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.

A Peace Corps Thanksgiving

Peace Corps volunteers from all over South Africa descended on St. Lucia for the first ever Mpilonhle Thanksgiving. Turkeys were roasted, rolls were enjoyed, many bottles of wine were consumed, more pies than could be counted were made. We swam in the pool, went to the beach, and watched many hours of E! TV (a peace corps favorite) and movies. Since I couldn’t spend Thanksgiving with my family in America, this was really the next best thing.

Training and Water

I planned an Izinduna and Field Assistants training workshop for Mpilonhle last week. There was a great turnout, with about 40 people. We did training on what Mpilonhle is about, health education and community mobilization. I even went back to my Peace Corps roots and used PACA tool, where I had them draw maps of their community, pointing out all the important places. It will be there job to hand out flyers for our community outreach events. Everyone was super excited to receive certificates and Crocs in the end.

In village news, we have nearly reached a water crisis. The water use to go off during the day and come back on for a few hours each night. Now the water has been completely off since Sunday and on Sunday it was only on for about 45 minutes at a mere drip. We haven’t really had water for a week now. I have been creative with my water use, cutting down to only absolute necessity, no washing clothes, no making tea, bathing only when absolutely necessary. I had the children go around the village to fetch me water in return for candy however, now there is not even any water to fetch. Yesterday I saw kids getting water out of the swamp, but I draw the line at bathing or washing with swamp water. I am going to leave the village for the weekend and perhaps do a couple of rain dances.

Heritage Day and Taxi Accident

Wednesday was Heritage in South Africa, a day we celebrate the heritage of the country and get the day off work. I was sent by my NGO to a meeting in my village. The invitation said the meeting would start at 9:30am, so I arrived promptly at 9:30. I knew the event wouldn’t start right away so I brought a book. However, when I arrived, the tent was set up, about 25 kids were milling around and the stereo system was up and blaring music, not a good environment to catch up on a good book. I waited around until 10, then asked one the ladies around what time she thought the meeting would really start, she said maybe 10:30. I decided to go home for awhile and wait there instead. I went back at 11:30 and things were just getting under way. The little girls of the village were doing a dance to welcome all the guests to the meeting. Of course, I was made to sit up front with all the VIPs, even though I really had nothing to contribute to the meeting. It finally started about noon, only a mere 2 and half hours late, so just on time in Africa. The meeting was two and half hours of talking in Zulu. The little girls did two dances and the staff of the organization holding the meeting did a song as well. The performances were great, but the rest, while I am sure was extremely interesting and informative, was over my head in terms of my Zulu language skills. They served a meal at the end of the meeting, which was really the prize for all those who could sit through the whole meeting (not that I had a choice seeing how I was sitting right in front of everyone). Although I do not eat meat, the main food at any South Africa gathering, I was happy to eat some beans and give the rest of my share of the meat to some of the kids who stuck around after their dance. I suppose the hosts felt badly about giving me meat and they gave me another entirely full plate of vegetarian stuff. I ate some more beans but then when most people were gone, I gave the food again to some children. I find it difficult to eat at a big gathering where the children are sitting around waiting for the leftovers. However, since this organizations main function is to take care of and feed orphans, I saw they were giving out bowls of food to the kids before the adults ate, which made me extremely happy. The rest of the week, I have noticed people around town all dressed up in traditional clothing, so far, this is my favorite South African holiday.

Yesterday I was taking a taxi to work, only the taxi didn’t quite make it all the way to Mtubatuba. Just outside the town, the wheel fell off the taxi while we were going about 80kph, sending everyone inside up in the air, then back down very quickly. Everyone was screaming and scared, there was smoke and burning rubber, but no one was seriously injured, we all hit our head on the top of the taxi when the tire first fell off though. We were very lucky not to fall over, some quick thinking by the driver who apparently wasn’t quick thinking enough to make sure the tires were fastened securely to the vehicle before taking off that morning. Everyone rushed off the taxi when it stopped, not knowing what had happened, just that there was a bunch of smoke and burning. While normally I wouldn’t appreciate being squeezed into a taxi with the maximum number of people possible, all piled in on top of each other, I think this is the only reason no one was hurt, none of us could actually go anywhere but up. I was close enough to town to walk to my NGO, since there was really no way I was getting back on that taxi (although other people did). Everyone was very supportive of my freaking out, despite it not being a serious accident. I believe the scariest thing was being in the back of the taxi, thinking you are about to crash and not being able to do anything about it. I calmed down considerably as the day went on and was able to take a taxi home that evening.

