Over the Rainbow

Blowing This Pop Stand

2008-04-12T18:15:00.003+02:00

I COSed ("Close of Service"d) last Sunday, and civilian life has been treating me well. In response to news from the medical office that I am anaemic, I have been living on a strict diet of chickpeas and spinach. Max joined me several days ago, and we have been running around Gauteng making preparations for our road trip. Tomorrow we'll return to Venda to pick up some things we intend on bringing with us and Monday afternoon, after having the car serviced, we'll hit the road for Botswana.

Our route is through Botswana, spending some time on the pans and the Okavango Delta, then up through the panhandle to the Caprivi. We'll spend some time in Namibia, then head east to Livingstone to see Vic Falls. Onward to Tanzania, where we'll visit Zanzibar's Stone Town and Kendwa Beach. Then to Arusha for crater-climbing and possibly a jump into a nearby park. Back down through Malawi, with jaunts across and around the lake. Finally to the coast of Mozambique for some scuba diving and down-time by the beach.

We'll be sleeping in a tent at whatever Catholic missions open their doors to us. Inspired by the Grapes of Wrath and general wagon-training imagery, Max has procured a harmonica for the trip and intends on favoring audiences of fellow travelers around bonfires. I imagine intense eyebrow-furrowing will be involved. I thought about getting a tambourine, but that would probably mean investing in a new wardrobe, maybe castanets as well. I think probably the harmonica and the tambourine are symbols of contrasting travel moods anyway.

In any case, watch this space! I hope to update more regularly.

Stop Bugging Me for Deep Thoughts

2008-03-21T08:40:00.001+02:00

I have one week left at site. One week to pack away two and half years of stuff, to finalize projects at work and to say goodbye to friends. And I mean that in a matter-of-fact way, even if it seems to drip with sentimentality. It’s a short amount of time to get a lot done.

I feel suddenly pressured to reflect on everything, to talk about my feelings, to generate some concise and meaningful observations about life that might fit in a fortune cookie or on a bumper sticker. Admittedly, some of the pressure is internal. In any case, summing up any two and half years is a difficult exercise.

Yesterday, I met a Peace Corps Volunteer from SA17 placed in Venda and doing her site orientation this week (you are pardoned for forgetting that my group was SA14). She seemed nervous. It made me reflect on how I got here, what my own site orientation had been like and how I had felt in her shoes. My sense is that it wouldn’t have been half so easy without Thula. Day 1 she invited me to a soccer game, we made it on prime time television and that was pretty much it. Easy sailing. She showed me the ropes, the ins and outs of Thohoyandou, installed me in a jumping social scene and schooled me in the gray arts of negotiation.

A couple months ago, she got in a car accident. The story is not mine to tell, though I wouldn’t be surprised if she commented on it in this forum herself, but it was a serious accident, she was hospitalized and she is recovering in typical Thula fashion: upbeat and funny. I guess this last blog transmission, as my brother likes to call them, is dedicated to her. I wish I could be half so brave.

Okay, here’s my deep thought, less a pearl of wisdom and more a turd you might get stuck on your sandal in the back alley behind the School of Athens:

Everyone has bad days everywhere.

I think this to myself whenever I am in danger of thinking something ignorant because things don’t turn out my way.

In conclusion, an anticlimax: this probably is not the last blog transmission at all! And! Buffy wasn’t a vampire slayer at all – she was actually insane and institutionalized! Season 6 was weird. Ahem. Max and I will be going on a road trip in a couple of weeks and I hope to update the blog whenever I have access to the internet, hopefully more often than I have been. A sketch of the itinerary: a 2 month rough figure eight, up through Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania, back down through Malawi, Mozambique and finally to Jo’burg for a 11 June departure to London.

Is it Racism (Sexism)?

2007-06-07T08:33:00.000+02:00

RoboTom is rereading Inga Muscio’s Cunt: a Declaration of Independence and he’s disappointed. RoboTom is disappointed by what he feels are Inga Muscio’s offensive and off-putting tirades which he characterizes as “sexist”. Is Inga (“the Gringa”) Muscio being sexist?

I find more salient parallels for me personally in my day-to-day existence here. My lunch break is around the same time as when two secondary schools next to my office get out. Daily I walk through this gauntlet of adolescents who shout racial jeers at me; “accidentally” bump into me or knock their friends into me; or just point and laugh. Or at a concert I once attended, one of the headliners featured a clown in white-face. Actually, I don’t think I would have realized what it was if it weren’t for everyone sitting near me turning around to look at me and laugh. When I asked my friend if the dude was supposed to be a white guy, he says: “yeah, but it’s a joke.” This sorta stuff is the landscape of my days. It makes things uncomfortable and sometimes hurts my feelings, but can it be called “racism”?

Can racially-based negative attention white people receive here be characterized as “racism”? (Or, to address RoboTom’s disappointment, can a woman be characterized as sexist if she evokes The Man in a book about how to liberate oneself from the pervasive reach of patriarchy?)

Racism is not just about discrimination. I can discriminate between two brands of chocolate because one has a shinier label. Racism is about creating a hierarchy of humanity where the objects of racism are denigrated to lower levels of humanity. Now I am borrowing heavily from Nussbaum’s Hiding from Humanity, but it seems to me, disgust plays a role in racist maligning. Nussbaum talks at length about the relationship between disgust and an emotional need for innate superiority: “Because disgust embodies a shrinking from contamination that is associated with the human desire to be nonanimal, it is frequently hooked up with various forms of shady social practice, in which the discomfort people feel over the fact of having an animal body is projected outwards onto vulnerable people and groups. These reactions are irrational, in the normative sense, both because they embody an aspiration to be a kind of being that one is not, and because, in the process of pursuing that aspiration, they target others for gross harms” (74-5). Think back on theoretical justifications of racism by its perpetrators – how often do you hear language about disgust and a racially-banded hierarchy?

