My Diatribe

So I didn’t want to use this blog as a manifestation of my bleeding heart or a medium to make everyone sad about the disparities of the world…we’ve all seen the commercials with the children who are so hungry they can’t even bother to lift an arm to shoe (sp?) away the flies on their faces, and I know many of you even support these children or volunteer in other helpful ways. I don’t need to spend time telling you about the orphans who’s parents have died from some incurable (or, even more disheartening, curable) disease and are supporting themselves, or about the orphans who’s parents are still alive but don’t give a shit about ensuring that their child eats dinner because it’s Friday night and the bar is calling (sorry for the language, but this issue gets to me probably more than anything else). Or the patients we visit who are dying of HIV but can’t tell their families about their status because they risk getting kicked out, ostracized, or (in very extreme cases) killed. You’ve heard it, you've seen the campaigns, you already know. I plan to spare the heartache, but the information and stats that I have been gathering to write this community needs assessment are just flat out depressing.

The unemployment rate in my greater area (about 60 villages with less than 300,000 people living there) is 50%. It is probably even higher in my village because this statistic includes towns with actual businesses and functioning organizations. 30% of these houses have no income, and the average income of those who do is about $150/month. As a Peace Corps volunteer we get about $250/month, and it is definitely not enough to take care of my needs and then my wants and then those fun trips we take to remain sane. And I’m only one person trying to live on this income, not 10 (which is the number of people usually living in one house on one income). I remember in one of my IDS classes we read an article that was criticizing poor people for spending too much money on “fun” when they couldn’t afford to feed their families. This “fun” isn’t defined as spending all your money on drugs and alcohol, but rather as holding too many festivals. Seriously? We’re talking weddings, birthday parties, cultural ceremonies. This article made me so angry because that is exactly what poverty does to you—it rips away your personal pride. And we all need some escapism to keep us sane and take our minds off of the reality of the pain that consumes our lives. That’s why we as Americans will pay $12 to see a bad romantic comedy, right? I guess what I’m saying is that an entire family (and probably some other random children that they felt obligated to care for) living on $150 a month is not acceptable. They don’t have the luxury of having full stomachs and those social events that give us reasons to get out of bed each day. But they do have the luxury of choice. So which is more important?

Continuing: 40% never had any type of schooling, 1% went on to college, and only 16% of those who do attend high school end up graduating. What angers me the most though, is not that many people are living without electricity, sanitary water, or any type of reliable medical services in emergencies, but that this is South Africa. This country has the highest GDP on the entire continent, boasts gorgeous hotels and glitzy restaurants, and has any basic service and pretty much any luxury that one might want or need. For a country that is able to claim status as a first world country, these statistics are disgusting. The statistics regarding the incidence and prevalence of HIV are even more alarming, but are easier to stomach because a good amount of new infections are a result of personal choice (on some level). But access to clean water or a reliable police force? Those are rights. So much was promised to black South Africans by the new government as apartheid came to an end, but it turns out that providing basic services to your taxpayers is just too darn expensive. I guess it’s easy to forget that the majority of your population is wondering where their next meal is coming from while you’re sipping a cocktail in the backseat of your beamer.

Lazy Sunday

Seriously lazy. Today is freezing (sorry east coaster's), a brisk 50 degrees. Funny thing is, we joke about Californian's reactions to cold, rain, or any type of severe weather, but they ain't got NOTHIN on South Africans. Granted, central heating isn't exactly abundant in this neck of the woods, but once a single cloud covers the sun or the temperature drops below 65, people lose it. Women travel with multiple blankets covering them, children are kept inside, and even my running group won't dare to spend one hour of the day subjected to the brutalities of winter. All I hear is distressed complaints of "kumakhaza (it's cold)" over and over again. A few weeks ago, when I was at church in Pretoria, I was sitting and having coffee before the service started. Some lady came up to me and said "What is your story?" A bit confused, I started to tell her, and she said "I knew you weren't from around here." Even more confused, I asked her what gave me away, and she replied "Look around, you are the only one not wearing a sweater." It was definitely no less than 65 degrees that day. So since it is both cold and rainy today, I'm still in bed (it's 12, oops), catching up on e-mails, reading other volunteers blogs, uploading pictures (check them out!), and watching movies. How any PCV lives without electricity and an external harddrive filled with movies/tv shows, podcasts, and music (all acquired by completely legal means of course) I will never know.

