Blazer

           Our packing list said to bring one nice formal outfit for celebratory occasions. So I brought a blazer thinking I’d get to wear it to weddings, village ceremonies and the like. Unfortunately, I’ve donned that blazer far more times for funerals and memorial services than anything ebullient. This Sunday, I put on my jacket again not necessarily only to mourn the senseless murder of one of my South African friends, but to celebrate his amazing life and provide comfort to our friends.

            Amos was the guy who brought my first Brothers for Life group together. No one has made me prouder in Peace Corps than Amos. For any RPCVs or PCVs reading this, he was one I was sure was going to make it out of the vill. And you know those are few and far between. He was an amazing leader in and out of the classroom. Afterschool he would stay to help his fellow seniors study for their exams. On the weekends, he would write beats and songs with his rap group composed of other guys from our Brothers for Life club. A few weeks ago we started looking into ways he could actually pursue his dreams of becoming a police officer or a social worker.

            On Saturday night, he was at a shebeen with his girlfriend and two best friends Thabang and Thabang. A few guys asked him to help them find the path to another village in the dark and he agreed to walk them there. At his friends protest, Amos pulled out R20, handed it to them and said, “Look, I would never leave R20, so I promise I’ll be back.” Within a few minutes, Thabang and Thabang heard screaming from the trail. A few guys had attempted to rob Amos while he walked the trail in the dark. When he refused to give up his phone, he was stabbed in the heart and left to die. The two Thabangs found him there.

            What hurts the most is that a young man with so much potential to change the world was taken from us, instantly and unjustly. So this weekend, when I put on my blazer to honor the man Amos was, I hope you can also take a moment to think and pray for the young people in South Africa; those who are doing the right thing and becoming the men and women who will shape this country’s future. They need all the support they can get.

Bonds

I’ve been living in South Africa for 16 months now, and with in my community for over 12 of those. Before now, I never really considered the relationships I was building with my host family, my friends and co-workers. The friendships I made and the trust I developed for others came naturally over time and I rarely found myself in a position to think back on it.

Recently however, my host mom took a teaching position that requires her to live away from home during the week. She had been living at home with me full time since January and I had grown used to the new relationship we had of talking every afternoon when I got home from work. Our ability to speak in English allowed us to talk about all sorts of things: politics, her family, my family and more. Her leaving made me realize how much I felt apart of her family and how much I would miss not having her there to greet and talk with when I came home. This has happened with a lot of my relationships in Peace Corps. I’ve grown closer to my co-workers and supervisor, and I am excited to see (most of) them when I get back from trips. It is especially true with my fellow PCVs. Our collective attempts at understanding and coping with this experience brought us together out of necessity, but it is certainly the memories we created together that keep us close. While not at all the same, it reminds me of the bonds soldiers make in war: our friends/family at home cannot begin to imagine or relate to what were going through. But the guy/girl in the next bunker (village) knows exactly what it is like, so you go to them for support. If I leave with only one thing it’s the lifelong friendships I’ve made here in Peace Corps.

16 Months of Learning

1) I’ve found that I’ve adjusted completed to the slower pace of life, frequently dubbed “Africa Time” that is present in most of South Africa. In a lot of ways this has helped me better integrate into my community because I am in tune with the schedule of goings-on. However, my succumbing to “Africa Time” has it’s downsides. For instance, my counterparts were eager to start a new Zazi club. I happily agreed and we discussed some details and then we went about our days. I wholeheartedly expected to have at least two or three more of these casual discussions of the program before we got anything moving, so I was shocked when two days later my counterparts approached me and told me they were starting sessions the following Monday, only 4 days away. I had to scramble to get them supplies and documents for the program and it was nobodies fault but my own.

2) I am almost positive that every single PCV who has ever served has developed the same expression. It carries no real emotion, just an appreciation of whatever is going on and your utter lack of surprise at it. I can only describe it as the Barack Obama “Not Bad” meme, coupled with “Yep” instead.