Here’s what Merriam-Webster has to say about racism (as of 1997): “a belief that some races are by nature superior to others; also: discrimination based on such belief” – and discriminate: “distinguish, differentiate; to make a difference in treatment on a basis other than individual merit.” I think in the above scenarios we can agree there’s discrimination taking place, but is it based on the belief that white people (or men) are by nature inferior?

No. My skin conjures some pretty awful memories and associations. After years of living under a white regime which relegated everyone else to cordoned off (often uninhabitable) areas; policed their movements; and brutally tortured and killed innocent people – quite a few people (at least as many who make racial comments to me) harbor reasonable anger against white people – and anger, even if it is now misplaced, is not the same as racism. And maybe not every white person participated (although I would argue that it is hard not to be complicit in that sort of system when you are reaping the benefits of the privilege it bestows on you – I often feel I’m the unintentional beneficiary of residual privilege), but like any kind of conditioning: you get treated like crap by any one type of person enough times, you start to associate that type of person with crap. In this case, white people can evoke feelings of anger. Similarly, the racial jeers directed at me are expressions of anger and/or resentment. This treatment isn’t based on a perception of me as sub-human; it may be discrimination, but however misplaced, however myopic, however hurtful and unfair, it isn’t racist.

Besides, RoboTom, it’s funny discrimination.

Read On: A Logistical Post

2007-05-11T08:31:00.000+02:00

I've decided to extend my service here. Looks like the earliest I'll be back is June 2008 and then it's off to graduate school, for which I was approved a year long deferral. But I'll be home for several weeks in December, and Diana has assured me we will bring in 2008 with festivities the likes of which will shake Manhattan to its core... her words, not mine. So if you're around, you should give me the heads up.

As for graduate school, I'll be getting a masters in international affairs, which is undoubtedly the coolest degree one can have. I'm imagining myself navigating the corridors of an airport; hips swaying to the music the scene is set to which is something contemporary, French and sexy; I get a private call on my cell phone: "Antoine?" - pause - "Pierre, pardon, mon amour"; and then the fantasy concludes with me ordering some strong cappuccino at a coffee shop in the terminal. Come to think of it every fantasy I've ever had ends with me getting some strong coffee. Ninjas jumping out of the bushes telling me I come from a long line of warriors and it's my destiny to battle evil minions and save the world - cut to ninjas and I devising battle plans over some lattes at Starbucks. Singing "Papa Don't Preach" on the stage of a karaoke bar as the owner waits in the wings to offer me boat loads of money and a sequined wardrobe to be the lounge's most popular singer - cut to me sitting on a red vinyl stool at the bar after hours, mourning about how hard it is being so well loved while the bartender tries to console me with a mug of coffee. Time I close the doors to the deep, dark secrets of my wormy brain.

This also means, staying here for another year as I am, the trickle of mail I'm receiving probably needs some improving. I'm not pointing fingers... cause you know who you are.

Here are some other updates, bulleted for your pleasure:

* I ran the Longtom Half Marathon in 1:44:09! A personal best. Thanks to everyone who contributed to my fundraising efforts! KLM made the most money it ever has this year.
* After the Longtom, I went hiking through the Drakensburg for five days and then did a 3 day pony trek into Lesotho. There are photos on my flickr account if you haven't seen them yet. Big fun had by all.
* After the marathon, the hike, the pony trek, I returned home, alighted from a minibus taxi, tripped on an empty can of soda and sprained my ankle. I'm healing slowly but intend on running a 10K race in the next month or so.
* There is a sequel to 28 Days Later... which I must see. I hope it gets picked up here. I love zombie allegory.
* It's getting colder here. The avocados are out in full effect... which means I am accepting donations of black beans to facilitate burrito-production. Citrus too has arrived.
* With help from a dashing young gentleman, I am restoring my garden to its former glory - and then some. Pictures to follow... eventually.
* Naheed is leaving Peace Corps early... she might even fly out today. I'll miss her tremendously. And I know all those people who viewed that photo of her butt on my flickr account will probably regret her departure as well :)

I am very happy.

Damage

2007-03-09T12:42:00.000+02:00

Recently, a 12 year old was strangled to death after being gang raped by 3 men in their early twenties in her home. I read about stuff like this all the time - what really got me was the following quote from the Thulamela Mirror, reported on 9 March 07: “The suspects [during their court appearance] looked relaxed but they seemed to be confused when they realized that the court was full of angry and concerned community members.” There was a picture of the perpetrators that accompanied the article so I can confirm the reporter's account of their temperament - I would add bemused. This demonstrates what I find most chilling about so many of these cases: perpetrators often don't appreciate that they've done anything wrong.

The deliciously ironic part is why this made it on the front page. The community members protesting at the bail hearings were local woman, dancing in their underwear in front of the court house. The article didn't provide an explanation of why their protest took this form. It has the feel of those posters in college that went "Sex! [in huge font] Now that I have your attention: come attend the debate team meeting [in tiny font]." How ironic that the only way gender-based violence makes it on the front page is if it's accompanied with shots of scantily dressed women.

p.s. and on a less grim note, I got into grad school.

A Total Rock Star

2007-01-29T08:45:00.000+02:00

I ran the Soutpansberg Mountain Race with three other volunteers Saturday morning. The half marathon follows an unpaved, dirt course, winding up 9 kilometers (5+ miles) after a relatively flat 3k. It’s a beautiful route that attracts a lot of hikers for its mountain views, but it has a reputation for being a difficult race and I was nervous that I wouldn’t finish. My friend Eric, who has done the Boston marathon, said that, as far as courses go, this is the most difficult one he’s ever done. I decided before the start of the race that I would declare a personal victory if I could finish without having walked.

