A Series of Unfortunate Events

It's been a while, so get ready for a long one. :) So no topic per se for this posting, rather just a collection of tales of various depth, humanity, humor, and nausea-inducing grotesqueness from the other side of the world. But before we begin, kudos to Mom and Claire, who both correctly identified the items in the picture of the last post as, yes, my skin! These were just a few of the peeling sheets of skin after an unbelievable sunburn. I actually peeled three times from that one. Melanoma, here I come! So to begin with: The Tale of the Goat. For those to whom I've already told this, just bear with me.




The other morning I awoke to what sounded like a goat bleating outside. This was strange as my host family does not own any animals, farm-type or otherwise. But then it changed to a terrible sound which I can only describe as screaming. However, the sound soon reverted to its previous timbre, so I didn't go investigate. Why not, you may ask? Any kind-hearted, animal loving soul like myself should have done so. Here's the thing--in preparation for the World Cup, everyone is always going around blowing these plastic horns called vuvuzelas, the South African equivalent of noise-makers at a hockey game. But these in general sound like some sort of large animal dying. I'd finally gotten used to these sounding off at all hours of the day and night when little baby vuvuzelas came out which seem to perfectly mimic the sound of a six-year old screaming as his mother strangles him to death in Wal-Mart once she's finally lost it due to his incessant begging for more candy.



So anyway, I wasn't sure if this screaming goat sound was just another attempt at good 'ole fashioned South African fun. However, when I left for work that morning, sure enough there was a goat tied to a small tree in the yard. The screaming sound seemed to be the result of its rope being tangled in some nearby bushes, and it was trying to get free. This is where my kind-hearted soul bit kicked in and, although I knew what would be the eventual outcome for the goat, I proceeded to untangle it. It looked at me with its big goat eyes and stopped struggling as if to thank me for my good deed. All the children, however, looked at me like, "Why are you messing with our food?" However, as much as I wanted to, I didn't just untie it and let it free--it wasn't mine, and I can't afford to pay my family back for a goat.



An hour and a half later, I walked home from work to get something, and there was the goat, hanging from a tree with its head and pelt on the ground. Host brother Sizwe was cleaning it, and kind of looked at me and laughed like, "Crap, she wasn't supposed to see," as I've told them several times I didn't want to watch the animals being slaughtered. (On a side note, you may think this is strange given by background. But no, give me a human body in an autopsy room any day. I just don't want to watch it being done to poor little baby animals). I asked if there was going to be a wedding/funeral/ceremony of some kind, but no, apparently it was just time to eat goat. So the goat I'd rescued from the torment of the bushes was now slaughtered. I thought that was the end of it.



A few hours later, I returned to the house again, this time to show a visiting friend, also a PCV, my new house which is being built. The goat was now just hanging forlornly from its tree. We went into the new house (which still had unsealed concrete floors) only to find that they'd obviously been keeping the goat in there over the weekend. Let's just say the house was a mess. Now, someone asked me, "Are they just that unclean?" The answer is, No. In fact, they're pretty anal when it comes to keeping the main house clean--you can't wear your shoes inside, constantlysweeping out the door, have a maid that comes every day, etc, etc. But I assume they just figured that the new house wasn't finished, and it would get cleaned out, so it didn't really matter. I did not ask why they'd kept the goat in there; I assume it was without food or water so that after a few days, the process of cleaning it would be, well, cleaner, if you get my drift. Anyway, I showed my friend the now dirty new house, and she was appropriately impressed.



Finally, I return again at the end of the day, this time to find that the goat is no longer hanging from the tree. Sweet, sweet mercy! But no, I then looked up through the window of my new house, and there it was, hanging inside! I have no idea why they hung it in there--it'd already ben hanging outside all day. But so now my Pretty, Pretty Princess house is going to be haunted by the spirit of the goat I failed to save. What am I to do?



After all that, again as I was settling in to thinking it was all over, my host dad scared the crap out of me accidentally. My back was turned, I heard him coming in the room behind me, I turned around and he had the damn skinned thing right there. I jumped and shrieked like a girl, God forbid. My current room has their deep freeze in it,so now I'm also sleeping in the room with the goat. It just won't go away.



Another little interesting nugget to the story--no one in my host family really eats goat much. As I may have mentioned in a previous post, according to my host mom JZ, 80% of South Africans get the dreaded 'runny tummy' when eating goat (and just because they have a cute name for it doesn't make it any more pleasant). Speaking from experience, I fall into that 80%. I asked JZ about this, and she said, oh no, it's fine, this was a goat/sheep hybrid apparently, kind of like a mule or a liger, which I didn't even know existed but apparently has all the tasty aof goat without the gastrointestinal side effects (I'd wondered why it had long hair). Anyway, so the shoat, as I'll now refer to it, is no more, except that I assume we'll be eating it for the next few weeks.



