January 13, 2012

So on December 27^th we arrive back in our village after ten days of travel – fun in the sun (and rain) in the mountains and at the seashore.  We still have almost 3 weeks before school starts so plenty of time to get garden and school work done!? Right?  Things should be pretty calm in our little village after the holidays – BUT…there is a very important ceremony/party happening at our compound on January 7^th.  A year earlier, our house “mother”, Sophie’s husband died.  In this African culture a widow wears only one (or two) subdued dresses/outfits until this party a year later. A year after her husband dies, a woman has a party called ”the unveiling.” I thought for the longest time it was the widow who was being “unveiled.”  Actually, it is the tombstone of the deceased that is being unveiled.

Things have been happening around here for quite some time to get ready for this big event.  The “patio” area in front of the house was paved several months ago and in the beginning of December the wall that defines the patio was redone.  And a big load of fire logs was delivered. Activity really picked up after New Years.  Sophie started a big batch of “African beer´ Sunday and the kitchen was moved from a covered shed to the space behind our house.  The people who were cooking and helping with the beer making gathered Monday & Tuesday to work on the beer, plan and bring tables, pots, bowls etc. Wednesday tables were set up, extra electricity was purchased and a small batch of live chickens was delivered.  I thought they were for the party Saturday, but this batch was to feed the cooks & family for the next two days.  Thursday, the outdoor kitchen (five fires including a 2 ft X 10 ft “oven” made of a rectangle of bricks on the ground with a big strip of corrugated tin for a top) were set up.  Sophie did a big shopping expedition and a t least 2 dozen chickens were delivered.  Several people spent the night.  Early Friday morning the serious preparations began.  Yesterday’s chickens were killed, plucked, gutted & cooked.  A cooler was brought over (the reason for the extra electricity).  Biscuits were made by the very large bowlful – 2-300? and baked in the makeshift oven.  That afternoon, I looked out by my garden and 12 cows were walking through it to the lower field. A little while later someone picked out one of the steers which was restrained and the rest were sent away.  The women had been doing all the other cooking prep but it was a group of men who killed and slaughtered the steer.  The indoor kitchen had been cleaned to the walls – all the cabinets were moved.  The serious beef cutting happened on the floor on sheets most of the evening and into the night – Richard was invited to help - he declined.  When I offered to help I was put on dish washing, biscuit making and potato peeling.  Many people stayed the night, many of them cooking & talking  - staying up all night long (including Sophie).

The day of the “unveiling” started very early (since it never really stopped!).  The tarp was put up, cooking fires were lit and then the people who had been here all night changed into “church” clothes.  More and more people arrived.  About 9:30 everyone started gathering at the gate of the compound.  Some started walking with the band. –Oh, the band.  I forgot to mention that a 6-piece band (4 horns & 2 drums) arrived on Friday and played a few times that evening.  They too had spent the night so they could lead the morning procession to the cemetery.  Some of us walked the 1+K to the cemetery while the family, the preacher and the infirm rode up in cars in a line behind us.  We gathered around the shrouded tombstone and a ceremony of remembrance was held.  Of course, I couldn’t understand more than a word or two because it was all in Sepedi, but the preacher talked, people bowed their heads, other people talked, the band played appropriate music etc.  Then the tombstone was unveiled.  It was one of the largest in the cemetery all shiny, new and black.  More people talked.  Many family members and groups of family members had their picture taken in front of the new tombstone.  Sophie wanted us in one too.  Here is a picture of us with Nelson’s two sons.

We all went back to the house where the members of Sophie’s church (ZCC – Zion Christian Church) did some traditional dancing and chanting/sinning.  They did finally get me to join in.

Another church type service was held on the patio.  The ZCC members attended while others cooked and chatted.  There were over a hundred people at the cemetery. By the time the service at the house was over and it was time to eat, there were about twice that many.  I’d guess that over 250 adults and children were there at some time that day.  For once there was not more food that could be eaten, but I think everyone who wanted to eat got a big plateful.  The home brew and much commercial, bought beer was consumed – mostly by the men but I noticed some women were drinking too.  Sophie smuggled some bottles to us in our house.  I don’t think it is cool for women to be seen drinking in “public”.  The band came and marched on the patio or in the yard and played a bit every now & then.  The party finally wound down in the wee hours of the morning.  Sophie called it a night much earlier.  It was another two days before everyone that had been helping left and the place returned to a semblance of normal.

From a ministerial point of view, it is an interesting custom.  The “Unveiling” party gives the widow something to do as the year anniversary of her husband’s death approaches. She has family and friends around to help with physical and emotional work.  She has a ceremony for herself and the community to say good-bye again to a friend, son, father or husband and move on with their own lives.  From a purely financial perspective it gives the widow (and family) a year to pay for the tombstone – which can be quite expensive.  I was a bit concerned when I first learned that the father in our host family had died less than 3 months before we moved in, but it has been alright.  3-4 months ago, Sophie told me she was glad we were here .  She’d forgotten how she was before we came.  By that I didn’t think she didn’t remember how she had been feeling then but rather that she wasn’t feeling like that anymore.

