Thanksgiving

This was the first Thanksgiving that I didn't spend on Long Island with my family. Instead, I spent it surrounded by gum trees, gas burners, and my north KZN Peace Corps family. Our dinner was potluck style (like all Thanksgiving dinners should be) and everyone did their best to recreate favorite dishes from home, or something that represented harvest food. Someone had sweet potatoes covered, so I didn't make my favorite dish made by my mom each year: sweet potatoes with apple slices and cinnamon. Sorry Michael: the sweet potatoes were good, but not as good as what I know my family in New York enjoyed on Thursday :)

I brought apple and pear crisp. Others brought green salad, beets, stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and chicken to replace the lack of available turkey in the area. This year Thanksgiving was spent with two families: the Peace Corps family and Briana's South African host family.

This holiday is not celebrated here, obviously because there would be no need for South Africans to rejoice in the arrival of the Pilgrims to the east coast of the United States centuries ago. We did our best to show them what it is all about for us. When everyone arrived, we were asked to make a hand turkey. You remember this from elementary school: trace your hand, each finger is a feather, the thumb is the head. I was part of the last group to arrive, and worked together with B's seventeen-year-old host brother Sphamandla on his. "What do I do now? Why are you coloring that in?" We each wrote our name on our hand turkey and Bostick'ed (sticky putty) them to the wall of the living room. (Picture below!) On a separate sheet, as each person stuck their turkey to the wall, they were also asked to list one thing that they were thankful for. The page was full of different colored gel pen responses in different sizes and handwritings.

One of Peace Corps' three main goals for its volunteers is that they share American culture with those that they live and work with. This Thanksgiving after all the love and support that our host families show us, we gave back to them and demonstrated just how thankful we are for their welcoming us into their homes and their lives.

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for all the usual stuff: family, friends, health, happiness. But I think more than anything at the moment, I'm thankful for all the people that have opened up their arms, their homes, and their lives to me these past few months. Obviously I'm talking a lot about my host family the Mngomezulus here, but also the staff at my school who treat me like and refer to me as their daughter. To the learners who laugh at me when I attempt to communicate with them in Zulu, come to me with list of English vocabulary words that they want to know, and ask me if we can go to the storeroom to find a book to read. To the woman sitting at the taxi stop every morning on my way to school who yells "Good morning my friend!" as I pass by. And last but not least, to the other PCVs who have made me feel not so alone when things are tough or not so far away when I need someone to share a story or a laugh with, whether you're telling me about an awkward moment created by your principal or how many bats you've killed in your home. Thank you for being my support and my encouragement.

Swollen Eyes, Swollen Heart

Yesterday was the second time I've been on the verge of tears at school. The first time, I actually cried alone in the store room where I said I was going to go organize old books and whatever else has been out there untouched for who knows how many years. That time was after having learned more about Blind Side's life and the specific reasons behind why he is so far behind in school. His mother is sick, and it became his responsibility to care for her at the expense of his education. He has worked to pay for every piece of clothing that he wears. And he still comes to school because he just wants to learn. I lost it, but contained myself until I was confined by the musty walls of my future library.

This time was different. We have morning meeting every day beginning at around 7:45. When learners arrive after it has started, they take a slightly longer way around the Foundation Phase block and file to the back of the line with the rest of their class. Yesterday a learner showed up only moments before the "going to class song" begun, in which each line for each grade marches off to their respective classrooms. This learner's eyes were so swollen I don't know how he could see what was in front of him. The song is being sung by the other grades, because all of his classmates in Grade 3 and the surrounding lines are too busy pointing and laughing at this one kid. He shuffled to his classroom and tried to hide his face by looking at the ground, but a mob formed and the laughter overpowered the voices of the Grade 6 and 7 singers. I felt sick to my stomach.

After invigilating (SA English for "proctoring") the Maths common paper exam, I went to the Grade 3 teachers and asked about this learner. "What happened to the one learner with the very swollen eyes?" I asked them. After a moment of hesitation I'm told that, "he fell." "He fell. …really?" I ask with doubt in my voice. "Yes. We sent him home. He is probably at the clinic now. He was climbing a tree and fell from it." Things I wanted to say: "Yeah. He fell from a tree. And landed only on his eyes," as well as 'I fell' or 'I walked into a door' are two of the most used excuses in domestic abuse incidents. But of course I didn't say these things, and instead felt helpless and heartbroken for the rest of the day.

This is not the first time I've seen learners show up at school with signs of aggression and violence leftover on their faces. I've seen some black eyes, some fat lips, and some scabs and cuts from God knows what. I have yet to see a learner (or a South African in general) who does not have a visible scar on their body. I obviously come from a place where this kind of behavior would land someone in prison, but I still can't fathom how a parent or a teacher could do this to a child and not feel sick with their actions. This behavior and acceptance of the behavior is the biggest and most difficult cultural difference for me thus far, and I can't think of any example that I will see that hurts more.

When talking with my counterpart about corporal punishment a week or so ago, he said that the Bible justifies hitting children. "It gets the confusion and badness out of them," he explained. Bull shit. This is just another example of my reasons for my intolerance for the Bible and religion, but that is an entirely different story. He says he won't hit children, but still justified it. I'm confused.

Yesterday after I invigilated the exam, I returned to the Grade 7A classroom where I spend most of my time and leave all my stuff. I found two sticks on my desk. I snapped them into three pieces each and loudly slammed them into the dustbin behind the door. A few kids looked at me in disbelief. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I will never, can never, hit a child. With a stick, with my hand, with anything. One of Peace Corps' three main points is sharing American culture with our host country and the people we spend our days with. I know that I can't change the entire system of education and discipline here, both of which frustrate me more than words can express. But I do want to show the teachers and learners at my school that learners can be disciplined without force and brutality and still turn out fine. I am an example of that. My country is an example of that. And if I can get through to a small fraction of the population through the individuals at my school, I will feel like I have achieved something really meaningful.