iSimangaliso, Mozambique

Keeping sane during a Peace Corps experience is a difficult task even at the best of times, thus taking a vacation with other volunteers is essential for ones mental health. I spent the past week on holiday with four other volunteers, visiting the iSimangaliso Wetland Park and going to Mozambique. We spent the first part of the week in St. Lucia, which is really just down the street from my house, but I was able to see the area in a new light, the way the tourists do. While it was rainy, cold and windy, I still had a good time, even if I had to wear two fleeces and a ski cap to the beach everyday. We went out to a lot of restaurants, went to the St. Lucia beach, Cape Vidal, Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve, and on the Hippo and Croc tour.

In the middle of the week, we headed up the park to Kosi Bay. We got a bit confused by the directions to the backpackers, seeing as how we needed to turn onto a dirt road, past an abandoned building to get to it. We were all very skeptical of the place, but it turned out to be the best backpackers I have stayed at in South Africa. Each group could have their own little building. The rooms were connected by walkways made of sticks. The place was not busy at all, so we had out own kitchen and got the bathroom to ourselves most of the time. While we were only there for two days, if felt longer because the owners took us on so many tour and were very accommodating to everything we wanted to see.

The first day, we went on the tour’s first ever trip into the raffa forest of Kosi Bay. We road on a small boat make of raffa wood, pulling it across the lake with a rope. We walked through the forest and it was amazing seeing all the palms.

In the afternoon, we went to Kosi Bay to see the fish traps, go snorkeling and to the beach. It was a beautiful beach, but we were the only ones on it. Friday I went into Mozambique, the backpackers is only about ten minutes away from the border. It was pretty cool to get my passport stamped on my birthday. A Brazilian couple sang to me in Portuguese. Immediately after crossing the border, all tarred roads disappeared and the driver had to put on the 4X4 drive. Mozambique was in a civil war for 25 years that ended in the 1990’s. I went to Ponto D’ouro and spent the morning on the beach.

They took us to lunch at a restaurant on top of a sand dune. They even gave me a free drink for my birthday. In the afternoon, I went back to the beach and to the shops along the road. Despite being only about a 30 minutes drive from South Africa, Ponta D’Ouro had a very different feel, with different culture, language, currency and architecture.

The beach in Ponta D’Ouro was one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen but very few people were around. Back at the backpackers, I found the owner had decorated the place with balloons and streamers for my birthday. We had cake and champagne in the evening. I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday! Check out the photos of the great adventure with the link to photos on the side. Now it is back to work in Mtubatuba

Carrying on

8/14/08 (wouldn't let me update on that actual date)

It has been a good couple of weeks in Africa. I am making progress with my work at Mpilonhle. Every Saturday, the mobile health unit goes out to counsel, test, and provide medication for community members. We have chosen 12 communities to serve with our three units. During the week, I plan for the events, going over logistics like who will staff which unit and on Saturdays, I got with the units to see the community. Since we started three weeks ago, the communities have really responded, from the local induna (chiefs) spreading the word to people signing up for computer courses. Community members are given the opportunity to sign up for a whole week of computer courses when they come to the unit on Saturday when they see a counselor or a nurse. In November and December we will go back to each community to hold the courses. I am excited about offering these courses to community members whom many have never worked on a computer before. Not only can we provide health services to the community, but we can also bring technology to extremely rural areas of KwaZulu-Natal.

Life in the village is also becoming routine, I once thought this would never happen. I doubt I will ever become use to all the staring, but I am use to eating the food and heating water for bathes. The children are still amazed by my presence. I have learned that I cannot feed all the hungry children in the village, I can play with them and read them stories. After receiving a wonderful package from the US, I promptly covered the children in temporary tattoos and stick-on earrings. The girls were so excited to have the tattoos, but I think they are also excited by receiving so much positive attention from an adult. The only problem being that now they hardly leave me alone for 10 minutes, even if they just want me to simply watch them play card games. I have taken to reading while they color and play games in hopes of showing them that reading can be fun.