It was quite an event!!!  I’m glad I was able to experience it firsthand. (Although I was glad when everyone had gone and the compound was back to its state of relative calm.)

This week, Richard is in Pretoria having a cataract operation.  I’ll be glad when he gets back (probably Sunday).  He can send this out Mon.at school.

It’s Friday now so school starts in 3 days for the educators (teachers) and 5 days for the learners (students).  Maybe I’d better go make those plans I was going to do over the Holiday break.

(It took an extra week to get this posted – Richard had to stay in Pretoria and then we had internet problems in the village – I hope it can go out Jan 23^rd)

Title: More Vacation Pics
January 11, 2012

After three days at Amphitheatre Backpackers we traveled further south to Sani Pass Lodge.  Sani Pass is the mountain pass into the highest part of Lesotho.  The road through Sani Pass is incredibly steep and windy.  Unfortunately the picture I got (below) doesn’t show the steepest windiest part very well.

The first day of this part of our trip we went back to Lesotho, again with a guide.  This time we climbed to the left side of the “Giant’s Tea Cup.

The area we were in is used for summer sheep pasture because it is so high.  Young boys (12-18 yrs) stay in little huts called “motebo”s.

They have a plant that was flowering while we were there.  I loved the name!  It’s called a “red hot poker flower”! Can you see why?

During this trip into Lesotho we saw more people in traditional dress and more mountains.

The scenery was incredible!  The mountains looked like velvet!

The next day the other three in our PCV group decided to hike to see some more rock art. We opted to walk a nature trail and climb a small peak behind the backpacker

The last stop on our trip was the seacoast city of Durban.  I got to swim in the Indian Ocean!

Then it was a two day trip by buss and African taxi (thnk van packed with people) back to Botchabelo.

A week after we got back there was a huge celebration/ceremony for the unveiling of the tombstone of the father of our host family who had died in January 2011 before we arrived in March.  More about that next time

Lots of Vacation Pictures

HAPPY 2012!  At the end of this month we will have been in South Africa a whole year!  We will know more of what to expect of the weather (and bug population cycle).  Reflecting back on our experiences so far, Peace Corps is not what I expected - mostly because South Africa is very different than the “Africa” I had I my head (the National Geographic Africa of the 60’s).  I don’t think it exists anywhere in Africa any more but certainly not in South Africa, where everyone (except some of the “gogo”s (grandmothers)) wears western dress and you can get just about anything you want at the Pick N Pay grocery store or Games department store in town – in fact Games was just bought by Walmart!.  The problems and issues are not the ones I expected either.  It is harder to understand how apartheid and the history of race relations in this country have affected the current conditions (especially in education) than I thought it would be and adjusting to no running water in the house was easy – although it has made me appreciate hot showers more.  
In two weeks we start a new school year.  I’ll be teaching Gr 4 Math with help from the teacher who would have had that class if I hadn’t offered to teach it.  I wanted to teach it because I miss teaching math/science and there will be less of a language issue with math than science.  Also the class will include the 3^rd graders from last year that I got to know and love.  I will still be doing most of the English teaching for 1^st, 2^nd & 3^rd grades.  There is a new national curriculum CAPS (Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements) that is to implemented next year at the lower grade levels but the teachers had not received the material for it before we broke for the holidays.  It is hard to plan lessons without the guidelines!  Maybe we will get them when the teachers meet for 2 days before the students return?! We had a wonderful vacation in the mountains and the sea shore with three other PCVs! 

We spent the first three days at Amphitheatre Backpackers at the edge of the Drakensburg Mountains where we were treated to a beautiful sunset the first night.

The next day we drove into Lesotho and spent some time in a small village – probably very much like the one we would have gone to if we had been posted to Lesotho. 

Lesotho has the highest low point of any country (about a mile high – like Denver) and goes up to 14,000+ feet.  We climbed to a rock overhang for a box lunch and a view of some rock art painted by the San people, who have been gone for 200 years).  I took some pictures but you can’t see the paintings well.  We also had a chance to sample the local home brewed beer and visit a traditional healer.

 The next day we drove to a car park near Tegula Falls, the world’s 4^th highest waterfall and hiked for 2½ hours to the top.  We hiked around the back of the taller peak on the right and up to the flat top on the left.

 It was quite a hike!  We had to scramble up a steep rock filled gorge for one part.

 We had lunch and walked across the flat top to the waterfall.  One disappointment was that you couldn’t see much of the falls from the top.  

Then we had to get back down again.   
We took a different route back.  The chain ladders were a little scary – just don’t look down!!

