The weird nature of development

When I got home from Permagarden training, my Baba was making a garden in our front yard. The point of the training was to take this knowledge back to our communities...but for some reason, Bundu already had and was taking advantage of this knowledge.

This thing has been happening more and more to me lately. Right before In Service Training, my local HBC started a garden, that is now bearing lots of vegetables. My Gogo's group told me they had started exercising four days a week. When I got to my host family in March, all three host mothers were unemployed. Now they all have full time jobs.

The weird thing is...I really don't think I had very much to do with this. In the beginning of my service, I remember feeling incredibly overwhelmed. I was replacing an amazing volunteer who had done a lot for Bundu. More importantly, she had done a lot of work in behavior change, changing the minds of everyone she had worked with, encouraging them to work harder, that their dreams were doable. I've been here six months and I see the effects of Sbongile's (I'm going to put her South Africa name here because I didn't ask her permission to include her in this posts) work every single day. Her shoes are huge and I'm worried I cannot fill them.

But then I took a step back. Bundu is changing. Bundu is developing. Slowly but surely, I see a changing Bundu, where more people are becoming employed, where more students are going to university, where more girls are starting to believe in themselves and their potential. And it really doesn't matter whether it was mine, Sbongile's or the community itself's effort. It matters the most that Bundu is becoming a better community, not who is responsible for it.

So, I continue to try my best, work my hardest and enjoy myself. I wake up everyday thanking Sbongile and her efforts, because they make my job a lot easier and more fulfilling. I also wake up everyday thanking the weird luck that put me in this wonderful community, where people are committed, care, and most importantly are the kindest people I've ever me

I was talking to one of my friends from America and mentioned I was in a bad mood for no apparent reason. She asked me what had happened that week and after I finished telling her we both realized that my bad mood for no apparent reason...had actually a lot of reasons.

Last week was bad. For many different reasons, some of them I don't feel comfortable talking about on said blog. The main one is that I had to say goodbye to many friends this weekend, the last of my 22 friends finished up their service and left. Two friends of mine in my cohort also left unexpectedly and I wasn't able to say goodbye. I had several bad days at school where I couldn't get the kids to be quiet or pay attention and ended up in tears one day. There was a week long celebration across the street which included very loud music at all hours so I could barely sleep. And other stuff.

But there was good stuff too. Spent a lot of time with my host family, got to see some friends even if they were leaving, took a practice GRE and watched some good tv. And even if it was hard, at least its over.

Peace Corps is hard. Its incredibly hard at times. But there is always good times. Always fun. Even on the toughest weeks I am glad to be here.

Every Sunday, a group of us SA25s would get together by the river. We'd swim, play, chat and relax. Some of my favorite memories of PST include that river. I continued to hang out at that river all throughout the summer

Fast forward six months later. I'm starting to get incredibly sick. I can't keep any food down, my stomach is in lots of pain. I call my helpful PCMOs who tell me to get to Pretoria ASAP. After a couple days of tests in Pretoria, I find out that I have schistosomaisis. http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/schistosomiasis/. Basically, I've got my first parasite.

I'm in some good company, as 200 million people have schisto. However, most schisto takes at least 2 years to turn from active to inactive. I had super schisto, it seems, as it only took six months. Luckily, I caught it soon enough so it won't do any lasting damage. However, Schisto, if untreated, can cause orgtan damage and even death. However, even though I was in a lot of pain, those Sundays by the river were worth it

After surviving schisto, I went directly to Polokwane for Permagarden training. We spent three days learning how to make our own permagardens, which included making our own. It was incredibly fun and educational. My thumb is definitely not green, but with this training, I feel like I can make my own garden. It was also great to see the fellow participants, which included the 25's who live in limpopo and mpumalanga, as well as some 24's. We had a blast.

Now I'm on my way back to Bundu am excited to go back to normal life.

Teacher?

When I was applying to the peace corps, I remember telling my father " If they assign me to do English teaching, I'm out". The last thing I wanted was to go to another country and teach English. However, as of last monday, I am the newest grade 9 english teacher at Nyambela Senior Primary School.

