It’s Official: Our Swearing-In Ceremony, September 21

The day before our official swearing in-ceremony, we all packed up our belongings and headed back to the youth center for one last night in the rondavales. Joe went over early as he was making another trip to Pretoria to help return trainees’ computer hardware items (proved useless with the USB cords most of us brought) and to help shop for our celebratory BBQ dinner. Kelli packed up our bags, made more difficult by our newly purchased items and the 40 pounds of books, medical kits, mosquito nets and water filters given to us by the PC and relaxed with the other trainees for the remainder of the afternoon at the youth center. It was fun to reacquaint ourselves with the NGO volunteers as we had seen them only 2 other times after moving in with our host families. The evening progressed with the return of the Pretoria trip, hamburgers and hot dogs, stories, showers, a call from Kelli’s dad, and early birthday presents for Kelli that Joe had purchased in Pretoria.

We awoke the next morning in the same rondavale that had accommodated us during our first week in Africa enthusiastic to start the next part of our journey. We dressed in the nicest clothes that we had brought (thanks Christi for picking these out for us before we left!) and jumped in the Peace Corps cumbi’s that whisked us to Zitabiseni (the same resort where we had our principals’ workshop). The Deputy Ambassador to the U.S. Embassy, a representative from the department of education, two trainees and our country director all gave moving speeches during our ceremony. The woman from the department of education spoke about South Africa’s distant and recent history, connecting us to the first humans and the freedom fighters and emphasizing the importance of team work. Our PCT representative made us all proud by writing and masterfully delivering a speech in Zulu (clicks and all) which made the audience laugh, cry, clap and shout with joy. Lisa, our country director, encouraged us all to write down our goals for becoming a Peace Corps volunteer so that we could continually refer back to them over the roller coaster that will be our next two years. We also sang both of our national anthems and recited the oath that officially confirmed us as Peace Corps Volunteers. The day continued with a delicious buffet lunch, good-bye’s, the incredible task of fitting all of our luggage into our principal’s car (successfully completed with the help of a neighboring truck), and finally arriving back in Vezubuhle for the start of our two year adventure. We were pleasantly surprised and extremely excited by the sight of two double beds and two wardrobes awaiting us in our new home. The day concluded with dinner with our new family and sweet dreams of the future.

picture: Day 1 of 736

Our Last Night with the Nkosi’s: September 19

Our last night with the Nkosi’s was filled with mixed emotions. We were extremely excited to have passed our language exam and to finally see the end of training, however we would be leaving a group of truly amazing people. We spent the afternoon with our brothers and sisters, walking to get cold drink and to check the mail and chatting over dinner preparations. The electricity was out so instead of watching TV after dinner we gathered around the ‘unused’ kitchen table to drink coke and look at our world and U.S. maps by candlelight. We had the best time pointing out different countries, making up dream vacations, discussing the diversity that makes our world so interesting, and making shadow puppets on the walls. The night concluded with the exchange of phone numbers and promises to visit each other over the next two years. This should be relatively easy as our permanent site is so close to Bundu, compared to other trainees who have a day’s journey to their sites.

picture: This is what the Peace Corps is all about!

A Fond Farewell: September 17

On our last weekend in Bundu the Peace Corps threw a farewell party for our host families in order to formally thank them for their hospitality. The party began with a three hour ceremony in which the trainees delivered speeches in native languages, acted out skits and sang songs, traditional dancers and singers performed and the host families were awarded certificates of appreciation. Joe was the star of the ‘yebo’ skit in which the language instructors kept asking him to perform certain tasks, such as taking care of a baby, holding various bags, marrying a woman, and participating in a traditional ceremony, to which ignorant Joe kept responding “yebo” (yes). The skit concluded with Joe being lead away by two women while Kelli was trying to figure out what was going on. Joe’s punch line was, “guess I should have learned more in language class than yebo”. It was especially funny to us that Joe was picked for this skit, considering his difficulties with foreign languages. Following the ceremony, we all feasted on rice, umratha, boiled vegetables and beef from the cow that was sacrificed for the ceremony. We all had a great time and everyone enjoyed calling Joe ‘yebo’ for the rest of the day.

pictures: Farewell celebration; "Yebo" skit; Traditional Ndebele dancers; our sisters

Pretoria: A Shopping Extravaganza, September 16

During our last week of training, Peace Corps took us on a one-day tour and shopping trip to Pretoria. Intellectually we were all aware of the stark class differences prevalent in the country, but it wasn’t until it hit us full in that face that we were able to truly understand the huge disparity between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’. We began the day with bucket baths, breakfast prepared on the coal stove, and boarding a bus in a rural village of dirt roads and tin roofs and two hours later were walking through an air conditioned mall with an ice skating rink, bowling alley, movie theater, McDonalds, and hundreds of stores and restaurants catering to the well-off. Unfortunately we didn’t have much time to contemplate these separate worlds for long as we only had a few hours and a long list of items for purchase, number one being cell phones. Who would have thought that our first real cell phones would be purchased in South Africa in the Peace Corps?! PC strongly encourages all volunteers to purchase and carry a cell phone with them at all times as it is the easiest and most efficient means of communication in the country. After three cell phone stores, we finally found what we wanted, one super cheap phone and one with the capability of connecting our computer to the internet. We also purchased a kettle (essential for boiling drinking water and warming bathing water), clothesline, wash basin, hangers, fridge, and other essentials such as a wok =). The day wouldn’t be complete without taking advantage of the restaurants, so we gorged ourselves with pizza (the first cheese we had seen since arriving) and milkshakes. The bus ride back was filled with the comfortable silence of 40 volunteers in food comas.

The Inyama Party: September 10

Two weekends before the end of training, a fellow PCT threw an inyama party at his host family’s house in Machipe (the neighboring village to Bundu). At the beginning of training, Tom had convinced a group of fellow trainees to invest part of their weekly allowance in the purchase of a pig to be sacrificed at the conclusion of training. He had named the pig inyama which means ‘meat’ in Ndebele. We were all very excited at the opportunity to spend a relaxing afternoon together, complete with music and traditional foods. Each language group was responsible for a portion of the meal and our group had decided to make mashed sweet potatoes because we thought it would be relatively simple. On the morning of the party, our language group met ready to cook with a bag full of potatoes and one huge pot. Two hours later the huge pot of water on the wood stove had finally started to boil and by the third hour we finally had soft potatoes. The men in the group decided to keep the skins on in the interest of time, as we were already late to the party, not foreseeing the commotion that would cause later. It is pretty much a rule that you peel the skins off of every vegetable before you eat them, and many of the villagers were disgusted with our mashed potatoes a la peel. They tasted good to us! The highlight of the party was watching the pig get cut into pieces as it was hanging from a tree and grilled on the open flame, marinated in beer. Joe also got to try and unsuccessfully stir the humongous pot of umratha. We enjoyed sharing stories with our fellow trainees in one of the last times that we would all be together over the next two years.

pictures: Yummy!, That's some pig!, Watch out Harry Potter . . .

Permanent Site Visit: A Look Into the Future, August 28 - September 3

One week of training was devoted to visiting our permanent site in order to meet our host families, the principals of our schools, and key community members. The week began with a two day workshop with the principals of the schools we would be working with for the next two years. The workshop was held at a resort not far from Bundu and attended by the education volunteers and principals in our region. Besides getting to know our six principals (we each have three schools) and discussing roles and expectations, we were treated to hot showers, excellent food, and a time to relax with the other trainees. The week continued with the short trip to our permanent site (we are only a 30 minute drive from Bundu) where we spent the remainder of the week visualizing ourselves in Vezubuhle for the next two years.

