An African Honeymoon

The Small Stuff

2011-01-29T04:00:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

As you read this, Adam and I will arriving back across the pond, to that home that we left exactly one year ago today. As Adam described in the previous post, this decision was one of our toughest and, since I’m writing this post prior to our actual departure, I won’t attempt to make any conjectures at our current thoughts or emotions. Rather, I would like to conclude our blog with a post dedicated almost entirely to our fellow PCVs, in addition to serving as a reminder of that those memories that I will bring back home with me.

It’s true, as the saying goes, that "you shouldn’t sweat the small stuff" – that is, if they’re the tough parts. But if I had to choose just one thing that a year in South Africa has taught me, it’s that the ‘small stuff’, at least the happy bits, are the things that often get me through the day. And when I’m literally sweating – drenched from head to toe in front of a not-so-functional fan – it is this 'small stuff' that makes me smile and reminds me why this place will forever have a spot in my heart and mind.

So, to all our friends still in South Africa, and to our future selves, I give you my entirely haphazard and potentially nonsensical listing of the ‘small stuff’…

African Time. Baby cows, baby donkeys, baby goats… baby everythings! Coombie rides when you get the front row seat with all the leg room and space for groceries, packs, and other belongings. The sky – its vastness, its bright blue, its enormous clouds that seem to be only a few meters out of reach of your hands. Tea breaks at work. The sound of marshmallow frogs croaking before the rain comes. Care packages. Waves and smiles from total strangers. Casually walking alongside herds of cattle on our walks through town. The smell of litchis as we pass the citrus groves. Gray skies on a hot, hot, hot day. Greeting our friends and coworkers at Thembalethu each morning. Our conversations with our two-year old host brother. Brownies… yes, the batter and the final product. The color green – the unimaginable and innumerable colors of green after the rains come – the pale green of the acacia trees, the goldeny-greens of the whispy sugar canes, the bright green of the banana plants, the soft and endless greens of the hills, the dark greens of the shrubs and cacti, the everywhere greens of Nkomazi during the Summertime. A pit latrine without any flies. Hearing mothers say “Sorry sesi” [sister] or “Sorry bhuti” [brother] to their little babes when something goes awry. Our quirky, little, two-room home. The drive to and from Malelane, with the most incredible views of the foothills, mountains, sugar cane fields, and banana plant farms. Doing little chores together – scrubbing the dishes or washing our laundry – the tediousness, lengthiness and frustration of the process that gives us a sense of some small, well-earned achievement. Monkeys hiding in the groves alongside R570. The soft touch of our host mother’s hand when she reaches out after a joke or story.Waking up to a house that is dry after a nighttime storm. Short lines at the post office. Hearts and Spades, while listening to our card soundtrack of The Fleet Foxes and The Fits & Tantrums. Red dirt roads. Our house lizards, when they do their job and catch the cockroaches. The enormous eyes of the Crèche kids as they stare up into your face. Our thermometer – when it reads anything less than 36C. The feeling of sitting directly in front of a fan, on high. Successful meetings with project staff. The shy laugh of our teenage, host brother. Getting free rides from random workers who want to meet the new, white people. Actually needing the comforter on cooler evenings… and sleeping in on cooler mornings. The sound of birds at dawn (excluding the roosters). The smell of the air and the ground when the rains have passed. The gloriousness that is Kraft Mac n’ Cheese sent from home. Our walk to work together – getting time to chat about our projects, our service, our plans, and life in general. The excitement of community members when we try, never-so-successfully, to converse with them in SiSwati. Dried mud that you don’t have to sink into on your walk home. Pot-popped popcorn. End of the month text messages to say we’ve been paid… and even better, that we got our quarterly MTA with it. Our host father’s deep, throaty, chuckle. The accomplishment felt when all the water buckets, jugs and basins have been filled for the day. The sound of the main road in Schoemansdal when there are no cars in early morning. When the internet symbol on our phone says 3G. The sound of ritual drum sessions in the distance as evening approaches. Commiserating and celebrating with fellow volunteers. The feeling of the cool breezes that blow just before a big storm. The smell of laundry drying on the line. Women walking home with their firewood twigs atop their head. Meeting in our shopping towns with fellow volunteers for the luxuries of a flush toilet, a shower, air conditioning, Chinese food & sushi, and a movie that is not on a computer screen. The immense curiosity of children in our watches. Bakkies filled to the brim with family, friends and coworkers on the way back from the fields. The surge of excitement when the electricity comes back on. Eggs and hashbrowns for dinner. Hopping into freshly-washed sheets after a long, refreshing bucket bath. The slow, overly-enunciated greeting of the fruit and vegetable lady at the end of our road each morning, en route to work. Sleeping under our mosquito net, protected from all the big, bad bugs that Africa has to offer. Questions about America (“No, we are not close friends with Obama or Beyonce.”) The yellow and purples flowers on the hillside. Our fellow SA21s. Toothless Gogos. Huge, thunderous, thunderstorms (when the house isn’t flooding). Travelling anywhere here. Little ones – the littlest of them – staring silently in awe of your complete non-Africanness. Our host brother and sisters’ faces when we gave them their Christmas bikes. Sunsets over the mountains facing Swaziland. The stars – the bright, bright, bright stars… Okay then, goodnight South Africa.

Before ending this post, I’ll add just one last thought – actually, a quote from a fellow Peace Corps couple that COSed at the end of 2010, a quote that I feel sums up much of what I am unable to quite put into words at this time – he wrote: “…so if it happens that we don’t seem to be 100% there, or if one of us is looking off into the distance when there’s nothing really to be seen… please be patient with us.” And I speak quite truthfully for myself when saying, as many of our RPCV friends have, that I may feel as if I am living in more than one place, at least for a while… Because even though South Africa may never have become the ‘home’ that we were hoping for on that first flight over, there is so very much of it that has found a place it can call ‘home’ in me.

Salani kahle everyone… we’ll see you on the other side.

And So it Was, that Schmutz and Bobo’s Great Adventure Came to an End…

2011-01-27T06:00:00.000-08:00

Adam writes:

So Jess and I have some big news, and I mean ‘Rhinoceros big’. We have decided to end our service with Peace Corps and come home. I know that this news probably comes as a shock to most of you and so I wanted to write this post to shed some light on this decision and how we came to make it.

As those of you who have been actively been keeping up with this blog have probably noticed, Jess has written 90% of the posts. It is true that Jess enjoys the process of blogging more than myself, but this has mostly been a practical application of the rule, “If you don’t have anything good to say, say nothing at all.” That is not to say that I have nothing good to say about this country or our time here, rather, for a long time now I have been unhappy and have not felt motivated to write much.

I have felt for a long time now that I have been simply “spinning my wheels”. So much changed over the three years we applied that I didn’t even see till I was here for awhile. For the first time in a long time I had been excited about the future and motivated to begin it. This, I thought, was simply the first step. After this, culinary school and then the world! I have been looking for a project to get interested in and sink my teeth into ever since. I have been helping Jess in the meantime here and there but for the most part I have had little to do here.

Coupled with having little to do here is the fact that there is nothing to do here. In our after work hours, our activities are limited to household chores and movies on the computer. There is some socializing with other volunteers on the weekends, and occasionally we get to travel (and traveling in this country has been amazing), but for the most part we sit.

I became frustrated, to say the least, and Jess and I spent more and more time discussing ways that I could find some amount of meaning and purpose here. Over time we began to discuss the difference between simply making it through and enjoying our time here. In the end we both realized that for me it would never be the latter. I had started exhibiting symptoms that indicated that my unhappiness and anger were beginning to border on something worse.

It needs to be said here that my wife is the most amazing person I have ever known. If she were here on her own, she would have easily finished her service and contributed remarkably to our organization. She is exceptionally good at what she does. She has also been amazingly supportive. I on the other hand have been a pain in the ass at the best of times and unbearable at the worst. She has stood by me and offered her support through it all.

The discussion of what is best for us in terms of our future with Peace Corps had been ongoing for the last several months. We discussed all sorts of options ranging from me just sucking it up and finishing, to me returning and her finishing, to our leaving together. In the end we decided that the best thing for us was to come home together.

Over the last several months I have received a great deal of support from a few other PCV’s in helping me to find some meaning here and yet were always adamant that I needed to do what was best for me. To those PCV’s, and I hope you know who you were, thank you.

As we reached our decision and since there have been several things, both large and small, that have seemed serendipitous. There were random occurrences that seemed to be telling us we needed to be going home, and there have been many things that seem to be telling us that we made the right decision. It was after we had made our decision and told our supervisor that we found out that there was someone who wanted to take over Jess’ big project. Also, the RPCV who had our site previously is back for a few months to help out and has taken over our house, which used to be hers.

Most importantly, we are coming home to both our sisters having babies, and we are both excited to meet our new nieces/nephew. And, with Jess’s sister getting married, Jess is looking forward to being around to help plan and dress shop. Both Jess and I believe that we are making the right decision and are excited for our future. We don’t see this as a failed attempt, rather as our first big adventure together, of which we plan on having many more.

In fact, we plan on moving from this adventure to another. We are planning to move to Portland, OR sometime this year. I have found a culinary program that I could not be more excited about and Jess is actively looking to start her career there. And then from there, who knows?

If I had the chance to go back four years ago knowing then what I know now and I had to decide whether or not to submit my application to Peace Corps again, I would do so without hesitation. Through this entire adventure I have learned two important lessons that I will take with me: First, if you want something badly enough, are realistic about what it takes to achieve it, and are willing to put in the time and energy, than anything is possible. And second, life is not worth it if you aren’t happy.

To all who read our blog, thank you for sharing in our adventure. Good-bye to South Africa, a beautiful country that I have loved exploring (I don’t think we are done exploring this country or this continent yet). And, hello again to all of our family, friends, and loved ones back home.

Addendum to ‘The Times They Are a Changin’

2011-01-25T00:15:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

As an additional piece of information to our New Years post a while back, there is one last little, tiny, teensy-weensy, itsy-bitsy, onesie-sized, gummy bear-shaped, bit of ‘change’ that I’ve been waiting quite a while to share… and that is…

My sister and Devin will also be having a baby girl in 2011!!! This has meant that, like Adam, I have gone into super-Aunt mode (well Adam would be super-Uncle mode, obviously) and I've spent a great deal of our holiday vacation time and past few shopping trips on ‘African Babes’ clothing and baby curios shopping!! And since we only just found out about the sex of the baby and, thus, I have purchased neutral colors to this point, I am already planning for at least one very pink and frilly buy before the due date! I think it is also worth pointing out here that, as it turns out, my sister is following the classic ‘Murphy timeline’… which means I was actually the only odd duckling that chose a more, ummm… ‘traditional’ path with Adam… *wink*!! Plenty of news from her to come soon, but as I mentioned before, ‘The Times They [certainly] Are A Changin’!

RWO: One of the Many Reasons that We May Forever Say ‘Zed’

2011-01-24T07:15:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

South Africa is often abbreviated Z.A. – right, not S.A., but Z.A. – this has to do with the Afrikaans name for “South Africa”, which is “Zuid Afrika”. Regardless, it gets a little addictive when saying “Zed” for everything (i.e., www.google.co.za, KZN – the abbreviation for KwaZulu Nataal, etc.) So, it is entirely possible that we may forever say ‘Zed’. Just figured we should give you fair warning.

Some of Our Conversations with South Africans

2011-01-24T04:00:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

One of the greatest aspects of cross-cultural exchange, in my opinion, is the conversations you have with the family, friends, coworkers and fellow travelers you meet when staying someplace different for a while – the casual, unassuming chats that lead to something surprising and, as is usually the case, rather entertaining or enlightening. While we’ve had more of these types of interactions than we could possibly recount in a single post, there were a couple note-worthy ones that I felt should not go unmentioned. Each one provided some type of insight – either funny or intriguing – that I thought was worth being recorded somewhere along the way. Enjoy!

A Conversation with Mama Christine & Johannas:

South Africans tend to be very honest about their observations of others. In fact, it is not uncommon at all for our reasonably fit and petite, female volunteers to be told by a woman three-times they’re girth that they are “looking quite fat” on their first day back to work after vacation!! But it is never intended as a direct insult of any kind, it is simply a statement. And it works in the reverse as well… When Adam and I returned to visit our PST Host Family during our training in July, both of our host parents made mention of our somewhat decreased “size”. Our host mother, Mama Christine, is a very rotund woman (due mostly to the rampant diabetes in South Africa), while our host father, Johannas, could not weigh more than 100lbs, soaking wet – they are quite the couple! Our return conversation went something like as follows…

Us: Sanibonani!!
Mama Christine [upon seeing Adam first]: Jabu! Jabu! Oh my goodness… where have you gone?!? [Then patting him around the middle] You are going to end up like Johannas!!
Us [picturing Adam as a 100lb man]: Oh no mama, he won’t end up like Johannas [Johannas nodding]. This is good, we are healthy!
Mama Christine [then turning to me, who had lost far less weight]: Oh Sesi! Sesi, you too are getting so sick! Why have you done this?!?
Us [trying to reiterate that we were, in fact, in much better shape at that point]: No mama, we are just walking more every day. It’s good for us!
Mama Christine: Oh, but Sesi, I liked you better when you had all your curves. [She then proceeds to make multiple “donut” gestures around my mid section, not including my boobs.]
Me [thinking to myself]: Thanks.

A Conversation with an Eskom Supervisor:

We often get curious, if not worrisome looks, from white South Africans when they see us walking through our village with our work backpacks or grocery bags. Simply put, most white South Africans are not accustomed to seeing other white people – especially younger ones, that look as though they are quite familiarized – in the rural villages and towns of South Africa. This was one such instance as I walked back from The Plaza with some groceries and passed a group of Eskom workers (all black South Africans) and their supervisor (a white South African).

Me [as I was passing the supervisor]: Hello.
Supervisor [looking a bit confused]: Um, hello. Are you lost?
Me [slowing down to answer]: No, I stay just there [pointing to the dirt road off the main route.]
Supervisor [confused]: Oh, okay… but wait, where do you actually live?
Me [starting to laugh]: I actually live just there [pointing to that same dirt road.]
Supervisor [even more confused]: But you have a car to get to and from the city for work?
Me [laughing now]: No, I don’t have a car. I work in the village – I walk to work.
Supervisor [totally confused]: Then how do you get to the city???
Me [bordering on an entertaining sense of frustration]: I take the coombies.
Supervisor [chuckles loudly]: No really, how do you get there?
Me: Really, I take the coombies.
Supervisor [in total schock]: The coombies?!? You mean the public taxis?!? With everyone else?!?
Me [rolling my eyes]: Yes, those coombies.
Supervisor: Oh… [trailing off to nothing].
Me [as I started walking again and was passing his team of workers]: Sanibonani!
Workers: Sawubona sesi!

I glanced back at the supervisor, he was utterly baffled. Too funny!

A Conversation with Dumisani:

Dumisani is one of the drivers and maintenance workers for Thembalethu. He has one of the softest voices and one of the greatest smiles! As the summer days get longer and hotter, he often takes on the task of driving our lazy butts back home after work, as we are entirely exhausted from sweating all day in the offices of the compound. On one drive, we discussed the incredible amount of rain that we had been getting in the area and how a lot of the roads had been flooding and becoming impassable:

Me: So Dumisani, is the bridge that goes that side [pointing towards Tonga, on the western side of Schoemansdal] still above water?
Dumisani: No, it has been flooded all week.
Me: Then how is everyone getting to work from there?
Dumisani: They have to pay the coombie to drive them all the way around, through Malelane, to come this side.
Me: Oh shame! That is very expensive!!
Dumisani [more somber]: Yes, but last week a taxi tried to cross the bridge that side and it went underwater and the woman in the front could not get out. She drowned.
Me [horrified]: Oh my! That’s terrible!! Why did the coombie go through the water???
Dumisani: The driver did not want to pay the extra petrol to go all the way around. Me [still horrified]: And she died because of that?!? That is awful!!!
Dumisani [turning to look at me in order to provide this very pertinent bit of advice]: Nobuhle, you should know, that when the roads are flooded, I think it is better to pay the extra money for petrol than to get trapped in the coombie underwater and drowned. [A long pause.] Yes, I do think so.
Me [trying to restrain a smile at this advice in the face of this seriousness]: Yes Dumisani, I think you are right.

A Conversation with a “Bru”:

While travelling over the holidays, we had the opportunity to meet many of the younger Afrikaans and British residents of South Africa. Many of these encounters were thoroughly enlightening – as we learned (“learned”) the rules of cricket, heard their insights on the socio-political climate of their country, and exchanged stories about living in rural areas versus city centers. Many in this younger generation strike me as an odd mix between ethnic African lifestyles and a type of laid-back, Australian, surfer lifestyle. For example, more than few love the word “Bru” when talking to eachother. While staying in Coffee Bay, we played a game called 30 Seconds (basically the South African version of Catchprhase) with several of these fellow residents. And while Adam and I were at a serious disadvantage, because most of the words on the cards were native to South African pop culture and history, we had one particular round that left us rolling on the floor…

Bru #1 [flipping the card to start giving clues to the word]: Okay, Bru, right, right, this is totally like one of those Egyptian kings, you know bru?!?
Bru #2: Umm, King Tut, right bru?
Bru #1 [standing up in his excitement to give better clues]: No bru, come on bru!! Like another one, I think a newer one… think of a newer one bru!
Bru #3: Okay, um, King Tut isn’t newer though bru! What other one is there bru?!?
Bru #1 [totally frustrated and now jumping up and down]: Argh… come on bru, you know this! Come on!
Brus #2 & #3 [yelling angrily]: Bru, King Tut is the only one we know bru!!
Us [watching the last bit of sand fall in the timer]: Time!!
Bru #2: Christ, bru!!
Bru #3: Yeah, bru, who the hell was it?!?
Bru #1: God bru, it was Desmond Tutu.
Us: [I’m not even going to try to explain our response… I almost pissed my pants!!!!]

Our Conversations with Siyanda:

We have many, many conversations with our two year old host brother. While doing laundry, while sitting out on the stoop, while hanging out on their porch, he chats and chats and chats to us and we listen intently to his stories of, well, who knows… it’s all in SiSwati. Sometimes, he’ll add to his stories by utilizing props for our benefit, such as playing his toy electric guitar while singing a song (usually, not at all to the pre-set tunes on the guitar) or the time that he took a tin can, filled it with dirt, placed it atop his head, and walked with a funny little waddle across the yard saying, “Gogo! Gogo! Gogo!” (“Gogo” means “Grandmother”) Ha! That was a particular favorite!! But most of our conversations are pretty much repeats of all the others, and they go something like this…

Siyanda [spotting us from the porch and yelling very sweetly]: Nobuuuuhle! Theeeemba!! (Our SiSwati names, with very elongated vowels)
Us [waving back]: Yebo bhuti! (“Yes, brother!”)
Siyanda [frighteningly stern & demanding]: Buya! (“Come here!)
Us [walking down to him]: Unjani bhuti? (“How are you brother?)
Siyanda [back to being very sweet and innocent]: Nikoooona. (“Good”, but stretching out the vowels)
Us: Okay.
Siyanda: Okay. [And then he starts to prattle in SiSwati] Aasdfkj werlhaf adihawenka poweasdjdfkj fdahwenk [my interpretation of what he is saying.]
Us: Oh, uh huh.
Siyanda [still prattling, sometimes more enthusiastically or in a new tone of voice]: kfsldkjflknwe asdfininf nnvheryo jopfenio!
Us [starting to walk back with him to our house, where we are working]: Oh! Yebo!
Siyanda [more prattle]: iidfndkanfek hadfqebnf alkjfpopjean.
Us [every now and then, to break up the conversation]: Eh wena!! (“Hey you!”, but translates loosely to, “Really?”)
Siyanda [always very serious at this point]: Wena! (“You!”, but again, translating loosely to, “Yes, really.”)
Us: Hauw! (“Wow!”) Okay…
Siyanda [prattles again for a while]: knndaslfow ihfehean asdlkn fewa sfdfjefi….

And about a half hour later, after helping with the laundry, lounging on the stoop with us, or commandeering the bed to act out his very vivid stories…

Siyanda [done prattling and entirely abruptly]: Okay, bye bye now. [And off he goes with a wave.]
Us [always with a laugh and wave]: Okay, bye bye Siyanda!

Thanks for all the conversations everyone! We’ve loved every one of them!!

RWO: Ubuntu

2011-01-23T08:45:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

It’s not just a funny sounding word! It is also the underlying philosophy of South African life. The most common definition of ‘Ubuntu’ is “I am because you are”. This may sound like one of those cryptic philosophies of age-old civilizations, but you can actually still see this practice – or rather, this feeling – among families, neighbors, close-knit communities, and sometimes, even in cross-cultural of cross-racial interactions. Since I will not attempt to provide an appropriate explication of the word, the philosophy, the feeling – I will, instead, provide an anecdote (told to me by a fellow PCV) that I believe captures the essence of Ubuntu most perfectly:

A mid-thirties white couple and their baby broke down outside a township and were forced to utilize the public transit system via the local taxi rank. This (that is, white people at a taxi rank), in case you have not heard it explained by us before, is extremely uncommon. And for the white South Africans of this country, it is often viewed as a virtual “don’t” on the list of transportation options. But apparently there was no other option. The wife carried her young child, no more than 6 months, who was crying incessantly throughout the taxi rank experience. (I would make the conjecture that this may have had something to do with the most certain level of unease that the baby’s mother was emanating at the time.) The taxis began to load and the couple, in line to board the over-cramped and steamy minivan, waited in line with the other passengers. The baby continued to howl. Finally, a large black woman – the type that has obviously had her fair share of babies and has cared for her fair share of others – tapped the young wife on the shoulder. They exchanged some words and gestures (as the black woman did not speak much English and the white woman spoke absolutely none of the local language), but it became apparent that the black woman was offering to hold the child. The mother, perhaps grasping at her last bit of emotional strength, eventually gave in. The stranger, taking the child in one arm, borrowed a towel (used here as a baby wrap) from another mother standing nearby, swung the child onto her enormous back, tied up the towel tight around her bossom, and stood virtually still… the baby quieted within seconds. The white woman was astounded, confused, almost frustrated and began stringing together all sorts of foreign English words to ask simply, “How?” The comforting woman – who I imagine to have had that familiar round face that shows far too many lines for a life not yet old – just replied with a smile. All that was needed, you see, was another woman, another mother, an ounce of assistance and commonality in the form of a gesture that said silently, “We may seem worlds apart from one another, but I know something that you may not, and I can help you.” To mean, that is Ubuntu.

The Quirks of Our Little Home

2011-01-22T06:30:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

For the purpose of posterity – so as to never forget those little details that are so often misplaced in memories of moving and settling and living and moving again – I wanted to offer up a post on some of the more interesting aspects of this little, two-room place we call home here in Africa. It begins as such…

The Walls: Our walls are made, like most in our area, entirely of a thick concrete with a partially stucco and partially smooth finish. Due to the unique texture, they are often painted in very odd colors (for example, teal and pink as in our case) or whatever mixture of colored sealant that will actually stick to the surface. And while durability may be the intent of the concrete construction, concrete does not match so neatly with the wooden beams that they meet with at the top with the ceiling. Thus, there are spaces and gaps – anywhere from an inch or two to half a foot, where the concrete has begun to crumble away. As harmless as this may seem, small chunks of falling concrete are less risk-free than anticipated when they land on tables, computer equipment, kitchen appliances and, in the rare case, ourselves. Furthermore, though we are reasonably safe from these mini, interior avalanches while asleep under our mosquito net, it is not uncommon to be awoken to a small boulder that has been dislodged from the wall by a scurrying lizard (or perhaps a mouse… ick) as it runs the length of the spaces between the wall and beams. We’ve gotten rather accustomed to these minor sleep disturbances and have taken to merely sweeping up the debris in the mornings.

The Roof: Oh our roof. Perhaps the bane of our living existence in this country. The roof is constructed of layered and overlapping strips of corrugated tin. Thus, the ceiling not only acts as a convection oven during the hot, summer days, but also as an amplifier to everything that falls on it – say, seedlings, twigs or rain. A good rainstorm will cause the whole house to vibrate with an unbearable beating of noise, usually beyond the audible level of anything else. For this reason, Adam and I have adapted to yelling only necessary questions and answers to one another while siting across from eachother on the bed. And in some instances, we have almost literally scared the life out of eachother by entering the other room without shouting our presence and facing the terrified surprise of the other when he/she turns around to find the other standing right behind. Sorry. But back to the rain… the other curious (or as we like to think of it, completely idiotic) characteristic of our roof is that it is completely flat. But what should that matter?? Well, when it rains, the flat, corrugated tin roof does nothing to dispel the rain off the sides of the house – as with a normal, slanted and guttered roof – so water simply pours in from random dents and divets in the construction, creating miniature (and sometimes not-so-miniature) waterfalls in our kitchen/living room and our bedroom/office. Furthermore, as the walls have those aforementioned gaps between top and ceiling, the flatness of the roof makes possible the most interesting and horrifying of water features down the insides of our walls – creating rivers of tiny rapids crisscrossing the landscape of our floor and pooling in the lowest areas that we now call ‘the ponds’. So why, you ask, would they not just slant the roof and eliminate the problem all together? Our answer: that would just be far too convenient and, afterall, this is Africa.

The Floors: Our floors, like every other home we have seen in South Africa, are covered with polished, multi-mixture concrete. Luckily, this makes sweeping quite easy as there are no hardwood-floor cracks or tile indents with which to compete. Being polished concrete, however, it has an uncanny ability to attract dirt and dust that ingrains itself in the tiny pores of the polish. And after several years of polishing, sweeping, re-polishing and re-sweeping, the floors have a tendency to take on the traits of the Arctic Ocean in response to global warming – that is, growing ever so slowly a half centimeter a year from the layers and layers of newly acquired covering. For this reason, I have all but given up on actually keeping the floors ‘clean’ and have merely resigned myself to ridding only the piles of dirt that become visible to the naked eye and, of course, the chunks of concrete wall and dead insects that are scattered about in the mornings.

The Water: We don’t have any running water inside the house, but I think I’ve beaten that dead horse a couple times before, so just refer back to some of our previous posts…

The Electricity: I feel that I should dedicate this section to Jill Peters, who has experienced the incredibleness of our little home’s electricity to a far greater extent than either Adam or myself. I’ll explain: I would describe the electricity in our area as semi-consistent, meaning that it is on most times, except for the pre and post-storm blackouts and the during-storm brownouts (why the electricity stays on better during a storm and not before or after a storm will always remain a mystery to me). We are lucky, therefore, to be able to cook, heat water, and run our computer mostly to our convenience. We are unlucky, however, in the fact that our house is apparently not ‘grounded’. Meaning that any contact with an electrical outlet, switch, or appliances will likely provide you with a ‘morning jolt’ that you were probably hoping would come from your coffee instead. Thus, we wear shoes around the house at all times (not such a difficult sacrifice considering my description of the floors in the previous section), but for the primary purpose of ‘grounding’ ourselves. Jill, however, we have equated to the lab rat that never quite figures out where the cheese is, regardless of the physical stimuli (sorry Jill, I had to include it!!) Jill is a barefooter, including in the house. So, we often know when she is attempting to use the stove or turn on a light, not by the smell of food or by the change in lighting, but by the immediate yelp that follows these interactions. But she has not been the only victim in our home’s love of innocent electrocutions, Adam and I both have experienced this same ‘jumpstart’ when doing menial tasks after a rainstorm (read as: flooded house). Standing in water, as we should have realized before our first electrical encounter, serves as an incredible conductor of electricity, shoes or none. And I cannot forget to point out here that, unlike the in the States where the common household voltage is 120V, South Africa has a frighteningly high voltage of 220V!! And from personal experience, we can all tell you that this makes a significant difference – think shaky hands and an inability to focus clearly for a while afterwards…yikes!!

The Furniture: Finally, I reach the most comforting aspect of our little home – the couches, the chairs, and the bed. And while ‘comforting’ should not be misconstrued for ‘comfortable’, our furniture does offer us an immense sense of feeling at home. The couches, for example, actually allow for visitors as well as a place to sit separately while one or the other works in the kitchen or the bedroom – and I should mention here that ‘separately’ might seem to be an odd adverb to describe our couch sitting, but you would be surprised how nice it is to rest, even for a short period, someplace independent of your spouse with whom you spend all of your waking (and sleeping) hours as Peace Corps Volunteers. And on the subject of spending time together, our bed – for reasons not nearly as exciting as you may first assume – is our home’s sanctuary. Under our mosquito net, on top of our over-stuffed, Peace Corps-provided comforter, we spend much of our evenings and weekends sitting on that bed. We eat there, we watch movies and TV shows care of our computer there, we send emails and check Facebook there, we work from home on days that we don’t trek to work there, we read there, we listen to music there, we play cards there, we nap there, and last on this list of the uses of our bed, we actually sleep there. Our bed, as it turns out, is our home-away-from-home-in-our-home. Hmm. It’s also worth noting that since the start of our rainy season, we have become very protective of our comforting furniture and have been able to make it all surprisingly portable. Thus, when the water features on the walls and waterfalls in the rooms start to pour down, we are able to clump all our furniture (not only couches, chairs and bed, but also bureaus, kitchen cupboard unit, wash table, etc.) snuggly toward the centers of the rooms so that the rivers can divert cleanly around them and the ponds can pool safely beyond their reach. All of these earthly belongings that make us feel at home in our home, therefore, have become puzzle shapes in the tetrus game that is our two-room house during a flood. Nevertheless, the water always dries, the furniture stays reasonably undamaged, and we can always retire after a long day of work and long evening of waterproofing to our double-size haven in front of a fan.

And that is our home in a nutshell – virtually the size of a nutshell, in fact – from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, and from sitting spot to resting spot. As much as this two-room structure is often a recipe for disaster, and usually on the brink of complete destruction from flood water, electricity shortages, or scurrying reptiles, there is still something about it that feels somewhat right. And regardless of all the challenges that it doles out from day to day, we often find ourselves smiling at our humble abode, marveling at the joy one can find in such a small, simple way of living, and feeling very at ‘home’ in our quirky, little home.

RWO: Gangsters Holding Hands

2011-01-21T09:30:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

Speaking of gangsters… a young, gang-ish, boy here is called (as mentioned above) a ‘Tstotsi’. They are easily recognizable by their slightly too-nice and well-fitted clothing and the trademark, floppy, fisherman hat. Just like they see on TV and in movies, they walk with a swagger, head tilted to the side, shouting in low, abrupt bursts, their familiar slang – Eitha! [Hey there!], Howzit? [How are you?], and Sharp sharp! [All good!]. In general conversation, this slang would be used only between the younger, males of a group, but our lovely, little Tstotsis will use these greetings with anyone and everyone they pass (excluding, perhaps, some very discerning Gogos). But we haven’t yet reached the irony of this whole culture…

You see, as which many countries around the world, holding hands in South Africa is considered a very casual sign of friendship. This gesture does not even indicate a specified level of affection (as with the arm-in-arm gesture of girlfriends), but is merely a statement of, “I know you fairly well and am standing next to you.” Thus, even the Tsotsis will sometimes fall into this familiar habit and… every once in a while… if you’re lucky enough… you’ll get one of the greatest sights of all:

Two young kids, attire and styles urbanized and ghetto-fied, walking along with their own rythym and strut, eyeing and catcalling all the young ladies that pass, shouting their “Eitha’s” and “Howzits” across parking lots… with fingers interlocked in a most gentle of clasps. Ahhh… it kinda just changes the whole rough-and-tough-ness of it all, doesn’t it? I Love it!

RWO: Oh, those Chicago Boys

2011-01-21T06:15:00.000-08:00

Adam writes:

During our travels around South Africa we came across a funny colloquialism used frequently in northern Africa. Whenever I would tell an African that I was from near Chicago they would always ask if I was a “Chee-ka-go boy” and laugh. Apparently “Chicago Boy” is a colloquialism referring to a really clever and dangerous gangster or “tsotsi”. When we asked why Chicago, they told us it was because we had the worst gangsters there. We finally figured out that they were referring to the days of Al Capone and they are convinced that Chicago is still the most dangerous city in the States.

Travelogue: Kruger National Park, The Sequel

2011-01-21T02:30:00.000-08:00

Adam writes:

Since Jess has already written an extensive Travelogue about Kruger in the past, this one will simply serve to mention those great new sights and sightings this time around.

This time, instead of booking a day trip with a tour company, we booked the trip with Paul, one of the owners of Nelspruit Backpackers. We stay with him and his wife Natalie, and there three lovely children, fairly regularly as Nelspruit is usually the launching point for our travels and our last night of showers on our return trips. They are wonderful people with whom we have become friends over the last year. So this time our guide was not only familiar with the park, but we were quite familiar with our guide which made for a far more enjoyable day than the first trip, and we loved our first trip. Also making this trip more fun, was the fact that we went with two other PCV’s whom we consider close friends. So all and all, we were set for a day of fun with friends.

Again our trip was marked with tons of sightings of what we have taken to calling the familiar things. Animals like Elephants, Warthogs, Impala, Kudu, Steenbok, Baboons, Monkeys, and Guinea Fowl. Not to say that we were any less impressed by these magnificent and beautiful creatures, but how fortunate we are that we now consider these animals ‘familiar sights’. There were some differences though. This time we saw a lot more baby and juvenile animals in general and specifically of some of these. Baby Monkeys, Baboons, and Impala were common. And thoroughly proving Jess’ argument that everything is cute when it is a baby, were the baby Warthogs. That’s right, they were freaking adorable. To be honest I was tempted to jump out of the car and kidnap one when it wandered a little too far from momma. But the reality that momma was meaner, stronger, and faster than me was driven into me by my loving and caring wife. Too bad, he would have been cute for a while and then, according to Paul, ugly yet delicious as a juvenile, a perfect combination. Another stark difference in this trip was that we would see far more water animals, e.g. Hippos and Crocodiles, as it was the rainy season and there were more watering holes and the rivers were higher, and more birds due to migration patterns.

My biggest fear for the day driving into the park was not that we wouldn’t see any of the big cats, for they are a rare sight indeed, but that we wouldn’t see any Giraffes. It had been nearly six months since our last visit and Jess was still heartbroken that she had yet to see a Giraffe in the park. You see, Giraffes are supposed to be one of the more common sights in Kruger and Jess is nearly obsessed with their goofy shape. We were a few hours into the visit and had seen plenty of animals and were on our way to Skukuza for some coffee and breakfast when Jess started yelling “STOP” at the top of her lungs. There in the trees on the side of the rode were four Giraffes! I cannot begin to describe how giddy my wife was. We sat for nearly twenty minutes snapping pictures and taking video as the rest of us joined in and joked around about her excitement. As far as Jess was concerned, we could call it a day. We would continue to see Giraffes throughout the day.

After our morning break we headed out again. Soon we started seeing beautiful birds. There was the European Roller which had beautifully brilliant blue wings. Shortly after that there was a sighting of the Ground Hornbill. This is a large ground bird the size of a young turkey with a bright red face and bill. We were able to see three of them hunting in the grass for bugs and small rodents. This was a big deal as there are only an estimated 250 of these birds in all of Kruger, a park that is roughly the size of Israel.

Soon after this we stopped to watch a large group of Impala that was joined by a small heard of Zebra. The Zebra soon broke away and we followed them for a while down the road. Paul explained to us that though the Zebras stripes would make them seem like an easy target, Lions only see in black and white so the stripes actually made the Zebras hard to discern and when they move it can be quite confusing to the predator.

We then had our first encounter of the day with a watering hole that was full of Hippos and Crocodiles. However, they were refusing to surface much. Later in the day we would find a spot where we would snap some great photos of Hippos coming to surface and get a few great looks at the Crocs. The day was marked with such watering holes, which was exciting as Jess and I had only seen these animals through binoculars barely making them out on the last trip.

There was some real excitement when we saw a giant flock of White-backed Vultures circling in the air ahead of us. We were all hoping that this meant we might be able to spot a big cat feasting. As we drove up, we realized that something in fact had been killed, an Impala, but it had already been picked clean and left behind. It was evidence that things did hunt and get hunted in the park, though we wouldn’t be privy to seeing it that day. We would spend the rest of the day spotting what we began calling ‘lion rocks’ and ‘leopard trees’ but in fact no actual Lions or Leopards. But there is always next time.