Blind Side

I have spent the past two weeks at school with my counterpart teacher; he teaches Grade 6 English, which is what I'll be teaching next year. My Peace Corps assignment says that I must spend the day with him to get a feel for what being a teacher at a rural South African school is like. He also teaches three classes in Grade 7, so I've got to know the Grade 7s pretty well in a relatively short period of time.

This blog post is about one student in particular whose nickname is Blind Side. Blind Side is just under a year younger than my brother Derek. Derek is 18 and just began his first year of college in late August. Blind Side is nearing the end of Grade 7, which he will not pass. He is 17 years old.

The nickname comes from the 2009 movie of the same name. My Blind Side is slightly taller than his peers and has a much manlier voice. In the movie, the character "Big Mike" is huge in comparison to other kids, especially those in the family he is taken in by. He plays with and protects the smaller, younger children. He's like a big teddy bear. He works hard, and is awfully quiet.

My first day in Grade 7, I asked my counterpart about him because you can tell that he is older than the twelve year olds he is surrounded by. He told me, "that one is never going to proceed. He was in an accident and missed months of school. He suddenly came back one day and was put in Grade 7. He will never pass this grade." There are other kids at my school who are way too old for the grade they're presently in. There's a girl who has to be almost 10 in Grade 1, a boy who must be just about a teenager in Grade 3, and a 16 year old in Grade 4. How these things happen without intervention or some way to help these kids along, I'm not sure. So I've kept an eye on Blind Side these past two weeks to get a better idea of what he's all about.

He surprises me a little more everyday. The first time he stood out to me was on a day that has become all too common nearing the end of the fourth term: teachers write the exams that they will give their students during class time, and they tell the kids to "work on preparing for _____ exam." On this particular day it was "discuss your arts&culture exam." Why and how a class on arts&culture can have an exam, I'm not sure. "Discuss" is key for "talk about whatever you want for an hour." Most kids broke off into groups with their friends and did just that. Blind Side's seat is in the very back row during class. During this discussion period, he sat in the front row and worked with four or five other boys. They wrote notes in their exercise books and even stayed for five minutes after the bell for break to finish what they were doing. At one point during the period, a member of the group was distracted by another boy who thought it would be fun to start a small fight in class. Blind Side grabbed his group member's shoulder and hauled him back into their circle to keep working on their project.

Later in the week, I was told "you teach class today!" and given only a few minutes to pull something out of my ass to work on with these kids for English period that day. I went over to the cabinet (falling apart filing cabinet whose doors don't close) and pulled a book from the very back. It was a Grade 7 English book that had probably never seen the light of day, for reasons I can't understand or explain. I told them to open to a story about the importance of rainforests, particularly the Amazon in this story. Each learner read a paragraph and I wrote reading comprehension questions on the board after we talked about vocabulary that they weren't sure of. This didn't take the full period, and I left the books on the desks until the very end of class to see what the kids would do. I was pleasantly surprised to see many of them flipping through and reading stories that they found interesting. I was especially surprised to see Blind Side doing just that, mostly because his average in English class last term was 12%. He later took out a dictionary and flipped through that too. My mind = blown.

Two days ago was Career Day in Grade 7. You may be imagining what "Career Day" means in an American context, but it's not like that here. This version of Career Day was a day where learners were to dress up as their chosen career and speak about why they were interested in that career to the rest of the class. The largest group was educators (maybe because they all wore street clothes and because it was the easiest profession to pull off on the spot?) followed by social workers. Other careers depicted included doctors, police officers, nurses, farmers, TV presenters, electricians, traffic cop(per), and a nature conservationist. Blind Side had to be talked to by the principal and the other teachers in the room; not because he was misbehaving, but because he had to be told that he couldn't have more than one career. He wanted to be an electrical engineer and a carpenter, and even brought in an example of one of his woodworking projects to show. My counterpart told him he was "a jack of all trades" and he smiled really big.

His grades are low. And without proficiency in English, he will undoubtedly fail everything that comes his way. At Grade 4, testing turns over to English. It breaks my heart to think of him dropping out of school to find work because he gets stuck in the last grade of primary school. I'm going to try to pull him into my Grade 6 English class in January. I teach in a much different way than most others at my school, and I stop to explain things to individual students if they are struggling. I'm also planning on having a session after school once or twice a week for any learners that are having difficulty in English. His talent and passion are too much to let go to waste. I wanted to take the time to write about him because this job is frustrating. And some days I don't feel like going to school. But when you have learners like Blind Side, they make it worth every minute.

A Vicious Cycle

Today I walked halfway home from school with two Grade 9 learners from the high school next to where I work. We split up when I had to turn onto my road and they had to keep walking to reach their homes. Our conversation started like all the others do: How old are you?, what's your name?, do you like living here?, etc. It quickly took a turn. The girls started to talk about one of their teachers and her method of punishing the class earlier in the day. "She beat us today. The stick she used was too big." ("Too" in South African English is comparable to "so" in American English.) "Did she hit you on the hand?" I asked, making a hitting motion to my own hands. "Yes, look." They both held out their hands and showed me red marks on the heel of their hands near their wrists. The entire class was punished this way. For what, I have no idea, but regardless, it doesn't justify something like that. "Would you ever beat your students, Miss?" the quieter of the two asked me. "Never," I replied. "How would you discipline them if they misbehaved in class?" "I would keep them in at break, prevent them from having fun with their friends. Hitting learners doesn't solve anything, it just makes them scared." "That is a good idea, we like that idea."