It was not difficult to visualize ourselves as part of our new family as we had a great time cooking, laughing, and exchanging pictures and stories with our new ma, Esther Jiyane (who is also the principal of one of Joe’s schools) and her sixteen year old daughter, Dora. The house however was a different story. We would be living in gogo’s house (very spacious with six rooms and a bathroom with a flush toilet!) right next door to Esther and Dora. However, we would be the only human inhabitants that the house had seen in over nine months. It was with mixed emotions that we explored our new home. We were thrilled with the space and spare bedroom (plenty of room for visitors) but overwhelmed with the dust, scat, mold, termite-eaten wood, chipped paint, gaping holes in the roof, broken windows, broken locks and clutter that overwhelmed the house. Each night as we snuggled into our sleeping bags on the cold cement floor, as the furniture promised by the department of education had not yet been delivered, we brainstormed about home improvement projects.

Although we had many ideas on how to make our house inhabitable, we were usually too exhausted from the day’s events to share them all. Our principals had scheduled a full week of introductions: the teachers, students and SGB (school governing body) members at all six of our schools, the traditional leader of our community, the local police and taxi stations, the circuit office of the department of education, the local doctor and community clinic, and the nearby shopping plazas. For each introduction, one of our principals explained our presence in one to two native languages before allowing us to say a few words. It was frustrating at times because some of the introductions would go on for 10 – 20 minutes with the two of us only understanding a handful of words. Although we are sure that more than a few misconceptions about our service were passed along during these introductions, the principals did do a good job of explaining two important messages: that we were to be treated as members of the community and that we do not come with bags of money.

During our visit, we also got to experience the adventure of Spring Day, September 21. In recent years the country’s youth have started a tradition of dumping water on each other in order to celebrate the first day of spring. Luckily we were forewarned and wore our rain jackets to school. Although Dora was drenched a few times during the day, we escaped unscathed. Spring Day not only introduced us to one of the many traditions here, but also opened our eyes to the flexibility of the school day. It appears that classes are cut short at the drop of a hat: a memorial service, spring day, not enough learners in the classroom, too much paperwork…. Although we understand and respect the differences in our two cultures, we also hope to inspire a culture of learning that will supersede these excuses to cancel classes.

Sunday was devoted to church. And what a church service it was! You might have to see a live performance of the Trans Siberian Orchestra before you can fully understand the 4 hour church service extravaganza. The church building was similar to all of the houses in the village, concrete walls, tin roof, bare, concrete floors, but it must have been held together with superglue because we are convinced that the volume of the church service would have blown any other building to bits. Picture 50 plastic chairs, 48 very excited South Africans, a sound system straight from the 80’s, including the massive keyboard, MC Hammer on the microphone and 4 hours of singing, dance circles, wailing prayers, clapping, moving testimonials, fire and brimstone sermons and the saving of souls. It was an experience we will not soon forget (the ringing in our ears will be a reminder for at least the next few years). Each member of the congregation got up to personally greet us and the entire service was translated into English for our benefit. We were overwhelmed with the love and hospitality extended to us.

The week finished up with a scheduled meeting with all six of our principals on Monday morning. Although we did successfully plan our school visitation schedules for the remainder of the year, we also got a huge lesson in patience and polychronic time. We finally started the meeting two hours after the scheduled time with only two of the principals in attendance (our mom and the principal of the hosting school) and had to wait while the principals recopied by hand our schedule from the previous week before we could plan our future school visits. We will definitely have to get creative in advertising meetings and provide incentives for attendance!

Our visit concluded with the journey back to Bundu – our first test in using public transportation by ourselves. We packed up our belongings, said goodbye to the family, and began the 25 minute walk to the tar road where we would catch our first cumbi (taxi). We didn’t have to wait long to catch a ride, but we did get a full tour of all the neighboring towns on our way. The 30 minute drive took over 2 hours and 2 taxis to complete. Always an adventure!

We were enthusiastically greeted by the Nkosi family upon our return and our bed actually didn’t look so bad anymore compared to the concrete floor!

pictures: our house; example of the language barrier; our new village

A Tribute to the Greatest Package Ever! August 26

Our two month celebration of landing in South Africa was highlighted by a package we received from Jason (Joe’s freshman year roommate) and his wife Katrina (of CTY fame). To understand the true value of the package you have to understand how important food had become in our lives. We had now been eating the same thing for about sixty consecutive days: corn flakes for breakfast, 3 peanut butter sandwiches and any oranges we could get our hands one (sometimes 3-4 each and sometimes none) for lunch, and umratha (the most bland tasting and heavy substance that can possibly be created from corn meal) for dinner. The lack of variety and flavor was starting to drive all of the trainees a little batty. We (trainees) could often be found sitting around talking about our dream meals. Then, miraculously, a package arrived with the world’s biggest homemade chocolate chip cake. We thought we were hallucinating, but that first bite sent us into a sensory orgasm. The cake was so good we still talked about it a month later. Katrina and Jason you ROCK! We welcome anyone to try to top their efforts =)

Our First Look at South African Schools: August 14- August 23

As part of our technical training, we spent 8 days visiting schools in the surrounding communities. We spent 4 days at two different schools in the village of Mathyszynloop. Our original language group of four spent the first week at a secondary school (grades 6-9). Upon arrival, we met the principal and deputy principal (vice principal) and were treated to a tour of the school: two buildings of 7 classrooms each, a resource room where all the books are kept, a ‘kitchen’ containing 2 big pots and a stove for the school lunch program (the government supplies bulk food staples that are cooked at school and served to students who have brought their own utensils to eat with/on), a small teachers lounge, the ‘cluster’ photocopier which is shared by all of the schools in the village, and the principal’s office with the huge safe that stores the 20 new computers that were donated but have yet to be touched because the school needs to first build a safe room for them and then find someone who knows how to use them. Like the houses, all of the schools are surrounded by high fences and barbed wire because theft is very common. Safe rooms, rooms constructed completely out of metal with a thick, heavy door, are essential if a school wishes to operate computers. Depending on the school, the office computer (each school is supplied with one computer) is either put into the safe each night or locked in a local teacher or SGB member’s house and retrieved each morning. We also saw the flush toilets that were built in the 1980’s but only became operational with running water last year.

For the remainder of the week we observed many classrooms and got to see the South African educational system in action. The classrooms were barren, concrete rooms each with 30 – 90 students crowded into desks with lecture and the chalkboard as the only means of instruction. Corporal punishment, although now illegal, is still very much a part of the classroom. Almost every teacher had sticks and some had belts. One teacher wore his belt around his neck as a constant reminder to his students. We all observed various methods of corporal punishment, ear twisting, slaps on the head, and hits on the back and hands. We also had the opportunity to interview the principal and a member of the SGB (the school governing body whose members, teachers, parents, administrators and students, serve for 3 years and decide everything from the official language and religion of the school, 90% of schools are declared Christian, to the school schedule and the principal). These interviews helped us expand our perspective of the school and the education system. Especially motivating was our interview with the president of the SGB, a highly organized and motivated mother. She outlined many ambitious plans for the upcoming 3 years and left us all feeling energized and full of ideas.

