(Sorry about the corny title. Moving on.) Winter is coming. And it gets seriously cold. It was 47 degrees at 8:00 yesterday morning. INSIDE our house. I don’t want to even imagine how cold it was at 4 a.m. We have almost perfected the art of layering to go to sleep. Matt wears a pair of pajama pants over a pair of sweatpants and two long sleeved shirts over a t-shirt. Sara usually wears lined North Face pants, a t-shirt, a long sleeved shirt and a large sweatshirt. We then sleep in sleeping bag liners under two sheets, two big blankets and two throw blankets.
We have both obviously lived in much colder environments and thought we should be able to handle the cold. When we could see our breath while still in bed, however, we decided enough was enough. Yesterday, we took a public taxi to our shopping town and purchased a kerosene heater. By the way, don’t google “dangers of kerosene heaters” if such a heater is your only viable option. We purchased kerosene at a store in town, which was poured into a two liter empty soda bottle, and we were ready to go. Matt was able to set up the kerosene heater fairly easily, and we were able to spend our evening in relative warmth. We turned the heater off when we went to bed though. For now, we’re paying heed to the scary carbon monoxide warnings (damn you, google). We’re also trying not to think about the fact that winter doesn’t officially begin for another month…welcome to Africa.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Friday, April 29, 2011
Holidays
The past week has been the perfect storm for holidays here in South Africa. Good Friday and Easter Monday are national holidays. Wednesday April 27th was also a holiday commemorating the 1994 elections that were the first ever held under South Africa’s new constitution – when Mandela was elected president. And next Monday is a holiday as well, but our co-workers can’t remember what the holiday actually is because there are too many this time of year. I think it’s something like Workers’ Day, or May Day. So what does all this mean for our work schedule? It means that we’re going to put one day of work in during a 10-day stretch. Not too shabby. The one regret is that we are not allowed to leave our site during our first 3 months – the preferred nomenclature among volunteers is “lockdown” – so we are unable to fully take advantage of this amazing stretch of holidays.
With one notable exception. Last weekend Peace Corps staff allowed all of us to travel anywhere within our province for the Easter Weekend. Anxious to enjoy the end of good weather, we spent three nights on the beach in East London. Mother Nature cooperated, and the days were in the 70s and there was very little rain. We even squeezed in a visit to the mall and caught a flick (for what it’s worth, we recommend that you guys check out the King’s Speech if you haven’t already). We stayed at a hostel across the street from the sand that had a great surfer vibe and was immediately next door to a solid restaurant/pub. We met a South African guy who was fascinated about our membership in the “Los Angeles fraternity of law.” We kept trying, unsuccessfully, to persuade him that it wasn’t precisely how it’s depicted in movies.
One of the amusing parts of the weekend was that whenever we talked to South Africans at the hostel, they couldn’t believe that we were living in a village, let alone didn’t own a car. Their jaws dropped when we explained that we took 3 public taxis to drive the 50 miles from our village to the hostel. To clarify, they did not think it was idiotic or dangerous for us to live there, but rather they were thoroughly impressed that we left the US to live there. It was actually very uplifting. And as an added bonus to the weekend, one of the guys already added us as friends on Facebook.
Now we are back in our beautiful village and it’s hard to believe that we’ve been here over a month. We still don’t return to work for four more days, so that should give us a lot of time to keep trying to woo the neighbor girl. Which means Sara will be baking cookies tomorrow. And probably the next day.
With one notable exception. Last weekend Peace Corps staff allowed all of us to travel anywhere within our province for the Easter Weekend. Anxious to enjoy the end of good weather, we spent three nights on the beach in East London. Mother Nature cooperated, and the days were in the 70s and there was very little rain. We even squeezed in a visit to the mall and caught a flick (for what it’s worth, we recommend that you guys check out the King’s Speech if you haven’t already). We stayed at a hostel across the street from the sand that had a great surfer vibe and was immediately next door to a solid restaurant/pub. We met a South African guy who was fascinated about our membership in the “Los Angeles fraternity of law.” We kept trying, unsuccessfully, to persuade him that it wasn’t precisely how it’s depicted in movies.
One of the amusing parts of the weekend was that whenever we talked to South Africans at the hostel, they couldn’t believe that we were living in a village, let alone didn’t own a car. Their jaws dropped when we explained that we took 3 public taxis to drive the 50 miles from our village to the hostel. To clarify, they did not think it was idiotic or dangerous for us to live there, but rather they were thoroughly impressed that we left the US to live there. It was actually very uplifting. And as an added bonus to the weekend, one of the guys already added us as friends on Facebook.
Now we are back in our beautiful village and it’s hard to believe that we’ve been here over a month. We still don’t return to work for four more days, so that should give us a lot of time to keep trying to woo the neighbor girl. Which means Sara will be baking cookies tomorrow. And probably the next day.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Update on neighbor girl
We offered her a cookie this morning. And she took it (without crying). Progress!
We are traveling tomorrow morning to East London (the closest big city to us about 80k) for the weekend. We are staying at a backpackers there and are planning to go to a MALL and probably see a MOVIE. It's supposed to be warm on Sunday (Easter), so we'll probably spend the day at the beach. You can tell, however, that we're most excited for the MALL and MOVIE. Maybe too excited. Anyway, we probably won't update again until early next week. HAPPY EASTER!!!!!! Love, Sara and Matt
We are traveling tomorrow morning to East London (the closest big city to us about 80k) for the weekend. We are staying at a backpackers there and are planning to go to a MALL and probably see a MOVIE. It's supposed to be warm on Sunday (Easter), so we'll probably spend the day at the beach. You can tell, however, that we're most excited for the MALL and MOVIE. Maybe too excited. Anyway, we probably won't update again until early next week. HAPPY EASTER!!!!!! Love, Sara and Matt
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Our neighbor girl . . .