Sure enough, running up a mountain is tough. I train on a more or less flat tarred road so going up was brutal. There was one disheartening moment when I was passing a walker on a particularly steep section (registered walkers start the race earlier than runners) and we were chugging along at the same pace: this tall skinny dude doing his hip thrust speed-walking and me, gasping through my old lady shuffle, side by side.

By the time I get to the top of the mountain, I feel really faint. I used to faint quite a bit in high school so I’m pretty familiar with the symptoms. As I reach the top, my skin gets cold, I see little silver sparkles floating in the air, and my stomach hurts. So I whip out my Clif mocha GU (courtesy of Mirth) and chug that liquid fudge down. Truly a Popeye moment followed. With renewed energy, I charged down the mountain, summoning the goat within. I don’t think I’ve ever run so fast for so long in my life as the downward part of the race, which was a real cakewalk – except for this one time when I tripped over a rock, sailed forward, scraping up the left side of my body and covering my clothes in red dirt.

I crossed the finish line in 2 hours and 6 minutes, attracting a lot of attention because I was covered in dirt. 2:06 sounds like a shit time, but, may I remind you, half the race is uphill! I was the third woman to finish the race, earning me 100 Rand and my photograph’s place in this week’s paper! Plus half the race, I was ahead of the number 2 chick, who only finished 30 seconds in front of me. In the last two minutes of the race, she charged in front of me. At the time, I thought that was a little competitive and immature, but it was the difference between bronze and silver. I guess I don’t have that killer instinct.

I suspect there weren’t many women running this race, but I’m still a total rock star for finishing that course.

“I Love Vilanculos”

2007-01-17T09:41:00.000+02:00

Over the holiday break, Diana and I spent a relaxing couple of weeks in Vilanculos, a beach in Central Mozambique. More or less, a lot of time spent in hammocks. I tried to motivate for greater activity, but a long walk to “New York Pizza” was the most I could muster outta my lady friend. We visited a couple islands and went snorkeling. The pictures tell it all. The water was every shade of beautiful and I reached spiritual climax on the top of the dune.

Our third morning, we headed into town where Jimmy, a kid with an impressively weather-beaten leather hat, encouraged us to try some thick, sweetened maize drink. He showed us around the market, through stalls of sarongs, knockoff footwear, mangos, coconuts, cashews and dried fish and acquainted us with local moonshines made from coconut milk and corn. When I explained to Jimmy that my mango allergy prevents me from handling their skins directly, he exclaimed: “but what happens when you are alone and you have to eat a mango?” Indeed.

The bank had run out of Mozambiquen Metcais. Down to our last $5 of local currency, we resigned ourselves to this good fortune with two $2 plates of greasy eggs, banking on the versatility of our remaining greenbacks. While waiting for our order, Diana made eyes at a Mozambiquen dude at the table over and he came and sat with us. ::Insert flirtatious banter in Portunglish here.:: The restaurant was out of food. We saw waiters give kids urgent instructions to buy eggs and potatoes. We spent several hours waiting for the restaurant to purchase and prepare the ingredients for our orders. Diana picked from the Mozambiquen’s order and the abandoned orders of his friends and then I spilled our last bottle of water on her lap. Indigence can be so unsexy, but she made it work, as only she can.

Jimmy found us in the restaurant. It appeared as though he had continued sampling traditional Mozambiquen brews in the few hours since we saw him last. His blood alcohol level did nothing for his demeanor so we told him we’d catch up with him the next day. A few short hours and cold ones later, Jimmy accompanied Koji – who would become our favorite Single-Serving Friend (turned Several Serving Friend) – to the beach where we were staying. Jimmy’s final appearance that day involved waving an odd-looking and stinky fish that got him ejected from the backpacker’s bar.

Christmas morning, we attended a Catholic Church service presided over by a Portuguese priest wearing sneakers beneath his robes and a white plastic baby Jesus, arms-outstretched, reclining in a bread basket. It was one hour, about a quarter the length of church services I’ve gone to in South Africa and with significantly less dancing. It concluded when the congregation rose to sample the wine cooler of Christ and kiss the plastic baby Jesus. Back at the beach, we appropriated the bar sound system to play the Christmas albums my mom sent me and celebrated our piety with a pineapple.

Our backpacker threw a braai (that’s BBQ, for you Americans out there) for Christmas dinner with entertainment provided by the diva of Central Mozambique, Ms. I-Forgot-Her-Name. She performed her catchy hit single, “I Love Vilanculos”, at least five times for us, prefacing each performance with “I wrote this song so you’ll all come back to Vilanculos.” After Diana and Koji had been served their barbequed animal carcasses, an apologetic waiter informed me that they don’t have vegetables and brought over a plate of rice and potatoes. Hardly discouraged, I broke out the smidgens my mom had sent along with Diana and the champagne Martha has sent me for my birthday. We ended Christmas evening with some dancing at a local bar, Dread Bar. We were in disagreement whether the bar name came from the hair style or the sense of foreboding – a brief visit confirmed it’s a little of both.

I adhered to my half-marathon jogging schedule while on vacation, a true testament to my WASPy will. It involved waking up at 4 am (tipsy, hungover or none of the above), before the humidity makes it impossible to run, and schlepping through the sand. At that hour, local people are the only ones on the beach, pulling in nets filled with fish, crabs and prawns. I’d juke around piles of stinking guts that disappear by the time the tide comes in and the tourists hit the beach.