We spent the following week at a primary school (grades 1-6, kindergarten is just starting to become established in some schools) which was very similar to the secondary school, with the exception of the flush toilets. The four of us concluded our experience in the school by re-teaching a lesson on how to read a clock. The teacher had taught all of her students for the past 15 years or so that clocks are read by saying that when the minute hand in on the left side of the clock you use the word “to” and when the minute hand is on the right you use the word “past”. So her students think that 2:45 = forty-five minutes to 3 o’clock. We took the opportunity to model some basic teaching techniques for the teacher, such as a classroom contract, visual aids, student involvement, and group work. Once we convinced the teacher that she could not take the opportunity to go shopping in town, she enjoyed the lesson and told us she would try many of the teaching techniques that we had modeled. We felt like we were able to make an important positive impact in our short time at the school. We look forward to celebrating many similar victories in the future.

Over the 8 days in the two schools, we pretty much saw the good, the bad, and the ugly and have a better idea of what we are going to be tackling over the next 2 years. Most of the issues facing these schools stem from the horrors of apartied. During apartied the schools were designed to make the black youth stupid, poor, and oppressed. In 1999 the new government changed the laws and reformed the curriculum. The new curriculum is outstanding and even more progressive than some of the current American curriculums. The problem now is that changing the law and curriculum does not change 40 plus years of oppression and poverty. The teachers only know the system they were raised in and taught under. As we observed, it is typical to see 70 – 100 students in a classroom, students crammed in wooden desks that are falling apart, teachers using all forms of corporal punishment, prayer and preaching, teachers and textbooks giving misinformation, little to no resources (some students don’t even have a pencil), and unmotivated teachers who frequently leave their classrooms or don’t show up to classes at all. Furthermore, teaching is a flooded field because it was one of the few employment options for blacks during apartied; the HIV/AIDS epidemic has ravished all sections of society leaving a terribly high number of orphans, and the villages remain tragically poor. However, despite all the problems and obstacles there is hope. We have been moved by the hope and promise of what lies ahead. One can not be in South Africa long without feeling, being moved by, and joining in the wave of good will, energy, and determination. We feel like we will be part of and witness to some great changes in this country over the next few years.

Transportation and Strikes

Peace Corps policy states that we are not allowed to drive a car or a motorcycle during our 2 years of service, so we are learning the joys of public transportation in South Africa. We decided that our first excursion should be under the protection of our wonderful language instructor, so the nine of us all met up on a beautiful Saturday morning ready for an adventure. In order to get to “town” (about 20 minutes by car from our village) we had to wait on the side of the dirt road until a ‘cumbi’ – think 15 passenger van – came by for us to flag down. And it doesn’t matter if there are already 15 people and 3 babies in the taxi, “there’s always room for one more.” A cumbi finally came by after at least 30 minutes of waiting and we all piled in, squishing our bodies into any available space. Things were going fine and we all paid our 10 rand (7 rand = 1 US dollar) when we were pulled over, stopped and surrounded by a group of male South Africans. Thank goodness we had our language instructor to speak for us, as we had no idea what was going on. We were then shuffled into another taxi and on our way. Baregile explained that there are different taxi companies with specific routes in which to operate. It just so happens that we crossed a boundary on our way to town.

Town consists of a shopping plaza with a post office, multiple fast food restaurants including KFC, discount stores, and a Shop Rite (grocery store). There are also local vendors set up selling fruit, veggies, ice cream, etc. Unfortunately, the Shop Rite workers were – and still are – on strike, so there was a big demonstration in front of the store. We were told that it was in our best interest not to enter the store as one unlucky patron was made to eat a bar of soap upon exiting. Strikes are very popular in South Africa and can last many months. Most strikes involve discrepancies over pay, as in this case. We have also experienced a bakers strike (thankfully short-lived as Joe was getting very anxious about the shortage of bread) and a teachers strike in a nearby village which closed some schools for a few weeks. The frequency of strikes is most likely due to the large numbers of unions. We have been told that all teachers are union members and that the teachers unions are uncontrollably powerful. It appears that it is next to impossible to fire a teacher, even for intoxication at work, absences over 2 months and the use of corporal punishment. Furthermore, unions often support one another, resulting in massive amounts of laborers striking for a single cause. We will probably have many more adventures with transportation and strikes over the next 2 years!

‘Cool Iron’

Since there was little time in our crowded schedule, Sunday evenings had become devoted to ironing our clothes for the upcoming week. Let’s just say, like everything else, ironing takes about 3 times longer to accomplish here then in the states. Our family had a very old electric iron, but it is no match for wash boarded, hand-wrung, line-dried in wrinkles. Therefore we used metal irons heated on the wood and/ or paraffin stoves. On one particular memorable Sunday evening, I went with our sisters to get paraffin for the stove while Joe took our big pile of clothes into the kitchen to get an ironing lesson from the ironing master, mama. In the 20 minutes that I was gone, Joe managed to put the family in hysterics and gain himself the nickname ‘cool iron’! The family tried to explain between explosions of laughter that Joe was trying to iron his pants with a cold iron that had not yet been heated. Joe’s side of the story is that he read the label on the pants that said “use a cool iron” and decided that he could get those done while he was waiting for us to return with the paraffin to heat the stove. At first the family did not believe Joe and even after seeing the tag that did indeed state “use a cool iron”, they all thought that was the most ridiculous thing they had ever seen and now call Joe ‘cool iron’. It’s fun to make our family laugh. Kelli has yet to do something ridiculous enough to get a nickname.

Laundry

We have become pretty good at doing our own laundry, although we continue to improve upon our technique with each load. Basically you fill up three large metal buckets with water, the first one with detergent and the other two for rinsing. (It wasn’t until much later that we found the joys of soaking our clothes in soapy water overnight and fabric softener in the last rinse). The washboard (a sanded wooden 2x4 usually hand-made by the family) is used in the first bucket, where the clothes are scrubbed as best as possible. At first, Kelli had trouble learning to use the washboard and decided to use her hands to scrub the clothes instead. Big mistake! She wore band-aids on her knuckles for the next week. Since then she has forced herself to learn to use the washboard. The clothes are then rung and transferred to the other buckets to be rinsed and wrung again. The frustrations lie in the fact that the water in the first bucket quickly turns to brown as the combination of wind, sand and lots of walking reeks havoc on clothes and the last two buckets quickly become filled with soapy water so eventually nothing is getting cleaned or rinsed. Due to water shortages, we cannot continually keep refilling our buckets. We make due by using a rotation, transferring the first rinse bucket to the washing bucket, the second rinse bucket to the first rinse and dumping the muddy soap bucket, refilling it and using it as the second rinse. It seems to work, and we know that our clothes are just going to get dusty the minute we put them back on anyway! The clothes are then hung on the clothesline which sounds pretty simple, but not when you are pressed for space and have a limited number of clothespins. Joe has gotten very creative with the clothesline, sometimes hanging multiple garments from a single clothespin. The last big trick is getting the laundry done in time so that the clothes can dry before dark. If you leave your clothes hanging up overnight, there is a pretty big chance that they won’t be there in the morning. There have been many nights where our damp clothes have been spread all over our small bedroom.