Other things: You probably wonder why I haven't written much about my actual work here yet. This is because, to be honest, I haven't done much that is very interesting yet. At this point, I have basically become a glorified secretary for my NOAH organization, as the fact that I can actually type is considered quite the talent. If this were Victorian England, I would be called "accomplished" and people would actually mean it. But I am proud of the fact that since I've come here, the quality of the record keeping for the organization has gone up drastically. The previously questionable record keeping was not due to the fault of anyone here, but more to the combined effects of bare minimum staff, lack of computer skills all around, LOTS of children registered, and LOTS of record keeping required by funders, obviously. But until this point, it's all been done as everything here seems to be--you make the best you can out of limited resources, and keep going basically on sheer will.


So anyway, basically I've been doing computer work, although lately I have given some HIV presentations to teachers at events sponsored by NATU (National Teacher's Union), which were fun for me and made me feel like I was doing what I came here to do. As it stands, a good deal of people's education about HIV come from the national campaign to follow the ABCs: "Abstain, Be Faithful, and Condomize." An enterprising Peace Corps Volunteer has added D for "Do It Yourself." So far that hasn't gone over well in my talks, and I don't want to explain it any further to a group of strangers ("So, have you heard, the little mlungu from America is teaching about masturbation!" "Well, damn, even more reason for me to go check her out!" "Maybe she'll give a demonstration like with the condoms!").



Despite the act that I'm generally doing computer work, it's not possible to escape the effects of HIV and what it's doing to the population here. The stigma is so great that people don't discuss it and instead talk around the issue, saying "oh, she was sick for a long time," as though not naming it AIDS means you're somehow safe from its effects. I suppose it's the same in the States, just not to the same extent, and people will do any number of things out of fear. Still, with an average of one funeral every week or two of someone at least tangentially connected to the average person, often of young to middle aged adults, it's hard to grasp the lasting effects of fear and denial.


Two siblings, one in sixth grade and one in kindergarten, lost their mother last week of "being sick." Their father died last year, I've heard due to cancer, although I don't know what kind. They are currently living with a grandmother who is extremely poor; when my supervisor went to visit them the other day, she said there was absolutely no food in the house. And so, everyone came together, my organization as well, to donate food and help with the funeral. I and some of the other volunteers from my org went to do the cooking for the funeral.


A word on funerals: as this was the only one I've been to so far since being here, I can't generalize and say that this is what the average funeral is like in rural South Africa, but I will describe this one. I was rather surprised at how ordinary the situation seemed to me, as rituals generally are what highlight the traditional culture of a community best. Instead, someone had set up a large tent in the yard, under which chairs were placed. The family was all gathered in the house, sitting with the coffin which was covered with a blanket. I and some other women were outside, cooking for the large group which was expected. The men were gathered together in the yard, taking turns digging the grave there on the property. I was told that men with cattle (a symbol ofyour prosperity) are buried within the grounds where the cattle are kept so that he may watch over them even after death; men without cattle and women are buried anywhere on the property (no comment). When it came time for the service, the coffin was carried out underneath the tent, everyone gathered, songs were sung and a religious service given, then they all moved out to the actual gravesite for more singing during the burial. Except for the fact that this took place at a home rather than a cemetery, it was all in essence very similar to something you would see in the States.




One thing dfferent that I did notice was that there was not the overwhelming sense of sadness and heartbreak that is generally found at our funerals. People were not speaking in muted whispers, they were not dabbing their eyes, and they did not seem ashamed if they happened to laugh. They seemed, in fact, to be enjoying themselves just as they would at any other function, although perhaps slightly more reservedly. Whether this is due to a kind of sterilization of feeling because of the sheer number of relatively young people dying, or a difference in culture due to the very firm belief that ancestors are still amongst us and can be called upon for guidance, or some other reason altogether, I do not know.



Some other stories have come to my attention lately which put more of a face on what people face here daily. I recently found out that one little boy I see every day is HIV+ and currently on an ARV regimen. Here again is another case showing that children can overcome most anything (it seems to be only in adulthood that our true psychological pathologies make themselves blindingly obvious). He is a happy kid, and I see him running around and playing with the other children every day. Of course, I don't know how much he is aware of his illness or its long term prospects, but for the time being he's just a normal kid. I wonder how many other children that I see and work with every day are HIV+, but of course no one is giving up that information.