 The last day in this part of the Drakensburgs we went to Royal Natal National Park.  Some folks took a 4+ hour hike to the bottom of the falls but Richard and I decided to take it easier and we found a little brook with a nice cool pool where we could hide away, skinny dip and just relax.

Thant’s enough for one entry.  I’ll send another one soon (no really) with more pictures from our trip.

Christmas Season in South Africa

December 14, 2011
Another PCV in our group forwarded a very interesting article written by a recently returned PCV from Africa. The title “What The Peace Corps Taught Me About Failure” sounds negative but it is actually a very positive article and reflects some of the things I have felt working here in South Africa” Here is a link - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/blackberry/p.html?id=1099202

The weather here has continued to alternate between sunny days with highs over 110°F to cloudy days in the 80sor 90s.  Luckily the sunny days are usually low humidity.  I’ve been so busy at school that I haven’t had as much time to work in the garden.  The first plantings are more or less done (still getting some Swiss chard from the first planting) and the carrots I planted are now big enough to eat and pretty sweet.  I was surprised how big one was that I pulled up the other day.  New tomatoes about to flower, a second crop of dill and basil.  Richard found a rosemary plant that is doing well and I found some mint to transplant at a backpackers we stayed at on Halloween.  It’s good to have fresh herbs again.
In June Richard made a video of our house at his daughter’s request.  I don’t know why I didn’t think to post a link on here before but here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phrVxvKVwqk
Richard says “we” made the peg boards and shelves but it was a generous “we”.  I stacked the bricks and boards.  He did all the rest.  We have found we can be very comfortable in a much smaller space that we would have thought.  It makes those American mega-mansions seem all the more outrageous. The calendar on the wall is a Monhegan calendar (Mongegan is an island off the coast of Maine - one of our favorite places on earth).  We have already ordered one for 2012 to help us remember New England – especially when it is so HOT here.
The school year is over.  The last few weeks were very hectic.  I was told the Foundation Phase (grades R (think kindergarten) through 3) would be meeting regular classes through the last week of the term so I planned my lessons accordingly.  But once testing was finished, teaching stopped and many of the learners didn’t even come to school so I had trouble getting them all the cards in the alphabet sets.  I will give the ones who didn’t get their set to those learners next year when school starts again.
I was asked to help enter grades into the new data base all South African schools are now required to use.  I was surprised to see that the grades from the Grade 7 science exam I taught material for 3 days for and graded had been changed so that many more than 3 learners passed – almost ¾ of them now had passing grades.  When I asked about it, I was told the Principal had allowed them to retake the test. (?) The grades for ones who passed originally hadn’t been changed – so I guess they didn’t retake it (?)
Yea! The water situation at our house has been fixed and we are now back to original status which is that the water comes on at a tap in our yard 2-3 times a week for an hour or two.  The pressure is strong enough to fill all our compounds barrels and sometimes there is some left to put in the “dam” (black plastic tank) for the garden.  Richard doesn’t have to go fetch it in the wheelbarrow.
We are in Pretoria about to set off on an adventure to the Drackensburg Mountains for six days.  We are staying at two different backbpakers – one is right near the border with Lesoto (where we were supposed to be posted).  Then we go to Durban, a city on the Indian Ocean.  School doesn’t start again until mid-January.  Then in February my son, Adam, is coming and treating us to a 3-day safari in Kruger National Park.  For many reasons, I am very glad we are here in the Peace Corps in South Africa.  The saying “The hardest job you’ll ever love.” is true.
Merry Christmas!!!
Emily

Thanksgiving in South Africa

November 26, 2011

Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone.  Richard and I are gathered in Polokwane (the capital of the province we live in) with about 40 other PCVs celebrating Thanksgiving together this weekend.  There will be more food than we can eat, in true American Thanksgiving fashion.  Luckily the 2 weeks of days of 100°+ heat we had after my last blog was one of those weather fronts that jump a season ahead.  The rains are finally starting to fall about once a week and many days this past week have been cloudy and cooler – highs in the high eighties.

It’s hard to believe it is November and it is really strange to see Christmas decorations in all the stores when it is 100°+ outside.  It is also weird that the school year is almost over instead of ½ way through at this time of year.  Things have been a little crazy at school lately.  Grades 4-7 have stopped having classes and started taking exams about a month before the end of school.  I’m not sure what they will do for the last two weeks of school.  The lower grades are still having classes but are also taking end of the year tests.  I have been able to keep working with them and all the 1^st – 3^rd graders will have a complete set of alphabet cards to take home by the end of the year.  I hope the teachers are learning something from the lessons I am doing with their classes.