For lunch Paul took us to a pavilion overlook as we had packed a picnic of sorts. It was a beautiful spot that allowed some time to look through binoculars and get a grander look at the park. What I saw reminded me of watching Jurassic park as a kid. On the banks of a river there were Hippos sunbathing and playing in the water, a few kilometers away there were the necks and heads of Giraffe standing above the tree line of the neighboring grove of acacia. In the grasslands beyond there were a few Rhinoceros and herds of Impala and Zebra. All of them were together in one expanse of land grazing and going about their business. It was there that I understood why people always say that after Kruger, zoos no longer cut it.

There were a couple more notable bird sightings in the afternoon. Towards the very end of the day was a Goliath Heron, the largest Heron in the world. We watched for ten minutes as it pulled a fish from the water and had lunch. Our favorite, however, was a King Fisher. This bird is relatively small, maybe eight inches or so, and as the name implies, he hunts fish. This particular one had already caught itself a meal and was perched on the side of the bridge. You see, since King Fishers are so small, they must make sure that the fish is completely dead and not moving because if the fish is to wriggle or flop on the way down, it would lodge itself in the bird’s throat cutting of air supply and most likely choking it. So we proceeded to watch as the bird repeatedly and violently smacked the fish against the concrete. With every smack there was a resounding chorus within the car of “Bam!”. And yes, we have video, to be posted at a later date. This spectacle would come to be known as the ‘King Fisher Beat Down’.

Towards the mid-afternoon spirits were falling as our chances to see one of those elusive cats began to drop and everyone was feeling the effect of our 4:30 wakeup call when our fellow PCV said “Stop”. Jess then confirmed that she too had thought she saw something. And in fact they had, a two ton White Rhino. He was barely visible through the bush and so Paul pulled around a bend and we had a perfect view of this guy through an opening in the trees. He was wallowing in the mud and he was huge. We were excited to see him up so close and boy was he excited too. We were able to snap some really great photos from our vantage point and Paul would bang on the roof of the car to get his attention so we could also get some shots of him looking at us. We all decided that there was big, and then there was Rhinoceros big.

Our last notable spotting of the day was as we were driving out of the park. It was raining pretty good and we had all but given up on cats when Jess and Paul spotted a couple of Mongoose darting across the road. Paul told us that this was a sure sign of a predator nearby and sure enough he was right. A few meters up the road were a pair of juvenile Hyenas standing in the road. As they stood only feet away from the car we were able to grab some great close up shots in spite of the rain.

So, we didn’t see any cats. That means that Jess and I have yet to see a Lion, but we all agreed that this was a great trip into the park. And Jess and I agreed that this trip was even better than the first one. We now understand the addictive allure of Kruger National Park and you can bet that we will be back in search of a Lion. Oh, and Jess got to see her Giraffes.

RWO: Pay Up, Big Boy!

2011-01-20T07:00:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

When a woman is to be married in South Africa, the future groom’s family pays “Labola”, a gift to unite the two families. Labola usually consists of 10 cows, each representing a virtue of the future bride (and 11 cows if the future bride is still a virgin)! More currently, the future groom’s family pays a monetary amount, accompanied by traditional and contemporary gifts. However, the concept of “cows as payment” is still a very prominent one. So that, when our female, American volunteers are proposed to (which, usnruprisingly, is often), another male (usually a supervisor or neighbor) will jump in to help negotiate Labola for the PCV. We’ve had up to 20 cows offered for some volunteers, due entirely to the exotic, “celebrity” status of Americans in this country!!! Eish!!

RWO: Schemers

2011-01-20T04:15:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

Non-profit programs in South Africa are often given the title of a “scheme” – which to us sounds rather dubious, but simply translates to “program” in South African speak. So you will see odd-looking signs all over the country for “Medical Schemes”, “Collaboration Schemes”, and “Employment Schemes”. These all have the virtuous intent of helping persons in need, regardless of their less-than-well-intentioned-sounding names. Nevertheless, we still make the occasional joke in bad taste about a “Feeding Scheme” for OVCs – such as, “Oh yes, let’s lure in all these poor, orphaned and vulnerable children with the promise of hot and healthy food…and then…ha ha ha [evil laugh, of course]!” Yikes, not a good connotation at all!

Travelogue: The Wild Coast & Coffee Bay

2011-01-19T03:30:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

Our final stop on the vacation agenda was to the ever-so-quiet and charming Coffee Bay. The actual roads to get there however, much like the weather conditions of the last stretch, were miserable! And by miserable, I mean both unbelievably incredible and utterly unbearable. From J-Bay, we headed towards Mthatha, ready to cover more than half of the stretch known as “The Wild Coast” in one 9-hour riding day. Luckily, there was far less rain than previously… unluckily, the roads took on a whole new meaning of “dangerous, curvy intersection ahead”. Every 10k there would be such a sign and for the majority of the trip, we gripped our seats and/or each other for fear of our lives. Okay, I’ll adjust that just slightly: I, more so than Adam, was doing most of the gripping and fearing and I would like to think that this was due more to the Mefloquin that has made me a paranoid schizophrenic than a lack of trust in the driver. Okay. Either way, it was maddeningly scary at times!!! But finally we had made it through the highest of the mountain passes and just before entering Mthatha town limits, we saw the understated sign on the side of the N2 pointing south, to Coffee Bay.

Now, I should start by saying that we had been both warned and hyped about this portion of the trek. “The road is the worst I have ever seen!” explained one traveler. “The views are some of the best in all of South Africa!” described another. Okay, well, let’s see…

Within minutes, the terrain changed from the rugged Wild Coast to a fairy-tale scape of slowly sloping green hills, trickling streams, and jagged gorges cutting through grassy lawns for as far as the eye could see. For the next 75k, we endured – as rightly described – some of the worst road conditions known to South Africa: extremely steep inclines, blind curves (and yes, some of those combined!), potholes the size of small countries, haphazard and notably hazardous patches of “construction” (read as: pavement-to-dirt-to-crumbling-pavement-again), and some of the fastest-changing weather conditions we had ever seen… “Oh look how beautiful the sun is over those hills… oh crap that looks like a massive rain storm… where the hell did this wind come from… oh, the sun is back out again…”! Eish! But along the entire trek, the scenery looked more like a backdrop for an exotic, African, Broadway show than an actual, real-life, place. Dotting the hills were bright blue, pink and yellow Xhosa rondavals with make-shift wooden fences and brightly-dressed Xhosa Gogos tending to hillside gardens. Some of these magnificent little homes were built precariously on the edge of slopes that dropped down to coves over a hundred meters below… not exactly the type of “backyard” I would want to find children playing in, but nevertheless breathtaking to see. It took some serious concentration to avoid the myriad obstacles that were also along the road (not just part of the road) – herds of stubborn cattle, flocks of trotting goats, and gaggles of geese. Then, as we got closer to Coffee Bay, we experienced the beautiful sightings of wild horses and interesting donkey breeds, some galloping along the hillsides and others, being ridden bareback by Xhosa children on their way to or from their various herds of livestock. How great!

Finally, after a two hour endeavor (yes, two yours to drive 75k!), we arrived in the town of Coffee Bay. Well, it’s not actually a town… in fact, I don’t even think you could call it a village… it’s really just the end point where the main road runs into the lower cliffs and ocean. There is only one “hotel” (think someone’s large house), two backpackers, one café, one restaurant, a small clothing hut, and an African Jahdrum store – all within a two minute walk of, well, everything else.

We unloaded at the Coffee Shack and began our whirl-wind tour of the premises with our friendly guide: “Activities here, internet is available, patio and tables, some chairs, oh and hammocks, the breakfast bar, the actual bar, our pool table, bathrooms there, dorms there, and here is your rondaval. And once you’re settled, close beach out that gate, main beach over the stream, dinner’s at 7pm, sign-up sheet here, and there’s your free Welcome Drink.” Whew! The Coffee Shack, as we soon discovered, is the equivalent of an all-inclusive, do nothing or do everything, resort of a backpacker – the best backpacker experience we’ve had in South Africa! The entire compound was nestled beneath a canopy of jungle trees and vines, with wooden patios and walkways going up, down, and around the various lounge spots – an enormous wooden table under thatch roof with a selection of board games strewn about, a stone “breakfast” nook carved into one of the foundational walls, a firepit built up alongside the bar, a dinner table under the breezy side of the main buildings eaves, lounge chairs and hammocks located wherever you pleased to nap or read, and a back lawn beyond the main buildings with a view of the rocky coastline and the cliffs. This was not a vacation spot. This was the realization of a storybook.

Your whole stay went on one tab – tricky, hey? – but made for an awesomely relaxed and carefree feeling of luxury. Breakfast was anything from eggs and toast and bacon to youghurt and fruit and granola. Lunch and snacks were toasties and crisps. Dinners were glorious three and four-course meals of soups, salads, meat, sides and dessert. Free tea and coffee to your heart’s content and, as though it had been ordered with your beverage, plenty of sunshine, cool breezes and an almost-mandatory afternoon siesta.

Each morning we were enticed to partake in the day’s adventure – hikes to coves, to mountains, through villages, etc. – and we were luckily allowed to decline any and all offers of physical exertion due to the fact that we had “completely forgotten to even pack a good pair of walking shoes, how could we?” Shame. (He he!) So we did exactly what we intended to do each day: nothing at all. Well, almost nothing. We slept in, read our books, I wrote in my journal, we took photos of snakes as they crawled through the brush, we chatted with the kids at the Craft Corner that were making wallets out of juice cartons, and on the very rare occasion that we felt like a very short walk, we hiked up the hill to the pizzeria with gorgeous views of little Coffee Bay and the huge Wild Coast coastline. At night, we would often rally together a group of people to play “30 Seconds” – the South African version of Catchphrase. One night, with a group of more than fifteen of us, we played our little, competitive hearts out. We divided the teams up based on their language categories for the ease of guessing: Team 1 was the German, Dutch and Flemish speakers, Team 2 was the South African team with a mix of Afrikaans and English, Team 3 was a mishmash of EU-ers speaking Spanish/French/other, and Team 4 was Me, Adam, and Jackie – a new friend from Australia, that everyone dubbed “The Americans” and that we switched to “The A-Team” to rightfully include Australia! We drank slightly too much and got slightly too excited and, on more than one occasion, were jumping out of our seats to shout out clues that were only remotely related to the actual words. And even though our A-Team was at a definite disadvantage since a majority of the questions related to rugby and cricket (yeah, like I know anything there), we actually managed to win more than one of the games that night and technically took the official winning title! Go A-Team!!

As it neared Christmas, festivities went into full swing and PCVs from every corner of the southern continent were pouring in to enjoy the Coffee Shack celebrations. The largest of the events would be a full-day, Christmas Eve extravaganza, including hikes, drinks, gifts, plenty of entertainment, and tons and tons and tons of food! We spent the morning on the main beach that was, quite literally, “over the river and through the woods” from the backpacker and then hung around the Coffee Shack to greet fellow SA volunteers as they arrived for the holidays.

In the late afternoon, we all piled into the Coffee Shack vans (and a couple random guests cars as well, since there were so many of us) and drove the long, steep road up to the highest cliff on the bay. There, with free gin and tonics, oysters and mussels, we could see the whole of Coffee Bay – with its jagged cliffs and crashing waves and sandy stretches of beaches that end in misty coves and tunnels. We listened to the tide coming in, the wind in the grasses, and the not-so-distant hooves of mountain goats perched on the ledges. And as the evening approached, we sipped on our cocktails and enjoyed our hors d’oeuvres as the sun set over the ocean and lit up the sea spray in magnificent shades of pink and rose. Absolutely beautiful!

Back down at the backpacker, the staff was preparing for a feast – one that I can honestly say would rival any American Thanksgiving! In the meantime, we all gathered around for a Christmas Eve toast and enjoyed cups of chilled champagne with the use of our Coffee Shack Christmas gifts of Coffee Shack cozies! And then dinner was served – roasted turkey, glazed gammon, roast beef, butternut squash, zucchini and corn fritters, baby potatoes with honey mustard dressing, green salads, pasta salads, three bean salads, chickpea and lentil tabouli, yams, beets, apple sauce, cranberry sauce, salsa, gravy and Xhosa bread!! And then there was still dessert of Christmas Cake in brandy butter, cheesecake and fruit salad!!! Everyone piled around the various tables and seating areas, with plates overflowing and steaming, and took their first bites of Christmas supper. After a few bites of my own, I looked up and smiled at the hodgepodge of fellow travelers around us – travelers from Europe, the U.K. and Australia, ex-patriots from the states and Asia, short-term inhabitants and volunteers from all over Africa – everyone indulging in their feasts, exchanging stories and jokes, sharing bits of nostalgia about holiday traditions back home, drinking a little too much champagne, and cooling off in the nighttime breezes of a warm, Christmas Eve. This certainly wasn’t our normal Christmas, but it certainly would be one to remember!

After several more beverages, we had quite a group of English and semi-English speaking guests belting out the words (or at least the words that we thought were the words) to some of our carol favorites – Jingle Bells (with bell sound effects), Rudolph (with all the various and varying additions), Silent Night (a little too serious for our mood), Deck the Halls (the clean and the not-so-clean version), and finally, The Little Drummer Boy (we basically sucked at this one… except for the “ba-rump-a-rump-bum” parts)!! Later in the evening, the firepit was lit ablaze and the guys from Jah Drummer came down for a multi-hour drumming, jam session – the staff danced, the staffs’ kids danced, the guests danced – it was a virtual nightclub of African drums and Xhosa dance moves under the jungle canopy decorated with Christmas lights. You could feel the beating in your chest, like your heart jumping to every palm on the drum, and we just watched and watched and watched.

Finally, when the party started weaning into Christmas day, most of made our way back to our bunks for a long night of deep, deep sleep – with the smell of mosquito coils replacing images of sugarplums dancing in our head, and drying towels and swim suits where stockings should have been hung – but we slept nonetheless. Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Christmas Day was quiet, slow, and reminiscent of the carols and drumming the night before. We ate and napped and took some drives along the coast to see the sights. Afterall, before leaving Coffee Bay, we would have to see “Hole in the Wall”. A group piled into one of the Coffee Shack cars and we made our bumpy way out to the great mountain in the middle of the sea. We hiked the last kilometer along the grass and then stood on the edge of the hill, overlooking the gigantic rock formation standing strong against the crashing waves. And yes, as it is aptly called, it does have an enormous hole at its center, carved out by swirling riptides and smashing waters, so that it resembles something of an over-sized, ancient Arc du Triomphe plopped down in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Pretty cool!

Driving back down to the beaches, we enjoyed beautiful vistas of the coastline and, as before, the sight of gorgeous wild horses along the narrowest slopes of the hills. Back to Coffee Shack, we lounged on the back lawn for a Christmas Day lunch of braai, burgers, and salads and then retired under the thatch covers as an afternoon storm passed overhead and cooled the air just before evening. Just as the rain had ended, steaming bowls of butternut squash soup were served up with enormous chunks of Xhosa bread and we all reclined in lounge chairs to enjoy the hot concoction in the chilly night air… in fact, if you closed your eyes and tried hard enough, you could almost feel the outside cold and inside warmth of a Christmas night… almost. But either way, it was truly a Merry Christmas!

The next day we had to head out… leaving behind this majestic little world of trees and beach and relaxation. My eyes were drawn to the sideview mirrors as we made our way back to the main road, catching every last glimpse of this place that I could as we drove away.

And then it was gone. And we were back. And that exotic holiday getaway already seemed like a dream or distant memory. But when I think back on it… I can still smell the food, and feel the breeze, and hear the waves, and see the sun setting over the cliffs… I don’t think I will ever forget this most different of Christmases that we spent here, in Africa.

Travelogue: The Garden Route & Jeffrey’s Bay

2011-01-19T01:00:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

Leaving Wine Country, we followed the N2 along the Southern Coast of South Africa – passing signs along the way for shark diving and whale watching in Hermanus, penguin beaches along the bays, and Cape Agulhas – the actual cape where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans merge in a swirling revelry of chaos. The morning drive was incredible, as we took in the most diverse and ever-changing string of scenery as we continued further – starting with the craggy mountains of the Wine Region, leading to long and low-lying plains reminiscent of the Midwest, to Scottish-style green hills rolling alongside rivers, to Southeast-Asian style mountain tops peeking out from mystic jungle vines, and then finally, as the N2 met up with the north-bending coastline, we began to feel the seaspray in the area.

Passing through Mossel Bay, we had officially entered the “Garden Route” – a stretch of road almost 300k long, ending around Tsitsikamma Nature Preserve, that is often described as a “Taste of Eden” , an incredible, unmissable, unbelievably breathtaking, must-do while visiting/living in South Africa. We were so well prepared: I had both photo and video camera in hand, the windows were propped open for clear views, and we sat ready and willing to breathe in all that the Garden Route had to offer…

And that’s when it started to rain. A thick ocean-drawn fog flooded across the road and just as we were passing the first official South African Travel Bureau sign for “The Garden Route”, the skies opened up and poured and we were forced to crawl along the N2 at a miserably slow pace since the driver couldn’t see more than two meters ahead of the vehicle. And as some bad form of misplaced, previous, travel karma would have it, the clouds only parted as we drove through the toll gates at Tsitsikamma… the end of the Garden Route. Awesome.

Nevertheless, we did get to enjoy the last stretch of road from the nature preserve to Jeffrey’s Bay in reasonably good weather, which at least allowed for us to take in the incredible bridge passes over gaping, limestone gorges and the sight of the last remnants of fog as they sat on the tops of the forests of skinny evergreens.

We arrived in J-Bay in late afternoon and checked into the conveniently located Jeffrey’s Bay Backpackers. Lonely Planet and Coast-to-Coast had both described this place first and foremost as “colorful”. And oh my, this was not a joke. The entire backpacker was decked out in the craziest pairings of neon, pastel, and dark matte colors – bright blue on one wall, a neutral pink on another, blinding yellow on the door, and psychedelic drawings, equally colorful, or flowers, trees, landscapes, and animals throughout the entire place. The dorm was adjoined to an outside bar – how capitalistic! – and was a similarly out of control hodge-podge of wooden tables, street signs, fabric curtains, Christmas lights, and walls that had been graffitied and marked across every possible inch!

Fearing an overstimulation of some sort, we dropped our stuff and headed straight to the only Mexican restaurant listed in the whole town, named originally, “The Mexican”. And, must to our surprise, it was some of the best Mexican food we had chowed down to date in South Africa! Yum! And since the rain storm we had managed to get ahead of on the N2 was now barreling down on the coastal town, we opted to finish off the day with a western-style evening up at Fountain’s Mall to see the newly-released Harry Potter 7.1!! I was soooo excited and it was soooo worth it!! (Lots of ‘o’s for dramatic effect!)

We spent the following days lazily meandering around downtown J-Bay and walking along the beaches. The town itself – aside from being the surf capital of South Africa – does not have much to offer as a tourist attraction. Thus, it was the perfect layover along the N2 to lounge away a couple days with absolutely no plans at all. We strolled the streets and marveled at the unbelievable number of surf-related gear and parafanalia shops – Quicksilver, Ripcurl, Billabong, and a whole slew of others – as well as a great little selection of tasty eats for breakfast at Sunflower Café and more than one stop at The Greek for dinners of chicken and lamb souvlaki wraps and the most amazing baklava and ice cream for dessert! We spent the evenings at the backpacker bar, meeting all sorts of people – equally colorful to match the whole backpacker vibe – and chatted with SA-ers and foreigners about everything from local languages, sky-diving, surfing (of course) and perhaps the most entertaining of all, a full dissertation on the “basics” (yeah, right) of the oh-so-curious-and-confusing game of cricket!

On our last day in J-Bay, we made our way back down to “Supertubes” – the famed surfer spot that hosts the Billabong Pro Championship each July. In the offseason of December, the waves are far more tame and it’s a great place to walk barefoot in the sand, look for shells, and stand a while in the shallowest parts of the surf to feel your feet sink. Pepper Street, the primary gateway to Supertubes is home to row after row of dingy-looking surfer hostels and a handful of quirky surf shops – one in particular, a surf-themed photography and art store, captured our attention for over an hour while we perused the merchandise depicting 1960’s VW vans stacked ten boards high and the books on the history of the South African surf industry. Before trekking back to our dorm for a final night’s stay, we indulged – no, let me take that back, overindulged – in a massive platter of the freshest of fresh fish n’chips at Die Vismandjie on De Gama Street. The fish was perfectly crisp, the fries were perfectly un-slopped, and best of all, an enormous container of real (yes, real!) malt vinegar sat at the center of each table! Now that is how you serve a basket of fried goodness!

Okay, so let’s review: Surf stores – check. Mexican & Greek food – check. Cool little surf-inspired art shop – check. Battered seafood – check. Sand between our toes – check.

Alrighty then, on we go…

RWO: Boobs. (Really Guys, it’s Just Boobs.)

2011-01-18T09:00:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

Boobs are so not a big deal here. However, everything from the waist to the knees are. So, all females are required to wear clothing that completely (and I mean completely) covers the hips, butt, thighs, and even the knees (these rules aren’t quite as strict for younger girls). On the other hand, it is entirely acceptable for females (even older females!) to wear shirts that show copious amounts of cleavage and to breast-feed anywhere, including meetings (I’m less shocked by the latter of those two norms). In fact, it is even culturally acceptable for young females (those unmarried and without children) to walk around entirely topless and while this is not a daily occurrence in the rural areas, it is surprisingly common in the extremely rural villages and cultural centers. Intriguing!

RWO: A Boy Named "Kentucky"

2011-01-18T03:00:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

Children’s names are often reflective of the family’s feelings about the birth event in South Africa. For example, a first-born girl may be named “Happiness”, but a second girl (with no boys in between) may just be named “Again”. On the other hand, boys are almost always given names of optimism, such as “Gift”, “Blessing” or “Thanks”. Our youngest host brother, however, is the fourth in the family, and his name means simply, “The Children are Enough”! Naming is so experience based, in fact, we’ve heard that the year that KFC opened in South Africa, a surprisingly large proportion of the boys were actually named “Kentucky”. Oh how original!

Tasting Notes

2011-01-17T04:30:00.000-08:00

Adam writes:

From the time that Jess and I learned that we would be serving in South Africa, I was adamant that we needed to visit the country’s wine regions. And though South Africa has many regions all over the Western Cape province, with our limited timeline we decided to settled on the oldest and most renowned: Stellenbosch, Paarl, and Franschoek. I had one goal for this trip: To get a feel for what was really happening with South African wines. I am happy to say that we succeeded.

My only previous experience with wines from this country has been a few inexpensive bottles back home in hopes of finding a bargain and only a few bottles here that were affordable on our stipend. I can’t say that I was ever impressed with my samplings. But as I had found out in California, you need to go to a place, taste at the source, and talk to the people who live and work there to fully understand the wines of a region.

Our first stop was L’Avenir who have some of the oldest plantings of pinotage in the country. This winery came highly recommended and rightfully so. From the beginning I was impressed with the focus and polish of these wines. Where previous South African wines were rustic in character and often out of balance, these were precise. We started with the Chenin Blanc (2010). This wine smelled of wildflowers and yellow citrus fruits and filled the mouth with delicate flavors of both. It finished clean with bright and mouthwatering acidity. The next was the new vintage of Pinotage (2010) which was made in a light and fruity style and served slightly chilled. It was a rush of bright and ripe fruit flavors with a delicate structure and clean acidity. After that we moved on to a Cabernet Sauvignon (2008) and I have to admit I was more than a bit skeptical. One whiff from the glass revealed that these grapes were grown high up in the hills and as I am a big fan of “mountain fruit” in my cabs, I started to get excited. Beautiful aromas of damp earth, stone, leather, cocoa, cigar box, and dried plums and raisins started coming from the glass. On the palate the wine was full and lush with flavors of cassis, black berries, leather, tobacco, and dark chocolate flooding the palate. This wine had structure and big tannins. This may not have been the best Cab I have tasted, but I immediately wanted to buy a case to lie down and a case to serve to my friends when they came over. At this point, I was surprised and impressed. We then moved to another Pinotage (2007), this one made in a fuller style and to age. Though after the Cab this one doesn’t come back to mind as fully, I do remember it as being reminiscent of Zinfandel in its fruit and structure. I also remember that this was when I started to believe the argument that Pinotages can be aged. We finished with the Grand Vin Pinotage (2007). This wine was densely dark fruit on the nose. Cherries, plums, cassis, and berries came through with earth, cocoa, and a hint of leather. The wine was silk on the palate. A full bodied wine that was soft and lush in the mouth like the finest Merlots that I’ve tasted, and then the flavors exploded. Plum and cherries, tobacco and cocoa, the flavors were ripe and full. This wine was still immense though and was proof that some Pinotages do, in fact, need aging. This wine was a revelation. Never had I thought that I would find wines like these in South Africa. This wine was poised and polished, it was perfectly balanced and immediately made you want more, and this wine finished forever. It wasn't as delicate or as complex as Bordeuax, it didn’t continue to reveal itself in layers over time, sure it mellowed nicely in the glass, but what this wine did was deliver one amazing mouthful of wine every time. It proved Pinotage could be aged, it proved that Pinotage could be good, and it proved that I was totally wrong about the wines of South Africa.

All that night and into the next morning I was worried. I was worried that we had peaked too soon. I mean, L’Avenir was one of the most highly recommended wineries in all of our literature, what if we had tasted the best first? We headed to Paarl with a slight amount of trepidation. Driving through Paarl didn’t help my spirits. Where as Stelenbosch was a beautiful and quaint town with great architecture and history Paarl was just a modern town. The drive only worsened as we turned from the main road and headed through a neighbor hood that could only be described as a ghetto. We need not have worried as soon we were out in the vineyards again and soon to arrive at Nederburg.

Nederburg is one of the largest and oldest wine farms in the country and has the reputation that comes with all of that. This time Jess and I decided to do two separate tastings which Jess insisted that we share. The result was twelve wines so you will have to excuse me if my memory is a little hazy here. Jess started with the Manor House Sauvignon Blanc (2010) and I had the Winemaster’s Reserve Sauvignon Blanc (2010). While both wines offered plenty of pleasing green notes on the nose Jess’ had a little more fruit. Her wine was also a little softer on the palate with fruit flavors. Mine was more edge and brightness than fruit with a strong acidity and clean finish. Flavors were more of gooseberry and asparagus. We moved on to Chardonnays next, again with Jess tasting the Manor House (2008) and I the Winemaster’s Reserve (2009). Jess’ wine was soft and pleasant on the nose with a hint of green apple and toast but it was thin on the palate and left no more flavor then the light acidity that finished it. My wine was bright fruit and softness with a hint of butter and toast on the palate. It was nice, but it wasn’t winning me over. Next on the Winemaster’s Reserve tasting was a Cabernet Sauvignon Rosé (2009) that was a new addition to Nederburg’s line up. Here was a wine that exploded with bright ripe fruit on the tongue that finished softly yet with a firmness and bright acidity that both cleansed and refreshed the palate. As a few of you may know, dry rosés are becoming a bit of a pet passion for me and this one was a standout. This was a wine that was purpose built for hot summer day drinking, so perfect for Africa. The next wine on the Manor House list was the Cabernet Sauvignon (2008). This wine was still quite dense with a good balance but huge structure. There were all the right elements, blackberry, cassis, subtle earth notes, but it was still too young for me to give an honest review of it. However, I would love to visit this wine a few years from now and see how it’s developed. Jess moved on to the Manor house Shiraz (2008). This wine made me realize that along with Chenin Blanc and Pinotage, South Africa’s standout varietals, I needed to start paying attention to its Shiraz as well. This wine was enticingly dark and spicy on the nose with stewed fruit. On the palate it was hedonistically jammy without being overripe. It followed through with toast and woody spices with a beautifully round and soft structure. This wine was drinking very well when we tasted it but I am sure will only get better over the next few years. We moved on to the WInemaster’s Reserve Baronne (2009). This was a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz. It was bright and blushing with ripe fruit but the tannins were still quite large and a touch harsh. Next for both of us was the Ingenuity White Blend (2009). This wine is an eight way blend of which I was actually able to pick out five varietals, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc, Riesling, and Gewürztraminer. This wine was beautifully unique. One could find all of the varietals individually in the glass and yet it all came together into one ethereal and gorgeous wine. In the tasting room I described this wine as “sexy” and got laughed at by my wife, but I still stand by this assessment. This wine was more of an experience, like eating at Schwa, all the ingredients were fantastic apart, but they came together as a revelation. I was heartbroken to find out that this wine wasn’t exported to the states. Our final wines at Nederburg where, the Winemaker’s Reserve Edelrood (2008) (a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot) and the Ingenuity Red Blend (2007) (an Italian blend). Between the two Ingenuitys the Edelrood is a bit of a blur. I remember it being nice but in need of some more cellaring. The Ingenuity Red was the most focused and polished wine we had at Nederburg. This wine had layers and layers of spice and dark ripe fruit in both the glass and on the palate. It was big, strong, and bold and yet the tannins were round and lush. This wine finished forever and was probably the most complex wine we would taste on our trip.

Our next stop, and last stop in Paarl, was at Seidelberg. This stop was more for lunch than tasting, but when in Rome. On the whole the wines here where pleasant, fruit filled, straightforward wines. They were all easy drinking and quality, but not really much to write home about. So for the most part I won’t. I will say that if you find these wines in the states at a reasonable price, you will not be disappointed in your purchase. These wines are workhorses and will pair beautifully with food. There were a couple of exceptional exceptions though. The first was the Roland’s Reserve Syrah (2006). I don’t know who Roland is, but he obviously knows his Shiraz. My tasting notes from that day are as follows: “Beautifully soft and round, brooding dark fruit and dark chocolate, long finish, focused and polished.” And that is about everything I love in my Shiraz. The other standout was Cecilia (2006). This wine is a blend of Shiraz, Mourvedre, and Malbec. This wine had beautifully ripe fruit, a strong tannic structure and bright acidity that all added up to a deliciously rustic wine. It ended up pairing perfectly with the plate of charcuterie that we had for lunch.

The next morning we headed to Franschoek and our first stop was at Boschendal. I was really excited about this winery as it was highly recommended in the Wine Bible. Unfortunately the tasting was disappointing. Most all of the wines that we tasted were one note and flat. These were easy drinking wines at best. There was a Shiraz that evoked the most passionate response from both of us which was, “I just don’t know about this one”. There was also a Bordeaux blend that was over manipulated. It was not the best way to start the day.

We then pulled into L’Ormarins which has been renamed Anthony Rupert. These were by far the most internationally styled wines that we tasted on our trip. These wines are divided under several labels and we tasted from the Terra del Capo and L’Ormarins labels. We started with the Terra del Capo Pinot Grigio (2010). As some of you may be aware, I am not a fan of Pinot Grigio. It is seldom done right and ends up being a wine with very little flavor and too much acidity. This one was definitely done right. There were hints of tropical fruit to be found in the lovely floral nose. The fruit revealed itself fully on the palate with a light touch of herbaceous quality. The wine was well balanced and had a remarkably long finish. The next wine was the L’Ormarins Sauvignon Blanc (2009). These grapes are grown at a high altitude which results in lots of citrus fruit and green notes throughout the wine. It too had a lingering finish. We then tried the L’Ormarins Chardonnay (2008). This wine had vibrant and crisp fruit of pear and green apple enveloped in butter and toast. The body was creamy and soft with a pleasant and clean finish. Next came the reads lead off by the Terra del Capo Sangiovese (2008) which was delicately light with ripe fruit and firm structure. I found this wine to be delicious on its own but it would be an amazing food wine. The next was the Terra del Capo Arné (2006) which is a blend of equal parts Sangiovese and Merlot. The interesting thing about this wine was that unlike most blends, where the individual varietals are fermented separately and then blended, the grapes in this wine were fermented together. The wine was full of ripe fruit with subtle notes of earth and tobacco and chocolate. It was lush and round and delicate. Again the words polished and focused came to mind. The final red was the L’Ormarins Optima (2006), a Bordeaux blend. This wine was also surprisingly light bodied but it’s delicacy enhanced its subtle flavors of earth, cigar box, and spice that were playing behind its fruit of blackberry and cassis. Overall, Jess and I were very impressed with the offerings here. It had more than made up for our disappointing start to the day.

We ended the day at Delaire, the winery in the clouds. The main purpose of this trip was for Jess to snap photos. As the name suggests, the winery is high up in the mountains and offers spectacular vistas and views. I decided that while she ran around and snapped photos till her heart’s content I would do the tasting. Once again, while in Rome. I was skeptical at first as it seems the winery had transformed more into a high-end resort but I was very glad I did in the end. These were my favorite wines overall from the trip. I was so enthralled by them that I didn’t bother taking notes. So I can only relate to you my overall impressions as I remember them. I tried a Cabernet Franc Rosé (2010) which I remember as being full of strawberry and cassis with a hinting at sweetness. It was delicious and I knew then that I was in for something special. The next was a Sauvignon Blanc (2010) that was varietaly correct with immense focus and bright acidity. There was a Shiraz (2009) that was also amazing in its varietal correctness, a perfect portrait of the grape as wine, faultless. There were two Bordeaux blends that were also fantastic. Though they weren’t replicas of Bordeaux wines, they were evidence to the argument that wines are better when they are blends. Each varietal added something to the wines which were greater than the sum of their parts. Though I forgot to take notes here, I didn’t forget to get distribution information for the Sates so that I could drink them again.

The following morning started with a stop at Kanonkop. This winery came highly recommended from other tasting rooms as a place that made truly South African wines. And that would turn out to be the theme of the day. Finding out the difference between South African wines made for South Africans, and those made for an international market. Finally we were getting to the heart of it all. It was this day that I would soon be able to understand the place and its people through its wines.

Kanonkop was a fantastic starting point for the day. They only make 5 wines of which we were able to taste 3. We started with the Kadette Pinotage Dry Rosé (2010). This rosé was light and straightforward wine. It was fruity and refreshing, and all around crowd pleaser. Then we tasted the Pinotage (2009) which though it wasn’t necessarily the best Pinotage we tasted, it was one of my favorites. It was full of ripe fruit and subtle earth tones. The flavors were almost rustic but the wine itself was well crafted with good structure and a long finish. Where we had tasted Pinotages that were made in a sleek and soft style like a Merlot, this wine was allowed to express its varietal’s true nature, hearty and rustic. This wine was straight forward, delicious, and food friendly. The final wine was the Paul Sauer (2007). I don’t recall what the blend was (though I want to say that it was a Bordeaux blend with a little Pinotage in it). I do remember that this was a bold wine though with a lightness on the palate. Again the layers and complexity weren’t there, but what was there was a magnificently polished fruit forward wine with enticing accents of cigar box and cocoa. Here was the final and most important revelation of the trip. When South Africans make wines for South Africans, the wines are magnificent expressions of fruit with polished and focused structures. These are wines that are easily drunk on their own all night and easily paired with food. There was none of the largeness of California Cabs and there was no need to age these wines for long periods like Bordeuax. These wines were fantastic on release and would age well. They were not collectables, but they were infinitely versatile wines.

The other great thing about Kanonkop was the gentlemen doing our tasting. Not only was he a wealth of information about the region and its history, but he also helped us map out the rest of our day. He laid out a tour of wineries that would illustrate South African wines made for South Africans. As he put it, “You don’t understand our wines and we don’t understand yours.” So Jess and I set out to understand their wines.

The next stop was Bellevue Estate. This is one of the oldest wine farms in South Africa. Bellevue produces two labels, the first is the Morkel label which is the traditional family run label, and the second is the Sizanani Label which is actually produced by the farm workers themselves. Both labels had some delicious wines. We started with the Morkel Sauvignon Blanc (2009) which was bursting with tart green apples with vibrant acidity and a light finish. Then we moved on to Pinotages. First was the Sizanani Pinotage (2008). This wine was light on the palate and full of ripe fruits. With good structure and a long finish this was another food friendly wine. The Morkel Pinotage (2008) had a little more structure and more earthy notes and hints of oak and vanilla. We finished with the Morkel Tumara (2005), another Bordeaux blend. This one was quite jammy and soft and light on the palate. It finished brightly as well, though I didn’t enjoy it near as much as the Pinotages.