Keep in mind, this is a conversation that I'm having with ninth grade girls. We're not talking about music or boys or America, we're talking about how they don't like being hit by their teacher. If that doesn't indicate the severity of this problem, I don't know what will.

Corporal punishment is "illegal" in South Africa and has been since shortly after the end of the apartheid era. I'm putting illegal in quotes because it's deemed illegal in writing, but is still practiced to some extent. I've seen it at my school, but not as seriously as reports I've heard from other volunteers. I've seen kids slapped with plastic straps that keep egg cartons closed, kids brought to the front of the class so teachers can hit them with a stick, and kids hit in the head with teachers' cell phones during morning assembly. It blows my mind every single time. Corporal punishment was alive and well in apartheid years and part of the reason it still exists today is because those who are teaching now were educated under the policy when they were kids, so it's a vicious cycle of violence.

Hitting kids is widely practiced in this culture, especially by parents at home. But hitting kids in the classroom neither makes them stop what they're doing or fixes the problem at hand. I've heard accounts from a volunteer friend of mine who watched a teacher hit a learner because he didn't get the right answer. I'm pretty sure he didn't say the wrong answer because he wanted to get hit; he either doesn't understand or is not being taught the information well, both of which are extremely viable answers. Needless to say, the volunteer stood up and very visibly exited the class because she was uncomfortable sitting by while this took place.

The learners act much differently around me than they do the other teachers at our school. Maybe it's because I'm new, and young, and white, and because they want to touch my hair, but I also think it's because I treat them like human beings. There's a very obvious sort of master/slave relationship between teachers and learners in school. Learners have to knock at the door and wait to be invited in before they enter. They curtsy or bow when they talk to adults. Many look at the floor or don't make eye contact. Teachers send kids to do stupid little tasks like going to the next classroom down to get their bag, or sending them to buy a snack from the women who sell on the school grounds during break, or having them ask the teacher in the next classroom if they can borrow their stick (this happened twice last week). I hope teachers will learn from my practices that learners don't need to be hit when they get an answer wrong, but maybe need a little extra help; that by "detaining" (word choice of my counterpart and principal) learners, they will cease to act out in class or show up late; and that not every learner is "naughty," they just need to be treated with love and respect. They're the ones who will be leading this country and this world in a few short years, so they need to be brought up right.

At Home in the Sand

Now that I've been living here for over a month and a half, it's about time I tell you something about where I will call home for the next two years (or just under that, now). The region that I live in is called the Elephant Coast or Maputaland, located in the north of the KwaZulu-Natal province. A travel book called this region "an eco-tourist mecca." You can see all of the "big five" (lion, elephant, rhinoceros, leopard, and buffalo) here, and you can also go to the beach and see whales, dolphins, and turtles. I sound a little bit like I'm trying to sell you something. Those are the big points; here's a taste of what I live.

My shopping town is called Manguzi. The name means "land of the mangos," which this certainly is. In my yard alone, we have at least a dozen mango trees. Their season is coming up in mid-November, just in time for my birthday. Manguzi is small and has just the basics: we've got two supermarkets (SPAR is better than Boxer), a Target-like branch called PEP, a couple furniture stores, and some other random stores. And there are lots of fruits, veggies, clothes, shoes, etc. sold on the street. I've been unable to find some things that I consider basics (cotton balls, for example) so if you want to send me anything, I'll never say no J

My village and new home is a short ride outside town. When I heard that I'd be living in a village, I imagined some sort of grid setup with neighbors at short distances from one another. Instead, I walk about one kilometer back on a winding sandy road to my house. I sometimes walk on the main sandy road that is wide enough for a single car, but other times I walk the one footpath that I know the route of. There are more walking paths than anything else, and I still have so many of them to learn (I asked my host brother to take a walk with me soon to show me some more of them).

I live about equidistant from the beach and the border with Mozambique. I've also looked into Swaziland from a hill up in the mountains on the South Africa side, so I think I'll have quite the collection of passport stamps when I get back to the States. There are lots and lots of four-wheel drive bakkies here, and at first I didn't understand it. I thought about why we use our 4x4 at home in New York: for those days when we get lots of snow and the roads are slippery and dangerous. Now I get it: the sand here is just as potentially debilitating as snow, especially right after it rains. The day we ventured to the ocean, we had to take a 4x4, and even then we got stuck a couple of times on our way out there.

At home, I live in my own space separate from the house, but on the property of a really wonderful family. At present, it is a little disjointed. My host mom is studying in Pietermaritzburg to become a pastor. My host sister, Zwelethu, is at college in Durban. So at home it is my host dad, two brothers, Ndomiso and Stanley (one sixteen in Grade 10, and the other twenty two, twenty three in mid-December), and gogo. I'm fortunate for the fact that the boys all speak great English, but it's made it so that I use Zulu very rarely. (I'm starting Zulu lessons with a teacher from my school this week, so I'll have the opportunity to learn more and be able to use it more.)

I'm really bad at estimating distances and sizes, but I think I'd say my living space is about 10ish by 15ish feet, maybe a little bigger than that. It functions as both my living and cooking space and because I live in my own place, all of the cooking is up to me. I really like cooking and I've always wanted to get better at it, but I've either been lazy or too busy when I was at home. Now, I'm doing it all the time, oftentimes because I'm bored and want to do something productive. I've been baking fruity things like banana bread and apple pear crisp, and I've been cooking lots of lentils, some potatoes, and butternut squash soup! I'm also perfecting an applesauce recipe. Being vegetarian here is easier than I imagined it would be. First, because there are lots of fresh fruits and veggies to be found, and second, because the meat selection is so repulsive that I wouldn't dare eat it anyway; the word "parts" is notoriously listed under the description of meat being purchased. South Africans are also really into eating things like chicken livers and feet. I think I'll stick with my lentils.