I am going on vacation next week and I am very excited. A few other Peace Corps Volunteers will join me here in St. Lucia for a few days, then we are heading up the iSimangaliso Wetland Park to Kosi Bay. I plan on sitting on beaches, reading, snorkeling, going to game reserves, eating good food (i.e. nothing with cabbage in it) and celebrating my birthday.

Amanzi

There is a saying in the Peace Corps, An optimist looks at the glass and says it’s half full, a pessimist looks at the glass and says it’s half empty, a Peace Corps volunteer looks at the glass and says ‘I could take a bath in that.’

I found truth in that statement this weekend we the water to the entire town of Mtubatuba was turned off for now going on 24 hours and likely to last for two or three days. I try to bath as little as possible now that it is winter and it is too cold to even take your clothes off to get in the water. Yesterday though, was really the day I could put it off no longer. In the village I stayed in during training, the water to the village was only on three days a weeks and we stored water in barrels for the other days. In my current village, water is on all the time, except for occasionally going off for two hours at a time maybe once a month. We store a little bit of water in one barrel for these occasions. Not knowing how long the water would be off last night, I used as little water as possible to bathe, managing to even wash my hair in about two kettles worth of water. I was quite proud of the accomplishment, even though it was a freezing and miserable experience. At least the entire town is in the same boat and will all be suffering in two days. Thankfully, there are no photos to accompany this post.

Community Outreach.2

This Saturday, I schedule a second community outreach day for Mpilonhle. While there was a bit of a scramble the day before the event, I think it ended well, with two units working in two locations to serve about 45 community members.

Cape Vidal

I took a break from work last Thursday and went to Cape Vidal, a beautiful beach in the St. Lucia Wetland Park. We even saw a whale out in the ocean. Before the beach, there is a game park, were I saw this monkey.

Children

I just got back from In-Service Training (IST) and I had a great time. It was very cold in Limpopo though, so I am glad to be back in the warmer climate. Now that I am back, I am continuing to work on the community outreach project for Mpilonhle. I am also trying to come up with ideas for a secondary project. Until I have something exciting to write about, enjoy some photos of the village children.

Graduation Party

The graduates

Set up for the meal, note all the balloon animals on the tables

Children with the balloons that all turned into hats by the end of the party

One of my neighbors with all the broken balloon pieced back together

Every caterer got her own special hat!

My mom catered a graduation party this weekend. She said my job would be to make balloon animals for decorations. I never thought this was a skill I would pick up in the Peace Corps, but they say to not have expectations. Luckily all the children just wanted hats, which was pretty easy. I became quite good at the giraffe, and dog too. Unfortunately I underestimated the amount of children that would come to the party and only had about 30 balloons for the 1 billion children that showed up when I started handing them out. In addition, it was very hot so all the balloons popped almost immediately but the very resourceful children found a way to patch all the holes and we were able to make more balloon.

If you go to a graduation party, anyone who has ever graduated university is suppose to wear their cap and gown. My host mom told me to wear mine but you know, my old cap and gown did not even make the first draft of the packing list.

Community Outreach

This past weekend, my NGO held a community outreach event at a local farm to counsel and teset people for HIV. We also brought computer units to introduce the people to the technology.

This was the first event that I organized for Mpilonhle and I am happy it went well. I was concerned that no one would show up, that the counselors would not want to work on a Saturday, that we would be late, and so on. My fears were relieved though when almost all the farm's employees came to the units, took part in the counseling and about half participated in the computer training. We had five counselors, an IT trainer, health educator and a nurse all working with the community.

Health education class for employees on the farm

Mobile health unit

Computer training

Hluhluwe Game Reserve

Me, Linda, Amos at the Game Reserve

Elephants!

Rhinos

Baboons

Impala

I went to the Hluhluwe Game Reserve this weekend with another Peace Corps volunteer, Linda, and two others from her site. We didn't see all teh Big Five, but we saw a lot, elephants, zebras, impala, nyala, baboons, giraffes, warthogs and wildbeasts. I had such a great time, more phots are in the photos section.