We then made our way to Simonsig which specializes in sparkling wines but also has a long list of still wines. Though I tried one of the sparklers, the Kaapse Vonkel, I was less than impressed. It was musty and sour where it should have been bright and crisp. Luckily the still wines were more impressive. We started there with the Chenin Avec Chêne (2009). This Chenin Blanc was fantastic. There was a touch of oak that mellowed the fruit to make it soft and lush on the palate. There was a level of restraint by the winemaker that could be tasted and it had done wonders for this wine. With higher hopes for this winery now established I moved on to the Viognier Sur lie en barrique (2007). As the French translation implies, this wine sits on its lees for 12 months in the barrel. The result is a buttery and smooth wine with light fruit and a delicate acidity. Next was the Redhill Pinotage (2008) named after the red soil in which it grows. This wine showed classic characteristics like bright and ripe dark skinned fruits with a soft finish with hints of vanilla. Then there was the Merindol Syrah (2007) which smelled of earth, spice and stewed fruit. It was the same on the palate with the spice coming through strong on the finish. This wine was bigger and quite bold, a nice wine to revisit in a couple more years. We finished with the Tiara (2004) which was another Bordeaux blend. This wine had pleasant fruit and a nice structure and was impeccably balanced, but it lacked the character of the single varietal offerings.

The next stop was by far our favorite and one of the best wine farms we visited, Mooiplaas Estate. We started with our favorite wine of the trip, the Chenin Blanc (2010). Here was a wine with complexity and layers. The fruit was light and delicate and nuanced. The wine was lush in the mouth, perfectly balanced, and had a refreshing finish that finished forever. This wine is sold on winepress.com and I immediately wanted to go online and order a bottle to be delivered to all of my wine loving friends back home so that they too could taste this amazing wine. We next tasted the Sauvignon Blanc (2010). This wine was bright and lively displaying all that I love in a Sauvignon Blanc, seductive tropical fruits and soft green notes. It was light and delicate with a softness that came from a touch of oak. Next was the Langtafel Rosé (2009) which was another bright and refreshing pink wine. We moved on to the Pinotage (2007) which had been made in a light and fruity style that could be served lightly chilled. Its fruit was lively and expressive which made the wine easy to drink. Then there was a Cabernet Franc (2006). As a few of you may know, I am a big fan of Cab Franc as a single varietal wine. It has a character uniquely all its own that I am a sucker for. This wine was no exception. Full of earth, spice, tobacco, cigar box, and dark brooding fruit that always remind me of the wine and the soil, this was a beautiful expression of place. The tannins were still a little aggressive and this wine needs time to lay and mellow, but I really wanted a case of it to hold onto and wait for. We finished with The Bean (2009). This wine is what is referred to in South Africa as a coffee Pinotage. An interesting wine, the Pinotage is heavily manipulated with oak in order to extract the strongest coffee characteristics from the grape. A bit of a novelty that is in high fashion right now, the wine had fruit that was jammy bordering on the sweet and finished with solidly coffee flavor. Apparently this wine is introducing a whole new section of the wine drinking population to red wines with its easy drinking, familiar flavors, and low tannins.

We finished the day at Kliene Zalze where we tasted several Chenin Blancs. There was a barrel fermented Chenin that I enjoyed for its softness and a Select Cuvee (2007) that I liked because it was made with a hint of sweetness in a classic French style. All had nice fruit and delicate acidity. There was also a bracing Chardonnay and a disappointing Pinot Noir. Overall, the Chenins were nice wines, but everything else seemed to lack.

The last day included two wineries which I don’t have tasting notes for, Tokara and Verde en Lust. Both had amazing views and vistas and two of our favorite tasting rooms. Both offered wines that were, as we realized now, quintessentially South African. Beautiful fruit, great structure, and focused. All of the wines were great for drinking on their own and exceptionally food friendly. I would recommend any wines you might come across from either winery. And I think that sums up our trip nicely. South African wines are focused and polished. And even though they may lack a level of complexity that we wine lovers, well, love, they drink beautifully on their own, pair well with food, and, if the import tax isn’t too steep, are a really good buy for the money. Almost 90% of the wines we tasted and fell in love with cost between 60 and 100 Rands. That converts to roughly $9 -$15! So even if the price doubles with import taxes that’s still only $20 - $30, and believe me, these wines drink far better than that. I know I will be paying a lot more attention to South African wines both here and when we come home.

Travelogue: Wine Country

2011-01-17T02:15:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

We arrived in Stellenbosch on a late, December (yet summery) afternoon – it was difficult to be entirely frustrated by the complete lack of proper directions to our backpacker as we were surrounded by unbelievably beautiful Cape Dutch buildings and oak lined streets. Stellenbosch, South Africa’s second-oldest European settlement (established in 1679), still looks today like a Victorian blast from the past, and is pretty amazing… even just to be lost in.

When we finally arrived at Stumble Inn, we set up our comfortable “base camp” for our 5 Day Wine Country Tour – easily the most anticipated trip for Adam. We had heard of the Pinotages, the Chenin Blancs, the food, and the scenery… but now we were finally here! And even though it was already past midday, we figured, why wait?? So back out we go to start our touring…

Wine Country Tour – Day 1:

After a brief lunch at Java Café of smoked salmon wraps and cold drink (ahh, the food is already proving to be up to the hype!), we followed the map up the main road from Stellenbosch to L’Avenir, an easy jaunt from downtown but with an almost introductory status in the wine region – good views, good Pinotage, good service. And more than ‘good’ it was! From the driveway, we looked out upon the rolling hills and jagged grey and black mountains of rock that surround the entire valley. Bright purple, orange, and yellow flowers were in bloom and the greens were as bright and diverse as the summer could muster – grasses, trees, shrubs, and vines – like a water color backdrop on an oil painting! The tasting room at L’Avenir was almost equally as impressive, with huge black & white photography of the local, day-to-day life – cows being herded into pens, large village women picking grapes in the vineyards, the sun setting behind the last-lit trees – as well as the obligatory stack of bottles (but these were filled with rose, which made for a pretty cool effect) and some barrels strewn about the room.

The woman there suggested that we make a stop at Muratie Estate, just up the road, even though we would probably forego their tastings that specialized in sweet wines. The winery, she explained, was one of the oldest in existence and had been left, quite literally, untouched while still in operation. This was worth a visit… We pulled into an field that served doubly as a parking lot and walked up the unmanicured paths to the main building. Entering the winery itself was like walking into a themed Disney ride – with suddenly cool air, cold and moist rock walls, and an abundance of cobwebs that looked to be older than even the crumbling foundations outside. The tasting rooms were built with arched stone and decorated with everything from animal skin rugs to realism-style paintings in gawdy frames. And while we did choose to pass up on the tastings (Adam decided anything that smelled this old simply could not provide a pleasant tasting experience!) the look around alone was well worth the time!

Wine Country Tour – Day 2:

A late morning stop at Mila’s Cake Shop for the biggest and fluffiest croissants with bread and jam, accompanied by extremely strong French-press coffee, and then we were off…

Day 2 would be spent almost entirely in Paarl – and area with the least amount of literature and only a handful of well-known vineyards. This would certainly turn out to be a day of happenchance!

We headed straight to Nederburg, the only winery listed in both The Wine Bible and Lonely Planet as a must-see in the Paarl region. The drive out there took us through meandering townships and oddly situated villages, leading us to wonder whether or not Paarl would be worth the visit at all. But upon entry into the Nederburg Estates, we enjoyed a leisurely drive through more familiar, vineyard-esque terrain to the expansive Nederburg visitor and tasting center. We spent a couple hours there enjoying two different ranges of tastings (from their “Manor House” to their “Winemaster’s Reserve” selections) and chatted at length with one of the proprietor’s about the growing styles of the regional grapes, the history of the Paarl estates, and her suggestions for other top picks.

After Nederburg, we made a quick stop at Fairview Winery with the intention of experiencing their well-known lunches at the Goatshead Eatery. With lunchtime in full-swing, we opted only to look around and take in the unique lure of Fairview – a goat turret with wrap around stairs that serves as a goat tower marking the center of the estate. And yes, it houses actual goats which are the mascot of Fairview’s trademark “Goats do Roam” reserve wines! How clever!

With the thought of food still on the brain (or rather, stomach), we wandered further up the road to another local suggestion – Seidelberg Wine Estate. Seidelberg’s location is atop one of the higher ranges in Paarl, lending to incredible views of the vineyards and valleys below. In their old-style tasting room we enjoyed some interesting whites before opting for a relaxing picnic of meats, olives and cheeses on their grassy front lawn, overlooking the scenery. Ahhhh…

Making our way back to Stellenbosch, we took another road with gorgeous views of the western edges of the wine region. In the far distance, hidden partially by late afternoon haze, we could see the large white cloud beginning its descent over Table Mountain in Cape Town. The “Table Cloth”, as they call it, was a pretty magnificient image to end our second day!

Wine Country Tour – Day 3:

We headed out early to make it to Franschoek in time for the first tastings of the morning. This, after Stellenbosch itself, is one of the top-rated wine valleys in the region, with at least a dozen of suggestions from The Wine Bible, Lonely Planet, and winery locals – not to mention the rave reviews about their food (they were settled by French Huegenots, afterall)!

First to Boschendal Winery – a staple amongst the Franschoek vineyards, known largely for its intriguing blends. The impressive, tree-lined entry led to fields of bush grapes and young vines below some of the parts of the valley’s mountain ranges. The tasting room itself was set along one side of a grassy quad, flanked by Cape Dutch buildings and a stable – pretty impressive!

After a quick drive through town to get our bearings, we made our way to L’Ormarins (or Anthony Rupert Winery, as it is now known) and took the rather lengthy drive up the hills to their main visitor’s center… which, to our surprise, was also an antique and exotic car museum!! We meandered a bit and marveled not only at the two Ferrari Californias, Aston DB9, and Jaguar XKR (Adam obviously knew the actual models, not myself…), but also the nifty selection of antique Buicks, Fords, and Cadillacs! From there, we were taxied even further up into the hills to the actual winery, with a tasting room perched amidst an old Dutch estate with incredible views of the Franschoek valley below. Our tasting there was perhaps one of the most informative, with stories about how wines were named after friends of past vintners and tales of adventure during the L’Ormarins legacy.

With empty stomachs, we headed just up the road to Moreson to try out their new Bread & Wine restaurant and it’s acclaimed charcuterie menu… oh yes, acclaimed it is!! With a couple glasses of white in hand, we munched away the rest of the afternoon on salamis, hams, soft & hard cheeses, hand-made and spiced butter, artisan breads and, of course, plenty of olives! Oh yum!!

As evening was approaching, we began the journey from one valley to the next, over the mountains, to Stellenbosch. On our way, we noticed that DeLaire Winery was still open for tastings, and since we had heard so much about their incredible views, we figured a quick stop for some sunset photos might not be a bad idea. This, surprisingly, was one of our best stops of the entire Wine Tour Week… the views from DeLaire – the highest situated vineyard in the entire region – were unbelievably breathtaking and the sun setting over the mountains cast shadows and a pink glow over the green hills, purple flowers, and rolling vineyards below. Yeah… pretty amazing! And the outside was just the beginning – inside, DeLaire was more a modern art museum-turned-tasting-venue with massive oil canvasses, sculptures, water features, and ornate lighting fixtures. It was difficult not to walk around the entire area – both inside and out – without a gaping mouth. But the views and décor were only a bonus! Because on a whim, Adam decided to do a tasting while I was snapping away a gigabyte or two of photo space and, again, much to our surprise, these were some of the best reds we tasted all week!! I will let him do the full explanations in his post on tastings, but suffice it to say that we were both taken aback!

Finally back at “base camp”, we stumbled away from The Stumble Inn for some grub in town and, per usual, we were indecisive on what to eat, so we wandered until something caught our eye: Japanese Tapas. Yes, we could do that. Genki – a Japanese restaurant, with a rather old Japanese sushi chef – was set back in a courtyard amongst niche storefronts. Its interior posted mirror-mosaiced walls, bamboo texturing, and an unbelievable amount of pink and red Chinese lanterns lighting the ceiling. Again yes, we could do that. We ordered reasonably light since we had already pushed the limits of our budget on Franschoek that day, but decided upon first bite that this was some of the best Japenese food we had ever had… ever! We both ordered simple starters and rather light meals, but as we were quick to discover, there was nothing simple or light in this Japanese – my miso soup was the most unbelievably complex and flavorful miso concoction, the sashimi salad was divine with the freshest cuts of salmon and line fish in a spicy sesame dressing, the tempura prawns were enormous and perfectly battered, and of course, the sushi and nigiri were perfection. Yes, we did do that. In fact, we did it again before leaving the area and would have fit in another visit if time allowed… it was that good!

Wine Country Tour – Day 4:

Today was our semi-pre-scheduled, whirl-wind tour of anything and everything Stellenbosch had to offer… and what a day!

First stop was at Kanonkop for some of the region’s most “classic” Pinotages and a quick spin around their small wine estate – the highlight of which was a quote above the entrance that read: “Pinotage is the juice extracted from women’s tongues and lions’ hearts… After having a sufficient quantity one can talk forever and fight the devil.” Amazing!! The gentleman who assisted our tasting was particularly helpful and virtually planned the remainder of our Stellenbosch tour for us, with suggestions and honest opinions on the very long list of potential stops for the day.

Per suggestion, we made our next visit to Simonsig Vineyards, for another style of “classic” Pinotages, as well as some of the region’s only sparkling wines. Their tasting room boasted some of the most interesting décor to date – with chandeliers made entirely out of china serving sets (yes, think plates, bowls, and saucers) and a mélange of photography, drawings, and oddly chosen sculptures. Nevertheless, we did get to see Simonsig’s “classic” side when one of the proprietors opened a sparking white wine bottle with a saber… impressive!

Next up was Bellevue Estate – along with Muratie, one of the oldest in Stellenbosch, established in 1701 – and looking probably not much different than it did in its first few years. The tasting room was small, dusty, and smelled of years and years of crushing, fermenting and bottling. Outside, there were large expanses of open green fields where vineyards once stood (they are now further up on the hills) and Morgen horses have now taken the place of red and green grapes.

After what seemed like an indeterminably long drive, up unkempt dirt roads, following small and virtually illegible signs, we arrived at our fourth stop of the day – Mooiplaas Winery. As we pulled into their small dirt lot, almost a half hour after leaving the main road, Adam and I were fairly convinced that this would not be worth the time and effort it took to get there. We were, quite happily, very wrong. Mooiplaas’s out-of-the-way and way-the-hell-up-there location makes for some of the most interesting and incredible whites in the entire area. In particular, their Chenin Blanc (which again, I’m sure Adam will discuss in much more detail) was by far the best white wine I have ever experienced… and that’s saying a lot coming from a girl that has a strong preference to her beloved reds. We were also the only visitors at the tasting room upon our arrival, so the tasting manager was keen to explain – in quite a bit of detail – the ways in which their whites compared with others in the region, versus reds in the region, and how this was all done with certain growing, bottling and aging techniques. And did I mention that they had my favorite tasting room of all? Entirely stone – with large stone slabs for tasting tables, a rugged stone wall extending to the height of the ceiling, and beautifully marbled and naturally chipped stone floors. Cool, stark, and yet one of the most inviting rooms I’ve ever seen. What a great stop!

Last but not least, though mostly in search of food, we made a stop on the outer edges of Stellenbosch at Kleine Zalze. This long standing estate has been producing easy drinking wines since 1695, but unfortunately, their restaurant was overpriced, so we did not stay long. Shame.

Back in town, we had made reservations at a local, ‘must-dine’ restaurant called Volkskombuis & De Oewer. We felt a bit like Anthony Bourdain in “No Reservations”, but having been in this country for almost a year and never trying traditional, Afrikaans (Cape Malay) cooking, we figured we would give it a go. Not to mention, this place is suppose to be the best of the best… so why not? The meal: we started with a popular appetizer of schnook (shredded fish and spices), Adam ordered the ox-tail strew, and I ordered a tasting tri of chicken pie, bobotie (a spiced mince), and a ‘water lily’ (read as: meat) stew… what a feast of meat!! I could only get about a third of the way through my mean before I was about to burst!!! And while it was a great culinary adventure, I’m not so certain that we would ever have the ‘urge’ for that style again. Nevertheless, we found a lot of pleasure in discovering that there is one nationality that can officially eat more than Americans… and they do!

Wine Country Tour – Day 5:

Our final day in Wine Country was a wrap-up of ‘must-sees’ and ‘must-dos’ that we had not quite yet fit in. But it was, nonetheless, one of our most relaxed and enjoyable days in the region.

First, a stop at Tokara in the early afternoon to take in the views (it is situated in an area similar to DeLaire) and absorb the modern-art-lovers-esque style of the winery itself. While walking down hallways lined with canvasses painted in various varietals of red wine, reading the branches of the sculpted “Poetree” (read: “Poetry Tree”) outside, and marveling at the largest no-casing clock I’ve ever seen (Dad would have loved this one!), we enjoyed not only a free tasting of Tokara’s interesting reds, but also some of their incredible olive oils. Rosés, bread, and olive oil – now that’s what I call brunch!

From there we headed straight back through downtown Franschoek to make a reservation at Café Bon Bon, located in the Kleine Dauphine Wine Estate. This lunch, planned weeks in advance, was my belated birthday feast, saved especially for the French cuisine stylings of the Franschoek valley. We sat on the patio leisurely, enjoying a birthday lunch of meats, cheeses, olives, breads, butters (oh, and that was just the starter…), as well as artisan salads and pork belly! Yummy!!

Headed back towards Stellenbosch, we made one final stop at Vrede en Lust Winery, with their long, stone entranceway and amazing tasting room vista views. This was one of the most impressive tasting rooms we had seen yet, with long mahogany tables decorated with white orchids, overstuffed leather couches beside tables with antique estate books, and a breeze patio leading directly into the vineyards at the foothill of the mountains! All the women in the tasting room wore fashionable, bright red, dresses and were well-versed in the colorful history of the estate. The wines themselves ranged from chilled whites, to bold reds, and even a blush blend called “Jess” – how nice!

Once we had arrived back to “base camp”, we spent a lazy evening at The Stumble Inn with some fellow, now-familiar, travelers and made one last outing to my new favorite stop in town – a gellateria that served a dark chocolate and orange ice cream confection that was purely divine!! Adam also partook in some spirits at the Inn’s local haunt – The Trumpet Tree – for one last taste of Stellenbosch’s buffet of offerings to wine-lovers, food-lovers, and travel-lovers alike.

Thus – filled to the brim with Pinotages, Chenin Blancs, and high-growing blends; bursting at the seams with breakfast pastries, charcuterie plates, Japanese Tapas, and don’t forget the gelato; and feeling as though we had experienced a complete immersion in the astounding beauty that is the vineyards, hills, and mountains of South Africa’s wine region… we contentedly fell asleep on that last night.

Goodnight Stellenbosch. Goodbye Wine Country. Thanks for the indulgence of a lifetime!!

RWO: Have Your Cake, and Eat it Too

2011-01-16T11:30:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

Early on in our training, we learned an important distinction between the word for “chicken” and the word for “cake” in Zulu & SiSwati. “Chicken” is pronounced as “inkhukhu” in both languages, whereas “cake” is pronounced, coincidentally similar, as “khukhu”. Not really a big deal, right? I mean, it can’t be so bad to say, “I like cake” when you actually mean to say, “I like chicken”… could it? Well, it turns out that “cake” actually translates to mean something rather crude about female anatomy, so when our friend stated “I would like some cake” in Zulu, he was very quickly (and very frantically) corrected by one of our LCFs. Luckily, after being here for nearly a year, we have found that actual cake doesn’t seem to be such a popular thing in South Africa, so luckily we haven’t run into too many problems… but it’s still handy to know!!

RWO: Coombies, Bakkies & Donkeys, Oh My!

2011-01-16T05:00:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

South Africa has several modes of transportation, the least of which (at least for PCVs) is the car.

First and foremost, is the “coombie” (spelled an assortment of different ways by different people). This public, mini-van taxi is used by almost all the locals, including PCVs, for all their daily transportation needs. The taxis, which resemble older models of Dodge Cargo vans, comfortably seat 13 people (3 per row and 1 up front)… So therefore, the minimum in each taxi is usually 16 (3-4 per row and 1-2 up front). And now a couple things about the coombies: 1) the seats are almost always broken, so getting from row to row is often tricky; 2) the speakers are almost always too big, meaning you will often hit your head as you move from row to row; 3) the windows are almost always kept close, so you wish you could just die from the heat; 4) the coombies are always full, which means you will likely be squeezed between at least a couple of overweight gogos or mothers, as well as their 6 shopping bags, 3 bags of produce, umbrella and purse, and at least one child.

Second, is the “Bakkie” – basically just the South African term for a truck with either an open or closed bed. These are not “permissible” forms of transportation for PCVs, but they are nevertheless one of the most common forms of transportation for workers, especially in the Nkomazi area. With such a large population of migrant workers, we see bakkies with no fewer than 6-10 people in the bed, crouching from the wind, rain, or sun. To date, the most impressive sighting was a bakkie with a large cage frame for shuttling cattle in which there must have been at least 20 workers crossing back over the border into Swaziland. And we thought coombies were squished…

Finally, are the donkeys. And no, these are not common modes of transportation in South Africa (they are, however, in Lesotho), but I mention them here because of a humorous discovery early on in our service. That is: a donkey actually costs less in South African than a bike. Yup, about r400 for a donkey, as compared to a minimum of r700 for a bike. Thus, when Peace Corps offered us bike stipends for getting to and from work, there was more than a few of us that considered the donkey option instead… none of us actually followed-through, of course, but it certainly would have made for a more entertaining commute!!

‘Goodbye 2010 and Hello 2011’ or as it might be more aptly titled, ‘The Times They Are a Changin’

2011-01-15T08:04:00.001-08:00

Jess writes:

First and foremost, Happy New Year to everyone!! Sorry we’re a little-more-than belated on the New Year wishing, but we’ve been keeping very busy (and very entertained) on the road with fellow PCVs!! And have been knee-deep in beginning-of-the-year work upon our return to Thembalethu!!

But prior to the start of work, Adam and I arrived back to site from not only some incredible Holiday vacationing, but also from celebrating a relaxed New Years Eve in Graskop – including New Years Day pancakes and a great trip into Kruger – accompanied by some of our favorite fellow PCVs! And before I delve into a plethora (and I mean literally a myriad and massive number) of Travelogues, RWOs, and other ponderings covering the past month, I felt it necessary to put up this New Years post. Not only mark the new year itself, but more importantly, to commemorate the passing of a year that has been full of changes and the entering of a year that should bring about some pretty amazing changes as well! So where to begin…

2010 was certainly chalk-full of happenings – both wonderful and difficult. At the very start, Adam and I embarked on an adventure that can easily be described as our most momentous to date – a Peace Corps service invitation to Africa. And while it would be impossible to sum up a whole year’s worth of living and working here in words alone, I can definitely claim that it has been one of the most life-changing events that we have ever experienced. I would not try to fool ourselves or others by saying that it has been easy – not in the slightest. Training, placement, site change, adjustment… the past eleven months have actually been some of the most trying times of our marriage together. And we have often found ourselves in late-night conversations about our complete understanding of South Africa’s highest early volunteer termination rate in global Peace Corps – with its extreme first-world/third-world dichotomy and the very complex remnants of Apartheid and governmental evolutions. Nevertheless, even in the midst of our most difficult times, we often find ourselves appreciating, ever more gratefully, the many ways in which we have seen each other grow – our increased level of patience, our capacity to discuss and empathize, and our ability to smile at even the smallest joys in our day-to-day life. Furthermore, we’ve been introduced to an entirely new breadth of finding happiness in life and it has helped us to put into perspective the way in which we face our challenges and celebrate our successes.

Back home, as always does, life has continued on for our families. And we have both cried and smiled at the changes we hear about in phone calls, read about in emails, or see in photos…

Adam’s family has had some incredible successes in their newest professions – Nate found a great fit at a new position in Davenport, Don has been a force for impacting economic change in the city of LaSalle, and Donna has entered new waters as Fund Development Director at Adam and Gina-Marie’s alma-mater, St. Bede Academy. Following these transitions, Donna also returned to school to pursue a graduate degree in the development sector! Thus, I have been witness to several phonecalls and emails describing the many tribulations of masters work… and though I can sympathize fully (fully!!), I also know that she can and will make it through in time!

Speaking of achievements, Grandma Mary celebrated a healthy, happy and incredibly momentous birthday in November – the big 9-0!!!! A huge party was organized and she found herself surrounded by nearly one hundred friends and family from across the nation! And though Adam and I were heartbroken to miss the event, Adam’s parents set up a photo frame with our picture on one of the main tables so that our presence could be felt!

Added to all of these occasions and changes, we received the happiest Aleksy news of all in 2010 when Gina-Marie and Nate called to announce that they were expecting!! And while they are still holding off on finding out if we will be welcoming a niece or nephew in mid-February, we have been able to hear about the glorious progression of a baby bump (and even see its start when we visited in August!) and feel all the excitement in their voices as the final months of pregnancy approach! I can honestly say that Adam has been beside himself at the thought of being an Uncle, and while I am usually the one most apt to get excited about little socks and onesie outfits, I think he actually had even more fun at picking out the ‘African Babes’ clothes with lion ears on the front and poofy tails in the back – too cute!!

On my side of the family, we faced an extremely tough start to the year with a funeral service for my Papa Ben and the loss of my Granma shortly thereafter. And though the grieving process was necessarily difficult for us all, we were also relieved to know that after over 70 years of marriage, my mother’s parents were not separated from each other for very long. In fact, we smile at the thought of their reuniting – that my grandfather (who is mostly deaf) and my grandmother (who mostly ignores this fact) probably had the following conversation:

Granma: “Daddy, is that you?”
Papa: “What?”
Granma: “Oh yes, daddy, that is you.”
Papa: “What?”
Granma [a little closer/louder]: “It’s me daddy.”
Papa: “Oh, hello mama, what took you so long?”

It most certainly would have happened, perhaps even word for word, in that fashion. *Smile*

For my family, toughest of all in 2010, was the long wait for my mom to get her much-needed and much-delayed hip surgery. This finally took place in October, and although the procedure ended up with more complications than expected, I was able to hear my mom’s voice with almost no pain for the first time in over two year just before the holiday season (that was the greatest present I could have hoped for this year). Best of all, just before the end of 2010, my parents called to inform me that she had attended her third post-op doctor’s visit and taken her first steps entirely on her own!!!

I cannot neglect to include here that my dad, who willingly admits that mom is usually the glue that holds us all together through the toughest times, has been our family’s rock in 2010. And knowing that he has been able to somehow keep it all together for us is the only thing that has made me being so far away through it all possible. And hey, it’s good practice, I’m sure we’ll find more to throw at him over the coming years!

Finally, my sister had what I call the “long haul” year, as she transversed the continental United States (a couple of times, actually) and ended her travels with a new (well, kind of old…long story) love. I exchanged several emails and phone calls with her about this newest re-addition to our family, and the person I believe my sister was always meant to find again in her life – Devin. And another little tidbit… I have actually withheld this post for quite a while so as to finally have permission to announce…

My sister and Devin will be getting married on May 1, 2011!!! So while she has been focusing on the most pertinent of issues at this time – such as housing options and career paths via her new locale in Kentucky – I have been spewing Facebook messages about colors, flowers, and cake flavors – how very typical of each of us!! Anyways, while there are no official “Save the Dates” to be mailed out yet, I am already looking forward to the anything and everything that is a sister’s wedding – a bridal shower, dress shopping, cake tasting (ahh, cake tasting!), and so forth. Now I just need to figure out that whole I-live-in-Africa-and-she-lives-in-the-U.S. thing… hmmm... but, as always, we’ll work it out!!

And there you have it… what a year!! And with that, 2011 begins!!! Needless to say, ‘The Times They [certainly] Are A Changin’! And all I can really say at this point is that we’re looking forward to a great New Year!!

A Christmas Eve Story

2010-12-24T04:00:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

This post is my very small, very far-away gift to my family, and particularly my dad – whose voice I will be thinking of on this Christmas Eve night.

[Materials needed: one very specific reasonably old copy of “The Night Before Christmas”, one blazing fire in the living room, an assortment of dogs and cats, one comfy couch, one mom across the room (camera optional), two sisters, and one dad to read the story. Okay, begin, but don’t forget all the important comments and side notes... that is, if I've remembered their order even somewhat correctly.]

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.

[Make sure to point out the cute mouse and, of course, the black cat that we are pretty sure is suppose to be in every picture.]

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.

[I never really knew what sugar plums were, but I love all the candy!]

And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled down for a long winter's nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

[Remind me again why anyone would where a 'kerchief to bed? Oh, and by the way, I'll be thinking about how this looks really, really cold with the window open, and how I wouldn't mind a bit of that chill here.]

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.

[Isn’t this the one where the cat isn’t in the picture? Where is that cat?]

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name...

[Now we try to do this part together, without cheating/reading too much…]

"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

[Okay, a couple mess-ups, but pretty good!]

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.

[Why is that section written so difficultly?]

So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

[Oh! Hello Santa!!!]

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.

[Okay, now this is the page with all the pictures, so we have to read slowly.]

His eyes, how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.

[Why is the turkey on fire? Seriously, why?!?]

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk.

[This next part always makes me smile, I don’t know why...]

And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.

[...I think it might be because of how much I like that smirk and wink.]

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight…

[And of course, everyone here...]

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night."

Happy Christmas Eve family! I love you all, and miss you all very much! Now go to bed Nannan, so that mom can force dad to stay up and finish all the wrapping and stocking-stuffing with her!! G’night family. And g’night everyone!!

RWO: “Fa La La La La, La La La La”

2010-12-20T09:30:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

Everyone here can sing. Seriously. Everyone. And they’re all really good. South Africans grow up singing and dancing in church, in school, and at home, so they are pretty much virtuosos by the age of 4! It makes attempting any song – even a simple Christmas tune, even in front of small children, even in a language they don’t understand – really, really intimidating! I think I might just stick with the humming parts... and the fa la la’s…

RWO: Sodas, Pops & Cold Drinks

2010-12-17T06:00:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

Random South African travel tip: If you would like to order something cold to drink, that is not water or fruit juice, you may simply ask for, creatively enough, “Cold Drink” (it’s understood in all 11 official languages here). This is the common name for anything and everything soda-related. Simple and to the point, we like it! And PS – we get to drink a lot more of these glorious concoctions while on vacation (i.e., now!)… oh how we’ve missed you, sweet, sweet Coke & Fanta Grape!!

Vacation Time!!!!

2010-12-14T04:00:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

As you read this, Adam and I will be starting out on our holiday vacation to Cape Town’s Wine Country and South Africa’s sunny south coast!! Soooo excited!!! We’ll try to keep the posts coming… and you should all know me well enough by now to be certain that there are at least a couple of posts already scheduled, don’t worry! In the meantime, to all of our family and friends back home, we hope you’re not stressing too much about last-minute shopping and be sure to drink some hot chocolate and eggnog for us! And to all our fellow PCVs here, we hope you are having a fabulous start to a much-needed, thoroughly-enjoyable, and oh-so-deserved holiday break!!

Salani kahle!!

A Day in the Life of a PCV… Again... At Present

2010-12-10T08:30:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

I realized recently that even though I’ve done this type of post a couple of times, at various different stages in our time here, I hadn’t ever taken the time to write one out for our new site in Nkomazi. And since, therefore, we seem to get a lot of “So, what exactly are you doing now?” questions from friends and family, I figured I’d delve into at least one more of these before the holidays. Here goes…

While Adam and I are no longer in one of the three official Peace Corps training phases (PST, Community Integration – aka Lockdown, or IST), site change to Schoemansdal has put us in a weird limbo between the “Community Integration” phase and the actual, post-training “Service” phase. Thus, our lives have very quickly settled into a routine at our new site, but we are always finding new things that we want to do, see, etc. And even though we are still overcoming all the cultural and locational difficulties of a new site/family/work/etc., we are always thankful to be in this new, (much prettier and much friendlier) community!! So, as with all the previous PCV phases before, I present to you a typical “Day in the Life” of our present Peace Corps life… Enjoy!

7:00AM - Wake up. But often times earlier than this, because A) I have insomnia and B) our little house gets really damn hot in the morning nowadays. With a tin roof, the inside starts heating up pretty quick in the mornings and, simply put, it’s just impossible to sleep in that kind of heat. Next, as at almost any site, we have to make sure anything related to water is taken care of – so if it’s a water day, we begin collecting, filling, filtering, etc. (refer back to one of my most detailed previous posts)! Next we pull up the mosquito netting (it hangs just below the bed sheets, so it makes getting in and out of bed difficult if it’s down all day) and make the bed… which Adam hates that I want to do every morning! Then there’s time for tea, some granola or cereal, and usually a little time online to check email/news or reading some of my Time magazines to catch up on other global issues – of course, Adam usually uses this time to read his bike-maintenance books or biker mags!

8:30AM - We’ll usually get around to locking up the house and saying goodbye to Siyanda, our host brother, in the yard on our way out. If we want to be to work by 9:00am, or a little after, we have to be leaving by 8:30am since our walk to Thembalethu is just over a 2km (30 minute) walk. As long as it’s still this early, the heat usually isn’t so bad yet, and luckily the lengthy walk is almost entirely flat, so at least there’s no hiking involved in order to get there! On the way, we always greet the fruit & veg lady at the stand located just off our road – she greets us very loudly and very slowly so that we can practice our SiSwati – so cute!! We also pass all the little shops and convenience stops (food stands, car washes, barbershops, etc.) along the way, so there’s plenty of other people to greet during the walk. There’s also a plethora of animals to avoid along the way – mainly cows with their enormously large horns – that like to stand stubbornly in the road or path in everyone’s way… how convenient! When we get to the Way Inn Plaza, we’ve almost arrived at the Thembalethu compound and we can see the Wildly African building and its brightly painted exterior and all of my favorite little goats walking around in the shade outside (and yes, I have one little goat that is “my goat” and he was about the size of a cat when we first arrived and now he is getting soooo big. Oh, they grow up so fast, don’t they?).

9:00AM - Arrive at work (of course, we’re often on “African Time”, so this varies) and begin greeting the many, many people that work on the Thembalethu compound. First, there’s Vusi (the Drama Team coordinator) and the Drama Team members, they almost always sit at the little picnic table at the entrance before they begin their rehearsals in the great hall; next is the Wildly African staff – consisting of Thabo & Sizakele (in the Fabric Painting Department), Johan, Ndumiso & Moosa (in the Wirework and Recycledwork Department) and Idah, Fortunate, Nomiah & Mirriam (in the Beadwork & Sewing/Embroidery Departments) – they’ll be found either outside the WA building cleaning in the morning or in their workshops prepping for the day’s art projects; then there’s Joseph & Dumisani, two of our organization’s drivers, that are usually working on some form of car motor-part in the main driveway; next is Patrick, our IT Coordinator and computer lab “Chief” (we quite literally call him “Chief my Chief”), who is usually meandering around the compound in the shade before having to take over supervision of the lab; closely behind we usually find Cleopas, our Deputy CEO and Peer-Education Coordinator, along with Vincent, Zachele, Nomcebo & Rosy, our Peer-Education Facilitators, between offices to organize lesson plans at their four local schools; then comes the kitchen & cleaning staff, supervised by Koekie (pronounced ‘Cookie’) bringing hotpots and teacups to the various admin offices and sweeping along all the dirt walkways outside; in the conference center are all the pre-schoolers and our two Crèche coordinators, Jane & Sonto, attempting to organize all the little ones into some type of song or morning exercise; next is the admin office, where Sandra and Lorraine are chatting inside with piles of paperwork strewn on the desks; across the way are all our HBC and OVC coordinators – Thabi who organizes all logistics for Home Based Care, Margaret who oversees all the admin processes, Sphiwe who manages the medroom and clinical visits, Cynthia who handles all carer-to-patient counseling for both adults and orphans/vulnerable children, Jabu who organizes all trainings for new & current carers, Busie who oversees all logistics for the Orphans & Vulnerable Children program (and who is the counterpart that accompanied me to LST), as well as additional support staff in charge of housing, prevention, outreach, and treatment; and finally is Sally’s office, our organization’s CEO, at the very edge of the office row under some leafy trees to provide much-needed shade, where you can find just about any coordinator or employee in a meeting with her throughout the day. Now that’s a lot of hello’s if I do say so myself!!