My room is somewhat of a bucket kingdom. I have two big ones for washing clothes, one big one for stored/reserve water, one for bathing, one for transporting water from my tap to my room, one for rinsing dishes, two for washing dishes, and one for peeing in at night when I don't want to walk outside in the darkness to my pit latrine that is often home to several small lizards. At the same time, I have never used so little or reused so much water in my life. When I wash dishes, if they need to soak overnight I use water from my bath to soak them in, then wash them and rinse them in one bucket of water. The water that I use to boil eggs becomes the hot water that helps loosen foods caked onto a pan. Before my bath water is dumped, it is used to wash my hands at the end of the day after hours of being around kids. Another seriously awesome statistic is the amount of water I used to bathe myself every day. I fill up one kettle full of water to boil (1.7 liters). It takes three bowls full of water to fill this kettle. When the water is boiled, I add six bowls of room temperature water to even it out. That totals around five and a half liters. There are 3.8 liters in one gallon. That means I use about one and a half gallons of water each time I bathe. The average American uses 80-100 gallons of water a day, of which baths and showers are at the top of the list for most water used. Most showers use two gallons of water a minute. My entire bathing process takes less water than one minute in the shower.

My school is one of five within walking distance of my house. There are three primaries and two secondaries; primaries are grades R (K) through seven, and secondaries grades eight through twelve. It has just over five hundred learners and eighteen teachers. Grades one through three have 3 or 4 learning areas and four through seven have like 7 or 8; this will change slightly with the new curriculum starting in January, but not by a whole lot. The learners will still make the jump from classes in exams taught in Zulu up to third grade and everything in English (hypothetically, of course) from fourth grade on. The exams being in English is not hypothetical, it is fact, but the instruction being in English is the part that does not always happen. I have spent the past two weeks observing classes. One teacher asked me how her class was as we were walking in one day. I told her it would be helpful if the class (English, Grade 4) was taught more in English and less in Zulu. She responded by saying that their Zulu isn't even that great in some instances. Cue BBM emoticon of a smiley with his hand over his eyes.

The area that I live in has some of the highest HIV rates in the province, let alone the country. The term OVC (orphaned and vulnerable child(ren)) is used a lot, and I imagine that's one of the reasons why. I've never lived in a place where the poverty is so evident. There are dozens of kids at my school who come to school barefoot everyday because they can't afford shoes. At least half of them show up wearing tattered button-down shirts, ripped sweater vests, and pants with stitches in the butt because they've obviously been handed down/worn for years without replacement. There is an up-side to the shoe problem: TOMS Shoes is in the process of signing an agreement with Peace Corps South Africa and they want us to start collecting shoe sizes of learners that don't have them. We will be doing shoe drops in our own communities sometime early next year. I've been torn on how I feel about TOMS for some time now; the idea of paying a little extra to make sure kids like my learners have shoes is a happy fuzzy feeling that everyone wants to be a part of, but what happens to the local economy of the shoe salesman? The local economy example has left with me my reservations, but the idea of being directly involved and seeing firsthand what my little extra money can do has got me rethinking my skepticism.

The climate and topography is unlike anywhere I've ever lived or visited before. There is no such thing as soil here; everything is sand. I have to sweep my house out at least every other day to get it all out. This place is hot. It's been ninety degrees Fahrenheit and people say "kuyashisa (it's hot), but this is nothing." Because that's actually true. On the hottest of hot summer days (coming up in December and January) it can get up to forty degrees Celsius; that's 104 F. That's madness. Also, this place is flat. Like, I saw a small hill and was overjoyed at land that was not all the same level. I'm missing the Hudson Valley like never before, especially now that it's my favorite season and all the leaves are changing colors and I can't see it. You remember the end of high school when you were so tired of everything that you talked about how much you just wanted to get out? I was that person, so I remember it well; and then I ended up staying and going to Bard. Anyway, it's times like this when I/you/we really realize the beauty of home. It's beautiful in a new way here, but I'm still always brought back to thinking about what it's like at home on this day, this season. And I'm left feeling really thankful for being where I'm from.

T.I.(S.)A.: This is (South) Africa

K'naan has a song called T.I.A., which served as the inspiration for the title of this post. The song talks about the more dangerous parts of Africa, specifically in Somalia where he's from. I know nothing about "the city we call Doomsday" or "my Somali niggaz [are] quick to grab the uzi," and I hope I never do. The T.I.(S.)A. I'm talking about is referring to the things I've seen in the three months that I've been in this country: customs, strange and admired; hand gestures; driving practices; etc.

Let's start with greetings. In isiZulu, there are greetings for one person and more than one person. "Sanibonani" is used for groups, "Sawubona" is used for one person. But the greeting you choose depends on the age of the person you're greeting. I can use "Sawubona" for someone younger than me or around the same age as me. If I see a gogo (grandmother), I have to use "Sanibonani" to demonstrate respect. If you're walking on the street by yourself and pass a group of people, it is your responsibility as the single person to initiate the greeting. This culture is all about greetings, even to people you don't know. Each time I'm on a taxi and we stop to pick someone up, they slide open the door and say "Sanibonani" to the passengers already onboard. The passengers respond to that person and they ask each other "ninjani?" (how are you?). Handshakes are also big here, but not like handshakes that we know in the United States. In most cases, you start with a normal handshake once, then you interlock thumbs so you're almost holding the other person's wrist, and then you do one more normal handshake. When you greet younger people, they will usually do the normal handshake followed by almost a thumb shake, where you press your thumbs together and until one person's thumb pushes left and the other's pushes right. Just like with me trying to explain how certain letter combinations sound, this description sounds over-thought and ridiculous, so I'll just have to demonstrate it sometime :)

During one of our training sessions on culture, our training director made a clear distinction between all of us as American trainees and he and his staff as South Africans: "Your country is obsessed with time. You're all always looking at your watches and showing up at 08:55 if you have a meeting that starts at 09:00. Here in South Africa, we may show up to something that was scheduled to begin at 10:00 at 11:00 or half past 11 because someone stopped us on the street to talk, or because we had to help a family member with something. We are more concerned with relationships than time and schedules." As frustrating as that is for someone who makes plans and wants to be able to say "alright, I'll be done with this meeting at 15:30 so I can get home to do x," it's refreshing to learn about the importance of individuals to this culture and its people.