Remember the teacher we didn’t get to hire?  The classes the teacher who left was teaching ended up not getting any teacher for ½ the year (except the few weeks I taught Gr 7 Science).  The District decided that they had to take the 4^th term test anyway.  I was asked to help Gr 7 for three days before they took the test.  They were just going to give the students the questions and answers but I said I wouldn’t do that.  I’d go over the material on the test but put it in some context.  Three students actually passed the test!

When we were in training one of our “how to survive as a Peace Corps Volunteer” sessions had a graph of highs and lows during your two year, two month time as a PCT (trainee) and PVC (volunteer).  It had a low point at the one year mark of being at your site.  We’ve been at site 9 months now and I can understand the low point better.  By then you realize you are not going to change things that much.  The educational system is really less than 30 years old and they still have a lot to learn about learning.  During Apartheid the schools for black Africans got 10% of the funding for 90% of the people.  The attitude toward education is very different too.  Many of the teachers didn’t really want to be teachers but during apartheid teaching was one job that a black with some education could get.  They often do not have the passion for teaching that American teachers have (at least at the beginning of their teaching careers).  This is especially true in the small villages we are in.  Once students are in 4^th Grade they are expected to learn all subjects in English but they don’t really have enough English before they get to 4^th Grade.  By the time they get to Grade 7 many have given up on school.  That is one reason why I’ve chosen to work with the younger classes.

The water issues mentioned in the last blog entry are still with us.  We bought a wheelbarrow to haul the water with.  At the moment the problem is even worse because the pump for the borehole that sends water to our end of the village is broken so we have to get water from even further away.  2 weeks ago, our host family mother arranged for a family member to bring a pick-up truck full of water jugs and we’ve been washing clothes and bodies with rain water so Richard has only had to go to the other side of the village with the wheelbarrow once to get our drinking water.

It’s hard to believe we are more than 1/3 of the way through our time here in South Africa – 10 out of 26 months!

I do miss hearing from folks back home and I do get email.  Richard can get a signal at his school and down loads my mail three or four times a week.  What are you up to?  If you email me, I promise I’ll email you back!

Take care,

Emily

Blog Entry 11 - Springtime in South Africa

 October 23, 2011

Well, we have only just begun the 2^nd month of spring here in South Africa but today it was 114° F in the shade at our house!  It is really weird when you go to pick up a drinking glass on the table and it feels WARM because it is at such a higher temperature than your body temp.  Thank goodness people say this is unusually warm for this time of year.  Unfortunately, from that statement I surmise that it is not unusually warm for the middle of summer.  Maybe we will acclimate but maybe I will end up dumping water on my head (even when I am fully dressed) to keep cool.  I’ve done that already today but just once because we have been short of water lately. 

There is something wrong with the connection between the town water that comes from a well and the outdoor tap in our front yard.  The river is not that far away but we have been told that the Olifant (Lapelle) River is one of (if not the most) polluted river in South Africa.  Also Peace Corps has told us to avoid swimming or wading etc. in any fresh water because of a snail larva that will burrow into our bodies and do nasty things we don’t want to have happen.  Luckily the problem seems to originate only a couple of hundred meters from the house.  So today we went a little further to a neighbor’s house to get water to fill our drinking water (10 gal.) and washing water (60 gal) barrels.  The mother of our host family suggested I come and help too - by carrying water on my head the South African way!  I got a couple of dish towels and a small bucket and went with her.  Richard had a wheel barrow with a couple of jugs in it too.  He took a picture of me and our host mother coming back to our yard carrying water on our heads. (See picture with this blog).  I look forward to having a “bath” and washing my hair this evening!

We have put the information we got at the Permagarden workshop to good use.  We now have 2 new compost piles that are actually getting warm in the middle! – a first for me.  I’ve created a seed bed as a nursery from which I will transplant seedlings into the bigger garden.  We’ve covered it with branches to keep the direct sun off to minimize water loss.  I’ve let most of the rest of the garden go because it had done its thing and been harvested (kale, broccoli, beets, chard, tomatoes) or it never really did much (zucchini, beans, peas, 2^nd batch of tomatoes).  I have a good carrot bed, dill and basil and a 2^nd planting of chard.  Those and the seed bed are about all I have water for just now.  The rainy season is supposed to be upon us but apparently it started late this year.  We had our first significant rain since May or June on Sept.30^th and it has only rained 4 or 5 times since then.

We were not allowed to keep the teacher the principal hired but I did not pick up the Grade 7 science class again.  I am continuing to enjoy teaching English to the younger students.  I have at least sketched out lesson plans until the end of the school year which will be Dec. 9.  After that we have 5 ½ weeks of vacation.  We are planning a trip with three other PCVs to the Drakensberg Mountains (further south and higher than the ones in our backyard) and Durban (a city on the eastern coast of South Africa) during the break.  We hope to take a day trip into Lesotho where we were originally going to be spending our Peace Corps time.  We plan to be in a good cell phone reception area Christmas Eve and Christmas so we can call home.