Renovations

Now its really Summer break, and consequently I have absolutely nothing to do. So I decided that I would renovate my room, which is essentially a glorified garage. The walls are smurf-orgy blue, and the cracks are big enough to allow all my friendly little lizards free access whenever they want in or out. Which I guess is okay since at least they eat the cockroaches. There was also a random bookshelf full of dusty strange old textbooks (some of them, especially the history books from the mid 80's are interesting little pieces of history in their own right) and a huge pile of papers, boxes, and what I can only and accurately describe as crap. So I spent a day dragging the bookshelf from my room into the storage room next to it, and then I organized all of the books on it -- including adding my little collection to the bottom shelves. I even found a couple good short story collections, so that made it all worthwhile. The next day I hauled the random pile of junk into the same spare room, and swept out the literally inches of dirt and junk that had accumulated under it. Fortunately, no spiders. (Or at least no living ones). Thursday was move all the furniture into the middle of the room and scrub down the walls day. Honestly, I gave that up about an hour in when I realized that I was mostly just moving the dirty around more than anything else. I at least got rid of the larger scorch marks and the enormous dirt tracks left over from -- well, I'm not really sure what. Yesterday was patch the huge cracks and buy some paint day, and later this week...new paint will be on the walls.

I'm going to be honest, the workmanship is a lot closer to "man, I hope the landlord gives my my deposit back" then "This sure is great and mom would definitely approve." But...I've never done this before, and anything is better than living in a glorified garage.

Someday I will figure out how to post pictures and do so.

Wish me luck.

PS
Hi Tierrans!

Everybody's Sister Has a Crush on Morgan

Its now officially summer break (though I just can’t bring myself to call any vacation that encompasses Christmas that – I’m sticking with “December Holiday”) which means that there’s not a whole lot going on in any of my schools. Mostly the teachers are just marking exams, filling out schedules (which is apparently pronounced ‘shed-ules’ and is essentially a list of all their learner’s grades) and I am desperately trying to find something – anything! – to do with myself. Last week I went to a Grade R graduation, and today I’m going to another. Last week’s was so adorable that it was nearly pain-inducing, and I’m hoping for similar things today. Its essentially a kindergarten graduation like you would see in the states (I think I vaguely recall having one myself) but everybody gets very into it! 3 or 4 of the teachers wear official graduation gowns, and all of the little kids wear caps and gowns as well. Then they all introduce themselves: “hellomynameissfisoiwanttothankmymommydadmybrothersmysistersandevvvvvvverybodywholovesme.” And there are speeches, recitations, poems, skits, gifts, you name it. I saw that many of the moms were in tears – this is a big deal. My personal favourite was the traditional dances performed by the little girls and little boys in turn. It was too cute, especially the little boys since I think (but am definitely not sure) that the men’s dance mirrors a sort of stylized fight. The little boys had such serious looks on their faces, and they stamped their feet down like they meant business. I was very impressed, and even a little bit jealous that despite everything I know I will have in life that they may never have access to…they still have this. They know where they come from. They have a traditional culture that is still alive and well and, well, kicking.
That’s something that I think is lacking in the US, and that a lot of people are trying to make up for. We’re an immigrant nation, which is wonderful and I think where the large majority of our strength comes from, but immigrants have to grow new roots to replace the ones they’ve left behind. Do I speak a word of Irish, Yiddish, Italian, Russian? No. I don’t really know my family’s history, or what our traditions were, or honestly anything to do with how things were more than 50 years ago except for what I’ve researched myself. I certainly didn’t grow up with this blend of old world and new that seems to be nothing special for all of the people in my village. Where one day they can sit down at a restaurant for a burger and coke, and the next be cooking samp over an open fire. Where learners put on a traditional dance while their mothers ululate with pride, and then turn on some 2Pac and do the latest dance moves that they saw on Jikamajika .
Its something very rare, and it seems like it should be (in my eyes at least) a delicate balance. But to the people around me its not. Its just the way things are. My house is half rondavale (traditional round hut) and half western. We have an electric stove and a solid collection of kettles for cooking over the outside fire. Everybody speaks in a mix of shongon, siswati, and english -- whistles and clicks and "hey, how ya doin'?" Is some of this just me romanticisizing an extreme poverty? Well, yes. But I think its also the recognition of something valuable, and rare, and worth holding on to.

New Address

Since trying to get my mail in Steenbok has mostly been one pain after another, I decided that it was about time to try something different. Therefore I present to you my brand new, mail getting, package recieving, mailing address:

Rebecca Miller
Box 1395
Malelane 1320
South Africa

Its on the side bar too, in case you forget.

eligama jesu hallelujah, amen!