Taxi breaks down? Yep.

Waitress teaches you how to eat ethnic food by sampling what she just brought you? Yep.

Nobody shows up for your event? Yep.

Someone calls you Lekgowa (white person), even though you know they know your real name? Yep.

Someone calls you fat (a compliment in South Africa) after you get back from the capital? Yep.

3) My ability to speak Sepedi has greatly increased over the past year. I frequently find myself speaking Sepedi without realizing it, or without first having to translate in my head. Having never studied another language as intently, I am really fascinated by the brain’s ability to tie words from different languages together so tightly that translation isn’t needed. There is still work to be done though. My grammar is atrocious and I weasel my way out of speaking in certain tenses (Past Negative) by piecing together from what I am comfortable with.

 4) Whether I am speaking in English or Sepedi, I have learned to use hand gestures for almost everything. It helps to prevent the inevitable, “what?” when someone didn’t exactly understand me, or I was speaking a little too fast in English.

5) Long Distance Travel has taken on a whole new meaning for me. Back in The States, the 6-7 hour drive from MA to MD was about the worst I would usually deal with. Now, I find it lucky that the taxi home from my shopping town only took 1h50min, or that I made it to Pretoria in less than 9 hours. Taxi travel has its upside: yes the gas is much cheaper. However I dream about having my car back. That six-hour journey from MA to MD is going to seem like nothing when I return. Why? Because I can stop when I want. I can listen to the music I want. And most importantly, when it is hot enough to bake bread in my car, I can turn on the A/C or even roll down the windows.

Trainees and Eskom

Trainee Visit

Last week I had new Peace Corps Trainees (PCTs) visit me for a few days. The purpose of the visit is to show PCTs, brand new to South Africa, what it is like to be a day-to-day Peace Corps Volunteer. During their 3-month training, they, like I did, will get intensive language instruction, background history for South Africa, and an introduction to the various work of Peace Corps Volunteers in the Community HIV/AIDS Outreach Program. The visit is mostly meant to settle their nerves and give them a sneak peak of what is to come.

            My two visitors were James (40s) and Jonathan (60s). Jonathan was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the 70s in Thailand and then became a Physicians Assistant with the military before joining a private practice and finally settling on joining the Peace Corps again. James is a lawyer from California who wanted a change in his life and decided on the Peace Corps. We spent two days checking out my village: going to my org’s office, the Drop-In Center, the tribal office, the clinic, the greenery, and a few spots around the village I really enjoy taking people to (the “water” tower, for those who have visited me!)

            Throughout the entire three days, I kept having flashbacks to my site visit over a year ago when I was asking similar questions, having the same problems understanding how things worked (or didn’t work) and overall being in awe of a volunteer who had already made it a year. While I am sure neither James or Jonathan was in awe, it was a great reminder for me that I’ve already made it an entire year! Time flies, no matter where you are.

 Eskom

Eskom, the government power utility company, has been making headlines in South Africa for about the past year. Eskom has had trouble producing the power necessary to keep everything running in South Africa. Considering that Eskom also produces 45% of the energy on the continent, this is a pretty big problem but only recently has it been getting the criticism it deserves. For some time last year, and continuously so far in 2015, Eskom has implemented what it calls “load shedding.” This term describes the rolling blackouts Eskom uses to ensure the power grid doesn’t overload. Typically, 3-4 times a week (sometimes more, sometimes less) the power will shut off on the hour and return about 2 to 2 ½ hours later. This really isn’t a big deal, as PCVs we signed up to go without electricity; so going a few hours here and there isn’t so bad. However, businesses all over South Africa are really suffering from a loss of business or a loss of product. Imagine South Africa’s mining industry, one of the largest in the world, being shut down on a daily basis because the power company in unreliable. Or a restaurant, unable to cook for people (who can’t cook themselves at home) losing out on valuable business. 

The government has proposed a bailout for Eskom and South Africans everywhere are hoping the company can fix its generators, coal silos, etc. soon. Otherwise, as Eskom has warned, we may be plunged into perpetual darkness for two or more weeks if “one more unexpected problem occurs.”

