Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, aka*

On the 28th, after a little bit of doubt, I made it to Atlanta from Paris. On Hallowe'en (somebody's new year) I found myself back in Ventura California after slightly over 27 months away. (Plenty of photos of all that, plus previous travelling are up at Snapfish.) I will now attempt to become a productive member of society in a country that -- lucky for me -- seems to suddenly be brand new for all of us. The last couple of years have been a great adventure and a great joy, but as I am no longer wandering South Africa (no matter how much I wish I was) that means that it is time for this blog to make an end. Until the next time I hop on a plane of course. But, in anticipation of that moment, I will just say PEACE OUT! And leave you with the lyrics of the great Paul Simon:


A man walks down the street
It's a street in a strange world
Maybe it's the Third World
Maybe it's his first time around
He doesn't speak the language
He holds no currency
He is a foreign man
He is surrounded by the sound
The sound
Cattle in the marketplace
Scatterlings and orphanages
He looks around, around
He sees angels in the architecture
Spinning in infinity
He says Amen! and Hallelujah!







*The End

Zanzibar for Obama

Since the last time I wrote, I've embarked on a 40-hour train ride (in which I learned the kiSwahili phrases for both "My name is not Mzungu!" and "No, thank you." Useful.), briefly peaked at Lake Victoria (fishy), took a 15 hour landrover ride across the Serengeti and Ngorogoro conservation area (Big. And dusty), spent a day chilling in a Masai village, and managed a brief but eminently satisfying view of Mt. Kilimanjaro, snows and all. Wow. It's outrageous just to read that sentence, isn't it? Sometimes I take a second to reflect on all the places I've been, and people I've met in the last couple of months, and I find myself simply flabbergasted. It is unbelievable that I have had the good luck to experience a trip like this, and I try to spend at least a minute or two each day feeling greatful for it. To be fair, this is usually not the minute when some street-vendor or other has started up with a combination of 'flirting' and selling me something I don't want. Occasionally he will throw in a reference to how fat I am and how attractive African men find this. At this point I usually throw the concept of cultural-sensitivity out and respond exactly as I please:
"Big mama! How are you today! Nice t-shirts, good price!" (while puffing out his cheeks and miming a big stomach. Or, occasionally, making eating motions. My favorite.)
"Hey, Fuck you! I'm great, no thanks." I talk fast and say it all with a big smile. You can get away with anything with a big smile. I doubt they even hear me.

A lot of this has been going on recently, since a few days after my brief view of Mt. Kilimanjaro (how much longer is the snow there supposed to last, anyways?) I made my way to Zanzibar. Which is FANTASTIC. I hesitate to label any place I've been as a favorite, I feel like everything should be evaluated in its own time and place and context and, I've loved almost everywhere. But despite the almost obscene amount of tourists wandering the island, and the obscenely irritating number of shops, street-vendors, and people generally trying to make a buck that the tourists have generated, Zanzibar -- and Stone Town, where I am now -- is still amazing. Zanzibar is the center of a swirl of every culture, language, religion, and individual quirk that has ever seemingly wandered across the African continent. Hindu temples and shops, Omani mosques, a Portugese fort, remnants of hundreds of different southern, central, and African tribes -- come as either willing traders or as slaves to be sold in the last slave market in Africa -- all shape the place and the language and the food and the smells. I just don't have words for it.
And its hard to mind the tourists in that case, because in a place where cultures and people from across the world have ebbed and flowed for over 1,000 years, it makes perfect sense that toddlers now shout "Ciao!" as well as "Jambo!," that restaurants ease Swahili food for European mouths, and the sheer amount of energy and infrastructure that goes into, well...international trade, I suppose you could say. (Even put into this context, however, the man who has been trying to sell me bootleg swahili reggae CDs for the past 3 days still irritates the living crap out of me). So I love it. Zanzibar is the home of intersections, of contrasts, of blending and bending and history and modern crap. The last slave market in Africa is now the home of "Zanzibar for Obama!" election headquarters.

Stop Stealing My Chacos!!!!

The other day I got caught in a rainstorm blown in by an errant and early monsoon. I ran to the nearest open building, which happened to be a restaurant, and sat drinking chai massala (spiced tea) in Dar es Salaam on a Sunday afternoon during Ramadan. The day before that I took a 13 hour bus from Mbeya to Dar, and as the bus wound through a game reserve I saw herds of giraffe, zebra, kudu, and impala meandering along the side of the road. Even a small cluster of baby elephants lazing in the shade of a Baobab tree. From the window of a bus!

Sometimes, I take a second to think about all of the people and places and sights that I have been lucky enough to come across in the last 5 weeks, and I simply can't believe it. I am blown away that I have this opportunity, that I am walking in a place which, while hopefully it won't be a once in a lifetime visit, is certainly a once in a lifetime experience. I love this place, the different people and the different countries, and the different land, and I plan to spend a good deal more time here in the not-too-distant future, but that in no way detracts from the uniqueness of what I'm doing now. No stepping in the same river -- or the same daladala -- twice, and all that. To reduce it all down to the most basic summary: Its pretty badass that I get two months to wander through Africa all on my lonesome. I try very hard not to lose that perspective, even when busses take hours to fill, or trains break down for TWENTY FIVE HOURS, or people constantly try to sell me something or hustle me, or just otherwise part me from my cash. Its all part of the deal, and part of the story. While at times I do get so frustrated and exhausted of everything that I just want to scream and cry and break things, well, that sort of part of the package. If I wanted a no-hassle, no-fun vacation I would have signed up for club med. This is real. Whatever real is.

Today is Eid, the end of Ramadan, which matters in Dar es Salaam. Dar is a mix of seemingly everybody who has ever wandered across the African continent. Maasai in traditional wraps are hired as security guards at shops and cheap tourist hotels, which in turn are located across the road from massive mosques and hindu temples. People wander the streets in any traditional outfit you can think of, and the streets smell like fried samosas, sweets from the Taj Mahal Confectionary shop, spiced tea, live chicken, rotting garbage, bananas, coconut, coriander, and wet pavement from the last rain to blast through. I am undecided on if I like the place or not. When I first got here, all I could think was that it was so BIG. I was vaguely reminded of sketchier parts of Hollywood, but with a lot more mosques. Big, and busy too. Cars zoom up and down the streets, people are everywhere, the place is littered with shops and stands and carts and people people people. After wandering from laid-back Malawian village to village, its all a little overwhelming. In fact, it all reminded me a bit of the feeling of going into Pretoria's biggest mall two days before Christmas, after having spent three months straight in Steenbok. Just...too much.

Now I've been here for a few days though, and I'm slightly better adjusted. Hopefully this afternoon I'll begin moving on to Mwanza, on the shores of lake Victoria. I was supposed to do this yesterday, but...thats where the 25 hour train delay comes in. All part of the fun, right?

Sing Us A Song

I have finally managed to slow down a bit and stop jumping from place to place. After the marathon that was Botswana-Zambia, and even the first couple of days in Malawi, I feel like I am finally starting to relax and take things at a travellers place, without always worrying about the next place I'm going to and how important it is that I get there now now. On the one hand, this is very relaxing, but on the other it gives me much more of a vacation feeling which for some reason I feel like I am not -- nor should I be -- on. I can't explain this, maybe I feel like I'm supposed to be communing with Africa and not spending my days laying on hammocks and watching the lake swish back and forth. Thats what tourists do. I am not a tourist. I am a peace corps volunteer, and we do thinks a little different from that generic backpacker-on-holiday set. Except now I'm not. I'm just one more unemployed girl watching the lake swish back and forth while drinking beer in a hammock. Which is, of course, not the worst thing in the world to be by a long shot.

Recently a lot of that hammock-lounging has been taking place on Likoma Island, in the middle of Lake Malawi. Likoma is, as you would hope a small tropical island in the middle of a large Rift Valley Lake would be, very beautiful and very laid back. There are two roads on the island, and maybe twice as many cars (the fancy resort's land rover, the Unicef truck, the ambulance, and the German guy's green jeep). The sunsets are also up to standard, and so I won't bother to describe them, I'll just allow you to consult all of the postcard sunset imagery in your head. Besides being an (unemployed) bum, on Likoma I spent four days learning to SCUBA dive, and have decided that I am totally in love. Diving is like nothing else, you become completely a part of the water around you, as much as the fish and the rocks and the light that floats down in tendrils and waves. Its amazing to swim 3 inches above the sandy bottom of a lake, and know that the surface is 18 meters (thats 54 feet) above your head. Plus, the gasses and pressures and whatnot involved made my freshly burnt arm break out in little bubble-wrap like nodes. Icky and fun, what a great sport!