Today I was taking the bus with two of my fellow volunteers. This is not terribly out of the ordinary. And outside of a couple of differences in protocol from busses in the US (for example, here it is okay for somebody to stand in the stairwell talking to the driver with the doors open as the bus whizzes along at 120 km/hour. In the US...not so much). So we're hanging out, doing the sardine thing on the morning commuter to Malelane and slowly everybody starts to sing. Which is also fairly par for the course and pretty neat. Its like being in a musical -- one person busts out in song and before you know it everybody else is singing along. I've wished that would happen in the US any number of times, it really spices things up. So we're driving and we're sardin-ing and we're singing, and life is good, and then the woman who had started to sing stands up. She continues to sing, so maybe she just wanted to stretch her legs, right? The singing dies down, and she calls out, "Hallelujah!" and the whole bus echoes back, "Hallelujah, Amen!" Now there's going to be a sermon. Sweet. This has happened once or twice before, and mostly its fun to see how many words I can pick out and a good way to pass a long bus ride. She greets the bus. Still standard, and then...then she turns to me. Apparently I know this woman, or she knows me.
She points me out to the entire bus, tells them all where I am living, what I am doing, and then proceeds to preach or witness or testify, or whatever the right term is for the next 15-20 minutes. Punctuated frequently by very fervent "Hallelujah!"s. I know at the very least that the first 5 minutes were about me. My assumption was that it was all good, but I don't really speak enough siSwati to be sure. For all I know she was exhorting the entire bus to beware the white devil-woman. But I sort of doubt it. The preaching goes on. Everybody is into it, not too many people are staring -- which is nice. She's swaying, she's yelling, she's stop mentioning my name so maybe I'm in the clear. Finally we get the closing Amen and I hear one more "make Sambo." This might be a reference to me. I'm not sure, there's a lot of Sambos in the area and people never refer to me as make (mother) though it is a polite form of address for a woman when you're using her surname.
The gogo finishes, and we all bow our heads and pray (out loud of course) and then shake the hand of the person sitting next to us. Gogo has a seat, and everybody looks satisfied at a piece of mobile evangelizing well done. I steal a glance at my friend sitting next to me, and feel like I would give anything to be fluent in siSwati not just soon, but 5 minutes ago.

Thanksgiving

With apologies to past years and my family at home, this weekend I celebrated the best Thanksgiving of my entire life.

I wasn't expecting that at all, honestly. I thought that my very first thanksgiving out of the country and away from my family was going to be incredibly difficult. I thought I would be a depressed, crying, miserable, mess. Instead, I feel like everything that I really do have to be thankful for was just thrown into a sharp relief, and the day became so much more meaningful. About 15 of us got together, made delicious food, hung out and talked, toasted everything that we had to be thankful for, made a mess, ate to the point of pain, sat around holding our stomachs, and then ate some more. I was sad not to be with my family in the US of course, but this weekend for the first time it was really brought home to me how much all of the other volunteers have become my family. These are my brothers and my sisters, we commiserate and talk shit and cook and irritate eachother, but most of all we're all there for eachother. I spent Thanksgiving with my family, and I'm so grateful.

It was also the best thanksgiving ever because I got a HUGE packet of mail! Peace Corps had sent it all to another volunteer (damn the fielding-miller/miller nonsense). I got letters from my parents, from Erin and Roy and signed by a ton of other people (what a great idea guys, thank you SO much!!!), The Princess Bride, Pirates of the Caribbean, and a DVD full of excellent music from my charming and fantastic baby brother. So later in the evening, we all sat around watching Pirates and talking and picking at left over turkey -- followed by watching the international edition of The Daily Show (!! bliss!!!), the Simpsons, and ESPN's updates on college football. Maybe that doesn't sound like a lot, but here its almost a small miracle. It was like having a small piece of home out in a place where I can appreciate it even more.

I'm aware that this whole thing is poorly written, and I'll come back and fix it later. But I wanted to share, while I'm still on cloud 9, what a wonderful weekend I've just had. In the words of Angie, "When I'm 80 and sitting around with my grandkids at Thanksgiving, I just know I'll be thinking: 'you guys are ok I guess, but that Thanksgiving 2006 in South Africa was the SHIT!'"

Also, bagels are a pain in the ass to make, but worth it.

