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!

We're Going on Vacation

Merry Christmas, everybody! And Happy New Year! We know Christmas is still over a week away, and we haven’t lost track of the world that much. But in terms of wishing everyone happy holidays, this is our last chance. We leave this week on our vacation to Mozambique and Swaziland. To say that we are excited is an understatement. Come Sunday, we will be lounging on the pristine beaches of Mozambique for the next week or so. On our way back to South Africa we’re stopping off for a couple days in the tiny kingdom (yes, kingdom) of Swaziland. After that, we’ll be ringing in the new year with several other volunteers from our group in one volunteer’s village. All in all, we won’t be back here at our site until the beginning of 2012.

We are also excited because once we get back here we will, hopefully, become very busy with projects. We’ll have a few days to catch up on sleep before the new school year begins, and we’re optimistic about being able to help out at the primary school. Last week we attended the end of year ceremony for the primary school that included graduations for kindergarten and Grade 7 (high school begins in Grade 8 here). The principal seems to really like us (he gave Matt a 6-pack of Heineken out of the blue), so things are looking good at the school.

Well anyway, we won’t be posting anything here for several weeks. Happy holidays!

Week Three in KZN

Food: We are treated as management at the hospital, which means that our meals are provided for by the kitchen staff. For the most part, this is great. We definitely save some money by not having to cook every meal ourselves. Plus, it’s nice not having to cook all the time. The food is usually fairly traditional South African food – rice, beans, mealie pap and MEAT. This country definitely loves its meat. If we eat any more chicken, we’re afraid we might start crowing.

Names: Many volunteers are given new names in the local language of their sites. Yesterday, we received our Zulu names. Matt is now Sbusiso (Sbu), which means blessing. Sara’s name is not quite so traditional. She was renamed Zahara, which is an extremely popular South African singer. News of our new names is spreading quickly, and we have heard lots of “Sanibona, Zahara!” and Sanibona, Sbu!” in the last 24 hours. (Sanibona means hello.)

Our House

Is awesome. Well at least by Peace Corps standards. It’s on the hospital compound. We have a bedroom, living room, dining/kitchen area and an indoor bathroom. No washing machine or dishwasher (we aren’t that spoiled), but we have electricity and running water. Okay, the electricity often goes out when it storms (3x in the last 1.5 weeks) and the water sometimes goes out as well and turns brown after we get a lot of rain (it’s been brown all week), but, hey, we’re not getting water dripped on our heads every night like in our last site. Plus, crystal light juice packets disguise the brown in the water, so all’s good. Don’t worry, we do boil it before drinking.

Thanksgiving Plans: a number of volunteers are getting together for the holiday, but since we just got to our new site (and it’s not a SA holiday, obviously), we’re staying here. We did find turkey lunchmeat at the store, so we’re having grilled turkey and cheese sandwiches. Just keeping it classy. Happy Thanksgiving!

First Week

We have now been at our new site over a week, and a proper blog post is long overdue. Here’s a brief summary of our new lives: We arrived last Thursday afternoon at our new home at Salvation Army Mountain View Hospital in Kwa-Zulu Natal (KZN). The hospital is in a compound on top of a mountain, and we live on the compound along with many hospital employees. The hospital specifically treats TB patients (80% of whom also have HIV), and due to the length of the TB treatment many patients are here for 2-4 months. Adjacent to the hospital are two schools, one primary and one high school. The students at the primary school (kindergarten to grade 7) are all children from the local area which is called Ngwelu (pronounced Ing-way-loo). I call it an “area” because it is extremely spread out and isn’t really a village – although there is a local head man (sub-chief) who also works at the hospital. The high school is a combination of the local children plus children from all over the country. Apparently it has a good academic reputation and the cost of boarding is much more reasonable than the cost of other private schools, so that’s how it attracts students. To that end, the girls’ dormitory is right by our house and is the home to about 400 girls. The boys’ dormitory only houses about 200 boys and is about a five minute walk up the mountain from us.