I suppose I feel differently about this type of illness in kids. I've (briefly) worked with sick and dying kids in the past, and it's always a terrible thng, most especially for the families. Yet this is not cancer, or cerebral palsy, or a heart defect, all of which are due to some chance disruption in the normal process of vents, terrible but blameless. HIV is preventable, and if a child has it, it's because he or she was raped in the erroneous belief that this would cure an infected adult, or that one or both of his parents were sleeping around and had no concern for the livelihood of those nearest and dearest (such as possible unborn children, or spouses, or lovers), or (extremely unlikely today) he'd had a transfusion of infected blood products, or that ritualistic mutilation was performed without strilization of tools. Yes, there are other ways for a child to have contracted HIV, but no matter what the cause, you can bet there was an uneducated adult behind it, and behind him, another adult who was just careless, insensitve, or stupid.





Not every sad case is a result of HIV, however. Recently, I registered two brothers for our organization. Several years ago, their mother was killed and father went missing (presumably killed) during some inter-family conflict (the best description I could get of what was going on). The two boys moved in with an uncle, who, after a time, was also killed in the ensuing fighting. They then moved in with another uncle, and apparently spent quite a time themselves hiding out for fear of being murdered because they closely resemble in appearance those other family members already killed. These are children. And all I could think was that the older boy, probably fifteen, had such a sweet, gentle face, no anger or hatred or I'm-pissed-off-at-the-world-because-I'm-a-self-indulgent-American-teenager. Just a bit of sadness. But I suppose shitty things happen to people every day in every country of the world, and people everywhere are just trying their damndest to get through their days with a little less pain and suffering and self-doubt, in whatever form that may be. But I also have to wonder if there are now children without parents in the other family, and if they were also hiding for fear of misguided adult retribution.



Anyway, that's my sad spiel for the day. On to brighter topics. I'm introducing a new portion of the blog today entitled "Things I've Learned in South Africa," and will be adding to it as appropriate.



1. How to open a tin can with a big-ass butcher knife. All ten fingers not required.
2. How to use my bra as a purse, concealing money, ID, credit cards, cell phone, USB drive and a collection of small teacups all at once. Even if it's obvious you're carrying lots of stuff in your bra, no one cares because everyone does it and they realize that, after all, you're just carying stuff in your bra. You don't actually have a cell phone shaped boob.
3. Rice Crispy Treats have international appeal.
4. Going topless is optional, but never show your thighs--that's where the real appeal is.
5. Getting fat is considered a good thing. If you lose weight, they suspect you of having AIDS.
6. "Meat is meat."



That's it for today's post. As for the pictures. The first is me holding a tiny chameleon. Next is me and friend Katie getting ready to go to Race For The Cure. Next is me with a group of kids from my school at their cultural dance competition. The fourth is the principal of my school, Mrs. Matenjwa, dressed to support Bafana Bafana for the World Cup. After this is a pic of the kids at school blowing celebrating and blowing the ever-present vuvuzelas. The following is me with several of my coworkers cooking at the funeral for the OVC's mother. Yes, I know, the outfit is super sexy. Next is the "shoat" hanging in my new house (at least it no longer had a head to stare at me with its little shoat eyes). I took a picture of this candle lying on the beach because I've seen a few since going. The beach apparently has a great deal of spiritual significance in Zulu culture. The first time I went with friends, I thought one of them must have dropped the candle out of their bag, and bent to pick it up. Suddenly they all yelled at me to put it down, and then finally explained that people use candles to lure bad spirits out to the beach; the candle's are then thrown into the water to rid themselves of the evil spirits. Others believe the ocean is a holy place, and so they are bringing the spirits there to be cleansed, as it were. People feel they can go to the beach to commume with God directly or with their ancestors, and several times I've seen people collecting the water from the ocean to bring back and use in traditional medicines (umuthi). Apparently, you can also make wishes at the beach; if you throw a candle in and it comes back to shore, that means your wish will come true. If it gets washed away, bad luck for you. Not everyone believes these superstitions, but I have to say, it's a much prettier story than throwing a penny into the fountain at the mall.

Food For Thought

So the topic for this discussion--answering that timeless and always so delicately expressed query of, "Oh my God, what the hell are you going to eat over there?" To be honest, I can't complain--I did tell the Peace Corps interviewer that new cuisine was one of the things I was looking forward to experiencing. Well, I suppose I got what I asked for.

