Wednesday, we attended our first memorial service in South Africa. The memorial service was for a young teacher who had died a week earlier. One major difference between South Africa and the US is that it is culturally acceptable to attend a funeral or memorial service even if you have never met the deceased or even if you don’t know anyone who is related to him or her. Here, such events can be transformed from sober, morbid experiences to lively community proceedings.
Our supervisor stopped by our house in the morning at about 9:00 (this was not unusual because she was also there to check in on the guy she paid to repair our fridge [which deserves its own blog posting….]). Upon greeting us, our supervisor informed us we would be attending the memorial service that morning. When we later walked to the office together we found out that the service would begin at 11:00, which was fine because at that point it was about 10:30. At one point our supervisor left the room for a few minutes, and one of our other three co-workers (all of them are women in their late 20’s and/or early 30’s) remarked that she wouldn’t want to go to the memorial service if she were us. She asked one of the other women how long she thought the service would last. We gulped when the answer was 5 HOURS.
Led by our supervisor, we left the office at about 11:40 to begin the 15 minute walk to the community hall where the service would be held. When we arrived we could tell that it was standing room only inside: about 30 people meandered outside the hall and some were crowding the doorway. Through the small spaces between the crowd we could see that the hall was packed with about 300 people, all of whom appeared to be singing and dancing along with the minister on stage. Considering how hot it was, we were somewhat relieved that we wouldn’t be able to fit inside the hall and could, instead, remain in the shade. How naïve…..
When the first song ended, our supervisor turned to us and said something to the effect of “let’s make our way inside.” When she said this I (Matt) almost laughed because there was clearly no room inside and how could we possibly get past the 30 people in front of us in the doorway. But oh how the crowd parted for the “visitors.” We first slowly walked down the center aisle looking for seats but, not surprisingly, there were none. We kept walking forward. And everyone started looking at us. But we kept going forward. Forward. Forward. Awkwardly. When we arrived near the front we both helplessly looked at our supervisor. There were no seats so we should go back outside, right? Another woman helpfully offered, “go up on the stage.” Swell idea!
There we were, walking on stage to join the ministers, the speakers, and all the other important people in attendance of this man’s memorial service. We were both speechless. With eye contact we both told each other the same thing: AWKWARD!
After about 2 hours and 5 or 6 speakers we left EARLY, again all eyes turned upon us. So ended our first memorial service. The funeral is this Saturday…….
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
We're finally real Volunteers!
Well…there has been a change in plans, and we’re now living in the Eastern Cape province.
The big change came about as a result of our site visit a few weeks ago (sorry, we’ve been terrible about posting). We went to a small village in KZN that was stunning. It was very close to the Drakensberg Mountains, pretty rural, you could see the mountains, etc. We didn’t arrive on our first day until late afternoon. We were staying with Sara’s supervisor whose house was…interesting. The next day, Matt went off to a neighboring village with his supervisor, and Sara went around our village with her supervisor. We met caregivers for the organization, local government officials and visited the clinic.
Matt sat through an awkward meeting in his village – Peace Corps provides handbooks that describe the differences between South Africans and Americans. For example, the handbook explains that “5 minutes” really means 5 minutes to Americans. They are intended to be a reference point for the assigned host family. However, during Matt’s community meeting is supervisor read the entire 40-page handbook. Including the section on how American women don’t appreciate sexual harassment from men.
Later in the afternoon we met back up to see the place where we were supposed to live. Our Peace Corps supervisor informed Matt prior to the site visit that he was “concerned” about the size of the rondaval (traditional round dwelling) but not to worry because the host family was a lovely religious family. With these two tokens of advice in the back of our heads, and following a hot day of awkward meetings, we were not exactly stoked to see our new mansion. Nothing could have prepared us, however, for the experience that awaited us.
We first heard the singing from about two blocks away. We instantly knew the singing was for us, but two blocks is just long enough for that last glimmer of hope that those are the loud neighbors and our real host family is quietly and casually waiting for us. When we entered the house the “singing” could no longer be so characterized as it was, more accurately, screaming. We were ushered into seats in the family room and surrounded by about 15 of the most vociferous South Africans we have yet encountered. When the singing stopped the family launched into an hour-long religious ceremony in Zulu, complete with a 25-minute fire-and-brimstone sermon from one of the younger men. The entire sermon was in Zulu except one brief part when the man looked at Matt and said “you are like an ocean” and then everyone laughed. The woman adjacent to Matt turned to him and explained “He says you are like an ocean.”
Our intended rondaval was so tiny it violated the Geneva Convention on living quarters for prisoners. There was no separation at all, which means that we would have been tripping over e/o while trying to bucket bath, cook, etc. So that’s how well our day was going at about 6:00 p.m.
