For this week, we are living in a dorm near a town called Marapyane. On Aug. 1, we will move to the town and live with host families. I am told that our group will go to a part of the town that is near to the dorm where we are now. Our language trainer will go with us, but in fact, I feel there will be a lot of sign language initially. I’m sure I’ll get on just fine, but my language skills don’t extend very far at present. Others in our class will go to other parts of the same town with their trainers. We should get indoctrinated into life in a village pretty quickly this way. I think it will also force me to learn the language quicker since most of the families do not speak English.
Each dorm has 10 rooms so our group takes up nearly 5 of them. There are married couples in one dorm with a few other couples spread out in another dorm. Then we’ve got men and women sharing. Logistically, the men have been pretty good about checking the showers before they jump in there and everyone seems pretty good about making sure all the needs are met. There is a flush toilet, but we’ve been here 5 days now and ours is just now working. At this point, outdoor squatty potties would be an improvement and we joke about how this is just preparing us for living in the villages. Same thing with the showers—we’ve all been shown how to take a bucket bath and it sounds just like what it is. We’ve been told that we are likely to have electricity, but maybe not water. I think camping experience and backpacking experience is a necessity. Others I’ve talked to agree. I’m not sure how one would cope if they hadn’t liked camping.
Each day we are introduced to a new aspect of life in a village. We’ve covered things like the pace of life (it is much slower), religion, social behaviors, and such. It gives us all a chance to ask questions that I hope will keep us from offending anyone. We’ve got a wide range of backgrounds in the group and some are far more worldly than others. I think about 80% of the trainees are under 30 years of age, but nearly all have traveled outside the US to some degree. You can tell the ones who have traveled extensively as we brought the right clothes and didn’t pack too much. I brought 60 of the 80 allotted pounds and so far have been happy with my choices.
We had a group of Sepeti women come to show us traditional dance. Each of the groups have difference traditional dances. These were just beautiful. The costumes are bright blue with pink accents. The dances are all about being Sepeti and life the region. To contrast, our trainers showed us a traditional form of Setswana dance and it was livelier and they looked as if they were flying while the Sepeti dance was slower and more measured. The costumes are fabulous and I’ve enclosed pictures. For some reason that no one yet has understood, all the dancers are older women. They said they train the younger ones and that they dance in practice, but the older women are the ones who do the dances when they are in the villages.
We are in winter now moving towards spring so it is cold at night and very dry. I’ve used my jackets and long johns every night and my hat and gloves in the morning. Usually by tea time, the sun has warmed everything up enough that I can take off the outer jacket and just use the light one. The buildings are not heated though so sometimes it is colder inside than out. We usually have class outside in the sun so that is fun. We’ve got warm blankets though and I’m sure it will be hot soon enough and I’ll wish for cool or even cold weather again. It is the dry season now and with spring and summer come the rains (October through May). Presently, there is not a cloud in the sky.
The food is good. South Africa is a country of meat eaters so although nearly 25% of our group is vegetarian, there is meat served at every meal. I love the chicken and the beef is good too. At home I don’t eat much meat and we are mostly sitting in learning sessions so I try not to eat it at every meal and even skip a meal most days. Breakfast is always my favorite so I don’t skip that, but have bran flakes and tea. There are two tea breaks during the day and then lunch and dinner. I also try to go for a walk everyday, but I do not get nearly the same amount of exercise that I did at home so a food adjustment is necessary. We also have a lot more starches than at home. It is winter so winter vegetables are available. There are potatoes, rice, pap (a lot like grits, but a stiffer consistency), beets, cabbage, squash, carrots, and occasionally a salad with lettuce and tomato. The food is good and plentiful. For snacks, we have apples, bananas, and oranges and then biscuits, cookies, brownies or PB&J. For many who don’t eat meat, the peanut butter is a good protein source, but there are also eggs.
The medical team has been out multiple times for lectures on water sanitization, giving shots, and to talk about dehydration and some of the common diseases we may encounter. We’ve all been given yellow fever shots (I had one from previous trips so I didn’t need another!), hepatitis shots, rabies shots, and we’ve got more to come. There are days when one arm has several bandages and is sore, but the other arm is worse. The doctors are great and have interviewed us one-on-one to discuss any issues or concerns we may have. South Africa is one of the evacuation points for all of sub-Saharan Africa so the 20-25% of older volunteers in our group all feel we were placed here because of the excellent access to readily available medical care. It is reassuring, I must admit. We’ve got more lectures to come, a medical kit to add to our collection of stuff, and water purification filters and chemicals still to come. For the moment, the bottled water is working just fine and I don’t know of anyone who isn’t well or who hasn’t made a good transition from the US.
One funny thing that has happened is that we are learning some African songs and were asked to sing an American song for our trainers. So out of 42 people, we couldn’t find any one song besides Happy Birthday that everyone knew. We’ve been trying to come up with one for two days now and most of us said we could sing This Land is Your Land if someone wrote out the words for us. How sad is that. We were talking at lunch with our trainers and we said that we don’t do one thing as a nation and in fact couldn’t even come up with all the words to The Star Spangled Banner. That song is really hard to sing and of course anyone who is younger doesn’t want to sing a song like that. They want something hipper, but most of us old folks have never heard of the things they mention. So when we have to sing, I think it will be This Land Is Your Land regardless of the younger contingent because at least they know the melody to it and can sing it if someone writes the words. The African songs are fun though and we aren’t a bad singing group as a whole. All our trainers, on the other hand, have rhythm in their souls and sing/dance all the time. Everyone seems to love it and it is a big part of the culture. Maybe we will be singers and dancers by the time we leave here.