One thing I will complain about, regarding the cold, is the bucket bath. yikes. I boil the water, I point my space heater directly at my face, I warm my towel up before I put it on. Regardless, it's painful. One time, I had the brilliant idea of sitting inside my bucket (pretty much exactly like the picture of my two host brothers). Everything was going swimmingly until I displaced all of the water, soaked my entire floor, and was left even colder than when I started. Oh well, you win some you lose some.

On the work front, I'm finishing up my Community Needs Assessment and starting to prepare myself for the projects I want to start once lockdown is over. My organization and much of the community wants to set up a drop in center for orphans and vulnerable children to come after school and get fed/help with homework/play games, etc. We have the space and the help, so I'm hopeful that we'll be able to get that off the ground once we can get some $$. The nurses at the clinic are hoping to start up support groups for those affected by HIV/Aids, with different groups for men, women, pregnant mothers, and children. The educators at the schools want to start after-school programs for the learners, because right now the only extra-curricular activities they are engaging in are alcohol and sex. Though I'm overwhelmed by the need and my limited resources, I'm really excited about the prospects of these projects and what outcomes they might bring.

This weekend I was in Pretoria, taking care of some stuff at the PC office, and hanging out with the volunteers who are about to COS (close of service, i.e. go home). Some of them live nearby to me and have been really helpful with advice on adjusting, and working hard to welcome us newbies. They are also a lot of fun and I'm going to miss them a great deal when they leave. In Pretoria we went out to some delicious meals (pizza, obvi) and saw Sex and the City 2. For those who haven't seen it, don't waste your money. I'm still angry about how absolutely awful it was and I only paid $3 to see it. I then went grocery shopping and stocked up one some good foods that we can't get on this side (hummus!) and headed home. As I lay in bed writing this, my host mom just knocked on the door and said come. I'm still in my pajamas and definitely have not brushed my hair, and I walk into the house to see 5 family members who I haven't yet met sitting in the living room waiting to greet me. Awesome. Though people here may be poor, they take a lot of pride in their appearance. Most people wear clothes nicer than the ones that I had brought, and shoes are huge. Girls trek through the dirt roads in 5 inch heels. And another weird thing, somehow their shoes are always immaculately clean. Without a doubt I always have the dirtiest shoes and get many disapproving looks when I jump onto the bus looking like I've been camping for the past 3 months. So, yes, I am more than a little embarrassed right now.

World Cup is less than 2 weeks away, and people are going crazy. Commercials and advertisements flood TV, radio, and the streets, and every Friday people wear Bafana Bafana (South Africa's team which did not qualify to play but since they were hosting it were allowed to participate, shame) jerseys to show their support. Everyone who doesn't know me in my village or shopping town assumes that I'm here for the World Cup, which is slightly annoying but also kind of funny because even if I was, why would I be out here in the middle of nowhere? Prices for everything (food, clothes, transport) are quickly skyrocketing and my humble Peace Corps stipend is not, so I am having to limit myself to 1 pizza instead of 3 when I go into the city. Just kidding. Or am I? I will be going to a game or two (was able to get SA resident prices for tickets, only about $20 while the rest of the America is paying hundreds...suckas) If anyone is planning on coming out, let me know!
Peace,
Emily

More Pictures

complete with captions! more to come once i start doing more exciting things ;)

http://picasaweb.google.com/EmilyBirchfield/VillageLife#

This Week

Well, my clever attempts at avoiding the flu by getting the vaccine unfortunately landed me with, you guessed it, the flu. So I spent the last few days laying in bed whining to myself (because my mom wasn’t there to listen) watching movies and eating toast. As if having the flu wasn’t bad enough, it’s UNBELIEVABLY boring having the flu alone by yourself in your hut. My head was pounding from looking at the little screen of my laptop, and I couldn’t concentrate on a book, so I literally laid around, slept, and waited for it to be night so I could sleep again. Thankfully, it was a quick bug and I’m now feeling top notch.