. . . is seriously terrified of us. She's between 1 and 2 years old, and she cries and runs into her house whenever she sees us. Not to be cruel (b/c she is honestly scared), but it's actually fairly comical. We originally thought that maybe we were the first white people she's ever seen - at least up close. We thought that maybe she just couldn't figure out what we even are and felt it best to stay away. Her grandma tries and tries to get her to like us, but it just isn't working.
Another neighbor told us yesterday that the only white people she's really been in contact with are white doctors who gave her shots, so she believes she's going to receive an injection whenever she sees us. I guess I don't really blame her for crying and running away. My plan to win her over with brownies might need to be stepped up a bit though.
Another neighbor told us yesterday that the only white people she's really been in contact with are white doctors who gave her shots, so she believes she's going to receive an injection whenever she sees us. I guess I don't really blame her for crying and running away. My plan to win her over with brownies might need to be stepped up a bit though.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Eating and Bathing
What we eat:
Pizza. Seriously. Well, when we lived with a host family, we ate traditional South African food - pap (also called porridge, which is a staple here in South Africa is basically thick, odorless, tasteless cornmeal), rice, chicken, pumpkin, etc. However, we now have our own place and have recently discovered the joys of homemade pizza. Long gone are the days of delivery. We have to buy the cheese and sauce in our shopping town over the weekend, b/c our site unfortunately doesn't sell mozzarella. We do buy the flour, oil, veggies, etc. here and enjoy pizza night at least twice a week. We've also starting eating significant amounts of home-made pancakes, and we may bake cookies or brownies later today. Yeah, we're not really losing weight anymore.
How we bathe:
We fill up our basin with cold water from our one sink. We bathe in our kitchen area, which means we don't have to move the basin once it's filled with water. We then heat up two pots of water on our hot plate to warm up the basin water. That's pretty much it. We make the person who is not bathing hide out in the bedroom partition, b/c the process is ridiculously awkward and not contemplated by "in sickness and in health." When the process is done we both -- the basin is quite heavy when filled -- carry the water outside and dump in our yard.
The purpose of bathing:
It's not to per se achieve a state of "cleanliness" but, rather, to avoid the always approaching state of stinkiness. Through bathing we strive to attain the equivalent of 5 o'clock shadow at home -- in other words, if you shower at home you're not perfectly clean at the end of the day. Your end of the day feeling is what we're shooting for.
Pizza. Seriously. Well, when we lived with a host family, we ate traditional South African food - pap (also called porridge, which is a staple here in South Africa is basically thick, odorless, tasteless cornmeal), rice, chicken, pumpkin, etc. However, we now have our own place and have recently discovered the joys of homemade pizza. Long gone are the days of delivery. We have to buy the cheese and sauce in our shopping town over the weekend, b/c our site unfortunately doesn't sell mozzarella. We do buy the flour, oil, veggies, etc. here and enjoy pizza night at least twice a week. We've also starting eating significant amounts of home-made pancakes, and we may bake cookies or brownies later today. Yeah, we're not really losing weight anymore.
How we bathe:
We fill up our basin with cold water from our one sink. We bathe in our kitchen area, which means we don't have to move the basin once it's filled with water. We then heat up two pots of water on our hot plate to warm up the basin water. That's pretty much it. We make the person who is not bathing hide out in the bedroom partition, b/c the process is ridiculously awkward and not contemplated by "in sickness and in health." When the process is done we both -- the basin is quite heavy when filled -- carry the water outside and dump in our yard.
The purpose of bathing:
It's not to per se achieve a state of "cleanliness" but, rather, to avoid the always approaching state of stinkiness. Through bathing we strive to attain the equivalent of 5 o'clock shadow at home -- in other words, if you shower at home you're not perfectly clean at the end of the day. Your end of the day feeling is what we're shooting for.
We have an address (finally)
I guess we really live here now. We've finally rented a post office box:
Sara and Matthew Henning
P.O. Box 227
Keiskammahoek 5670
South Africa
Sara and Matthew Henning
P.O. Box 227
Keiskammahoek 5670
South Africa
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Peace Corps = Peanut Butter
Seriously. Peace Corps volunteers must consume more peanut butter than any other group of people. During training, it was quite normal to look around the room and see several people eating PB straight out of a jar. We will neither confirm nor deny doing the same.
Anyway, after about 2.5 months in South Africa, here are some things that currently define our daily lives:
- Peanut butter (of course)
- Rain on (and occasionally through) our tin roof
- Kids laughing hysterically when we greet them in Xhosa
- Amazing night skies
- Bucket baths in our kitchen area
- Dirty feet
- Incredible mountain views
- Crowded public taxi (minivan) rides
- Shockingly cold nights
- Daily analysis of our electricity usage
- Lots of runny playing
- And awkwardness; a lot of awkwardness
Anyway, after about 2.5 months in South Africa, here are some things that currently define our daily lives:
- Peanut butter (of course)
- Rain on (and occasionally through) our tin roof
- Kids laughing hysterically when we greet them in Xhosa
- Amazing night skies
- Bucket baths in our kitchen area
- Dirty feet
- Incredible mountain views
- Crowded public taxi (minivan) rides
- Shockingly cold nights
- Daily analysis of our electricity usage
- Lots of runny playing
- And awkwardness; a lot of awkwardness
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