Disjointed Thoughts

My laptop battery died so I didn't get to type up any sort of elaborate eloquent post to put up today, so instead you just get some random thoughts as they occur to me:

• My house was hit by lightning, and everything electronic that I was was blown out by a power surge. There are also scorch marks on my walls and I am still sweeping up bits of plaster. Fun, huh? I wasn't in the room at the time, and wasn't hurt. Fortunately, neither was my computer.
• I am worth at least 30 cows, in terms of lobola (bride price). But I might be too expensive to marry since I don't eat pap.
• Grade R (kindergarten) graduations are pretty much the most adorable things ever.
• I don't know what the hell is going on with my mail, but hold off on any packages or letters you may be sending -- I think I'm going to get a new address since nothing is getting to me.

Thats all for now, sorry to be brief. Happy Thanksgiving!!

On Taxis

Taxis are the customary means of transportation for your friendly neighborhood Peace Corps Volunteer here in South Africa. Well, taxis, my own two feet, hitch-hiking, motorcycles, donkey carts, and the occasional stolen car (just kidding about a couple of those…hi Peace Corps!) They’re efficient, if you’re willing to give the word an extremely elastic definition. One that totally ignores any concept of time, speed, promptness or, well efficiency. But you can get to any village, any place in the country, for very little money…eventually.

The initial step in hailing a taxi is very simple. I walk outside of my room and go stand in the street. There is no set schedule of when one of those capricious, disintegrating, hurtling tin cans will decide to mosey by. You just wait until one does. Its not like they would be on time if there were a time-table anyway. So you stand, and you wait. A crowd of school-children walk past and giggle. They say “good morning” no matter what time of day it is, because for some reason that’s the only greeting they are ever taught in English, or the only one they remember. The braver ones might say “hihowareyou” in an incredibly nasal voice. This is meant to imitate my thick, exotic, and generally ridiculous American accent. The only correct response is “I am fine, and you?” because it’s the only one they learned. When I’m feeling particularly exhausted of being the village sideshow attraction I might purposely respond with “not too shabby, what’s cracking with you?” because I know that they have absolutely no clue what I’ve just said. But generally the prescribed English, or the siSwati “ngikhona.” (I’m here/I’m fine) works just fine. The children continue walking, their entire day’s topic of conversation now taken care of and taken up by the bizarre “Mistress Nomvula.”

I wait some more. A few bakkies (pick-up trucks with anywhere from 2 to 25 people in back) whiz by. Some cows cruise down the road, impervious to the honking and swearing of whoever is trying to get somewhere behind them. A Steenbok traffic jam. A gogo by herself or in a pack walks up. (I haven’t decided yet what the correct term for a plurality of gogos is. I’m sure it exists.) They look at me as if I’m doing something slightly sketchy, and I say “sanibonani, bomake” (good day, mothers). Immediately their faces light up and we exchange pleasantries. Greeting gogos is one of my favorite parts about wrestling with this ridiculous language. They’re always ecstatic and I like to try and drag the conversation out as far as I can. They’re very patient, and at every broken sentence or attempt they will clap their hands and try to find someone new to point out this miraculous and novel white woman to. In fact, greeting in general can change the tone of an entire interaction. I’ve had young men go from looking at me like a walking job, wallet, and evil oppressor all rolled into one, to a friend in just a brief sentence. A young woman working in a shop will switch from ‘ma’am’ to ‘sesi’ (sister). A grandfather giving me the evil eye will burst into an enormous toothless grin. Its an amazing, breathtaking experience each time, even though it happens 3 or 4 times a day, and one that I don’t think will ever get old. Going from mistress to sister…I like that.

The gogos continue on to take care of their important gogo related business (I’m sure it involves some form of world domination) and I wait some more. Finally, there, on the horizon – is it? Could it be? It’s a taxi. It stops at least 5 times between when I spot its tell-tale cloud of dust and when it finally gets to me. I put my hand up and point my finger in the air – I’m heading out of town. The taxi pulls over and I yank open the sliding door of the minivan. If I’m lucky, it rolls open smoothly and there are only 3 or 4 people already inside, a few of whom I already know. If I’m not so lucky then I jerk a few times, nothing happens, the person next to the door bangs a little bit just for the heck of it, the driver turns the engine off, walks around, and manhandles the thing as far as he can. Then I climb in, watching my head because of the rope that is tag-teaming with the rust to keep the door in place, and squeeze myself in, between an enormous gogo and a mother breast-feeding her baby. In front of us a man is holding a box of chickens and next to him another man holding a box of beer. We sit 4 to a row in benches meant to hold 3 and the driver will attempt to cram at least 23 people into that poor little minivan. It can be done, I’ve seen it.

This entire process can take anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour.

