Well, we went to the wedding on Saturday, and it was a really amazing experience. Today, however, was a sad day for the community where we live, so we’ll blog about the wedding later this week. Last Friday, a young man whom we work with and are friendly with, was driving with his 16 year old cousin when they had a car accident. Our friend is okay, but his cousin was thrown from the car and sustained a severe head injury. He passed away this morning.
Since he previously attended the primary school where we teach, the teachers went to the boy’s family’s house this afternoon to pay their respects and asked us to come along. As we walked up to the rondeval (round traditional dwelling) where the family was mourning, the teachers began singing. We took off our shoes and entered the rondeval, which was empty except for the straw mats on which we sat and six women. The boy’s mother was weeping the entire time we were there. It was terrible to witness such suffering. In keeping with tradition, after about 10 minutes Matt and the two male teachers left and walked outside to where the boy’s father and two other family members were sitting. It is customary for Zulu community members to pay respect at the family’s house, and the men and women of the deceased’s family stay in separate areas of the home.
On the one hand, we felt a little awkward being in the presence of such pain since we did not know the boy. But visiting a mourning family or attending a funeral is considered a form of respect, so ultimately we are glad we were able to attend.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
It's Official!
Today marks a year in South Africa. And the new CHOP (Community HIV/AIDS Outreach Program) group arrived yesterday. It’s weird. It sometimes feels like we’ve been here forever, and other times it feels like we just packed up our apartment. The last year has been full of ups and downs – from sweating like crazy during our first two months of training, to changing to a site in the Eastern Cape where we were rained on from our tin roof all winter but met some really great people, to moving back to KZN last November.
But things are really falling into place now. We are enjoying teaching the kids at the primary school. Yesterday we taught Duck, Duck, Goose to Grade R (kindergarten) and it was a huge hit. We speak the Zulu of a 3 year-old (okay maybe 2) and so we can kinda communicate with the Grade R kids. We got them to appreciate that when you said “goose” instead of “duck” something special was happening, but instead of only one kid getting up to chase you around the circle, they treated it like an air raid. Every single kid would jump up screaming and run away from the circle. The teachers were cracking up.
Tomorrow the lawyer from Legal Aid is coming to the hospital to meet with people who have legal issues. We’re excited because this will be the first tangible work that we’re actually doing at the hospital, but we’re also a bit apprehensive because the lawyer emailed us at 4:00 yesterday and it feels a bit rushed. Oh well, it’ll probably be fine.
This weekend there is a big wedding down in the valley and we were “invited” yesterday. This is how our invitation was delivered. Matt was talking to a man who works at the hospital. The man mentioned that his brother was getting married this weekend. He then said something to the effect of “I don’t know if you’re invited but I’m sure you’re welcome.” To a wedding. What he meant was I don’t know if you’ve received a formal invitation that are only sent to VIP guests, but you, like everyone else within 100 miles, is welcome to attend the wedding. We knew what he meant, but when you consider what he said literally it provided a stark contrast between our two cultures when it comes to the etiquette of wedding invites. And today after asking around, it seems like this wedding is a pretty big deal (the groom is the son of the Head Man of the community), and we’ll keep you posted if we attend.
So, one year. Not quite halfway there (that comes next month) but still a milestone worth acknowledging. Thank you everyone who reads this. By simply reading our musings you have provided immeasurable support. You keep reading during year 2, and we promise to keep writing!
But things are really falling into place now. We are enjoying teaching the kids at the primary school. Yesterday we taught Duck, Duck, Goose to Grade R (kindergarten) and it was a huge hit. We speak the Zulu of a 3 year-old (okay maybe 2) and so we can kinda communicate with the Grade R kids. We got them to appreciate that when you said “goose” instead of “duck” something special was happening, but instead of only one kid getting up to chase you around the circle, they treated it like an air raid. Every single kid would jump up screaming and run away from the circle. The teachers were cracking up.
Tomorrow the lawyer from Legal Aid is coming to the hospital to meet with people who have legal issues. We’re excited because this will be the first tangible work that we’re actually doing at the hospital, but we’re also a bit apprehensive because the lawyer emailed us at 4:00 yesterday and it feels a bit rushed. Oh well, it’ll probably be fine.