9:30AM - Let the meetings begin! At the beginning of the month, this is usually a very lengthy organizational meeting in which every coordinator (there are quite a few, as I just mentioned) provides a summary of their current programs, numbers, stats, etc. Throughout the rest of the month, for Adam and myself, this time is usually taken up by meetings with the Wildly African staff, fellow volunteers that are providing support to our current projects, or other coordinators with whom we are working on specific program goals. Meetings can last anywhere from 30 minutes (unlikely) to 3 hours (more likely) as the agendas are usually somewhat unorganized, meandering, and often lend themselves to off-the-topic discussions. Not to mention we have to spend half the time translating into two at least two, sometimes three, different languages. But hey, that’s Africa, right?

11:00AM - Depending on the previous meetings, around this time we are hopefully starting on the day’s “to-do’s”. And, again, depending on the previous meetings, this can vary greatly! For example, I currently spend a lot of time in the computer lab working on a complete revamping of our current Thembalethu.org website, as well as the expansion and upkeep of our newly-created Thembalethu Home Based Care official facebook page (please find us and “Like” us!!!). A lot of this work involves taking photos, collecting information about the organization, meeting with coordinators to go over project descriptions, and of course formatting, formatting, formatting. I also assist with proposal and grant-writing related tasks with the Thembalethu admin (related to just about anything, really) and am often called out of my current work for impromptu meetings in Sally’s office to discuss wording, benchmarks, beneficiaries and all the other wonderfully tedious little tidbits related to funding requests. Finally, my last – but primary – project is everything related to the Wildly African project. At some point (perhaps in the new year, when we actually have more a plan in place) I can write more about the work related to this project, but just suffice to say it can range from working with individual artisans on a new jewelry design to emailing with retailers in England about consignment orders. Eish!! And Adam, while he does not have the concrete-type projects that I have (or should I say, have created for myself…), he is incredibly patient and acquiescent with all of my requests and pleas for favors related to those projects described above. Not to mention the fact that the Thembalethu staff have found plenty of other tasks for Adam to tackle on a day-to-day basis. First and foremost, he has become the go-to-guy for anything computer related on the compound (did you know that Adam is a computer specialist…?? Well, neither did he!). Nevertheless, he is often trying to solve any and all issues related to virus protection, lost files, hard drive formatting, and of course, the ever-dreaded, Blue Screen of Death. More often than not, he’ll usually try to escape these technical jobs to assist Joseph & Dumisani with sporadic jobs around the compound – mainly because they often relate to car maintenance and Adam loves any excuse to play with motor parts. And finally, he also gets called down to Jeppes’ Reef on occasion to install software, assist with reporting, or to provide advice/training on basic monitoring and evaluation. So… we keep pretty busy, for the most part.

1:00PM - By this time, we’re usually starving (and the computer lab is usually stifling), so Adam and I will head to our “regular” spot for our “regular” lunch together. Our “regular” spot is a crumbly stone table and bench under an extremely scraggly tree just beyond the computer lab, on the outskirts of the compound. It’s cooler than most places on the compound, the least busy by far, and offers a view of the street so that we can watch all the gogos walking to and fro with all sorts of goods and materials on their head. Our “regular” lunch is a meat and cheese sandwich, with lettuce and mayo or mustard (we found a great whole-seed French mustard that is actually cheaper than South Africa’s version of French’s Mustard… go figure) and, on special occasions (or at least once a month when I’m craving chocoloate…) we have leftover brownies as well. And yes, when we have brownies, I lick every little morsel out of the bag!

1:30PM - Back to all that work described before, with some haphazard interruptions throughout the day for various (usually random, but usually entertaining) things. For example: a reporter will come by to get the scoop on some new funding we’ve received or the start of a new project hosted by the organization (this usually involves photos and is always on a day that we’re not dressed accordingly); the Drama Team will sometimes put on a mini-performance of a new song or portion of their awareness skit in the main hall for our critique and approval; Dumisani will have to make a run to the local clinic or government offices and will offer to drive us to the post office, plaza, or other convenient location to save us on time and energy (thank you!!); donors will stop by the compound to discuss ongoing projects or new ideas with management and the volunteers (aka, us); there will be an afternoon staff training on computer skills or, my favorite, “How to Use Facebook Responsibly” (probably my fault for introducing the whole facebook thing… he he!); tourists will randomly drive in to shop at the Wildly African store (at present, it is often in a very makeshift state, ugh) and they’ll get a complimentary tour of the artisan workshops and compound before they go; and sometimes our breaks just consist of taking a stroll by all the offices, stopping in to say hi to people who are having mid-afternoon tea breaks, enjoying the purple-covered ground caused by the post-blooming jacaranda trees and – if you time it just right – peeking in at the preschoolers as they all snuggle, five to a mat, for naptime.

3:00PM - Although the organization technically stays open until 4-5pm most days (except Friday, when we close at 2pm), Adam and I usually start winding up a bit early so that we have enough time to get our other “chores” done for the day. Our walk back home is usually quite a bit hotter than our morning jaunt, so it usually takes us a bit longer as well. And at this time of year, we physically feel as though we are melting on our return trip, so the whole right-foot-left-foot-right-foot thing that we call “walking” becomes really, really, r-e-a-l-l-y hard. Also, because of this lovely time of year, we’ll sometimes get caught in rogue, mid-afternoon downpours on our way back. This usually involves timing the return trip in a way that allows for you to huddle under a very large tree or one of the small, cement bus stops with about a thousand other people until the road that has become a river is raging more slowly and we can begin the walk home again. Oh… summertime. But we can also make use of the walk back for some random grocery needs (bread, eggs, and long-life milk at the Jabulani market) or the occasional fresh produce purchase (oranges and apples from our fruit and veg lady).

3:30PM - Or later… we arrive home. I told you, it takes longer on the way back – kinda like flying west. Anyways, our first to-do is to turn on all fans, open all windows and get our little oven of a house to cool down as quickly as possible before we suffocate. Sounds fun, huh? Needless to say, the house heats up convection-style during the day, so we have to hope that there is a cross-breeze strong enough to push out the sauna-like feel of our two rooms in the afternoon.

4:00PM - Next, comes any chores that require a significant exertion of energy – simply because you want to get them out of the way so that you can just lay down and sweat, instead of stand and sweat. This includes washing dishes (oh how we miss our dishwasher), sweeping the house, hauling in any last-minute buckets of water, etc.

4:30PM - Now drenched in sweat from our walk home and miniscule house tasks, we usually seek out any form of moving air or cool water that will bring our temperatures back down to normal. Several techniques that we have discovered are: standing anywhere, inside or outside, in the shade, where any form of a breeze exists; splashing water on all extremities, including face, head, chest, back and neck; sitting on the end of the bed, about two feet from the fan, with the setting on high; or, when all else fails… filling the bath basin with water, removing all unnecessary clothes, and sitting on the edge of the bed, while splashing our feet in the water, about two feet from the fan, with the setting on high. Yeah, we’ve gotten pretty desperate.

5:00PM - This is usually about the time that we break out the computer. As you’ve probably figured out at this point, our computer is not only our blog-writing, finance-tracking, and picture-organizing processor, it is also our only source of mindless entertainment via the endless viewing of movies and TV shows. And mindless – and I mean completely mindless – entertainment is just about the only thing that will allow you to survive the last few hours of heat in the day. Thus, Adam and I have become virtual virtuosos at not only quoting several movies almost line-by-line, but also singing the theme songs to several popular TV series – of which, the proudest of my most recent memorization accomplishments has been the theme song to “The Big Bang Theory”. Do you know how fast that theme song is?!? No seriously… you should really try it sometime!! (“We built the pyramids!!!!!!”)

6:00PM - Our brains have usually cooled enough at this point to start thinking of food once again, so we start the long discussion of “what’s for dinner”. Weighing out the options usually involve a lot of consideration of other factors, such as: How much of this will require heating (and thus making the house hotter)? How much of this will require time (because it’s starting to get late)? And most important… How much of this will require actual work (because we simply don’t want to do it)? But, nevertheless, dinner always gets made (mostly by Adam, because we all know I suck at cooking) and it varies quite a bit – from our laziest days of pasta and garlic bread to our more ambitious days of roasted pork topped with onions and garlic. Of course, there are also those days when it’s still over 100F at 6pm and then we usually just resort to cereal… or ice cubes.

7:00PM - Eating, computer-watching, snacking, internet-checking, you get the point… But noteworthy around this time is the drums that start up. You see, we have several Sangomas (traditional healers) in our area and, once the sun has gone down, they begin their rhythmic rituals. And while Sangomas are not our closest allies in Peace Corps service (a lot of their practice hinders our preventative work with HIV/AIDS), there is something about their drumming and ritualizing that makes me visualize an older South Africa, a more African South Africa, a time not so long ago that lingers still, but just in the backdrop – like I said, after the sun goes down.

8:00PM - It’s finally cooled off enough by this time that a bucket bath will actually keep you somewhat clean for the remainder of the evening. So, we begin filling our bath bucket, hauling in the bath basin, and laying down the towel to catch the water before it goes under the bed (so that we don’t attract any more mosquitoes than are already calling our little home, ‘home’). We also have to heat up at least enough water to not be shaking when the fan swivels towards us, but as the summer progresses, we’re finding that we can easily bathe with less, and less, and much less heated water!! Since it takes over an hour for us to both complete the somewhat tedious bucket bathing process (pouring single cups of water over your head does not wash out conditioner very quickly…), we usually use this time to also make last minute updates on facebook, check email, or chat with our families back home – and by the way, these phone calls are later at this time of year since South Africa doesn’t observe daylight savings time, so our families are now an additional hour behind us. Oh South Africa.

9:30PM - Round about this time we hit the nightly dilemma of whether or not we start a movie (and push our bedtime to a startling 11:00pm, what?!?) or stick with TV shows to ensure an earlier turn-in time. Wow… we have given a whole new meaning to “old married couple” haven’t we? But irregardless of what we watch, we always end up spending at least a portion of our time getting sidetracked by some sort of discussion. We talk about our homes back home, our new home here, our work, our projects, our little glimpses of change and excitement about possibilities, of course our frustrations as well… in general, the life that is Peace Corps and how now, nearing almost a year into this whole crazy endeavor, we still seem to have so much to learn and so much to figure out… but that’s life, right?

10:00PM - This is about the time I start to zonk out… but there’s a background story here (of course). Unfortunately – mostly for Adam, but also for me – I’m on a different antimalarial medication than he, due to counter-interactions with other medications. The problem is, my antimalarials make me a bit of a crazy person… well, to be exact, the side effects primarily cause anxiety, paranoia, overly-OCD tendencies, and bordering on slight psychophrenia. Oh, and worst of all, they make me a raging insomniac. Great wife, hey? [Damn Mefloquin.] For this reason, Peace Corps has chosen wisely to prescribe a counter medication that calms, relaxes, and just about knocks me out at night! Ah, lovely little pill! So while Adam finds out the result of horrible credit card debt on Marshall & Lily’s relationship in season 3 of “How I Met Your Mother”, I slip serenely into my drug-induced sleep! (Kinda gives a whole new meaning to “old married couple”, doesn’t it??) But what is the added bonus of this little miracle medication you ask? Well I’ll tell you: now, when it’s pouring rain at night and I wake to the thought that it is extremely likely that our house is presently flooding due to all the leaks in the tin roof… I just don’t really care. He he! It’s kinda like a less A-typish version of myself – not too shabby!

10:30PM - I wake to Adam putting away the computer, hard drive and speakers and have to at least pull myself out of bed long enough to spray down the top sheet with bug spray, brush off all the bugs that subsequently die, and unclip the mosquito netting so that it sits nicely along the outside of the bed. And have I mentioned how glorious that mosquito net truly is? Aside from the itchy bites and mysterious “visitors” that it prevents, it’s just such a wonderful thing to not have any flying critters buzzing incessantly in your ears all night!! Oh, I love you mosquito net!

11:00PM - Hopefully sleeping…

And, as always, weekends are a grab-bag, but almost always include at least something related to collecting water, doing laundry, collecting more water, grocery shopping, and maybe finding a not-so-needed excuse to have a drink or two with fellow PCVs… oh yeah, and probably something else related to water.

And that, folks, is all she wrote.

So I’ll just end this by repeating something I’ve written in a similar post before: It’s not an American-style life, nor is it really an African-style life, but hey, it’s our life… at present!

Lucky Number Twenty-Seven

2010-12-07T00:01:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

Today I turn 27 – oh boy – but it’s still my lucky number! And since it is my lucky number and since this lucky-number-age is occurring at a time in my life when so much is going on, I figured a short post might be in order. So here goes…

Twenty-seven has been my lucky number ever since Freshmen year in high school, when I was randomly assigned a volleyball jersey with said number. But, as with many things in my life that I have to come to love and cherish, I was not so thrilled about the random assignment at first. 27?!? What a horrible sports number! It’s too large of a number to be memorable on the court (my old sports number was always 4 – small, memorable… perfect!) and it’s too small of a number to be interesting (example: baseball players that choose something ridiculous like 88). Ugh. The assigned number, however, served me very well that year and with that 27 on my back I became a competitive player and moved up ever-so-steadily through the ranks of high school volleyball. Thus, I deemed 27 as my new lucky number.

And over the years, my love of the number has grown, in various ways, for various reasons.

Let me start with a rare, and somewhat scary, look at my brain’s left side: The number 27 is mathematically intriguing to me – I love the fact that it is only divisible by 3 and 9. I also love the fact that 9, conveniently, is also only divisible by 3! It’s like the entire composition of the number is meant to be self-sustaining, neat, and complete. Yeah, I know, it’s crazy.

Okay, now a look at the oh-so-wonderfully comfy right side of the brain: I love the way that ‘27’ looks – yes, it’s actual appearance – it has curve in the ‘2’ and angle in the ‘7’, but in a way that is much more complimentary than something so stark as ‘81’. Not to mention the fact that the number has a perfect bottom line in the ‘2’ and a perfect top line in the ‘7’, creating a perfectly complete shape! And if you think that is weird… wait for this one… I also love the sound of “twenty-seven”, as in the way that it is actually spoken! It’s both strong and aggressive at the start with its double ‘t’s, as well as soft and almost feminine with it’s ‘v’ and ‘n’ on the finish. And better yet, it’s one of the very few evenly-perfect, four-syllable numbers in our language (the others are those that also include 7 – i.e., 37, 47… 71, 72… etc.). So it sounds bolder than those silly two-syllable numbers like “fifteen” and far less cumbersome than those visually impressive numbers like “four hundred and fifty-two”.

(Ha! And to think there may have actually been anyone that was not aware of my completely off-kilter and obsessive nature… alleviated that uncertainty, didn’t I?)

But back to the number and, more importantly, what the age itself has come to mean for me. Starting in my teen years, 27 began to take form as the perfectly odd-integered oasis in my world of even-integered, overly-idealistic benchmarks. I would think to myself: By 24, I will have finished school, maybe even some higher degree, and I’ll be making my way towards my “adult life”; by 26, I will be getting married and settling into a cute little apartment in the city or an adorable home in the suburbs; by 28, I (technically “we” at that point) will be starting to think about a family and maybe already have little ones on the way; and finally, by 30, I will be “the real deal” – an educated, employed, and responsible adult, given the societal stamp of approval. Perfect, right? Well, at least that’s how my meticulously planned-out life looked in my mid-teen head. And to add to that, you see, the odd years in there almost always carried with them some frightening overtone: 25 had a quarter-century-ness to it that made me start to think about the whole “getting older” thing; and 29 had that definite “getting older” feel as the last twenty-something year and that meant I might have to face the worst possible fate of having not gotten it “all figured out” by then!!! (Yup, I was even obsessive as a teenager.) But 27 was just there, situated snuggly between school, marriage, a career and kids. Not too close to 29, far enough away from 25… what a wonderful place to be!!

And so now, having finally arrived at 27, how did it all work out? Well, not too shabby…

The school stuff was thoroughly completed, including another degree that I am extremely passionate about; the falling in love and getting married dream happened unexpectedly (but wonderfully) sooner and will always be one of the happiest times of my life; the whole settling down thing hasn’t quite panned out yet (my family is probably laughing at this part because they know how I feel about “settling down”)… you see, I gave into an insatiable wanderlust that has brought me to some of the most incredible places on earth – eventually giving way to the Peace Corps – and I just don’t know that I’ll ever have my fill of the world… so, therefore, some of those other benchmarks have been a little thrown off schedule. For example, the starting a family phase will probably not be quite on track as “Child + Africa does not = a great idea” and “Child + travelling only semi = a plausible option”. Similarly, while I have had the most incredible past few years delving into my chosen profession, my well-planned career path as become more of a well-manicured career field… with no real sign posting for “forward”, but a plethora of pretty wild flowers to smell along the way… so, for now, I’m just enjoying the walk [mom, that last part was for you…]. Thus, I doubt that I’ll be the truly bonified “adult” that I envisioned by age 30, as Adam and I spend most of our time dreaming about all the possibilities of future schools, future jobs, future places to live and future places to visit… and at some point in that dream we also linger on the thought of getting back to some civilization that has great cocktails and Happy Hour. He he!

But all in all, I would say that as my lucky number twenty-seven has arrived I do indeed feel incredibly lucky – lucky to have had all the opportunities to experience so very much. Most important of all, I feel overwhelmingly lucky to have family, friends, and a spouse that has encouraged and supported me in realizing all those dreams that I’ve dreamt since a young age. And thus, I’m not so worried about getting a little off-track anymore. In fact, I can honestly say that I’m okay with not being “the real deal” of an adult quite yet… because I’m realizing there are just too many other things about life in which to indulge… and eventually I’ll get it “all figured out” along the way!!

So, from 27-year old me, to the luck and karma of the world: go ahead and keep mixing things up a bit, I think I’ll be ready for whatever comes next.

RWO: It's Hot Here

2010-12-05T07:00:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

It’s hot here (great "Random Weekly Observation", huh?). And I know that you are all very well aware of that fact, since we complain about it a l l t h e t i m e. Ugh. But I thought it would be worth pointing out one humorous observation about the heat and that is the sheer, debilitating effect that it has on us humans, and how we try, vainly, to cope with it. I don’t think anything will illustrate this point better than a short story about a fellow coworker on one, particularly hot day at Thembalethu. Enjoy!

It was already over 100F by 10am and getting humid. All of us on the compound were starting to feel the weight of, well, just the air in general. By noon it had reached a far-too-balmy 114F. The fans did nothing but blow hot air in your face – that is, when the electricity was on – and even in the shade you could feel your skin wanting to just peel off in an attempt to cool you down. The general consensus of the staff was that our brains were beginning to literally sizzle in our skulls. And for those of you that have experienced that kind of heat you know that there is a point where you just are unable to think any further. Basic tasks become impossible. Actually attempting to work on a project is akin to asking a preschooler to perform brain surgery. And eventually, you just stop functioning…

Thus, the scene is set:

Adam was crossing the courtyard and saw a fellow coworker walking in his direction with some papers in hand. Obviously he was headed to one of our many offices to drop off some work, make copies, or some other related function. Before they passed one another, our coworker stopped short. And then he just stood there. He looked up at the sun. He looked down at the papers. Still just standing. So, as any of us would do, Adam asked with a smile, “Did you forget where you were headed?” To which our coworker responded, “It’s hot out.” He then turned around defeatedly and headed back in the direction from whence he came. And that was that.

The point of this story: He was right. It was just too damn hot out.

Travelogue: Durban

2010-12-01T07:57:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

Many of our fellow PCVs assigned to the KwaZulu Nataal province had been to Durban before, frequented it even, as their ultimate shopping down or get-away-destination. But for most of us in Mpumalanga and Limpopo, LST was our first visit to the sunny city. As I mentioned in a previous blog, ‘sunny’ was not an entirely accurate descriptor for the day we arrived and many of the training days that followed – for example, we left the Nkomazi region on a balmy 41C (about 106F) day and arrived in Durban the following day to a bone-chilling 22C (about 72F) – keep in mind, since we’ve been hovering around the high 30C’s to low 40C’s for over a month now… climate changes such as that above, well, pretty much suck. Furthermore, while Nkomazi experiences fairly frequent downpours in the late afternoons and evenings, we had spent most of the our recent days in the blistering sun, or rather, trying to get out of the blistering sun. And Durban, much to our surprise, was damp, grey and bordering on tropical storm-force winds for the first four days we were there. What the hell?!?

But hold on… because eventually the “Durban, as advertised” eventually began to take shape.

On almost the last day of training, the weather warmed to a vacation-esque temperature, the sun came out over the sand and surf, and finally (finally!) the promenade and boardwalk took on their much-anticipated, resort-style look: people walking and biking along the beach, children building castles in the sand, throngs of visitors splashing in the waves, and windows flung open from every street-side restaurant so that diners could enjoy the sea-salt breeze. Ahhh… now that’s more like it.

And once our outlook on the city had gone from drizzly to dreamy, we got a look at what Durban really has to offer:

First of all, many of us newcomers to Durban agreed that the city could be described best as “The South African Miami” – beachside, of course, but also overly-colorful, surprisingly dingy, and boasting that oh-so-tacky flare for tourism appeasement. But, then again, to Peace Corps Volunteers that live in cement huts in dusty villages, what’s not to love about that?!?

The promenade and boardwalk, just along the beaches of the Indian Ocean, boast overly-priced curios, and overly-tourist-friendly dining (i.e., basic American and European cuisine), but also serve as a great location to stroll, listen to the waves, and best of all – enjoy live music, drink in hand, overlooking the ocean at sunset. And of course, a group of us enjoyed an evening of doing just that, as a friend of a fellow PCV was playing at a local night spot while we were in town. I was surprised at how much enjoyment I got from something that was once so common-place at home: a drink at a bar, a little live music from some local talents, and just random chit-chat with friends… oh the things we take for granted when we have a little money, a little transport, and a little civilization. ;-)

Just off the boardwalk, there’s plenty of adolescents hawking umbrellas, broad-brimmed hats, and towels – which I always find humorous, since they are basing they’re sales on the assumption that you just might be the kind of beach-goer that would forget these necessities… when going to the beach! He he! But, hawkers and unprepared tourists aside, the beaches themselves are divine – soft sand between your toes, beautiful shells to collect along a walk, and surprisingly large waves in which to waste away the afternoon hours. And while you do have to stay ever-mindful of keeping within the boundaries of the shark nets (we have some pretty big sharks here!) and not getting tangled up in a semi-poisonous jellyfish, there are fairly helpful lifeguards to wave you in the right direction of the “safe swim zones” and pour vinegar on your tentacle stings. And hey, those worries are really nothing compared to the biggest concern of all: sunburn. What people say about the African sun here is unmistakably true – it is simply ten feet away from your face. All. Day. Long. Uh. But, once again, I am focusing more on the negatives… when in fact, all in all, if you arrive prepared (and with copious amounts of sunscreen), the Durban beaches are a veritable sun and surf oasis and I, like any native coaster, soaked up every minute of that at-home feeling!!

Okay, now moving off the beach: Perhaps Durban’s greatest claim to fame (aside from its beachside location) is its indulgence in anything and everything Indian. As Durban was the most popular port of entry for Indian immigrants to South Africa, the city has become saturated with the colors, smells, and flavors of the Indian culture. Every street corner boasts an Indian restaurant and every supermarket has an aisle dedicated to the ingredients necessary for a truly Indian dining experience. Thus, on our first day after training (since Peace Corps trainings always come with three, free meals a day and you would have to be crazy to pass that up on our stipends!), we headed out from the beach to find some eastern-flavored grub. The first place we came across was small, with no real attention to décor and a menu on the wall that boasted pictures of the listed meals – not necessarily a good sign. However, all the diners were clearly of Indian descent and all the staff was clearly related, with at least three generations represented – all very, very good signs. So we headed in. First thing we spotted was a generous selection of naan – good start! Next, was the generous selection of curries – also great! And when the server/grandfather came to take our order, he spoke softly, in broken English, and ensured us that our dining experience would be quite satisfying – now this is our kind of place! Since we had little knowledge of the vast array of Indian cuisine, Adam chose to ask the nice server/grandfather what he would suggest if his own family was eating in his establishment, and without even a second’s hesitation he declared (quietly, of course), “mutton curry”. Okay, mutton curry it is. And oh… my… gosh… mutton curry it was!!! Adam described the extremely-spicy-but-too-delicious-to-stop-eating-for-even-one-minute dish as the best food he has had to date in South Africa!! (And we all know that is a lot coming from Adam!!!) All I could say was “oh yum” and “okay, need bread and water”! Ha! So, first Indian food experience: success!

After lunch, we moved to our new locale for the weekend – Surf n’ Dreams backpacker – which is located quite conveniently to one of Durban’s street-long hotspots. Thus, that night we got to experience another side of Durban’s culinary scene: Florida Road. Pronounced Floor-eee-dah by the locals, this street offers every possible size, style and type of food that one can imagine – and all within in a 1k block! How glorious! Oh where to begin… there’s Bangkok Wok for Thai food, Simply Fish and Simply Sushi for any type of seafood you desire, Delux Burger for the basic and not-so-basic delite, Santorini for Mediterranean yumminess, Cubana Grill & Havana Lounge for some Latin flavor, Spiga for indulgent Italian, Butcher Boys for a big ol’ slab of meat, the all-but-required House of Curries for traditional Indian, and so much more! The group of lingering PCVs chose, as virtually mandated, Taco Zulus for some ooey-gooey Mexican… with real tortilla chips! Of course, we paired this lovingly with some margaritas and Coronas and had ourselves a wonderfully filling taco, nacho, and burrito feast! What a great end to our Durban training!

Over the weekend, the swarm of PCVs thinned out and our activities slowed to a relaxed, vacation pace. In particular, Saturday was perhaps our most relaxed and enjoyable day! We started off the day with a walk down Musgrave Street to the shopping center. Along the way, we ogled at unbelievable houses with a Miami-meets-Beverly-Hills style to them, each with manicured lawns, lush tropical gardens, and some form of ornate water feature drawing in every imaginable color of bird. Walking downhill on Musgrave, we got to see incredible views of Durban in the morning haze – the semi-skyscrapers with rooftop pools, the multi-colored apartment buildings, the gorgeous World Cup stadium, and of course the coast and beach in the distance. Once at the shopping center, we cut through the parking lot (we weren’t actually going to the shopping center!!) to get to Essenwood Street and hiked back up a few blocks to arrive at the Saturday Street Market. Not exactly on the street, but rather, in a gorgeous, green park, flanked with mini rolling hills (the perfect kind for sledding as a kid!), and stunningly tall trees that provided much-welcomed shade. The market itself, while traditionally Indian at heart, has expanded beyond roti wraps and sari stalls to include adorable children’s clothes, French breads & cheeses, massage stations, Swazi dress wraps, hand-woven hats & mittens, fresh cut exotic flowers, a miniature crèperie, a modern furniture and décor section, and even pony rides and water sports for kids! Not surprisingly, we were able to meander away most of the morning between the market stalls, eating our way through several of the day’s courses by the afternoon. Why can’t every village have a market like this to spend our Saturday mornings at?!?

When we had had our fill of marketing, two fellow PCVs led us to a hole-in-the-wall book store that was rumored to be well worth a look. And, as it turned out, Ike’s Bookstore was a pretty great way to spend the afternoon! Located just off the main drag of Florida Road, at a private entrance with a buzzer by the door, an antiqued staircase leads you to the semi-slanted, beautifully musty-scented interior of Ike’s. The bookstore itself is a converted apartment, with multiple rooms, a large common area, and an amazingly breezy and comfy wrap-around porch that overlooks the ever-bustling street below and the coastal side of downtown Durban. Each room of the store resembles something from the crazy, Great Expectations home of old Mrs. Havisham – each categorically fashioned to match the genre of books in that section. Thus, the décor boasts everything from massive wooden desks, old fashioned type writers, and Americana tin-plated adverts of sunny vacation destinations to hand-sculpted African buttresses, Apartheid-era paraphernalia, and Ndebele beaded jewelry. Likewise, the books are equally diverse, with titles ranging from 18th century British medical handbooks and original writings on the exploration of the African continent to James Beard’s books on fish cookery and colorful depictions of the American 1960’s. You could quite literally spend a couple days in this store and, since the wonderful shop manager questioned us enthusiastically about our service in the country and the store owner offered us some refreshing white wine to have with our conversation, we too stayed well past closing and indulged our inner-bibliophiles.

By the time that late afternoon approached, we made reservations at Spiga for large plates of Italian that night and began heading back up Florida Road to Surf n’ Dreams for a game of Hearts (since we had four! Yay!) by the pool. En route, however, we were met halfway by a gathering swarm of onlookers waiting for… well… we had no idea. As it turned out, there was an impromptu, down-hill, skateboarding race about to take place! Adding to the adventure was the fact that apparently no one had informed the authorities about this race and, therefore, the bustling Florida Road would not be closed for safety. Hmmm, this should be interesting… The skateboarders appeared, several in very creative and brightly colored jumpsuits, overalls, and patchwork pants and zig-zagged their way down the south-bound lane. Cars in the north-bound lane swerved frightfully out of the way to avoid those lazy riders that drifted across the lines…oops. There must have been at least a hundred of them! And eventually, from top to bottom, as far as you could see down the hill, skateboarders had taken over Florida Road and caused a completely stopped chaos of cars on all sides. At the tail end, a couple younger kids rode down the hill while sitting on the skateboard – much more comfortable I would think – and then finally, trailing behind the entire pack was one, lone police car… lights on, no siren, with an officer at the wheel that had an obvious expression of “how the hell did this happen…”. Ha! Silly Durban police officer!!

Returned to the backpacker. Cooled our feet in the pool. Talked about all the trouble we may one day get into during happy hours in Portland. Played a rousing game of Hearts (we’re dorks). Included lots of trash talk. Pet the cute backpacker dogs in their ridiculous little shirts (one says “I’m too cool for obedience school.” Oh my.) And then… Back to Spiga for a glorious dinner in a breezy courtyard, by a bubbling fountain, under the first string of Christmas lights to go up so far. And oh, the food! Quite possibly the best Italian we’ve had yet in the this country: thick spaghetti bolognaise, gnocchi in a creamy marinara sauce, raviolis in white wine reduction, and I paired mine with a peach belini…. Ah. In fact, on our last day in Durban, when we were doing nothing but relaxing at the backpacker (and my husband was recovering from an unknown fever… don’t worry, he’s much better now!), we got take-out from Spiga… of almost the exact same order. Yes, it was that good. And yes, if I had brought another backpack, I may have gotten take-out to bring back to site. Shame.

And there you have it. Durban in a weekend.

Needless to say, we could have stayed (and eaten) a little while longer…

L.S.T.

2010-11-27T03:04:00.000-08:00

Jess writes:

Last week, Adam and I attended yet another of our –ST’s in Peace Corps! This one, following PST and IST is “Life Skills Orientation Training” (as mentioned in a previous post, apparently the ‘O’ does not mesh well with the acronym, so it is conveniently left out!) LST pairs PCV’s with their counterparts, usually from departments of their organizations that focus on work with orphans & vulnerable children or education with adolescents. The purpose of LST is to train PCVs and their counterparts on the techniques associated with transferring critical, life-changing skills to youth – i.e., responsible decision making, anatomy and sexuality, myths & facts about HIV/AIDS, etc.

Thus, with Margaret (from Jeppes Reef) and Busie (from Thembalethu) in tow, Adam and I made our way to sunny Durban. Well, first of all, not so sunny when we arrived… but that’s okay, we were staying in a hotel with flush toilets, showers, and a 3-times-a-day free buffet!!! Ahhhh, civilization!!

As always, it was great to see some of our further-away-fellow-PCVs, all those Limpopo and KZN people that we only get to fraternize with on the rare occasion that Peace Corps pays for our transportation to get together! And, also as always, the training itself had its high points and its lulls, but unlike some other PC trainings we have attended, the counterparts at LST were surprisingly engaged, communicative, and questioning – oh my!! In fact, the majority of questions and input came from our South African coworkers, rather than our fellow PCVs, a rare and entirely surprising thing to witness! Nearly all the PCVs made some mention of this observation and all of us felt pretty excited to be a part of the experience!!

While the overall training was fairly informative, certain highlights stuck out:

For example, AIDS Soccer…beachside – hosted by our own Nkomazi-based Alex Tran – in which teams were divided into ‘HIV’ and ‘Immune System’. The ‘Immune System’ team was expected to play by all the regular rules of professional league soccer, while the ‘HIV’ team was (conveniently) allowed to push, hit, kick offsides, and in general, create all-out chaos on the pitch. Furthermore, team ‘Immune System’ was often given red cards for penalties such as “falling down when being pushed” or “unfair goals”… for absolutely no reason!! And finally, whenever an ‘Immune System’ player was escorted off the field for receiving these dubious red cards, they were also given a paper describing the type of stigma with which they had been assigned (i.e., ‘Prostitute’, ‘In Denial’, etc.) and another ‘HIV’ team member was invited to join the winning team. Slowly but surely, team ‘Immune System’ was down to only a handful of flagging players and team ‘HIV’ had increased exponentially in size to almost twenty players!!! (Are we getting the metaphor here??) Thus, it was a truly unique and fun way of providing a visual to the HIV vs. Immune System battle and, of course, also allowed for lots of trash-talking and laughs!! Thanks Tran!

The mid-week, Role-Play Teach-Backs were also pretty entertaining. These were performed by PCVs and their counterparts, in pairs or small groups. Each would be given a lesson to ‘teach back’ to the larger group in some type of engaging way. Busie & I were assigned “Decision Making” and decided to focus on the ineptitude of many youth to assist their fellow peers in making tough decisions in life-altering circumstances. In order to introduce this approach, we acted out the following – slightly stereotyped – skit, where Busie played the role of a young female in trouble and I played the role of an unhelpful schoolmate:

Me: Hello SesBusie [Sister Busie]! Howzit [how is everything]?

Busie: Hello sesi [sister], oh, not very good. Yesterday I found out that I am pregnant… And I can't tell my parents...

Me: Eish! Shame…

Busie: Yes, and now I think I will have to marry an older man to pay for everything…

Me: Oh my sesi, ooh…

Busie: And he will not let me go to school, because I will have to take care of his other children…

Me: Oh so sorry…

Busie: And I will have to sleep with him in order to get enough food for me and the baby…

Me: Eh! Shame sesi…

Busie: So I have no idea what I should do, I’m struggling.

Me: Yebo [yes], I see this. I do. So do you want to go to town after school today and look at the new skirts at PEP?

Busie: Ummm… okay.

The fact that Busie spoke in perfect English (with perfect grammer) and I spoke with a very heavy South African accent and utilized every physical gesticulation I could think of with all the ‘Eish’ and ‘Shame’ remarks had everyone quite amused, and yet, we also seemed to get the point across quite well.

And finally, while not entirely related to training, perhaps the best part of LST was witnessing the sheer joy of our counterparts playing at the beach. While it may seem entirely normal to any of us (especially those of us that grew up on or near the beach), the thought of running in the sand and, quite literally, frolicking in the waves was unsurprisingly foreign to our wonderful, South African coworkers. Thus, on the very few days when afternoon sessions allowed for free time on the beach, our counterparts were some of the first to strip down to bras, slips, and other undergarments and go rolling around in the tide! It was delightful to watch – as uninhibited PCVs and spontaneously free counterparts dove under white caps and got tossed onto the beach by every other wave. At one point, I sat beside Busie and Margaret in the surf and asked if they had ever been to Durban before. Both had, but at much younger ages, with family. And Margaret added with a huge smile, “But I don’t ever remember having this much fun!” Yeah, it made me smile too!

So all in all, I think our counterparts took back quite a bit of useful information from our LST lessons and sessions, but more so than anything else, I think we all got a rare chance to see eachother just having fun – acting like carefree kids in a profession and country where we (both volunteers and coworkers) do not typically get a chance to do so. It seemed to me that this was a true vacation.