I pay my dollar (R6,50) and that taxi drops me off at the taxi rink, where minivans, hawkers, drivers, and passengers all swirl around in a cloud of smoke and diesel and yelling. I greet the taxi marshall, whose job bears a striking resemblance to that of a circus ringmaster. He’s starting to recognize me, and points out the taxi I want. Then there’s a little more waiting involved. The taxi won’t leave until it is completely full – all 16 seats taken. If that takes 15 minutes great, if it takes 2 hours (and it has taken 2 hours) well, you weren’t trying to get around Africa in a hurry, were you? Rookie move.

Finally the taxi is full. I pass my fare up and try to make friends with the nearest middle-aged woman or gogo. This is a precautionary, defensive move, because inevitably I will be hit on by whatever man, drunk or sober (usually drunk) has decided today that I look like a pretty good ticket to American citizenship and a life of ease in that great, rich country where the streets are paved with gold and no alcoholic ever has to work. Busting out the siSwati is no help in this situation, it just encourages them. I’ve told men that I’m married, that my lobola is far too high, that I’m 14, that my parents expect me to come home again sans husband. None of them seem to work. I honestly don’t mind most of the time. Messing with their heads is an entertaining way to pass a long taxi ride, and its pretty good boost to the ego. There are certain key phrases that signal where the conversation is about to go:
“what time is it?” = “I’m about to start hitting on you mercilessly. Gear up.”
“Are you married?” = “I would really like to be an American citizen”
“Ngiwutandza.” = “I love you (lets get it on right here).”

So that’s fun. Finally though the taxi gets to where its going, which is hopefully within a mile or two of where I would like to be. I hop out, go do my shopping or whatever I’ve come for, and eventually amble on back to the taxi rink to do it all over again.

Nothing is ever boring here.

In which there's a light drizzle

I just got totally busted for having a messy room and dirty sneakers. The messy room I can almost see…sort of (and its not even near a mess for those of you who have seen my place in the States!). But really, sneakers? Its been raining like it’s the end of the world here for the past few days, and I walk to my school in the morning. Of course my shoes were a little dirty! So I had two pairs of shoes and half my clothes taken away from me, apparently on the theory that I am too American/white/incompetent to wash my own clothes.

But other than the fact that I’m an utter slob, things are still going well here. It’s the rainy season now, though its also summer. This means that its ridiculously hot, but we also get a solid dose of humidity thrown in now. It gets hot, hot, hot. The air pushes down on you, the sun tries to suck every drop of moisture out of you that it can find, and all you can do is lie down and sweat and wait for it to be over. You start thinking, “oh god, why can’t it just rain?” and then it will get so heavy, so oppressive, that eventually it seems like even the sky itself can’t stand it. The air around you begins to curdle, to twist in on itself, pushing you even harder, becoming so viscous you can nearly hold it in your hand and then its all just been stretched too far, twisted too hard, and it all explodes in on itself in some of the most mind-blowing thunder storms that you’ve ever seeen. Houses shake with every boom, the sky looks like its being torn apart with every bolt. It quite literally sounds like the voice of God, and to see a summer squall out here is to understand where that phrase came from. I love it. Even if it does make my sneakers dirty. After all, my name here is Nomvula, which in fact means “rain.”

My name is actually something of a mystery, but one that I’m enjoying teasing apart. We all got new, South African, generally Zulu, names within a week of arriving here. Our host families during training renamed us, and while most people got names like Sihle, Zinhle, Lerato, Sibusisu (pretty, beautiful, love, blessing, etc…), even Shaka. I got Nomvula. Which honestly miffed me a little at first. I mean, sure it was raining the day before we met our families but come on…how about a little creativity? Now I love it, I think its beautiful. And I can now officially claim that bad 80s song about the rain in Africa, I’ve decided its about me. (I’ve actually heard it on the radio a few times out here, it cracks me up every time). But every now and again as I chat with people they’ll translate my name not just as “rain” but as “she who brings the rain” or occasionally “mother of rain” or even “the mother of rain.” There are also Rain Queens in the Limpopo province. The rural parts of South Africa are on the whole very Christian (give or take the occasional muti-killing or resident sangoma) so it’s actually a little trickier than you would expect to pursue vague, possibly pre-Christian local beliefs. Nobody really seems to know exactly who this Nomvula person is or was, if it even is one particular personality and not just an honorific. (You should see the looks that I get when I ask who Nomvula is. “Its you, dummy!” Its sort of the same expression as when I mention riding a bike, driving a bus, or eating salad.) Or maybe they just won’t tell me about it.