Unfortunately, I got those sunburnt arms from one of the most GOD AWFUL boating experiences of my entire life. Likoma, like I said, is an island in the middle of one of the world's largest freshwater lakes. So of course, you can only reach it by boat (or plane, but like I can afford a private plane flight). The boat of choice coming from the Malawian main land is the Ilala Ferry, a huge old steam boat thats been chugging up and down the lake for half a century. Most people rave about the thing. They have fantastic experiences, meet cool people, spend their time admiring the Mozambican and Malawian shores while drinking beer and generally having a good time. I, of course, happened to hop on during one of the worst storms of the year. Which really confused me, since there was no rain or clouds or even swells (though, in retrospect the ones I were estimating at 2-3 feet were probably a lot closer to seven, with occasionally bursts up into 9 or 10 if they were feeling particulary energetic.) There was just wind. Lots and lots of wind, which in turn made the boat rock and pitch continually, so that everything slid back and forth on the deck and most people had to give up and crawl to where they wanted to get. This still might have been fun (at no point did it feel dangerous -- just very rolly) had I not spent most of my time leaning over the side, trying not to lean over the side, or racing for the side, instead of just watching it all happen. So I was a little distracted and forgot the sunblock. (Mostly I was more angry than sick. Well, maybe almost as angry as sick. There was a lot of sick. BUT, I am not the one who gets sea-sick. I've been on boats my whole life! Don't the sea gods know this? I decided the problem was that we were on a lake and not an ocean. Stupid lake.)

Now, however, both my island and my lake times are up. Today I'm in a beautiful little place called in Nkhata Bay, staying at possibly one of the world's most social backpackers. So mostly I'm just hanging out and making friends before making the final run up to Tanzania. I like the place (Mayoka Village, should you ever find yourself here) for many reasons, but a major one is that they are heavily involved in the community around them, they don't set themselves apart. So last night a local church choir came to sing before dinner in the hopes of raising money for a new church roof. I like that this is something the owners would agree to, and something the church felt comfortable requesting. So the choir came up -- four ladies, two men, and a guy in back playing a keyboard with all the backbeats and synth settings he could muster. And the choir rocked out, and the ladies sang and dance, and the pastor/baritone held up his arms and called out 'Hallelujah!' whenever he felt the music required it, and the tourist audience sat quietly and attentively and applauded very nicely when it was over. And I laughed, because it was such a classic combining (I won't say clash, there was nothing violent) of cultures. Everybody played by their rules and wanted to be at their absolute best, and the rules were totally different on both sides. So the choir kept singing, and then of course the kitchen staff, and the barmen, and all the locals in the place got up and started singing and dancing too (because those are, of course, the proper rules to play by. There's no divide in African music, no performance space and audience space, no creator/reciever. Its all just music, and you're all inside of it) and the tourists thought to themselves 'oh, how charming' or maybe 'oh, how rude!' and I thought 'Rock on,' but I'm still too much of a chicken to get up and play even when I know the right rules. Until the next song, when the inevitable of course happened and the choir and other people up front starting pulling up the tourists to join -- starting with the girls in the front, of course -- and the tourists thought 'oh, how daring and how local we are!' and I'm sure the Malawians just laughed, or wondered what it was that glued those white butts to their wicker seats. Finally it ended like it should, with many people from many places up and dancing -- though still with a clear front and back to the room. Here is where people sing and dance, here is where we sit and admire people singing and dancing -- and a hat was passed around, and people gave money for the new church roof. I liked it. There was such an honest effort on both sides to come across that gap, or at least take an open eyed look. Nobody made it entirely to the other side of course, but it was a solid and friendly attempt. Which is all you can really ask, isn't it?

Evidence

Today I'm in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, after saying my goodbyes to Zambia. The border crossing was memorable mostly for the sheer number of times you have to change modes of transportation to travel less than 100 kilometers.

First there is the shared taxi from the Zambian border town. Apparently there used to be mini busses a year or two ago, but they were done away with since they weren't filling fast enough. Instead, little toyotas patrol back and forth from the border, leaving town when they fill up, shuttling people over, and then stuffing themselves full again before shuttling back. When I say little toyotas, I mean approximately 1998 camrys, not land rovers, and by full I mean at least 6 full grown adults -- not counting the driver. Four cram into the backseat, which isn't so bad, but then two more stuff themselves into the front passenger before the driver will even think of taking off. And in my ride, at least, I was not the biggest of these people. A feat I don't think I've seen attempted since college -- Picnic Day, usually -- and never without the influence, procurement, or escape from the consequences of, alcohol involved. (With adults in a sedan, at any rate, I can't even remember the record for the Chia car in high school, but I know it was a solid 2 digit number at the least).

Eventually we made it, though, and the driver kindly dropped me off exactly at the border post -- not before he and about 17 of his friends had even more kindly 'helped' me to exchange all my Zambian Kwacha for the Malawian brand. But the price was fair, and forex's are a pain, so even that wasn't so bad. I got myself stamped out of Zambia -- where the exit and security procedures include waving down the customs officer from his chat with the cold drink lady, having him stamp your passport without much inquisitiveness, and then being pointed in the direction of a large ledger book, where you are instructed to write down your name, country of origin, and mode of transport, for purposes that elude me, and probably the customs officer as well. What, if anything, is ever done with this book is a mystery to me, but I've learned its never a good idea to argue with the man holding the large rubber stamp, so I filled in the book and off I went. The same process essentially applies in Malawi, including the over-full toyota sedans and the men desperate to exchange cash. But finally I made it onto a bus heading to Lilongwe and into Malawi proper.

To be honest, I came prepared to love Malawi -- its talked up so much, "the lake of stars" "the warm heart of Africa"... -- so perhaps I was already a little biased, but certainly not dissapointed. I've been here two full days, and only to the capital, and so far I'm already in love. On the way in we passed three weddings (a pleasant departure from the funerals that always seem to line the sides of the road in South Africa), and two men walking down the road in traditional Chewa dress. I don't know why, but it still made me happy. The man next to me in the taxi took it upon himself to be my personal tour guide, pointing out "this one, it's Chewa culture! Of course!!" whenever we passed anything remotely Chewa-related, and punctuating everything with a huge laugh.

Today and yesterday I spent my time wandering old town Lilongwe, tomorrow I'll do the same, except with more purpose in mind. On friday I'm off to Likoma island, and will attempt to learn to Scuba dive, so money and sunblock will be the goals of the day.

Like a Hundred Million Hotdogs

Today I am in Lusaka after almost two weeks on the road. I got here via Botswana and Victoria Falls (sadly, the Zambian side only, I opted against a brief foray into Zimbabwe as a gift to you, mom) and tomorrow I start making my way into Malawi.

Northern Botswana is every image you have in your head about Africa, all distilled into one half of one country. Its full of huge expanses of bush and forests, crap roads, occasional small towns that are nothing much more than a couple of gas stations and a lady selling oranges, and rich tourists flying into remote $600 a night bush lodges on chartered planes to enjoy personal butlers and the chance to shoot/photograph something. Elephants, ostriches, giraffe, and all sorts of other animals wander the highways. A truck driver showed me the massive dent a buffalo made in the passenger-door one morning at 5am, a security guard at a campsite/lodge in the middle of nowhere (that I accessed by foot and not charter plane, by the way) told me stories of having to chase elephants out of the swimming pool with nothing more than a strobing flashlight (apparently elephants hate strobes, they run away from them instantly. So should you ever find yourself in the bush facing down an elephant... you're welcome.) I personally saw the ostriches and a giraffe just hanging out by the side of the road, not all that interested in the busload full of pointing Batswana -- and me.
Baobab trees also line the roads, and there's something really amazing and beautiful about those trees. I can't explain it, but there's a reason that they carry with them such a strong image of "the real Africa" (for whatever that phrase is worth) and are so iconic in so many people's imagination. They are, of course, enormous. As tall as a 3 or 4 story building, as big around as many houses I've seen, but their is also something vaguely silly about them. They're upside down trees, with their roots reaching up and who knows what going into the ground. But they are beautiful, and preposessing in a regal sort of way. They are old, old trees, that have seen a lot come and go over the centuries. If none of it bothered them, its hard to see a reason for you to get upset about what happened just an hour ago.

After Botswana I made my way into Zambia, across one of the tiniest borders in the world. The Botswana/Zambia border consists of about 25 feet of the Zambezi river, across which ferries that can hold all of 3 trucks and 40 people chug back and forth continually. Why the can't just build a bridge is a mystery to me -- the river can't be more than 30 feet across, and the lines of semis waiting for their turn on the ferry stretches at least the equivelant in miles -- but all the same, if you're on foot its pretty fun to cross borders on a ferry.
Crossing from Botswana to Zambia reminds me, in retrospect, of the crossing from South Africa into Mozambique -- calm to chaos, logic (as far as these things go) to anarchy. There is no line in the Zambian customs office (as much as there's ever a line anywhere in southern Africa) just a bunch of people shoving passports and 'temporary documents' at the customs officer, who stamped everything in site without much concern for the huge hordes of people, or the actual identity or nationality of the paper in front of him.
From the border I caught a public taxi with a driver who had decided to hang the days catch outside the window, and then drive at what couldn't have been over 70k/hour the whole 60k to Livingstone and so everything I own now reeks of dead Zambezi fish. On the plus side, he did drop me off exactly at the front door of where I was going -- after consulting 3 police officers, two other passengers, 5 ladies selling more dead fish at an open air market, and the guy who kept telling him he knew the exact address not once.