Hand gestures: I've never seen the thumbs up sign used so much in my life, or used it so much myself in everyday goings on. The term "sharp" is used as a response to almost everything, meaning "good" or "great." It's pronounced like "shop" taking into account the British accent that South Africans have when they speak English because they're taught British English here (I'm going to make so many spelling mistakes when I first start teaching). The response we're taught to say when asked how we are is "Ngiyaphila" when responding for one person, "Siyaphila" for "we;" lots of kids just say "sharp" and give a thumbs up. The thumbs up is also used as a way to say hello, especially between taxi drivers. (When I say taxi, the vehicle described is actually a mini van with fourteen seats and a sliding door.) Speaking of taxi drivers and drivers in general, the only time the horn is used is to say hello to other drivers, followed by a thumbs up out the window. There has only been one exception to this practice that I have seen, and that was when we almost rear-ended a truck that stopped short in the middle of the road. Lines painted on the road might as well not be there, because no one abides by them; cars, trucks, and taxis pass each other whenever they want.

Still on hand gestures, when you say something funny, if the person you're talking to thinks it's really funny, they laugh and extend their hand to give you a low five. Sometimes they pat you on the back too. This response lets you know that your sense of humor is appreciated.

Terminology: there is lots of it. A "bakkie" is a pick up truck, and often the main source of transportation in rural areas like the one I live in. Many have bench seats built into the bed of the truck, some even have cushions. Some have caps, but most do not. People pack in the back and ride along long, mostly unpaved roads until they reach their destinations. Peace Corps forbids us to ride in one, unless we sit inside the cab with the driver. A "robot" is a traffic light. I have only seen one of these machines in cities. Soda is called "cold drink" and I confuse the hell out of everyone when I use the first one. French fries are called "chips." Students are called "learners." Math is called "maths." A taxi is called a "khumbi." "Shame" is used when something goes wrong; I usually say "that sucks," but South Africans would just say "shame." "Yoh!/Joh!" is like saying "wow!" "Eish!" is an exclamation used to describe being surprised in a negative way about something (does that even make sense in English?) "Eh heh" is like saying "uh huh," but there is a certain intonation on the e in heh; your voice goes up a little. What we call "bathroom" South Africans call "toilet," which sounds strange to us but is actually the most correct because a pit latrine is just a toilet; good luck finding a sink to wash your hands. A "braii" is a "barbecue." A "rondaval" is essentially a closed-in gazebo with a thatched roof; it's a one room home where gogos sometimes live, but some PCVs live in them too (a PCV is a Peace Corps Volunteer; I hope that one was easy). "Flu" is an all-encompassing term used to describe having a simple cough to legit having the flu, used here in a sentence: "I don't feel well, I have flu."

Terminology continued: "bowl" is pronounced like "bowel." What do we need for the party? Well, we could use some "amabowels" if anyone has extras. That's another thing: ama. If you add "ama" in front of a plural English word, you have the plural Zulu equivalent if such a word does not exist in the Zulu language. Words such as "amaplates," "amaspelling mistakes," and "amanonsense" are all some that I've actually heard used. "What what" is used like "whatnot," or when you can't think of the word you're looking for. "How?!" repeated a minimum of three times is an expression of disbelief or astonishment. I'm probably forgetting some good ones, but this is lots of them.

Religion: is so huge here. Mass can go on for anywhere from one to four hours. Prayer precedes any and all events, and usually includes a lot of yelling. Personal prayer is not like that in the United States. People speak out loud, yell, cry, hands reaching out, hands reaching up. This practice really fascinates me, regardless of the fact that I'm not the slightest bit religious. In our culture, prayer is contained and timed and neat. Here it is whatever one makes of it, whatever they need to say, and I like that a lot; the religion seems less organized, but in a good way.

Stores that sell general items and appliances at very discounted prices are called China or Pakistani shops, depending on the nationality of the owner(s). People pick their nose whenever they feel like it: on the taxi, at the store, in a meeting, at school, etc. I probably see more umbrellas when it's sunny than I do when it's raining; I guess people are more concerned about the strength of the sun than arriving to work with wet clothes?

Personal space is not understood or recognized here. Women carry just about everything on their heads, and it's more amazing than I can express. This country can harmonize like nothing I've ever heard before, even the kids; morning meeting songs at my school everyday are a daily treat. Friends hold hands and put their arms around each other's shoulders regardless of age. One can hold the wrist or hand of the other and it is seen as normal, without any of this "no homo" shit in the United States. People can be friends and show that they're friends and that's alright.

Goats and chickens roam freely: in the streets, on school grounds, on busy roads. Security guards check your receipt and sign it as you walk out of any grocery store. When there is a car accident or someone has a flat tire, there is never only one car on the side of the road. People stop to help out, to see what they can do for that person that is a total and complete stranger. This is called "ubuntu," and is specific to South Africa. "Ubuntu" means something along the lines of "hands washing hands," doing for others as you would do for your own family. It means stopping to talk for hours, and making extra food in case someone stops by right in the middle of your dinner. And it's one of my favorite things about this country, one that I think we as Americans can learn a lot from.

