Sanibonani my friends!
I know what you’re thinking, and by writing today I can prove to you that yes, I am in fact alive, I am back (and still) in South Africa, and I do still have access to a computer and internet! I am sooooo sorry for the three month hiatus; I’m fully aware that my blog posts are most likely the highlight of your week and the food for your hungry souls, so I promise to begin fulfilling you once again. My new years resolution (I realize it is mid February, but it’s never to late to start) is to blog more, and instead of long boring updates about what I’m doing and not doing, I pledge to give you a better insight to daily life in South Africa, as a PCV, and village goings-on. But since it has been so long it appears that you will have to sit through another boring one yet again before we can get to the good stuff.
So to start, a quick recap of December-Present:
The World Aids Day event went incredibly. After weeks of planning, meetings, begging for donations, and organizing speakers/performers, we were able to pull off an event that was well attended and went more smoothly than I could have hoped or imagined. We only started 1.5 hours late, everybody who was supposed to speak and perform showed up and did wonderfully, and we even had an impromptu Waka Waka (the Shakira World Cup theme song) dance party, followed by a serious question and answer session. People in the village are very reluctant to talk about HIV in any form, so I was really surprised and delighted to see people opening up and asking questions in front of their peers. We had speakers from the local municipality, nurses, youth, and even people living with HIV giving education talks, motivational speeches, and just talking about their thoughts and experiences. The Department of Health sent a cohort of nurses along with their mobile clinic so that we could do HIV testing on site. My only discontentment with the event was that we didn’t see a huge number of people get tested, but I hope and believe that with each successive HIV testing campaign people will become more comfortable and we will be able to reach more and more villagers. It was a great note to leave on and was so fortunate to have the help and support of community members, home based care staff, and other counterparts (I’ll admit it, I wasn’t fully convinced that they were going to pull through). Though people here know who I am and what I’m doing, I felt like this was my first real and tangible accomplishment to show to my community, and that they have understood and taken me more seriously ever since.
After a final few weeks of insufferable heat, I packed up and had the incredible opportunity to go home to America for Christmas. I can’t describe how amazing it was so be home with family and friends after almost a year away; it was a trip filled with love and joy and laughter (I know I sound like a sappy greeting card but that’s just how it is). We celebrated our first Christmas in Texas, and I ate and drank my way through the next two weeks. Honestly, I think I was averaging about 7 meals a day. Had to get my fill of Mexican food for the next year! I spent a lot of quality time exploring Texas, learning the two-step, and cheering TCU to victory at the Rosebowl with my family, long walks on the beach with my boyfriend (swoon), catching up over happy hours with friends (I even had a surprise visit from friends living in San Francisco and New York!!!), taking long hot showers and wasting water (I feel no shame seeing as I think my carbon footprint from the past year was most likely below zero), and if I write any more I may have to get back on a plane to go home, so I’ll stop myself. But I feel very blessed to have such an incredible support system and came back to SA feeling very refreshed and ready to take on my final year.
Speaking of final year, I’m amazed at how fast the time has gone! Though this was most likely the fastest year of my life, I also think back to where I was at this time last year and I can’t believe how much has happened in this year. I’m confident in my belief that the hardest part is over, and I’m pretty darn proud of myself and other PCVs for being able to make it this far. None of it was easy, and I am able to walk away from the first year satisfied with how much I have learned, grown personally, and at least the small impact I hope I have been able to make in my community.
It was a hard transition back but after a week or so of moping and finishing off the remaining bags of skittles that I lugged back here with me, I got my feet back on the ground and things, though slow, are going well. Our gogo group is thriving with just under 30 members. We spend about 2 hours twice a month doing a support group of sorts: exercises, health education talks, and discussion. The discussion sector has been slow to come (a result of the aforementioned unwillingness to talk about private matters in a public setting), but I think as time goes on we will see a breakthrough. For now we are able to offer a short break in a long and difficult day for the women who most definitely run every facet of the village. Upon starting the group, I thought the reluctance would be more in the participation of exercise, not discussion. But they are LOVING the exercise, and we even worked ourselves up to a 3 minute jog last week (imagine 30 majorly overweight 60+ women running around the village, it was fabulous). We are starting the beadwork next week, an attempt at an income generating project in which we purchase the beads for them to make jewelery, AIDS ribbons, etc., and then we sell their products. They will receive half of the sale price and we will keep the other half to keep purchasing more beads, to create more products. Sustainability for the win! I have written and am waiting for response about a grant that I wrote to take my girls club, along with the girls club of a fellow PCV, away for a week-long girls empowerment camp that focuses on health and exercise, the environment, and HIV/Aids. Our hope is to hold the camp over the June/July holidays. And exciting news on the library front, we were lucky enough to receive large donations of books from multiple organizations this month, and will begin preparations on the tedious process of building the facility, and organizing, labelling, and recording all information about the books. At least it will keep me busy!
Looking forward, I’m excited about a half-marathon that I will be running in March, another brief training with all of my other PCV friends to commemorate our official one year of service, Easter, and a permagarden workshop that I will attend with a counterpart from my organization, with the idea of spreading the knowledge and practice through to my organization and others in the community.
Salani Kahle (stay well), and much love.
Here in rural SA, water can be a bit of a...pain in the butt. Typically, I have a tap in the front yard which is about a 50 foot walk, where I fetch my water from each day. But, more often than not, some authority who is unbeknownst to me , turns off the water for extended periods of time. In my village, we are going on 3 weeks without water. I've talked to some volunteers who have gone 3 months. There are a few responses to this issue--one is to buy a huge water reserve tank called a JOJO. These guys are great and can often hold us over until the water is arbitrarily turned on again. Though tend to be very expensive, so many people don't have them. Another response is what you see here in these pictures. A large truck with massive amounts of water will drive through the village once every couple of weeks, pours water into whatever available buckets you might have, and then peaces out. Today we spent about an hour filling our buckets, and carting them back into the house. Each bucket weighs a ton, and as I'm whining and complaining, Gogo just plops it onto her head and powers into the house. So much to learn.