RWO: Hey, Hi, Howdy, Hello

2010-11-11T22:30:00.000-08:00

“Hello”, in almost all indigenous South African languages, translates literally to “I see you” (yes, think Avatar). And the formal way of greeting someone is in the plural, which symbolizes not only addressing them, but also all those in their family, which we think is kinda nifty. Where we live, it’s expected to greet virtually everyone you see on the road to/from work by at least making eye contact and saying hello, “Sawubona” or “Sanibonani”, and asking how they/their family are doing “Unjani” or “Ninjani”. This becomes especially important when passing Gogos (grandmothers) because they are particularly happy when greeted by visitors, so the procedure usually involves slowing your pace (perhaps almost to a stop in the middle of the road) and often involves much more elongated and inunciated greetings, “Saw-u-boooo-na”, and even sometimes a hand shake/hold as well. The only time that these greetings are waived is during particularly busy travel time, such as when school lets out… simply put, because it is virtually impossible to stop and talk to that many kids! But either way, it certainly does put a new (or perhaps old) twist on the whole nod-and-mutter-greeting that we’ve come to love so much in the States… ahhhh.

Block B: From Big Braais to Boo Bashes

2010-11-04T09:40:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

October has been the month to be in Block B – the town on the East Side of Nkomazi that one of our fellow PCVs calls home. And while Block B may not be the most convenient get together location for all, our Block B PCV happens to have the largest host family home in the area – hence, the place to eat, drink, and be merry! So, this month, Block B hosted two Nkomazi events: A BBQ, dubbed “The Newbie Braai”, and an oh-so-creative Halloween Bash!

The Newbie Braai brought together the last-few-standing SA19s (from January 2009), the feet-now-wet SA21s (us, from January 2010), and of course, the shiny-and-new SA22s (from July 2010). We were also joined by some Afrikaaner friends that were assisting with a video project in some of our PCV villages! Coming from the western reaches of Schoemansdal and the eastern reaches of Steenbok (as well as the civilizations of Pretoria), we gathered to cook way too much food and welcome our new Peace Corps family members. Beginning with Mexican food (what else?) on Saturday night and topping it off with an obscene amount of bbq-ed meat on Sunday, we managed to cover everything from Peace Corps paperwork requirements to the best shopping spots in “the pocket” (aka, Nkomazi)! All in all, it was a great way to get to know our newest neighbors. So, to Matt, Kristy, Andrew, Meg and John: Welcome!

The Halloween Bash was just that – as we joined with our Nkomazi crew, as well as some fellow 21s from far-away Mpumalanga lands (okay, not really far-away) and some of the other volunteers/residents from our own Thembalethu family! The highlight, of course, were the very creative and the not-so-creative costumes that accompanied the night. Bottoming out the list, sadly, was our own group from Schoemansdal – due mainly to the last-minute decision to join on our small budget – so… Adam dawned his Porkslap t-shirt and we called it a “beer snob” costume; I put on a skirt for the first time in almost 6 months and called myself a “Peace Corps Trainee”, Hank (the Dutch volunteer at Thembalethu) wore his normal clothes, which screams enough EU-ness to be considered a “Johnny Depp-ish” look; and Corey (our Thembalethu-based American resident) wore, well, nothing that resembled any form of costume, but gets more credit than the rest for driving us all over there in his wonderfully air conditioned car!! Next came the all-blue jumpsuit that designates the typical, South African “Eskom Worker”, made even better by the fact that the pants were more than a couple inches too short; followed by our resident “Cat Lady”, which was basically every-day wear as long as you were carrying around Savannah, the house cat; then the mosquito-netting-winged “Mosquito” costume, paired with a dozen mosquito-borne illnesses on index cards that were egregiously handed out throughout the evening; arriving fashionably late was our “Indian Couple”, complete with a bindi for the girl and a full turban for the guy; there was also a “Coombie”, yes, the entire coombie, made from cardboard and drawn-on with crayons, that fit not only the driver, but even a few raucous passengers; and finally, perhaps the most disturbing of all, was the… ummm… I have no idea what it was: Afrikaaner-esque short shorts, tall socks, sandals, a Springbok rugby jersey, a two-cup beer helmet, and to top it all off, an insanely tacky South African flag cape – circa World Cup 2010. Oh boy… now that was a sight to behold (I encourage everyone to see the Facebook photos for the full effect)!! In order to make the Halloween party as interesting as possible, our genteel Nkomazi government decided to cut the electricity until after dark, which conveniently added to the Haloweeney feel to our night. But as the dark got darker, we mustered all our night-trekking skills and gathered as much brush and as many random branches as possible in order to create some make-shift firelight in a braai pit in the courtyard – hey, you need at least a little light to keep eating, drinking, and making merry, right?

In the end, as October closed, we managed to celebrate not only a successful welcome party but also a happy Halloween afterall… Block B style… with just a little more than a bit of a South African flare!!

The Continent

2010-10-29T00:30:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

Remember that West Wing episode where C.J. Craig sits in on a meeting of a cartography lobby group that is trying to convince the U.S. government that our current maps of the globe are wholly inaccurate and, with some truly mind-boggling proof, they manage to completely readjust C.J.’s worldview, resulting in her random outbursts (i.e. “Where the hell is France?!?”) for the remainder of the episode?? Come on, that was one of my favorites!! Well, anyways, off the preamble…

This last week, oddly enough, I was involved in more than one conversation that revolved around the incorrectness of maps and the ginormous size of Africa (yes, many volunteers are dorks, like myself, and yes, we do have these types of conversations sometimes!). Then, as luck would have it, I was sent a link (by someone who is aware of my dorky-ness) that just so happened to introduce me to Mr. Kai Krause and his noble cause, “The Fight Against Rampant Immapancy”! The link itself was a redrawing of Africa with other recognizable countries drawn to scale within its interior, in order to show exactly how ginormous Africa really is! How convenient!!! So, as my excitement would have it, I’ve included this image here:

(Since the jpeg is equally enormous, I’d suggest checking out the actual article - click here - to see the original picture!!)

So, as you can see, my recent obsession with ‘The Continent’ and the incorrectness of our world maps is not wholly irrelevant! Africa really is unbelievably huge and our current maps really are unbelievably misrepresentative!!

Anyways, I always find these little tidbits interesting, so I figured I would pass it along. And isn’t it cool to think that if Adam and I ever do manage to do a Cape-Town-to-Cairo trip after our service, we’ll actually be travelling the whole of Japan, India, and Eastern Europe, as well as most of China and some of the E.U.?!? Now that’s a journey!!!

Water, Water (Sometimes) Everywhere

2010-10-28T00:21:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

Today is a water day – that is, the day when the outside water taps are turned on in Schoemansdal – and, due to my new obsession with everything water (think previous site, without water…gr.) I’ve decided to dedicate an entire blog post to the activities that revolve around our water usage. Boring, you say? Well, you might be surprised… or at least thankful for the water that we all have across the pond!!

As it turns out (but nevertheless unsurprisingly) we take for granted the many ways in which we use running water in the U.S. – the pure ease of turning a handle and having hot or cold water at your fingertips – who would have thought it a luxury?!? Well, of course, a bout of service in Africa (or most other places in the developing world) will quickly change your opinion! And now, I can honestly say, I will never take that glorious, running liquid for granted again (much the same with flush toilets, washing machines, and real cold soda!! Ah!)

Water days in Schoemansdal are once every three days (thank god!!) – meaning that, the water taps in the yard (we have one primary and one secondary tap in our yard), come on as such: Monday on, Tuesday & Wednesday off, Thursday on, Friday & Saturday off, Sunday on… etc. And while we are not the luckiest of South African PCVs (some have water on everyday!) we are certainly better off than many (again, think ourselves, at the previous site)!! But since water is such a daily necessity, every PCV develops his or her own system for ensuring that some water is available on the majority of days when the town water is shut off. Thus, on those eventful water days, we take at least a half-day off from work because our focus shifts to hoarding and our schedules are booked with running from the house, to the tap, and back again, with many sorts of water collection containers and water-heavy activities. Take a look:

First, when the water comes on around 8:00am, we get right to the most important item on the water collection list: filling up the reserve containers & restocking our drinking water. As for the reserve containers, we have two, very large buckets (about 5 gallon) that are stored in our kitchen and kept as close to overflowing as possible – this will serve as all the useful water for the following two days. As for drinking water, we have 3 large-handled water jugs (5 litres exactly), 2 metal canteens, and no less than 4 portable water bottles that we fill with ‘clean’ water. To get the water ‘clean’, of course, we have to at least filter the water (we will sometimes still boil the water before filtering, depending on the quality of the water, but usually our taps run often enough to skip this part). Filtering, cup by cup, to fill the 3 large jugs, 2 canteens, and 4 water bottles can take over an hour, with other chores interspersed.

Next, around 9:00am, we move to the chores that require a lot of running water (and time) – namely, laundry and cleaning. For laundry, we fill our “bath bucket” (one of two black buckets, a little less than 5 gallons) halfway with water and some powdered soap and we fill our “bath basin” (a huge, elongated, plastic tub) halfway with water and fabric softener (the whole “bath” part will make sense in a bit… by the way). We then proceed to launder: plunging the clothes in the “bath bucket” with a laundry plunger, or just our hands, and rinsing the clothes in the “bath basin”. A typical load of laundry requires 4-5 changes of soap-water in the “bath bucket” and at least one change of softener-water in the “bath basin”, hence the need to do laundry on water days. Laundry will take anywhere from 1 to 3 hours, depending on the size and will require the rest of the day to dry, hence the need to do it earlier in the morning.

Cleaning, as mentioned above, also requires a lot of water, primarily because everything can get so dirty in the process – i.e., dust rags, the broom, ourselves, etc. And if mopping (which we rarely do, because we both hate it!) we obviously need a lot of water for the mop bucket, which is its own, separate bucket stored in the kitchen with the cleaning supplies. If nothing else, we at least pour a bucket of Jayes fluid down the pit latrine for sanitation sake. Jayes fluid is basically a super disinfectant that you mix with water to keep the pit latrine from getting too smelly or, worse yet, actually unhealthy. But since Jayes fluid is such a harsh chemical, we can’t use any of our reserve, wash or bath buckets for the mixing, so we revert to the mop bucket in most cases.

After laundry and cleaning, we move to the less water-heavy but equally important water-needy chores:

First, there’s washing the dishes, which requires us to fill our hotpot (electric tea kettle) to the top for hot water and to fill our two dish basins part-way with soap-water and clean-water for washing and rinsing. Once the dishes are done for the day, we’ll usually refill the hotpot and two dish basins with water again in preparation for the next round of dishes that night or the following morning (so that we don’t use up our reserve water).

Then, there’s the water needed for cooking. Since we can’t fill every pot and pan in the house with water, in anticipation of needing it later, we will fill our “kitchen bucket” (the other of the two black buckets, a little less than 5 gallons) and store it under the kitchen table.

Next, there’s the elusive bathwater… remember that “bath bucket” and “bath basin”? We will fill the “bath bucket” nearly to the top, with enough room to add some hot water, and bring in the now-empty “bath basin” to stand in for our ‘shower’ (and of course by ‘shower’ I mean pouring water over our head with a plastic cup from the bucket while standing in our basin). And for the hot water, I’ll fill at least one large cooking pot to be heated right before starting. Together, Adam and I use just slightly more than the one black bucket for our two ‘showers’, so if we shower early enough in the day, we can even refill the “bath bucket” for the next day before the water is shut off (so we don’t have to use the reserve water from the blue buckets).

Finally, around mid-day, we will have all buckets filled, all drinking jugs topped off, all canteens and water bottles chilling in the fridge, all clothes & dishes clean (our own bodies soon to be clean too – ah!), and hopefully, enough water collected to last the 48-hours… because the taps dry-up around 4:00pm. Such a sad, sad sight: a tap dripping slower and slower until it… stops. Goodbye water. See you in a few days.

So there you have it! The whole water routine and my reason for being water-obsessive (its understandable now, right?)!! Okay, gotta run… it is water day after all!!

50 Years Later - A Call to Serve

2010-10-22T23:43:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

Aside from the entrance of “Kamikaze October Bugs” for PCVs in South Africa, this October holds some special meaning for Peace Corps worldwide. And before continuing with our typical posts, I would like to take a moment to mention this milestone in Peace Corps’ history…

Last week, hundreds of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, students, professors, and government officials joined at the University of Michigan to honor a call to service that occurred exactly 50 years ago: On the steps of the Michigan Union building, in Ann Arbor’s University of Michigan campus, at 2:00am and in the drizzling rain, then-Senator John F. Kennedy made a speech urging students to serve in developing countries:

“How many of you who are going to be doctors are willing to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world?... On your willingness to do that, not merely to serve one year or two years in service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think will depend the answer as to whether a free society can compete. I think it can. And I think that Americans are willing to contribute.” (October 14, 1960)

It was dubbed the great “Call to Serve”, and while 2011 will be the momentous “50 Year Anniversary” for Peace Corps (as it was founded in 1961), last week actually started it all.

Aaron Williams, our current director of the Peace Corps, made a statement at the ceremony, commenting on Kennedy’s vision of the Peace Corps, "The movement that began here in Ann Arbor went on to change the way America sees the world…” and, most importantly, he added, “…and the way the world sees this country.”

The ceremony itself drew people from every corner of the country, and gathered together people that have experienced Peace Corps in very different ways. One man, Bob Dascola, has a barbershop just a couple blocks away from the Union building, and was only 14 years old at the time. But he convinced his parents to wait up for Kennedy to arrive, heard his speech, and the next day rode his bicycle alongside Kennedy’s motorcade as it left the campus. Bob was never in the Peace Corps, but he says he remembers that experience like it was yesterday.

Gene Schreiber, age 72, was one of the first volunteers in Tanzania in 1961 and is astonished to see that the Peace Corps has continued for half a century. He says candidly, “It was a pioneer type of spirit then… You go and do something new, you don’t really expect it to last.”

Perhaps my favorite mini-story of the occasion was that of Tom Hayden, age 70, who was editor for the Michigan Daily when JFK made his speech and when the Peace Corps formally began months later in 1961. He told reporters at the ceremony last week, “I wouldn’t have missed this. You simply don’t get many opportunities to relive important moments like this in your own life.”

Over the last 50 years, Peace Corps has had more than 200,000 volunteers respond to Kennedy’s “Call to Serve” in 139 countries around the world. So, to the Peace Corps, from a currently serving Peace Corps Volunteer, I say this: “For all your good and your bad, your tough and your insufferable, your hot and your buggy, your patient progression and small steps forward… for your vision of change, one volunteer at a time… Happy early anniversary.”

(Excerpts of this post taken from Detroit Free Press, Ann Arbor Chronicle, NPR, and Google Images)

RWO: Kamikaze October Bugs

2010-10-21T22:41:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

Recently, we have discovered that the early summer brings out some crazy things in South Africa. Some of these are typical – the heat, the rainstorms, the snakes – and some of these are not so typical – power outages, more water (what?), and some crazy bugs. In particular, we have dubbed one bug in our South African English, “The Kamikaze October Bug”, which loosely translates in American English to, “The Dumb June Bug”. Simply put, this mini creature begins appearing at the start of summer (our summer starts in October, opposite of June) like a June bug, is about the size of a June bug, with a hard-ish shell like the June bug, and comes out in the evenings due to its attraction to light and warm ground like a June bug. The primary difference with our “October Bug” is that it is downright idiotic… hence “Dumb”. Specifically, in addition to being attracted to light, it seems to be attracted to anything that spins at a dangerous velocity in which it can get caught, whirled around, and then propelled at unnatural speeds to its crashing death… hence, “Kamikaze”. Without fail, each evening, these stupid little critters find their way into our bedroom, fly themselves into either our ceiling fan or our standing floor fan, and become nature’s very own pinballs against our concrete walls. Worst of all, since their pinpall pattern is so entirely erratic, there’s always a likely chance that their Kamikaze dive will end up hitting one of us, instead of a wall – and man can those little guys hurt at that speed! Nevertheless, they seem to lessen as the summer’s heat increases, so eventually we expect that they will no longer be dive-bombing us while we eat dinner and catch up on episodes of old TV shows. Until then, we just have to protect ourselves under mosquito netting from the World War Arcade Game that has become our bedroom in the evenings! Eish!

G.O.L.D. Camp

2010-10-17T08:45:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

As I look back at our recent blogs, I realize that I actually missed a pretty great two-weekend activity prior to leaving for our visit to the States: The 2010 Peer Education Camp. Since we were super caught up in pre-visit plans and spent our first couple return weeks just laying around missing AC and flush toilets, I never did get around to mentioning our time at the so-called “GOLD Camp”. So here goes…

Thembalethu hosts a program for 14-16 year old students who are nominated by their fellow learners to be “peer educators.” This program, sponsored by the South-African based G.O.L.D. (Generation Of Leaders Discovered) Program emphasizes the importance of leadership, smart decision making, and the importance of transferring knowledge from student to student. Each year, Thembalethu puts on a two-weekend camp for its newest Junior Peer Educators (JPEs – the new “nominees”) to learn about life orientation, lesson plans, and being role models. As the newest volunteer additions to Thembalethu, Adam and I (as well as Heleen, a short-term Dutch volunteer) were invited to join and facilitate the activities. In short, we had three primary roles:

1) “Guest Star Judges” – A name generously given by the Peer Education Coordinator (and Thembalethu’s Deputy CEO), Cleopas, to us. Basically, we were responsible for awarding points to the ‘teams’ of JPEs based on G.O.L.D. goals (i.e., leadership, teamwork, creativity, etc.) and, most importantly, for their presentations at the weekend-end Talent Show.

2) “Ask The Volunteers” – A mid-day lesson brake based on a make-shift question box designed to allow the JPEs to ask any questions they wished of the volunteers (within reason, of course) about ourselves, our countries, etc.

3) “The Obstacle Course” – To supervise the afternoon, team-challenge obstacle course and to award winners, as well as additional points based on the aforementioned G.O.L.D. goals.

Needless to say, this was a pretty easy job – with all the perks of getting to oversee the “fun” activities of the weekend camp!! But specifically, each of our functions had its own highlights:

For example, being the “Guest Star Judges” meant that all the teams were always in a constant competition against one another to win over our attention… So whenever a session started and we entered the room, each team would begin to sing, dance and try to outshine their counter-teams. This usually ended in a completely chaotic scene of roaring song, crazy dance, thunderous stomping, and stupendous table thumping, but it still made us laugh every time at the sheer amount of enthusiasm displayed!! (And of course we always awarded points!)

The “Ask The Volunteers” responsibility was always the most interesting, since many of the questions we were asked – while similar each weekend – each had their own unique, and quirky spins. For example, the most common question pertained to what it was like to live in the United States. However, it was always asked in some great manner resembling, “What is it meant to live in the US where you live where you are from?” And usually, this was followed with something similar to, “And please do you know Mr. Obama or Beyonce?” Ha! I loved these ones!! Another particularly popular topic was the cost of flying to the United States from South Africa, or vice versa, and the cost of other amenities such as cars, houses, school, etc. And in general, there was always a random smattering of completely off-topic and non-question related additions, such as, “I love you! You are so fun! I can go to the US with you now?” We usually got hugs from a lot of those same learners as well – so adorable!

And finally, our role as supervisors of “The Obstacle Course” was perhaps the best of all. Not only did we get to watch all the kids attempt a fairly challenging course – with obstacles ranging from the basic monkey bars and balance beams to cargo nets and cross-tie rope walks – but we also got to witness many of them at their best, and sometimes their worst, but always trying to work together. On so many occasions over those two weekends, while watching all eight of the JPE teams compete, there were times when we were so completely excited when a team would figure out a trick to help eachother out or finally, finally, after many tries, manage to get all of their team members over an obstacle. Of course we yelled and cheered for them while they went through the course, but I feel like more often than not, it was those little thoughts to myself – those, “Yes, there you go, come on, you’re almost there…!” – that were the greatest of all. And sure… it might sound mushy, but it was truly great to see those kids work together to get something done!

And to top it all off, each weekend ended with a presentation by each team that they had practiced for the previous two days. The teams were told to make it fun, creative, and inspiring and they really did a great job at putting together some awesome creations! Most involved some form of song, dance, and skit – each with their own style, but many with very entertaining dance moves and surprisingly funny jokes in broken English! But one group in particular, the “Better Lifestyle Team”, put forth the best presentation of all: beginning with a ‘stomp’ routine that turned into a dance routine, transitioning to short series of teamwork challenges (think circular “trust falls” – pretty impressive!), and ending with few songs that culminated in a soft background hum while a few of the members stepped forward to do spoken word about why the youth of this country are so important and about how South Africa has the potential to move away from its past and more forward to a better future. Yeah… I won’t try to hide the fact that the skit performed by that team was pretty incredible.

So all in all, the weekends we spent with the JPEs at the 2010 Peer Education Camp were truly great – a fun way to meet the Peer Education learners, spend more time with Thembalethu staff, and perhaps, for the first real, tangible time, to feel like something we were doing was actually making an immediate impact on someone’s life. I remember telling my parents that during the camps I had a couple of those “warm and fuzzy Peace Corps feelings” while hanging out with a lot of those kids – to see how happy they were to eat tons of really good food, to stay up late in their huge bunk beds, to play all afternoon on a super cool obstacle course, and to take pride in their new roles as leaders – to see them not only have a good time, but to step up to a new challenge… and to be a part of that. It was a great two weekends!

RWO: Poop In This

2010-10-02T10:48:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

It's been a while since we posted our last RWO, so I decided to opt for a real, basic observation (and because I'm still dreaming about those glorious, porcelin contraptions we experienced once again on our U.S. vacation... ahhh...)

So, as it turns out, pit latrines really are more dependable than flush toilets. They may be gross, smelly and home to stupendously large cockroaches (and yes, the kind that can fly – eek!), but they do always work. We have friends that are living with flush toilets – a true luxury for PCVs – and they are often dismayed to discover that after a long awaited trip to the loo, their luxurious flush toilet is currently not flushing. You see, when the water gets shut off in an area (and this happens frequently in many of our villages), toilets no longer have the capability to flush… I had never really thought about this in the states. So while we have to squat daily in our scary, concrete little hole, at least we can walk away knowing that our business is “out of sight, out of mind”.

From our “Home Sweet Homes” back to our “Home Away from Home”

2010-09-16T09:32:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

As a brief primer: Adam and I recently took the very long 40+ hour round-trip route home to spend some much-needed time with family and friends, and to be a part of a very special wedding! Oh, and did I mention that this trip also gave cause to enjoy some of the finest luxuries in life… namely, running water, a toilet? Ahhhhhh… As a previous post mentioned, we were in the gloriousness that is our “Home Sweet Homes”. And yes, two of them, the Midwest one (with our two, amazing families and many, amazing friends) and the East Coast one (with some of my oldest, amazing friends)!

And how was the visit back?? For lack of a better string of words: unimaginably, indescribably, unmistakably, ummm, incredible! :-)

To begin, we crammed our first weekend with as many parties and get-togethers as humanly possible: first, a much-needed Mexican dinner with both families to celebrate “Christmas in August” (ahhh… Mexican… and Christmas!!)! Next, an always-crazy-and-awesome Duffy’s Night with the whole Duffy’s crew and of course all our amazing friends from every corner of the Midwest, including those that drove in from the Chicago suburbs, Minnesota, Iowa, Ohio (you are all awesome!)! Followed by a thoroughly relaxing day by the Aleksy pool with great food, drinks, and tons of family and friends from not only the Midwest, but also from California, Kentucky and Virginia (it wouldn’t have been the same without you!)! To round out the experience, we even fit in an educational day discussing our work with Peace Corps to Juniors and Seniors at St. Bede Academy, Adam’s alma mater (see an article about our visit in the previous post, titled, “In the News”). And finally, we topped it all off with a “Post-Weekend Partying Party” in the suburbs in honor of our good ‘ol “Tuesday Night (Wine) Tastings”!! (…okay, so that a specific Krajniak doesn’t feel the need to correct my blogging: I was sick for that last event, but Adam went… and can you blame me? I was exhausted!!) Whew!

The following days were filled mostly with family catch up time about the most important things going on in our lives – new houses, new relationships, new pregnancies, new jobs, new ups and some new downs, and so forth – for a full week of relaxed family time. Of course we talked lots about Peace Corps (it’s almost obligatory, right?), but what was best of all was hearing – finally in detail! – all that had happened since we had left. And to actually see people’s faces when they told us funny stories, or talked about plans, or just mused on the moments of love and life from the very full past months… something phones – and not even Skype – can ever fully capture. There were lazy mornings on the front porch and long afternoons at the lake house and all the while we found ourselves doing what one always does when you’ve been this far away from home for a while… looking around at the people surrounding you and thinking to yourself, “Yup, this is home.”

It was pretty much perfect. Just too short.

And then we were off to my second of “Home Sweet Homes”… the oh-so-homey-because-it-smells-a-little-like-old-dirt-and-salt of Cape Cod. Ha! Everything about landing on the East Coast brings me back to what I love about growing up there and once I’m reunited with friends I very quickly revert to a slightly plumper version of my seventeen-year-old self, only now with margarita in hand!

This trip was also too short, but we managed to fill it too with plenty of friends and conversations: late-night discursions en route from the airport, old-time chatter in the back of a friend’s workplace, mass catch-all catch-ups at wedding-related functions and one-on-one laughter in the pre-shift midday. And of course, we did this all over as much seafood as we could possibly scavenge – seafood raviolis, fried calamari, clam and quahog chowder and plenty, oh plenty, of lobster!!

And I have yet to touch on the actual wedding itself – Kimme & Brian’s – in which I was a very high-heeled, champagne & mahogany, bridesmaid! It was stunning! And while I would have loved to have had the entire weekend to eat raw confetti cake batter with Kimme in our pajamas on the couch… *wink*… I was beside myself to see her – in her beautiful ivory lace, all smiles… and some tears – on the day that she got to marry Bri. I had jokingly told Kimme & Bri that theirs was the most we had ever paid for a wedding present (that, being the tickets home), but the truth is that not much would have stopped me from being at that wedding… not even the entire Atlantic ocean. (And both of our incredible families knew this as well, so all the thanks go to them for making the whole thing possible!!)

So… all in all, we had the very best of possible trips home: family, friends, and more love to give, receive, and be a part of than we could have ever asked for!

But, eventually, we had to get back on that plane…

And now we’re back in our new home, our “Home Away from Home”, as many of us like to call it. And while we would never trade in any of our experiences in the Peace Corps thus far, it is nevertheless difficult to come back after such a great, albeit short, trip back to those other “homes”. So our first days back have been long… and hot… and once again we are readjusting to bucket baths, and pit latrines, and fans that simply do not have a high enough setting.

In fact, in a phonecall the other day with a friend and fellow PCV, we were asked “So how’s the transition back?” I laughed to myself, as I pictured ‘Transition’ as this allusive medical condition that every PCV accepts upon entry to Peace Corps, a pre-existing condition of sorts, which every PCV must self-medicate and treat on a monthly, weekly, and sometimes daily basis. All these ‘Transitions To’ and ‘Transitions From’ that pop up like nasty allergies when you finally think you’re becoming immune to the local ailments… argh. “So, how’s the transition back?” she asked. “It sucks.” I answered, but with a laugh. “Yeah,” she replied, “It’ll take time. Geez… that’s gotta be weird.” Yes, weird it is.

But just last night someone from home – someone that can always make me smile – sent me some encouraging words to ponder, my favorite of which was a quote by Thomas Paine: “What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly; it is the difficulty that gives everything its value.” This reminded me somewhat of the slightly borrowed-and-altered PCV philosophy of, “What doesn’t kill you, makes for a great story.” I guess the truth is, none of this will probably kill us (except maybe the gargantuan millipedes) and while all these ‘Transitions’ are obnoxiously persistent, without them there certainly wouldn’t be any value in the stories that we will one day be able to tell about our time here. And most important, regardless of any of the difficulty, I wouldn’t have given up visiting home for anything – to share those stories we’ve already made here and to bring back ones that we’ve just been a part of – well, that’s worth the whole world right there.

We love you all… and miss you always.

Salani kahle!

In the News...

2010-09-02T09:50:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Section: Front Page-A3

By Matthew Baker
NewsTribune Reporter

One St. Bede Academy alumnus got a very early head start on homecoming with a visit back to the academy Monday with tales from the other side of the globe.

Adam Aleksy and his wife Jess spent the day speaking with students about their experiences in South Africa as Peace Corps volunteers.

Using his trombone skills, St. Bede Academy junior Joe Mauck (from left) plays a South African vuvuzela as classmates Mike Venegas, Ty Dobrich and Ali Braboy look on during a classroom presentation by Peace Corps volunteers Adam and Jess Aleksy. The Aleksys are working with the Peace Corps in the village of Schoemansdal in South Africa. (NewsTribune photo by Amanda Whitlock)

For the past seven months the couple has been living in a country filled with disparity.

South Africa’s major cities are very well developed, but the country’s rural areas are basically the third world, Adam explained.

“We live in the third world part of South Africa,” he said.

They are currently residing in a small tin-roofed home in the village of Schoemansdal.

The home features fairly consistent electricity but dishes are washed in a set of tubs with the used water being dumped outside the house. Similarly, the closest they get to a bath is a set of larger tubs in which they stand while pouring heated water onto themselves.

“I had my first actual shower in seven months a few weeks ago,” said Jess with only slight exaggeration.

Their house also comes with lizards, which aren’t such a bad thing once one realizes the lizards eat the roaches and mosquitoes, Adam said.

Despite lacking in creature comforts, their South African experience has been “fantastic,” Adam said. They still have about a year and a half left to serve in the country.

While in South Africa they are overseeing a café and local craft shop that will cater primarily to tourists. Jess explained the revenues generated by the shop will support the Peace Corps’s humanitarian efforts in the area and the business will create local jobs.

Along with discussing their experiences, Jess gave a short primer on the more interesting aspects of the Siswati language, one of nearly a dozen spoken in the country. The students were most interested in the non-English clicking sounds incorporated in the language.

Students also had the opportunity to try blowing a vuluzela horn – made infamous recently for the loud, droning tones the traditional South African horns produced during this year’s World Cup matches.

Still, not all is well in the country, which explains while the Peace Corps continues to send volunteers into South Africa.

The Rev. Robert Pondant, O.S.B., questioned the couple on a recent report of human trafficking in South Africa.

“There is a massive amount of human trafficking in our area,” Adam said, noting that the problem appears to be on the rise.

Jess said HIV and AIDS continue to be a serious problem in South Africa, as well. In some areas of the country, especially within the immigrant population, the rate of people testing positive for HIV/AIDS is staggering, as much as 62 percent in some cases, she said.

One senior student questioned them on what the Peace Corps does to address such problems.

“What Peace Corps drills into you as a volunteer is: you don’t go in a country and say, “I’m going to do this for you,’” said Jess.

Instead, Adam explained, volunteers work with local organizations to help them build and strengthen their internal infrastructure, thus increasing the organizations’ abilities to grow, increase revenues and perform necessary functions.

The couple also provided information for students who may consider applying for the Peace Corps in the future.

“Over the past few years the Peace Corps has become a very competitive program to work for,” Adam said.

A bachelor’s degree is almost required, but just as important is experience volunteering.

“They want to see a history of volunteerism in your past,” Adam said, adding that St. Bede students, who are required to perform volunteer service hours throughout their high school careers, have an advantage in that area.

He also said students don’t need to worry about having a particular major in college in order to be accepted into the Peace Corps.

For more information on the Peace Corps, visit www.peacecorps.gov.

Home for the... Holidays?

2010-09-02T09:47:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

Adam and I are enjoying some incredible time with friends and family at home, including presents to honor "Christmas in August"! Ha! There will be plenty of updates to come, but for now...

...it's Home Sweet Home!!

Salani kahle!

New Friends

2010-08-19T04:16:00.000-07:00

Adam writes:

Through conversations with my dad, I have come to find out that our friends at Starved Rock Harley Davidson in Ottawa are avidly following our blog and facebook updates. So I wanted to post this with them in mind.

The first World Cup game we went to was Australia v. Serbia and it was a night game. At half time Jess and I got up to walk around a bit and warm up and I saw a guy in a Serbia jersey that I knew from the way he looked that he rode a motorcycle. He was the first guy I have seen here in South Africa that looked like an American biker. See, most bikers here ride sport bikes or sport touring bikes and are usually seen in full racing leathers and full face helmets or lots of reflective gear, not our usual denim and black leather look. As I was trying to decide whether or not to approach him, he asked us if we would take a photo of him and his buddy. So we snapped some photos and then I told him, “I have to ask, you ride a bike don’t you?” “Yeah,” he replied, “Johannesburg Hell’s Angels.” I was surprised and said “No shit” meaning that this was random but he took it to mean that I didn’t believe him and promptly pulled up his sleeve and showed me his club ink on his arm. We got to talking and I explained that Jess and I were volunteers from the States and that we weren’t allowed to operate a motor vehicle except on leave and that my bike was half a world away with my dad and that I hoped to rent some bikes when he and mom came to visit. Well this guy introduces himself and gives me his phone number and tells me that when my dad gets over here that we should get our bikes in Jo’Burg and give him a call and him and the guys would take us for a ride and show us around and oh yeah, he owns and runs a tattoo shop in Josi and if we ever want ink he’ll give us a good discount since we are riders and volunteers in his country.

A few weeks later we got to Graskop, and on the main road into town we saw a bar with sign that had a big motorcycle painted on it named Rider’s Rest. The first biker bar we had seen in this country. We stopped in our first available day and quickly made friends with the two bartenders as you’ve read about in the travelogue. The next night we met the owner, Shannon, who rides with the Mad Dogs MC, a South African club. Well, we spent pretty much every night there and we would sit around with Shannon and discuss the differences and similarities between riding in the States and riding in South Africa. Shannon introduced us to every regular customer that came in the bar and made sure to introduce us to every guy wearing club colors. We talked about what people ride, Harleys are unpopular here because they are really expensive. We talked about rallies, turns out that Graskop hosts three a year. We talked about rides we’ve taken. By the second night it felt like home. Not only had we met everyone at the bar, but people would see us out during the day and wave and say hello and ask if they would see us that night. I should also mention that we only ended up paying for a third of our drinks our entire stay. I am planning on attending the Paradise Rally in May, whether on a bike or not, so that we can not only see the rally but see our new friends.

I guess the point of this post was to show the riders back home that riders here are the same: They love to ride and anyone else who loves to ride is a friend.

I.S.T.

2010-08-19T04:09:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

It’s been almost a month since our last post!! We’ve been neglecting our communicatory obligations – lol! Sorry about that!

Anyways, we’ve been pretty well-sidetracked with Peace Corps Trainings, jobs and projects at the new site, and of course, our many, many plans for visiting home (T-minus 7 days… and counting…)!!!

But as promised, here is our post about IST:

IST, or “In Service Training” is one of several –ST’s during Peace Corps service. First, there is PST (Pre-Service Training), then IST (In Service Training), then LST (Life-Skills-Orientation Training… the “O” doesn’t count in the acronym, apparently), and finally MST (Mid-Service Training). After all those –ST’s, we have COS (Close of Service) and then they ship us back… so each one marks a significant benchmark in our service, bringing us ever closer to that big “Close”. It’s kinda weird… to think that PST is long gone, IST is a recent memory and LST is just around the corner (sometime in October, if all goes as planned). And before we know it, MST will arrive and we will have been here for 15-months, with only one year to go before our time here is done. Strange.

But back to the point…

IST is meant as a four day post-community-integration-and-assessment-get-together, in which everyone gathers, eats far too much food, drinks slightly too much, stays up way too late, and talks about the last three months that we’ve been “on our own” – that is, without the safety net of our fellow SA21’s to see everyday at language class and training sessions. Most of this time is taken up with summaries of our “Community Needs Assessment” reports… of which mine and Adam’s was brief, to say the least, (since we site changed). The rest of our sessions revolved around proper planning techniques for those projects that were identified as a priority during our assessments… which, again, was less-than-useful for me and Adam, since we don’t quite have all our projects figured out (again, since we site changed). So, needless to say, Adam and I got plenty of time to reflect on that recent site change, finish up some other work, and have lengthy chats with our fellow SA21-ers on everything from politics to parties!