And last but not least, every sunset in this country looks like it's right out of the Lion King.

Umndeni wami continued

These are photos that didn't make it into the last post:

Umndeni wami lapha e South Afrika

Our Peace Corps experience thus far has been full of comfortable, established relationships that are soon uprooted, throwing us into a world of new surroundings, new faces, and new practices. We spent our first week in South Africa together at the college, beginning friendships that will be strong years after our service comes to an end. On the Friday following our arrival, we were met by a member of our new host family and transported to one of two nearby villages. This day was full of goodbyes to friends assigned to different villages and hellos to host sisters, fathers, brothers, mothers, nieces, and nephews. The title of this post translates to "My family here in South Africa."

I was picked up by my eldest sisi (sister) Ntombi, who turned thirty-two in July. Once we arrived home, I met my baba (father) Japie and my next oldest sisi Nomsa. By day's end, I had met everyone: youngest sister Mbali, sixteen years old, Grade 9; buthi (brother) Bheki, same age as me; mama (mother) Emily; niece Nobonga, age three when I met her, but she turned four in August; and nephew Khulegani, age seven, Grade 2. Our housing situation was set up in a compound style; there was the main house where I my room was, along with Mbali's room and mama and baba's room. Outside there was an L-shaped structure, which housed Bheki, Nomsa and Nobonga, and Ntombi and Khulegani. Our backyard housed several goats and four geese that I hated with all that I've got.

Whether it was because she was the first member of the family that I met, the fact that she was the one that taught me almost everything I needed to know, or a combination of the two and more, Ntombi became the one that I was closest to. Her constant laughter and upbeat attitude kept a smile on my face regardless of the kind of day that I had had. I was very fortunate, in that everyone in my family spoke English, even the kids who spoke just a few words. Sometimes we hit a slight language barrier, but we were always able to explain our way around it. This definitely proved instrumental in my creating a relationship with each of these people, and is something that I am so thankful for.

My first interactions with Khulegani and Nobonga were typical; Khulegani walked into the kitchen after school with friends and his eyes widened to twice their normal size. Nobonga hid behind the doorframe and peeked at me for ten minutes before she came in. But in time, we became friends. Khulegani loves to dance, and would make sure to show Ntombi some new move he had learned that day. Even though he was calling her name, he would always glance my way to make sure I was also paying attention before he began his performance. We also bonded over a game of "kick the football in a triangle" (football; you know, how the rest of the world refers to soccer) and volleyball with a balloon. Nobonga soon became my best friend in the house and my most dedicated isiZulu teacher. Nomsa told me that she dreamed about me one night. "How do you know that?" I asked. "She was saying your name," Nomsa tells me. "Thandi, sweet Thandi." My Zulu name is Thandi. It comes from the verb thanda, which means like or love. Nobonga spent most of her waking hours with her hand in mine. She has little hoops in her ears, and everyday when I'd come home from school or sessions, she would reach out for my earrings. I hung them in her hoops, and she would parade around the house showing everyone. Her favorite phrase of mine to copy was "sizabonana late" and "pashasha;" the first one means "we will see each other later," while the other one apparently means "awesome" in some language in this country.

Mbali and I spent many of our conversations laughing. I'd see her in the morning and greet her and she'd laugh and then say good morning. We shared earrings and nail polish and shirts. I'd be greeted on the street by people that I'd never met before, and later on she'd tell me that it was one of her friends from school who saw me walking once. Her favorite song is "Apologize" by One Republic and her favorite color is pink.

Bheki and I interacted very minimally because he'd wake up for work after I left for school and returned later than me at the end of the day. I didn't see him at dinner either, because in isiNdebele culture, men and women do not eat meals together. (While I learned Zulu and live in KwaZulu Natal, our first host families were isiNdebele. The languages are very close, the cultures relatively different.) The first day Bheki and I met, he handed me a baby goat. I was sitting on the back stoop and he carried this little black goat inside the house, followed by four or so kids. He came back outside and asked if I wanted to hold it, handed it off, and went into his room. I came to love this baby goat, and introduced everyone to him when they came over to meet my fam. I will always associate Bheki with my baby goat.

Nomsa is a great netball player and a talented beader. On Sunday mornings, we would sometimes go running at the soccer field near the house. She is also an excellent cook, and I would try to learn her recipes for tomato sauce (not at all like you'd imagine) and butternut/pumpkin (aka sweet potato). My beaded headdress and earrings and bracelet for our family day were made by Nomsa (photos below). Last but not least, she would crack jokes that left me laughing long after everyone else.

Both of my host parents are loving, happy, strong individuals. On the first afternoon at home, my father talked to me about his life during apartheid. He explained pass cards and what happened if one was out after curfew. Heavy stuff for our first conversation, but fascinating and eye-opening nonetheless. My mother worried when I got home late, told me to put on socks because it was too cold, and dressed me in traditional clothing for family day. She laughed with me and taught me all she could about her family and her culture.

One of my favorite memories was when I came home with my head shaved. I told them I was doing it so it came as no surprise, but I was still greeted with screams and eight pairs of curious hands touching my newly peach-fuzzed head. My other favorite is the picture below. In South Africa, smiling for pictures is not as customary as it is in the United States. Most everyone keeps a solemn face. In the picture below, my dear friend and PCV Vanessa made everyone laugh and snapped a photo just in time. My host dad's smile is the best part, because he is one who always keeps that straight face for pictures. Everyone's smile is beautiful, and that picture is framed here in my room.

