I'm baaaaaaack!

Greetings! After two months without the internet (aside from a few minutes here and there when PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) would bring their internet phones and computers to trainings) I am finally at my permanent site and finally have the time to sit down and write in my blog!

The last two months have been incredibly busy and remarkably stressful. Having lived overseas before both Jason and I thought this would be a cake walk…it certainly wasn’t!  I feel like I’ve been in a washing machine going around in circles for 9 weeks and am just coming off of the spin cycle. The difficulties were in the details. Believe it or not getting used to no running water, roosters, donkeys and foreign food was the easiest part (but the food did take a bit longer to become palatable than expected!). The difficulties came when our patience was tried. And it was tried everyday!  I’ve learned that time truly is relative and you know what…we really will get there when we get there so ‘ahoona molato!’ (Tswana for ‘no worries’)

And then there was the stress that was….language class….dun, dun, dun. I started learning Setswana at a break neck speed wanting to master this Bantu dialect…but the difficulties of having a language trainer who was unable to understand questions posed about intricate grammar issues and being unable to rely upon the study material given (because there are only 5-8 different dialects of Setswana in SOUTH AFRICA alone) made for stressful language sessions which made one want to do nothing more than throw things at walls!  I did however pass the test…and must brag that I scored higher than Mr. Linguist himself: Jason P. Stout . This did wonders for my language learning self esteem!

And last (but certainly not the least) of our stresses was illness. Lots of it! And, for those of you who know me, you know who was the sick one! It started with strep…then morphed into some gastro-intestinal nightmare followed by the flu which morphed into some entire body illness from Hades. On one particular morning at the end of S. Africa’s winter I was especially ill…and it was COLD . I had to go to the schools to finish up the ‘hands-on’ element of training. I began to feel extremely sick…then I lost all energy I had to even move, again for those who know me you know that this means I lost a LOT of energy . So they called the khombi to take me home…at which point I mustered up the theatrics and passed out in front of…well, everyone! I apparently had a fever of over 104’ F and blacked out for the next few minutes. It was fantastically dramatic. The Peace Corps was amazing though and had antibiotics to me in 3 hours. Well, needless to say…I survived! 

All that to say…training is over! It’s over! We boarded a bus on September 19 and carted ourselves and all our stuff to Pretoria where we swore in as the 16th group of Volunteers in South Africa. We also mark Peace Corps 10th year in South Africa…as ten years ago in 1997 Al Gore and now President Thabo Mbeki signed a letter of understanding asking the U.S. to send its “best and brightest” (as they love to tell us ) to South Africa to assist the rural schools held back by apartheid. Ten years later there is still a LOT of work to be done. A lot.
We are now at our permanent site in the Northern Cape! This is exciting because we are part of a group of 11 others who are the first PCVs assigned to the Northern Cape. Furthermore, we are IN the Kalahari Desert, which is also quite exciting. However, we are quickly learning that being among the first 13 Volunteers ever in this province isn’t as ‘cool’ as it seemed. The Dept. of Ed. wasn’t as prepared for us as the other provinces who’ve had Volunteers in the past. We arrived at our site after swearing in (arriving was a miracle in and of itself…just trust me) to find it completely empty. So it’s been rough getting our place put together . We’re surviving and it has provided us with a fantastic way to meet lots of people as we carry all our huge purchases (like chairs and wash basins) on our bodies on the public taxi system from our shopping town to our village. When you’re smashed against several other people in the back of a Khombi you can’t help but make friends! 

Well, there’s a general overview. For those of you considering Peace Corps please pay close attention to the following: training is the HARDEST PART. Hang in there, it will end and it becomes much more bearable after that! I promise .