Saying Goodbye

Peace Corps is like high school, in many unfortunate and fortunate ways, but I'm just going to talk about one right now. There are anywhere from four to five classes at a time in South Africa, classes meaning the group with you came to Africa with, mine being SA25. The oldest class, the one who has been in South Africa the longest is considered the senior group, while the one that just got out of training is considered the freshman, the two other classes being the sophomore and junior class Right now, the 26's are in training while the 22's are leaving or COSing, which means us SA 25s to make the step up into the sophomore class. Scary eh, to think we have been here more than six months and have done about a quarter of our service.

When I was a young warthog...sorry, when I was a newly minted volunteer, I was placed in area with very few SA25's, but a lot of SA22's. They reached out to me and soon I was part of their family. Which included apple pie bakeoffs, girly movie watching nights, meetups for pizza and grocery shopping in our shopping town, movie trips to Pretoria to see the latest volunteer. They helped me get settled in Kwandebele and became some of my closest friends. They also introduced me to their SA22 friends, and soon I had tons of SA22 friends in several provinces. They became some of my closest friends as well and we spent a lot of time having both heart to hearts and adventures.

Unfortunately for me, out of the original group of four who helped me out, three have finished their service and are back in America. The rest of my 22 friends are soon to leave the country as well. As my closest friend leaves the country on Wednesday, I'm incredibly sad.

However, it's just part of the peace corps process. People come, people bond, people leave, people meet new people and the cycle repeats. Apparently there will be some 26's moving to my area. I'm excited to meet them and hopefully they will help fill the hole in my heart that the 22's have vacated. They just have a lot to live up to.

Comparison is Futile

I spent last weekend with a group of my fellow volunteers on a weekend getaway. We went to a hot springs that was close to another volunteer's site. The fun times included a mexican feast, lots of bathing in the hotsprings, mini golf and hot showers, all for relatively cheap.

What I was struck by the most is how there were ten of us, all peace corps south africa volunteers...yet all having incredibly different experiences. Two volunteers live together in a suburb of a city. They have running (hot!) Water and easy access to a supermarket and good food. Both of them work at ngos doing capacity building and have offices and computers. Compare that to me. My office is my house. No ngo or supervisors. No running water and a thirty minute taxi ride to a supermarket. And yet we are all peace corps volunteers. However, I'm not making any value judgments on whether their experiences are harder or easier (truth be told, I actually think I'm having an easier time) because its very hard to compare.

Another volunteer I was with last weekend lives on her organization's compound and thus doesn't have a host family. Very different. One volunteer is on her third year and spends half the time working for peace corps south africa and half her time working for a private christian school in a large city. Two volunteers I was with were education volunteers.

Although comparing our experiences isn't quite like comparing apples to oranges (we are all peace corps volunteer in south africa after all) it is not one to be easily done.

Community Integration

Dear Readers, sorry to be so inconsistent with these blog posts. I will not promise to be more consistent...because I doubt it's one I can keep, but I will try!

The beginning of IST marked the end of the so called 3 month community integration period, affectionately known to PCVs as lockdown. And at the end of this period, I took some stock and realized that I have integrated. I wouldn't be able to tell you why or how or when, but somehow Bundu became my home and the people there accept me as their own.

I didn't realize how much I had integrated until I had the good fortune to have a couple of visitors. Four of my fellow SA 25's came to visit their old host families who live in my village. I went with three of them to visit one of their host families. While that family greeted their hos daughter and the other americans with hugs and exclamations, I was greeted with a "oh hey Lilly". Other americans visiting them was a huge deal. My visit was nothing out of the ordinary.

I had another friend who was not part of my training class and had never been to Bundu, visit. When he visited, he was struck by how busy and crowded my shopping town was and how he was constantly being gawked at. My response was "oh, I didn't notice". And it was true. My shopping town is busy and crowded and I probably get gawked at a decent amount...but I truly barely even notice it anymore.

On Thursday SA 25 hits its 6th month in country. It has definitely been a crazy roller coaster ride. But now, I truly feel like I belong

IST!

For the last...tenish days, I and my fellow members of SA 25 have been at In Service Training. At the behest of the U.S. taxpayers (thanks mom, dad and others), we have been staying an amazing resort. Delicious food, hot showers, wifi, swimming pool, sauna...the works. Apparently PCSA likes to spoil us twice during service, at IST to reward us for making it through the first three months and Close of Service to reward us for actually making it through the whole service.

Besides lounging around at the resort, we have been attending sessions from about 8 to 5. These sessions have been everything from completely useless to incredibly informative. My favorites have been when outside organizations have come in and presented possible programs that we can use at site. I came away with a lot of new ideas and projects to do in Bundu.

It's also been really fun hanging out with my fellow SA 25's. I've had a great time hanging out with my friends, especially the ones who live in the far reaches of KZN and Limpopo and who I won't be able to see a ton of during my service, unless I am willing to travel 6 to 14 hours. A bunch of us are going to stay in Pretoria for a few days to celebrate 4th of July. My plans for next week include a lion park, a spa day, a trivia contest and lots of good food.

Highlights of IST include a trip to the America Club to celebrate fourth of July. The party included the ambassador, many other ex pats, a cotton candy machine, several bouncy houses, a volleyball tournament, and a clown. Another highlight was meeting everyone's supervisors/counterparts and having some fun cultural exchanges, which included teaching south africans to make s'mores.