My least favorite memory is the morning that I left for site here in KwaZulu Natal. I woke up at five to be out at the tar road with all of my things by six. I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth at the bathtub telling myself "it's okay, I think I can do this without crying too much." Just then, my mother walks out of her bedroom and stands in the doorway. I say good morning and ask how she is. She just shakes her head and looks down. From that moment on, I could not control my tears. Five of them accompanied me to the tar road; baba, Bheki, and Mbali stayed at home to get ready for work and school. Mbali's tear-stained face is burned into my memory, as I'm sure mine is to her. More tears came when the Peace Corps van rolled up. As sad a day as this was, in a way it's good. It's good that we impacted each other to the point that we didn't want to say goodbye. And it's good that I have a place to call my home away from home in this far-off country.

What is the opposite of a lion?

The title of this post is silly and doesn't make sense, right? Right, except it was a question on a standardized test here in South Africa. The correct answer was apparently a lioness, but we suggested answers like wildebeest, springbok, baboon, the list goes on. There are a number of things that confuse me about the education system here that I will hopefully try to personally avoid or explain more explicitly to my learners over the course of my next two years here.

First, students are called learners. That doesn't confuse me, but is just some new terminology (added to a long list of other new words) that has become part of my daily speak. When I was first nominated for English Teaching way back in November of 2011, I was hesitant about accepting it. I have taught English to people in the United States who need it to work and survive, but I have some reservations about going abroad and teaching it to people in other countries. I feel like it's a form of U.S. imperialism, and a way for us as Americans to assert our international dominance or something. Long story short, I'm not that into it. And then I get an invitation from Peace Corps to teach English in South Africa. "But English is one of the country's eleven official languages," I say to myself. "Why would they send me there?"

These are my questions asked in ignorance, before I know much of anything about South Africa and its not so distant past. Backtrack to the period 1948-1994. Apartheid South Africa was (in my opinion) arguably white supremacy at one of its ugliest moments. It was made up of many of the same features as in the United States prior to the Civil Rights Movement with some new twists: separation (but totally not equal, and not even pretending to be) of blacks and whites, forced resettlement, and the tearing apart of families based on how black they were determined to be. During this era, people were classified based on the color of their skin, but more than just black and white. You still have Black and White at the two extremes, but you've also got Chinese, Indian, and the elusive Colored. The "Pencil Test" was one method used to determine race during the Apartheid years. Quoting Wikipedia (which actually explains it pretty well): "The pencil test is a way of assessing whether a person has Afro-textured hair. In the pencil test, a pencil is pushed through the person's hair. How easily it comes out determines whether the person has 'passed' or 'failed' the test." So basically, if the pencil falls out but you're not quite White, you're called Coloured (get ready for British spellings. My computer is telling me I spelled Colored wrong). If it stays in your hair when you lean forward, you're undoubtedly Black. But Blacks and Coloureds can't live together, even if they're actually related by blood. So families are split up because the Afrikaners in power can't bear the thought of people that are not the exact same race living and working and being educated together. (This is turning into kind of a history section, but it will tie back into education, I promise.)

So then we've got crazy statistics of the small percentage of White Afrikaners controlling like ninety percent of the total land and economy, while the overwhelming majority of Black South Africans are forced into settlements in provinces selected by the minority. Last week at my school, a Black female teacher asked me if I knew any Afrikaans. I said no, and that Afrikaans was the hardest of all the greetings we learned for most of the group. "Oh," she responds. "Our generation was taught Afrikaans in school. It was mandatory that everyone knew how to speak it." During this era, Blacks were expected to work in jobs of service to Afrikaners, as housekeepers, drivers, etc. They were kept in subservient roles for decades.

Here's where Peace Corps' objective comes in. These forced subservient roles were a result of the lesser quality education provided to Blacks, otherwise known as Bantu Education. Even though Apartheid was abolished many years ago, there is still a gap in the education provided to those rural, Black South Africans. We are here to fill that gap. The teachers that are teaching now were educated under Bantu Education. Many of them still utilize corporal punishment, despite the fact that it is illegal in South Africa, and may not have all the necessary schooling or qualifications to teach the areas that they are teaching. Our job is to help the learners learn and to help the teachers teach.

Finally, how does English teaching factor into this job? All standardized tests in this country are given in English. But students don't start learning English until around Grade 3… If your reaction right now is "What?! That's ridiculous!" then we're on the same page. They learn bits and pieces and some words here and there in earlier grades, but nothing that prepares them take a full exam in the language, especially one that asks them what the opposite of a lion is. The more I learned about this job at the beginning of our time in country, the more I felt that I couldn't have been invited to serve in a more perfect place. Everyone that knows me knows that Latin America is my thing; that I wanted nothing more than to spend 27 months of my life working there with Peace Corps. But following my mom's favorite phrase "everything happens for a reason," I think I ended up right where I should be.

Sanibonani!

It has been quite awhile since I updated this, so I'll try to start from the sort of beginning. Our flight was 16 hours long and arriving in Johannesburg felt no different than being in some big city in the United States or Europe. Driving on the left side of the road was weird at first (and honestly still is weird; I can never decide which side of the road to walk to when a car is coming). It's also weird that there are no streetlights, except for these weird purple fluorescent ones on the highway. Otherwise, you'd better hope your headlights are good. Lack of streetlights is only one reason we're not allowed to go out after dark, but I'll come back to that later.

Our group is named SA26. We are the twenty-sixth group to serve in South Africa since the Peace Corps started here in 1997. The even-numbered groups are education volunteers; the odd-numbered ones are health volunteers. We come from a range of experiences, ages, and paths in life. A handful of us are fresh out of college; I am the youngest one in the group. Some have taught and overseen schools for decades. Some have served in the Peace Corps in other countries. And some of us are entirely new to it all, and will learn as we go along.