One morning, I heard a woman’s screams from a house above the beach. By the time I got there, the screaming had stopped and I could see a bunch of men and one woman standing inside the fence. We stared at each other for a while until one of the men told me to come inside. Content that I had lived a long and beautiful life, I entered with only the generous biceps my genes have bestowed on me. The owner of the home approached me and explained that he had been away for several months and a squatter – a man he pointed out to me who looked like he had the shit beaten out of him – came to his home, threw some parties, destroyed some property, stole several valuables and consumed a great deal of food. When the home owner returned, he was rightfully pissed but sussed out an agreement whereby the squatter would repay him in monthly instalments. The home owner then spent his first evening back partying at a bar only to find the squatter back in his home when he returned in the wee hours of the morning – and when a dumb rape survivor advocate happened to be jogging by. He proceeded to kick the squatter’s ass. The sound of the woman screaming was a neighbour – who appeared to be untouched if a little angry – trying to break up the fight. The woman confirmed she was fine and I continued my run, but I ended up bumping into the home owner several times at the beach where we stayed. It turns out he’s a nice guy – but for god’s sake, don’t test his patience by repeat squatting in his home.

Where Courtship Looks Like Stalking

2006-12-12T08:08:00.000+02:00

About a month ago, Shula (my new roommate, no relation to Thula) and I were walking back home and a car pulled up and offered us a lift. As a rule, I tend to reject unsolicited rides, but Shula knew the guy and she was carrying a lot of stuff so we got in. Mohammed is her former neighbor, a young Egyptian guy who sells rugs, leather jackets and mirrors out of his car. Later on, Shula pointed out that it was strange that we hadn’t needed to give Mohammed directions to where we live.

The next day he shows up at our organization trying to sell stuff to employees during lunch time. I pass by on my way to town and greet him. Halfway down the road to Sibasa, he rolls up and asks me if I’d like a lift. So we’re off to ShopRite (all my stories take place in a ShopRite – it’s the place to see and be seen).

Mohammed has African game. African game generally involves rolling up on a woman uninvited, showering her with “I love yous” and pleading for her telephone number. If a guy is not from around here or if I’m traveling, I like to give him the benefit of the doubt. But.

The third thing he says to me is “are you married?” I take a lengthy pause to respond as I process my disappointment at having to extinguish another uncomfortable social situation. The pause is difficult to account for so I tell him I have a boyfriend. Big mistake. A man interested in a married woman won’t hesitate in his pursuit; having a boyfriend is about as relevant to the issue as having a goldfish.

He continues: “I am searching for a wife, I listen to only love songs, my life has been boring here until I moved to Sibasa 2 months ago and started seeing you walking around.” And then when we leave the car, the awkward declaration, “Sonia, I like you very much.”

After that, he is pretty much intrudes on every facet of my life. He shows up at my home, finds my office at work, passes me in his car when I walk to town. “Enjoying being single” or “not being compatible” are not grounds for a woman to deny a man. After a year here, I still can’t help but try the subtlety angle: when he asks for my phone number, I tell him I don’t own a phone. But he just offers to buy me one.

Finally he shows up at my office. He is telling me he loves me and wants to marry me. Summoning the WASP within, I tell him that I am flattered but remind him that I am in a relationship and am very much committed. Quoth Mohammed: “well, I’ll have to go kill the love in my heart. I loved you since I first saw you.” Boy’s been watching too many movies.

So he stops showing up at my home and work. We still see each other pretty regularly, being that we live in the same town. On my way to the post office, I pass him wrapping up a sale. It’s 105 degrees and when he offers me a ride, I accept. He drops me off at the post office and hands me his car keys so I can let myself in when I’m through. I arrive at the car first, open his car door for him when he gets there, and hand him his bundle of keys. He gives me a Coke that he picked up at – where else? – ShopRite. After he drops me off at work, I realize I had accidentally handed him the keys to the TVEP post office box.

So I spend half of Sunday looking for him with only a previous address to guide me. This area has a sizable Muslim population so you can imagine what it looks like to approach a total stranger and ask “do you know where Mohammed lives?” The conversations go like this:
“What’s his surname?”
“I don’t know.”
“What kind of car does he drive?”
“It’s either navy or red.” Yes, I have seen his car on numerous occasions and ridden in it twice and still don’t know its make, model or color. My brain has this critical deficiency for vehicles: each one looks like a generic clipart vehicle to me.
“Why do you need to find him?”
“He has my office post office box keys.”
“I think I might know someone who knows him.”

I get referred from one place to the next until I arrive at a house where I am told definitively, “We know someone who knows him and they’ll come to pick you up and take you there. In the meantime, please sit.” In this house is a multiracial group of five kids my age recovering from a collective hangover. Wearing baggy pajamas that effect a genuine and self-confident insouciance, they sprawl out on pillows on the floor and swing legs over sofa arms. Those that haven’t spent the morning puking are occasionally marshaled to clean up the kitchen. Two puppies roam around the room, rotating from person to person for affection.

I expect this scene will seem really mundane to anyone reading this – and it probably would to me too a year and a half ago. I don’t even know how to put a name to what I was seeing, but it’s something I’ve been without for so long I sat through a two hour Lil Bow-Wow movie to be part of it. It was a social unit of peers making no demands on one another. No agendas, no judgments: black and white together, men not harassing women, men cleaning up after themselves and cooking, dogs not being beaten with sticks, casual attire welcome. And here.

It made me reflect on how little I socialize and why. It is not for lack of invitations or interest. It’s the exasperation at having to deal with men and politely negotiate obnoxious come-ons. Even men with whom I have strictly platonic relationships will hit on me every once in a while and in a couple cases, start rumors that they have hooked up with me or that I came on to them. With women, I risk having my number distributed to male friends and no social gathering is entirely female anyway. It’s enough to discourage a person from ever leaving her house.

After the movie ends, I excuse myself. They are on the verge of feeding me, I’ve been there so long. So I leave my phone number and tell them to contact me if the ride shows up or if they get Mohammed’s number. It never does, but the ironic twist is the guy to whom I gave my number has been SMSing me nonstop. Last night I got one that went: “good night and sweet dreams, if the bed bugs bite, tell them you have an Angel looking after you that will beat them up if they mess with you.” So not quite the picture of social tranquility I had first imagined.

Sigh.