So what are we going to be doing here? We are still trying to figure out which projects will work but our goal is to get involved with the children, especially the primary school. There doesn’t seem to be the same need for teachers as there was at our old site, but hopefully we can start some afterschool clubs for the children. With respect to the high school students, there is a young 25 year-old pastor who is in charge of the male boarders and he wants Matt to assist him. We have already helped him run 2 Friday youth meetings, and it seems like there will definitely be potential next year. The problem is that the South African school year is ending right now and the students are writing exams. The next school year begins in January, so that’s when we will really be able to start activities. The hospital staff also wants us to get involved with the patients, but we’re still a little unclear on what we can do to help because many of the patients come from rural areas and don’t speak much English. Ideas we have so far are playing games, teaching some simple crafts and doing puzzles with them, but hopefully with time we will come up with more ideas. On Tuesday we have a meeting in Vryheid (the closest city) with the Legal Aid Center. We are hoping to get some guidance from them on how we can help the patients with wills. The bottom line is we need to get through the next month. In mid-December we will be leaving on a trip to Mozambique (yay!) and when we return in January that’s when we will be able to really get some activities started.

The highlight of our time here on the mountain came last Friday night when we visited the girls’ dormitory. We went with the young pastor (who has basically been our personal guide this first week) at about 6:00 right after all the girls had finished eating dinner. And on a side note, this was our last stop on a looong first day of meeting everybody and awkward introductions. The girls were expecting us, and when we walked into the dining hall (basically a small auditorium) they went nuts. We have never heard girls scream like that EVER. It was like Beatlemania meets the Jonas Brothers on steroids. It was a couple minutes of pandemonium before the pastor could finally get a few words in to introduce us. When he finally introduced us he asked Sara to speak first. She only got a few words in before the screams erupted again. Sara probably only spoke for a net total of 22 seconds, but her “speech” lasted nearly five minutes with all the interruptions for screams. The same thing basically happened when Matt spoke. Never have either of us ever experienced anything remotely like that and, fortunately, never will we again. According to the pastor they were enamored with our American accents and the fact that we were from L.A. They would have cheered for anything that came out of our mouths. They even went crazy when Matt said “we’re not this interesting.” When we finally left, even that took a few minutes because everyone wanted to touch us. One girl lunged for Matt’s arm and ended up pushing him into Sara. Outside it wasn’t much better. Matt and the Pastor escaped out the gate but Sara got mobbed and ended up hugging about 30-40 girls in a couple minutes. All in all, it was a surreal ending to a good first day, and will end up being a highlight of our Peace Corps service that we will NEVER be able to forget.

New Contact Info!

We are at our new site in KZN and are loving it so far. We are literally living on top of a mountain (basically in the middle of nowhere), and it’s beautiful. We promise to write a longer post soon, but for now here’s our new contact info:

Sara and Matthew Henning
P.O. Box 1827
Vryheid 3100
South Africa

Also, our internet connection here is terrible, so we can’t do Skype to Skype (plus, the data is really expensive). Calls to our cell phones are, however, free, so give us a call if you want to chat – we can accept calls from Skype.
Sara: 0112 771 202 9006
Matt: 0112 771 265 1646

Life in Pretoria Update

So what are we doing? Some of you may be asking this question. We are STILL in Pretoria, however we know where we are going. Next Thursday we will be leaving for our new site (number three for those keeping score at home) in Kwazulu Natal (KZN). We will be working at a Salvation Army hospital in Mountain View, about 80km east from Vryheid. Another 40 km to our east is the area known as Nongoma which is where the Zulu king resides. If you're picturing James Earl Jones in Coming to America, I don't think the Zulu king will be quite that awesome. His power is mainly ceremonial at this point. But, the pro of being so close to the king is that a number of cultural ceremonies are centered in Nongoma. So we've got that going for us, which is nice.

At this new site we will be living in a rondavel, which is a traditional circular African dwelling. Pictures shall ensue. Our living quarters will be a little cramped, but we have a flushing toilet, running water and electricity. In Peace Corps, who can ask for anything more. Our rondavel will be located on the Salvation Army hospital compound. On the same compound is a primary school and high school, and some of the high school students are boarders. So although we won't be in a village per se, it will be nice to have a sense of community just in our compound.

We are still enjoying our time in Pretoria, but we are excited to finally get to our new site and start working. The timing is fortunate though because this weekend we will be able to go down to Durban to celebrate a friend's birthday. We leave Saturday and get back in Pretoria Tuesday afternoon, with one last day to enjoy everything Pretoria has to offer (McDonald's!).

If we don't post before next week, we will definitely give an update as soon as we get settled in at our new home. Take care everybody and enjoy the fall (because Summer is coming here!).