Having grown up on the Gulf Coast with that spectacular blend of seafood, Cajun/Creole and just good 'ole Southern, coronary-inducing food, I am surprised that I haven't been too distraught over the reative lack of variety here. Not that it's all been kobe beef and truffles. Every meal is basically the same--a large portion of a flavorless, fluffy, cornmeal based starch called phuthu (poo-too), which I've come to like quite a bit, with a "curry," generally a brown sauce made from a soup packet with meat in it, maybe potatoes as well. (In other regions, phuthu is substituted with pap, a thick cornmeal paste, immeasurablt worse than phuthu with its flavorless, sticky, digestion-inhibiting properties). This actually doesn't sound bad, and depending on the meat involved, it's usually quite good. Of course, depending on the meat it can also be really, really bad.

Chicken is not consumed nearly as much here as at home, and when it is, it's usually small wings. I now have a very definite mental image of the phrase, "suck the marrow out of life." Chicken bones are meant to be cracked into here, relishing every bite. I haven't yet worked up the courage for this, but politely pass the bones along for someone else to bite into. But beef of all varieties is the mainstay. By "varieties," I mean beef meat (as in muscle tissue), beef stomach, beef liver, kidneys, intestines, even HEELS. I actually saw "guts" advertised for sale at the meat market the other day. What?! Then the other night we had curry with what my host mother described to me as the "stuff" on the inside, doing a general wave with her hand over her abdomen in an effort to clarify. I never was able to completely identify what it was. However, my intricate knowledge of anatomy led me to believe the piece I ate was stomach, as it had neither the fluffy, villous texture of intestines, nor the homogeneity of kidney or liver. It was rubbery and, you guessed it, really gross. Since that night, my host mom warns me when we are having "insides," and I gratefully cook for myself.

Other meats regularly consumed are sheep (mutton) and goat. Word to the wise: goat meat often causes the dreaded yet ever looming "runny tummy," as it's so lyrically called here. Again according to my host mom, about 80% of Africans have this unfortunate reaction to goat meat, so it's not too widely consumed. However, having been invited to a friend's for dinner, aka the goat they had slaughtered the day before, I felt obligated (I didn't want it to have died in vain). Luckily, I only just missed the actual slaughtering (I seem to have become good at that). Sure enough, I fell into the category of people negatively affected by goat meat; I'll pass next time. As for the mutton, the only part of it I have tried was the liver. Something I have learned about myself in South Africa--I really, really hate liver. I know people eat it everywhere, and I always had a curious desire to try liver and onions. But not anymore. I don't know if the type of liver makes a difference, but just imagine eating dead, sweaty, rotting feet. That would be better than this. The only other thing I have sworn off since coming here besides the liver is Pilchard's (a brand name), aka tinned fish, aka rotten sardines in a can. I like canned tuna fish, so it's not the idea of fish in a can I'm inherently opposed to. But if all the food in the world disappeared except for mutton liver and Pilchard's, well, even then I'd have to think about it long and hard.

Anyway, other than that, most meals are served with a side of some fruit or vegetable, usually something in season. At this point in time, it's cooked butternut squash, fresh avocado or pickled beetroot, all quite nice. Something else I learned about myself here is that I really like beets, can you believe it? And if you've never seen a fresh beet before, they really are that color. Some of the more adventurous things I've seen here are chicken feet (haven't yet had to try, but I suppose I will at some point), unidentifiable meat on a stick (a really gross version of the chicken on a stick that you get at fairs; I asked the person selling it what it was, and he kind of looked at me funny and said "cow"), and ishongololo, or dried caterpillars. Behold the attached picture--a bit blury because my camera was so close to it, but it's about three inches long and as wide as those fat pencils little kids use. Yes, I ate one of those. It tasted like a dried stick.

But I have to say that so far, my cooking has not gone over just swimmingly either. For a long list of reasons, I haven't had the opportunity/capability/strength of will to do much cooking since I've been at my new host family's house. I would like to do this for myself as I always feel I'm putting my host mom out, but the kitchen is tiny, difficult to use, and she always brings me a huge plate of food before I can say no. Anyway, the few times I've cooked it's generally been pasta ("You always cook pasta. Pasta! Pasta! Pasta!" my host mom says. "But you always eat phuthu!" I want to return. But don't, of course.) Anyway, even this seemingly un-mess-up-able dish has left a lot to be desired. The pasta sauce here (at least where I can get it) is pretty gross, and everything fresh I buy goes bad for various reasons. So then I tried buying one of those boxed cheesy tuna pasta things--let's just say the South African equivalent is, well, gross. The next one of these boxed meals I had (I'd bought the two at the same time), was one that you "just add chicken."