So, finally the next day I made it to Victoria Falls. Which is outstanding. I don't really have the words to describe it, its just the biggest thing you've ever seen, a cliff hundreds of feet long and that drops down sheer hundreds of feet down. Kayakers paddling around below you look like toys, and as the water falls over the cliff it hits with an unbelievable impact that -- in the rainy season -- can throw up plumes that can be seen as far as 2k away. I was reminded, watching the falls smash into the gorge below (and that is the word, the water falls so far that it literally smashes into the river underneath it) of nothing more than a sack of cement hitting the ground from 20 feet up, and throwing up dust all around it. And thats all water. Victoria Falls was originally known as Mosi Oa Tunya, the smoke that thunders, before Livingstone re-christened it, and the water is thrown up so far it looks like smoke, and hits so hard you can only be reminded of thunder. In the words of Eddie Izzard, we're going to have to take 'awesome' back (from who? from people like me, most of the time, unfortunately) because you can't just say that Victoria Falls, Mosi oa Tunya, is really really cool. It's awesome, in the original sense of the word.

Homeward Bound

(slowly)

As of yesterday morning, I am no longer a Peace Corps Volunteer. I have officially COSed, and therefore am officially no longer the US governments problem if I do something stupid. Which is probably comforting for all of us. I was going to have some long, summing up "wow, Peace Corps sure was great"post, but I just read the one I made a couple of weeks ago, and I can't really think of a better summary than that intense feeling of awe and gratitude. So I'll leave it. And besides, as I've been saying goodbye to almost every person who has kept me going in the last two years, I've decided that its not really the goodbyes or the last nights out, or the summing up that counts, its all the stuff that came before it. So lets not worry about the end of PC, because it was everything up until the end that matters.

About two weeks ago I took Jabu and Latoya to the big mall in Nelspruit to say goodbye. We got all dressed up and went to Spur (a 'wild west' steak house) and then to see Batman. Neither of them had ever been to a movie theater before, and I really wanted to do something special as a way of saying goodbye. Those two were my best friends, and I'm really going to miss them a lot. The thought of never seeing them again, not seeing the type of people that they will grow up to be, makes me so sad that I've justdecided not to think about it. I did write down addresses (of course!) and give them mine -- I also gave Latoya a couple of pre-stamped envelopes with my address already on it, so in theory all they have to do is put some words in an envelope and drop the envelope through a slot. That is at least a little comforting.

This morning I have been wandering Gabarone, in Botswana. This is the first step on my 10 week amble across southern and eastern Africa. Gabarone is an interesting city, very laid back, very calm, though that could be because I've been doing all my wandering on a sunday morning. Probably its a little more hopping monday through friday. But the people are nice and the houses don't look like maximum security prisons (pretoria -- I'm looking at you), which is a definite bonus. Tomorrow morning I move on to a city called Ghanzi in the middle of the Kalahari. I'm excited.

Home in the Land of the Homelands

As my time run outs, I find that my words seem to be as well. Two weeks ago I had my farewell function for my schools, and next Thursday (well, today by the time I get a chance to post this, I suppose) I will have left Steenbok forever and ever. And I don’t know what to say. Well, that’s not true. Of course I’m still me and the words never run out, but writing about leaving just makes everything so much more real and so I keep finding excuses not to. But two weeks to go is no time to quit, so I’ll do my best.

My farewell function was…well it was just as ridiculous as I ever could have dreamed. There were speeches and poems and dance performances by various learners who had been co-opted into entertaining the crowd. A couple of girls read poems that they had written, and my schools presented me with a full “Swazi” outfit and jewelry (and by Swazi they meant covered in lots and lots of beads. Its not traditional, but it is pretty cool). I gave a speech thanking everybody, we had a big meal and headed home. The whole thing was really touching, I couldn’t believe the effort so many people had gone through just to say goodbye to me. (A very Peace Corps sort of moment: walking to the function – the first time, before they made me walk back so that I could be picked up in style 2 hours later – I saw kids of all ages running around at 9am on a Friday when they should have been in class. Why no school? Because it had been shut down for the day to say thanks to me for all the work I’d done trying to help improve school! Oh well.)

Two weeks later, of course, I’m still here, and I keep running into people in the street who seem a little shocked by the fact. “Usahlala ekhaya?” “Utomuka nini?” (You’re still here? When are you leaving?) seems to be the standard refrain from every gogo I meet. They’re not being mean, we just spent 6 hours saying farewell, and then I didn’t go. It’s weird. I hate saying goodbye, and this extended three week process is very close to excruciating. It’s like tearing the world’s most epic band-aid off one hair at a time. I’ve been trying to keep myself busy, mostly by painting another world map at my key school – this one very tiny – and slowly giving away most of everything that I own. This has to be done incrementally, since if I start giving away too much at once it turns into a feeding frenzy and I have to beat off teachers and children with sticks. Recently though I was told that everything I own “even the spoons” must go to my host family. Really I don’t want to give them anything at all – except for the girls, of course – because generally they’re just not good people*. They don’t take care of things, or people, and I know they won’t value or take care of the things I give them. Which isn’t to say it won’t start an enormous amount of dispute and bad feeling if I don’t. But the passive-aggressive in me (or maybe just the part of me that has learned to pick its battles) says: ‘Fine, less work for me to do, then.’ I’ll pack my bag, clean the room, and they can sort through it all for me.

I think I sound bitter, but maybe a better word would be melancholy. I’ve spent two years in Steenbok, and its been an amazing transformative experience for me. I’m not really sure how to say goodbye, or how to summarize two years in a few sentences. It’s been…outstanding. Literally not a day has gone by when I haven’t felt an enormous sense of gratitude and privilege for the opportunity I’ve been given, for the people I’ve worked with, and the children who have been willing to play with me and teach me about their world. For the music and the language and the sunsets. Yesterday I took the bus home from Malelane. It took an uncommon turn into an out of the way village and we bumped down a dirt and sand road at what couldn’t have been more than 15 miles an hour. There was dust blowing up from both sides of the bus, cows ambling through the veld, kids running home from school, dancing in front of their houses, arguing with their friends on the footpaths that wound through the houses. I saw a gogo walking down the road with a walking stick that reached up to her shoulder and an old wrap and t-shirt she must have bought at the Naas market. The river was off to the left, and beyond that fields and fields full of mealies, po-po, cabbage, onion, tomato, sugar cane. And beyond that the Lubombo mountains that have hemmed me in and provided backdrop and border. It was nothing, it was an ordinary day in an ordinary village not far from my home. And all I could think was, “I am the luckiest girl alive.”









*Comforting, in its way, I suppose, to know that petty and selfish people extend across all cultures. No one country has the monopoly on jerk.

Extensions

Well, now my fingers are much warmer. Possibly because we recently got a new administrative block (building) at my key school. With that came several heating/air-conditioning units. With those came remote controls to regulate the ambient temperature. With that particular piece of modern convenience, of course, came the losing of said remote controls within five minutes of setting the clerk’s office at 32 degrees Celsius (aka, 90 degrees Fahrenheit). So my fingers are plenty warm now. Also I think I might pass out of heat stroke at any point in the next 15-20 minutes. But such are the sacrifices I’m willing to make to keep you happy, mom.

Girls camp, then: Likusasa Letfu, Part Two* was fantastic. Last year we had 25 girls for four days. This year we had 30 girls for six. We talked about self-esteem, good decision making skills, gender roles (one of my personal favorites) what love really means, and what we expect out of relationships, and of course a whole lot of HIV/AIDS education and discussion. One of my favorite parts, just like last year, was our I Can’t Funeral. Everybody wrote down things they couldn’t do, or thought they couldn’t do (“I can’t speak siSwati, I can’t draw to save my life, I can’t…” You get the idea.) Yunus, another volunteer, then made a fantastic coffin for I Can’t, and we all filed into the ampitheater of the place where we were staying to have a full two and a half hour funeral for I Can’t. Sure in America you would just have the kids write a few things, dump them in a shoe box, and then bury it, taking maybe 20 or 30 minutes, but this is South Africa. That’s now how it works. So we headed into the ampitheater. We sang, we danced, we gave speeches. One teacher, Beatrice, had been so inspired by last year’s funeral that she specifically made a preacher’s outfit, just so that she could be the pastor at this year’s event. In which case, of course, we had a sermon, too. Something about God telling Abraham to go out of his country. I’m not entirely certain how that relates to the death of I Can’t (or rather, none of the reasons that occurred to me seemed to be addressed in our sermon) but mostly that’s probably beside the point. Afterwards, everybody filed past the coffin, stuffing their list of I Can’ts in one by one while singing and doing a sort of conga line. Then we all headed to our bonfire, where there were only one or two more speeches, followed by the ceremonial tossing of the coffin (/bran flakes box) into the fire and of course some more singing. It was wonderful to be a part of, and to see how excited all of the teachers and girls were. To see ownership happening, in other words. After the funeral we all sat around the bonfire for an hour or two, telling jokes and stories and generally just having a good time.*

All in all, it was a great week, and much less stressful that I thought, probably for both external and internal reasons. Last year I was pretty much the only person doing everything, and I was certain that it was all a matter of life and death, too. The schedule had to be followed precisely, everything had to happen just so, and if not then clearly everything else would go straight to hell. Partially that was my fault though: I was the only one who had a clear idea of what exactly I wanted to happen, so I was the one with the burden of making everything go. Also, I’m American, and that mindset just seems to create its own stress. This year, all but one teacher who was there had been there last year, too. Everybody knew the game plan, everybody was in 100% (well, at least 70%. But C’s get degrees, right?). Plus I’m just a lot better at letting things go after two years in Africa. All of that is wonderful, obviously, and sustainable, and great, and better for my long-term health, but… one thing I realized is that without the certain sense that everything around you is going to come crashing down at any second, its much less elating when it goes really well. Everything that happened this year was just as fantastic as the year before, but without the potential of a massive crash and burn, the safe landing just seems a little less exciting. Not that I’m complaining, just making a point. We also had a lot of really great conversations about how to keep things going, how we can extend the program throughout the year, and how financing and planning will happen when I go. Teachers were really taking ownership, especially one lady who essentially ran everything but the lessons this year. It was wonderful to see her sense of empowerment, and watch her change from last year to this. Likusasa Letfu really became her project, and the communities, not just a good idea I happened to have and then conscripted a lot of other people into.