Also, I think my wallet was stolen. From my room. Fucking lame.

I'm just a fool whose intentions are good...

Well unfortunately I have nothing nearly as cool as meeting the president to talk about today, but I do feel like I am beginning to get my foot in the door at at least one of my schools. Which is probably a little bit more my job than hanging out with high-ranking politicians. I’ve convinced my key-school principal to let me paint one wall of the primary school with a giant world map, which I think will be a pretty cool project. One of the teachers who was in the room when I was initially reading about it happens to love geography and is in fact currently teaching the very grid-enlarging method that we would use to get the map onto the wall. So he was sold and I get to do my project actual grass-roots style, like I’m supposed to. We’re going to recruit about 80 Grade 7 learners to do the real work, and I’m going to attempt to work in as many sample lesson plans and new curriculum usage as I can. Its actually already spawned a number of geography conversations with some teachers. I think that the curriculum was written in Canada, so consequently they all seem to think that either I myself am Canadian, or that Canada is part of the US – or both. There is also some general confusion about the location of Europe, North America vs. the United States, and whether or not you can drive to America. Generally the resources just don’t exist to put a nice map in every classroom, so I’m hoping that this will alleviate that problem and spark some good discussions on geography, culture, etc… Plus, I get to feel like I’m actually doing something. This is all provided that everything doesn’t fall through, of course, so wish me luck.
I’m grateful that I’m beginning to have projects to work on, because it gives me something to space out about when I’m watching television with my family at home. I love to spend time with them, and they’re all wonderful, but…lets just say that if the Chuck Norris Collection was to dissapear at some point I would definitely have had nothing to do with it…nor would I be too sad. Last night we watched Delta Force, featuring a manly and virile Chuck Norris and a rocket-launching motorcycle tracking down evil Arab terrorists. It was sort of like Team America, except the acting was a little stiffer and the special effects not as cool. The music was about on par though. Chuck Norris is big here, I have no idea why, but at least it makes all Chuck Norris Facts just that much funnier.
I got my first sunburn last week. (Meeting Thabo Mbeki. Did I mention I met Thabo Mbeki? The sunburn was worth it). It of course started to peel on Monday, and this freaked out all of my teachers. It may have been the first sunburn they had ever seen. A few probably thought that I had leprosy, and I had to explain numerous times that it was not the heat, per se, so much as UV rays. Then I had to explain UV rays. And melanin. (Actually, the melanin conversation was a good one). The upshot of all of this is, however, I am no longer aloud outside of the house without an umbrella or a large hat, and everybody goes out of their way to make sure that the delicate American is always in the shade and out of the heat. Hopefully that will get boring eventually.
And finally, a note on packages and mail: Matt Nagel is my current favorite human being on the face of the planet. And I would highly suggest that if any of you are sending a package to South Africa, declare it as something really boring, like “books” or “sundries” (the latter is a good one) and be sure that it is going air-mail. This vastly reduces the chances of it getting stolen, since writing dvds, clothes, and good things like that are like an invitation for stealing.

Oh, and the people down the road may or may not practice ritual 'muti-killings.' Of people. Neat, huh?

Donkey Jive

So…yesterday I shook hands with Thabo Mbeki. That’s going to be hard to top, either in this blog entry or the next two years – maybe I’ll just head back to the US now.

I was at the dedication of a monument to Samora Michel, and both he and the president of Mozambique were there, planting symbolic trees, making speeches, interacting with their public, and generally being good politicians. My key-school principal had taken me there – he likes to act like my own personal tour guide of all that South Africa has to offer – and we had arrived early enough that I was sitting towards the front with a crowd of gogos (who offered me candy and would start yelling at anybody who stood in front of them and blocked their view for more than 30 seconds. I love gogos.). When the little pocket of dignitaries paraded past us, of course everybody ran up to try to see the president. I wasn’t going to at first, but then I thought: what the hell, when am I going to get this chance again? So there I was, shaking hands with the President of South Africa. Seriously, how cool am I?

Like I said, that’s going to be hard to top, but I do have more to say. So I’ll let you admire these pictures for a few moments while you collect yourself, and then move on:

Hmm, just kidding. Photos are harder than I thought. Maybe later.