A brief synopsis of my meal preparation: there's nowhere to cut the chicken, so I use a dinner plate. Meanwhile, I've dumped the rock hard block of fake powdered cheese into the water in the pot and am trying to crush it with a ladle before my host mom sees the mess I'm making. While that heats I cut up the chicken, then go to the bathroom to wash my hands (no sink in kitchen). Of course there's no running water, so in the process of trying to dip up water to wash my hands (and I'd purchased the only hand soap in the house; hand washing isn't a big priority, hence a good deal of the runny tummy), I managed to spread salmonella throughout the entire house, including the huge water barrel that's used to bathe with and flush the toilet. God only knows where the bacteria ended up, although I did the best I could. Then I go back to break out the pasta that came with the kit only to see that it has been infested with little black bugs. I noticed this in a bag of rice the other day and my host mom said I shouldn't throw it out because there are hungry people around who would want it. True enough, I thought, so she took it to debug it before giving it to said hungry people. So I therefore debugged my own pasta as best as I could and dumped it in the pot. Later, when the meal was actually cooked, I realized that a good dash of fresh ground pepper (which I finally found here) covered up the sight of any lingering bugs so that I could eat in peace, and they probably added to my protein intake anyway. Afterwards, I went to wash the plate and knife I'd used to cut the chicken in the bucket of dirty water that had been sitting there all day for dishes to be intermittently washed (it started out clean) with a minimal amount of soap in it; just a splash of water will do, no need to superheat the water to antibacterial temp, nor to use such superfluous things as clean water and soap. After all this, not only did I fully expect to be suffering the rampaging furies of a gastrointestinal meltdown the following day, but I figured the food would be gross too. But as fate would have it, it actually turned out quite good, and I (and everyone who tasted it) suffered no ill effects in consequence.

So that's today's food diary. There's more for future posts, of course, but I'm sure you're sufficiently hungry by now. Now go eat some jalapeno poppers in honor of me. As for today's pics--The first is of friends (L to R) Claire, Katie, Kim, Leah and Erin on a weekend break, cooking dinner and enjoying some American ex-pat company. The zebras were in a small herd that came to drink from the lake at Newcastle (I think I posted another really pretty pic of Newcastle scenery in an earlier post). The boy and girl are just some of the cute kids at the school where I'm working. After that is a pic of some of the OVCs eating the lunch we provide; no covered area to eat, no spoons--they eat with their hands then rinse their plates themselves in a big bucket of water, then the plates get used again. General hygiene in this regard is going to become one of my projects. Following this is the oh, so delectable caterpillar. The next is of my host family's house; notice the satelite dish. The one following that shows some of the traditional style houses which are on my host family's property right near their own home in which some of their extended family live.


One other thing--I recently read the really good book, The Art of Crossing Cultures by Craig Storti which the Peace Corps so generously provided us with. I think this is a great read for anyone doing any serious traveling, but even if not, it's appeal lies in teaching us as much about our own culture and all its many ridiculous and funny faults as those of others. I will leave you today with some quotes taken from this book, which themselves have been pulled from other works. These I felt were particularly apt for me.

It is so very HOT I do not know how to write it

large enough.

--EMILY EDEN, Up the Country

An American? I looked up. "How do you know?"

"Wearing a hat," he said. "Carrying her own

boxes." "That doesn't mean she's an American."

"Riding the night bus," he smiled. "American."

--PAUL THEROUX, The Consul's File

My Vanity Fair

So this weekend was full of interesting cultural experiences. I was invited by a colleague at work to spend the weekend with his family in a nearby township, attending a wedding and church with them, and I was surprised how much many of these "traditional" activities have become so similar to American or westernized traditions.

Before launching into all that, I'll give a bit of background on the activities surrounding weddings, as they still retain a good deal of the more historical cultural elements. Initially, when a man wants to marry a woman, he has to pay what is called lobola, a kind of bride price, to her family. This is done in the form of eleven cows. This is quite expensive--each cow is approx. 6000 Rand, or $850, for a grand total of ~$10K. Eight of the cows represent a monetary payment to the family, one cow is meant for the mother-of-the-bride in thanks for having given birth to her, and two cows are for the bride: symbols of her virginity and the future children she will bear in the marriage. But here's the thing: if a girl already has a child (the only time her virginity can conclusively be said to no longer be present), the man only has to pay nine cows. I suppose this can be seen as either a good thing or a bad thing depending on your point of view. Like everything else, recent historical events have had a direct impact on the practice. With the introduction of apartheid, the population became more and more poverty-stricken, making marriages less common as men were unable to pay the lobola. With this, more and more women had babies prior to becoming married, so much so that now I don't think it's considered in any way a detriment or shameful. Instead, it's just another thing to be taken into consideration, like if a fiance' has a lot of student loan debt (that's me!). But this may not be accurate, and instead a mistake on my part due to language and cultural barriers. Regardless, there's a lot of people raising children while unmarried.