But let me wrap this up, because I know things are getting long. Here’s what I think the point of camp really is, beyond arguing what boys can do and girls can do, and the benefits of using condoms or knowing your status: Girls in this community, and in a lot of communities, are incredibly disempowered. Especially smart girls. The ‘clever’ girl, who speaks up a lot, who gets the answers right and gets them right in excellent English, who knows what she wants her future to be, that girl has a problem. It happens in America, of course (I’m pretty sure I once lost a tail-light on the chia car as a thank-you for setting an economics test curve too high in high school.) But in South Africa this idea of evil Ubuntu that I’ve talked about before begins to come into play. The idea that rising too high is disrespectful to those you’ve left behind, so they try to pull you back down. And its not just the learners who will do it. Even teachers, if they feel a student – especially a smart girl – is getting beyond her place or asking too many questions, will try to pull her back down. It’s not a friendly landscape out there. But now, now there are 30 girls from this year, and 25 girls from the year before that who know that there are other people who think like them. They had a week to make friends with the other smart girls, a week to be just as outspoken and contradictory as they wanted, where speaking out and being clever was encouraged by everyone around them and everyone around them was doing the same. I don’t think that the importance of that support group can be underestimated. To know you’re not alone? That’s huge. To know that when other people try to pull you down, you’ll have friends who are up there with you, encouraging you to keep flying. I’m not going to claim that that happened with every kid who attended, or even with all of them. But I do think that it happened with more than a few, and that that’s where things will start to make a difference. I hope.

*A joke that was specifically translated for my benefit: “A South African and an American decide to go out to lunch at a restaurant together. The South African orders chicken and the American gets a sandwich. As the meal progresses, the American watches the South African annihilate both the chicken, and then the chicken bones, leaving only a tiny pile of the least digestible parts [I watch this happen every day. It’s amazing.]. The American looks at the tiny pile of what’s left with astonishment and asks: ‘In South Africa, if people eat the bones, what do dogs eat?’ The South African thinks for awhile and responds: ‘Sandwiches.’” Hilarity around the campfire ensues. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions, but just add that I’ve certainly never seen a dog in this country eat anything remotely resembling a sandwich.

Hamba Kahle, I Can't!

Well, I apologize that its been so long since I wrote anything. First I didn't have much to say, and then too many things happened to have time to write about it all. Typical, I guess. I'm still going to cut this short though, because winter has hit Nkomazi, and quite frankly my fingers are too cold to type anything much with any degree of accuracy for any decent length of time.

First of all then: Lots and lots of photos are up at Snapfish. So if a picture is worth a thousand words, then I should be in the clear. There are shots of Lesotho, Steenbok, Likusasa Letfu camp -- which just finished last week -- and family members in Steenbok being adorable. Enjoy. (And try to guess which one I'm going to turn into a tattoo...)

Second -- Camp!! Last week, from Sunday to Friday was the second annual Likusasa Letfu girl's empowerment and HIV education camp. (It's a long title, I know, but we had a lot to talk about). Everything went amazingly well, and was much less stressful than last year. It was really a pleasure to see my teacher's begin to take a leading, in-charge sort of role this year, instead of sort of being in the background like last year. We talked a lot about how we could keep things going throughout the year, as well as how to carry on next year even when I'm gone. I'm really happy.

Third -- a wedding! I promise to write more about this later too, because it was really interesting, but the very first thing I did the day after spending a week at camp was get right by up and go to a wedding with some of my teachers and friends from the village. It was great, we all got into taxis and drove to the next village over, where guests and community members and everybody else inbetween poured into a huge community hall for an african-western hybrid wedding, all to the beat of jesus/techno/house/choral-pop. I'll write more next week when I come to town and my fingers are thawed, because I just can't do it justice now -- but it was all great. Myself, one of my favorite teachers, and a couple of other ladies snuck over to the bar, where they saw me drink alcohol for the first time. ("How!! Nomvula!! You are drinking a beer!"), and then we headed to Naas for a beer and Cheese Puff run, followed by aimless driving around yelling at people we saw out the windows. No lie.

Its been a fantastic couple of weeks. And in just four more -- I'm all through! I can't even fathom it right now, but July 25th is my farewell function and by August 15th I'll have left Steenbok for the last time. Frostbite is inducing brevity, and so all I can say to that is: Wow.

In Other Words

This is a good article that from Slate about the xenophobic violence that occurred in and around Jo'burg and Cape Town a while back. It's interesting, I don't know what the coverage was in America, but I get the sense that it provides a different perspective. And anything has to be more coherent than my rambling*.












*Mom: I'm STILL FINE**.
**But I'm not going to Greece.

I Hear its Warm in California

I currently have the cold from hell, its been stalking me for at least the last 10 days, and while it makes me feel like kind of a baby for complaining -- its a cold for goodness sakes! -- the darn thing keeps trying to drag me down to a point thats just getting irritating. Fortunately, I happen to be in Pretoria right now, and PCSA has one of the best medical officers anybody could ever ask for. Not only did she stop by the backpackers where I'm staying to see me on a Saturday, she brought a small pharmacy, lots of sympathy, and even a bottle of orange juice. Amazing. So I spent all day sleeping, drugged myself out on anti-histamines and decongestants, and today feel a million times better. Die cold, die!!

I also spent a lot of time watching television, because, well, I was in Pretoria and I could. Something that for some reason has never occurred to me before, but finally did as I spent 4 hours on the couch, vegging out to Mythbusters and the Daily Show, was how much television here is in English. It never seemed too weird to me, after all I conduct most of my daily conversations in the language, almost everybody speaks it at least a little, and english is the only language tv has ever been in for me anyways, but here...it's really nobody's first language. People speak english, they learn it, business and government and school and lots of important things are conducted in it, but its still a foreign thing, it has to find its way through a filter, be translated and co-opted before whatever concept that is being relayed can be owned.

Okay, maybe that sounds a little silly, the concept of a lingua franca has been around pretty much since there have been languages, I can only assume. Maybe its not such a big deal. But it still seems odd to me that virtually 99% of life in the public sphere is conducted in a language that belongs to nobody, that there are always so many translations and shiftings happening in the simplest conversation. The word for English in my village, or rather the slang word, though its the one that everybody uses, is something along the phonetic lines of "Sloo" -- white person. Swazis speak siswati, zulus speak isizulu, white people speak...'white people.' And everybody who wants to get along, they must learn 'sloo' too. The word for Afrikaans is different, as is the word for an Afrikaaner. But the word thats usually applied to British/English speaking white people is derived quite literally from the color white, so thats more of the default, and english becomes the language of the white people.

I honestly don't know what that means, or why it seems to have grabbed my attention so much. Something about everything in the country happening in translation..from afrikaans, siswati, sepedi, nothing is original. Nothing is completely owned, its all coming from 'out there', happening on somebody else's terms, with somebody else's design. The way a language is built says a lot about how a culture thinks, so how odd must it be to have somebody else's thoughts in your mouth? Not that I think its bad that English is used so much. I love the English language, I love how it morphs and adapts and takes so many words from so many places. I love its flexibility and nuance and that you can find 100 different words for the same thing, but they all mean something just a shade different, they all have just a slightly different history behind them. And it is an international language, and it is important for people to know it. But my family and teachers have learned that just like "Mhlungu akusilo ligami lami!" ("White person is not my name!") I hate it when I hear English called Sloo. The learners must be taught in 'white person', 'white person' is the most important language in the world. We must speak 'white' because its an important meeting. That drives me crazy, for all of the obvious reasons.The 'proper' word, the one I prefer, is Singlisi. Which if you say it out loud sounds pretty much like English -- just in translation.

Father's Day

So here's a cheesy story I like that I bet you've heard before:

There's a little boy walking down a beach, and the beach is covered in starfish, thousands of them, as far as the eye can see. The boy is picking them up, one at a time, and throwing them back into the ocean so that they don't dry out and die. A man comes along and starts laughing at the kid, "Why are you doing this? Look around! There's way too many starfish for one person to save. You will never be able to make a difference." The little boy just picks up another starfish, throws it in the water and says, "I made a difference to that one."

My dad once told me that that story makes him think of me, and it is literally the best thing another human being has even said to me.

Dad, it makes me think of you too. You inspire me constantly, from 400 miles away or 10,000. Happy Father's Day.