As far as my actual job goes, I think that things are going well. I’m getting to know my teachers – which as far as I can tell really is our only actual job for the first few months. The trick is in building relationships, keeping your mouth shut, and really doing very little, while appearing to actually be useful and beneficial. I did help one of my teachers use a computer for the very first time though, and the look on her face was awesome. She’s a cool woman, very intelligent and strong, you can just tell. She had asked me to type up a letter for her and I told her that I would show her how to do it herself. She was almost terrified to use the computer, she told me that she had never really done anything but look at one before. So together we opened word, I explained the basics of typing, and she started to type the letter. It took about 20 minutes for a 3 line letter, but the majority of that was just figuring out where the keys were placed. She was so excited that she was literally clapping her hands together. It was awesome. By the end we both agreed that computers were easy, and that I should start teaching computer lessons there ASAP. Its nice to feel like you’re really doing something.

I do feel like I struggle sometimes with giving all three of Peace Corps goals equal weight. (A refresher: Development work, sharing American culture in a foreign country, sharing a foreign country’s culture back home). The second one is easy. The question invariably starts with “So, in America…” and will be followed up by anything from questions about livestock to politics. People are continually shocked by the fact that we really do have cows, but no pap. (“But what do you eat?”). The third one I imagine won’t be too tricky either. God knows I’m opinionated enough and have a big enough mouth to be ‘sharing’ my knowledge for the rest of my life – whether my audience likes it or not. But of course the reason I joined Peace Corps was for the first. I continually hear that the smaller you set your goals the happier you’ll be. That I shouldn’t expect to see results for at least a year – if ever. That, to quote the Bhagavad Gita, “To the work alone are you entitled, never the fruit.” In other words, the problem is a big one, and the mindsets pretty entrenched. I know that the work I’m doing is important, that eventually I will make a difference – even a little bit – but its hard now when we’re all still getting used to eachother. When my only goal is to get my teachers to trust me enough to let me work. So I rely on the fact that I’m certainly taking care of 2 and 3. But that feels like a little bit of a cop-out.

I remember having a conversation with Dana before I left. I acknowledged that the work would be hard, that I wasn’t about to change the world, “but if one more girl goes to college then I win.” My poor 14 year-old host sister, Latoya (whom I love, and who is completely awesome) has mentioned to me on several occasions how much she loves to read and write, and that she wants to be a doctor. I hope the poor girl knows that she’s pretty much sealed her fate in my eyes. I’ve already started researching universities and scholarships.

This is getting long, so I’ll cut it short. For those of you in Davis-land enjoying homecoming today: have a good time and Go Ags. And Happy Birthday to Dana, Erin, and Chad. Your gifts are in the mail, I swear.

Starting to get to Work...

So I now have access to my email whenever I may want it via my pretty blinged-out cellphone, but anything beyond that is sort of a pain. Hopefully I’ll have more substantial internet at least once a week, and on of my schools is (in theory, maybe, next year) getting internet. So, here’s hoping. But like I said, I do at least have access to my email whenever I want it, so feel free to email me!
As of September 21st I am officially a real-live Peace Corps Volunteer. We had a very nice swearing-in ceremony, and one of the other volunteers gave an absolutely amazing speech in isiZulu. Really, I’ve kicked around the idea of being a speech writer from time to time, but Jeff put anything I could ever write to shame. I’ll have to see if anybody wrote it down and post it.
So now I have moved into my new village with my new host family. I am living with a younger couple (mid/late 30s), and 6(!) children, ranging from 18 months to about 16 years. I’m staying in a room just next to the house, which took a little bit of negotiation, but I think it was worth it. Except now I have to kill my own cockroaches. And spiders. And rats. Guess I’ll just have to get tough. The cockroaches are seriously the size of my hand though. After having to listen to one run around my room for the better part of a night, though, I declared a fatwa on all organisms with more than 3 legs and went a little crazy with the “DyRoach.” I used an entire can in under 20 minutes. Sure I felt a tad dizzy that night, but the next morning I found my new friend upside down and immobile under my bed. So I’m willing to consider that a victory. I comfort myself with the fact that had I done PC Madagascar, the cockroaches would have had the words “giant” and “hissing” as a pre-fix. So maybe this isn’t so bad.
I do have electricity, which is awesome, but no running water. Which is slightly unawesome. I wouldn’t mind so much – you actually get used to the pit toilets pretty fast – but I really miss showers. My hair really misses showers. But actually, with a little ingenuity and a little (okay, a lot) of spare time, even that probably won’t be so bad. I was using just a bucket, a water kettle, and a washcloth, and that worked all right, but recently I have upgraded: I bought a small pitcher and a watering can. The watering can simulates showers surprisingly well, and I’m already planning an elaborate rig involving some rope, wire, and a bigger basin (to minimize the splash-zone). Hot showers are just a matter of time. You’ll see. I’ll post photos.
I spent the last week at my key school, just observing and getting to know my teachers. I’m not entirely certain what my job is going to be yet, but I have some good leads. I did a small, short workshop with my teachers just to get an idea of what they want. So far my list includes computer lessons, discipline and classroom management (this one was heavily emphasized. I think that I may actually be at one of the very few rural schools that honestly doesn’t hit its learners. At least, I didn’t see any last week. But the teachers don’t know what else to do), lesson planning and the new national curriculum, different teaching methods, involving learners, and team building. Personally, I also want to work on critical thinking, and do a few fairly scientific, fact based presentations on HIV/AIDS. Awareness of the disease is not the problem. South Africa has one of the highest rates of HIV in the world. It may be as high as 1 in 3 people. It is thoroughly worked into the curriculum, you see ribbons, slogans, and signs everywhere. But that doesn’t mean that people necessarily understand the concept of a virus, of blood and fluid-borne diseases, of what exactly is happening to a person. What the hell, it can’t hurt, right?