Four day weekend

I had four whole days stretched out before me with nothing to do due to public holidays and the weekend. My past few weeks in the village, I haven’t wanted to cook anything for the simple reason of not wanting to wash any dishes since I couldn’t really figure out a good method. Since I had many days of nothing to do though, I decided to go ahead and cook. My first attempt was a cheese omelet. I think it turned out well, it tasted like scrambled eggs with cheese which I am not sure is how an omelet is suppose to taste, but good nonetheless. I also cooked mashed potatoes and pasta. I quickly learned that those are the only three things I know how to cook. I need to branch out because none of those options are very healthy.

I spent the rest of my time reading Infinite Jest, a very long book about tennis players and drug addicts. I am really enjoying the book and came across some lines I felt fit the Peace Corps experience as well as they described life in a halfway house fro recovering addicts:

That you do not have to like a person to learn from him or her

That it is possible to learn valuable things from a stupid person

That boring activities become, perversely, much less boring if you concentrate intently on them

That no single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable.

That having a lot of money does not immunize people from suffering or fear

That cockroaches can, up to a point, be lived with.

That different people have radically different ideas of basic personal hygiene.

That, perversely, it is often more fun to want something than to have it.

Yesterday I did laundry again. I got back at noon from a parent’s meeting at a primary school and even though I knew there would not be enough time for the clothes to dry before it got dark, I decided to go for it anyway. It is not that I don’t like doing laundry, it is just that I don’t think the clothes get very clean the way I do them. My host mom hasn’t made any comments about me wearing dirty clothes yet, so I assume I am doing a passable job. At 6 I had to go take down all my still-wet clothes from the line and then had to get up early to hang them out again.

My host mom had to cater an event on Friday and ended up staying the night there since it was far away. I, subsequently, spent my first night alone since coming to South Africa. I woke up at every noise, which was a lot, but overall, survived the night.

Rain Rain

First weekend at my site without all the students staying at the house.

Saturday my host mom left me alone in the house almost the entire day. This is quite a change from not leaving me alone for five minutes. While trying to cook dinner, I managed to blow a fuse and shut off all the power to the house. Apparently my host mom has good reason to not leave me alone. I was able to solve the problem though but was then too afraid to try and cook again. Luckily, we have a microwave, and I was able to have something to eat.

Sunday was my first laundry day since moving to site. I had about three weeks worth of laundry saved up. My arms are sore now. I was dressed in my worst clothes because I wanted to wash all my other clothes. My host mom was catering an event and she wanted me to go with her, which to told me after I had all my clothes wet and hanging on the line so I had to wear what I was wearing to do laundry. It was a budget meeting for the municipality in which the whole village was invited to attend. I was the only girl not wearing a skirt, not that it was the only reason I stood out. My host mom is a very good cook, I got to eat some of the food before the big meal. Clouds were looming the entire day and I was concerned about all my wash, i.e. all the clothes I own, out on the line. I managed to get home just as it started pouring and rescue the clothes. I don’t have anywhere to put clothes yet so I am still living out of my bags. I managed to take everything and spread it around the floor. So now I am unpacked but everything is on the floor. It rained all night and is still raining now. The temperature has dropped and I am now wearing all the warm clothes that I brought to South Africa. It is about 60 degrees and all the little children were dressed for a blizzard, hats, scarves, winter coats.

Uno, a simple card game or cross-cultural facilitator?

I broke out the Uno cards this evening while about four of the trainers were watching music videos. They only have a few music videos between them and we watch them over and over and over. So playing Uno was a lot of fun, definitely more fun that just watching the videos. Everyone was crowed around watching, squeezing 20 people in the living room. All the players were so into it, getting really competitive. I soon realized that they were not really playing the “American” way. The purpose was more the prevent someone else from winning than from trying to win yourself. If you needed a red card next and you knew the person next to you could win if you played your red card, you would pick up cards from the draw pile until you got a draw 2 or draw 4. So every round, all the players would have 15-30 cards in their hands at one time, leaving little for the draw pile. This made for some very long games, we played most of the day, with up to 8 players at a time. I can now successfully play Uno using only Zulu.