pictures: The washing MACHINE!; out to dry

Funerals

It seems that there is at least one funeral in the village every weekend here in South Africa. Unlike in the U.S., SA funerals are community affairs to which everyone is invited regardless if you know the person and /or the family. We got to experience our first funeral during the second week with our host family. The funeral was for one of the host mother of one of Peace Corps Trainees in our language group. Unfortunately, the mother of her host family died shortly after she moved in, and the trainee had to be moved to another family. Although some of us were feeling uncomfortable about attending a funeral so soon after we had moved to Bundu and for someone we had never met, our language instructor assured us that it was culturally the right thing to do to show our support and respect for the family. Most funerals are held on the weekend allowing family and friends travel time to the location. Therefore, early on our second Saturday in Bundu, we got up bright and early and made our way to the house of the deceased where the grieving family had been up all night praying and singing in the garage with the casket. There were probably 100 people already congregated around the house with more arriving after us. We stood in a large group on the lawn listening to songs and words from a preacher before joining the procession to the cemetery lead by the car carrying the casket. People jumped into overflowing cars and the beds of trucks while many of us walked the 15 – 20 minutes to the village cemetery. Once there we all stood around the plot (we couldn’t see much as we were towards the back) singing and listening to the preacher talk while the casket was lowered and buried. Much like the church services, the singing is organic, lead by anyone inspired to start a song. As one song ends, a new voice takes the lead with everyone else joining in. In the cool morning air with the beautiful voices and bodies swaying to the soulful music, it is easy to forget the reason for the gathering. Then it hits you like a splash of cold water in the face. From the center of the crowd a large, wailing woman is carried out to the road, overcome with grief. We later learned that this was the eldest daughter of the deceased woman. After about 1 ½ hours, the crowd walked or drove back to the family house where traditional food was being served buffet style on the lawn. Traditionally this meal was prepared by the grieving family, but in recent years funeral societies (families pay a monthly fee to join) have cropped up all over in order to handle the burial logistics, food and clean-up.

Church

Christianity is the cornerstone of rural life in South Africa; most of the churches are of Christian denomination. Some of the nicest buildings in the villages are churches, however, some church services are held in school classrooms and family living rooms. Although the main church services occur between 9:00 am and 2:00 pm on Sunday, there are also services held every evening and midnight services approximately once a month. Our family hosted a midnight service during our stay that lasted from 8:00 pm to 1:00 am. We have attended a few Sunday church services (one held at our house and one in a school classroom) and they are truly a cultural experience. The family starts preparing for the day early in the morning so that everything is finished before the start of the church service. Breakfast is eaten, clothes are ironed, shoes are washed, lunch is prepared and dishes are washed in preparation. The church services we attended consisted of lots of impromptu singing, started by whoever was moved to sing at that moment, group praying, and a sermon, all in a variety of languages. Praying involved kneeling on the floor and resting our arms on our chairs while speaking one’s individual prayer out loud. Our family also prayed in this manner before going to bed. The meld of loud and soft voices in a variety of languages was beautiful. It sounded like a stew slowly coming to boil. The praying would go on for an extended period of time and after which voices would start to fade out from the symphony finally punctuated with one gogo’s loud wails. We had to explain to our family afterwards that we are used to praying silently and are a bit uncomfortable about praying out loud. The congregations were always excited to have guest and went out of their way to make us feel welcomed. Our brother Jan (who does not usually attend church) translated one of the sermons for us and we were given an English bible for another sermon. Church is followed by a large lunch which is much appreciated since we are all very hungry after sitting through a 3-4 hour service! A sample lunch consists of fried chicken, beets, carrot salad, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, baked beans with mayonnaise and lots of rice. The rest of the day is devoted to relaxing (the teenagers love to watch American professional wrestling!) and spending time with the family.

pictures: Laiza using her golden voice to lead a hymn at church, So cute!, The congregation outside the school used for church, Typical Sunday lunch

Women’s Day: August 9

Women’s day is a national holiday that celebrates the women’s march on Pretoria protesting the passbooks that limited their mobility. It is interesting that South Africa has both a Mother’s Day and a Women’s Day, despite the fact that gender roles are still clearly defined and reinforced. Women are responsible for overseeing all of the household chores and raising the children, regardless if they have another job. Most women rise before the sun and fall into bed long after it has set. They constantly work on the endless list of chores: gathering wood and lighting the stove, heating water, preparing breakfast and dinner, sweeping the yard, laundry, cleaning the house, looking after the children, and countless unseen tasks that need to be done in order to keep the family functioning smoothly. The girls, women, moms, and gogos of South Africa are selfless, hardworking pillars of society!

Circumcision Ceremony

The circumcision ceremony is an important part of most of the traditional South African cultures. It has recently become a controversial topic in the news as there have been a number of deaths associated with the ceremony. However, many boys still participate, as we were witness to in the first few weeks in our villages. Depending on the culture, number of eligible boys, and village events, the ceremony takes place once every 1-4 years. All interested boys (7-24 years old) of the village will go into the mountains for 2-3 months to learn how to be a man and to live off of the land. Towards the end of their training they are circumcised. At the conclusion of the training, the group returns to their village in traditional clothing where the villagers throw them a huge party and they are officially accepted into the community as men. The parties consist of all-night singing and dancing and sometimes the men receiving money. No one in our host family has done this because they are Christians and they don’t believe in it. However, in some cultures, a boy is never considered a man, or taken seriously, if he does not go through this initiation. On one of our first nights in South Africa hundreds of young men were marching down the dirt road outside the youth center chanting with great passion, energy, and sole with booming voices that filled that chilled evening air. It was an amazing experience that we will not soon forget.

Singing

Since landing in South Africa we have been blown away by seemingly everyone’s amazing singing voice. Our first greeting from our language instructors was in song on the evening of our arrival; a beautiful and symbolic way to end our epic journey from Philadelphia to Pretoria. Song is an integral part of life in South Africa, present in every social gathering from school to work to play. We’ve learned a few songs and dances, including the national anthem and many of the freedom songs sung during apartheid. On most evenings after training, the language instructors and volunteers will gather to sing and dance. This is one of our favorite parts of the day, as we get to sing and dance and laugh together. One evening, we were learning and singing a song about machine guns and killing all of the white people. Primrose, one of the instructors, turns to Kelli and says “not you, of course”, but later in the song pretends to shoot me with a gun so she pretended to die. It cracked everyone up and was all in good fun. The trainers and other PCT’s still laugh and joke about it. Guess it’s a good sign that we can laugh about such a horrible past that black South Africans have lived through.

picture: Learning traditional songs and dances

Language, Cultural and Technical Training

Language and Cultural Training
Approximately half of our 7 weeks of training consisted of language and cultural instruction. For these sessions, we met in our respective villages in our small groups. During the second week of training, our language instructor, Lucky, was offered a permanent job and had to resign her position with the Peace Corps. (PC only employs the language instructors for the duration of our training). Therefore, we joined the other Ndebele language group of 4 for a grand total of 8. Our new language instructor was Baregile, an incredibly gifted man, and our new group members were Michael, Kendall, Nicolette, and Geetanjoli.

Baregile, besides being the best language instructor on the planet, is a native South African born with the gift of music who wants to one day own his own construction company. Michael is a recent graduate from a San Diego university where he studied Physics and played a lot of cards. He helped us keep boredom at bay during long training days by teaching us many new and entertaining card games. He also makes us feel better about our wrinkled clothes because he refuses to iron anything. Kendall is a recent graduate from St. Louis who also shared our passion for books and board games, although she frustrates Kelli by accepting Joe’s made-up words in Scrabble =). Nicolette is a recent graduate of Berkely who was an active member of the debate team. Geetanjoli is a recent graduate from NYU with whom we have reminisced about New York and who has been placed in the Nkosi house for her permanent site. Needless to say we had a lot of fun in our language classes and even learned a thing or two!