I've implied this, but for clarity's sake: this happens all the time. I get phone calls from men I've never met asking me to be their girlfriend; I am followed in the street and harassed on transport; someone I thought was a friend makes an inappropriate comment or holds my hand. I can't even get an ego-boost out of it, because it has nothing to do with me. This is just how a man acts in the presence of a woman. I've read transcripts of focus group discussions with community members for some research I've been doing here. In group after group, participants confirm: a man cannot be just friends with a woman.

"Ish! I am tired"

2006-12-08T14:51:00.000+02:00

Universal excuse given for why no work can be done in December.

Two Birds with One Stone

2006-11-07T08:32:00.000+02:00

Without too much fuss, the rains began this weekend. The heat and humidity disappeared instantly and throughout the neighborhood, families sat in doorframes enjoying the breeze. I spent late Saturday afternoon sitting in my doorway with a copy of The Color Purple - which is my excuse for why I used the word 'fuss' in the first sentence of this post.

The rain is welcome, but it brings with it many challenges. As there are no real sidewalks where I live, the rainy season means my feet are perpetually dirty. It's too hot to wear my hiking boots and a pair of sneakers would be destroyed after three days - so it's me in my chacos for 7 months.

Then there is the issue of laundry. Because hand washing your clothes is a process that can take several hours, it's sort of something I've had to schedule in advance. But you can't very well schedule around a rainstorm and clothes need to dry outside. I encounter a similar problem trying to adhere to a training schedule for my running. My solution: instead of jogging outside in the rain, I jog on my clothes in the bathtub. Time clocked jogging, clothes are clean. I'm assuming that my clothes are no less clean for having been washed by feet in a soapy solution with a little bit of sweat in it.

Blame it on the Rain

2006-11-03T14:30:00.000+02:00

or lack of.

It is 107.6 F degrees right now - 42 Celsius for my non-American audience. The rains start in November and make stuff nice and cool, but they haven't gotten here just yet.

And I say it only because I've been asked: no, I do not have AC, not in my office, not in my home.

Zambia and Aid

2006-10-23T13:34:00.000+02:00

I participated in a conference on “A Multi-Sectoral Approach to Sexual and Gender-Based Violence” this last week in Zambia with two colleagues from my organization. We presented our organization’s model for addressing GBV in Venda as well as some research in which I’ve been involved. The conference was held at a lodge on its own game reserve outside Lusaka.

The whole experience was awesome and I feel really fortunate for having attended (it’s not the sort of thing Peace Corps Volunteers typically do). The animals were not at all scared of people; kudo (looks like a cross between an antelope and a camel) ate muffins out of our hands and I passed within several feet of groups of zebra and warthogs during my morning jogs. I met a lot of cool people doing inspiring work in this field throughout Africa. I got some interesting ideas for how to improve some of the projects I’m working on.

And then there were the amenities and extras. A week of stand-up showers and reliable hot water. There were complementary game drives and I got to ride an elephant and see a eunuch lion. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, we were treated to a gourmet buffet – this on top of a morning and afternoon tea. Bathroom freebies included shampoo, soaps, lotions, “foaming bath minerals”, shower cap and a sewing kit. In addition we received per diem of $15 a day, which doesn’t sound like much but goes a long way (I was able to have a hiking pack of clothes laundered and ironed, make several local calls, buy a $4 glass of wine and still pocket $50 to take back with me).

Ultimately, the conference provided a forum to formalize a network of organizations working in Southern and East Africa on similar projects. It was certainly productive, but after some mental calculations, you gotta wonder if the cost of the plane tickets, per diem, food, and lodging at the schwankest hotel in Zambia for 40 participants justifies the work we did. Lest I say too much, I’ll end the post here. If you would like me to go into greater detail about my thoughts on international aid, I encourage you to submit a written inquiry.

Thanks, always, to Tom, ever vigilant

Decadence

2006-09-18T08:34:00.000+02:00

This weekend Naheed cut my hair: a proper layering in her backyard. I’m nominating her for Peace Corps South Africa Stylist certification.

It was the first time I’d given much attention to my appearance in a while and it kinda inspired me to concoct a DIY spa treatment. (Well that – and homemade hair treatments have been the subject of the last two PC newsletters, a not-so-subtle indication that the PCSA office staff think we need to beef up our hygiene practices).

So I took a proper bath (no bucket), adding a large bowl of oatmeal and four cups of tea (or an infusion) of cinnamon, cloves, vanilla essence and peppermint from my garden. And what good soaking is complete without a cocktail?* I massaged a mixture of eggs, mayonnaise and vanilla essence into my hair, secured this mixture with a plastic bad and eased into the tub, with nothing but a pair of cucumber slices between me and the Soviet décor of my bathroom. When I’d had enough, I washed out my hair with a bottle of beer and a dollop of shampoo. The cucumber slices were not terribly cooperative about staying on my face; there was not enough hot water to fill the tub; and I got a healthy dose of oatmeal in my belly button. But now I have incredible volume and shine. Plus I smell like a cookie.

* Bacardi Razz (thank you, RoboTom) + Lemon Juice (thank you, neighbors down the street, a god-fearing people who lost some lemons from their backyard tree while attending church) + Spearmint (garden)

Duck Season? Rabbit Season?

2006-09-08T13:59:00.000+02:00

I awoke last night to a rustling of something on my nightstand. It sounded like it might be a mouse chewing the keys off my cell phone. I got out of the other side of my bed and slowly crept to the light switch, kinda dreading that I’d have to illuminate the culprit.

Imagine my relief to find a two inch cockroach rustling around in a piece of paper next to my pillow.

It’s getting warmer now and the overcast skies portend the coming rainy season – which means it’s roach season again. It’s not a matter of filth or poor housekeeping; come a certain time of the year, every household accommodates these huge roach inhabitants. I could probably set traps, but who am I to kill something cause it’s ugly and creepy? I’m pretty much inured to them by now anyway. Except when they show up in my coffee – which happened twice last week. Seems they like espresso as much as I do.

