Thursday, June 23, 2011

Swearing-In




A photo from the swearing-in ceremony at Mokopane College. I'm in the back right. It is from the U.S. Embassy's page, found here. The page has a video of the event, too.

Monday, June 20, 2011

We went to the Apartheid Museum in Joburg pretty early on in PST. The museum is beautiful, and it was good to get a sense, however partial, of the decades of oppression and violence the country went through. I've found that people don't mention it by name. It is just 'before' or 'during that time'. It was the same in Rwanda in regards to the genocide. I can't imagine how a country heals after such terrible events. Well, if South Africa is any example, slowly. It is going to take a long time before the structural poor education, low income, and lack of socioeconomic mobility begins to change. That said, the country has made great strides in reconciliation, and, according to almost everyone I've talked to, things are getting better.

I'd heavily recommend reading A Long Walk to Freedom. It gives a really good description of what life was like during Apartheid, and how much had to be done to fight it. The book is pretty long, but well worth it.

















There was a whole wing dedicated to Nelson Mandela, which followed his life from birth to present day. It had some great video clips of him, as well as his original speech from the Rivonia Trial.







Tanks used by the Apartheid government to put down protests.





It was Youth Day here last week, a public holiday to celebrate the anniversary of the Soweto Uprising (June 16th, 1976), when tens of thousands of students took to the streets of Soweto to protest the introduction of Afrikaans as the main language in schools. 176 people were killed - mostly students.


Saturday, June 18, 2011

Ke tsogile

I am about to hit the 5 month anniversary of being in-country (28 July or so), which is commemorated by In-Service Training [IST]. IST is a week-long training with PCVs and their supervisors (our bosses at site) to develop an action plan for future projects. The first three months at site, post the two month pre-service training, are meant for observation and the creation of a Community Needs Assessment, which is meant to give the PCV a better view of the community and possible projects. I made mine all pretty with photos and graphs.

IST is also the first time I will get to see my friends who are placed in other provinces, which is most exciting. It ends on the 4th of July, so a bunch of use are going to stay in Pretoria for a day or two at a backpackers (hostel) to celebrate 'Merica.

So, a bit about my village:
We are, in the interest of safety, advised not to disclose our exact location on the interwebs. As we have all seen terrorists in movies, we all know that they are scouring Peace Corps blogs to find new kidnap victims. So my location will remain a secret. E-mail me (amsecor@gmail.com) for my new mailing address. But not you, terrorists. We can't be pen-pals.

What I can say is that I live in a good-sized (about 2000 households – maybe 6-8,000 people) village to the north and east of Tzaneen in the Greater Tzaneen Municiaplity of the Mopani District in Limpopo Province. The village is located in Bolubedu Kindom, which has itself Modjadji, the rain queen. Well, did. She passed in '05 and they haven't named a new one yet. Hopefully that will happen soon, because things are getting parched over here.

Being in the southern hemisphere and all, seasons are opposite, so we are in the middle of winter at present. And by winter I mean an average daily temperature of 21C (70F) and night temperature of 6C (42F), which sounds nice and all, but 42F is absolutely freezing when you don't have any heat source in your room. Fear not, though, because I finally broke down a bought a blanket, so I no longer need to sleep in my winter jacket. Winter is also the dry season, so what growth we do have (mostly the type of African bush growth you would see on National Geographic programs as we are located about 50 km from Kruger National Park, SAs biggest game reserve) is turning brown and dying off.

Ethnically, my village is predominantly Sotho (mostly Balubedu), with some Tsonga, some Venda, and a few others mixed in. The main languages are Selobedu (the traditional language of the Balubedu), Sotho, Tsonga, and some Venda. I studied Sotho during PST, so can get by on my very marginal language skills and the surprising amount (which is to say that some people have fairly good knowledge, but most don't speak a lick) of English spoken in the village. I do my morning greetings at the office in Sotho and Tsonga. I think the caregivers get a kick out of trying to stump me, as they use the two interchangeably. There are also about twenty slang greetings and responses, which I won't even get into. For the most part, at least, I can say hi, which is a hell of a start.