Hang Tough Napoleon

Well. I forgot to write up a blog entry this week, I was too busy map-painting. But what I do have for you is...pictures! From Steenbok, and also my trip to Lesotho a few months ago that was very pretty.


















My map!! We've been practicing our geography all week. Also, my hands and arms are blue.





















The beginnings of a school library at Gebhundlovu Primary.



















Me and my horse in Lesotho. The horse was hungry. I was sunburnt.
















A National Geographic worthy shot in Lesotho. These are two of the kids who hung out with us in the mountain village where we stayed overnight.


















Sunrise and a Marula tree in Steenbok.

Still Plugging

Three posts...one day? It's madness!

That, and I just wanted to be sure that my shameless begging/plugging for cash for the libraries of Steenbok is at the top. So if you want to help out with getting 25 boxes of books to three libraries that could really use them, here's the link. It should work and everything.

American Pie

Last week marked three months left of my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and so I’m beginning to shift my focus on to other things. I’ve still got a few projects left at school – my map of course, which is coming along nicely, slowly building our libraries,* one last Likusasa Letfu girl’s camp, and a young author’s faire that I basically knelt down and begged the principal for. It won’t be sustainable, but it will be really fun and cute. Other than those one time things though, I’m mostly just wrapping it all up, writing things down for the next volunteer (well, planning to do that eventually, anyways), and researching the trip I plan to take after COS.

I realized the other day that its been a really long time since I felt homesick. Not a really long time since I desperately wanted to be home, or since I felt out of place, or since I missed my friends and family, but…a long time since there weren’t other things to balance it out. I am overwhelmed by what a great privilege it is, and has been, to live here and to become a part of the scenery, not just a tourist. I love my morning walk to school each day. I love watching the women sweep their yards, hearing the kids call to one another, seeing sunrise over the Lubombo mountains each morning. I love taking the bus through the farms and mountains to town, and listening to everybody on it singing hymns all the way.

The music here is a gift. It is so simple – incredibly simple! Its just voices in four part harmony, learned by ear and sung by people who don’t rehearse or study or bother with the theory. They just sing, and pick it up, and join in. And its some of the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard. I’ve been to and been in some of the most technically difficult and musically beautiful concerts, and nothing here is diminished in comparison. A woman once asked me, “In America, what do you do when you are feeling something strongly? When you are happy or sad?” I told her I didn’t know. Maybe we smiled, or told a friend, or something like that. “Well here,” she told me, “we sing. That is how we feel our emotions and tell them. We sing.” Its that easy. I can’t explain it properly. I think its something you just have to hear and be inside of to understand. But it literally stops me in my tracks every time. I go out to the tap for a bucket of water, and hear the choir practicing on Saturday evenings, and it’s impossible to just get my water and walk away. I am forced to listen, held in place for the space of a song. A Friday morning on the bus, watching green hills covered in bush and po-po, listening to the voices around me -- it’s one of life’s perfect moments that I doubt can ever be replicated or moved. And I never cease to feel grateful for the privilege to be there, in that perfect moment. I could sing.

*“growing” them, if you will, but I hate that term. I remember having this argument with dad in the seventh grade. I still stand by my claim that it’s a silly buzzword, whose only purpose is to make you sound more important. Growing is an individual process that a thing does on its own. Plants grow. Building is an active thing that you or some other individual participates in. You build something. Its active and participatory. There is work involved, not standing around watching it happen.

Dancing in the Streets

Before I get started, go ahead and glance to your right a little bit. On the computer screen, I mean. You see that little bit under ‘Disclaimer’? The one that mentions nobody and nothing is responsible for the things written here except for me – including the US Government, the South African Government, Amelia Earhart, etc…etc…? Yes. That. It still holds.

So, that said, I’ve been getting some concerned emails and phone calls lately. Ones that usually begin, “Um, Becca I’ve been reading the news about Africa, and…” First, let me say: mad props for overcoming the California public school education we all enjoyed and showing an interest in world events. Second:

I’m Fine

There have been a series of attacks against foreigners and immigrants in South Africa lately. ‘Xenophobic violence’ is the preferred term in the news, though I’ve heard some shriller voices screaming “Ethnic cleansing!! Genocide!!” (Today one lady in the paper compared things here to Hitler’s death camps in Poland, to which I can only respond, “…seriously?”). Nobody seems to be entirely sure what the flashpoint was, but in the past couple of months there have been violent and horrific attacks against immigrants – legal and otherwise – in townships mostly surrounding Johannesburg, though it seems that the wave has begun to grow, and recently as far away as Cape Town there have been attacks as well. It’s not pretty. Mobs will attack an entire family of immigrants from Zimbabwe, Malawi, Nigeria, or wherever else in Africa*, screaming that they are stealing jobs and resources from the South Africans who deserve them. Homes are destroyed, possessions are stolen. People have been set on fire and burnt to death while crowds point and laugh. Neighboring African governments are setting up evacuation points to get their people back home, thousands and tens of thousands have already been bussed out. Humanitarian organizations are setting up “displacement areas” which the South African government is being very, very careful not to call refugee camps. Refugee camps don’t happen in South Africa, you see. This is the country that’s got it together.

On the whole, that’s pretty much true, too. While they are horrific, and I’m in no way downplaying the sheer…evil it takes to destroy another human’s beings life just because they’re different, all of these attacks have been pretty isolated. Mbeki has called out the army, and some places are attempting to declare a state of emergency, but…the country keeps going. My village is full of immigrants from Mozambique, and last I checked nobody was picking up any rocks, pitchforks, or torches. They may be immigrants, but their neighbors and friends first. This is no threat to permanent security or safety or the economy. School keeps happening. Think of it as Hurricane Katrina in the US – or maybe more accurately, the LA riots (or any other riot you prefer). A serious temporary breakdown of conventional order and security, but more or less localized and the country isn’t going anywhere.

What it does seem to reveal – to me at least – is a serious undercurrent of anger in South Africa that needs to be dealt with. People point out that this is the first time since Apartheid that the army has been sent into the townships, and the ANC’s call then was “Make the Townships Ungovernable!” Was there ever a call to make them governable again? When the mission was accomplished and Mandela ran the country and Tutu ran the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, who walked through the townships and helped people to put their anger away? What happened to all the anger, frustration, and hatred that was stirred up (in some cases legitimately, in others less so)? It didn’t just go away. I think that people have been so busy, so desperate, branding the New South Africa, the Rainbow Nation, that some steps have been left behind.

There is so much anger in this country, and it lies under such a thin and stretched-taut skin. Did you know that there are more violent deaths per capita in South Africa than Afghanistan?** People are angry, and legitimately so, I would never say that it is wrong or misplaced – the rug has been yanked out from too many people too many times. A lot of promises have been made and not kept. This country is so beautiful, and so complex – I have never lived in such a complicated place. To think about the contrasts and potentials and tragedies here all swirling around together is enough to make your head explode. It’s difficult to hold it all together inside of you at once. So you pick and choose the pieces you can handle, when you can handle them. But sometimes the pieces you’re so busy not handling are the pieces that are getting ready to explode.

*To re-iterate, Mom, immigrants from AFRICA. Nobody is after Americans. I’M FINE.

**Sorry, Mom. Wasn’t planning to tell you that until November. But: I’M FINE.

Want to Help?

Hey everybody

So remember how I keep talking about libraries and and young author's faires, and how much work it is to create a culture of reading in South Africa? Well, if any of you have ever read that and thought maybe it might be a cool thing to help out a bit, now's your chance.

All three schools have now gotten libraries up and running, but they're small. Not too long ago a wonderful lady agreed to donate thousands of books to our libraries. She got the books together, she got the books boxed up...and then the cost of shipping went through the roof. So we need money to get the books from San Francisco to Steenbok, and we need a little something to pay for customs when they get here.

This Link is for a grant I recently wrote, allowing any and all donations to go through Peace Corps and to therefore be tax deductible. So it's practically free, right?

I'm not asking you the individual for all $3450, even just $5 or $10 will help. Whatever you've got. Look at it one of two ways:
1) You're doing something awesome for children in Africa who would never otherwise have this opportunity. You are in fact being a Good Person. Karma and all that.
2) Over the past two years maybe you've been entertained by stories of my ridiculous life. Bucket bathing is way funnier when its not happening to you. Say thanks with $5 or $50. Or heck, $500. I'm not picky.

In the immortal words of Stan and Kyle, "I mean...come on!"

And Then Mark Twain Said

Recently, like just yesterday, Africa suddenly decided to get cold. I don’t know who is in charge of this decision, or why, but they are very arbitrary about it, and it makes me grumpy. Over the course of just two or three days the weather will go from crushing, unforgiving heat with insane humidity, to explosive rain -- thunder that shakes your house and lightning that blasts across the sky. I always thought it was silly to be afraid of thunder storms before I came here. I mean really, how can they hurt you? I don’t think its silly any more. Thunder storms here make you think that the world is being ripped apart around you, and you can only hope to come out the other end alright. After the rain, the next day will be cool and cloudy, and smell like wet clean grass and mud, and then it can go in one of two directions – either the day will slowly warm up, and the week will begin to get unbearably hot again until the whole process repeats itself, or for no reason I can figure out the day will stay cool, and the temperature will just keep dropping. And then it will stay like that, and there will be a bitter dry cold that cracks your skin and makes you seriously worry about frost-bite of the fingers or nose. Last year I started making myself hard-boiled eggs for breakfast, not so much for the protein as something to put in my pockets on the way to school so that I could keep my hands warm.