In any case, I’m just happy it wasn’t a mouse chewing my cell phone.

Or a three inch long scorpion, a recent night visitor of Naheed’s.

An Abridged, Whirlwind Tour of South Africa

2006-08-29T13:11:00.000+02:00

I celebrated my year anniversary in South Africa with my parents, who visited recently. It was nice seeing them – hopefully it’ll plug up the whole in my heart for another year.

Emotional what-what aside, it was awesome being able to wake up to a warm shower everyday. Though I must admit, I sort of enjoyed returning to my bucket bath this morning – until I slammed my head into the overhead water heater, that is. How quickly a space can become unfamiliar and unnavigable. It’s also reassuring to know that there exist people in this country that use vegetables other than onions and tomatoes in their cooking – and that this cooking is only a short 7 hour taxi ride away.

We started in Capetown with the best intentions to enjoy a tour of Robben Island (the Island prison where Mandela and other freedom fighters were imprisoned for 27- years) but the weather was against us and the ferry was canceled. Then we visited the Winelands, sampling top shelf wines and awesome food. We met Tat’s wine hero, Mike Dobrovic, a half Croatian wine maker known for his sauvignon blanc. He was liberal with his wine samples, gifts of cheese and photocopies of Rumi (should I assume a winemaker’s support of Sufism is an attempt to crack open the Muslim market?) and in no time at all, we were engaged in philosophical banter. We got a quick tour of the Cape of Good Hope, which was, as Mom pointed out, “like being at the edge of the world”. From there, we took two short flights to Nelspruit, did some quickie craft shopping in Swaziland, and then drove into Kruger. Sadly, three of the big five eluded us, but my parents got to see elephants and buffalo. We popped out in the North of the park and drove to Venda where my parents met most of my office, feared my hometown, corrected my garden and declined sampling mopani worms, a delicacy for which my region is known. The trip was capped with some quality time with my Moletjie homestay fam, including the newest addition, baby Sonia. Trippy seeing my dad sing a lullaby he wrote for me to my little Venda doppelganger.

If this isn't incentive to check out the new pictures at the link to the right, I don't know what is.

I arrived to an empty home on the evening of my birthday after 8 hours of travel on 5 different taxis. Thula has gotten a job in Jo’burg and moved on to greener (or less green) pastures. If every Peace Corps Volunteer were issued a Thula during training, the attrition rate would surely decline. I owe all I know about South Africa (as well as some hard-to-admit personal insights) to her mentorship. We inspired creativity in one another over bizarre cooking concoctions and homemade furniture. In Thula, I found someone who saw no limitations that couldn’t be obliterated by the workings of imagination – and I feel more free for our friendship. It’ll be tough without her.

Thank you all for your birthday well wishes and pre and post celebrations. I really appreciate the support.

To Victoria Falls

2006-07-31T14:49:00.000+02:00

My lame excuse for not writing for more than a month is that I took a week to visit Victoria Falls and have been recuperating for the last 2+ weeks. Here is our story…

The dude I met in Swaziland and I headed North from Venda to the Zimbabwe border crossing. Unfortunately, we were denied entry because JSpitty didn’t have his vehicle registration documents. Undeterred, we headed West to the nearest border crossing in to Botswana. This border crossing was much smaller, which we understood to mean more lax about documentation. The road through the no-mans land descended through some woods and then... the woods cleared and we found ourselves on the banks of the Limpopo River. Convinced there must be some mistake, JSpitty reversed to ask the South African officials whether we had taken the right road. His question was met with “where’s your sense of adventure?”

The Limpopo River is not a stream, not even in dry season. It’s big and important enough to be used as the name of the South African province bordering it to the South, the Limpopo province – where I live. Our journey took place early into the dry season so the waters were still waist high. This particular crossing does not receive many customers and cars often fail the crossing.

With the South African border officials watching from the South Africa, we put up the windows and drove through the Limpopo. The water washed up over the hood of the car and onto the window. If Jasper had stopped the car at any point, the engine would have flooded and we would have gotten stuck. But we made it, the only casualty being the front license plate which the river washed away.

On the Botswana side, we found ourselves in a national park, driving along a dirt road past elephants and giraffes. Two interesting features about highways in Botswana:
• They are populated by a bizarre species of donkey that stands in the middle of the road, doing nothing. Most creatures, even if they’re completely still, you get the sense they’re doing something – at least waiting, or maybe thinking about something. Not these donkeys. They’re not even concerned about the cars heading straight at them – don’t even flinch. Upon my return, I’ve checked out South African donkeys and they’re not the same. The only logical explanation is that there’s some donkey cult whose followers believe that enlightenment can be achieved only by zoning out on the highways of Botswana.
• There are regular checkpoints you have to drive through to make sure your car’s tires and your shoes aren’t carrying foot and mouth disease. But… there isn’t actually an outbreak occurring anywhere nearby.

We drove up through the salt flats in Botswana and spent the night at a cool little hostel with a beer-bottle chandelier and cowskin-upholstered furniture. The area was really beautiful and barren, with a proliferation of baobab trees. We were hoping to see the Sowa Pan, located in the Southwest-most corner of some salt flat national park. Equipped with a compass with which Steve outfitted me after my last navigational debacle, we steadily drove Southwest for about two hours until it became clear that any further and the return trip would be made impossible due to lack of petrol. So we didn't get to see the pan. But after having turned back, it seemed the scenery wasn't the same as that which we saw coming in. I consulted the compass and - Southwest! The location of the sun gave us an indication that that wasn't altogether true and in fact, it seems the compass reads Southwest no matter what direction it points. Ultimately, the Earth’s electromagnetic field is less reliable than my ability to get lost. Anyway, we ended up fine, popping out onto the tar road a little bit behind where we had started to off road.