There is no way one can make beetroot and not have it taste like dirt, end of story. The sad part is that it looks just like cranberry sauce so you think you are getting a treat, then you take a bite, dirt.

One of the girls at the house had a hair dryer and she let me use it. I was so excited. When I looked in the mirror, I though, wow, this is what I use to look like.

After one week, I feel I am a pro at taking the public taxis. I have successfully made it to work every morning and this weekend I went to St. Lucia.

Swearing in

Zululanders

SA-17 with the US Ambassador

Pictures from training

Limpopo

Beach near my site in St. Lucia

Monkeys on the roof

I made a pizza!

Getting food ready for a wedding

Pabello in Children's Hospital Hat

Pabello is her dress from America

See more pictures here http://picasaweb.google.com/reford

New address for now

Becky Ford
Postnet Suite 88
Private Bag X013
Mtubatuba
KwaZulu-Natal 3935
South Africa

After much anticipation, I have found out my permanent site and I am on site visit this week. The NGO is called Mpilonhle, which is a mobile health unit that serves four schools in the area, doing health screenings, counciling, health education and computer training. The organization works out of the town of Mtubatuba but I am living close to the town of St. Lucia. My home is about 7km from the beach and about two hours north of Durban. I am living in a house with a host mom.

There are only two kinds of people in Africa, those infected with HIV and those affected by it

I wish everyone could see the stars from Africa.

I am having a great weekend. friday evening, as Christi and I were walking home from class, we spotted one of our supervisor's filling water jugs from the outside tap. He does not have a host family, s he has to do all the work for himself. The water is only on one day a week, so we helped him fill the jugs and carry them inside. Then we all enjoyed some orange fanta and cookies while looking at pictures and discussing his life in South Africa. it gets dark at about 7pm, so we had to go home. My host faily was starting dinner so I played with baby Pabello. i taught her the Itsy Bitsy Spider song last week so now I have to sing it about 50 times a day. She is about 13 months old so i do pretty much anything to see her giant smile. I took a successful bucket bath which means that I was cleaner after the bath than before I started. For dinner, we had buttered bread, a hard boiled egg and chips (french fries), this is my favorite meal! We also had coca-cola which means i got two cold drinks during the day. We ate while watching Generations, the world's cheesiest soap opera and my favorite show by far. Later, the baby fell asleep while I was holding her, which is the gretest feeling in the world.

Today, a few of us are in town. We are going to get pizza and candy!

Training is going well but I can't wait to go to site. I feel like I will never understand Zule, but it is difficult to practice because I live with a Sepedi speaking family. I have a great family, but I am looking forward to having some independence. Right now they have to do everything for me, I only wash dishes sometimes.

I will have to wait til site to post pictures. For now though, check out Christi's blog, she is my neighbor and in the language group, so we see a lot of the same things. http://twentysevenmonthsinafrica.blogspot.com/

I think it is important to end with the fact that my bedroom is covered with posters of 2 Pac.

Peace Corps has been going well so far. I moved in the my host family three weeks ago and they are great. We have a little baby in our family and a 12 year old, along with a mom and grandma. The house is really nice and I have my own bedroom.

The vllage I am in is beautiful with mountains and flat plains. There isn't much in the village and I am in town now using the internet to and to buy cheese!

I will post pictures when I can, just a quick update though.

Saw some animals a few weeks ago at a game park. food is good here, eating pap is fun, making it is difficult.

Staging

Final day of staging, leaving tomorrow.

I arrived Sunday morning and luckily caught a shuttle with another volunteer. We went to the liberty bell.
Staging began; we learned about safety, security and adjusting.

The other trainees seem great so far. It seems like everyone has an intersting story. Although we seem to have a variety of backgrounds I think the group works well together. The real test is to see if we still like each other three months from now.

Today was more staging info and tomorrow we take off.

My roommate and I had great "last meal" at an Indian reasuarant. It is Restuarnt Week in Philadelphia I got a huge meal so I can long cherish the great food.

Unfortunately I have come down with a cold (didn't I have a cold five weeks ago?) and I am dreading traveling so many hours. This either means I have gotten my sickness and won't get sick for awhile or it means I will be sick every other week until 2010. I really hope it doesn't mean the 29 other volunteers have a cold in three days.

Finally going to Africa!!