We met in a small ‘garage’ behind a tuck shop in Bundu (only about a 5 minute walk from our house). Besides the daily game of musical chairs (we were constantly rotating as there were only 7 comfortable chairs and one torture device / bench), a source of constant amusement was the pit toilet, which we fondly refer to as the volcano. A pretty accurate name since it actually looked like a concrete model volcano and the ground around the opening was unstable, making you believe that it could ‘blow’ at any time. It was already pretty full at the start of our language training and we lived in fear that it would fill up, an event that thankfully did not come to pass during our stay.

Ndebele is mainly spoken in the Northern provinces and is the native language of a small 1.6% of the total population (the least amount of any South African language). Thankfully, it is a phonetic language with only a few clicks and letter switching - for instance q = click and k = g sound. A Ndebele greeting is as follows:
A: Lochani (low-cha-knee): Hello
B: Yebo: Yes
A: Ninjani: How are you?
B: Sicona: We are well.
Nina Ninjane: And how are you?
A: Sicona: We are well.*
* the plural tense is used to show respect, as you are asking how one’s entire family is doing

Baregile worked tirelessly to get us acquainted with his native language and kept us going with games, role-playing, homework and lots and lots of practice. His enthusiasm, positive energy and dedication resulted in all of us passing our exam at the conclusion of training! (The exam was given by professional language facilitators in which we were interviewed and taped individually). This was no small feat as only about half of the education volunteers passed the exam. It helped that our group studied religiously, even when exhausted, because the thought of letting Baregile down by not passing our exam was unbearable.

Besides almost daily language lessons, we also met in slightly larger groups of about 20 for cultural sessions. During these sessions we discussed the similarities and differences between South African cultures and U.S. cultures. It was a lot of fun to reflect on our own traditions, myths, holidays, weddings, funerals, family structure, work atmosphere, schooling system, health care, foods, and time management and to learn about the South African equivalents. One of the highlights of the cultural training sessions was a visit to a traditional Ndebele healer, a sangoma. We witnessed traditional dance and singing along with a reading of the bones. The unwell visitor will be asked to blow on the bag containing the bones (taken from the goat sacrificed at the graduation ceremony of the sangoma) before the sangoma ‘throws’ them onto a mat. The sangoma then reads the bones in order to identify the visitor’s ailments and recommends treatment. For a better visual, check out the powerful movie ‘Yesterday’ about a South African family’s battle with AIDS. Our language instructors told us that although Christianity denounces these traditional healers, many villagers still secretly visit sangomas, traveling to other villages to do so as to not be seen by their neighbors.

pictures: Our language group. Left to right: Nicolette, Michael, Baringile, Angie, Joe, Kelli, Kendal, Katie, Geetangoli.; Language class in the garage; The volcano: our beloved toilet; The sangoma reading bones

Technical Training
Technical training took up the other half of our training sessions. During these sessions we met at the youth center with the entire education group (it was fun to see everyone and catch up every few days) to lean about safety and security procedures, PC medical care, and the South African school system. We were also visited each week by two current PC volunteers who often lead workshops and were a great help in answering the hundreds of questions we had about our upcoming service. We sat through many long lectures given by the Department of Education, where we began to realize and appreciate some of the difficulties of an education system governed at the national level. The highlight of our technical training was a 2 day workshop on internalized oppression. The speaker was a white male South African and was great at challenging our assumptions and stereotypes on power and oppression. It made us think a lot about this country’s complex history and its effect on the present society.

A Typical Day in Bundu

2 a.m.: The roosters start crowing and bombastically celebrate the sunrise at every location around the world. We have discovered that all roosters in town face our bedroom when crowing in the same manner that Muslims face Mecca.

4:00 a.m.: The bread truck approaches our house at high speeds down our uneven dirt road. When the driver has positioned the truck directly in front of our window, it blows its horn until our sister wakes up, unlocks 2 doors, and reaches the truck. At this point the roosters begin to feel inferior to the large visiting vehicle and redouble their efforts. The power of the crowing then surpasses the breaking point of the village dogs. The dogs then spend the remainder of the morning telling the roosters to shut up.

5:00 a.m.: The alarm rings, although it is usually hard to hear over the roosters, dogs, and the goats that have joined the racket by this point. We have been good about getting up early everyday to run. When we run it feels like we are traveling through space. The sky is endless and the natural brightness of the moon, stars, and planets travels undisturbed to our eyes. We enjoy running under the cover of a brand new night sky. From the Southern hemisphere we can only find a few of our familiar constellations. We think we have located the Southern Cross and each time we spot it Joe’s mind is flooded with CSN+Y songs. Songs stay in your head much longer when you are not exposed to radio, TV, or other music on a daily basis. Towards the end of our run, the gigantic sun begins to sneak up the small hills on the horizon announcing the arrival of another beautiful day.

6:10 a.m.: We finish our run and begin the morning routine. Lunch preparations begin in the kitchen where we make 6 peanut butter sandwiches, even though the family has asked us to pack meat (picture a hot pink cross between baloney and spam) because it is embarrassing that we just bring bread. Mom will often prepare our lunch for to assure that we bring meat and some potatoes fried in LOTs of oil – yummy. We also grab whatever fruit we can get our hands on, mostly apples, pears, and oranges. We then eat breakfast which consists of corn flakes, bran flakes, or oatmeal and on good days a banana. On our way back to our room we grab two bags of stale multicolored popcorn (a snack the family sells at the school during breaks – we have grown to love it) and fill up our bath bucket with warm water from the stove. This is where the fun really begins…We have two plastic tubs about 3ft. x 2ft.x 1.5ft. These are the collection basins for our bucket bath. We also have a very small bucket we use for our soapy water. We start our baths by rinsing with the soapy water – being very careful to make sure all the water lands in the collection basins and not on the rug. This is definitely an art that we have had to learn quickly, as it is very difficult to clean up spilled water on carpet. Then we use our hands to splash fresh water over our body. Some days we even have enough water to wash our hair. The bath water gets emptied in a waste area on the side of our house while the chamber pot gets dumped into the pit toilet. Yes, we said chamber pot. We use the pot at night so that we don’t have to unlock all the doors and brave the night and the witches to use the out house. One of the many superstitions is that there are witches that do all sorts of terrible things at night and therefore basically everyone stays inside once the sun goes down.

7 a.m.: We walk to training at one of two places. Most days we walk about 5 minutes up a dirt road to a garage behind a small shop. This is where we have most of our language and culture classes with our language group of 8 volunteers. For large group sessions, we walk the 40 minutes to the youth center where we first lived in the roundavals. We love the reflective opportunities the walk offers. Today we had a session at the youth center where we all found out where we will be living and working over the next 2 years. It was very exciting. We put our pictures on a big map and all tried to visualize what our future homes would hold for us. We are in a cluster of 12 volunteers about an hour from Pretoria. We have most of our close friends near by (within an hour distance by taxi) and have other friends near some of the tourist attractions we want to visit.

5:00 p.m.: We arrive back at the house, change out of our dress clothes, and greet all of the members of our family. We work on language and PC homework while one of the daughters begins cooking dinner (some things they start cooking the day before) on the wood stove. Chores are divided up by weeks, so each daughter cooks for one week each month.

5:30 p.m.: We help mom by bagging snacks to sell at school the following day. We usually bag for 1-2 hours. It has become a time to unwind, talk to the family, and practice language.

