New House

I moved into my new house on Thursday. I was surprised at how much stuff I have collected in the past year. I came with 80 lbs of luggage in two suitcases and a carry-on bag but it took two trips to the old house to collect all my belongings. I moved into the house without any problems and am quite happy living by myself and doing all the cooking.

Moving on up...

I haven’t been updating much lately. I have had some problems at my site which made me quite unhappy. But now, my big problem has been solved………..I am moving!! I am remaining in Mtubatuba at Mpilonhle, but I am moving out of the village and into the township. I encountered many many many challenges living in the village, the least of which were living without the comforts of the first world and revolved mainly around psychological factors, issues of safety, and distance from the office. My commute to the Mpilonhle office took more time and cost more money than my average commute in Washington, DC.

I am living in a little house, by myself, in the backyard of another, larger house. I am now without a host family and I am simply renting the room from a landlord. The house has four rooms; a bedroom, living room, kitchen, and bathroom with a shower and running hot water. I have some work to do on the place, but I have nothing if not a lot of time on my hands. I still consider my village hosts as my family here in Africa, but now I will only visit them on the occasional weekend.

Did I mention I went to Lesotho

I went to Lesotho, it was awesome. The girl from Kentucky had to go all the way to Lesotho to ride a horse for the first time. Check out more photos of my adventure.

It was just a cold

I came down with a cold after my recent trip to Lesotho. This is hardly surprising since it was very cold at night and very hot in the day and this is usually all it takes to get me sick. This cold, however, was quite different than any cold I have had in the past due to life in the village. From the reaction of the community, one might think that no one had ever had a cold in their lives before (this is not true for this is not even the first time I have had a cold in Khula village). As typical with any illness, I wanted to get plenty of rest to recover as quickly as possible. However, this is not what my host mother had in mind. She was constantly knocking on the door, “you need to eat,” “you are eating too much,” “you need a doctor,” “you need to take pills,” “you are taking your pills are the wrong time,” “you need more sleep,” and my personal favorite, “you are sleeping too much,” and so on for three days straight. (I have come to understand now that people believe that if you sleep when you are sick, you will die in your sleep, which I suppose is true for people who are sick with an actual serious disease, but as far as I know rarely happens to those with sinus trouble.) Apparently, my host mother called the Induna (chief of the village) to report my condition, who then called my organization, who drove out to my house to check on me. I wouldn’t have been surprise if Jacob Zuma himself had showed up at my door to make sure I was ok. When I did got back to work, every single person in the office knew of my “condition” and asked how things were going. Now, I do, to some extent, appreciate that they are concerned about me and they know it is a big deal if anything were to happen to their American, but at the time of the illness, I was not thinking about this and only aggravated.

After three days of the cold, I recovered significantly, but was still suffering from what I thought was an ear infection. So much to my host mother’s delight, I went to the doctor for the first time in South Africa. First, I called the doctor to make an appointment, to which they told me they do not take appointments and I should just get in line. I was a little worried about how long this “line” would be, but then remember that I was not going to the free clinic, but one you needed to pay.

I went to the office where only about three people were waiting. Once the doctor got started things went pretty fast. I have never been in and out of an exam room so fast, HMO’s in America would be impressed. He looked in both my ears, my mouth, diagnosed me with some infection in my head and sent me to the back to get medication.

Not exactly like some of the stories I have heard about going to the doctor in Africa, but this is South Africa, I was in a town (albeit a very small one) and I was willing to pay to see a doctor.

Summer holiday and back to work

I don’t think I could have asked for a better holiday. With three weeks off from my NGO, I had many plans to entertain myself. I spent the first week in the village. Two relatives of my host mother came to stay with us, a little boy and girl, who were good kids and I had fun hanging out with. The little boy fixed my bicycle in a matter of ten minutes, after having it sit in the garage for 9 months broken. This week was extremely hot and pretty much all we could do was sit on the porch and read.



