Siyafunda Iincwadi

We are reading books! Hooray! After almost a year of creating a library literally from the ground up, I can now brag that we are almost finished and operational! We have a brightly painted yellow room, poorly constructed shelves, and a ceiling with holes large enough for the birds to poop through…but we’re moving along with almost 1,000 books. Two of my fellow PCVs came one weekend to help me organize the books, which was a huge help. I had originally started organizing it with the girls club, but we moved at a snails pace. With the ‘one for you, and one for me’ mentality, the girls would classify one book, then take a 10 minute break to read a story. As frustrating as that was, it was a huge motivation for me to finish the library as soon as possible once I realized how truly starved for knowledge these youth are. So, I opted for the help of friends and decided that the girls could help decorate the room with posters and helpful reference material. They are also interested in creating a library committee, in which they will be responsible for the upkeep and organization of the library. I would love to be able to start a library club, focusing on reading and writing, as well as reading to the students in the primary school…but for now I need to take one step at a time. Any leads on more book donations would be greatly appreciated :)

Heritage Day

This past month in SA we celebrated culture and heritage. As you can imagine with 11 national languages, there are quite a number of different cultures which lends itself to a lot of interesting knowledge, beautiful outfits, and diverse dancing. I was invited to go with the crèche (preschool/daycare) to a cultural celebration in a neighboring village. I traveled with almost 100 kids dressed to the tee in their traditional outfits to a celebration consisting of almost 1000 kids from all around the area. Older men and women dressed in their traditional outfits told beautiful and elaborate stories to the children in a forum that I imagine was very popular in the days before television. Something I have always admired (especially as someone who is working on her public speaking abilities) about South Africans is their ability to talk, in whatever form it may take. Whether someone is praying, giving a speech, or merely sharing the town gossip, I feel as if the words continuously flow out of their mouths without so much as an ‘um’ to break the rhythm. After the stories, a local authority in the community gave a speech about why it is important to remember and celebrate our cultures, but also to be tolerant and accepting of others. Finally, each crèche was given the opportunity to do their traditional dances in front of the entire group. As traditional dancing is a HUGE source of joy and pride in the communities (and the dances are rarely if ever performed by children), it was really special to see how excited the children were to take this chance to perform their culture. The pictures show my 5 year old host brother is standing in front of my house, me decked out in my traditional Ndebele garb (my host sister and mother had a ball dressing me up for the occasion) standing with another teacher, and a shot of the group at the celebration.