Alive and back!!

So on September 21st, I officially became a real live PCV here in South Africa, and with that the hard work apparently really starts. (Because apparently learning an entirely new language, culture, and system of education wasn't tricky enough). I have been living at my new site for two weeks now, and I love it. I'm in a very small town practically on the border of Mozambique and, even better, practically on the border of Kruger National Park! I've already been to both (okay, to the border of both) and in Kruger I got the chance to see crocodiles, hippos, wildebeest, and rhinos. Which was awesome. I also spent about a week suffering fron tick-bite fever, which was slightly less awesome but -- oh well. At least I got to be the very first member of our group to get a real live South African disease! So go me. I actually wrote up a very nice, long post on my computer at home, but then forgot to put it on my flash drive and bring here. So for the moment you all get the short one in which I summarize all of the things I can think of off the top of my head.

And before I forget, my brand new address is:

Rebecca Miller (/Nomvula Sambo, if you're feeling clever)
Box 62
Steenbok
1347
South Africa.

Be sure to write airmail on the envelope or it may take the better part of 4 months to reach me. Which would be sort of lame. And be sure to write me! Letters make a day better like nothing else.

I currently have access to my email whenever I want it via my cellphone, so if anybody wants to reach me that is an excellent way to do it. I have to respond using the phones keypad, so you may not get a long answer back, but I promise that I have seen it! (and if you want my cell number, give my parents a call -- they have it).

Next week I will post the longer entry that I wrote up, and maybe some pictures as well. But for the moment rest assured that I am happy, all of my fellow PCVs are some of the most amazing people and best friends I have ever met, and -- yes, people eat cow intestines and chicken feet. Occasionally on the same day. Thank god for multivitamins and peanut butter.

Hooray South Africa!

No really, there's no pap in America

Okay, so its been over a month in South Africa, and I'm still alive. Hooray! Currently I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Nelspruit (Naspoti) which itself is about 2 hours from my soon to be new home.

I know that I have a lot to say, but I'm not sure what to cram into these 5 minutes, and what can be safely left for later. For the basics:
All of the other PCTs are truly phenomenal people, and my nearest neighbor is only about 15 minutes away by bike (provided I eventually get a bike). I'm living in a very small village thats not far from both Kruger National Park and Mozambique. My host family is composed of about 6 children and two parents who have all of 15 years on me -- so its a little weird to call them mom and dad. I have electricity, but no running water. Everybody watches way more WWE wrestling than can possibly be good for them, and I'm sorry Virginia, but 2pac really is dead. (You'd be surprised how often I get that question. Its a nice relief from the marriage proposals).

I will have both internet and cellphone soon, at which point you'll all hear from me way more than you want to. But at the moment suffise to say: I haven't washed my hair in a week, my siswati is getting better, I now stare at flushing toilets in awe, I saw real-live hippos the other day, and I WANT LETTERS!!!

So life is good.

(And Kelsey, if you're reading this please send me your address, I forgot to get it before I left).

Day 2 - something random

So today was my first full day of pre-service staging. We sat in meetings for 4 hours, and it turns out that even when orientations are with lovely people and discussing something you're super excited about -- they're still so boring that you contemplate killing yourself with papercuts.

But, here's something super random: I met a guy who went to Berkeley. I told him about Davis, and he mentioned that he had been out there and gone to a certain rural social event. It turns out that we were both band officers, him at Cal and me at Davis, and that two years ago I had given him and two other people a tour of out new bandroom! How funny is that? We had actually met before two years ago in Davis, and now we're going to South Africa. Further proof that the universe is smiling on my little adventure.