We arrived in country on July 12th; in South African speak, 12 July. We spent our first week staying at Ndebele College of Education, and the subsequent six weeks with host families. At the beginning, we were taught the basic greetings in something like five languages: isiZulu, isiNdebele, Xitsonga, siSwati, and Afrikaans. We were specifically taught how to say "Sorry, I don't speak Afrikaans," because that's the language most people opt for when they see that we're white. A week or so after learning the basics for these five, we were assigned a target language based on the region we would be placed in and were organized into small language groups. My target language is isiZulu, as I am presently serving in KwaZulu Natal. Believe it or not, my Spanish helped me a little bit here; vowels in isiZulu sound the same as those in Spanish, so while some people were struggling with how to pronounce them, I've been doing it since seventh grade. This similarity was lucky, and proved to be the only one. IsiZulu has three clicks, found in the letters "c," "q," and "x." The "c" sound is when you put your tongue on the roof of your mouth and pull it down; I guess you can imagine the sound you'd make when thinking "tsk tsk" and shaking your head in disappointment. You make the "q" sound by putting your tongue on the roof of your mouth and clicking it down. The letter "x" is pronounced out of the side of your mouth, as if you're calling a horse. I feel like these explanations sound silly and difficult, but someday when we talk, I'll give you a play by play J Other new sounds are the "dl" and "hl" combinations. When written together, the "dl" sound is one where your tongue sort of vibrates and air comes out on either side of it. "Hl" is similar, and was best compared to the lisp of Sid the Sloth from Ice Age.

At Swearing-In on Sunday 2 September (the transition from PCT [Peace Corps Trainee] to PCV [Peace Corps Volunteer]), the numbers were calculated for how long we spent in technical sessions, language classes, washing laundry by hand on Sundays, etc. We spent something like 92 hours in language sessions over the course of six weeks, and only slightly less sitting in sessions learning how to be teachers under the South African Education System. Obviously we still have a lot to learn, but I think we can all say that we're sort of experienced in the ways of this country as far as learning goes. I'm going to talk more about the education system in my next post, so I'll cut this paragraph off right here.

Also for a later post is an elaborate description of my first South African host family. I don't know if I have ever felt so welcomed or loved by complete strangers in my whole life. The Zulu name they gave me is how I introduce myself to people here, now hundreds of kilometers away.

This post is meant to serve as more of a timeline than anything else; the following few posts will get into more detail about the events and happenings mentioned in this overview. I sound like I'm writing an essay. Again, sorry this is so late and people think I have dropped off the face of the earth. Blogging from a Blackberry is not the easiest business.

wind and home

tonight the heat finally broke. at least a little bit. the rotating sign at the chiropractor's office said it was seventy seven degrees just before nine pm. the sunset was neon pink, and that is no exaggeration. nights like tonight are some of my favorites, and i'm glad i was able to experience one more of them before heading off into oppressive atlanta heat, followed shortly by south african winter.

i walked around my neighborhood after dark tonight. i took my dog for his last "klaw;" he's smart and has figured out what we mean when we say "walk," so we've begun to spell it backwards. he still picks up on what we're talking about. there was a breeze tonight, so because it was dark and hard to see, one of the only things guiding me was the sound of the wind through the leaves. (the long street that i took around back doesn't have any street lights, so it's walk at your own risk come nighttime.) i wondered if the breeze would sound the same where i'll soon be living. that maybe sounds silly, but i imagine that different types of trees sound differently in the wind.

when i was younger i used to live in the bedroom at the end of the hall. one window faced our neighbors' driveway, and the other two faced the street. the one that faced the neighbors' house was nearest to the highest point on the roof, the top of the triangle, if you will. in that top of the triangle, for years my mom had wind chimes hanging there. i've always been one to sleep with my windows open regardless of temperature; not in winter obviously, but you get the point. some summers my windows would never be closed. i spent years listening to those wind chimes: during rain storms, in heavy snow, and on warm summer nights like tonight. every time i hear them i think of home. i get chills each time i hear the beginning of welcome home by radical face. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfbF44UeRBY) she told me to take a set with me, and at first i thought she was a little crazy. but now i'm thinking that it would be a really nice reminder of home when i'm so far away.

a deer stood in the road and stared at us until we got within fifteen feet of him. then he decided we were too close for comfort and bounded away. an opossum scurried across the road ahead of us later in our walk. maybe it's just me, but it seems like there are more lightning bugs this summer than ever before. and i'm not just talking in new york; i've been to thirteen states since graduation, so i feel like i have some authority to make this claim. i stood against a fence and stared into the woods at them all. it was beautiful, like a scene you'd see in a movie. i hope south africa has copious amounts of lightning bugs, because i'll be rul bummed otherwise.

tonight i cried like i've only ever cried one other time in my life. it's different than when you're at the funeral of a family member. at a funeral, you're crying because you know you won't see someone again ever. but the type of crying today is when you love someone(s) and they're in one place while you're off to another. and it's a shitty feeling and it hurts. the only person i've ever cried for like this was mario. and my host family. but mostly mario. that day leaving peru i was a mess more than i've ever been. i guess it's hitting me like this because i never went away to college. i was always within earshot of my house, able to come home for dinner or to wash laundry or just to hang out. and now im leaving. to go far away for a long time with presently unknown access to electricity, water, and internet. i have a newfound respect for members of the armed forces, in the sense that i cannot fathom how they go through these routine goodbyes with no certainty of their return. i know my family will visit me next christmas, and that's comforting to me. but this removal of other comforts is something i'm going to have to get used to with time.

also, i don't leave until tuesday morning, and it's only sunday night.