We’ve been with our host families now for a few days. I’m living with a couple who are nearly my age. My host mother will be 51 on August 29th so I need to think of something for her birthday. My host father is 55. They are both absolutely wonderful and I love it here. My mother is taking her master’s degree so she spends some time in Pretoria studying. She stays with one of her children there (they have 4 grown children) when she needs to be there and works at the college where we are studying when she is home. My father teaches at one of the local secondary schools and he teaches language so I’m fortunate. He helps me with my homework!
The other fun thing about my area is that there are a bunch of children around and they are super about helping me with my language skills. Last Sunday, we spent a few hours getting to know one another (they arrived at 10am to see the “white person”). We worked on learning body parts and verbs. So we played a game a bit like Simon says and then the song “head, shoulders, knees and toes”. I’m beginning to get the feel for this language and can pick up phrases here and there. I’m far from being at an even basic level though. Nearly everyone speaks English, but it is more fun to learn the Setswana. My worst goof so far is the sentence “we vomit dresses” as the verb to wash and to vomit are very, very close unfortunately. You get a good laugh pretty often with these words because there are so many sounds that are different.
I’ve learned a bit about how to keep a house here and we’ve got chickens that I’ve asked to be able to feed every morning. There is one hen sitting on a nest right now so we will have chicks soon. It takes 21 days, but we don’t know when she started sitting on the nest. We’ve also got 9 cows that a herd boy takes out to pasture every morning and brings home every night.
There is a wide variety of accommodations within our group, but all seem to be having a great time with our families. Nearly all have electricity, but from there it varies widely. Those of us with families who have grown children seem to be faring the best as younger kids and teens have various situations that can make it more difficult. As an example, some parents work in Pretoria or Johannesburg and are gone a lot so the kids fend for themselves a bit. Of course, this is a necessary situation here and in nearly all cases, it isn’t something that can be helped. We’ve got trainees living in virtual mansions—one even has heated floors, but then others are living without running water. I think our final placements will be more like the latter and those living well are worried that they won’t be able to transition well. It is a valid concern. From the sound of things, I’m in the better half because I’ve got parents who can help me learn, running water, inside toilets, etc. The support I’ve got at my home is fabulous.
We have been to the local high school once and will go again tomorrow. I shadowed a learner which is what they call students here. The girl I was with had a few friends join us for lunch. The girls are in grade 10 and are 15/16 years old. There are children of many ages in each grade so that is a bit different than US schools. We talked a lot about school here and life in the US compared to South Africa. Many things are the same, but then other things are very different. For example, during the maths class, (they call it maths not math—I’ve no idea why) the teacher didn’t show up. One of the students got up to review their homework and that is how they spent that 45 minute period. It was relatively well organized especially when I think what would have been done in the US without a teacher present.
We went to visit the chief of the village. (Village here is South Africa refers mainly to what infrastructure is present rather than the size. For example, Marapyane has 250,000 people in the village, I’m told, but there isn’t running water or indoor toilets in large numbers of homes. There are also few paved roads and electricity is spotty at times.) To visit the chief, the girls all had to cover their hair so that was interesting. I’ve enclosed a few pictures of our language instructors helping us learn how to do that. Our host mothers are great with these things too. They really, really take care of us.
We’ve also had a lot of lectures at the training college where we were staying the first week. The days are really intense starting at usually 6 am where we are doing our things around the house (like feeding chickens and sweeping the porch for me). We get ready for school and the bus picks us up around 7 or 7:30 depending on what we are doing. Then we have lessons, lectures, or sessions at the schools all day until at least 5. Africa time being what it is, we are usually late getting out and home and so don’t arrive until 6 or 6:30. Then the evening chores start. Everything takes a lot longer to do. For example, most of us have running water, but you’ve got to boil it to drink it, cook with it, or wash dishes with it. If there is running water, it is very common only to have it in the bathroom so for the kitchen water, you’ve got to haul it in or out or both. I’m not sure why there aren’t sinks in the kitchen and it isn’t that polite to ask why in this culture. So anyway, it takes a long time to do what is quick otherwise. Washing clothes is done in a tub and hung out on the line to dry.
Oh, I forgot to say that our families all gave us African names. Mine is Motlalepule and it means “the one who comes with the rain”. There was a rare rain storm the day we arrived and it was raining when I came. My friend Marcia has a similar name, Mapula and it means nearly the same thing. My host father and the neighbor man named me. In English, we don’t have the tl sound, but it is a bit like kl so the phonetic pronunciation is Moe kla lay pooh lay.
The phone company is on strike right now so rumor has it we will get internet access tomorrow so I will try to send this along with some pictures. I have no idea when I’ll be able to send the next one, but until then “tsamaya sentle, sala sentle”.
Karen