So just about yesterday, the weather decided to get cold for the first time this year, and I found myself once again cursing the South African winters. Admittedly, its not as bad as the summer, you can always put another layer on in the winter, but in the summer there’s a point where you really should stop taking things off. What really struck me though, as I huddled under my blanket and shook my fist at Africa (which, as we all know, is supposed to be HOT) was that this is the third time I’d done that. On one hand, this means that really you’d think I would have figured out by now that this happens every year and I should get over it, but on the other – this is my third South African winter. My time here is almost over. I have three months left, and of those maybe this one and a week of next will be productive getting-things-done time. The rest will be packing up, saying goodbye, getting around to those visits and conversations I’ve been meaning to for the last two years – finishing up sorts of things. Its very weird to think about, so mostly I’m not. I know that three months really isn’t that much time, especially considering how fast the last 22 have flown by, but I think I got through that time by making a point of never focusing on the finish line – its much easier to think about tomorrow. Sometimes tomorrow is too hard, and all you can think about is today. So today I’m in town, and I’m researching the trip I’m going to take after I finish up here, and I’m trying to get funding and books for our libraries, and I’m buying a bottle of wine. Today I’m going to worry about today, and tomorrow can worry about itself.

Oooh...shiny

I feel like I might need to get ahold of this at some point in the near future. How useful for three months of travelling through Africa!

Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?

My newest project at school is a giant world map, approximately 15 feet by 8 feet that I am slowly and fairly tediously drawing out by hand. Before you start to wonder, yes, those two things making you go “wait a minute…” are still true. I am still very short (making those top 3 feet a little bit tricky) and I am still a very bad artist. But that’s okay, because where there’s a will for a low brain power yet high “oooh-ahh” factor…there’s a way.

Its done using the grid projection method, which most people experience for about 2 weeks in 6th grade, and then never have to worry about again. Basically, you have a picture. You draw a grid around that picture. Then you draw a much bigger grid somewhere else and transfer the small grid to the big grid box by box by box. In my case, 1,568 boxes over nearly 13 square meters. That’s a lot of boxes. The school staff thought so too, which is why the principal, deputy principal, and a significant portion of the teachers all spent most of their day standing around and watching me draw straight lines. It was apparently so exciting, in fact, that they also called the SGB chairperson, who immediately dropped whatever it was that he was doing to drive over to the school and stand in the crowd, crossing his arms and occasionally commenting on…something. I have never been so popular at school before.

We also spent a lot of time that day trying to find a way for me to draw all of the parts at the very top. Other volunteers have managed alright standing on a chair or a desk, however I had two fairly significant problems with this: 1) I am deathly afraid of heights. Standing on a rickety table on an uneven surface where every step or lean could send me plunging to my death from a horrific distance of 2 feet counts as heights. 2) I am so short that, even standing on that awful table, I could not actually reach the top of my latent map. So I had a problem.

The principal sent over the general worker (janitor) so that we could try and solve the problem together. Unfortunately, the general worker spoke exactly no English, and my hardware vocabulary set isn’t so good in siSwati. It turns out, for example, that the word for ladder is not in fact ‘iLadder’ (a technique that was based, of course, on the ‘el ladder-o’ theory of 8th grade Spanish/linguistics) but ma-steppa. It also turned out, once we made it past the language wall, that his ladder was a 12 foot high monstrosity made out of tied together tree branches that looked like it might come apart if I looked at it funny. Fortunately my siSwati for “There is no way in hell I’m getting near that thing, I will die instantly” has had some practice. (If you ever need it: “Anegke! Ngiyasaba!”) He agreed that it did look a teensy-bit unstable, but then had a really brilliant solution: Why don’t we just send a child up instead? (Perhaps on the theory that there are plenty of them and they are somehow expendable. I don’t know.) This was also not okay with me. I’m such a spoilsport.

Next somebody was sent for another ladder, but unfortunately it happened to be a stepladder roughly 2 inches shorter than the original table. By the end of it I was standing amidst the general worker, the principal, the deputy principal, the SGB chairperson, a teacher who really wanted to help, and somebody’s brother who has a truck and was therefore sent to get the step-stool ladder, waving my arms and trying to explain in two different languages that they shouldn’t worry about it, I’d figure it out, I’d come up with a solution, and while I applauded their commitment and appreciated how much they wanted to give me a hand, it would really be alright if they STOPPED HELPING. They were unconvinced.

In the end, I had to promise to make my very tall neighboring volunteer help me out over the weekend, and that we really truly, for honest, for reals would be okay without every ladder in the village. And then the next day Tom came over and helped me draw the top. I hate being short.

In all, the grid took about two days. Over the next few weeks I plan to transfer my small grid of world map onto my large wall grid of world map, and then magically come up with a map of the world that looks more or less like its supposed it. Then I’m gonna paint it. And then I’ll be remembered at Ekwenzeni Primary School forever – or at least until somebody decides to paint over it.

I Read a Lot of Terry Pratchett

Today’s best quote: “This policy document is like the bible – it has all the answers.” And then my agnostic, insubordination-loving brain started to go: “grrr-argh-ahhh…Plooey!!!”

Immediately followed up by: “You know, if a woman sleeps with more than two men, she is a harlot.” In reference to a fairly intense discussion of what exactly the bible means when it refers to harlotry. The parts of my brain that hadn’t exploded after the initial comment -- the crazy feminist parts -- those promptly went “POP!” too. Now I’ve got nothing left.

Fortunately, these last few days have been all about the arts, and so I’ve been enjoying myself enormously. One of my favorite learners is a girl named Zanele. She’s bright, inquisitive, and speaks near-perfect English. She lived in Johannesburg before moving out here to live with her grandmother and has already skipped one grade, with the school considering skipping her again. Last term I asked the principal if I could pull her out of class during English and work with her in a sort of one-on-one GATE program. I’ve never taught GATE before (I’ve never taught much of anything before) so it turned into a very student-driven sort of thing. Zanele set whatever topic she was interested in, I would try to dig up as many resources and facts as I could find, and we would discuss it all until she was satisfied and decided to move onto something else. The only thing I really set in stone was that I wanted her to ask as many questions as possible. She was not allowed to read and regurgitate the information. She had to come with new questions about it – or anything else that struck her fancy – each time we met. So far we’ve discussed world history, astronomy, volcanoes, and Plato. At the end of last term, she told me that she would like to talk about Shakespeare when I came back. And my poor, literature-deprived, recently exploded brain said, “Hooray!!”
Yesterday, then, I spent a lot of time talking about Shakespeare with Zanele. We talked about the language he used (still English, but “deep” English – a play on “deep” SiSwati, which is the official formal sort of language that they use in Swaziland, and that we certainly don’t use here.) and why people still care about his plays 400 years later. Then we started on Much Ado About Nothing, because everybody reads Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet is a little over the top for a 12 year old, and as awesome as Rosalind is in As You Like It, the constant character gender-bending might get a little confusing. The Taming of the Shrew was not even up for discussion, might I add. Plus, I think I may be able to track down a copy of the movie Much Ado About Nothing, in which Kenneth Brannagh is a little bit ridiculous, but the story comes across pretty well*. Anyway, we started discussing the play. We read through the beginning of the first scene together, and then I spent a few hours summarizing the first two acts for her – a sort of home made Cliff Notes.
The other thing I did yesterday was make a whole lot of learning aides. Alphabets, number lines, vowels, and individual desk name-tags for each learner, including a little decorative alphabet. Because I didn’t want to waste the school’s ink, I printed each of them out in black and white, and then spent most of my day coloring them in. It was like kindergarten. I got to have a coloring day. A Shakespeare and coloring day. All while a Dolly Parton’s Greatest Hits CD serenaded the office over and over again.
Yesterday was a Shakespeare-coloring-Dolly Parton sort of day. Today is shaping up to be a Shakespeare/Chaucer-coloring-Dolly Parton sort of day. Just what I needed to regenerate those brain cells. This is my nine to five.





*I majored in literature. Can you tell?

Walk the Line

Being a Peace Corps Volunteer grants a sort of flexible identity. “Us and Them”—this concept of ‘the other’ what was so fashionable when I was in school – becomes a little bit slippery. There is one clear us -- other volunteers, especially those in your group, though not necessarily excluding those of other years or other countries -- and that is stronger than almost anything else, though it’s not completely inviolable. But the questions start to come when I wonder who, exactly, ‘them’ is – and what are we to others, an ‘us’ or a ‘them.’ (Stick with me, here.)

It is our job to be flexible, to be sinuous and a little bit tricky. We are told to integrate into a village, to learn the language and the customs, to take a new name and do our best at the laughably impossible task of blending in. So we do. I’ve learned SiSwati, kind of. I work hard to make friends and to gain the friendship of those around me. I only use my right hand or both hands to give and take things. And it’s worked, kind of. One of my proudest moments here was when a teacher said to me, “Ay Nomvula! UmSwati, really!” (“Nomvula, you are really a Swazi!”). I’m still weird, sure. I still talk English funny and have those darn blue eyes and blonde hair, but I’m an understood weird. I’m not just *the* other, I’m *our* other. Close enough, I’ll take it.