6:00 p.m.: The electricity is usually turned on at this time and we take the opportunity to boil some water for the following day. In order not to get sick, we have to boil all of our drinking water for 3 minutes and then run it through a Britta filter provided by the Peace Corps. It gets a little tedious, but much better than ‘runny tummy’!

7:00 p.m.: Dinner is usually served at this time and we all gather around the wood stove to eat. Whoever has cooked takes the responsibility of dishing up the food and distributing the plates (everyone knows each others likes and dislikes and prepares their plate accordingly). Before digging in, someone is asked to pray for the meal while we all kneel on the floor. We have both been asked to pray numerous times and have managed pretty well. Of course, only a few family members understand what we are saying! Most of the meals involve pap (a corn product that looks like mashed potatoes, but much thicker). The pap is used as the means of eating the other dishes (usually vegetables and meat boiled on the stove) – there are no utensils.

8:00 p.m.: The younger generation gathers around the TV to watch Generations (a soap opera that is VERY popular in SA). At this point we are exhausted. We say good night to the family and if there is water (the water has been out for a week and may be off for over 2 months) we wash, journal, occasionally read, and finally attempt to sleep.

9:00 p.m.: By this time we have both found a semi-comfortable part of the bed to sleep on. The bed reminds Kelli of a whack-a-mole game with the springs popping up and down at random intervals. What can you expect from a bed held up by paint cans and most likely stuffed with them as well? We’ve learned to fit our bodies between the springs and pretend that pillows aren’t really supposed to be comfortable. At least we are so tried at the end of the day that all of that really doesn’t matter!

pictures: Our alarm clock; Walking to training; Kelli bagging scopes.

Our Village: Bundu

Our village, Bundu, is only about a 40 minute walk from our training center which is nice. The village is pretty big, but you could probably walk around it in about 1 to 1½ hours. We have about 25 education volunteers living in Bundu with the other 20 in the nearby village of Machipe (we pass it on the way to the training center). The village is made up of one tar road, 3 schools, 20-30 tuck shops (small stores that either occupy their own building or are run out of a house), and hundreds of family compounds. All of the houses are constructed out of clay bricks (manufactured in town), circular wooden poles and corrugated sheet metal. It is the norm to build your own house, therefore all of the houses are unique and hardly any have a second floor. Since families are large and many of them run their own shops, most compounds have multiple buildings surrounded by a fence. Besides the compounds, everything else is pretty much shared land for livestock grazing, trash removal, and resource gathering. When you need some wood for the stove you just take your axe or rock to the ‘forest’ (think sparse like southern California with plants but lots of rocks and orange sand) and cut down a tree. It is amazing to see the women carrying enormous stacks of chopped wood on their heads over long distances. Of course our village now includes a group of 25 Americans which is comparable to the Beatles moving in next door. We are definitely treated like rock stars, with our every move scrutinized and children running from their houses to catch a glimpse. It is fun, but also a bit overwhelming having to answer the same 5 questions (What’s your name? Where are you from? What are you doing here? Who do you live with? Where are you going?) what seems like hundreds of times a day. It’s all part of the experience. A funny story is that one afternoon Kelli was playing in front of our house with some kids when a group of women came up to her giggling and pointing, holding a baby. Her assumption was that the baby had never seen a white person before, so they wanted to let the baby touch her and see her up close. It is fun to help break down stereotypes and the color divisions that have separated this country for so long.



pictures: The main road leading into Bundu; It is traditional to give up to 16 cows to your future fiancée's family. Many people keep cows in their front yards.; Typical Tuck Shop where everyone goes for their daily shopping needs.; Nice car!; Traditional Ndebele painting.

The Nkosi Family: Our Training Family

The people of South Africa are the most welcoming, loving, caring, and compassionate people we have ever met. Their lives are characterized by church, family, song, dance, food, Smack Down (American wrestling – Joe tried to tell them it was fake and they thought he was crazy), and American Soap Operas (they have even made their own South African soaps based on the American model and watch them religiously). The Nkosi family was our introduction to real rural life in South Africa. In a country of amazing people this family is extraordinary. They were the highlight of our first eight weeks in South Africa and will always be important and loved members of our extended family. We have discovered that families are very complex and often difficult to organize until you have lived in their mist for some time. South Africans have a much broader view of a family than Americans; families are often large, incorporating additional children for a variety of reasons. The importance of family is evident in the vast number of words they have to describe members of their families. There are different words for cousins, siblings, and in-laws depending on their order of birth and if their parents are related to you through a male or a female. The mysteries of each family continue to unfold for us with each passing day. Here is a brief description of our beloved Nkosi family (in descending order by age):

Gogo (Grandmother): Gogos are very important and respected members of the community and of the family in South Africa. We have often been told to make friends with the gogos because they are the ones that will protect you if you are in trouble. Traditionally, gogos join the compound of their eldest daughter. By custom they are not supposed to live under the same roof as their son-in-law. This is why there are two buildings on the Nkosi compound. The second structure was constructed by the men in the family when gogo moved in with them about a year ago. We are told that this was the same weekend that the eldest sister (Antosia’s mother) married and moved north with her husband. It was very difficult to communicate with gogo because she was loosing her hearing and did not speak English or Ndebele (the language we were learning). Despite the language barrier, it was always a highlight of the day to see gogo smile or laugh at us. Gogo spent most of the day doing chores around the compound. We are convinced that she has super human powers because she always seemed to appear out of thin air and was able to do amazing amounts of work and lift large amounts of weight (often on her head). We have been inspired by gogo to create a children’s book called Where’s Gogo? It will be very similar to the Where’s Waldo series, but instead of a dorky man in a candy cane outfit it will feature an old woman with superhuman powers in crowded South African landscapes. . . .

Baba (father in Nebele): Lives a life similar to most adult males in rural South Africa. Because of the astronomically high unemployment rate he is forced to travel long distances to find work. Baba works for the mines south of Pretoria. Due to the long hours, low wages, and long commute he is only able to make it back to his home in Bundu about once a month. He sends money and is welcomed with big smiles upon his return. We got to spend two or three nights with Baba and greatly enjoyed his company. He is a quiet man that appears to work for and be very proud of his family. He spoke very little English, but worked hard to make us feel welcomed and to ask questions about America. We are told that it is common for the men that have a second home near work to have a mistress or even a second family that their first families are unaware of until the husband’s funeral.

Mama: Mama is the backbone of the family. She works unbelievably hard in all aspects of her life. She is an older woman and drips wisdom that can not be taught in school. We are certain that the strong morals, intelligence, unmatched work ethic, and deep joy for life that is common among all members of the family originate from mama. Mama sells a variety of food at the village school and out of the family kitchen. Items for sale include: Cheeto-like snacks in a variety of flavors (we spent many hours each afternoon putting them into little bags for mom to sell), scopas (stale tasting popcorn-like snacks that Joe uses to feed his tape worm during the day), biscuits, fried potatoes, sausage-like meat, Coca-Cola , bread, candy, oranges, cabbage, tomatoes, onions, and frozen bags of juice. Mom speaks many languages, but does not speak English or Ndebele very well. During our time at the house she worked very hard to communicate with us in both English and Ndebele. During a much-needed ironing lesson, we learned that mama used to work as a maid in a madam’s house (aka white woman). She also told Joe when he was teasing our sisters that he reminded her of the boys she raised in the madam’s house. A compliment or smile from mama was like gold to us.

Oldest Sister: The oldest sister married and no longer lives with the family. We never met her, but her daughter, Antocia, lives with the Nkosis.