So… since conversation marked most of our IST experience, I’ve decided to include here a list of the Top 10 Most Discussed IST Topics (that is, those not related to the actual IST-portion of the discussions), as well as some of their commonly heard snipits. It should give everyone some real insight into the minds of us PCVs… it’s pretty enlightening if I do say so myself! Enjoy!!

Top 10 Most Discussed IST Topics:

• #10 - The Barber Shop: For those who many not know, Tia is our in-house barber. So, heard throughout the week is “I’m next!” “No! I’m next!!” since everyone’s hair is in various, sometimes hazardous, states of disarray. Tia was smart, however, and made a schedule. So we also heard her often saying, “No, not today, but I can fit you into the 4:30 slot tomorrow.” Too funny!!

• #9 - Food: For anyone who has been reading this blog, it should be no surprise that food is a permeating topic for all PCVs. “What’s for dinner tonight?” “You got Chinese food? Where?!?” and the most fervent, “When are we getting those brownies??”

• #8 - Travel: Fill in the blanks, “We went to ______ and stayed at ______ and it was so ______!” We can plan an entire trip around a simple sentence like that… we like to travel!

• #7 - File Sharing: Movies, TV shows, Podcasts and MP3s are kinda like crack to us…lol! The best was, “We have all 6 seasons of Lost!” to which some replied, “No way!! I’ll go empty my whole hard-drive… I’ll be right back!” Ha ha!

• #6 - Illnesses: One PCV got a stomach worm and she explained, “I named him Sipho… which means Gift in Zulu.” Yup… Peace Corps sicknesses.

• #5 - Poop, Vomit and Other Bodily Functions: Closely related to the last topic, although we can often find very normal circumstances in which to discuss any of these items, and rather casually. My favorite is, “Did you know that those beetroots will turn your poo red?” It’s only scary after an hour-long medical session about all the ways in which you can die from “red poop”. Eish!

• #4 - Sex: Those who have… and those who haven’t… etc. You get the idea!

• #3 - Peace Corps Gossip: “Did you hear that…” just finish it up and again, you get the idea!

• #2 - The Newbs: “Who are they?” “Where are their sites?” “Are they cute?!?” With some of the SA22’s on the same compound every day, it was hard not to talk about them every day!

And the most discussed topic at IST was…

• #1 – Our Own Insanity: Yes. Many of us agree that after only six months of service, we may have completely lost our damn minds. We often find ourselves singing or dancing without reason or, worse yet, laughing hysterically without cause! It is entirely possible that we have lost it. But… we kinda like it… so we’ll ride it out and see where it takes us!!

Finally, a few of our PCVs also perfected the start of a wonderful endeavor: a “PCV Anthem”. Currently only two verses long, I sincerely hope that we add to this great song and compile an entire medley of PCV experiences!! But for now, I will end with what has been created thus far:

(Sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy):
A PCV went into town
Riding on a coombie
Asked how much the ride cost
And got called a mahlungi’!
Then he went to Pick n’ Pay
Then he went to Spar
Then he went to Boxer
And bought a lot of Achaar!”

Yup, I think that sums it all up. Anthem, insanity, et all. What a great week!!!

Re-Settling In

2010-07-28T05:57:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

As most of you know, Adam and I have spent the last few weeks in a “semi-homeless” limbo – between sites – but, it did give us a great opportunity to see some of our awesome fellow-PCVs, some incredible local sites, and, of course, the World Cup finals!! Nevertheless, “Site Change” hung over our heads… Where will be go? Where will we work? With whom will we live? Will there be water??? And while we loved our Mpumalanga travels, we were anxious (and antsy!) to get to this new site!

And then the call came…

We bundled our weeks-worn clothes and dirty shoes into the packs and waited by the backpacker road for the white, Peace Corps bakkie to roll in. The bakkie arrived, with driver and APCD in tow, and without much ado, we were off to our new site!! And so, after two months of training, three months of community integration at the first site, a few weeks of chaotic site change plans, and a fortnight of backpacking, we finally arrived in our new, African home…

Welcome to Schoemansdal!

Schoemansdal is a large community of almost 10,000 people – a size that is slightly too large to be considered a Village, but slightly too small to be considered a Township, so some have cleverly dubbed it a “Villageship”. This Villageship is located in the Nkomazi region, nestled between the plains of Kruger National Park (40 kilometers north), the beaches of Mozambique (50 kilometers east), and closest of all, the border mountains of Swaziland (10 kilometers south). Thus, Schoemansdal is a truly beautiful place – with rolling green hills, meandoring rivers, and fields of sugarcane for as far as the eye can see! The people too are uniquely beautiful – culturally Swazi and extremely warm, generous, and welcoming to their white “brothers” and “sisters”! (I should illustrate this point: the second day that we were in community, I was a greeted by a semi-toothless gogo who introduced herself as “The town gogo”. She then proceeded to give me an enormous bear hug and shout excitedly in SiSwati “And now I am your gogo!!” How great!)

And did I mention that we get to speak SiSwati again (our original, target language)!! And… there’s WATER!!! What a luxury!

We will be living on the north side of Schoemansdal, on a family compound consisting of three main buildings – a large family home, a small guest building, and a very clean (so clean!) double latrine. The large family home houses, well, the family!! The Shongwe family has hosted volunteers on two previous occasions and they are well-versed in the PCV lifestyle – including all the ups and downs of the two-year service! And to make us feel at home right away, they visited us after our first night’s sleep and announced that they had decided on our SiSwati names (most volunteers are given local names as a welcome to their new communities). Adam was given the name “Themba”, which means “Hope”, and I was named “Nobuhle”, which means “Pretty” (I wonder if they didn’t call my parents for suggestions, because it is a heartwarming coincidence that my new SiSwati name is my parents’ long-used endearment.)

But to the specifics: our host parents, Mr. Petros Shongwe and his beautiful wife Sithabile, are both SiSwati teachers at local schools (very convenient for our recently re-captured, but floundering SiSwati!) Their four wonderful children (and one adopted nephew) range from age 21 to just 2 and are as follows: Thapelo (first-born son), Lwazi (the adopted nephew), Sethu (second-born son), Lindelwa (the only girl!), and Siyanda (the baby boy!). (As a side note, “Siyanda” literally translates to “The children are enough”, which I think is hysterical!!!) The children are all extremely friendly, very helpful when we are in any need, but are also amazingly considerate of our time and space – that is, unlike most children in South Africa, they will always knock before entering the home, only sit and chat if invited to do so, and will happily take leave if you mention your pending house chores. Most entertaining of all our family interactions is with the youngest, Siyanda, with whom we have very humorous, daily interactions. For example, the little guy is old enough to remember the previous PCV that stayed in the guesthouse – her SiSwati name was Ketiwe – but is still too young to make mental differentiations between non-familial adults. Thus, I often exit the house to a little voice yelling, “Sawubona maKetiwe” (“Hello my Ketiwe”) and short arms reaching up for holding! So my ‘Behavior Change’ strategy has been to pick him up, put him eye to eye, and ask slowly, “Ungubani ligama lami?” (“What is my name?”). He usually tilts his head to the side, ponders a while, and responds “Ummmm, Ketiwe.” To which I smile, and respond, “Cha, ligama lami nguNobuhle.” (“No, my name is Nobuhle.”). We do this for a while until he exclaims “Nobuhle!” and I bounce him up and down while saying “Yebo bhuti! Yebo!” (“Yes brother! Yes!”) Then I set him down and he runs away yelling, “Bye bye Ketiwe!” Ha! Oh well… I still have two years to work on that with him!

The smaller guesthouse – a two room outbuilding constructed entirely of concrete and topped with a tin roof – will house ourselves. (PS – We had our first experience with “rain on a tin roof” last week and while the sentiment may be romantic, I would describe it as more “deafening” than any other descriptor!) Needless to say, this house is a bit of a change from our very large, three bedroom, kitchen, dining room, living room, bathroom and garage at the first site. But, unsurprising to us, we are actually far happier in our bedroom-that-is-also-a-bathroom-and-office and kitchen-that-is-also-our-dining-room-and-living-room!! It’s quite cozy and, while we have had some difficulty finding storage space for all of our newly-purchased home items, we have gotten quite creative with utilizing chairs that double as bookshelves and plushy blankets that double as beanbag seats! And though we miss our roommate, Leonard, and his friendly visitors, there is certainly something to be said for having a home that is entirely ours – no sharing, no extraneous cleaning – just the pure, selfish, exotic concept of “our space”. Ahhh…

The family compound is conveniently located only a half kilometer from the Schoemansdal taxi rank, which, if you’re feeling lazy, you can get a free ride to by any of the passerby coombies (a nice service they offer to the local community members)! Across from the taxi rank is “The Plaza”, a compact shopping center with a Boxer (for bulk or long-life groceries), a Vodacom shop (for all our cellular mishaps), several “China Shops” (random home-goods stores), a large Total Gas Station (for snacks and, for those with a car, of course gas!), and most important – a KFC!! But, since The Plaza might not meet all of our food-ly needs, we can also take a R15 coombie ride to Melalane, our largest shopping town, just 45 minutes away at the edge of Kruger National Park. There we have an enormous selection of shopping complexes, including a SuperSpar... Now, before I go on, I must take a moment to illuminate the amazing-ness of this SuperSpar – with its unbelievable selection of fresh meats, cheeses, bakery goods, fruits and veg, and even a small international food section (with black beans!!!)! Our first venture to SuperSpar could be described as not only overwhelming, but also other-wordly, as we walked around, open-mouthed, at the sheer enormity of diversity and selection! It may be possible to spend our entire monthly stipend in just a few aisles of that one store… dangerous!

But not everything about this new site is beautiful and contented… if it were, we probably would not be needed there. In fact, the Nkomazi region is riddled with issues related to poverty and illness, with one of the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in all of South Africa. Due to its proximity to Swaziland and Mozambique, the area experiences extensive, illegal immigration, which strains employment opportunities, financial resources, and most dangerously – medical services. In fact, local hospital statistics suggest that the regional HIV+ rate might be nearing forty percent, with ninety percent of all hospital beds being used by HIV+ patients suffering from opportunistic infections. Worse still, in the sugarcane fields, where many of the undocumented immigrants find their paid work, the HIV+ rate is nearly fifty percent (Yes, 50%!!!), the highest anywhere in the entire southern African region! These overarching issues of undocumented status, unemployment, and illnesses-of-pandemic-proportions cause a trickle-down effect that stagnates development with other, very serious issues: human trafficking, cultural/racial violence, gender-based violence (Nkomazi has one of the highest rates of sexual assault and rape in all of South Africa), an increasing population of OVCs (Orphans & Vulnerable Children), a decreasing number of matriculating students, and growing concerns about food security and access to potable water. So have no fears, there is plenty of work to be done!

And work we will…

(Adam’s jumping in here to tell you about his future work):

The organization that I have been assigned to is called Jeppe’s Reef Home Based Care and is located in Jeppe’s Reef, the town directly south of Schoemensdal. The organization is roughly six kilometers from our house so I will be getting a bicycle to use for the commute. The organization is a small home based care boasting three administrators and seventeen care workers. They have been in operation since 1999. The care workers are wonderful ladies and are very friendly. They don’t speak a lot of English so I will get plenty of work on my SiSwati! My supervisor is named Margaret and she too is wonderful. I am the second Peace Corps Volunteer at the organization and I will start by picking up where she left off. She helped to secure some funding and computers in her time with the organization. So I will start with computer skills training and helping with their monthly reporting. Due to both the distance and the size of the organization, I will be splitting my time between my organization and Jess’ organization.

(Okay, I’m back now, to tell you about my/our future work):

I have been assigned to a very large and extremely developed, international organization, called Thembalethu (which means “Our Hope”… think Adam’s SiSwati name!). Thembalethu has had three “officially assigned” PCVs and several other “unofficially assigned” PCVs (just because they found great projects to work with there), so they too are accustomed to the Peace Corps deal. And as for the organization itself, there is so much I could tell!! But I will summarize and simply recommend that everyone visit them online at www.thembalethu.org to get a real feel for the big picture. The basics go something like this: Thembalethu was started in 1999 by three women who wanted to combat the growing problem of HIV/AIDS (and TB) in their communities. Today, Thembalethu’s home based care program has assisted more than 250,000 patients, in over twenty villages, located in three countries (South Africa, Mozambique, and Swaziland), with the help of hundreds of home based care workers! Additionally, over the last decade, Thembalethu has expanded its focus to a variety of programs addressing their communities’ needs, including: Drop In Centers and OVC Assistance programs in all three countries that help over 5,000 orphans, vulnerable children, and orphan-headed households; an on-site Pre-School and Crèche program; a small, on-site Clinic & Med-room that can also perform HIV rapid-testing and supply nutritional supplements; a Mobile VCT Program that travels to the most rural areas (commonly the sugarcane farms) to do HIV testing and counseling; on and off-site bursary, tertiary education programs for matriculated OVCs; the “GOLD Program” that works with peer-leaders in local high-schools to raise awareness about teen health issues and educational opportunities; the “Youth in Action Program”, which encourages HIV/AIDS awareness in age-appropriate youth and provides skills-transfer trainings and employment opportunities for 18-30 year old artisans and entrepreneurs from all three countries; the on-site “Wildly African Treeshop” (currently not operational) which serves as an income-generation program for the on-site artisans and other Thembalethu programs; an on-site Drama Team that performs dramas at local clinics and schools focusing on HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention, and treatment; an off-site partnership with the African Children’s Choir to encourage musical advancement on the African continent; an on-site, Sustainable Gardening Program that encourages a focus on local food security projects; an onsite, community newsletter called “The Nkomazi Voice”, which utilizes local writers to report on both the good and bad of the Nkomazi region; as well as on and off-site partnerships to execute issue-specific campaigns and programs. Eish! Told you it was huge… and developed!!

And what might I (and Adam) decide to take on as a primary project, you ask? Well, based on some of our common interests and some of our similar, previous work experiences, we have elected to combine our passions and take on the huge, currently non-operational, “Wildly African Project”! Oh boy. The project (as mentioned briefly above) incorporates a store, employment of the on-site artisans, a partnership with the Youth in Action program, and a focus on income-generation. The project is hoping to receive some funding in the near future, with the intent of expanding the program to include a greater inclusion of Thembalethu program participants and an even broader incorporation into the local tourism industry. The vision is this: A wood-oven-pizza restaurant (with an African twist, of course… think “Biltong Pizza”) and an artisan-run curio shop united in the “Wildly African Café & Curios Shop” (the building already exists, luckily, but just needs quite a bit of work). The appeal of such an IGA-branch is the significant amount of tourism groups operating in the area – between Mozambique, Swaziland and the Kruger National Park sites. With a functioning “one stop” spot, tour groups would be able bring visitors to eat, shop, enjoy some local entertainment, and engage in a grassroots, community development endeavor. Thus, the project plan is as follows: the retail side, which has been operational in the past, will be reopened with new crafts and wares supplied by our on-site artisans and run by our senior craftsmen; and the café, which is an entirely new concept, will utilize the on-site Thembalethu kitchen staff, with the assistance of local cooks. Adam and I will split some of the supervisory obligations in order to get the place up-and-going, with me taking on the bulk of the retail supervision and Adam taking on the bulk of the café supervision. We will also bring in local, community members to train in managerial and administrative affairs for the entire program, so that the project maintains strong ties to its host community. In addition, we will increase our partnership with the Youth in Action Program and seek ways in which the participants can be employed as front-of-the-house servers in the café or as sales associates in the retail shop. Finally, we hope to utilize the on-site Drama Team for entertainment during meal service and, possibly, as impromptu tour guides of the Thembalethu compound. Ultimately, the goal of the “Wildly African Café & Curios Shop” will be to develop a diversified artisan program, with employment opportunities for community members and other Thembalethu program participants, in order to create sustainable income generation for not only the artists and “staff”, but also for underfunded Thembalethu programs and organizational administration. Even though the Thembalethu organization already functions at such a high capacity, they still have a great need for self-generating funds (especially in today’s economy) in order to continue their invaluable service to Nkomazi’s needy communities. We hope the Wildly African Project can meet (and one day exceed) that need!

To keep track of our progress, be sure to check out our “Wildly African” photo album on Facebook and, once the Thembalethu site has been updated, we will be sure to highlight the rebirth of the Wildly African Project! Of course, I have a million-and-one other ideas that I would love to help implement with the café and shop itself, so there should be plenty of exciting things to follow as our efforts continue! PS – we also have new Facebook photos up of our new home in Schoemansdal, the area, and (soon) our host family, so be sure to check those out as well! It’s beautiful!!

Whew! Did I cover it all?? What a long post…

Adam and I are currently at IST (In Service Training) with the rest of our SA21 PCVs and we will be visiting our PST Homestays at the end of the weekend to see MamaChristine & Johannas!! We will be sure to post again with details of the week when we are back to site and have had some time to recuperate from our “social” evenings! He he!

As always, we miss and love you all tons! And to our friends and family that have helped us get through the last couple months of Site Change drama, thank you very much. While our resilience for such things seems to grow on an almost daily basis, we could never have done any of this without your support!

Salani kahle!!

The 2010 World Cup: In Review

2010-07-13T08:30:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

The 2010 World Cup ended on Sunday, July 11th, with Spain taking its first World Cup victory!! I was personally rooting for Netherlands, but Adam felt strongly that Spain would be the ultimate victor. Of course, there is a lot of Dutch history here in South Africa, so the Spanish victory was a bit disheartening for many in the country, not only myself!

We watched the final game here in Graskop, as our stay has been extended several times while we await site change. We gathered together a small group of partially homeless and partially house PCVs, as well as our new biker friends from Rider’s Rest, and headed to the Canimambo Cocktail Lounge for the big-screen game. All in all, despite the Dutch loss, the night was filled with plenty of fun with our very makeshift, very international, very enthusiastic group!!

But now there is a bit of a void where Ayoba fever once was… shame. So in honor of everything 2010 World Cup, we’ve included here an epic summary of images* to put a worthy close on our World Cup posts. Enjoy!

*All images from Fifa.com and Google Images

Introduction to the 2010 World Cup

The 2010 FIFA World Cup Logo

The 2010 FIFA World Cup "Ayoba" Mascot

The Group Teams

The 2010 South African Stadiums

The Makaraba (headgear)

The "Vuvu" vs. the "Kudu"

The "Jabulani" World Cup Ball (It means "Happiness")

The FINAL Bracket!!!!

2010 World Cup Imagery

The Best of 2010 World Cup in Photos

Mandela at the Opening Ceremonies

South African National Anthem

Mini Fans

Blow your Vuvuzelas!!

Spain scores in the Final

Dutch Sorrow

...And to the victors goes the spoils!

"Hey South Africa, thanks for making it Ayoba!!"

Travelogue: Pilgrim’s Rest

2010-07-13T06:27:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

After our Blyde River Canyon day trip and a quick bout of stomach flu (ick!!), Adam and I were making plans for some more local travels during our Peace Corps-imposed mini-vacation. Based on advice from our many new Graskop friends, we planned an afternoon for Pilgrim’s Rest, and what a great choice!

Pilgrim’s Rest is a convenient 45-minute coombie trip from downtown Graskop, over the hills on one of the most amazing roads we’ve yet seen in South Africa! The road curves up into the clouds and then meanders in a California-Route-One-type-of-way back down along the river. And while Pilgrim’s Rest is only a short 10 kilometres from Graskop, the trip takes almost four times that in driving due to the road itself, but it’s worth the time!

Pilgrim’s Rest was founded in the late 1800’s when prospectors flocked to the area with their goldpans and waders in hopes of striking it big! So all of Pilgrim’s Rest now stands as an open-air museum, with all original homes and stores that have now been converted to beautiful little cafes and curio shops. The town is divided into two sections, “Downtown” and “Uptown”, conveniently named so because “Downtown” is located on the lower end of the hill and “Uptown” is on the upper end of the hill. The hill itself sits directly between the two town sections, with an old cemetery on the very top, also conveniently named, “Old Cemetary”. No one said the people of Pilgrim’s Rest were very creative…

We started in Downtown and walked the entire length of the town section, about half a kilometer (ha!), and thoroughly enjoyed the pioneer-meets-colonial feel of the great little town. After getting our bearings, we stopped for brunch at an adorable café and feasted on eggs, bacon and – in Adam’s case – a traditional steak and kidney pie (yum?). Armed with some local directions from a picture-perfect local, we hiked up from Downtown to the Old Cemetary on the hill and began our search for the “Robber’s Grave”. We had been told that only one grave in the entire cemetery faced the wrong direction (as in, not facing North-South, but rather East-West). The grave in question is that of a stagecoach robber who, when he finally died in one of his many robbery attempts, was willfully buried with his town’s people in the Old Cemetary… but in a manner that ensured a never-restful afterlife! How creative! It didn’t take long to find the Robber’s Grave, starkly fixed in its awkward position in contrast to all the other graves. Pretty nifty!

We then hiked our way back down the hill to Uptown – the town’s “booming” center! This section of town is dotted with period-type mechanical shops, blacksmiths, leather furnishers, and of course, plenty of cafes, bars and a Royal Hotel. Experiencing this part of town, in particular, is like stepping back in time, with its picturesque storefronts and beautiful mountain scapes in the background! We found our way through candy shops, antique dealers and the historic buildings before taking the main road between the hills back down to Downtown. The sun was close to setting, but we couldn’t leave Pilgrim’s Rest without first indulging in the town’s most traditional pastime – gold panning!

Corina, a local bartender from Graskop, picked us up at the Downtown pub and drove us out to the historic gold panning banks along the Blyde River. There, with goldpan in hand, we were given our introduction in the cold river waters. We learned the techniques of dipping, swirling and swishing and after some tutorial sessions, I bent on one of the low river rocks and dipped the goldpan in for a real try… and EUREKA!! We struck gold!!! Not an enormous nugget (unfortunately!) but little flecks of “gold dust” (like shavings off a larger piece) in the bottom of the pan!! Beginners luck? Possibly! But I think we’ll be back for a second try at some point! Corina was so impressed with our panning abilities, that she gifted us her own goldpan and provided us with a small glass vile in which to keep our first gold finds! How fun!!

As the sun was setting over the hills, we drove back to the Royal Hotel for a drink at the attached Church Bar, before heading back to Graskop for the night. The Church Bar is, of course, also conveniently named because it was incorrectly built as a church and, when the realization came that it would never suffice as a church, it became home to the next best thing – a bar! ;-) What a perfect final stop to fully experience all that is Pilgrim’s Rest!

Another 45-minute drive on windy roads and we were back in Graskop… the two hundred year old town nestled in the dark hills behind us…

But what an incredible day back in time!!

Travelogue: Blyde River Canyon

2010-07-06T08:02:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

Adam and I arrived in Graskop yesterday, amidst fog-covered hills and a very cool breeze. This being our first real trip to the Highveld, we didn’t know quite what to expect – except the anticipation of cold weather and magnificent views… and we were not disappointed! To be sure, it’s colder up here in the tail-end of the Escarpment, but if you can bundle up warm enough, it’s worth the chill to see the sun setting over the green and brown-speckled mountains. And yet, as everyone was keen to point out, “This is nothing compared to the Canyon.”

So off to Blyde River Canyon we go…

We left mid-morning, around 9:00a, with our very friendly backpacker manager and self-made trekking and touring guide, Andre. We plopped comfortably in his car and took off! His driving was unmistakably like his very own personality – rather quick and somewhat erratic (ha!), but thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining! As we sped along the curvy roads, we climbed quickly in altitude: 1,000 meters, 1,200 meters, and finally 1,600 meters above sea level!! Along the way, we travelled through the outlying regions of the Blyde River Nature Preserve and marveled at the seas of pine and gum trees lining the way. (Did you know that Blyde River is the largest man-made forest in the world? Very impressive!) We listened to Andre telling us the origins of the Blyde River Canyon, with its Voortrekker history, as the Escarpment views came to life around us! The further we drove, and the higher we climbed, all of South Africa seemed to fall into view below us! But now to the sights:

Andre was careful to arrange his tour in such a way that we continued to marvel at greater and ever greater extremes at each new sight – planning our stops from the simply “incredible” to the truly “glorious”!! Our first stop, thus, was Pinnacle Rock – a 30 meter high, free-standing quartzite rock formation in the middle of one of the many canyon’s outlying ravines. Shaped by thousands (perhaps millions?) of years of the rushing Blyde River, Pinnacle Rock continues to erode and will one day crumble to the river bottom. But in the meantime, it stands perilously still, dotted with bright red-budding aloe vera plants and crawling ivy. It is also home to several Bird of Prey that make their nests cautiously on the ever-changing rock sides… and hope for the best! It may sound bizarre, but Pinnacle Rock is a somewhat sad sight, like a lone animal separated from its herd; but, it endures.

Our second stop was to God’s Window, a nook-of-a-lookout, nestled cozily between trees and brush at 1,500 meters above sea level! The view creates the feeling of peering down on the world from high above – hence, its name – and thus, it is truly an eye-opening vantage point. And yet, you’re not quite on the top of the world when standing at God’s Window, as there is a 300-step path leading still further up the mountain to the most unique and mind-boggling micro-climate: A RAINFOREST! Seriously, atop the God’s Window mountain is a wholly separate and miniature eco-system, caused by the encircling cloud formations that occur at that altitude (about 1,650 meters, with over 3,000mm of rainfall a year). The result is a true-to-life rainforest, with jungle vines and ivy, gigantic palm leaves, incredibly exotic floral scapes, and even “Forrest Crabs”, little humid-loving creatures that scavenge the ground for tasty, fallen tid-bits. We walked through the wet rainforest on wooden-planked walkways and over mossy rocks to enjoy the views from the top. And then, just as quickly as we had entered this crazy little South African rainforest, we walked back out to the bush – a whole different world just meters behind us! So bizarre!

Our third stop was to Berlin Falls (or Berlyn Falls, depending on which signs you follow…) – a great 45 meter high waterfall escaping off the Blyde River. Berlin Falls creates a beautiful gully below that just begs for swimmers (even in the winter) and though we resisted the temptation, we stayed a while to enjoy the sounds of the water plunging deep into to the big, cool pool below. Best of all, Andre perched himself on a high rock to get a picture of us above the entire waterfall – isn’t it always great to have a know-how photographer along the way?!

Our next stop, The Three Rondavals, was perhaps the most breathtaking of the entire day! We arrived to the lookout, atop a boulder-strewn plateau, and hiked only several meters before we arrived at the edge – quite literally, the very edge! Although it was scattered with signs warning, “Do Not Go Beyond This Point”, there was no fence or real barricades to speak of at the actual edge… only these silly, little signs. And walking to that rocky edge, peering just over the 3,000 foot drop, to an entire panorama of the world below was… well, truly indescribable! (You have to see the photos online!!!!) The rock formations for which the area is named are three large, circular, pillars which were once three of the many venting stacks for an enormous volcano. (To picture such a volcano, piercing into the sky, high above those three rondavals, is virtually unimaginable!) And flanking these three rocks, for as far as the eye can see, are the limestone cliffs and grass-and-rock plateaus of the Escarpment, cascading down a million years worth of layers to the Blyde River below… amazing!! We hiked along the edge to take in all the views, from every possible spot, before heading back to the car once again.

We began our descent, back down to the world below, to make our fifth stop at the ever-famous Bourke’s Luck Potholes. At this spot, the Blyde River and Truer River converge to form incredible rock formations along the river’s banks. (On a side note: “Blyde” and “Truer” mean “Happy” and “Sad”, respectively, in Afrikaans. They are named so because the Voortrekkers that crossed this terrain were split into two groups in order to find a habitable location. They were suppose to meet eachother again at one of these rivers after their long search, but when the first group arrived at the “Truer River”, their companions were nowhere to be found – hence, “Sad River”. But finally, many months later, after a long and very cold winter, the two groups met up again at the “Blyde River” to make their home – hence, “Happy River”. Interesting, hey?) But back to the potholes… The swirling convergence of the Blyde and Truer Rivers has created great crevices in the rocks, called “potholes”, some that tunnel down over six meters deep! (Okay, another side note: the name “Bourke’s Luck Potholes” comes from a story – perhaps a myth – that a man named Bourke decided to inhabit the potholes’ region during the South African Gold Rush, certain that these “lucky” potholes would produce great quantities of the sought-after metal. And while not much is known about his outcome, the locals say that Bourke never discovered any gold in the area and died a very poor man among the mountains.) But back again… To view the potholes, we trekked across long, arched bridges across the rocks’ deep crevices, with the rushing rivers below. Several waterfalls fell down into deep pools where the large potholes interrupted the water’s path. The circular patterns make for an artistic flare – red and brown and grey limestone swirling deep into the ravines, like an impressionist painting below! What a beautiful sight!!

Departing the potholes, we made our sixth and final stop at Lisbon Falls – a great waterfall that was split in two by dynamite during the aforementioned gold panning days. (Another side note: when gold was discovered here in 1874, over 60 prospectors came to "try their luck" and apparently only half of them ever found any gold!) Now, the Blyde River falls gently over the Escarpment before plunging, in pair, down the 95-meter falls. Andre told us that hidden between the two falls, almost two-thirds up the side, was a look-out cave covered by the thick ivy and brush. To get to it, however, you have to swim underneath the smaller of the two falls and climb the wet rocks before traversing the side to clamber in! Perhaps on our next trip…! Lisbon Falls was a perfect last stop for our trip and we lingered for a while to enjoy the sound of rushing water and the mist hanging in the air. How refreshing!

As the day reached mid-afternoon, we made our way back through the gigantic forests, through the white-washed shops of Graskop, to our mountain-side perch at Valley View Backpackers. Andre headed into town to stock up on massive amounts of meat for the night’s braai (BBQ) and Adam and I found some comfy chairs on the patio to read, relax, and watch the sun set beyond the mountains. And as a new set of guests arrived and marveled at the evening scene, I understood why one could say “But this is nothing compared to the Canyon.” It made me smile…

Travelogue: Kruger National Park

2010-07-03T11:13:00.001-07:00

Jess writes:

For those who may not know, Adam and I are on somewhat of a Peace Corps-imposed, mini-vacation during this site change period – that is, all our stuff is packed in the Huntington house, ready to be moved to the new house (location still not disclosed to us), but we are on the move… travelling for the next week and calling the many colorful backpackers of South Africa our temporary “homes”. Needless to say, we are doing our best to keep ourselves duly entertained, and with World Cup finals buzzing in the air, just about anywhere in South Africa is pretty entertaining! But, of course, we’re not stopping at World Cup! We have some great tours and trips planned for the next few days, with the first stop in our very own backyard… Kruger National Park!!

After living in Huntington for over three months and driving past the gates of Kruger on an almost daily basis, we finally got a taste of the other side… and it was AMAZING!!

We awoke at 4:30am this morning, in the chilly dorm room at Gecko Bushpackers, in Hazyview. Francis, the friendly Dutch owner of this great little backpacker, had booked us an early-morning departure for a full-day Kruger Game Drive (aka, “safari”), so as to take advantage of the park’s early risers. Once we were dressed for our outing, we bundled up under big blankets in the front seats of the open-air safari bakkie. Floyd, our wonderful safari driver, chatted happily with us as we took the oh-so-chilly drive to pick up the other safari riders (six total, including ourselves) and make our way to Phabeni Gate.

We entered the park just as the sun was rising over the acacia trees and the fog was lit up in the gullies – a truly beautiful introduction to the remarkable park! And though our toes were numb and our hands could barely escape from under covers to point out the sites, we were quickly greeted by our first Kruger park native – an enormous white rhino, nestled in tall African grasses, plodding heavily away from the ever-approaching cars! Our first sighting and it’s one of the BIG 5!! How incredible!!

Within only minutes, we spotted game animal number two – a half-hidden, female African elephant, staring silently through the trees with its deep, patient eyes. Her ears flapped noiselessly and in the slowest possible fashion, she lifted her trunk from grass to mouth and chewed, chewed, chewed. Another of the BIG 5 family!!!!

Around another bend, just as the sun was peeking over the boulder-covered mountains in the distance, another African elephant – this one a gigantic, 30 year old male – meandered causally across the road, only meters from the front of the bakkie! What a sight!!

And sightings number three and four of the BIG 5 family were only moments away…

Causing a safari traffic jam on the ridge of a hill before us was a small family of Cape Buffalo – their all-muscle bodies standing stubbornly in the thoroughfare, with great curved tusks faced threateningly at the vehicles’ tires. Without much fuss, however, they eventually continued their trek, disappearing into the bush… number three of the BIG 5 family!!

Then came the most exciting find of the day – BIG 5 member number four, and considered by most to be the most elusive of the entire pack… Floyd’s radio started cracking with rapid Tsonga and before we knew what was happening, we were making a detour down a dirt road and speeding up a different main road, not on our initial morning route. We pulled up to a ravine, flanked on both sides by several safari bakkies and a handful of private cars. All the engines were turned off, and an exciting silence hung in the air. With some help from our guide and fellow spotters, we were soon peering beyond the water to a large Leopard, asleep in fallen branches! Even though he was well-shaded, you could easily discern his rosette-speckled hide and the outline of a large – very large – paw, covering the animal’s boxy head! Though we missed his very recent climb down from the branches (we would have loved to see that!), we still enjoyed watching his great belly, rising and falling calmly against the leaves. What a magnificent creature – only a stone’s throw away, but entirely unfettered by his many spectators!!! Incredible!

And did I mention, this was all before 8:00am!!!

Time for breakfast… we were in need of a little sighting break already! Floyd drove us leisurely to Skukuza Rest Camp, where we indulged in delicious breakfast sandwiches and coffee (real coffee!). After taking in the views from the Skukuza overlook, we were back on the road and thoroughly enjoying the sun that was finally warming our seats!

For the next three hours, we travelled through truly incredible terrain: neverending, Serengeti-like plains, speckled with leafless, thorny sicle trees; lush, misty banks along the Sabie River, sprouting eight-foot cattail; and muddy, wide-open water holes, dotted with large, flat sun-rocks! And before lunchtime even arrived, we had witnessed myriad Kruger inhabitants come alive in the cool morning…

For half a kilometer we followed a leaping pack of Impala, criss-crossing the tar road and dashing between trees – their trade-mark “M”s marking their rumps, giving them the nickname of “The McDonalds of Kruger”, or as Floyd put it, “Fast Food for Lions”!

We were greeted road-side by one of Kruger’s “Ugly 5”: a pack of straggly-haired warthogs, rooting for weeds on the banks – their truly frightening tusks brushing away small rocks and twigs.

In a still pool, far off in the distance, we located two shiny-backed hippos – gigantic mouths breathing open above the water, tiny little ears flicking back and forth.

Lying lazily on sun-rocks, Floyd picked out a family of three Crocodiles in the midst of the quietly rushing river. Just alongside the jagged reptiles was an enormous Monitor Lizard with his stumpy, gray legs flopped haphazardly in every direction and his thick tail dipping down towards the water.

Above the ground, we spotted a variety of Kruger’s winged animals: a miniature owl, red-helmetted guinea fowl, cranes, white-backed vultures (ick!), and the most beautiful variety of other birds – black & white striped, yellow speckled, and one that was bright blue from beak to tail!!

Perhaps best of all on our morning outing were the numerous African Elephants that we found around every turn! We benefited greatly from a veterinarian that was a part of our tour, her specialty in, of course, elephants!! (Did you know that you can estimate an elephant’s age by the lines around their ear hole and determine whether they are right or left handed by comparing the length of their two tusks?? Awesome!) The most impressive sighting of the gigantic mammals involved a three-generation family of a dozen members, wading knee-deep in marshes, following in line and then dispersing to graze… I could have watched that group for the rest of the day!

And yet, there was an even more impressive herd to see before the afternoon arrived – over a hundred Cape Buffalo gathered at a waterhole, swatting flies and moving like a big black wave of skin and tusk!! Unbelievable!

Another stop at Skukuza for lunchtime snacks and some window-shopping at the Park Store and we were off for the second half of our safari drive…

Before heading to the higher altitudes of the park, we stopped briefly to muse at small family of Vervid Monkies, the father of which posed kindly for photos in a sturdy bush – how kind of him!

