A Typical Week in Vezubule

Although no two weeks are the same, we have fallen into a few weekly routines over the past month at site. Here is a general outline of what a week in the life of Thabo and Thandeka looks like:

Monday – Friday
5:20 am: We usually start the day with some sort of exercise (running every day for Joe and running or Pilates for Kelli). We also fill up our buckets with water as the taps will be dry by the time we return.

6:30 am: Breakfast of champions consisting of Bran Flakes, bananas (if available) and granola. We jumped for joy when we finally found granola at Kwamthanga’s Shop Rite (about a 10 minute taxi ride from Vezubuhle). We even treat ourselves with juice on occasion.

7:00 am: Bucket baths and the frantic scramble to gather our things for the day as we are usually running late.

7:20 am: 5-20 minute walk to one of our schools depending on which school we are visiting and how many people we run into along the way. 7:45 am – 3:00 pm: School visits at one of our schools. We drew up a two-day rotation schedule during our site visit which seems to be working nicely and keeps things interesting. It also allows us to see each school about once a week and keeps us from getting too bored. We had been instructed by Peace Corps that the first three months at our site be for observation only and we should not start any projects until we get to know the teachers and learners and become familiar with the routines of each school. This has been a great time of learning and we see the benefits in letting the schools and village become familiar with our presence, but we have been getting antsy as there are only so many days where you can sit and observe classes taught in another language. Therefore, we have begun some small projects at our schools, including: organizing and planning school libraries, workshops on IQMS (a peer-evaluation program mandated by the Department of Education) and how to use overhead projectors, teaching computer skills to the clerks, introducing Frisbee and checkers to the learners and aiding teachers one-on-one with lesson planning and content knowledge. Kelli has been helping a high school math teacher in teaching techniques and with basic math skills in order to help him pass his university math course. It is not uncommon to have teachers teaching subjects that they themselves are not familiar with, however it was inspiring to see this teacher putting forth an effort to improve his knowledge base and teaching skills. Joe has been helping his schools organize student rosters and balance their budgets by introducing the wonders of Excel (all schools have been given one computer for office work by the government).

3:30 pm – 4:30 pm: Language lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays with our sister, Dora. Peace Corps reimburses us enough money to pay a language tutor 10 Rand an hour for up to 12 hours of language lessons a month. We have taken advantage of this offer to not only improve on our understanding of IsiNdebele but to also provide some ‘pocket money’ for our sister. We have been having a lot of fun and recently had a poster contest in which Joe won, resulting in Dora and Kelli chipping in to buy him a Mayo (a frozen yogurt treat we have come to love).

4:30 pm – 7:30 pm: This time is spent on various activities, depending on the day and our energy levels. Some activities include: playing Frisbee and human jungle gym with our neighbors, taking walks around the village to buy bread and other food items, checking e-mail and updating the blog, making lunch for the following day, completing various Peace Corps assignments and paperwork, working on school projects, helping neighborhood students with their homework, studying language, napping, reading, playing board games, and helping Esther and / or Dora cook dinner. One of the highlights of the evening is watching and listening to the cows returning home from their daily grazing. Alerted by the whip of the herder, we run to the window and happily announce, “the cows are coming home!”

We have recently become involved with two community organizations which we will now be volunteering with on a regular basis. The first one is The Project which is a non-profit Christian organization based in Kwamthanga (a larger village about a 10 minute drive from Vezubuhle) which has outreach projects in 4 neighboring villages to help orphans and persons living with HIV / AIDS. The project in our village is devoted to helping orphans and provides food, education and Christian services daily to registered orphans in the community. (Note: Orphans, although they do not have any living parents, are not without shelter and family, as they will be taken in by whoever has the means. However, these families are often poor themselves and do not have enough money to adequately feed everyone. This is where The Project comes in.) The site is impressive with multiple buildings and a playground. The organization receives some oversee donations and aid from visiting church work groups. Our neighbor Linky is a member of the project (her aunt and uncle have provided housing for her but do not have the funds to provide her with food) and is very excited whenever we visit. One of the challenges the project faces is the stigma of a hand-out and many children, especially in middle and high school, are embarrassed to be seen at the center. We have committed Friday afternoons to volunteering in whatever way we can, playing sports, reading stories, cooking, etc. and oftentimes it is the highlight of our week.

The second organization is a budding, grass roots group of young men and women in Vezubuhle hoping to start a farm on a vacant area of land. They have asked for help with the start-up of their non-profit organization, named Green Harvest Youth Farming Project, and we are very excited to be a part of their ambitious vision and dreams. Most recently, Joe has established an e-mail address for the group and now we are teaching them how to use it. Drop them a line at greenharvestyfp@gmail.com .

7:30 pm – 9:00 pm: Preparation and dinner with the Jiyanes. Due to the patience and guidance of our gracious hosts, we have learned to cook (boil) many things, such as chicken (new to us previous vegetarians), umratha (corn-meal), beet-root, squash, and pumpkin. Although not new to cooking, we were unaccustomed to boiling all of our food, so the lessons have been highly beneficial and now allow us to cook dinner unaided. The addition of a George Forman grill – yes, the lean mean grilling machine has made its way into South African’s heart land- has not only made the cooking of chicken easier, but also much healthier. Esther loves collecting kitchen appliances, dinnerware, Tupperware, silverware, pots, etc. so there is a new addition almost every week. Dinners are pretty much the same every night, consisting of rice, a mixture of boiled vegetables and chicken. The big exception is Tuesday nights when Esther brings home King Pie (a fast food chain specializing in different combinations of meat and vegetables covered in a fried, flaky crust) from Kwamthanga. We have enjoyed the pies, except for the evening that Esther brought us steak and kidney pies (Dora’s favorite). Let’s just say that Dora got to eat three times as much that night! Dinner is followed by clean-up, made more or less difficult with the presence of running water and electricity.