Kedibone: The oldest sister (late 20’s) currently living in the house. We are told that she is the one that initiated having the family host PC volunteers. She is very shy and has a speech impediment so does not talk unless spoken to. While we were living there she attended a three week agricultural school program and brought home her diploma on our last night with the family. We were all very proud of her. Her dream is to one day own her own supermarket, named ‘Kedibone’s’.

Jan (pronounced john): During our stay Jan was the only male permanently living with the family. He is in his early to mid 20’s and is the eldest brother. Jan is currently unemployed (the unemployment rate in South Africa is astronomical, especially in the rural villages). There are countless young adults who have finished school and roam the streets because they can’t find work. Jan occupies himself by applying for jobs, volunteering at the local school, and watching TV while blaring the stereo.

Oupa: On one of our last nights with the Nkosi family we decided to give them framed pictures (which we developed in Pretoria) as a token of our gratitude for their generosity. On the same night Oupa came home for the first time during our stay in the house and brought with him a brand new surround sound speaker system for the TV and stereo (it can blow the tin roof off the house). His gift was a tough act to follow, but the family still enjoyed our pictures. Oupa is in his early twenties and has both a job and a car (the only member of the family with a car). Like baba, his job only allows him to return home a few times a year.

Laiza: Laiza just finished school and is currently taking classes on Saturday’s because she failed standards in grade 12. She has a golden voice and a great sense of humor. We attended church with the family just to hear her sing. She occupies her days by sweeping the dirt in the yard and on the road in front of the house (it’s a wide-spread phenomenon that none of the PC’s can figure out), doing laundry, and taking trips to the nearest town to buy huge bags of the snacks that mama sells in her tuck shop (name of small stores).

Sesi: A young woman who is very confident, intelligent, and mature for her age. She is currently in standard eleven (eleventh grade). She was the best English speaker in the family and became our guardian, translator, teacher, sister, and friend. She has learned most of her English from watching TV and would memorize words and phrases to have us explain for her. In school Sesi has 4 different language classes. This is very typical and practical in a country with 12 official languages (the newest just added a few months ago being sign language). She was shocked to learn that we only speak English and a very little French and Spanish. She hopes to become a fashion designer (she attempted to take Kelli on as her fashion project) and talk show host after her schooling. She still wants to live in Paris, even after we broke the news to her that it isn’t in the U.S. Recently her school awarded her as the “Most Dependable Student.”

Antocia: Antocia is actually the daughter of the oldest sister (who lives many hours away – we never met her mother). Antocia and Sesi are the same age and are in all of the same classes at school. Antocia is not as outgoing as Sesi, but is a wonderful person and was equally as helpful in helping us adjust to life in South Africa. To the dismay of Sesi, Antocia had a cell phone while mama would not allow Sesi to have one. Cell phones are huge here and almost everyone has one, even elementary students.

Moses: Moses is a part-time resident of the Nkosi household. He is a friend of the family from church and is near in age to Sesi and Antocia. Despite his age, he is currently in standard six because he started school late. The Nkosis have welcomed him as a brother because his parents are no longer in his life (HIV/AID and other social problems have created many orphans in South Africa – it is common for the eldest sibling of families to be attending school and taking care of multiple younger siblings) . When he is not at the Nkosi house he lives with his school-aged brother in a neighboring village. Moses and Joe shared passions for photography and running. Moses takes pictures of people, develops them, and sells them to make money. He was in awe when Joe pulled out our camera to shoot pictures. Moses is a deeply religious person and aspires to become a professional writer and singer of gospel music.

Marixse: The family dog that is not allowed inside, but is not much of a guard dog. We think his function was vacuum cleaner for the kitchen. The first word we learned in Ndebele was “puma,” meaning “get out!” Joe joked that the family yelled “puma” at the dog so often that we thought it was the dog’s name. We worked very hard not to make friends with the dog because we were told that it was a cultural taboo. Apparently no one informed Marixse of the taboo because he would jump on us and follow us EVERYWHERE! One day we went for a long run and Marixse insisted on following us. This was not uncommon for Marixse, but he ran off at one point and then never returned. For a while we thought our sisters were going to sacrifice us, but it finally blew over. As far as we know Marixse is still missing . . .

Livestock: Along with the 10 or so humans that occupied the house at any one time there was a small army of goats, chickens, and roosters that had free reign of the yard. Everyone has fenced-in ‘yards’—pretty much a mixture of dirt and pavement, but the livestock (goats, chickens, roosters, dog, cows, sheep, etc.) go under, over, and through the fences and just roam around as they please. They eat and poop wherever they want and make lots and lots of noise. Besides being sources of food and revenue, the livestock help clean the trash that is thrown haphazardly among the yards and streets (there is no trash collection, you can throw it or you can burn it). Kelli asked our language instructor how they know which goat is whose and she said “they just know”. Jan also informed us that he has trained the goats to return to the house every evening. We were skeptical until we realized that even though the goats would spend the day foraging in the village, they indeed returned every evening. Unbelievable.

The First Week of Training: July 26 - August 2

A Barrel of Monkeys
Our training began in Bundu, a small village about an hour northeast of Pretoria (South Africa’s capitol city). Bundu is not on local maps and is only accessible by dirt roads. We spent the first week living at an abandoned youth center slated to be auctioned off later this year. We lived in roundavals, small round buildings with cone shaped thatched roofs and cement walls (sort of looks like a yurt). We had our training sessions at a small retreat center located in a nature preserve a short distance down the dirt road from the youth center. As we arrived for the first day of training we were welcomed by the resident clan of monkeys. The monkeys became a source of entertainment that never grew old. At any break there would be twenty of us, cameras in hand, watching them swing, play, and plot to steel our lunch. We were also entertained by a family of baboons that sunned themselves on the jagged rock face behind the retreat center. During the first week of training our series of shots, which began in Philadelphia, continued almost daily (Joe gets light headed just thinking about it). The first week was designed to give us general background information and survival skills about language, culture, history, safety, health, and the Peace Corps in South Africa. One constant throughout the first week was singing and dancing. Our language/culture trainers sang and danced and taught us to sing and dance at every free moment. It was contagious, invigorating, and captivating and quickly became a highlight of training (even for 2 white Americans with no rhythm). We were also quickly introduced to the concept of polychronic time (this may be more of a challenge for Joe than learning a new language). South Africans and Peace Corps South Africa approach time much differently than the average American. Being late and having little to no concept of time management is a social norm. It was not uncommon to spend the majority of a training day doing nothing! We were also introduced to an English import, tea time (basically an organized way to waste time). Twice a day (the only thing that happened on time and consistently) we would pause for tea and biscuits. Joe is certain that tea time is the cause of our now constant hunger between meals and need to eat multiple lunches. . . .


pictures: Our First Home; A future with National Geogrpahic?; One shot out of at least 20, but who’s counting?; Feeding the tape worm