On our way into the rocky, upper plains, we saw plenty more African Elephants – one herd which crossed our path had more than four youngsters following (or rather wobbling) behind!

And not to be missed, between the mountain-high piles of boulders, we saw sporadic zebra with their starkly painted hides and funny little mohawks!

We ended our sightings with several large packs of Kudus and, just as we were heading back down to the gate, we spotted an elder Kudu – he had the most impressive, curled horns and a long, gray beard that Adam can only envy!!

And just as the late afternoon began to feel a little too similar to our chilly morning arrival, we were lowering the canopy sides, bundling under blankets once again, and heading out the Numbi Gate... many, many kilometers from where we had started almost twelve hours earlier. With tired eyes, wind-burned faces, and cramped shutter fingers (well, at least mine!), we drove through the local Shangaan villages and found our way back to Hazyview.

After saying our goodbyes to Floyd and our fellow travelers, we hauled our tired bodies into the Gecko common room, grabbed a drink, and plopped ourselves down on overstuffed beanbags for some well-timed World Cup quarter finals! Whew…!!!

And after that detailed recount… all I have left to say is:

“Dear Kruger, thanks for an experience and of course, the new memories! Sala kahle!”

Close Encounters of the WORLD CUP Kind

2010-06-29T01:47:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

Last week was “World Cup Week” for me and Adam – with tickets to two matches in Nelspruit and plans to meet up with plenty of other PCVs for “Ayoba” madness!! And what an awesome week it was!! Ayoba!

Adam and I spent Monday and Tuesday packing, finalizing accommodation plans, and catching up on the latest scores so that we would be prepared for the final Group Round match-ups (we’ve continued to enjoy our matches on our hand-crank and solar-powered travel radio – what a little savior!!). On Wednesday, we left early for Nelspruit and met up with two SA19s (Nicole & Dave) at the taxi rank. With tent in hand, we headed to Funky Monkey Backpackers to set up camp – quite literally! Funky Monkey is a great backpacker on the outskirts of town, with the perfect backpacker vibe – flags hanging from every post, trinkets and knick-knacks in the every corner, and of course, a common-area with plenty of bean bags, overstuffed sofas, hostel bar, big screen and pool table. Also, with Nelspruit’s central location and it’s back-to-back games in town, every backpacker was crawling with fellow Americans, Aussies, and Brits, as well as a smattering of visitors from other Western European, African, and South American locations! What a great place to spend a few days enjoying everything World Cup!!

Wednesday night was Match #40 in Nelspruit – Australia v. Serbia – at 8:30p. But before the game, both the U.S. and England had uber-important matches in the 4:00p slots, so we headed to a local watching (and drinking!) venue, called O’Hagans Pub. We were met there by several other SA18s, 19s, and 20s, as well as hundreds of Americans and Aussies, all eager to see the final Group C scores before the Nelspruit game that night. While we all cheered loudly for the U.S., the Aussies enjoyed cheering boisterously for just about anyone else (including England), just to cause a ruckus – so, needless to say, songs, chants, and game-related and non-game-related bantering ensued… creating the perfect football-watching atmosphere!! (Crazy Aussies!) Luckily, England only won by two goals and the U.S. won by one, so before even seeing our own match that evening, we were able to celebrate wildly with the U.S. landing first place in their group!!! What a great start to the night!!!

Soon after the U.S. & England games, we were headed to the Nelspruit stadium. The Mbombela Stadium, built specifically for the 2010 World Cup, oozes with a Kruger Park theme. Riding up to the stadium, especially at night when it’s awash in flood lights, you can see the structural pillars of the stadium that are shaped like giraffes – with triangular tops for heads, and four separate structure beams below for legs – so great!! If you get there early enough, before the throngs of people arrive, you also get to see the awesomeness that is the actual seating, with seats painted black, white, and gray in purposeful stripes to look like a massive zebra skin around the whole field! Best of all, it’s a small enough stadium that there isn’t a bad seat in the house – so even the category four seats (in the upper levels), where we were seated, still offer great viewing!!

As soon as the Australian and Serbian national anthems had been sung, the vuvuzellas began buzzing and the game began!! Without much coaxing, the Aussie fans were wild within minutes, with two goals being scored by the Australian team in the first half. (As a side note: at halftime, Adam and I met a Serbian-South African Harley rider & tattoo artist that lives in Jo’burg and we now have contact info in case we get a chance to rent a motorcycle while serving here or need any ink before departing… how random… Ha ha!) The second half created quite a stir, with Serbia scoring a great goal, and then making an incredible, albeit offsides, attempt at a second… almost equalizing the game!! Regardless of their amazing final-minute efforts, Serbia did eventually concede to Australia, 2:1.

After the game, we got to experience the surprisingly organized manner in which Nelspruit handles its post-match transportation, with free busses, shuttles, and coombies that manage to get all the spectators to their respective corners of town in a matter of hours! Truly incredible!! Is it possible that this level of organization might actually endure after the World Cup ends?!?! …Well, one can hope!

We returned to the backpacker and enjoyed some post-game drinks with the victorious Aussies before we crammed our four bodies into the “3 to 4 Person” tent for the night. Even with all the body heat, it was a chilly… chilly… night!!!

Thursday morning came with sunshine and, after laying out long enough in that sunshine, we were able to thaw our bodies from the previous night’s sleep. After breakfast (and defrosting) Adam and I spent most of Thursday walking around Nelspruit, taking in some local sites: gawking at the enormous houses on the southside of town, meandering the streets downtown, grabbing lunch at the ever-popular Keg n’ Jock, and hitting the gigantic Riverside Mall for a matinee movie and window-shopping!! Of course, we made it back to Funky’s in time for our free dinner (ox tail, veggies, and pap – surprisingly tasty!!) and for viewing of the 8:30p matches. Before calling it a night, we “borrowed” seat cushions from the common area and lined the bottom of our tent, making for a much, MUCH cozier night outside!! Ahhhh!

Friday morning brought with it several of our own SA21s, for Match #46 at the Nelspruit stadium – Ivory Coast v. North Korea – at 4:00p. After grabbing a quick lunch, our growing group of now nine PCVs, made its way to the stadium to enjoy some pre-game happenings – on stages around the stadium there were singers and dancers, choreographing the crowd to the official 2010 World Cup theme song (“When I get older, I will be stronger…”) and Shakira’s butt-shaking, unofficial, World Cup anthem (“Waka, waka, hey, hey, it’s time for Africa!”). After we had our fill of dancing and mingling, we made our way to our seats – this time in the lower section, right on the corner… up close and personal!!

As you might have watched, Ivory Coast crushed North Korea, with a final score of 3:0 (YAY!!). Almost as entertaining as the action-packed game, were the Ivorian fans – hundreds of them, dressed from head to toe in orange, banging drums and dancing in sync with one another in the upper tiers – awesome!! But best of all was our front-row seats to see Didier Drogba (considered to be “Africa’s best footballer”) do some unbelievable footwork in the first half – wriggling away from two North Korean defenders in the corner and helping to score two goals in the first half!! Sadly, I never did get to poke "a real North Korean" as I had so desperately hoped... but, all in all, it was a great match, from start to finish!! :-)

Before heading back to Funky’s, we took advantage of Nelspruit’s celebration of its last World Cup match, and headed to “Fan Mile”, a city-sponsored block party with DJ’s, dancing, and plenty of food and drink! While our pizzas and beer were mighty tasty, the most enjoyable part of the evening was seeing so many South Africans, side by side with the thousands of foreign visitors, enjoying World Cup fever together!! It was a pretty awesome end to our World Cup Week!

Whew! We’re back to Huntington now… but no worries, we’re making plans for some upcoming trips to see other PCVs, catch the last remaining World Cup games, and experience some more Ayoba madness before World Cup 2010 comes to a close! So keep in touch and, as always, we’ll keep you posted!! Ayoba!!

In the News...

2010-06-22T08:09:00.000-07:00

Monday, June 14, 2010
Section: A, Page A1,A2

By Matthew Baker
NewsTribune Reporter

The 2010 World Cup began Friday to the delight of soccer fans around the world and even in the Illinois Valley, where the game has been gaining in popularity in recent years.

"Everybody's looking forward to opening day and that first match. It's going to be exhilarating," said Princeton High School girls soccer coach Ed Young in the days leading up to Friday's opening match in South Africa.

Whether you call it a soccer, football or futbol competition, the World Cup offers nearly a month of exciting game play and cultural exchange as 32 national teams compete to be the best in the world.

"There's going to be so many amazing games and it's all the best players in the world," Young said.

While local fans will be watching the footwork of Landon Donovan, Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and many other international stars on their television screens, one young man will be taking in the World Cup atmosphere first-hand.

Although his parents are back home in Peru, Adam Aleksy and wife Jessica have recently settled into World Cup host country South Africa while volunteering with the Peace Corps.

"Since we got off the plane, World Cup fever has been palpable," Aleksy said in an e-mail message.

During their early days in the country, Peace Corps volunteers were regularly greeted by locals "shouting to us 'Welcome to South Africa! Twenty-Ten! Welcome to South Africa!'"

The greetings reflect the residents' enthusiasm for the event and their acceptance of commercials urging them to act as "good hosts," according to Aleksy.

"You see, for most of South Africa, soccer is life. In the poorest villages, kids find a way to make some sort of soccer ball in order to play. They play all the time," he said.

World Cup "fever" in South Africa goes beyond the soccer pitch, or field, according to Aleksy.

The South African people take part in "Football Fridays," during which all are encouraged to wear their South Africa team kits, or uniforms, as part of their regular clothing.

"Their colors are green and gold, and though you see these colors a lot most days, towns are a sea of them on Fridays. It is truly awesome to see," he said.

The World Cup spirit has also spread into their Peace Corps work. Currently Aleksy is working with a group called Soccer Cinema, which tours rural communities screening soccer-related films while also providing information on social issues and HIV/AIDS programs.

Tickets to watch the U.S. team play sold out quickly, but Aleksy managed to get tickets to see Australia play Serbia and Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) face off against North Korea.

He's looking forward to seeing the Ivory Coast's Didier Drogba, "Africa's greatest player," playing in the first World Cup to take place in Africa.

"That should be particularly amazing," Aleksy said.

A Y O B A ! ! ! ! !

2010-06-19T03:15:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

…we’re currently listening to the South Africa v. France game on our little travel radio... and so far Bafana Bafana is leading… 2 – 0!! Can’t believe it!! Can they actually win this one…

As most of you are well aware, the 2010 World Cup is in full-swing here in South Africa!! While Adam and I have been somewhat “distracted” by other recent happenings (see the previous post), we are thoroughly enjoying football fever! In fact, in our current situation, we are reveling in an unexpected Peace Corps-imposed vacation, and have been able to experience World Cup in some unique ways: indulging in the gloriousness of Hatfield Square in Pretoria, watching matches with international crowds at guesthouses and backpackers, listening to games “old school” on our travel radio, and planning for some upcoming travels to other local hubs for not only leisure, but of course, more World Cup shenanigans!!

But perhaps I should start at the beginning…

South Africa is hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup, with games being held across the entire country – Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Pretoria, Nelspruit, Rustenburg, Polokwane, and Bloemfontein (Adam and I head to Nelspruit tomorrow for two matches: Australia v. Serbia on June 23rd and North Korea v. Cote d’Ivoire on June 25th! So excited!!!)

Most important to note here is that this is the first World Cup to ever be held on the continent of Africa, so South Africa is brimming with pride to be the first African hosts. In fact, this South African pride could be felt in every city, every township, and every village since the day we arrived in this country, over four months ago. And for over four months, the South African television stations, radio stations, and news sources have been filled with calls to action, imploring every South African to do their part for World Cup. Thus, everywhere we turn there have been illuminated countdowns, green and yellow banners for Bafana Bafana, billboards about safety and security, welcoming shouts from every passing coombie, blaring vuvuzellas, articles about the intangible “Ayoba” spirit, and this growing sense of pride… that South Africans get to welcome the world to “The Continent”.

Needless to say, we could post about every remembered World Cup detail here, but I’m sure you would all tire of my long-winded way with words… ha!! So instead, I’ve included some cool World Cup stuff below that we thought may help to illuminate the World Cup experience for our blog followers (also, be sure to check out our 2010 World Cup album on Facebook, which we will continue to add photos to as World Cup continues!). But for now, hopefully there’s something here that will tickle your football fancy!!

Check it Out:

A football-dedicated blog, authored by a family friend, with some super interesting insights into the FIFA extravaganza that is “World Cup” (thanks Traci!): http://theunlikelyfan.blogspot.com/

The heartbreaking story the South African Vuvuzela Philharmonic, portrayed by the oh-so-incredulous The Onion, in a truly one-of-a-kind World Cup article (so great!!!): http://www.theonion.com/articles/south-african-vuvuzela-philharmonic-angered-by-soc%2C17625/

An incredibly-written NY Times column that a fellow PCV found about South Africa’s past and its “audible” future (a more serious perspective than the previous): http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/opinion/18iht-edcohen.html?hp

Coming Soon: A local article, written by Matt Baker (a friend of Adam’s), for the La Salle News Tribune. He includes quotes from us about World Cup Fever, here in South Africa, from an American perspective (Yay! We’re famous!). As soon as we get a hard copy, we'll include it in it's entirety on the blog.

It would be impossible to describe all the happenings of World Cup since the start and I’m certain that every volunteer, every South African in fact, will experience World Cup in a different way. And in the coming weeks, I’m sure Adam and I will do our best to describe our own piece of this experience in words worthy of depicting such an historical event… and thus, I am certain we will fail to capture all that is World Cup South Africa. Nevertheless, we will try.

In that vein, I wanted to include here something that was shared with us very recently. Last week, while staying at the guesthouse in Pretoria, we spoke late into the night with one of the owners about the impact that World Cup may have on South Africa. Mr. Ndivhuwo Mabaya is a Vendan chief, relocated to Pretoria for business, with deep roots to South Africa’s history and great hopes for its future. After thinking hard about our night’s discussions, he said:

“If this World Cup is to have a legacy, it will not be the stadiums, or the stores or the jobs… It will be what we have learned. If we could use even a small part of the energy and effort we put into preparing for this event into our country’s education system, its healthcare, or its issues with poverty, we could get things done here.”

After some more thought, he added:

“If we can have a World Cup, we can be a great country.”

As World Cup continues, and as Adam and I blog about the fun, the fanfare, and our own impressions, I hope that the quote above stays with you all as it has with me. It seems to embody what this World Cup has meant to this African nation.

Until the next post… Go USA! Go Bafana Bafana! AYOBA!!!!

Changing It Up!

2010-06-19T01:14:00.001-07:00

Jess writes:

For our loyal Facebook followers, here’s the skinny to which you are already aware: Adam and I will be changing sites!!! Yikes!!

For various reasons (which I cannot innumerate here), but sparked largely by an unaccepted housing agreement, Adam and I will be undergoing the much-dreaded “Peace Corps Site Change”. Based on questions we received thus far and other tidbits of information that we’ve gleaned from our recent trip to the Peace Corps office, here’s what we do and don’t know:

“Site Change” involves moving host sites (read as: “leaving Huntington”), changing host organizations (read as: “leaving Swa Vana”), and reintegrating into a new host country location (read as: “doing all that nitty-gritty community integration stuff over again”). Ugh.
We have NO details about exactly when all of this will take place: site change can often take several weeks and with World Cup in full swing, we should expect to be hanging out for a while (we are still at our home in Huntington until the site change is complete)
We have NO details about exactly where we will be stationed next (although Adam and I are REALLY hoping for a Zulu, Siswati, or Tsonga speaking area so that we don’t have to move onto South African language number four of our learning)
We have only a few details about our next housing situation. Based largely on the issues we had in Huntington (and please know that our roommate Leonard was not one of them – we will miss him!!), Peace Corps is willing to ensure some things at our next site, they are: we will not have a roommate or have to share our physical living location with a host family (although there may be a host family on the same compound), we will work with Peace Corps to finalize all housing-related concerns (i.e., electricity payments, organization guests, etc.) with Peace Corps’ help upon move-in, and finally (and this one is a hope, more so than a guarantee), we will likely have a better water situation than the one in Huntington…. Simply put, if its any worse, Peace Corps probably wouldn’t be able to place us there. Yay for more water!!!
We have only one detail about our next working situation, that is: Adam and I will likely work separately, as this helps couples to better integrate into the community and gain independent acceptance. Other than that, we do not know if we will still be working with OVCs or will instead be moved more to a Home-Based Care sector, or otherwise. It’s up in the air!

Needless to say, Adam and I are more than a little frustrated that Site Change will have to take place – we were really beginning to feel “at home” in the community, at work, with Leonard and his friends, etc. Nevertheless, many of these issues have been brewing since our first move-in and our situation here was far from the “norm” for most Peace Corps volunteers, so perhaps Site Change was always in the cards for us. Either way, after having some time to digest the news, Adam and I are very optimistic about what Site Change will mean for us: new home, new work, new friends, new opportunities. And to put it in the simplest of PCV terms: Adam and I want to do good work where we are wanted… and if that means moving to a new site to accomplish that, then we are happy to do so! So it might not be such a surprise to learn that we are already very excited about our next site – about starting off our community integration on a better foot, about getting our own hours of the day at our own organizations, about making a new home “our home” from the start…. We are excited to start at a new site with all those things that we didn’t get to start with in Huntington!!

On a different note, Site Change has brought about some other interesting “changes” in our recent weeks. We took a trip to Pretoria to meet with our Peace Corps staff and, during that trip, had some very interesting encounters…

First, we stayed at a great little guesthouse across the street from the PC office, called Chinakie Guesthouse. The guesthouse partners and staff were amazingly welcoming – even drove us around after dark to avoid us meandering in the “seedy” Sunnyside district. The rooms had showers, flush toilets, HD flat-screen TVs, tea & coffee, and the most comfortable beds we’ve slept on in four months – we couldn’t believe our little rural, volunteer eyes!!!! Each room also had aircon (whoa!!), but more importantly, they had much-needed heating units (it was FREEZING in Pretoria! Adam and I are now certain that “acclimatization” is not all it’s chalked up to be!!!) There was also a perfect outdoor dining area where you could watch the World Cup games with a beer and the company of fellow guests. Here, we met people from Cameroon, Australia, Ghana, Congo, and of course, South Africa, and had great conversations about everything 2010-World-Cup-related (in English, French, and some local dialects as well!!)

We also found our way to Hatfield Square – one of the best “unofficial” viewing areas for 2010 World Cup!! The place was decked out in Bafana Bafana gear, fans from every corner of the world, and on every corner, a news crew from every country of the world!! There was every type of food imaginable – needless to say, this was the BEST part of Hatfield Square – and we indulged in a glorious plate of Chinese food one night, and Sushi the next!! Ahhhh! Aside from food, there was also of course, plenty of drinks, live music, vuvuzella-ing and otherwise football fun to be had before, during, and after each of the games!! There was no way to stand in Hatfield Square and not “feel it”!! What a great experience!!!

Aside from all the frivolity (and of course the Site Change), we did have some other things to take care of in Pretoria – namely, I had to take a dreaded trip to the dentist. Much to my surprise, and in the spirit of changing things up a bit, it was actually Adam that became the medical center of attention this week. A very long story, in a very shortened version, goes as follows:

After the match on Monday night, Adam and I bundled up in bed to get warm (remember, it was REALLY cold in Pretoria!!). Sometime in the middle of the night, I awoke to a loud thud and Adam unconscious on the bathroom floor…. HOLY *&@#%*!!! About seven hours later (okay, that might be a slight exaggeration caused by the adrenaline), Adam was regaining consciousness and an ambulance arrived, with our Peace Corps Medical Officer not far behind, to bring Adam (and me, of course) to the hospital. At this point, with Adam reasonably alert again, we were able to piece together what probably happened: The cold temperatures, coupled with a few beers and our anti-malarial medication, caused a severe drop in blood pressure that triggered an extended black-out (thus, the “seven hours” that it felt like to me was due largely to the amount of time it took for his blood pressure to rise again in the cold room.) WHEW!!!!! After a short visit at the hospital, Adam’s vitals were back to normal and the only lingering problem were some severely bruised ribs from the fall. Luckily, the doctors were able to get him some pretty heavy pain killers (I should have asked for some pretty heavy sedatives at this point….!) and soon we were on our way back to the guesthouse with our PCMO. A trip to our PC medical office the next day and a refill on the pain killers got Adam back on his feet and feeling much better.

And I thought a trip to the dentist was bad…. Eish.

So, after much “excitement” and an extra day in Pretoria, Adam and I were finally headed home on Wednesday. Unfortunately, we managed to select the slowest and most inefficient coombies headed back to Hazyview that day and were terribly delayed most of the trip. This led to the final, interesting, aspect of our week – getting stuck in Hazyview after the last coombies home!! It was dark (and remember, it’s getting COLD here!!) and Adam and I quickly realized that we had no way to get back to our house…. GRRR! Lonely Planet to the rescue and within a half hour we had booked a couple dorm beds at a nearby backpacker. A super nice Dutch family saw our stranded faces and gave us a lift to the backpacker – the whole Dutch family was very enthused about us… these crazy, stranded American volunteers – ha! The backpacker, called Gecko BushPackers, was a great model of a hostel: pool table out back, decorated bar with overstuffed couches and bean bags, home-made food to order, international t-shirts hanging from the ceilings, graffiti-ed greetings over all the walls in every known language, and a raspy Afrikanner owner who got us checked in. We settled in to watch the South Africa v. Uruguay game (how upsetting!!) and then bundled up for our sleep in the open-air, dormitory bunk beds. All in all (aside from a chilly sleep), it was a great night!

Thursday morning brought enough strength (and daylight hours) for us to get home!! We decided to hike our way back to Hazyview, enjoying great views from the vistas and catching rides with friendly South Africans whenever possible. We made a pitstop at the Belgian bakery for breakfast (YUM!!), made a short trip to the Pick n’ Pay for groceries, stopped over in Mkhuhlu for mail and then finally, FINALLY, we were home and in bed for some much-needed sleep!!!

W H A T A W E E K ! ! ! But a rather great one, nevertheless!!

Okay, I think that just about recaps the whole smorgasbord of happenings – hope you enjoyed!! Keep in touch and, as always, we’ll keep you posted!!! Salani kahle!

A Day in the Life of a PCV… At Present

2010-06-02T05:58:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

Adam and I are in the cozy phase of Peace Corps service called “Training Phase 2”, also called “Community Integration Period”, also called (more commonly) “Lockdown”. After our initial training phase, this 3-month chunk (actually 4 months, due to the timing of World Cup) is meant to ease the PCV into community life by requiring the new volunteer to partake in the day-to-day life of the community, observe work at our host organization, and accumulate enough information and self-guided research to fill a “Community & Organizational Needs Assessment.” At times, this life does indeed feel rather at ease, but then again, there is plenty to this phase that is not always so easy. So, as I’ve done in the past, I’m including here a “typical” day in our PCV life, during this “Lockdown” phase, (although I’m not so sure anything here is entirely “typical”…) Anyways, here goes:

7:30AM- Wake, usually to the sound of chickens in the backyard or the cows coming down the road – yes, with cowbells! Begin water-related chores (remember, everything in Huntington revolves around such chores), such as hauling water to the kitchen for dishes or to the bathroom for bathing, heating water for washing or for making tea, stacking empty jugs in the garage, or carrying out handled jugs for filling later in the day. If time permits, I try to get on a pot of water to boil for drinking (it takes about 45 minutes to get boiling long enough to get it “clean” and most of the day to cool enough for filtering) – what a process. Tidy up the house and/or yard – this sometimes involves sweeping, gr. – and open windows (if its cool enough and not rainy). Pit stop at the latrine, of course, and getting dressed, etc. for the day.

8:15AM- Lock up the house (we have a lot of locks: bedroom door, front door, burglar door, porch door, garage door, and front gate… on days when all need locking, it takes forever!). Walk to work, avoiding any angry cows hoofing at the ground (eeek!). The walk to work is short and rather flat, so no real trekking. But it is in the direction of the sun… so summer mornings are brutal!!! Along the way, we usually run into at least a couple of Gogo’s waiting for the local coombies to pick them up on the way to the 4-Way or Mkhuhlu, as well as other workers in Kruger National Park or Sabi Sands Game Reserve uniforms headed to the tar road to catch a ride in one of the employee safari trucks. We also typically get caught up in at least one group of pre-schoolers headed to the crèche in their unmatching red shirts. The annoying little ones still like to chant “We-Na-Malungu” as we walk by, but most of them now are more excited about waving and shouting “I’m fiiiiine” very lyrically before we even ask how they are doing. Too funny!

8:30AM- Arrive at work (although we’re often on our own form of “African Time” or “Volunteer Time” and thus, this fluctuates). Greet the LIMA Development workers sweeping outside the Center, greet the SwaVana workers preparing breakfast or tidying up the courtyard, greet the Home-Based Care workers sitting on the porch before home visits, greet Happy in the office, and greet the kids running around before school. Line up the water jugs by the concrete wall to be filled later and hauled back at the end of the day.

9:00AM- Head across the courtyard to the Center’s kitchen to get breakfast – wheat bread with Rama butter and apricot jam, with tea (unfortunately no milk, so we have to used the powdered stuff that never melts completely… shame.) And yes, it is the same breakfast for us each morning, but hey, it’s breakfast! Back to the office for morning work – this can range greatly from checking emails and Facebook, scheduling the week events with Happy, updating charts and numbers on bottle/brick projects, or simply chatting about “to do’s” for Peace Corps-related items (i.e., the needs assessment report).

10:00AM- Carry the water jugs across the yard, under the fence, and through the adjacent gate to Henna Pre-School, where we have access to a borehole for water. Water filling is a long and somewhat arduous process, as we have to wheelbarrow all the full jugs back up the path to the Center. But nevertheless, we get water without having to stand in line every 2 weeks when the taps are turned on for a few hours, or on the days the water truck comes in to make a stop on our road… so we don’t complain!!! Plus, while we wait for the filling, we get to chat with the pre-schoolers and watch the Henna carers cook over an open fire, so it’s not all bad!

11:00AM- Happy prepares to head out for site checks or supply pick-ups. This is where our “typical” day can go in a number of different directions: If Happy is heading to one of the shopping towns for monthly supplies of lunch meats or veggies (Mkhuhlu or Hazyview), we will often hitch a one-way ride with him to check our mail, get to the Cashbuild (think Home Depot) for house supplies, and visit the mall for groceries, toiletries, clothes and of course, a big greasy lunch before heading back to the bush! (A one-way hitch means that we head to the taxi rink at the end of the shopping day and pay for a coombie ride back home.) However, if Happy is heading to one of our local Drop-In Centers for site checks (Mabarhule, Justicia, or Lillydale), we will often utilize this route to hitch a ride to somewhere that might have information to provide on our “Community & Organizational Needs Assessment” – a local school to meet with students, teachers or admin staff to discuss issues of education; a local clinic or hospital to meet with nursing or doctor contacts to discuss issues of health and HIV/AIDS; a local government office to meet with municipal managers to discuss issues of service delivery and local politics; or to meet up with other local community members to converse with them about issues of social structure, community services, traditional government, and their ideas about bettering their own communities.

1:30PM- Make our way back to Huntington, about the time that kids from the closest schools (Henna Pre-School & Hundzukani Primary School) are arriving at the Center. Eventually most of the kids make their way to our office to ask for coloring paper, crayons, toys and Barbie dolls – they are very good at entertaining themselves with these supplies, albeit extremely loud and high on post-schoolday-adrenaline!!

2:00PM- Lunchtime! Depending on the day, lunch is always a bit different: Monday is stewed chicken and pap (always greasy and usually pretty tasty!); Tuesday is sugar beans and pap (definitely the most boring day, but pretty filling); Wednesday is beef or minced meat with rice, usually with a side of mashed pumpkin and shaved beetroot (this is our favorite day for sure!!); Thursday is wors (an Afrikaans sausage) and pap (usually pretty good!); and Friday is Pilchard’s canned fish, in a tomato broth, with pap (I don’t exactly know how to explain this one… it smells something like the fish docks after a hot weekend and it tastes pretty similar… needless to say, we usually skip Fridays!!!).

2:30PM- The older kids take over dish duty while the little ones start fighting for the soccer balls or other ill-fated sports equipment. This is about the time that the older girls begin filtering over to the porch to work on the Bottle Project, with each day’s bottle tasks depending on the stage of the bottles – newly washed, recently pasted, already glossed, in need of final cutting, etc. Adam has begun using this time to work with Leonard on plans for the Brick Project – meeting with boys, getting trained on concrete mixes, writing up plans for payments, etc. All in all, this is the last bit of our day, but usually the most productive in terms of actual projects with the OVCs. We often wish that could get more of this time, without taking them from school… but the day’s schedule doesn’t permit much time before the afternoon.

4:00PM- Heading out. Most of the younger kids start the walk home to avoid getting stuck on the roads as the sun goes down (some of these little ones have to walk 30-45 minutes to get home on the other side of town!). The older kids help clean up of the Bottle Project supplies and finish with the Brick Project plans, while Adam and I organize all the paperwork from our research on the “Community & Organizational Needs Assessment” and ensure that the computer and all its accessories get back to the backpack for the trip home. We say all our “Sala kahle’s” to the carers and remaining kids and finally, we struggle greatly to get all the filled water jugs into the bakkie before hopping in a free (and hopefully dry!) space for a ride back to the house. The ride back is usually consumed with conversations about what we will snack on or make for dinner at the house… yes, we just had lunch and we’re already talking about dinner... everything revolves around food in this country!

4:30PM- Back to our “Kaya Sweet Kaya”! Usually a quick run to the latrine for a much-needed pee break, before beginning again with water-related chores – this time for cooking, heating and cleaning. Last-minute yard chores (i.e. sweeping, etc.) before the sun goes down and quick treks to the tuck shop if we’re craving cold drink (Coke) or have a serious hankering for greasy food (we can get “slop chips” here, which are basically soggy French fries that you douse with a little salt and vinegar, top with achaar – and Indian spiced mango mix – and smash into sliced, white bread. Holy carbohydrates but oh-so-tasty!!!) Then, after the shops, finally, some relaxation!!! Relaxation at the African Aleksy home is usually marked by TV episodes of The West Wing and The Wire or epic marathons of Harry Potter movies or old Indiana Jones adventures! I’ll usually combo this with a cup of tea or crinkle crisps, while Adam usually pairs his viewing with peanuts or popcorn. Yummy!

5:30PM- Between the snacking and relaxing we usually start craving real food again (yes, food again! It really is amazing we’re actually getting smaller here…?) and begin making plans for dinner. Dinners are reasonably diverse after shopping days and become increasingly more repetitive and boring as the week goes on. A good dinner (i.e., night after shopping) might consist of fresh salad greens and a balsamic dressing with broccoli and cheese stuffed chicken cutlets (we can get these frozen in Hazyview!!) with rice – woohoo!!! A more typical and mundane dinner will consist of canned greenbeans and Raman-type noodles with some garlic-sprinkled toast. Still not too shabby, right??

6:00PM- Closing up the house (windows, doors, bars, gates, etc.) while dinner cooks to avoid both bugs and burglars after dark. Around this time we’ll be sure to filter any water that has cooled from the morning to be stored in our drinking jugs by the fridge and if there’s a stovetop spot open, we may boil a second round to cool for the morning (especially if we’re running low on drinking water).

6:30PM- Dinnertime with some more computer viewing, followed by an end-of-the-day glance at emails, Facebook, and BBC.com (I like my international news sources!!). The rest of our down-time is usually consumed with reading magazines sent from home, writing up grocery and shopping lists for the next trip to Hazyview, summarizing notes and creating outlines for our Peace Corps reporting, uploading and organizing photos, and dreaming about all the cool places we want to visit in South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Madagascar via our awesome Lonely Planet Africa edition.

8:00PM- Darkness is complete and at this time of year, it starts getting uber-cold (down to the 60’s at night!! Eish!!! Lol!). Around this time I inevitably end up on a cockroach hunt, since the little buggers don’t come out until it’s darker and cooler, and thus Adam and Leonard are reassured of my presence by the continuous smacks of my flip-flop on walls, countertops, tables, and bucket tops. I will kill them all… it may take all 2 years… but I will eventually kill them all. Gr.

9:00PM- The day finishes with some good ‘ol antimalarial medications, washed down with lemon creams or chocolate squares for dessert. Tubside in the bathroom for teeth brushing and face/foot washing (our feet get horribly, horribly dirty!!!) and then back to bed for a final episode or two of the evening’s series. Almost without fail, I will fall asleep before the second episode and will have to wake up to Adam putting away the “TV” (aka, computer)… because of this, I’m pretty sure Adam has seen roughly 20% more of almost every TV series or movie we watch in the evening. Ha! Oh well…

10:30PM- It may seem early, but we’re usually asleep not too long afterwards… we must be getting old… or African.

So there you have it, an overly-detailed account of a likely day here in Huntington, South Africa. You might want to know where in all that mess we get other important things done – like laundry, planning and prepping for the garden, calling home, visiting PCVs or getting visits from PCVs, or just walking around the community to “integrate” – well, that’s what the weekends are for. Laundry takes 1-2 hours, depending on the pairs of pants (they are the hardest to wash and the most difficult to wring out), and wet clothes take almost all-day to dry in our current, “wintery” weather, while garden plans and community walks get fit into the hours with light… remember, we can’t (and aren’t suppose to) do much of anything after it’s dark, so days are short! Finally, our families are great enough to work around our awkward schedule, so weekend nights are usually highlighted with calls from home and sometimes even a long-awaited video Skype with the month’s remaining data bundles.

We don’t necessarily feel that it’s an American-style life, nor is it entirely an African-style life, but it’s a reasonably comfy mix of both, so it works for us! I hope you enjoyed spending a day in our lives, at present!!

Keep in touch and Sala Kahle!!

RWO: Now, Now

2010-05-31T13:32:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

“Now”, almost never actually means “now”. Here, we are on “African Time”, so “now” quite literally translates to “probably not in the foreseeable future, at all.” In fact, there is a common phrase, “Now, now”, which translates to “possibly sometime soon.” And we have actually heard someone use the phrase “Now, now, now, now” and were surprised to find out that this legitimately meant “seriously, pretty soon.” It’s wonderfully unique… and confusing.

RWO: Freaking Inkhukhu (This one goes out to our buddy, Ted Shu)

2010-05-24T04:56:00.000-07:00

Adam writes:

Roosters do not crow at dawn, and they do not say “cock-a-doodle-do.” They crow whenever the hell they feel like it and it sounds more like “CaAAaWaaAaaAKaA” (which sounds something similar to someone beating the damn thing with a machete). Shut up already.

South Africa & The Pandemic

2010-05-24T04:39:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

As Adam and I begin our “Organization & Community Needs Assessment” report, I am reminded (rather repetitively, and usually daily) of how much the HIV/AIDS pandemic has had an impact on this society. So of course, I’m blogging about it…

This country has literally been devastated by this illness and worse yet, South Africa has had little success with any significant means of combating its effects. All in all, HIV/AIDS seems to pervade every aspect of life here – adults are too sick from minor illnesses to work, children lose their parents and relatives, and our most critical asset – health workers – are undertrained and overwhelmed with patients. This is not an uphill battle, it is a losing battle. How do we continue to fight it?

I felt it was important to include this post, however depressing it may seem, because the issues included here are ones that we face everyday, sometimes in small but usually in big ways. And each day we seem to learn a little more about how HIV/AIDS is crippling this country and why things have gotten so bad. The statistics are staggering, the myths are truly frightening, treatments are often utterly inefficient at combating the whole pandemic, and stigma about HIV/AIDS has created a population more scared to know the truth than to live in denial. If you want, read on to see what I mean:

SOUTH AFRICAN STATISTICS:

South Africa is ranked #1 in deaths from HIV/AIDS worldwide
67% of Sub-Saharan Africa (including South Africa) is HIV+
Mmpumalanga’s (known, i.e. tested) HIV+ population is over 15%
1 in every 3 females in South Africa is HIV+

SOUTH AFRICAN MYTHS:

HIV does not cause AIDS
Mosquitos can transmit HIV
Unprotected sex with a virgin (or a small child) can cure AIDS
Condoms are infected with HIV by the government
HIV is caused by sex during the mourning period of a spouse’s death
Whites created AIDS to kill blacks and gays
The rich people have a cure for AIDS, but they will not share it with the poor people
No one actually dies of AIDS, they just die of the “flu”

SOUTH AFRICAN TREATMENTS (this is the technical stuff):

ARTs begin at a CD4 Count of 250 (not 350, as in the U.S.) – this is super low!
There are far less ARVs available in South Africa
There are only 2 common HAART regiments (compared to the 20+ in the U.S.)
Resistance is EXTREMELY common and often, untreatable thereafter

To make all matters worse, stigma is a HUGE problem in South Africa. So the majority of people that suspect that they or someone they know may be positive, will often avoid getting tested. Furthermore, if a person tests positive, they will often deny their status, refuse treatment, and refrain from sharing this information with any partners, friends, or family.