After meetings we got some dinner and wandered downtown philly for a few hours. It was really nice. There's so much history back east, just all over the place and the night was lovely, and there were fireflys! The east coast and southern people made fun of me, but hey -- fireflies!!

So far so good. Tomorrow: shots. Yay.

Day 1.5 in Philly

Well, I can't get blogspot to work at the moment, so I'll just post here and cut and paste later. Today is my first official day of peace corps staging. I'm sitting in a hotel in the historic district of Philadelphia, getting ready to go check out a few touristy things and then head to lunch with a bunch of my training class whom I've previously met online.

Last night was excellent, Nicolette and I got into town at about 11pm, I met my roommate for the next few days -- who is wonderful, and then we headed out to find something to eat. We discovered this cool irish pub with a kitchen thats open until 1 only a few blocks away and sat outside just people watcing for a few hours. Philly has one hell of a nightlife, even at 1am on a Sunday people were all over the place. Actually, its a lot like New York, only in miniature.

I was so terrified the night before last. I was having panic attacks, and freaking out over nothing, and breaking down. But now -- now I am so excited I can't believe it. This is going to be great!!!!!!

10 days and counting. My goodness, I don't think anything at all is going to really sink in until I've gotten on the plane. And even then, who knows? I'm so excited, and so terrified, and so just completely in shock.

For anybody who wants to send me letters (and please do!!) my address for the first couple of months will be:

Rebecca Miller, PCT
Peace Corps
PO Box 9536
Pretoria 0001
South Africa

As a warning, letters can take up to 6-9 weeks to get from the US to South Africa, so you might want to put a date on it. But please, mail! I don't want to feel too out of touch with all the good gossip.

"South Africa is currently experiencing one of the most severe HIV epidemics in the world. By the end of 2005, there were five and a half million people living with HIV in South Africa, and almost 1,000 AIDS deaths occurring every day, according to UNAIDS estimates.1 A survey published in 2004 found that South Africans spent more time at funerals than they did having their hair cut, shopping or having barbecues. It also found that more than twice as many people had been to a funeral in the past month than had been to a wedding"
-Avert.org

Thats staggering. 20% of the population in South Africa has HIV/AIDS, thats 1 in 5. There are 15 million AIDS orphans. And part of what I'm supposed to do is "HIV/AIDS education". I'm supposed to help with that somehow. Me, some comp lit major from California with a handful of planned parenthood info pamphlets and a few condoms. I'm starting to feel a little nervous.

I remember talking to Ryan once about all the horribly, frustatingly, irritatingly wrong things that there are in this world. Its like trying to pull a 10,000 car freight train uphill with a piece of dental floss. But its better than not pulling, isn't it?

Here's my packing list so far. It seems like I'm forgetting something important, but at the same time am bringing way too much junk. Weird. Also, I know the formatting sucks, but I'm going to work on it. Eventually.

Packing list 3.1

Clothes:
• Skirts (4)
• Jeans (2)
• Nice pants (2)
• Nice, ls and ss shirts (4-5)
• T-shirts (2-3)
• Sweatshirt (1)
• Tights/leggings (2-3?)
• Windbreaker/jacket (1)
• Socks (lots)
• Underwear (lots)
• Bras (4-5)
• Headscarves (3-4)
• Hats (2)
• Sports bra

Toiletries:
• Dr. Bronner’s
• Diva
• Toothbrush (2)
• Toothpaste
• Hairbrush
• Hair goop
• Deodorant
• Conditioner
• Face lotion w/ sunblock
• Sanitizer
• Washcloths
• Burt’s bees toner
• Some makeup
• Hair ties
• Earplugs
• Aleve
• Excedrin pm
• tissue
• Sunblock
• 2 sets glasses
• razors

Electronics:
• Ipod
• Transmitter
• Charger
• Digital Camera
• Laptop?
• Shortwave radio
• Alarm clock
• Watch
• Flash light/head lamp
• Electricity converter
• Flash drive
• Batteries

Shoes:
• Chacos
• Sneakers
• Naturalizers
• Hiking boots

Misc:
• Books
• Playing cards
• Stationary, pens, journals, stamps
• Address book
• Small games
• Stickers
• Aggie pack presents
• Gifts for host families
• Maps/posters
• Leatherman
• Sewing kit
• Duct tape
• Sleeping bag(maybe)
• Camping towel
• Nalgene (2)
• Calling card
• Photo albums
• Locks
• Money belt
• Mace/pepper spray
• Tea
• Knitting supplies
• Scissors
• Index Cards

July 23...