PCVs are partnered with local organizations, but are given the freedom to do projects with whatever organizations or groups they think would be most beneficial and/or whichever ones will work with them. The organization I am paired with provides home-based care [HBC - wherein, for those stumped, carers provide care in the home] to nine villages, has a drop-in center which provides food and activities for 200-some-odd orphans and vulnerable children [OVCs], and organizes large-scale HIV Counselling and Testing [HCT – it used to be called VCT (Voluntary), but someone decided to change it. I blame the WHO - they are lousy with changing acronyms] campaigns in surrounding villages.

Up to now, I have been focusing most of my energies on the OVC side of things. I ran a couple week English class using the novelization of High School Musical (I swear, it was the only book around), and am working with the OVC manager to design a formal extracurricular education schedule and corresponding curricula for grades 5-12 which will cover English, Maths, Sciences, Computers, and Life Orientation [basically health class]. I am also going to start teaching computer classes to students and community members at the local primary school. Mavis Beacon here I come.

On the larger scale, I am looking to increase HIV-related education in the village and hopefully shift away from the current didactic, top-down approach to a more participatory one that focuses on structural issues such as gender roles, self-respect, and substance abuse. I am also working with a group of 20-somethings who have started a gardening project at the org with the help of an Afrikaaner farmer from Tzaneen. They have 13-hectares of land ready for cultivation, but need help developing a formal plan and writing grants for the start up costs. If we are successful, the garden would create numerous jobs and, as the project is a non-profit, would provide free food to HIV+ community members.

The org has requested that I try to create some vocational training programs for out-of-school youths, as there is a noticeable lack of education or employment opportunities for youths who haven't passed matric (grade 12) or who have but are unemployed. We have welding supplies at the org, so I just need to find a volunteer teacher.

Life here exists on the oft-repeated 'African Time', which, to me, is actually the lack of time. A 10 a.m. meeting often turns into a 2 p.m. meeting - if it happens at all. I tend to bring a book to work for those occasions. Because of this, work is slow going, and Peace Corps warns volunteers not to get frustrated by the pace of life. Generally I love it, as I am a terribly unpunctual person, but it does get on the nerves when there is work to be done. So these grand schemes of mine, while probably completely do-able during my service, will take a long time to get going.

At present, I am living with a family of 7 or 10 (excluding myself), depending on if the father is home on his monthly break from the phosphorous mines, a brother is home from boarding school during school holidays, and if the other renter's fiance is over. My mother, Mme Mabasa is a cook for the organization. She has two daugthers, Macy (28) and Leah (26), and one son, Silence (10, the one away at school). Macy has two sons, Dankie (5, it means 'thank you' in Afrikaans – which makes things difficult around the house sometimes) and Motlare (who turned 2 today – 'tl' makes a 'cl' sound in Sotho, similar to the 'cl' in sclerosis). Leah has a toddler whose name I can not for the life of me remember.

I am renting a small room (about 10 x 8) just off the former kitchen, which is now used mostly for storage. The other renter, Aubrey, a high school student at a school in the next village over, has a room next to mine. Life is pretty hectic at the house sometimes (generally in a good way), as Dankie and Motlare have taken quite a shining to me and jump all over me when I get home and then spend the next two hours tearing my room apart. We had a Dan Deacon dance party yesterday. I'll upload a video of Dankie dancing when I get to town. The boy has moves.

My homestay also has a borehole, which is fantastic and saves me the walk to the public tap for water. The water here is extremely salty, and a Brita can only do so much, but I think my taste buds are getting acclimated. I'm the only one who will drink the water from the borehole at the org, which is salty beyond belief. My co-workers all buy water. Or go without, which seems to be some sort of sport here.

So that's my situation at the present. I'll head to Pretoria on the 25th for IST. Between now and then I have plans to meet up with another volunteer, Megan, who is SA22 (training groups are given numbers. I'm SA23. Each group is off-set by six months and cycles between Education and Health, so Megan has been here almost a year and is an Education volunteer), in Tzaneen, take a hike to see how far away the local nature reserve (Hans Merensky) is, and possibly have a braai (barbecue) with some co-workers. And hopefully get some work done.

All in all things are grand and I am very happy to have been placed where I was. Hope all is well stateside. Again, snail mail is always welcome – just e-mail me for the address.