Sandile, one of our Training LCFs, explained the AIDS pandemic in South Africa best by offering the following story:

“In South Africa, when a snake enters a home, we first kill the snake to protect our family and then go outside to try to find where the snake came from. But for some reason, when the snake that was AIDS entered our home, we ran outside to find where it came from and meanwhile, it was inside killing our children.”

So how do we continue to fight it? I’m not quite sure we have an answer for this yet, and maybe we won’t have an answer after two years…

Every morning, I just remind myself that working with children is always a good place to start, whatever the circumstances... A place to start.

RWO: Meaty Crisps

2010-05-16T04:39:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

South Africans are obsessed with meat-flavored potato chips and, much to our surprise, they’re extremely good at making them! Some of our tasty flavor favorites have been, “Smokey Beef” and “BBQ Pork Ribs”. However, Adam swears the best are “Sweet Chili” Doritos! My vote is still out, but I’m leaning toward some of the more vegetarian options, such as “Sour Cream & Chive”. Such a stellar combo! And oh so yummy!

Settling In

2010-05-12T07:51:00.002-07:00

Jess writes:

It’s been two weeks since the family moved out and Adam and I are finally starting to feel “settled in” to our new home. Our South African roommate, Leonard, was moved in over a week ago and we’re beginning to make a day-to-day schedule of somewhat normal, “family”, happenings – Leonard plays music in the mornings, we play music in the evenings, we trade-off sweeping days, we all share in washing dishes, the boys collect water and I distribute water (to the kitchen, bathroom, etc.), and since we’ve been experiencing a bit of snack-addiction as of late, we’ve introduced Leonard to the gloriousness of buttered popcorn and ice-cold Coke – what could be better!

As you can probably tell from Facebook photos, the house is coming along quite nicely – I think it’s really starting to look like a “home”, in fact! (I’m neglecting to mention here that our dining room looks a bit too much like a make-shift conference room, with its perfectly white table cloth and perfectly black chairs, surrounded by very educational maps and breakdowns of local government – ha!) Outside, we are beginning to plan out where the soon-to-be-built Braii pit will go (this will be super helpful on the weekends with no electricity) and how exactly we want to plot our mega-garden (we are calling it this because mom has bought us one of every known vegetable and a selection of fruits – so excited!).
At work, the kids have finally stopped chanting “Malungu” (“White Person”) whenever we enter the Center and have taken warmly to high-fives and “Sharp” thumbs instead… it’s a nice change! We are slowly getting to know some of the individual kids and have also had some great moments with the staff as of late. On the kid front, Adam has taken to a little guy that is too young to tell us his name, so we just call him “Sharp Sharp”, because he will seek out Adam to get to the thumb – ha! I have two little followers – the smallest one named Siyabonga and the slightly taller one (lol!) named Princess. On the staff front, the carers are finally calling us by name (instead of just “Ma”, etc.) and this last week we played “dress up” with some donated clothes for laughs. Slowly but surely we’re making headway at this Center, where we still don’t speak the language and still aren’t quite sure what our actual hour-to-hour responsibilities are. But it’s working!

As for the actual work part, Adam and I are in the initial phases of our “Organizational & Community Needs Assessment Report” as part of Phase II of Peace Corps Training. The report covers everything from government & infrastructure in Huntington (and at Swa Vana) to issues relating to health, education, transportation, social organization, communications and environment. In the end, we hope to have a report that will not only suffice as a Peace Corps requirement, but also serve as a document to help direct our work and the future work of Swa Vana, in relation to the needs of the Huntington community. I am also becoming more and more involved each day with the Girl’s Club’s “Bottle Project” (see bottle photos in our Facebook albums) and am beginning to outline some of the necessary steps in getting this project actually off the ground (its fumbling it’s way off the ground currently) and hopefully making it a sustainable, income-generating activity for the girls and the organization. Adam and the Boy’s Club are still awaiting further training on the “Brick Project” which will focus first and foremost on building the new Drop-In Center and then establishing a business plan as a second income-generating activity. Along the way, we’ve been assisting here and there with some of the high-schoolers academic projects, organizing some games, and making some initial attempts to feel out the staff and kid’s perceptions of currently available HIV/AIDS education and awareness programs. Suffice it to say, there’s not much being done in this respect at present, but it will obviously be a primary focus of ours to ensure that some education and awareness programs take shape at the Center.

The weather, you ask? Well it’s “Fall-to-Winter-ish” right now… but we’re coming to realize that this means little on most days. Our best guess is that this last week averaged somewhere between 34-38C, which should translate roughly to the mid-80s-90s. So… not quite winter yet. Although we do hear tales that it can get down to the 20sC… I’ll believe it when I see it. As for rain – oh that glorious, glorious rain – we don’t really have any anymore. So sad. It seems that most rain occurs in the Spring and Summer months (October – March) and not much at all in the… what do they call this… oh right, Fall and Winter (ha!). Sadly, this means that our beautiful JoJo is no longer collecting much water and the majority of our bath and dishwashing needs are met with 15L jugs that we haul to a borehole tap at the local Pre-School. Luckily, Swa Vana’s bakkie (truck) is now housed in our garage, so this actually makes getting the full jugs back to the house feasible on days that the bakkie is out and about!!

Finally, we’ve been able to spend some great time with local PCVs in the recent weeks. We typically meet up with our closest PCV, Jules, when we head into Hazyview for grocery and house shopping (she lives only a short walk from the main shopping center). We’ll usually make plans to meet at one of several eateries at the mall – Maxi’s, Nando’s, Debonair’s or Steer’s – and indulge (and by indulge I mean over-indulge) in a rather large and greasy burger and chips combo. Usually, this also means we’re quite physically ill in the following couple hours (our stomachs are definitely not accustomed to that hobby anymore!) and so, we try to plan lunch for the end of the shopping day, when only a coombie ride and some walking stands between us and our wonderful pit latrine!!! We also spent a stupendous “Ocho de Mayo” (yes, we were working on “Cinco de Mayo”) with a bunch of local PCVs from the SA18 and SA21 groups! Just picture it: toasty tortillas, spiced chicken and peppers, Mexican rice, minced meat, mounds of guacamole, mild and spicy pico de gallo, real sour cream (REAL!!), refried beans AND black beans (oh my!), and some good ‘ol Margaritas!!!! Yes, we were sick after this meal too – lol! But its soooooo worth every second of gut-wrenching pain (literally, gut-wrenching) to enjoy a Mexican feast! And of course, time spent with fellow-PCVs is always thoroughly enjoyable – filled with lots of stories, lots of complaints, and always tons and tons of laughter about the ridiculous situations we often find ourselves in! And yes, just as this paragraph suggests, we spent a lot of time thinking about food, so yes again, time spent with other PCVers is often filled with not only eating, but talking also, about all sorts of food!!! We’re sort of slaves to good food in this country!!

So let’s see… house, roommate, work, actual work, weather, food, fellow PCVs, and more food… I think I’ve covered it all! As always, we’ll be sure to keep you posted with our Peace Corps happenings, and of course a selection of “Random Weekly Observations” whenever they pop up. And also as always, we love to see your comments and get your messages via Blogger or Facebook, so be sure to keep in touch!

We love and miss you all – Sala kahle!

RWO: The Dirt Sweepers

2010-05-10T09:08:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

Women in this country love to sweep! Seriously, they will sweep just about anything! Every morning, usually rather early (since it gets so hot in the late morning), you will see all the village women emerge from their homes with their short, twig & bristle brooms and begin a very arduous-looking, very hunched-and-uncomfortable-looking, sweeping frenzy. And do you know what they’re sweeping? The dirt. Yup. Most of the “yards” in this country are nothing more than dirt, so the women like to make their yards look good by sweeping out all the leaves, pebbles & trash from the dirt. The result is that their dirt yards look amazingly well-groomed, in an almost Chinese-garden-esque fashion, with broom patterns of varying depths and lengths across the entire expanse of the ground. Even more astounding is when they continue outward from their yard to the length of the street in front of their house and even the public walking spaces along their fences and behind their homes. It’s truly incredible! By the end of the day, the artistically groomed areas are erased by the wind and littered with all form of contaminants – mostly leaves – and the ritual must be repeated the next morning to maintain sweeping appearances. It seems to be a tireless job… one that I’ve already decided won’t be an every-morning practice for myself! Yes, that’s right, I’m going to let our dirt go au natural… what will they say!

RWO: Love Potion Number Nine

2010-05-02T07:12:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

Gender roles are still pretty prominent here. From what we can tell, women are still expected to cook, clean and care for the children, while possibly holding down a job at the same time. On the other hand, it seems that men are expected to, well, drink… and watch TV… hm. These gender roles are so engrained that we sometimes keep hush-hush about Adam being the primary cook in our home. In fact, MamaChristine was so stunned to find out that Adam was a good cook that when she ate anything of his doing, she would grin from ear to ear, chant, “Oh Jabu, Jabu, Jabu!”, and then would demand that he teach BabeJohannas to cook as well! Ha! And before our first week in country was even complete, I was actually accused (jokingly, by one of our LCFs) of being a witch and dosing Adam with a love potion when they discovered that he had helped me with our laundry!!! So all that domestic stuff that Adam helps with (and yes, he must help me with it!) we’ll just have to keep as our little secret… I really don’t want to end up at the stake!!

They Call this Freedom Day

2010-04-28T05:20:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

This past Tuesday (April 27th) was Freedom Day in South Africa. Historically, Freedom Day celebrates the first post-Apartheid elections held in South Africa in 1994. The elections were the first in nearly fifty years in which the majority population – the black South Africans – had the right to vote. In case you were wondering, they voted in Nelson Mandela and, thus, marked this historic election as one for Freedom.

For Adam and I, Freedom Day stood for something far less monumental, but nonetheless important for us – our own home!!!! That’s right, the Mthombeni family (with whom we have been residing the last month) finally completed their move to their new home in Hazyview and moved virtually all belongings out of this home (minus a couple items that they are slowly picking up each day). You see, the Mthombeni family has generously offered their 3-bedroom home to the Peace Corps to house us and one South African boy, Leonard, who is an OVC at the SwaVana Youth Project. However, as plans tend to go in South Africa, their intended move-out date (March 25th) was pushed further and further back due to, well, we’re not quite sure of all the specifics. But anyways, they are now 98% moved and as of Tuesday – Freedom Day – Adam and I began the arduous but oh-so-rewarding process of moving ourselves in completely!!! Let’s see, how did this all go:

Last Friday we travelled to Hazyview to do our BIG “Home Shopping Day”. This included the purchase of a rather large fridge and the interesting experience of describing to the delivery people where we lived based on dirt roads, large trees, and different color rooftops. We also spent the majority of our PC allotted move-in allowance on other necessities, such as kitchenwares, laundry materials, bathroom items and lots of groceries! With the help of the Mthombeni’s vehicle trunk, we actually managed to get all of it home and had a little leftover cash for a splurge item – French Press & ground coffee!! YUM!

Saturday & Sunday were spent trying to stay out of the way of the 5-person family and their extended relatives as the house was slowly but surely torn to shreds and moved, piece by piece, via small cars and some bakkies. It was a bit hectic and Sunday did not end until 1:30am, when, after a very long weekend, all the children and the majority of the furniture were somewhere in or en route to Hazyview… what an eerily quiet evening!

Monday marked an installed refrigerator and thus, one more return trip to Hazyview to finally purchase the cool items requiring refrigeration. Upon arrival to Hazyview, we celebrated the beginning of our nesting mode with some pastries and strong coffee at La Patissier, the Belgian bakery at Perry’s Bridge. We then completed our shopping and returned to Huntington, way too many bags in tow, and fell asleep earlier than we had in a month.

Finally, Tuesday… Freedom Day. We awoke to the sound of trucks delivering more furniture – our furniture! – and soon thereafter, the smell of Dysol cleaning agent for the walls and floors. On hands and knees, Adam and I swept, scrubbed and mopped all the rooms – a living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, 3 bedrooms, and a garage – and slowly began organizing the larger pieces of furniture into their respective rooms. And this processed continued for a while… but by Wednesday night, we had successfully moved from the “Guest” room to our new room (the parent’s old bedroom, which is much larger, and therefore slightly odd-feeling, but nevertheless very comfortable), organized the entire kitchen (minus the need for the last two tables to be delivered to serve as counterspace), organized the entire living room (minus Leonard’s chair & couch set which will be moved in over the weekend), prepared the dining room for a large table (to be provided by SwaVana) and enough seating for six, organized and cleaned out the entire garage, rearranged the patio area and made room for some porch furniture (to be purchased sometime in the near future), cleaned out the room that will be used by Leonard, and cleaned out our old room which can now officially be used as the Guest room. Whew!

While we still await some primary furniture items, we are contented in knowing that we have cleaned, arranged and polished all those items for which we were responsible – bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, garage, and outdoor areas (garden, braii pit and compost pile to be started soon!) – and will be very happy when we can finally finish filling some of those larger (and currently somewhat empty) rooms – living room, dining room, Leonard’s room, Guest room.

Slowly but surely, we are starting to dig out the matching sheet sets and find curtains to work in every room; slowly but surely we are assigning each corner of each room to its new and proper function; slowly but surely, we are remembering where we put the tea cups, the ironing board, the extra towels, and the laundry bins; slowly but surely, the perfect places for a mirror, a poster, or a cushy seat are making themselves known; slowly but surely the air is finding its way from open windows to every knook and cranny and erasing what was in preparation for what will be inside these walls and slowly but surely, those old smells are replaced by ones more familiar, ones more personal, ones of “home”.

I think I’ll call this the start of our Freedom… :-)

RWO: Some Slang, Fo Sho

2010-04-20T09:10:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

Just as we have adapted certain slang words from Hip Hop culture (such as “bling” and “-izzle”), South Africans have adapted such slang from their own “gangster” (or “Tsotsi”) culture. The most common of these are “Heita” (which means “Hey”), “Howzit” (which means “How is it”), and “Sharp” (pronounced “Shop”, which means “Cool”). These have become so engrained in common culture that Lonely Planet actually lists the South African greeting as “Howzit” and you will often here the Gogos (grandmothers) saying “Sharp” to one another! It’s hysterical!!

Here is Amazing

2010-04-15T06:45:00.000-07:00

Adam writes:

I just wanted to right a bit of an update for all of you who are reading. We have been at site now for almost a month and I know that I have been conspicuously silent on the blog. To be honest, it was mostly because I wasn’t in the best place, I felt, to be writing to all of you. We have been living in a single room in a house with a family of five since we have arrived. We were told by Peace Corps that they would move out by the first week of April. And since we are still living with them that obviously didn’t happen.

For me, this has been hard. We have very little personal space and are unable to fully settle in and become comfortable. There is a lot I could say about how the living situation has been hard on me, but I think I can sum it up by saying, it has prevented us from making this place our home. I still feel like we are visitors here and that is probably a feeling that will continue as we learn the language and begin to make friends here. But to at least be able to have a home to make our own would go a long way to making me feel more comfortable in our new surroundings.

On a lighter note, I am writing this mostly because I have been feeling a lot better about things as of late. The family is still at least another couple of weeks from moving out, but Jess and I have finally got into a rhythm and have settled into a schedule, and that helps. Also, the weather has finally shifted into deep autumn and soon winter, so we have had overcast with cooler temperatures lately and it seems to have settled into sunny days that still push towards 90, but then cool quickly in the afternoons and evenings. The weather is actually quite enjoyable at the moment. (Maybe we are acclimatizing again.)

So what is it that we have been doing since we arrived at site? So far we have been at Swa Vana most days. We have spent days at all three centers spending time with the kids. They have been on spring break for the last two weeks. They are starting to get used to seeing our faces around. I have also helped pick up the meat order for the kids lunches with Happy, our supervisor. And this week we have spent the mornings doing home visits to the children’s houses. This entailed walking through almost all of our village. It turns out that once you get a little bit away from our house, our village is actually quite pretty.

Starting next week Jess and I will start collecting the data and information we need to write our Community Needs Assessment. This is a report assigned to us by Peace Corps that will help us better understand our community and what they see as their primary needs for development. It will require a lot of work and it promises to keep the two of us fairly busy.

We have also tentatively started to learn some Tsonga, though a more dedicated effort will start next week. It seems to share a lot in come with SiSwati which should be helpful to us. Also, we are trying to identify a tutor for both languages.
So far though, things have moved fairly slowly here with a lot of down time. This coupled with the fact that we are already looking to secure dates and then tickets to come home towards the end of August or early September for Kimmie and Brian’s wedding, and I have had a lot of time to sit around thinking about home and how much I miss my friends and family. These few weeks have been very hard. Thank you to all of you who have been maintaining some amount of contact through Facebook, it has been extremely helpful. And the weekly phone conversations with family have been invaluable.

When you have to go outside and use a pit latrine to go to the bathroom (and yes, they smell exactly how you’d imagine they would), when water has to be carried in jugs and boiled and filtered to be drinkable, when cooking is a difficult task because the kitchen is always full of people and it is setup for necessity and not ease of use, and when you understand very little of what’s going on around you because you were taught the wrong language, it is very hard to understand what it is you are doing here.

When you think about being surrounded by family and friends, being able to go out for the evening, riding your motorcycle, eating your favorite foods, having the luxury of running water and a flush toilet one room over that you can use at night (South Africans lock up their homes around 8 o’clock and no one leaves till morning), and having a washer and dryer, it is hard to understand why you are staying here.

But very recently, I have been reminded that we are here because we are living our dreams. We are on a great adventure and along the way we will do some good here. As I look out my window now I am reminded that we are living a world away in a wonderful and beautiful place. We are in Africa. And even though that is mud shacks with tin roofs, and pit latrines, and kids with little to eat and no clean water, it is still gorgeous and filled with people that are filled with a sense of community and are happy to share their lives and culture with you. It really is pretty amazing here.

And soon the family will move out and we will settle in. We will set up our kitchen and plant a garden. We will continue to learn the language and begin to understand people. We will begin to really work with our organization and begin programs that might make a real difference. And by the time we come home for the wedding I will have forgotten my anger and frustration about living in a room with a family. We will be bursting with excitement to see you all and share with you what we are accomplishing here. We will be dying to catch up with all of you and do those things listed above that we are so desperately missing here. And we will be sad when we realize that our visit was only too short and over too soon. But we will be excited about getting back to our home here and continuing our work. We will be excited to see the kids at the organization and our friends here in our village.

It has been this realization that recently has helped me rediscover why it is that I am here. Things are not perfect here and I am not always happy and smiling from ear to ear. But I do want to be here, and here is amazing.

Please continue to stay in contact as hearing from you always brightens our day. I love and miss you all!

RWO: Put 'Er There Pal

2010-04-14T08:12:00.000-07:00

Adam writes:

There are a couple types of handshakes here and it’s very important to know the difference. They are as follows:

1) The Normal, Western Handshake – the one that we are accustomed to

2) The Normal, South African Handshake – which involves switching from the Western Handshake, to a sort-of-thumb embrace, back to the Western Handshake

3) The Child’s Handshake – which involves the adult shaking both hands of the child (clasped together) at the same time with one of the adult hands

and finally...

4) The Creepy Handshake – this one looks like the Western Handshake, but involves tickling the other person’s palm with your middle finger, in order to indicate that you would like to have sex with them… yeah. It’s creepy.

RWO: People Actually Say “Hakunamatata” Here!

2010-04-11T08:31:00.001-07:00

Jess & Adam write:

So we’ve decided to start a new mini-series of super-random observations on, well, everything – language, culture, and life in general here in South Africa. We will title these little quips, “Random Weekly Observations”, or “RWOs” (in the spirit of Peace Corps initialisms), and we hope to keep this going for the full two years. Of course, we invite comments & counter-observations on all of these… that’s cross-cultural exchange, right?

So here’s our first RWO:

People actually say Hakunamatata here!! No, we’re serious, our supervisor says it on an almost daily basis – and not just to us, as a joke, but to other locals, as a typical response to almost any comment about day-to-day life!! (I mean, come on, that’s like the French saying “Bon Apetit!”) The first time he said it, we almost lost it laughing… I think he was confused. We made the reference to The Lion King and he just kinda shrugged, like, “Yeah, I think I’ve heard that in the movie, but… we kinda had it first…” Ha! Anyways, it’s awesome and as many times as we’ve heard it, it still always makes us chuckle a bit!

Shoooooosholoza...

2010-04-10T05:38:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

In the spirit of the upcoming World Cup games and to do my part for “Ayoba” (the South African “spirit” of hosting the World Cup), I wanted to include the most common sporting events song in the country, “Shosholoza”. This is a Zulu song with, not surprisingly, a rather sad history…

The song was first sung by miners during the gold and diamond rush in South Africa, when mostly whites (Afrikaaners and British) were put in charge of running the mines and mostly blacks (native Africans) were used for labor. In order to cover such a large area of minerals, however, those in charge of the South African mines began sending trains to the northern bordering countries (Mozambique, Zimbabwe, et all) in order to import their needed workers. “Shosholoza” became a worker’s song, much the way field songs of the Southern American slaves were born.

Nevertheless, nowadays the song is a truly proud tune, signifying the endurance of the black spirit. Thus, it is commonly sung to support the endurance of the many South African sports teams, specifically running and soccer. I wanted to include the song in our blog because it has played such a large role in our training (we sing this with staff) and our community integration (this song seems to unite even the most unlikely candidates – i.e., brand new volunteers – with our host families and friends). However, to truly appreciate the song, I highly suggest searching the tune on YouTube – the melody is really unbelievably beautiful:

Shosholoza (Go on now)
Shosholoza kulezantaba (Go now to the mountains)
Stimela sphum eSouth Africa (Here comes the train from S.A.)
Wen’uyabaleka (Run away now)
Wen’uyabaleka kulezantaba (Run away to the mountains)
Stimela sphum eSouth Africa (Here comes the train from S.A.)

Before I forget… I remember humming this song one of our first nights in South Africa, at the training college, and wondering where I got the tune from (I’m sure it was sung by the LCFs and other staff on one of our first meetings). But this song has since been one of my favorites here; its sound is addictive and the way in which it is sung, especially by the South Africans, somehow seems to embody something –
I’m not quite sure what it is – that I really appreciate about this place and these people.

I’m sorry that everyone can’t hear it the way we have heard it, in its spontaneous and resounding character, but at least I can share it somehow. I hope you enjoy it as we have!

"All the 411" (Episode 2)

2010-04-09T08:43:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

New site, new organization, new home… so we have some new tidbits of contact information and other little randoms as well. We’ve copied over the pertinent sections here (from the first post) that require some updating.

So, as promised, here’s the newest episode of our informational mini-series, "All the 411"!! Be sure to keep in touch!

Time Difference:

• To make things simple, just know that currently we are +6 hours from EST, +7 hours from CST, and +9 hours from PST. We will update again when your daylight saving time ends, so no one’s brain explodes… he he!

Follow Us:

• Our Stories: Blogging is reasonably painless (i.e., not too expensive), so we will continue to do so as often as possible! Enjoy!!
• Our Photos: Photo uploads are a little bit pricier, but not exorbitant. So we will continue to update all photos in the "Albums" section of Jess's Facebook page (find link at right), whenever possible.
• Other Chit-Chat: We check our Facebook pages (find links at right) on almost a daily basis, as our internet phone has a great Facebook app. This is the easiest way to contact us, and much faster and more efficient than even our email accounts. So leave us FB comments, messages and good ol’ love and we will do our best to get back to you!!

Phone Us:

• WE HAVE CELL PHONES!!! Don’t forget to dial 011 to dial out of the country and South Africa’s calling code is +27, so it should work like this:

Jess: 011.27.72.180.7656
Adam: 011.27.79.341.0847

• See previous “All the 411” post for other phone-related details, including all emergency contact numbers for Peace Corps South Africa.

Skype Us:

• Turns out, Skype can be a bit pricey on our end, especially if we attempt to do the video chat. So for now, we’re relying more on Facebook and phones… but, we’ll let you know if we plan any Skype marathons at the end of the month (when we may have extra data on our hands to burn)! • See previous “All the 411” post for other Skype-related details.

Mail Us:

• Mail has gotten a little complicated… We are trying to get a P.O. Box in a nearby town… and we will let you know when that occurs… if ever… Grrrr South Africa.
• See previous “All the 411” post for other mail-related details and we’ll update later with specifics at our new postal locations (hopefully).

Alphabet Soup:

As you may have read last time, Peace Corps service is a wondrous world of abbreviations, acronyms and “initialisms” (our friend Paula’s favorite term! Ha!).

So here’s an update to the on-going list of such shortenings to keep you "in the know" (and make reading our blogs possible!!):

• APCD: Associate Peace Corps Directors (current for CHOP: Matseke & Kori)
• CBO: Community-Based Organization (Grassroots, usually non-profit)
• CDO: Country Desk Officer (current: Fernando Moyle)
• CHOP: Community HIV/AIDS Outreach Program (our service program)
• CIP: Comm. Integration Period (current 3 months; aka “Lockdown”)
• DIC: Drop-In Center (for children; Swa Vana has 3 of these in our area)
• ET: Early Termination (personal decision to leave Peace Corps)
• HBC: Home-Based Care (a common health program in SA)
• HC: Host Country (i.e., South Africa)
• HCA: Host Country Agency (ours is “Swa Vana Youth Project”)
• HCN: Host Country National
• ICD or CD: In-Country Director (current: McGrath Jean Thomas)
• IGA: Income Generating Activities (a primary focus for Swa Vana)
• IRC: In-Country Resource Center
• IST: In-Service Training (short stints during service, as needed)
• KZN: Kwa-Zulu Nataal Province (other CHOP volunteers' province)
• LCF: Language & Culture Facilitator (ours was MamaSimongele)
• LP: Limpopo Province (other CHOP volunteers' province)
• MI: Master's International Program (my Master's Program)
• MP: Mmpumalanga Province (the province in which we reside)
• MST: Mid-Service Training (ours will be held January, 2011)
• MTCT: Mother-to-Child-Transmission (primary HIV transmission cause)
• NGO: Non-Governmental Organization (synonymous in SA with CBO)
• NPO: Non-Profit Organization (synonymous in South Africa with CBO)
• OVC: Orphans and Vulnerable Children (the primary focus of Swa Vana)
• PA: Program Assistant (current: Jan Molomo)
• PC: Peace Corps
• PCD: Peace Corps Director (current: Aaron S. Williams)
• PCI: Peace Corps Inductee (prior to staging & departure)
• PCMO: Peace Corps Medical Office
• PCPP: Peace Corps Partnership Program (donor program for PC)
• PCT: Peace Corps Trainee (during Training)
• PCV: Peace Corps Volunteer (current)
• PST: Pre-Service Training (2 months prior to service)
• PTO: Programming & Training Officer (current: Lisa Jordan)
• RPCV: Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (alumni)
• SA or ZA: South Africa
• TM: Training Manager (current: Victor Baker)
• WWS: World Wise Schools (correspondance program with U.S. schools)

As always, we’ll keep you posted!!!

Life as a Peace Corps Trainee

2010-04-04T04:14:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

HAPPY EASTER! We’ve had a great (long!) weekend of movie watching and catching up on photos and blogs, so here’s another tidbit for your enjoyment:

We get lots of questions from friends and family about what we’ve been up to for the last 2 months, that is, from those that haven’t got all the updates over the last 2 months. Arrival to Peace Corps is a bit chaotic… we arrive in South Africa in the middle of the night and then we are herded off, as one big confused group, to some undisclosed location for “training” for 8 weeks… what exactly were we doing all that time…? Well, we’ve crammed a lot into the last 8 weeks and to help illuminate our “training” schedule, I’ve included a typical day in the life of a PCT. Here we go:

6:30AM- Wake (the roosters will usually help you with this quite early), rinse off in a bucket and empty your bath/rinse water into the yard (it’s kinda gross, but the chickens love to wade in the bath water – ha!).

7:00AM- Eat some breakfast (usually toast or cereal), pack a lunch (usually consisting of hard boiled eggs, bread, peanut butter, apples, and if you’ve prepared the night before… some noodles with veggies), iron clothes and dress for the day, tidy up the room, pack up training supplies for the day (including training guides & language materials).

7:45PM- Walk to language group meeting house (our walk was bout 15mins., mostly in the shade, but one dreaded hill in complete sunlight… ugh.)

8:00AM- Language (and sometimes culture) classes with your LCF (Language & Culture Facilitator) and 2-4 other PCT’s training in your same language (our language was Zulu and then SiSwati).

10:00AM- Meet up with other language groups at your town’s pickup points (ours was at the one stop sign in town where the tar road and the dirt roads converged), wait for Peace Corps coombies (aka, vans) to arrive… keep waiting… keep waiting…, witness “Rush Hour in Machipe” (massive herds of cows and goats down the tar road), keep waiting (they are usually late, if you haven’t figured that out yet)… board combies to go to SS Skhosana (a private nature reserve, which was wonderful!).

10:30AM- Arrive at SS Skhosana, shoo away the monkeys from the trashbins and windows, make coffee/tea, catch up with other trainees.

11:00AM- Morning sessions begin, usually facilitated by PC staff, current PCVs, and sometimes country nationals. Sessions include the following: 1) Technical (HIV/AIDS training, NGO development & capacity building training, and a focus on the role of the PCV in sustainable development); 2) CORE (South African culture and cultural sensitivity, South African systems of leadership & power, techniques for PCV integration and immersion, and other related “dos” and “don’ts” for the PCV); 3) Medical (PCV Health, PCV medications, and South African medical concerns for PCVs and country nationals); and finally, 4) Safety & Security (PCV safety & security, safety & security guidelines for global Peace Corps, and South African safety & security concerns for PCVs).

12:30PM- One hour lunch (much needed break at this point!) Lunch also usually involves monkey avoidance (they like to eat your leftovers and steal your Tupperware containers!)

1:30PM- Afternoon sessions begin (see above).

3:30PM- PAL (Practical Application of Language) time – meet up with your language group again (and sometimes join with other groups in the same target language) and practice language studied that day and other conversational skills related to the taking of your LPI (Language Proficiency Interview) at the end of training. I should note, this time is often spent teaching each other inappropriate phrases with grammar and vocabulary learned earlier in the day… yes, we are children… ha!!

4:30PM- Afternoon announcements by Victor (Program & Training Manager), Mojobe (Language & Culture Coordinator), Baragile (Homestay & Transport Coordinator), and/or Jeff (current PCV & technical support helper… person… not sure of the title).

5:00PM- Coombies back to Machipe & Bundu begin loading – this again, involved a lot of waiting… and waiting… and waiting…

6:00PM- Back to homestay, chat with families, wash lunch dishes, unpack training bag & new materials, and a bit of time to de-stress in your room.

6:30PM- Help in the kitchen, eat dinner with host family (usually consisting of chicken, pap, a mushy mixture of greenbeans and mashed potatoes, salted spinach, and a cabbage and carrot combo, sometimes also a sauce for the chicken and pap).

7:00PM- (If you eat in the TV room… and if you have a TV): British news on SABC2 (There’s only 3 primary channels in South Africa – SABC1, SABC2, and SABC3. They each have their own cultural taglines, such as “Mzanzi fo sho”, which loosely translates to “South African for real” – ha!)

7:30PM- Zulu news and local weather on SABC2 (we always hope for numbers below 34C and of course, rain!!).

8:00PM- “Generations” on SABC1. Okay, “Generations” is the longest running soap opera – or “story” – in South Africa and it is truly addicting!! They also have American classics like “The Bold & The Beautiful” (we can’t stand this one!) and Afrikaaner soaps, such as “7 de Laan” (Adam loves this one!). There’s also a slew of copy-cats of “Generations” that somehow seem to always fall short, such as “Scandal”, “Hopeville”, and “Zone 41”. The greatest thing about “Generations” is how much you can learn about South African culture or confirm about what you are learning in training. For example, the primary conflicts in the story during our training period involved a couple dealing with HIV/AIDS, an abusive boyfriend, a son who is gay, a fight between a biological & non-biological father, extreme alcoholism, and organized crime – whew!!!

9:00PMish- Homework, language practice, preparation for tomorrow’s training, and bucket bathes… Alright, bucket bathes work like this: you usually have two basins, a large one (3’ wide by 10” tall) in which you stand to collect the water and a smaller one (1.5’ wide by 6” tall) in which you keep your clean water for dunking (i.e., your hair) and soaping (i.e., your washcloth.) If you’re lucky, like Adam and me, we also had a bucket (about 5 gallons) where we would keep all our clean water for our final rinse. The whole process can take up to half an hour, especially if you have hair like mine to wash. All in all, you never get quite as clean as in a shower and it always takes way too long, but, as many PCVs have said, it’s sometimes more satisfying because you feel like you’re “really working for the clean” – ha!

10:00PM- Getting readying for sleep – this can mean adjusting your mosquito netting, moving your bath basins, getting clean water for brushing your teeth, and spraying Tabbard (a 100% Deet spray) throughout the room and avoiding breathing for a while – ick!

10:30PM- In bed, trying to fall asleep in the heat and humidity.

11:30PM- Usually asleep… hopefully! Here we go again!!!

So, as you can now understand, we’re pretty excited that Training is finally done. These three months of “Integration & Observation” won’t be any piece of cake… but anything’s better than that schedule!!

Hope all is well with everyone! Salani Kahle!

Gray is My New Favorite Color

2010-04-01T11:04:00.000-07:00

Jess writes:

So you might have noticed a ‘brief’ mention about heat in our last post… in case you missed it, it’s hot here! (We’re sure you caught that though).

What we failed to mention was the water… or lack thereof. The water in our town is turned on only once every two weeks for a few hours – which means, all households that share one of the few water spickets in town are all expected to converge civilly on that location every fourteen days, haul their numerous five gallon jugs to the tap, and fill them in a calm and courteous manner… and then get them home, somehow. We’ve only witnessed tidbits of this epic adventure so far, but it seems to go less than smoothly on most occasions.

Thus, heat and water are an issue… in case you missed it again (ha!).

Now, let me tell you about the gloriousness of the color gray: First, gray skies in the morning means a slightly longer stay before the heat starts. Second, gray skies in the afternoon means an overcast day with glorious protection from that damned sun. Third, grayer skies means drizzle and the once annoying weather pattern that is drizzle now makes for beautifully cool and breezy days. Finally, even grayer skies means rain… rain means even more beautifully cool days and even cooler winds and… wait for it… WATER!! We collect rain water in buckets and basins in the yard and from the gutters into the JoJo - a water container attached to the gutter system. (I only wish I had 50 more buckets to cover our whole compound to collect this heavenly liquid!!) In fact, I’ve become so obsessed with rain that I’ve begun my own rain dance whenever I see gray skies looming long enough to possibly promise rain: “Ngicela Invula! Ngicela Invula!” To pronounce this correctly, be sure to use a soft click on the ‘c’ and you must raise both hands towards the sky while bending your knees in beat with the song – it’s actually a wonderfully embarrassing little dance. (The Africans in our training village saw me do this more than once and wondered what the crazy “Mlungu” was doing, but when it worked a couple times I began to create a following of crazy co-dancers! Ha!).

So you see, this ‘gray’ color that used to signify depressing days with an overcast sun and ominous clouds, now signifies, quite literally, our American salvation – it keeps me out of this so-not-American heat, it keeps my American skin away from this far-too-near sun, and it keeps my American hair clean… that is, from being washed more than once every 3 days!!

So bring on the clouds, bring on the rain, bring on those solemn days without sunshine… Bring on the gray!!