The Blog is Back (hopefully)

We have a laptop!!! Okay, we probably shouldn't be this incredibly excited about a laptop, but we totally are. It's our computer, tv, radio and entertainment system galore, so whatever. We hope to blog a few times a week now, but we'll see what actually happens.

Anyway, we are leaving Los Angeles today (boo!) after a fabulous week. It's been beautiful and sunny, and we've had so much fun. A big congratulations to Courtney and Nathan who were married yesterday! It was a wonderful day, and we are so happy that we were able to be here for it.

The countdown to having a laptop again is on!

Sorry, our posting has been terrible lately. We spent the last week (a little more) in Pretoria for our in-service training. Although the overnight bus ride was brutal, it was fabulous to see the rest of our training class again. We were stuck in sessions most of the day, but we were able to hang out during the evenings (sorry for partying, St. George Hotel). We're now back in the Eastern Cape, but only for about a week. We leave next weekend for AMERICA! Yep, we are coming to LA for about a week for Matt's sister's wedding (congrats to Courtney and Nathan!). We didn't anticipate making a trip back to the States so early, but we're really excited to see everyone (and LA will be WARM!).

And we are buying a laptop when we're there. Thank god. We promise to improve the blogging once we return.

Otherwise, things are pretty good. Our organization has not had a lot for us to do, which has definitely been frustrating at times. However, now that our three months of community integration/lockdown is over, we have the freedom to find other things to do in the community. We might help this group start a softball program for kids. We're going to visit some schools (Sara might do some teaching if they need her). There is a legal advisory center that is interested in our help (Matt is more interested in this one than Sara). Anyway, things are looking up.

Still hanging in there

We've sort of gotten used to not having a laptop, but life definitely gets boring at times. On a positive note, we both have read 20 books since coming to South Africa!

We leave for Pretoria for our in-service training next weekend. This marks the end of our lockdown/community integration period and means that we'll be able to see our training class for the first time in 3 months! The 13 hour bus ride isn't going to be too fun, but we're definitely looking forward to spending a week with our buddies.

Bye, bye, laptop

So the laptop cannot be fixed. Slammed. Sorry, but the blog posts will be pretty scarce until we get a new one. It's been raining A TON, so we basically sit around playing cards, reading and staring at the walls. Seriously.

SLAMMED!

It's been a while since we posted and for good reason. This past weekend we spent in East London with another volunteer. We had a lot of fun, saw the new X-Men movie, ate some good food, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. So posting to this blog was far from our mind as we soaked in the sunshine of East London.

However, this Monday we were dealt a vicious blow when our laptop stopped working. The last two nights have been a little stale to say the least. Last night we went to bed before 9:00. We depended upon that laptop for entertainment (movies, music, etc.) and work. For Peace Corps we need to submit a report next week based upon our community "integration." We interviewed about a dozen community members, and many of our notes were on our computer. More importantly, we're not crazy about handwriting (what is THAT?) our entire reports. So basically, we've been pretty slammed.

Currently, I (Matt) am in King William's Town hoping to get our computer fixed. I'm waiting for a call back from the technician to see if he can fix it, or if it's even cost-effective. So everyone keep your fingers crossed that our livelihood will be saved! Otherwise, don't expect a fresh blog post for a while.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend

Ah warm weather, barbeques, long summer nights...for us, that will have to wait until November. Meanwhile, we were hoping to meet another Peace Corps volunteer in East London for the weekend, but the backpackers (hostel=shower!) was full. Instead, we are meeting up with her next weekend. We haven’t seen another American (besides each other) in over nine weeks, so we’re really excited to have a fun weekend away. Plus, next weekend is payday, which means there will be A LOT of drinking happening at our site. It’ll be nice to miss this month’s debauchery.

Unfortunately, we only get South African holidays off, so we’ll be back at work on Monday. We are supposed to attend a child protection awareness event in a nearby village on Monday, so we’ll let you all know how that goes. Have an extra hamburger or brat for us.

The High-Five Gang

Highlight of the week:
It all started with 2 young girls who live down the road from us who love running out when we walk by to say “molo” (hello) to us. This has turned into us exchanging both greetings and high-fives with them. Their mothers laugh whenever they see us, because the girls, probably about three-years old, will literally sprint when they see us coming. Slowly, other kids have begun joining in the ritual. Now whenever we walk by the area where they live, we have numerous children (ages 3-6) running up to give us high-fives and say “molo, buthi” to Matt and “molo, sisi” to Sara. It’s been a tough week (for many reasons), but seeing the kids, who we now call the "high-five gang" line up to receive high-fives definitely cheers us up.

Bizarre item of the week:
As I believe we’ve mentioned before, Sara found a dead worm under her pillow a few weeks ago. This morning, we found yet another dead worm in the basin where we dry dishes. Where are these worms coming from? And where else are they hiding in our house? Seriously, so weird.