The Transition

Every December, most South African businesses (excluding the tourism industry) take a month off to celebrate the holidays. In keeping with tradition, my NGO knocked off from 12 December to 12 January. Like most other PCVs, I used that time to travel and see other parts of South Africa and escape the sauna that is Limpopo Province.

I was fortunate enough to have Steve visit over Christmas and our adventure took us from Port Elizabeth, along the Garden Route to Hermanus and finally Cape Town and the wine region. I say this only because I want readers to understand that for about a month (I traveled to Durban before Steve arrived) I was living in the first world: everyone spoke English, I ate at restaurants, drank in safe bars, acted like a tourist, spent too much money…you get the gist.  

So when I returned to my site in Limpopo (the poorest province of SA remember) it was a complete 180 degree turnaround from the life I had been enjoying. I was back to speaking Sepedi, enduring long taxi rides, hauling water, etc. I don’t mean to complain, only to say this has been a really eye-opening experience. I've never been away from site for this long and when I first got to South Africa, Peace Corps did a really good job slowly easing us from America to our middle-of-nowhere villages. It was nothing like the Cape Town to Site jump that left me sitting at the Drop-In Center, watching barefoot kids play games whilst caregivers napped on cardboard boxes, pondering how I got to this point in my life.

This is an experience I should be used to. As a PCV living in a country with some of the wealthiest people on the continent, I should expect to see this kind of disparity. Whenever I go to my shopping town, I encounter people asking for spare change side by side with the rich loading their Woolworths groceries (okay I sometimes shop there too) into their Mercedes or BMW. My holidaze however, left me with a new question that I had yet to consider: how do rural South Africans, who live without access to clean water, proper sanitation, etc., travel to places like Pretoria or (heaven forbid) Cape Town, and then return knowing there is no end date to their stay in the village?! See for me, I can always say, “X more months,” but my South African counterparts can’t and I wonder what that does to their mental state: If it’s a mind fu*k for me, it most certainly is for them but on a whole different level. Though maybe, like a lot of issues surrounding inequality and racism in South Africa, it's just part of their daily life.

Please don’t take this as saying I don’t necessarily enjoy living in the village. I have a wonderful host family, I've met amazing friends who inspire me, and I've already starting planning my activities for 2015. It’s just those first few days, that adjustment period, that time when I’m not quite out of First World Mode but not quite in Third World Village Mode. That is what really messes with me. 

The Rainy Season has Begun

Rain. I didn’t think I could ever appreciate such a simple thing so much. The rainy season in Limpopo runs from October to April. Last week I sat on my porch and watched a massive thunderstorm roll in over the mountains and inundate my village. We needed it. It hasn’t rained significantly since April and the wonderful respite it brought from the early summer heat was a relief, not to mention the extra water it brought to our strategically placed 50 gal. drums and JoJo.

The moment brought me back to a time about 2 years ago when I took a trip back to Johnson School to meet with Mr. Wood, a 4^th grade RPCV and teacher, who instilled the idea of the Peace Corps in me with just one simple slideshow back in the year 2000. I went to see Mr. Wood because I was still unsure if the Peace Corps was for me, or whether I could handle being sent overseas to serve for 27 months. I wanted to hear about his experiences as a PCV in Thailand in the early 90s. As he was walking me out of the building (me still very unsure) he said, “Look, if the idea of watching a thunderstorm roll in over endless rice paddies after a long hot day appeals to you at all, I think you should apply.” Well, I did and it was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

Finally, my garden, which I’ve been working on since I got to site has finally begin paying off! I have TONS of broccoli and my carrots, red onions, beets and tomatoes should be just about ready in the coming weeks. I am currently at a training to get more in-depth knowledge of some of our partnering programs, including GRS and BFL and also attend a perma-gardening workshop that I can use to help establish a easy-to-maintain garden at my Drop In Center.