Right now, I'm feeling a little stir crazy from being cooped up in the resort for ten days. The sessions are pretty draining and I'm excited to have a little down time. Then I will go back to Bundu, all fired up with all these new projects (not mentioning what projects I'm thinking of doing in order not to jinx them).

Late Father's Day

About 5 to 10 years ago, my dad, for some reason, really wanted us to watch the movie "the great santini". The rest of the family resisted for some reason and I think we ended up watching "keeping the faith" for the twentieth time. However, my dad kept pushing it. And the more he pushed the more we resisted. To the point where we would pretend to put on the great santini...and then the opening credits would start. I think my dad fell for that one only a couple times. About a year or so after this all started, we finally ran out of excuses and watched it. I remember looking at my brother afterwards and saying "that was a good movie". The undertone being "Dad is right, yet again."

My father isn't right about everything. But there have been many behaviors that me and my siblings used to tease him about that we have now adopted. Little things like blotting our pizza with a paper towel, getting to the airport incredibly early, packing the night before, printing out directions to places we are going, not taking food from the mini bar. And larger things, like keeping incredibly detailed financial records, reading every line of every contract we sign, taking a lot of time to find the best or cheapest way to buy or do something.

A word I would use to describe my dad is thorough. While that quite annoying to us when we were younger, and still annoys us at times, my siblings and I have started to realize how helpful and necessary this.

My dad is not just thorough in regards to paperwork, but to people as well. Even though he worked anywhere from 60 to 90 hours a week when we were little, he made sure to come to almost every tee ball game, every dance performance, every hebrew school celebration. When we had to attend saturday services in order obtain our bar or bat mitzvah, he went with us to every single one. He stayed up past midnight to edit our papers even through college. He was our biggest supporter and our biggest cheerleader.

These two plus years will be the longest I have been away from my parents. However, my dad keeps in touch through calls and emails. He seems to spend a lot of his free time researching and learning about south africa and peace corps. That or talking about me and my siblings to anyone and everyone. Even though my parents aren't coming here for at least a year, my dad has started researching hotels and places to go. I'm expecting him to have a full itinerary of the trip very soon. While thousands of miles away, my dad still finds ways to supportsme.

Happy father's day (and late birthday) dad. I love you and miss you so much.

Now that the school term is winding down, my Girls Club is over til Mid July. Since that was my biggest project, it has been pretty slow going in Bundu. I'm using the most of my extra time to write my Community Needs Assessment, basically a document that tries to synthesize everything I know about the town. It is "due" at the end of the week (In South Africa, both due dates and stop signs are just suggestions).  I've been making progress and might actually get it done before the real due date, but I think if I finish it by IST, I will be good.

In approximately 12 days, IST starts. IST is a ten day conference in which we present our CNAs, receive presentations from several outside organizations as well as intra peace corps organizations, and what I am most excited about, A three day workshop with the CDC (Centers for Disease Control). The CDC workshops were my favorite part of PST and I am excited to have more of them.

But mostly I'm excited to see my fellow SA25s! I've managed to see a couple in my travels to Pretoria and am luckily close enough to Alyssa to see her about every other weekend. I'm also lucky to have a cluster of 22s right near me and a cluster of 24s within a couple khumbi rides. However, I spent two months with my fellow 25sw, along with a lot of blood sweat and tears. I am very excited to see their smiling faces and talk with them about their stories. IST ends July 3rd, so many of us are sticking around in Pretoria afterwards to celebrate the fourth. IST plus extra vacation time should be about almost two-three weeks straight out of site, which will definitely be fun, but I'm going to miss Bundu while I'm gone.

What I do

In bundu, I play many different roles. I am a club leader, I am a friend, I am exercise leader, I am a marketing specialist, I am an HIV educator, I am a daughter, I am an ant killer, I am a teacher, I am a sister, I am a peace corps volunteer. But the role I play most is one of a facilitator.

When I came to Bundu, I was inundated with resources. These resources mostly came in the form of people. The previous volunteer, who I will remain forever grateful to, spent a lot of her time training people, especially middle school girls, in areas of health education and self esteem. I quickly realized what these girls needed was not a teacher. They had that in the previous volunteer. What they needed was a place to teach themselves, to teach others, to have fun. They needed support, acknowledgment that their dreams could come true. I think what they needed was someone who would listen to them and say yes.

So with the help of an incredibly supportive principal, I've started clubs. Before school for an hour, and after school for about an hour and a half, a group of about 25 to 40 girls gather in the library the previous volunteer constructed. In the mornings, we do typical peace corps girls group activities, such as self esteem work, goal setting and sharing troubles. The afternoons are more typical club oriented. We've had math sessions, drama sessions, geography sessions and my personal favorite, library sessions. Sometimes I stand at the board and teach.

But most often, I am a participant, letting the girls run the show. They often are the teachers, the older girls sharing their knowledge with the younger ones. In the morning sessions, a few of the girls that were trained to be peer educators by the previous volunteer do all the teaching. In the afternoon, I teach the academics, but sit down for most of the lessons. I perform crowd control when needed (I taught everyone the quiet coyote signal) and also advise. With my gogos group, it is similar. I lead exercise classes, I help with the beadwork and vaseline work, I do some teaching about health but most of it is run by a very awesome woman.

 I don't do much. I say I'm a facilitator. But what I really am is a believer. I believe in the power of these people. And that belief contributes to them doing great things.