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

Progress Report

As of a week or so ago, I finished my 8th month in country and my 6th month at site. Crazy, huh? At least I think it is. I had to fill out my first VRF or volunteer report form, which is to convince the dudes in Washington that it makes sense to have us here (I had a dream last night that everyone was removed from south africa due to violence and given interrupted service...thank god I have never had a prophetic dream in my life) Anyways, I decide it is high time to give some sort of progress report

School: school is out for this week and I wasn't teaching recently due to exams. However, next week, I shall return to teaching grade 9 english and maybe some life orientation classes. I'm a bit nervous, my adventures in the classroom have definitely been rocky. But I've learned some good techniques through trial and error.

Library: My goal this term is to get people to actually use the library, as because of its resources and worry people will misuse them, a lot of the time it sits dormant. So I hope to start some type of afterschool library gatherings a couple times a week

Girls Club: Because of the awesomeness of Sbongile, the Girl's club basically runs itself. My goal is to get it to flap its wings and fly. Its been dormant this term as the leaders have been distracted as have I by teaching. But I hope to revive it and let the caterpillar grow into a beautiful butterfly

Gogo's Group: the gogo's group is its own little butterfly. Right now we have all the materials and even a seller for the vaseline...we just haven't actually made it yet. Every week something comes up. But once we start making it, it will hopefully be a success. The gogo's have also decided to continue the bead work, this time using more traditional ndebele beadwork. The results so far are stunning. We will definitely have customers. My goal will be selling and marketing. The Gog's themselves have picked up exercising like teenagers with Justin Bieber and are now playing soccer and doing other exercises about four times a week. This is all thanks to my awesome counterpart and friend, mama tlou, who if she were born in the states, probably would be the head of a fortune five hundred company. She is that awesome.

I have some other ideas for projects in the works, but I'll see how those go before I post them on the internet. Suffice to say I have broken out of my slump that I was having a couple weeks ago and am now all sunshiney and happy. Teaching the neighborhood kids gymnastics and baseball. Enjoying my time with my host family. Planning fantastic trips for the rest of the year (drakensberg mountains! polokwane thanksgiving! provincial conference in Nelspruit! Turtles in St. Lucia! Beach in Durban!....THREE WEEKS IN AMERICA!) Yeah, not like I'm excited to go home...whatsoever.

I'm almost a third of the way done with my service. Keep on keeping on.

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.