This weekend there is a big wedding down in the valley and we were “invited” yesterday. This is how our invitation was delivered. Matt was talking to a man who works at the hospital. The man mentioned that his brother was getting married this weekend. He then said something to the effect of “I don’t know if you’re invited but I’m sure you’re welcome.” To a wedding. What he meant was I don’t know if you’ve received a formal invitation that are only sent to VIP guests, but you, like everyone else within 100 miles, is welcome to attend the wedding. We knew what he meant, but when you consider what he said literally it provided a stark contrast between our two cultures when it comes to the etiquette of wedding invites. And today after asking around, it seems like this wedding is a pretty big deal (the groom is the son of the Head Man of the community), and we’ll keep you posted if we attend.
So, one year. Not quite halfway there (that comes next month) but still a milestone worth acknowledging. Thank you everyone who reads this. By simply reading our musings you have provided immeasurable support. You keep reading during year 2, and we promise to keep writing!
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
The Last Few Days
We woke up early on Saturday to take the taxi (public minivan) from our location 85k (~50 miles) into Vryheid, our shopping town. There is only one taxi a day from here to town. It leaves at 7 a.m. no matter how full it is, but if it fills before 7 it leaves as soon as it’s full. Anyway, we got to the taxi at about 6:15, and it left at about 6:30, so not bad. We spent the morning running errands, grocery shopping and eating. The taxi back to Mountain View leaves around noon (or, again, whenever it’s full). If we miss the Mountain View taxi, we can take another taxi, but it’s more expensive and drops us off about 1.5 miles from home. Luckily, we were able to the catch the Mountain View taxi before it was full.
The taxi home was a bit of an adventure. First of all, since our community is fairly rural, most people don’t come into town very often. So when they go to town, they stock up. Picture a van full of people and then adding 10kg bags of rice and dozens of shopping bags. After loading up the van, we started our journey home. About ten minutes outside of town, we stopped so people could buy chickens for dinner. Live chickens, of course. Feathers were flying and the taxi began to smell a bit like a farm, but we were on our way again after about 15 minutes (of course, there was a lot of clucking to be heard the rest of the trip).
After making it almost halfway home, we came across an accident. Tons of people were standing around, and our first thought was that someone must have been hurt in the wreck. Soon, however, we discovered that a large truck had actually hit a cow. Unfortunately, hitting a cow isn’t all that unusual for where we live. Cows graze along the road, and drivers frequently have to swerve and slow down to avoid hitting them. Anyway, the cow that had been hit was now being slaughtered by the side of the road, and people were watching the action. It had turned into a community spectacle. TIA (this is Africa).
On a side note, we tried to watch Blood Diamond last night and gave up after 15 minutes. Both of us had seen it previously and rather enjoyed it. The reason we couldn’t watch was because Leo had the WORST South African accent we have ever heard. It was almost offensive. We were really excited to re-watch the movie, so it was disappointing that we couldn’t stand his accent. As South Africans would say, “Shame!
The taxi home was a bit of an adventure. First of all, since our community is fairly rural, most people don’t come into town very often. So when they go to town, they stock up. Picture a van full of people and then adding 10kg bags of rice and dozens of shopping bags. After loading up the van, we started our journey home. About ten minutes outside of town, we stopped so people could buy chickens for dinner. Live chickens, of course. Feathers were flying and the taxi began to smell a bit like a farm, but we were on our way again after about 15 minutes (of course, there was a lot of clucking to be heard the rest of the trip).
After making it almost halfway home, we came across an accident. Tons of people were standing around, and our first thought was that someone must have been hurt in the wreck. Soon, however, we discovered that a large truck had actually hit a cow. Unfortunately, hitting a cow isn’t all that unusual for where we live. Cows graze along the road, and drivers frequently have to swerve and slow down to avoid hitting them. Anyway, the cow that had been hit was now being slaughtered by the side of the road, and people were watching the action. It had turned into a community spectacle. TIA (this is Africa).