The Bubble: Where Are We?
For the first week of training all we knew of Africa was the short stretch of road that separated the youth center from the nature preserve. We were given no maps or sense of place. We would not have been surprised if we were actually on a new reality show located on a Hollywood set. The bubble began to burst when we decided to organize some games at a field in the neighboring village. About fifty of us marched down the dirt road and descended upon a small South African village. We were overwhelmed by the sights: donkeys pulling wooden carts, cattle roaming freely through the village, kids kicking soda cans down the dirt road, and an old pickup truck transporting a bulging load of shouting youth. We brought a soccer ball and a Frisbee and began to play amongst ourselves. The villagers watched from a distance and then started to inch closer. A few brave kids approached us and joined our games. Then the flood gates opened and we were teaching groups of kids Frisbee and getting our butts whooped in soccer by a team of teenagers. Now this is what the Peace Corps is all about! With little to no language ability we communicated in the universal language of smiles, laughs, and FUN. In the upcoming days we ventured to the local plaza and discovered that KFC (South Africans LOVE KFC), Woolworth’s, and other American style stores could be found on a small scale just a 20 minute drive from our isolated village.

picture: One of the many forms of transportation

A Family is Born: Our Training Family
August 2, 2006 was a pivotal day. This was the day that we were told which of the 12 official languages we would be concentrating on and were also handed off to our training families. As guests in their homes for the next 8 weeks, these families would help acquaint us to the culture, customs, and routines of South Africa. We began the day with an early morning run. Prior to this day we had done all of our exercising on the property of the community center. Today we ventured out on the dirt road. As we ran we watched the rising of the big and beautiful African sun, listened to the howling of the monkeys and baboons, and had great conversations about the many adventures lying ahead of us. When we returned to the youth center we discovered that there was NO WATER! We were able to locate a small pipe and splash some of the layers of sweat off our bodies before meeting our new family. We packed all of our belongings out of our roundavals, ate peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast, and then, in classic Peace Corps fashion, wasted away most of the morning.

The middle of the day was a blur. First the NGO volunteers were separated from the Education volunteers. The remainder of the training would occur in separate villages. It was sad to see almost half of our group disappear. The education volunteers then waited anxiously in a big hall for the announcement of our languages. Slowly volunteers were split into language groups. We were among the last to be called, placed in the Ndebele language group with Katie (a novice teacher from Northern VA), Angie (a veteran art teacher from Kansas), and Lucky (our South African language and culture instructor). We hadn’t interacted much with Katie or Angie during the first part of training so we didn’t know what to think. In the next eight weeks we would spend every waking hour together and become the best of friends. There was just enough time to do quick introductions before Lucky hurried us outside to meet our families. When we got outside we were met by a group of South African woman ranging in age from teenager to gogo (grandmother). Katie was matched with the stereotypical loving, ultra excited, multilingual gogo. Angie was matched with a kind and caring mother. On the other end of the spectrum, we had a young teenager who would not smile, talk, or even make eye contact with us. It turns out that the Peace Corps forgot to communicate to our family that they would be hosting a married couple. The next few minutes were some of the most awkward minutes of our lives. The teenager mumbled in her native tongue with Lucky and we didn’t need to speak the language to infer that she was not at all happy. We tried to communicate the best we could but before we knew it we were all herded back into the hall to await the grand ceremonial introductions. This is not at all how we pictured our first meeting with our host family would unfold.

Peace Corps conducted a matching ceremony that was a hybrid between a meet market, an auction, and the Price Is Right. The ceremony was conducted in the cafeteria of the youth center. On one side of the cafeteria the gogos, mothers, and young women sat in bight orange plastic chairs. On the other side of the room the volunteers stood against a wall like a herd of deer in headlights. One by one each gogo/ma was announced along with their corresponding Peace Corps trainee. The host family representative would run down the isle of orange chairs, engulf their Peace Corps trainee in a huge hug, and then showcase their new ‘pet’ around the room to the hoots and hollers of the other gogos and mothers. Meanwhile, we waited in horror of our public meeting. Finally our names were called and we each received a very cold and stiff hug from Sesi (our new sister).
As we moved to the back of the room Kelli joked with Sesi about the awkwardness of the ceremony and got a laugh and a smile. This was a huge relief and greatly improved the situation. As we walked outside we were told by Peace Corps staff that we would be placed with a different family because the current family was not able to host two people. This was a huge relief for us and the young woman. We thanked her and apologized for the misunderstanding. We then began to talk and interact more freely knowing that the situation was rectified. She asked us about America, we joked, and even played some soccer as we waited for our new directions. Finally we were told to get into a van with all our bags and the teenager. At this point we were very confused and had no idea where we were going. We finally realized that we were being dropped off at the teenagers’ house. We were handed our bags and told that someone from Peace Corps would be by shortly to speak with us and the family. We decided to make the best of the situation and followed Sesi to her home.

The property was vastly different than we imagined a typical South African home to look like. Most of the yard was concrete accompanied by two structures on the property. We entered the bigger house first. The doorway opened up on a kitchen that reminded Joe of the first kitchen you see on the attraction in Disney World where the stage rotates through an American home through different decades (circa 1950’s). All of the items in the kitchen appeared unused and perfectly arranged. We later found out that the family does not use this kitchen. It has many “modern” appliances (microwave, ovens, and refrigerators- yes plural!) that sit idle while the family uses a coal stove in the other house. The first thing that caught Joe’s eye was the light shining through the tiny holes in the tin roof onto the walls of the kitchen. It looked beautiful, but made us wonder what happened when it rained. It turns out that the holes are strategically placed to let air flow, but not water. We were then shown to a bed room and told to leave our belongings. We were still confused about the living situation so we left our belongings unopened on the floor and asked for a tour.
We were given a tour by Sesi and another girl about the same age that came home while we were putting our bags down. The house had 5 more bed rooms, a TV room, and a living room. The second structure on the property was gogo’s house. It was shaped like a rectangle and split in the middle by a partial wall. On one side of the wall was a room with a table and a coal stove and on the other side of the wall was a room with a bed. Both buildings were constructed with concrete walls and floors and a tin roof held up by virgin wood poles. In-between the two buildings was a courtyard with a water spicket, a pit toilet, an area to dispose of food waste and waste water along with a number of trees. There was a shockingly bright orange tree that catches your eye from down the street and a couple of tall trees that seemed to be ripening a green oval shaped fruit. Some of the neighbors had banana and avocado trees. The house was located on the corner of a dirt road directly across from the complex of schools in the village.

After the tour we all sat in the TV room and talked about America. The girls had many questions and the more we talked the more we became comfortable and began to realize that this was going to be our new home. Slowly the minutes turned into hours. The girls fixed tea and we grabbed all of the pictures we had brought with us. At this point we were joined by a man in his early 20’s. They loved the pictures. It was surprising how little they knew about America. They passed over the pictures of famous landmarks (twin towers, statue of liberty, Time Square, Mt Rushmore, national parks, etc.) and were blown away by pictures of our families, friends, and dogs. Without a question the picture they enjoyed most was the one of our wedding party. They loved the dresses, colors, and people. They requested a blown up copy to hang on their wall, and began calling people from outside to come look at it. Slowly we realized that the many people stopping in the TV room to say hello were all part of the family.

After meeting lots of new people, looking at pictures, and having great conversations, we retreated to our bedroom. That evening Lucky, our language instructor, stopped by to check in on us and speak to the family about hosting two volunteers. Once we assured the family that the bedroom was big enough for the both of us, they seemed to relax and were very excited to share more stories and pictures with their new American friends. Later that evening, after a welcome dinner of fried chicken and umratha (boilied corn meal the consistency of mashed potatoes), as we were settling into our new room and finding temporary locations for all of our belongings, we knew that everything had worked out for the best. Doesn’t it always!

pictures: The Most Awkward Moment Ever; Home Sweet Home; The Bed May Look Comfortable…..; The Kitchen, Chicken Anyone?;The Pit Toilet: A New Adventure