From Botswana, we successfully made the crossing into Zimbabwe (using vehicle registration documents I was in no way responsible for forging), but neglected to fill up on petrol beforehand. Needless to say, most people don’t roadtrip in Zimbabwe without carrying several canisters of petrol. The car almost puttered out twice.

We eventually made it to Victoria Falls, which we opted to see from the Zambia side. I am at a loss to describe it and Jasper’s camera sort of croaked before we got any really close up shots. Awe-some.

Coming soon: check this site for pictures. Until then, I've put some up on flickr (the "My Pictures" link to the right).

A Venda Lesson

2006-06-22T13:18:00.000+02:00

The following is dedicated to my mother and brought to you by my Venda tutor, who has lived in the area all his life, seems to know about Venda culture and traditions, and is ambiguously affiliated with politics to an extent that makes him seem more (not less) trustworthy. (There’s a disclaimer on a disclaimer, for you).

Words

• Shenga: (n.) a baby who is born with his top teeth in or whose top teeth develop first. Traditionally, it was thought that such babies will grow up abnormal (he was vague on how). To correct this problem, the parents toss the baby off the rondaveld’s thatched roof into a basket filled with water a couple times.
• Kigolis: (n.) Male sex workers from Nigeria. I took down this in my notes: “Business women don’t have husbands so they go to kigolis”
• Via: (v.) literally, to skin or operate; common usage: to ritually murder. Back in the day, local chiefs would regularly snatch up folks for use of their body parts to make muti [(n.) magic ingredients, especially body parts etc.]. According to my tutor, it was not uncommon for human heads to be found under the stoop of the chief’s kraal [(n.) a bunch of rondavelds that constitute one property/household]. You could use a person’s lip for commercial purposes: hide a piece at the entry of your business and it calls to customers. Should you be a criminal, leg blood smeared on your own legs might help you keep from getting caught. This actually still goes on. My Venda tutor suspects that it only accounts for a death a year, but I have heard some people fretting about traveling alone in certain areas because they fear ritual killing. Recently, it was discovered a bishop had committed ritual murder. That did actually get quite a bit of coverage in the local newspaper.
• Fula: (v.) to have your eye twitch. The top eye twitching means you’ll get something you want; lower eye twitch means you’ll cry about something and/or mourn.
• Mudzadze: (n.) my dictionary writes: recently confined woman. My tutor explained that it is a woman who has given birth within the last three months and is not permitted to leave the home lest she be molested

Choice Idioms

Vhana vha wela tshivhasoni – literally: the children dive for the fire place
means: there is hunger

Kholomo u peta voho – literally: the cow’s leg bends
means: to smoke pot

U bata nzhie – literally: s/he grabs at locusts
means: s/he is not a normal person

Dunzi lo fhufha – literally: the big fly has flown
means: to recover from illness

U bika nga khulu literally: to cook a lot
means: there has been a death

Names

My name is Azwifarwi, which means Don’t Touch/Mess With. Avhasei is pretty common – it means Don’t Laugh. Mpandeli means A Person Who Drives Off Others

Having said all that, let’s keep in mind that every language has its eccentricities. (Like Chastity. Come on: parents who name their kid chastity are either huge fans of irony or raging hypocrites). And to be on the lamb... from where did that come?

Props to Steve and Caz for putting me in touch with this wonderful man.

In Defense of Privatized Health Care (or How I Made Schainker Cream Himself)

2006-06-09T14:16:00.000+02:00

I recently missed a day of work due to illness.

Upon my return the next day, I was asked by my coworkers whether or not I had seen the doctor. I replied that I hadn’t, that I had instead spent the day resting. This explanation met with a knowing smirk.

Clinics are scattered throughout South Africa that provide free basic healthcare services to anyone who walks in. As a result, most people drop in to the clinic if they start to exhibit any symptoms of illness. Someone insinuated that it is more or less standard practice to bring a clinic note if you take sick leave. Another coworker commented that a lot of people will drop by clinics just to get a note even when they take the day to go to a job interview.

In America, as any visit to your healthcare provider is likely to result in a gouging, we generally wait a couple days on our illnesses to see if bed rest won’t clear up the problem. 99% of the time it does (or at least for me – but you know, I’m from good stock).

So I started thinking about the situation here: every time a member of the community has a mild cough, achy muscles or a job interview, they drop by the clinic – because there is no financial disincentive to going. These clinics are operated by the Department of Health and most definitely have finite budgets. As a result, a given number of clinic personnel with a given stash of medical resources have to divvy their time up between a large number of patients whose symptoms range from critical to nonexistent. To be honest, I cannot speak to the quality of service clinics provide as I have not visited one. But. I would venture a guess. That will not be posted. Because they’re watching.

Zozo and the Clash of African Giants

2006-05-29T10:34:00.000+02:00

Tough but fair, Tom. I guess it has been more than a month.

I went out this weekend.

This is a big deal. I don’t leave my home at night and usually celebrate the end of a work week with a glass of wine, some knitting and garden work. Saturday night one of my favorite local artists, a Zimbabwean known as the King of African Rumba, was playing at city hall. The event was billed as the Clash of African Giants, Zozo being the first giant to appear. The handwritten sign advertising the event said “8 pm to 5 am” and so I prepared myself for our night on the town with a tall mug of coffee and packed an emergency flask of espresso.

They were stamping people’s hands at the door, but the guy wouldn’t stamp me because I “stand out”. Race as literal stamping. I’ll stew on this for a while.

Maybe a hundred and fifty people showed up. City Hall kind of looks like a high school gymnasium inside: there’s a wide expanse of floor that, if waxed, would probably be the sort of blonde wood that basketball teams play (on the other hand, it might just be dirty linoleum). The floor is flanked by bleachers on one side and a stage on the opposite. The performers were on the stage and the audience was in the bleachers, but in between us there was a large empty gulf of floor space.