So nothing too exciting has happened since Pension Day (woohoo!)…I got together with the four other volunteers in my area got together to celebrate one woman’s birthday over lunch in town one day. The only problem is, there isn’t really anywhere other than KFC of Chicken Licken (pretty much as tasty as it sounds) to ‘get lunch’, so instead we bought some fries and some beers and hung out in a secluded area. Drinking alcohol is a very interesting and complicated concept here in rural South Africa. It is only really appropriate for males to drink, and when they drink, they drink. There isn’t so much of a ‘social drinking’ notion, people tend to either abstain completely from drinking (at least in public) or proceed to get completely wasted, sometimes starting at 9 in the morning. As if this was appropriate, for women it is simply not appropriate to consume alcohol, and if you are going to dare to defy the social norm, you cannot drink beer and you absolutely cannot drink from the bottle. So, in the spirit of destigmatization, we sometimes like to get one drink to show that social drinking can be just as fun, or that buying a bottle of wine at the grocery store doesn’t mean I am going to finish it by myself on the taxi ride home. Usually though, we just get a lot of strange looks or ‘what are you doing’ comments. What I have yet to understand a society would tolerate men getting wasted at the taverns from morning until night but all hell breaks loose and everybody finds out when the American girl orders one drink at lunch. I’ve heard a lot of interesting comments at churches or at other NGOs that the community needs to act against the abuse of alcohol, but I haven’t seen anything done about it thus far.
Other insignificant highlights of my week included playing my awesome new purple guitar, making guacamole (and eating it for every meal) ,and baking a DELICIOUS cappuccino chocolate cake. I can’t decide if I’m more ashamed of the fact that I baked in on Tuesday and had finished it by Friday, or that I actually hesitated before offering some to my host family. It’s the simple pleasures that keep me going, ya know?

As for my work, it’s going. I go through days where I get completely overwhelmed by the gravity of the work that needs to be done and I wonder what I can do, and then later in the day I’ll get a surge of optimism and hope for the project ideas that I have. We had a meeting with the nurse at the clinic last week, where she basically chastised them for 2 hours about how they aren’t doing their work and their community is suffering, how the management is not being tough enough, and how they have great ideas for projects but they never follow through. I thought it was great because I was having a difficult time figuring out my place in how I would say those things (clearly in a more lighthearted tone) but the nurse (who oversees the HBC) just shouted it out and BAM, that was that. Some of the caregivers seemed angry, but everyone showed up the next day at 9 am sharp in their uniforms, so here’s to hoping it lasts. We are going to start doing health talks in the clinic, going at 8 am to talk to the patients about various things (HIV, TB, hygiene, healthy living, etc) while they wait to see the nurses. That will give me something to work on as I also start the grant application to start our OVC center.

And finally, in the midst of my pounding headache and nausea, my host brother decided to bang on my door one morning to have me take a picture of the little baby sitting in the drivers seat of the taxi (both my host brother and father are taxi drivers). Here in the village every malady is called the flu, so even though I didn’t think they fully understood how much I didn’t want to get up and take this picture, I sucked it up and did it anyway. After taking the picture, I sat down in the sun and watched the family interact. I really enjoy picking out the cultural differences and then despite those seeing how similar we really are. As my host father was getting ready to leave in his taxi, the 4 year old started hysterically bawling because he didn’t want him to leave. How many times have I seen that happen in America, myself included (the picture of my first day of Kindergarten depicts me with bloodshot eyes and a forced smile because there was nothing in the world that seemed worse than having my mom abandon me in an unknown place that morning). The father picked up the little boy and swung him around, giving him a big hug and a kiss and promising him that everything would be okay. As I watched this, my bout of homesickness combined with my actual sickness made me spontaneously burst out in tears as well, and my host father turns to me and says, “Ungalili Sbongile, ngiyabuya”, meaning,, “don’t cry Sbongile, I’m coming back”. All I could do was laugh and say ‘okay, see you soon’.

I LOVE pension day

My dwelling place..it's a traditional Ndebele hut and it rocks!