Heads up: ever since I've been here, there has been talk of little else but someone paying lobola for me, as in, oh, haha, we'll find you a husband, oh, haha, this man will pay lobola for you, etc, etc. However, whosoever should embark upon this task would find it a difficult one to accomplish, as my host mother has now made the stipulation that he should have to pay fifteen cows for me; eleven to her and the family here (I presume for being here so that I could come and find a husband) and four to my real family in the States (I was told four is just a good number). But don't worry, Mom and Dad; for people who live in cities, or, for example, overseas, it's not necessary to take the cows, as nowadays money can change hands instead.

All that being said, to the wedding. The first night, generally a Friday evening, a large party is given and the two families exchange gifts. Many of the presents are what we would recognize as more traditionally wedding related, but others are historically tribal based, such as food and blankets. I haven't actually been to one of these parties yet, but I've been told there is a tradition of wrapping the women of the families up in thick, heavy blankets one by one (remember, this is South Africa, where the temp is in the 80s or above for 10 months out of the year with no air conditioning at these events), while they're all smiling and having their pictures taken. I'm not sure what this symbolizes, but I'll update if I find out. It is at these parties that one of the cows is slaughtered in celebration, and also to assure that there will be enough food at the wedding the next day (generally there is no guest list, everyone is welcome). Apparently, this has become a source of conflict, especially in areas where blacks and whites live relatively close to one another. The whites don't slaughter cows, see it as cruel, and complain that it's messy and brings in flies. Even some of the young black South Africans are developing mixed feelings about this particular tradition, so I'm not sure how much further into the 21st century it will last. As for my part, I couldn't stand to watch an animal be slaughtered and then say, "Oh, yes, this is delicious, good thing we murdered it in front of our little ones," but I also don't want all the traditions of the world to slowly be replaced with McDonald's and Coca-Cola and Wal-Mart.

The next day, Saturdays, are usually reserved for a Westernized ceremony, complete with white dress and veil, bridesmaids in matching dresses, cutting the cake and tossing the bouquet (which I almost caught). Even the decorations were similar, with white chair covers tied with sashes and draped guazy material everywhere (although the colors were African themed--white with black, brown, yellow, and leopard-print touches; very pretty). However, the ceremony was spiced up with the fact that the wedding party all danced down the aisle and back, there was a much more free-flowing atmosphere to the entrire thing,and the reception seemed an extension of the ceremony itself. There is a great sense of excitement and a feeling that all are responsible in some part for making the ceremony complete, as music and dancing are much more organic at these kinds of events, and people join in and often take the lead as they feel compelled.

Sundays are reserved for the capstone of the weekend, the traditional African wedding. Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to attend one of these, but be assured I'll post when I do. So you may be wondering how I responded living with a new family (the third so far) for a weekend while experiencing all these new and fascinating sights? Well, this little social climber didn't disappoint. Firstly, I was not exactly appropriatly dresed, as everyone here dresses much more fashionably than we Americans do--looking nice is of utmost importance here and shows your respect for others, and they were all dressed in cute little dresses and skirts, and I had my dowdy, long black skirt (which I actually rather like). I then managed to spill a bottle of sparkling red grape juice all over my white sirt and the white tablecloth when I was asked to pop the cork. Later, we went home and I managed to lock myself in their bathroom (oh, sweet, hot, running water), then break the key off in the lock trying to get out. My colleague had to rescue me by taking the handle off the door. The to top off the day, I managed to recreate Becky Sharp's little scene of choking on the hot chilies while trying to impress the host family--"oh, yes, I'm a Southerner, we just love spicy food." Lastly, several times this weekend I walked into the room where I was staying and noticed a strange smell. I didn't know where this was coming from as the room was clean, my clothes were clean, I was clean, etc. Then I had a terrifying thought--am I the stinky foreigner now?

Anyway, that's it for this entry. One last thought--I just explained to the father of the family that no, American wresting isn't real in the sense that he thinks it is. I felt like I was telling a five-year old there was no Santa Claus.