9:00 pm: Depending on water and electricity, we boil and filter water for the next day while taking quick buckets baths (very quick if there is no electricity to heat the water) before crawling into bed. Joe has been very good at journaling every night, while Kelli unwinds with a book.

Saturday
6:30 am: Rise and shine, bucket baths, and preparations for a trip to town.

7:00 am – 7:30 am: We catch the bus at a stop just a few minutes walk from our house for the 10 minute ride to Kwamthanga. Although there is a bus schedule, it is pretty loose and you have to be at the stop early as the 7:30 am bus can arrive anywhere between 7 am and 8 am. 7:45 am: We arrive in Kwamthanga (a town with a shopping center, police station, regional department of education office and stadium) for a morning of shopping. Our first stop is always at Butterworths, a chain specializing in fresh baked bread and pastries. We usually pick up two cinnamon rolls (or air rolls as Joe likes to call them since that’s their main consistency) and a loaf of brown bread for breakfast.

8:00 am: Most shops open and depending on lines and the actual opening times, we visit Shop-Rite (grocery store) for our weekly supply of breakfast and lunch foods, the post office (thanks to all of you who have sent letters and packages!!), and any number of other shops for various items in which we have found a need during the previous week (wooden spoons, clothespins, cloth for curtains, etc).

10:00 am: We are usually done with our shopping and begin the process of returning to Vezubuhle. This involves walking to the taxi rank, finding an available cumbi (taxi in the form of a 15 passenger van) that can fit us and our bags, and waiting for the cumbi to fill up so we can begin the homeward journey. The taxi rank is always an adventure and we never quite know what to expect.

On one momentous morning we sat in a full cumbi parked in the taxi rank for over 45 minutes while the driver, passengers, and taxi officials argued about making change for the fare. A ride is 7 Rand (1 USD) and we had multiple passengers who were attempting to pay with 50 and 100 Rand bills. There was not enough change available, resulting in many arguments and deliberations. Finally, after the driver stormed out and then back into the cumbi and the taxi officials gave everyone back their money, we were on the road. The taxi officials told the driver that we, the passengers, would have to make our own change. Since this was not possible with the quantity of large bills on board, we had to ask for change at various shops at each of the passengers’ stops. We have learned our lesson and now always try to carry exact change whenever we travel.

Another quirk to cumbi traveling is that even though we are usually the first stop on the route back from Kwamthanga, we seem to always get a seat in the back of the overcrowded 15 passenger van. This is not a problem until it is time to get off and we have to crawl over the other 20 passengers and their luggage with our overstuffed bags of food and mail. This is especially difficult for the stiff-backed Kelli (thanks to 2 metal rods). The scene is quite comical, but the humor is usually lost on the other passengers waiting for the two of us to exit.

10:00 am – 11:00 am: Depending on the length of our shopping trip and the ride back to Vezubuhle, we begin our walk home. Although the bus picks us up only a few steps from our house, the cumbi drops us off on the main road (about a 35 minute walk from our house with loaded bags). The busses don’t run return trips to Vezubuhle until late afternoon. The walk starts out pleasant enough but soon becomes torture as the heavy bags begin to cut into our shoulders and the hot sun beats down on our pale skin. We have begun to joke about shopping not for taste, but for weight in order to alleviate this part of the journey. Nevertheless, we always seem to forget about this when we are in the grocery store surrounded by tempting and delicious-looking food items. Wiping the sweat from our brows, we try to keep smiles on our faces as we greet the seemingly thousands of people who want to talk to us on our way home. Chatting and listening to stories, we can’t help but strain under the weight of our groceries and worry about our cheese and milk going sour.

11:00 am: We stumble into our house, drop our bags and gulp huge amounts of water, celebrating the end of another successful shopping trip. After putting our food away, we make plans for the rest of the day.

12:00 pm – 7:30 pm: The afternoon is usually devoted to house projects, games, homework, playing with the neighbors, napping, exercising, and relaxing. Often, one of our PCV friends, will come over to check her e-mail and spend the night. Our families usually give us a call which is a highlight of our week. 7:30 – 9:30 pm: Dinner with the family over which we discuss our days.

9:30 pm: We fill up our laundry buckets with water, soap and clothes to allow them to soak overnight. Fortunately for our hands and biceps, we have discovered that soaking our clothes helps to clean them with less scrubbing.

10:00 pm: Lights out and prayers that we don’t have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night as we have to unlock our two bedroom doors (extra security) to get to the toilet and our wake-up call comes much to early as it is.

Sunday
4:00 am: Rise and shine! Or at least rise…. In order to have a few hours of running water in which to rinse our laundry, it has become imperative to wake up at this horrendous hour. Even as sick as we were to wake up at 5 am every morning for crew in college, we vowed to never, ever wake up in the 4’s. What one will do for clean laundry?

6:00 am: We scramble to finish rinsing all of our laundry before the last trickles of water fall from our sink. If there is time and water, we also scrub down the kitchen and bathroom. If not, it will have to wait until the evening.

6:30 am: Hang the laundry on the clothesline, which we are very proud of since we strung it ourselves, before gorging ourselves with breakfast.

7:00 am: At this point Kelli usually crawls back into bed for another few hours of sleep while Joe fights it by reading, journaling, or checking e-mail.

10:00 am – 7:00 pm: Similar to Saturday afternoons in which we read, study language, write letters, update the blog, play with the neighbors and get ready for another week. Joe usually crashes in the mid-afternoon for a much-needed nap. 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm: Dinner with the family where we discuss church and soccer updates (Dora usually has games on the weekends).

9:30 pm: Preparations for Monday before passing out in bed.