This picture was supposed to go with the last blog post


To those of you who I may not have already expressed my unabashed love for this special day (as I like to call it) that occurs once a month. Pensions are essentially a form of welfare; different grants are given to old women (gogos), people who are disabled, and for each child under a certain age. The grants are dispersed at the house of the chief, who conveniently lives next door to me. This means that when the hoards of vendors come to sell their fruits, vegetables, meat, clothing, and other various supplies, I merely have to walk outside and I can buy them all for much cheaper than if I went to town. I like to support the local women who cultivate gardens and grow their own foods that they sell to others in the village for very reasonable prices. I’m talking about $1.50 for a bag of 20 oranges, $1 for six eggs, and $0.30 for an avocado! The other advantage is that instead of schlepping ten pounds of produce onto the taxi, then sitting with it on my lap for an hour or two, and then braving the 1 mile walk home from the bus stop, I only have to cross the road. Plus, today someone gave me a free cookie. But if I’m being honest, hands down the best part of pension day is ICE CREAM truck that travels around the village all afternoon, bringing along with it delicious treats and waves of nostalgia for my childhood when only the ice cream truck could turn of hours waiting for my sister to be done with soccer practice into a leisurely afternoon. I distinctly remember feeling extremely badass when I purchased bubble gum that was packaged to look like cigarettes (not sure which is worse, the fact that those were marketed and sold to naïve children or the fact that I was allowed to buy them).

Long story short, today was awesome. I wanted to buy 1 onion but they had to be bought in a package of 10, so I asked my host sister if I could give her money for 1 of her onions. She said “Don’t be silly I will give it to you for free. You are part of the Thubana family now”. Even though I had already felt that sentiment, that really made me smile. Ice Cream and family love…not a bad day.

I'm working on a new album of pictures but hopefully these can tide you over for a bit

Fabulous Life of a PCV

While still in the midst of the 3 month period that many call lockdown (though we are instructed to call it community integration), there isn’t a whole lot going on for me right now. We aren’t supposed to be officially working, but rather using this time to integrate into our community (hence the name) by meeting with organizations, people, and community groups in order to make contacts and build relationships, but most importantly to build trust so that when we do actually start our own projects, people are receptive and interested in helping and working with us. I agree with and understand the concept…but sometimes I just get a little bored. While many are working with their organizations during this period, my home based care doesn’t have much going on at the moment besides doing their daily door-to-door visits. So unless I go to the field with them, which I don’t love to do because it turns from the caregivers giving important information to the patients about health into the patients asking me tons of questions about who I am, why I’m here, and if I know Beyonce and Zac Effron. Though I’m happy to give this information and clearly want to meet all of the community, I just don’t think this is the best forum. So I try to fill my days with various things…I have my little running club, sometimes I hang out at the crèche (preschool/daycare center for children 2-5 years old), often I do show up at random people’s homes to say ‘what up’ (plus they almost always give me warm tea which is a huge plus), and I have been spending a lot of time writing the Peace Corps mandated Community Needs Assessment. This is actually turning out to be a great tool to help me discover what the community and organizations want and need, while also giving me an excuse to do things I would otherwise be REALLY awkward at (i.e. showing up at random people’s houses to say ‘what up’). Often times I leave with good information, and sometimes I am thoroughly confused because someone will adamantly deliver a piece of information that is completely opposite to the piece of information that another person adamantly delivered to me the day before. Alas, slowly but surely, I’m making progress. And though my organization doesn’t have a lot going on, it makes me very hopeful and optimistic about the future. There are so many basic services that are needed in my village, and though sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the need in relation to my minimal experience, resources, or general knowledge, I am excited about the prospects and the potential that I see in my village. Maybe I won’t be able to bring my HBC to the level of efficacy of Amnesty International or World Vision, and I probably won’t eliminate HIV/Aids from my village, but I can help to see that the orphans and vulnerable children get fed each day, or that 10 girls are empowered with the confidence and ability to say no. And for now, I think that is good enough for me.

My definition of a ‘productive day’, however, has undergone a complete makeover, and since I have had the pleasure of being fun-employed for the past almost year (wow did I really graduate an entire year ago???), thankfully I am pretty used to it. Now, I’m happy if I manage to have a successful meeting with even one person during the day (it’s more difficult than you think), or if I get my laundry done, and on really low days I actually consider a full bucket bath (hair washing included) as workout. Yes, I’ve become that girl.

This week my mission was to visit all of the local schools (there are 4 in my village and 1 in the village next to us), to meet with the principles, and to introduce myself to the students. My secret agenda though, is to make sure the children know my name and stop referring to me as ‘Lakuah’ (meaning white person). Despite the fact that Sbongile isn’t really my name, it’s much better in my opinion than being called white person, regardless of the fact that yes I am the only white person around. I didn’t think it would bother me as much as it does, but it does, so I’ve decided to let the youth of the community know that I will no longer respond to whistles, shouts of HEY!!!!!!, or the dreaded Lakuah. I went to the crèche first to commence my mission, because its often the 4 year olds who don’t know (or seem to care) much outside of their toys or the food they are eating at the moment, who often cause the chain of kids and youth screaming “LAKUAH!!!!!” as I walk or run throughout the village. I went to every classroom, and spent 10 minutes explaining (in broken isiNdebele and with the help of the teachers) that my name is Sbongile, not Lakuah. Everything went great and by the end of the day they were all saying ‘bye Sbongile!’. I was ecstatic until I walked by the crèche this morning on my way to the HBC and all of the children that I had spent an entire day instructing, started screaming “HEY LAKUAH!!!!” incessantly until I finally gave in and waved. Damn.