On a side note, we tried to watch Blood Diamond last night and gave up after 15 minutes. Both of us had seen it previously and rather enjoyed it. The reason we couldn’t watch was because Leo had the WORST South African accent we have ever heard. It was almost offensive. We were really excited to re-watch the movie, so it was disappointing that we couldn’t stand his accent. As South Africans would say, “Shame!
Monday, January 16, 2012
The Start of 2012
After about 3 glorious weeks of travel, we are finally settling back into our site. Our trip began weeks ago when we met up with our friends in Pretoria. Seven of us set out for Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. South Africans do not need a visa to enter Mozambique (we did) so we only bought bus tickets to the border. Our plan was to find a public taxi once we crossed the border for the final 90 minutes to Maputo. The border crossing was kind of a mess. Many Mozambicans work in South Africa and only travel home for Christmas holidays, so the border crossing was completely packed. Also, it wasn’t readily apparent where we would actually find a public taxi once we crossed the border. Fortunately, our bus driver basically adopted us (maybe pitied is a more apt word) and he let us pay the difference for tickets to get all the way to Maputo. More importantly, he made the entire bus wait for us idiot Americans to get our visas (an extra 45 minutes). As we drove over the border in the comfort of our bus, we realized how lucky we were to have the nicest bus driver ever.
There isn’t much to do in Maputo. Apparently, the train station is one of the 10 most beautiful train stations in the world . . . so of course we didn’t go see it. But we were only there for the night before making our way to the coast and the beautiful beaches of Tofo. We promise pictures will be posted some day in the not so distant future when we go to an internet cafe. We just can’t do it at our site.
After 5 nights in Tofo we travelled farther up the coast to Vilanculos for 4 more nights. Our trip to Vilanculous was easily the worst transportation experience either of us has ever had. We had to wake up at 4:45 to walk a mile into Tofo to catch a public taxi to a nearby town, where we then caught a crowded water taxi across the bay (picture the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland with about 40 more torsos and 160 more accompanying limbs). And that was the luxurious leg of our journey. From that point we had another 4 hours to go in a public taxi with all our bags. Mozambican taxis are the same size of South African taxis, but they manage to squeeze another body into each already crowded row of seats...and then proceed to pack additional passengers in as well (25 people in a minibus taxi seems to be fairly standard). The situation is exacerbated when 7 of those passengers are average-sized Americans (read: much bigger than the average Mozambican) with backpacks. We’d rather not relive the hell of those 4 hours, but suffice it to say, had Vilanculos been anything short of paradise, the 7 of us might not have been on speaking terms afterwards. Fortunately, it was indeed paradise. We took a boat trip to a gorgeous island where we snorkelled and enjoyed a delicious lunch on Christmas Eve and spent Christmas in Vilanculos, a stone’s throw away from the water at all times.
After Mozambique we spent a couple of nights in Swaziland. There isn’t a ton to do in Swaziland, but it’s absolutely beautiful and we had a great time just hanging out. The Swazi people are some of the friendliest people we have ever met. Everyone we encountered went out of their way to ask how we were doing and to enjoy our stay in their country. We stayed at a fabulous backpackers in Mbabane (the capital). The place catered to Swaziland PCVs (peace corps volunteers), and after a couple busy weeks in Mozambique it was the perfect place to relax for a couple days.
After Swaziland we came back to SA and, along with about 10 other PCVs, stayed at another volunteer’s site in Mpumulanga. Nearby her site was a lodge (with a pool!) where we all stayed on New Year’s Eve. We didn’t realize it, but South Africans like to set off fireworks on New Year’s Eve. So at midnight (or somewhere around there, everyone was going off cell phone clocks and you could hear countdowns for a good ten minutes) tons of fireworks were set off. All in all, it was a great way to ring in the New Year.
The next day we went to Pretoria to get TB tests (our new site, the TB hospital, wants us to get tested every 6 months), and we got to relax for a few more days while awaiting our test results.