The second week I took a taxi down to Durban. I met up with some other Peace Corps Volunteers to spend a week in the city, feeling like a regular person again. We went to the beach, uShaka Marine World to see the dolphin show and aquarium, Victoria Street Market, the Workshop, the casino and movie theater, the Essenwood Market, Botanical Gardens and even to the theater to see Shear Madness “with a South African twist,” or so the advertisement said. I spent my first ever Christmas away from home at the beach and movies/casino. We ate at many great restaurants, which is something I have really missed since coming to Africa. Some may say that it is tacky to go to a casino on Christmas, but honestly, it did not feel like Christmas for a number of reasons. Not only was it hot, not the right season at all, but very few South Africans that I know celebrate the holiday and almost all the stores were open. There were no Christmas decorations, no parties to attend, no gifts to give and none of my mom’s homemade Christmas candy.


After a week in Durban, I parted ways with my fellow volunteers, and flew to Capetown to meet up with another volunteer. I had an amazing time in Capetown, from the friends I made, the activities, the nightlife, the food and the scenery, I couldn’t have planned a better trip. My friend Nathan and I made friends with many of the other travelers in the backpacker, and thus every day we had many people to hang out with and many activities to chose from. I can say, the only down side of the trip was my overestimating my ability to climb Table Mountain, only a few minutes into the climb, I knew it was a bad idea and I had a horrible time making my way to the top many many hours later. The view on the way up and at the top of the mountain were amazing, but next time, I will take the cable car! Other than Table Mountain, we saw the Victoria and Albert Waterfront, Long Street, Green Square Market, the South African Museum, Robben Island, the Cape Pennisula, Cape of Good Hope, the District Six Museum and the Botanical Gardens. We went on a wine tour and a tour of the Cape Peninsula. Despite scheduling the vacation in order to see the Minstrel Parade, the city decided to change the date and thus we did not see costumes and dancing. I spend New Year’s Eve with some fellow travelers from the backpackers on Long Street. I had a great holiday and I can’t wait for another trip to Capetown.


Back at Mpilonhle, we started the year off with a three week training session reminiscent of my days in Pre-Service Training. I don’t sit well through training session and thus was glad to be back in the office and get back to work. We have a lot of plans for this year to reach as many community members with health services and computer classes as we can.

My one-year Peace Corps anniversary passed with a day at the beach with the other volunteers at my site. We spent the day swimming, eating and watching crocodiles and hippos, in addition to getting burned in the hot hot sun.

LST in Durban and the approach on the One-Year Anniversary

Life-Skills Training is a Peace Corps workshop designed to teach us the skills to teach youth about the skills they need prevent HIV. We were all gathered in Durban, a big city on the coast of KwaZulu-Natal. I love Durban, a big city and a beach, I could ask for nothing more. The training was useful but the best part was being in Durban with other volunteers. We could go outside at night, see movies and go to beach. I could walk around without being stared at all the time. I could talk in English and eat food I really liked.

When I first arrived in the village, everything was quaint and beautiful. The hardships made it seem like I was really doing something here, I could brag about washing clothes by hand and heating and carrying water. I was living like the people, learning how to survive. There comes a time when things stop being quaint and beautiful but dirty, noisy and annoying. The kids aren’t cute anymore, but malnourished and demanding. Washing clothes isn’t making me a stronger person, just a really irritated one. Thus, getting away from the village and going to the city and seeing other volunteers makes everything seem alright again. I returned from LST with only one more week at my NGO before it closes for the holiday and we get a three-week break. I am going to Durban and Capetown, getting a much needed rest from the woes of village life. I hope to be rejuvenated and see the community in a new light when I get back.

World AIDS Day

Mpilonhle marked World AIDS day this year by involving the youth in a making a quilt representing their feeling about HIV and AIDS. While in America, you may see people wearing red ribbons to commemorate the day, South Africa tries to raise awareness through large and small events. South Africa has one of the highest HIV rates on the world and while we work all year long to prevent the disease from spreading, we took this day to step back and let some of the youth show us their feelings about this disease that is shaping their lives. HIV is diminishing much of success the country has seen. I can’t think of any other place that could have gone what South Africa went through with apartheid and not go through a civil war and yet the battle with HIV goes on with no end in sight. Of course, this is not all without hope, places like Mpilonhle are working constantly and have seen many successes in the people we have helped over the past year.