Enjoy the pics, although they don't relate to this post. The first is of myself and friends Claire and Ryan in our first ever khumbi ride--this was one of those death traps on wheels, but we made it fine. As you can see, this was a sweaty day for me. The second is of a vervet monkey, one of the many at the nature reserve where we had classes for the first eight weeks. They were bold enough to steal lunchboxes, and I even got one to eat out of my hand (I know it's bad, but I was having a bad day and needed some animal cuteness). The next is of several gogos (grandmothers) in their traditional Ndebele clothing. These were drumming while several other did a dance for us when we first met our host families (if I'm ever able to post the video I took of them, I will). The last is...wait for it...the pit toilet. Yes, this is it, complete with enormous spiders and lots of flies, though, surprisingly, not that stinky.

Hope you're all doing well. Love hearing from you, and yes, I can get email now if anyone wants shoot me a line.

And The Band Played On...

So, further updates--we spent the first eight weeks of our stay in Pre-Service Training (PST), spending long days having sessions on cultural integration, safety and security, working with NGOs (non-governmental organizations), health, and (my favorite, of course) HIV/AIDS training. This last aspect is the crux of our work here, as we are part of the Community HIV/AIDS Outreach Program (CHOP) sector; other PC volunteers are working in education, community development, etc. Along with this, we also had several hours of language classes every day--I was lucky enough to have a really awesome language group with a great teacher, Sandile. Not all the other groups played as nicely as we did. The majority of us (including my language group) were learning isiZulu as most of us were to be located in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, where this is the most widely spoken language. However, SA has 11 official languages, and depending on where they were to be located, some of the other groups were learning isiNdebele, SiSwati, or XiTsonga.

Other exciting events during training included getting about 83 injections each (yes, medical personnel make the worst patients, although I tried to be brave), going on several trips to the Apartheid Museum, the Voortrekker Monument, visiting several NGOs, and putting on a 5K Fun Run for the two local villages we were staying in. I hate to say it, but of everything during training, this was not my cup of tea. To be told one week in advance that you should put on a run for an estimated 1000 people (mostly kids whose language you don't speak), and organize the run, prizes, donation, drinks, snacks, etc, etc, with no independent money, transportation, or means of communication (at this point we didn't have cell phones) was just ridiculous. It was neither fun, nor did I run--instead, I helped with the first aid tent. Anyway, it was for a good cause, however; we were trying to raise money for a local HBC (home-based care) organization that had not had funding since April of last year, and were washing and reusing old bread bags as gloves in order to give injections. Although we only collected a modest amount of money in the long run, one of the people involved with the organization was heard to comment that we'd helped teach them how to raise money for themselves, which was the best outcome we could have hoped for.

One of the great things about our training experience was getting to work with and learn from our LCFs (language and cultural facilitators). This was a group of eight host-country nationals who not only patiently taught us their languages, but served as sort of cultural ambassadors as well. They were a fantastic resource, as often within a new culture, it can feel disrepectful to always be questioning new experiences. This feeling was accentuated by the fact that in SA culture, it generally is not done to question everything; if an elder or someone in a higher societal position than you tells you something, you generally take it at face value and don't ask why. But our LCFs were well-prepared to answer to a bunch of inquisitive, pushy Americans who want to know the how and why of everything. Here I have to give props again to my group's LCF, Sandile. He's a great guy who seems to see beyond the spoon-fed BS that can become the brain's default mode if one isn't aware of it. Congrats to him on finishing law school soon, finishing his novel, and putting up with us for eight weeks. Shout-outs to all the other LCFs as well--if you get to see this, we had a great time and appreciate all you did (sorting groceries and all!). In the pic are our LCFs, from L to R: Senele, Joshua, Sandile, Thokozani, Bongiwe, Ntombi, Ntokozo, and Mama Simangele.

One of the other quick perks of training--we had it in a gorgeous location, at the SS Skhosana Nature Reserve, where we were surrounded by vervet monkeys literally stealing our lunches every day. Too cute!

The rest of the time in the villages was spent geting to know our host families, attending cultural events, learning to catch a khumbi (mini-van taxi; aka, Death Takes a Holiday, and He Rides In A Khumbi), as well as how to ride in them (squeeze in as many people and extraneous goods as possible), pay for them (pass your money up front from the back through approx. 20 people; surprisingly, it usually gets to the driver, who then counts the change for all ~20 people while speeding around potholes and random children in the road), and use hand signals from the road to indicate which general direction you want to go (woops! Ended up in Darfur!). We also spent a good deal of time walking through the village and enjoying the beautiful scenery of Mpumalanga Province, as well as visiting a small river that was absolutely gorgeous (the locals don't visit it much; more on this in a later post). Anyway, enjoy the pics, and I will post again soon. Love you and miss you all! Salani kahle! Stay well!