Back at Sara’s supervisor’s house that evening, we were cooking dinner at about 8:00 when suddenly we began to hear loud banging noises on the tin roof. Sara and her supervisor stood up and looked at each other. The sounds kept coming one after the next, and then the window next to Sara shattered. Sara yelled for Matt who was in the next room, and the three of us ran into Sara’s supervisor’s room. Sara kept looking behind her honestly expecting to see people entering the house. Once in the supervisor’s bedroom, which unfortunately did not lock, Matt sat with his back against the door while Sara’s supervisor tried to call the police. At first she didn’t have airtime and then Matt’s phone didn’t have a signal, but she finally got ahold of someone. She told us to stay quiet, and Sara kept whispering to Matt “are they in the house, are they in the house?” The sounds stopped, and Sara’s supervisor then began saying “they are just trying to scare us.” Yeah, well it worked.
The police showed up fairly quickly, including one carrying a huge assault rifle. They said they would patrol the area for the next few hours. They kept saying that it was just “stupid people” and Sara’s supervisor kept saying it was just jealousy b/c we were there. Who knows. Our feeling was that we were absolutely not welcome in the community, at least by some people.
In the meantime, Matt called our Peace Corps security and safety officer. He was really great throughout the whole experience. He asked if we wanted to go stay with Matt’s supervisor in our shopping town. We declined since my supervisor didn’t have a car, and we had no idea if his supervisor’s house was any safer. We spent the night at Sara’s supervisor’s house, but it was definitely not a restful night of sleep.
The next morning, Peace Corps instructed us to catch a public taxi to Joberg. Yes, we were basically evacuated from our site visit. After what now can be considered comical delays on the part of Sara’s supervisor ( Peace Corps told us before 8:00 a.m. to leave and Sara’s supervisor felt the need to bathe, clean house, introduce Sara to more caregivers, take pictures, talking with board members, etc. We did not leave the village for over 2 and a half hours) we finally made it to Joberg and then Pretoria safe and sound. Soon afterwards, we officially heard that we would not be returning to that site and would not even be going back to KZN.
We heard about a week ago that we were moving to the Eastern Cape. This meant that we were moving to a site unseen without knowing the language. Luckily, Xhosa, which is spoken here, is in the same language group as Zulu, so hopefully we’ll catch on fairly quickly. After swearing in as Peace Corps volunteers (yay!), we traveled about 20 hours to the Eastern Cape. We are living in a government RDP house (basically, the rural projects), and the area is absolutely beautiful. We are about 80ks from the beach and are very close to Hogsback, the area that inspired The Lord of the Rings (super boring movie – sorry)(that was Sara’s parenthetical, Matt thinks it’s super awesome). It is hilly/mountainous and COLD, at least at night. We slept with layers upon layers the first few nights. Thankfully, we purchased a blanket this weekend, so things are better.
We are really excited to be in the Eastern Cape. There are so many places here we want to visit and feel lucky to be living in such a beautiful site. Visitors are welcome (Trevor, google Jeffrey’s Bay).
The big change came about as a result of our site visit a few weeks ago (sorry, we’ve been terrible about posting). We went to a small village in KZN that was stunning. It was very close to the Drakensberg Mountains, pretty rural, you could see the mountains, etc. We didn’t arrive on our first day until late afternoon. We were staying with Sara’s supervisor whose house was…interesting. The next day, Matt went off to a neighboring village with his supervisor, and Sara went around our village with her supervisor. We met caregivers for the organization, local government officials and visited the clinic.
Matt sat through an awkward meeting in his village – Peace Corps provides handbooks that describe the differences between South Africans and Americans. For example, the handbook explains that “5 minutes” really means 5 minutes to Americans. They are intended to be a reference point for the assigned host family. However, during Matt’s community meeting is supervisor read the entire 40-page handbook. Including the section on how American women don’t appreciate sexual harassment from men.
Later in the afternoon we met back up to see the place where we were supposed to live. Our Peace Corps supervisor informed Matt prior to the site visit that he was “concerned” about the size of the rondaval (traditional round dwelling) but not to worry because the host family was a lovely religious family. With these two tokens of advice in the back of our heads, and following a hot day of awkward meetings, we were not exactly stoked to see our new mansion. Nothing could have prepared us, however, for the experience that awaited us.
We first heard the singing from about two blocks away. We instantly knew the singing was for us, but two blocks is just long enough for that last glimmer of hope that those are the loud neighbors and our real host family is quietly and casually waiting for us. When we entered the house the “singing” could no longer be so characterized as it was, more accurately, screaming. We were ushered into seats in the family room and surrounded by about 15 of the most vociferous South Africans we have yet encountered. When the singing stopped the family launched into an hour-long religious ceremony in Zulu, complete with a 25-minute fire-and-brimstone sermon from one of the younger men. The entire sermon was in Zulu except one brief part when the man looked at Matt and said “you are like an ocean” and then everyone laughed. The woman adjacent to Matt turned to him and explained “He says you are like an ocean.”