Now we’ve been back at site over a week, and things are getting very busy. This past week was the first week of the school year, and we found out that we will be Reading teachers to grades 4-7 at the primary school. We’re excited about being Reading teachers because no teacher was previously assigned to Reading, so we won’t be stepping on anyone’s toes. Also, because it isn’t a course that’s part of the core curriculum, we will have a lot of flexibility in what we will actually be covering. Teaching will keep us busy because each grade has Reading 5 days a week for about 40 minutes. Once we get some more projects up and running at the hospital, we should be extremely busy (which is a good thing).
Hopefully this blog post somewhat gives you an idea of how we’ve spent the past month. Things seem to be going well here, the sun has decided to come out more and more, and we are optimistic that 2012 will be a good year for us.
Happy New Year!
There isn’t much to do in Maputo. Apparently, the train station is one of the 10 most beautiful train stations in the world . . . so of course we didn’t go see it. But we were only there for the night before making our way to the coast and the beautiful beaches of Tofo. We promise pictures will be posted some day in the not so distant future when we go to an internet cafe. We just can’t do it at our site.
After 5 nights in Tofo we travelled farther up the coast to Vilanculos for 4 more nights. Our trip to Vilanculous was easily the worst transportation experience either of us has ever had. We had to wake up at 4:45 to walk a mile into Tofo to catch a public taxi to a nearby town, where we then caught a crowded water taxi across the bay (picture the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland with about 40 more torsos and 160 more accompanying limbs). And that was the luxurious leg of our journey. From that point we had another 4 hours to go in a public taxi with all our bags. Mozambican taxis are the same size of South African taxis, but they manage to squeeze another body into each already crowded row of seats...and then proceed to pack additional passengers in as well (25 people in a minibus taxi seems to be fairly standard). The situation is exacerbated when 7 of those passengers are average-sized Americans (read: much bigger than the average Mozambican) with backpacks. We’d rather not relive the hell of those 4 hours, but suffice it to say, had Vilanculos been anything short of paradise, the 7 of us might not have been on speaking terms afterwards. Fortunately, it was indeed paradise. We took a boat trip to a gorgeous island where we snorkelled and enjoyed a delicious lunch on Christmas Eve and spent Christmas in Vilanculos, a stone’s throw away from the water at all times.
After Mozambique we spent a couple of nights in Swaziland. There isn’t a ton to do in Swaziland, but it’s absolutely beautiful and we had a great time just hanging out. The Swazi people are some of the friendliest people we have ever met. Everyone we encountered went out of their way to ask how we were doing and to enjoy our stay in their country. We stayed at a fabulous backpackers in Mbabane (the capital). The place catered to Swaziland PCVs (peace corps volunteers), and after a couple busy weeks in Mozambique it was the perfect place to relax for a couple days.
After Swaziland we came back to SA and, along with about 10 other PCVs, stayed at another volunteer’s site in Mpumulanga. Nearby her site was a lodge (with a pool!) where we all stayed on New Year’s Eve. We didn’t realize it, but South Africans like to set off fireworks on New Year’s Eve. So at midnight (or somewhere around there, everyone was going off cell phone clocks and you could hear countdowns for a good ten minutes) tons of fireworks were set off. All in all, it was a great way to ring in the New Year.
The next day we went to Pretoria to get TB tests (our new site, the TB hospital, wants us to get tested every 6 months), and we got to relax for a few more days while awaiting our test results.
Now we’ve been back at site over a week, and things are getting very busy. This past week was the first week of the school year, and we found out that we will be Reading teachers to grades 4-7 at the primary school. We’re excited about being Reading teachers because no teacher was previously assigned to Reading, so we won’t be stepping on anyone’s toes. Also, because it isn’t a course that’s part of the core curriculum, we will have a lot of flexibility in what we will actually be covering. Teaching will keep us busy because each grade has Reading 5 days a week for about 40 minutes. Once we get some more projects up and running at the hospital, we should be extremely busy (which is a good thing).
Hopefully this blog post somewhat gives you an idea of how we’ve spent the past month. Things seem to be going well here, the sun has decided to come out more and more, and we are optimistic that 2012 will be a good year for us.
Happy New Year!
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