P.S. I had several other pics to upload here, but just getting this up took about 8 hrs over three days, then no more would load. So, I'll post others as I can. Of these, the first is me with my friend Claire in our village. The others are me with Sandile, the LCFs, and a pic of the river.

Welcome to South Africa!

Sanibonani, everyone! Welcome to the inaugural posting of my Peace Corps blog experience! To those to whom I've written letters, please write me back--it makes me feel loved and like a real person. To those I haven't written yet, write me anyway. :)

So how to write an observational exposition on a topic such as this? I don't know, but for my reader's sakes I'll try to be brief (yeah, right). At the end of January, after a short staging event in Washington, DC, we took an 18-hr flight into Johannesburg, South Africa! Along the way, I and the other Peace Corps Trainees (PCTs) got to know each other a bit, and I have to say, for a girl from the deep South, it's refreshing, to say the least, to meet other young people who don't wonder why when you say that recycling is the most religious thing that you do, or that equal rights should actually mean equal rights, or that traveling around the world to live without electricity or water or basic sanitation is a valid form of existential experimentalism. (This is not to say that I didn't get fantastic support from home, but there are guys in this group who argue more for women's rights than I do. I mean, come on).

So after arriving in South Africa and spending a week of initial training at a college campus in Mpumalanga Province, we set up shop in two little villages about two hours outside of Pretoria (PC policy is that we don't give any specific locative details on here--wouldn't want some crazy stalkers flying to SA to knock off a couple of PC do-gooders). This was an experience, to say the least, for both ourselves and our host families. To give a bit of background as to my mindset when joining the Peace Corps, I thought I'd be going somewhere where race didn't matter and we could "all just get along." Then I found out I would be going to South Africa less than 20 years after the fall of apartheid. Needless to say, race is still an issue, and for the residents of these communities, having a white person living and working with them is like watching a three-headed dog walk on its hind legs. As for 40 white people (Americans, no less!)--well, you get the idea. But everyone was extraordinarily kind and gracious to us, and welcomed us wholeheartedly into their homes and communities.

The family I stayed with for seven weeks was the Masimula family, consisting of grandparents, several adult children and their spouses, and about six kids; they were all wonderful. They took me in and immediately treated me as one of their own, calling me Sisi ("sister"). The family's name for me, though, in their native isiNdebele, was Thembi, meaning Hope.

So I'll leave it here for now, and let you savour that little taste before posting again. Also, while I can access the internet (finally, after 2 1/2 months), it costs an arm and a leg to do so, so I would love to hear from everyone by old-fashioned snail mail--I'll post my address on Facebook so only friends can see it. Also if anyone wants to call me (yay!) you can call my new cell phone number from skype and it would be free for both of us (wouldn't work the other way around). Again, I'll post that on Facebook. Anyway, love you all and miss you! Salani kahle!

Why?

So as of today, I'm beginning a blog. There are several reasons for this, the most important being that as I am Master of my Own Universe, I am well aware that all others out there (either actually existing or as a creation of my own consciousness, in which case it may be argued that, Why would I have a consciousness singly and without context? So congratulations! You exist! In other words (mine, of course), "I think, therefore you are!") will want to hang on my every passing thought and contemplation.

But don't worry, all you fabulous organic constructs! This shall not be merely another man's vain attempt to create a semblance of meaning and importance in one's life by greasing that slippery little fellow, our friend the Ego! No! (Or maybe it will be.) In fact, I actually have a purpose for this disgusting creation of falsified importance, the personal BLOG. As anyone who may (or may not) read this will know, I am to be joining the Peace Corps later this year, travelling to that beautiful dark continent, Africa! If all goes as planned, I leave in August. Therefore, I thought this may be the best way for me to keep in touch with family and friends while I wile away the hours in beautiful simplicity. Later, according to the terms of this site, I will be able to post pics (of course, only those showing me with less than three chins), and others can comment as well to keep me updated on their doings and derring-do. I can't now know if I will have internet, phone, electricity, water, food...but to cover all bets, I'm starting this now, to become familiar with the process. I suppose even if I am in the darkest reaches of Africa, I can walk three days and three nights to the nearest computer to post to all my long-suffering friends and family. And then you would feel very special. Which is my intent in all things. :)


So without further ado, welcome to World of Lindsay! (Those who know me also know I answer to Scarlet, or Charlotte (that one's for you, Sheila!)).