So I can walk in the village. I am a part of things, even if briefly, and in a way I become a part of us. But then I leave, and there are other places I can walk – by virtue of my language, my education, my nationality, my gender, my upbringing, and an ugly fact in this country is by virtue of my skin color too – that my friends or teachers in the village can’t. Nomvula and Becca aren’t entirely the same person, 98% overlap maybe, but not 100%. I can walk into a resort hotel or nice restaurant and know the rules and be accepted, because that’s where rich Americans go. I can go to the Afrikaan pub in Malelane, because while I may not be quite ‘us’ there, I’m certainly not ‘them’. With some friends, over a year ago, I found myself in a township outside Pretoria, a place where I almost certainly would have been in deep trouble were it not for our guide vouching for us – instead we became ‘us’ and spent the evening drinking beer and arguing about Generations. Last month a friend and I met the wife of the Irish Ambassador to Lesotho. She offered us a three hour ride to town (“I knew you guys were Peace Corps as soon as I saw you. I love Peace Corps!) and we spent the time chatting as equals about Africa, Dublin, America, and all the rest of it. As a volunteer, I feel like we have so many opportunities to switch that it does two things: At once it obliterates any sense of ‘us’ or ‘them,’ because when you are granted the ability to walk through walls it becomes more difficult to pay attention to them. But at the same time the only people experiencing this sensation of walking through worlds, of belonging everywhere and nowhere, are other PCVs. And so while everybody may find some way to accept me, and I them, its as if the line becomes even more starkly drawn between the only us I ever really use, and the rest.

We work – well, maybe I should stop talking for other volunteers – I work in one of the poorest areas of one of the most schizophrenic countries in the world. On one side of the divide is this conservative rural village, where culture and tradition are still the trump card, where there is extreme poverty and child-headed households, and no running water, and some of the most beautiful and heartfelt music I’ve ever heard. On the other side is a country that could be Europe, western and wealthy and occasionally even cosmopolitan. These two sides, they don’t understand each other so well. I came home one day after a braai to tell my shocked family, “did you know Afrikaaners eat pap too?” “They do??!!”

We can, I can, walk that line and see both sides. Becca and Nomvula, the part that walks in both and tries to balance perfectly on the fulcrum. I go to grade 7 functions at my school, and celebrations at the US Ambassador’s house. I send my reports to the Lubombo Circuit Manager and Congress. It is odd, exceedingly extremely odd, to live on that pivot point and have access to so many worlds. I am not a tourist in a human zoo, I live here. I am not an awe-struck kid, I grew up with this.

PS

Happy Picnic Day!! I can't wait for '09.

The Real Africa

I've just gotten back from a fantastic three week vacation all over the place, it was very refreshing and probably one of the best holidays I've had here. We went pony-trekking in Lesotho, which was phenomenal. Two days, six hours of riding a day -- I've never had my butt so sore in my life, but it was totally worthwhile. Lesotho is very mountain-y, and a lot of the time the trail was nothing but incredibly steep switchbacks, anywhere from 8 to 36 inches wide, covered in scree and perfectly round smooth rocks, with a 300 foot drop off a cliff right on the other side of it all. But the view certainly is beautiful from that drop-off. Occasionally it would be so steep that the guide, Mpho, would tell us, "If you guys are nervous, you can get off and walk down the trail," "Um...do you think we should walk?" [Pause. Pause. Mpho eyes nervous horses as they refuse to get within 15 feet of descent. Pause]. "If you guys want...you can get off and walk down the trail." We got off and walked. That night we stayed in an incredibly rural village, a little bit past the middle of nowhere, where our horses decided that they were tired of nothing but grass, grass, grass all the time and wanted some delicious mealies instead. Unfortunately, this delayed our departure in the morning a bit, since the owner of the mealie field was exceedingly pissed when he found out. Somebody had to run for the chief, who then had to negotiate a settlement between the field owner and our guides, which of course took several hours. Had I not spent the last 20 months in Africa, it might have been a fun and authentic addition to out trip. As it was, we were just irritated. TIA. After Lesotho we headed on to the mountains and the beach successively and had yet again a fantastic time. All in all, a great vacation.
One phrase I did keep hearing -- and that I have been hearing, and even use myself -- is "the real Africa." As in, "well, the Wild Coast is beautiful, but its not the real Africa." "Cape Town is a cool city, but its not the Real Africa." "Come on our tour and see the Real Africa!" What does that mean? What is the Real Africa? There is a universally understood sense of what you mean when you use this phrase: The Real Africa is somewhere poor, somewhere rural, somewhere black. It's somewhere where you can still see women carrying things on their head, and watch handicrafts get made, and see people walking everywhere and depending on subsistence farming. Why is that the Real Africa anymore than Pretoria or the wild coast or anywhere else? Why is it that the preconceptions of Africa become our definition of what is real? The realest, most scraped-to-the-bone place I've ever been in South Africa was a township about 10k from Pretoria. But nobody would ever consider it the "Real Africa."

brief hiatus

I am on vacation. I needed it very badly. Lots of very fun things have been happening, and I will write about them in a week or two.

Yay.

Now What?

I have come to the decision, finally that Africa does not, in fact, look like the central valley, or San Francisco, or the Great Plains, or Santa Paula, or anywhere else. South Africa looks like…like itself, and that’s the only analogy I’m willing to give.

When you first come here, of course, and see brown hills rolling away to the horizon, or acre after acre of avocados, oranges, and mangos, or the very western shop-lined streets in Cape Town, its easy enough to compare this landscape with what you’ve seen before. Hills with cows on them are hills with cows on them, after all, and maybe the biggest geographical distinction the 5* and the N-4 is that on the N-4 you’ll occasionally see a Zebra, while on the 5 you have to roll up your windows as you pass the horrible Harris Ranch slaughterhouse that is the last sight (and smell) that that steak you ate last night probably ever had. I’m happier with the Zebra, personally.

But as I see more and longer, I’ve begun to accept what I’m seeing for what it is, and not for what I bring with me. Hills with cows on them are not just hills with cows on them, the 5 is not the N-4. And as I begin to see that, I begin to wonder how I could ever have thought anything else. The hills here don’t simply go to the horizon, beyond which there is probably another town or another freeway, instead they just keep going. I remember the first time I made that drive from Los Angeles to Sacramento, I was simply shocked that there could be so much land so undeveloped. Where were the houses? The strip malls? The constant movement and drone and mark of people? There were the truck-stops, but where did the people who worked in them *live*? Now of course, I realize that there’s nothing at all undeveloped about the central valley, and that the hum and buzz is always there. There is nothing limitless or unbounded. Its just a little chunk of the state that happens to have a lot of farms instead of a lot of houses, but it is of course surrounded.

Here it’s very different, and that’s why I say now that I can no longer even imagine comparing the rolling hills of Mpumulanga with any others I’ve ever seen. Here there is no limit, there is no boundary. There is not a sense that just over the horizon there are probably towns, and people, and farms, and roads. There’s just a sense that there are…more hills. More Africa.

People talk about the enormity of Africa, and on the whole I think its mostly a cliché that people parrot because….well, that’s one of the things that’s true about Africa, isn’t it? Its very big, and very poor, very corrupt, and the people there all have malaria, or AIDS, or interesting diseases caused by malnutrition that cause swollen bellies or skeletal limbs. That is the vision we bring to Africa, and so that is how we see. But how can you go and really see a place, if you’ve already decided what it looks like?

It’s true, Africa is big. But it is big on its own terms, not on mine. The hills of Mpumulanga are the hills of Mpumulanga, not of Fresno or Ventura. Stellenbosch is Stellenbosch, not Santa Maria. South Africa is always and only itself, and I’m starting to be able to see.


















*That’s right. THE 5. Bring it.

Pink Floyd

Once again I'm in Pretoria -- now on my way back to site, rather than away -- and I can happily report that nothing has been stolen from me this weekend. And really, if I only get robbed once in two years, and its only a pair of shoes (no matter how much I loved them!) and I wasn't even mugged -- well, I'm pretty okay with that. People get robbed, its just the way South Africa works, so I'm mostly over it and still feeling happy. (Though the blisters all over my toes from my new shoes are still a little bitter).

Unfortunately, of course, one of the drawbacks of spending a week at training for a new group of volunteers is that I've been doing nothing all that exciting, and so have no witty, insightful, or in anyway clever story to write up (making the base assumption that any of my posts ever are). I'm sorry to say that last week was pleasant, unexciting, and about as productive as I had expected (re: not very, but the expectations started low). Shame.

All I want to say then, is this: Last week I was angry, and upset, and exhausted. This week I am happy, optimistic, and looking forward to maybe even getting a few things done. Next week...who knows. So is life in South Africa.

But hey, in two weeks -- I'm going pony trekking in Lesotho! Who can be sad on a pony?

Dance Class

There are lots and lots of photos (by which I mean about 20) that I just put up at Snapfish. I also have a lot of really neat videos that I took of a Grade 7 dance presentation, but I have yet to figure out how to post those. But I'll sort it out eventually. I'm sorry thats all I've really got for this week, and last week to come to think of it, but honestly I'm just tired. Emotionally, physically, I just feel exhausted all the time. All I want to do is sleep.