Our intended rondaval was so tiny it violated the Geneva Convention on living quarters for prisoners. There was no separation at all, which means that we would have been tripping over e/o while trying to bucket bath, cook, etc. So that’s how well our day was going at about 6:00 p.m.
Back at Sara’s supervisor’s house that evening, we were cooking dinner at about 8:00 when suddenly we began to hear loud banging noises on the tin roof. Sara and her supervisor stood up and looked at each other. The sounds kept coming one after the next, and then the window next to Sara shattered. Sara yelled for Matt who was in the next room, and the three of us ran into Sara’s supervisor’s room. Sara kept looking behind her honestly expecting to see people entering the house. Once in the supervisor’s bedroom, which unfortunately did not lock, Matt sat with his back against the door while Sara’s supervisor tried to call the police. At first she didn’t have airtime and then Matt’s phone didn’t have a signal, but she finally got ahold of someone. She told us to stay quiet, and Sara kept whispering to Matt “are they in the house, are they in the house?” The sounds stopped, and Sara’s supervisor then began saying “they are just trying to scare us.” Yeah, well it worked.
The police showed up fairly quickly, including one carrying a huge assault rifle. They said they would patrol the area for the next few hours. They kept saying that it was just “stupid people” and Sara’s supervisor kept saying it was just jealousy b/c we were there. Who knows. Our feeling was that we were absolutely not welcome in the community, at least by some people.
In the meantime, Matt called our Peace Corps security and safety officer. He was really great throughout the whole experience. He asked if we wanted to go stay with Matt’s supervisor in our shopping town. We declined since my supervisor didn’t have a car, and we had no idea if his supervisor’s house was any safer. We spent the night at Sara’s supervisor’s house, but it was definitely not a restful night of sleep.
The next morning, Peace Corps instructed us to catch a public taxi to Joberg. Yes, we were basically evacuated from our site visit. After what now can be considered comical delays on the part of Sara’s supervisor ( Peace Corps told us before 8:00 a.m. to leave and Sara’s supervisor felt the need to bathe, clean house, introduce Sara to more caregivers, take pictures, talking with board members, etc. We did not leave the village for over 2 and a half hours) we finally made it to Joberg and then Pretoria safe and sound. Soon afterwards, we officially heard that we would not be returning to that site and would not even be going back to KZN.
We heard about a week ago that we were moving to the Eastern Cape. This meant that we were moving to a site unseen without knowing the language. Luckily, Xhosa, which is spoken here, is in the same language group as Zulu, so hopefully we’ll catch on fairly quickly. After swearing in as Peace Corps volunteers (yay!), we traveled about 20 hours to the Eastern Cape. We are living in a government RDP house (basically, the rural projects), and the area is absolutely beautiful. We are about 80ks from the beach and are very close to Hogsback, the area that inspired The Lord of the Rings (super boring movie – sorry)(that was Sara’s parenthetical, Matt thinks it’s super awesome). It is hilly/mountainous and COLD, at least at night. We slept with layers upon layers the first few nights. Thankfully, we purchased a blanket this weekend, so things are better.
We are really excited to be in the Eastern Cape. There are so many places here we want to visit and feel lucky to be living in such a beautiful site. Visitors are welcome (Trevor, google Jeffrey’s Bay).
Monday, March 7, 2011
We're moving to the mountains!
Hey all. Another quick post (sorry, I promise to eventually provide more details re our lives). We found out last week that we'll be moving to the Drakensberg Mountains in Kwa-Zulu Natal. Our nearest big town is Escourt, and I think we'll be 3-4 hours from Durban (beach). We're ridiculously excited, although I'm a bit concerned about how cold it's going to be (esp since there is not heat). It should be interesting.
We leave tomorrow morning for our site visit. We'll meet our supervisors, visit our village, etc. We come back on Sunday for a little less than 2 weeks of additional training, and then we move to KZN for good. KZN has the highest HIV/AIDS rate of any SA province (~40%).
We will probably buy a modem in the next month or so and will be more in touch. I promise to also post pictures. One of these days...
xoxoxo
We leave tomorrow morning for our site visit. We'll meet our supervisors, visit our village, etc. We come back on Sunday for a little less than 2 weeks of additional training, and then we move to KZN for good. KZN has the highest HIV/AIDS rate of any SA province (~40%).
We will probably buy a modem in the next month or so and will be more in touch. I promise to also post pictures. One of these days...
xoxoxo
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