite holidays and one that is not celebrated here. A couple of the girls ask about yoga classes and girls club and I tell them we can start again next week.  Finish class and head home.
 Nap time. I take a nap and wakeup around the time the kids get home from school. Play with them for about an hour and talk to my hhost family. Exchanged bbms with friends about upcoming vacation plans. And how everyones day went.

Start making dinner early while watching friday nightt lights. End up spending the rest of the day doing that, while also planning tomorrows lesson. The enduring conundrum of how to improve the learners reading abilities without books keepson coming, but everyday brings a new solution