Do you know, two nights ago somebody stole my shoes? My shoes! And the only pair I had with me at the time, too. The only pair I ever wear, and you can't get Chacos in South Africa, either. I was staying in a dorm room at my favorite Pretoria backpackers, and somebody managed to break in, sneak into the room, and grab my shoes. He was bending over my backpack, too, beginning to rifle through things, when fortunately another guy who was staying there woke up and started shouting at him. The robber took off without my camera or cell phone, or wallet, or anything super valuable but -- I really loved those shoes! My poor Chacos. And it scares me, that somebody was so close to my bed at night -- so close to me at night -- and I didn't even wake up.

It just gets so exhausting, to always have to be on your guard. To always be looking over your shoulder, and worrying, and making back-up plans. I hate that I can't hear somebody running behind me without going into instant defense mode. I hate how its just always acceptable for people to stop me on the street and try to get something from me. Why is it okay to ask me for 2 rand, (for 4 rand 60? wtf?) for a sweet, for a drink, for "just something momm-ee...just something" to give me a lewd proposal, marriage or otherwise? I just don't have the patience anymore, or the energy. I understand the poverty, don't I? I live in it, I see it everyday. I don't...I want to say I don't hate the people who stop me on the street, but maybe instead I should say I don't misunderstand them. Yes, I know where you're coming from. Yes, I know the system has destroyed you. I can pity you, and empathize, and resolve to try just that much harder where I am. But I think sometimes its the sheer amount of energy it takes to remind myself of that. To not say "oh, these people..." to always be reminding myself that of course there's a reason. (Obviously, of course, there's a reason. Nobody just decides to live on a street corner because it seems like fun).

It is exhausting to live here. It will finish you. I am exhausted.

Domo Arigoto, Mr. Roboto

Monday was a linguistic trainwreck. The kind you just can’t look away from. There is a new Salvation Army pastor in the village, originally from Mozambique. He wants to learn English. One of my teachers, who is very active in the church, volunteered me. Sure, why not?

I walk up to the house, which is right behind the church and built by (of course) the donations of Salvation Army churches in America. So now you know where the $5 you paid for that awesome Halloween costume last year went.

I walk in. “Sanibonani!” I say. “Yebo.” He replies. We are polite in siSwati. I turn to his wife. “Ninjani?” (how are you?) “Si…khona??” she replies. How odd. She sounds suspiciously like me in her confusion. “Oh, she is also from Mozambique, she is just learning siSwati.” Her husband tells me. “Oh, I’m sorry! Avuxeni!” I am both contrite and proud of myself for remembering correct greeting in xiTsonga. (Later, a teacher tells me that I did not in fact remember the correct greeting in xiTsonga. Avuxeni means good morning. It was currently 2:30 in the afternoon.). Once again, Mrs. Pastor shrugs her shoulders and shakes her head. “No,” her husband tells me again, “we are from Mozambique. Portugese only.” I am a moron.

So we progress to the lesson. “What do you want to learn?” I ask naively. (The condition in which I ask most of my questions, come to think of it)

“English.”

“Oh, okay, well, we can do that. But we need a place to start. So what parts of English do you want to focus on? Conversations? Sermons? Travel? Reading? Writing? We need a starting point. So what part of English do you want to learn the most.”

“No, just English. All of it.”

“Oh…kay…” Of course, as you can see he essentially already speaks English. Not perfectly, not smoothly, but functionally. So where do I start? We dance around a bit, we try to find a good starting point, a good teaching method, some way be can both leave this interview feeling like something has happened. The longer this goes on, the more doubtful that outcome begins to look. I have decided in my head that really what he mostly needs is practice with a native speaker, so why don’t we just hang out and chat for an hour a week or so. The blank, open notebooks and pencils hovering in the hands of he and his wife tell me that this is not their preferred approach.

So we abandon that approach for a bit, and he offers to teach me some Portugese. I can now say “Boa Tardi” and “Bom Dia” (good afternoon, good day) with reasonable accuracy. Five minutes later I forget how to say “I am thirsty” within 30 seconds of him telling me. I am still a moron.

Somehow, during all this mess, we discover that we have both taken a decent amount of French in high school. We switch to French. I begin mixing my siSwati and French, because its been about two and a half years at this point since my last French conversation. We say goodbye, and make plans to meet up again the next day, when I promise to have something actually prepared.

“A demain!” I say.
“A demain!” He replies.
“Abrigado!” calls his wife.
“Bye!”

Thirty minutes. Five languages. I start laughing hysterically, and don’t stop until I make it home.

Locutius

The powers that be have recently set each school in our circuit, or region, or province, or…something, a task. The school has to decide on the best teacher and learner of 2007, so that those who are chosen can go to an awards ceremony and serve as an encouragement to those around them, etc...
At the school I’m at this week, we were apparently given all of 18 hours notice to get this done. The principal held a brief after-school meeting on Wednesday to let the educators know and give them a chance to think things over, then on Thursday morning they had to decide. It got a little ugly.
In America, of course, the situation might be handled delicately, but the idea of picking a ‘best’ for the year would make sense, and be seen as a fairly run of the mill thing to do. It’s not virtual blasphemy to acknowledge different levels of skills, and that some teachers might be way, way better than others. That’s just how it is. Some people are really good at their jobs – better than other people in fact. Lets acknowledge and reward them for it.
Here…not so much. Here the most common use of the term Ph.D comes not when we’re discussing relative educational levels, but instead the acronym: Pull Her/Him Down. Which means that it doesn’t do to try and rise above those around you, because those around you will only get mad and try to drag you back down. Or say, “fine – you do all the work then if you’re the best.” It’s a very South African thing, with any number of dimensions. The idea that the collective is more important than the group, of course, plays a big part. Ubuntu’s evil twin. It seems to me that its almost rude to rise too far above the rest, its disrespectful. Like saying that you’re better than them. Being the best – or rather, being the stand-out best – is like giving the finger to everyone else around you. So you can imagine some of the dismay when the educators were asked to choose just one of a collective to be singled out as the best. They were deeply uncomfortable with the idea, and both the Principal and Deputy Principal had to keep reassuring them with, “no, no, we know that we are all the best teachers. We are all good. But we just have to choose somebody to go to this function. Just one name to go to the function. But we are all still the best.” Of course, everybody sitting in the room knew it was a lie. Quite a few probably could have pointed out the lady who honestly is the best teacher in the school, because last year we had a teacher of the month award and she got it. But they just couldn’t bring themselves to do it. They suggested drawing names out of a hat, they suggested going by who does the most extracurriculars, they even suggested having the principals or myself just choose (I declined. I’m not stupid. I know what disaster would ensue for me if I chose just one, even though the choice was so obvious to me I wanted to pull my hair out). In the end, they chose one of the favorites of the staff, not the best teacher, far far from it, and the principal knows it too, but a nice outgoing guy who adds to – surprise – the group dynamic.

Of course, now you may be wondering: but what about the Mercedes? Is Babe that out of touch with the community, or is that entry or this one full of it? Well here’s how I see it: I think that a certain amount of mobility within the community is perfectly acceptable. Babe’s not the only one with a Mercedes (though he’s certainly the one with the poopiest*), and therefore the Mercedes is acceptable. It falls within the acknowledged range of success and status in the village. Some people, who do well and have good jobs and a fairly high status in the community, those people have the material goods to show it off. And even if they don’t have all those things, they can still attempt to mimic them with the physical status symbols. The Mercedes falls within the acceptable collective status/success continuum. Saying you’re the best – or better than everybody else – does not.
Or maybe not. Maybe this is what it is: The Mercedes is a tangible status symbol. Big houses, satellite TV, an American hanging out at your house and school, the enormous entertainment system – all of these are tangible, we could even say commercial or material symbols. Materialism on that level is a relatively new thing in this culture. I can practically guarantee you that nobody in Steenbok drove a Mercedes prior to 1994. Because they are new, the rules haven’t been made yet.
Or maybe not. Maybe its this: The tangible, material symbols are proclaiming status not only amongst the smaller group – one school, one family, one village – but within an entire society. I said, I can practically guarantee you that nobody in Steenbok drove a Mercedes prior to 1994. So could there be a certain sense of pride to see that car go up and down the road? Does it become not just “his” Mercedes, but instead “our” Mercedes? Does the big house with the satellite TV in fact not show up the neighbors, but instead instill in them a sense of pride that now they too can live in a neighborhood with big houses and satellite TV (even if the house isn’t theirs). Maybe the acquisition of things that were previously unavailable to the group – even if they are only being acquired by an individual member – serve as a sense of pride to the whole group. Now they can do that too.

The third option seems the most likely to me. But more than anything else all the possibilities and interpretations just serve to remind me that I’m still only an observer here – and probably not all that good of an observer. I’ve been in Africa nearly 19 months with not that many left to go, and I’m still just making my best guess. It is entirely possible, and even likely, that all of the above is complete bull pucky. If I showed it to somebody who stayed here, they would probably just laugh their heads off and point out all the places where I was wrong.

But after over a year and a half in Africa – I’m okay with that too.