So I guess the grass is always greener on the other side. During training I complained about being exhausted from the long days of information sessions, and now I complain about being bored from a lack of projects to keep me busy with. During summer I constantly complained about the suffocating heat, and now I’m already complaining about the cold. Though I finally decided (in the winter vs. summer debate) that I prefer winter, because it’s better to wake up in warm sweats and drink hot tea and eat a big bowl of oatmeal (even if I do have gloves on while I do it), then to get up at 4 a.m. to take a freezing cold bucket bath because it’s too hot to even sleep. You can always get warmer, but without air-conditioning or a pool, it’s difficult to get cooler. Another advantage to winter: no hornets. Due to the fact that I’ve never been stung by a bee combined with my hypochondriac tendencies, I am convinced that I am fatally allergic to any type of bee and so I resultantly loathe them. Now that I think about it though, winter does bring in the rats. I have yet to see a live one near my digs but other volunteers tell stories about using cyanide to kill them daily. Not sure how I’m gonna cross that bridge when I come to it, but until I do, summer will still prevail.

I’m starting to see why people like blogging, it’s easy to get lost in my own random and completely unrelated thoughts; also nobody in cyber land has to fake interest in them like they might to my face.

Back to what you actually are (or maybe are not) interested in knowing.

Tomorrow I’m off to Pretoria for my monthly fix of cheeseburgers, English speaking, and a shower. I am also going to the PC office to brave the flu shot (never had one before but I’m thinking I would rather pass on the prospect of puking all night in my pit toilet), get some books on gardening (our HBC has a garden but nobody tends to it, so one of my first goals is to learn how to get it up and running) and hopefully find those long lost packages waiting for me. I’m still holding out hope that ones sent 3 months ago weren’t lost but just teasing me.

Here in rural SA there is no trash service (what a change from good old Newport Beach where we don’t even recycle because they do it for us), and so people burn their trash in large amounts weekly. Yesterday, my baby host brother, who is learning to walk quite quickly, got into the ashes and completely covered himself from head to toe with white ash. And if you’re wondering why his right foot isn’t covered, its because he started peeing on himself (which then sprayed on to me) mid photo session. Enjoy.

P.S.

Letters/packages/you in a large box
can still be sent to this address. I'm staying close to my old village and still keeping in contact with the family, so I will be able to receive things faster than if you send them to the Peace Corps address.

Emily Birchfield (Or Sbongile Mahllangu)
PO Box 3123
Empumalanga, South Africa
0458

The Running Club

So many people have asked, do you have any friends in your village? I don't really, mostly due to the linguistic barriers that cause most of my conversations to consist mostly of
"hi" "hi" "how are you?" "Good and you?" "Good" "It's hot" "Yes" "Okay, bye Sbongile" "Byebye".
Okay, I'm exaggerating, but it really takes awhile to make sincere friends. But these girls (and my baby host brother who makes a cameo in almost every picture) have the unfailing ability to make me laugh and turn any day into a good one. Most every day (except when they are over it and make up excuses which are completely transparent) they go running or walking with me, and then we will sit on some rocks that overlook the village and chill for awhile. Sometimes they sing and dance, sometimes they make me sing and dance (about as awkward as it sounds), or when we're really feeling wild I will show them yoga moves which they think is absolutely insane but will do just to appease me. Today, we climbed up this mini mountain, and some jr. high age boys (many of you know of my fear of jr. high age boys) followed us from a distance. As we were on our way down the girls were saying that they were going to beat up the boys because they were disrespecting me. I asked what they were saying, and they told me that the boys were saying I was too thin. I think I can handle that one.

Other funny quotes from the week:
Do you have KFC in America?
I'm trying to braid your hair but I can't because your hair is too tall.
I want to make myself your wife (from an old man over some carrots at the grocery store)