How did this happen? Partially motivated by boredom. I can do ten or twenty projects between the hours of 2 and 5 p.m. However, because I have no hosting organization, the hours of 8 to 2 have always been...well, empty, except on Wednesdays when I have my gogo's group. I needed something to do during that time. so I went over to the middle school, where I have a good relationship with the staff, and asked if they needed my help. They said they needed a teacher. Specifically 9th grade english. The principal was teaching that class, but many times he couldn't be there because of his principal duties. So they learners suffered. 9th grade english at the school had one of the lowest pass rates; only 37% of the learners passed the class last quarter. And passing is only 30% in this country. So I decided, eh, Why not?

It's been two classes, and already I can tell this is going to be a challenge. How do you help kids read when they have no books? How do you control a classroom of 40 to 60 kids at a time? This is a lot different from my ninth grade english days at Marin Academy (15 motivated kids. A great teacher. Resources abound). I've also never taught before.

But I'm giving it my best shot, and so far its been going okay. I have started the learners doing daily free writing, taught them hangman and ran a debate whether boys are better than girls. The last volunteer started a library which has some textbooks, specifically devoted to english, so I'm going to be combing through them to see if there is anything useful. The bar is pretty low, so if I can increase the number passing to 50%, I'll consider myself a great success. I also probably had the worst that could happen to a teacher happen...my skirt fell down in the middle of class (wrap skirts can be a doozy). But after the laughter died down, I kept on teaching and the kids still paid attention. So, I've already hit rock bottom. Nowhere to go but up.

I've also learned during my seven months that development work is egoless. My job is to help the community the best I can. And if it means teaching English...call me a teacher.

Different things about South Africa, or things about south africa that used to make me pause (part 1)

- When I'm walking or anywhere in the village, I have to greet everyone. Whether I know them or not. It's a pretty defined script "Hello, Hello, how are you, I am fine and you, I am fine" or "lochani, yebo, ninjani, si kona, ninjani si kona",. but skip it and you will be incredibly rude. Greetings also go by age. Younger people greet older first. However since I am the Kuwa (ndebele word for white person), It all goes weird and sometimes I greet younger people (usually because they are too freaked to greet me) and am greeted by older people (because I either forget or am up in the clouds). This doesn't happen outside of my village, but I do greet some people in my shopping town and occasionally accidentally in Pretoria. Also, before you ask a question, like "where is the time?" "where is the bathroom?" or buy something, actually before you have any interaction with people, you must do this.

-The next question after the greeting is usually "uyaphi?" or "where are you going?" This only happens when I'm walking. But yes, everyone wants to know where I'm going. Anywhere. Always. This has to do with pre phone days, so if you were going somewhere, someone knew where you were. Mostly I reply "ekhaya (home)" "eskolweni (school)" "hbc home" "kwagga (shopping town)" "pretoria"  or "emphuleni (river)"

-Khumbis/taxi. Big white 16 to 22 passenger miniwans that will take you everywhere in South Africa. Even my tiny village. When going from the village to kwagga, the taxi just drives around in a circle and picks people up. I usually have to wait anywhere from .5 seconds to ten minutes to get picked up. The annoying part is that when leaving the shopping town or going anywhere else, you usually have to wait until the taxi fills up. This can take anywhere from .5 seconds to....my current record is 4 hours. Many friends of mine have beaten that. Its incredibly annoying, especially when I just miss a full taxi and have to wait forever for the next one to fill up. I always come prepared with a book and if I know its going to take a long time, I usually get out and get a soda or some food or make a phone call..

-Soundtrack. In America, usually, except for a party or something, people play their music with headphones. Music, even in restaurants or stores is usually ambient. Not  in South Africa. In South Africa, everyone broadcasts their own personal soundtrack on their cellphones. Incredibly loudly. Or in their homes. At club level. Or on the khumbis. So I am inundated with loud house/ndebele christian music/70's power ballads (this country loves lionel richie. And Peter Gabriel. And Dolly Parton. as well as many others) at all times. Its...well...annoying is definitely the right word. But I can sometimes use this to my advantage. When I'm walking to different places, you can bet I'm blasting sublime/ratatat/bon iver... a lot of other fun pump up music as my own personal soundtrack. And it is kind of awesome.

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.