The audience was mostly men. It was BYOB and a couple people brought two liter Fanta bottles filled with beer. There were also a couple children who put me to shame, staying animated throughout the night without the aid of stimulants.

The warm-up act had three female back-up singers wearing all white shirts. I would wager they were not from around here. In this area, when a woman wears a white shirt at night it communicates something very specific: I am a prostitute looking for a john. I guess these ladies didn’t get the memo.

Or maybe they did.

When Zozo finally came on, the mood did not change appreciably. People more or less remained seated in the bleachers except for two or three men who danced in front. I fantasized about throwing my bra toward the stage as a dramatic counter to Zozo’s otherwise apathetic reception: a lime green blur making a magnificent arc, ultimately crossing only half the length of the basketball court to land thirty feet away from Zozo’s feet.

Zozo was great. 3 out of 4 of the band members, including Zozo himself, were wearing beige slacks, polo shirts and leather jackets, for good measure. This fact, coupled with the interior of City Hall, made me feel sort of like I was at a high school dance at an all-boys school. [Rastetter, I’m thinking of you and your band at Regis, if I hadn’t made it clear enough.] The fourth man was wearing a red flannel shirt with turquoise, sequined Mwenda [a colorful Venda textile that I'm using as a tablecloth in this picture], two vertical stripes in the back, two horizontal stripes in the front. Every once in a while when Zozo went crazy on a riff, the fourth guy would be joined by 5 other men in similar shirts to do some amazing backup dancing that involved a lot of double-jointed, knee-buckling – think of a very sophisticated form of MC Hammer dance. In response this dancing, audience members would hurl open beer cans from the back of the bleachers in approval. I was sitting in the front row and not at all pleased.

Once the other African Giants got rolling, people really started to cut loose. All in all, a good time cut short by too many drunken intrusions of my personal space.

Updates: Congrats to Caz and Steve on their baby boy, Josh! Also a shout-out to Luke for graduating cum laude! The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades.

More Eye Candy for Mara's Mom

2006-04-26T11:50:00.000+02:00

Apparently I have reached this month's flickr capacity, so I'm splurging on my ftp space. Enjoy

Mara the Refugee

after a hike

take a good long look: this is the coolest outfit you will ever see.

uh...yeah... So Swaziland is the place to go for hiking

Plus my profile picture has been changed to reflect my most heinous Afrikaner hairdo. Next time, I consult the Kenyan ladies.

Thanks so much for all of your donations to the Kgwale le Mollo Foundation! Rest assured the money will go to a good cause. There's still time to donate for those of you who want to. CAF needs to receive donations by May 15 so one final push will help!

Swaziland

2006-04-21T12:29:00.000+02:00

I traveled to Swaziland with Mara and Kat. We shacked up with a volunteer living and working in Pigg’s Peak. In addition to indulging our tastes in some lovely Swazi crafts, we did some great hiking. I’ve got several pictures from a hike up the second highest mountain in Swaziland, which is called something like Booga-booga.

But that’s where my pictures end. Because this blog is subject to the surveillance of the Peace Corps (my favorite advocate of freedom of expression), I probably should not go into details, but my camera died in Malalotja Nature reserve while stuck up a mountain in a freak hail storm at night. Hypothermia was staved off by… survival nudity. In any case, my digital camera did not survive the storm.

(For more images of Mara, check out the 'My Pictures' link to the right)

A Day in the Life

2006-04-05T08:41:00.000+02:00

At Home

2006-03-27T13:28:00.000+02:00

No, the marathon did not kill me. But it didn’t make me stronger either. It was a pretty disgraceful showing on my part actually, but I crossed the finish line and I’m still breathing.

Thula invested in a television set and antennae. We mounted the antennae through the thatching of her rondaveld and are hoping our landlord doesn’t notice (we’re probably even because his dogs make it into our yard nightly to exact carnage on our compost pile). I feel a New York State Regents essay question coming on…

Use the picture below to discuss the merits and drawbacks of globalization.

Our garden has become a major project. With the help of what I will call neighborhood sponsorship (but others might call petty thievery), we have introduced many new elements into the landscape. On the weekends, we go from house to house looking for a wheelbarrow that we can use to cart away our scavenged booty. We have filched piles of bricks, several sugar cane plants and tires.

A construction crew pitched camp across the street from us for a couple weeks to repair the local roads. We approached their tents one night with an offer to buy them a bottle of soda in exchange for their delivering some large concrete slabs of sidewalk to our driveway. At 6 am the next morning, a crane deposited the concrete on our driveway and several men even helped us carry the slabs to the back, where we now use them as a bridge in our garden.

After the workers packed up their tents and departed, they left piles of gravel and other debris in their wake. Several battles were waged for the right to access these piles. As neighbors swarmed the construction leftovers with pales and basins, one enterprising guy backed up his pick-up truck to the largest gravel pile and began shoveling. Two other men contested the size of the first’s share of the pile and took the measure of jumping into his truck and shoveling the gravel out. Yelling failed to resolve the situation and as they bickered – the two shoveling gravel out of the truck, the one shoveling it back in – Thula wordlessly raked basin after basin of gravel right out from underneath them. God bless her.

The garden has begun yielding some good stuff. I have a prolific herb garden and the start of some tomatoes, pumpkins, peas, carrots and spinach. We have two chili bushes and limes are in season and a tree drops fruit in our yard. This has resulted in some sexy food items, like limes + Mint + sugar cane = mojitos. I don’t think you understand how very special cocktails have become to me. In general, I fall asleep to thoughts of the jumbo frozen margaritas prepared at Cancun in midtown. Sigh. I know what I’m doing tonight.

I am a fixture in my neighborhood now. Without any input from me, now when the kids scream at me, it’s not ‘Whitey’ but ‘Soni’ they scream, which is close enough. There’s even a song about how small my butt is circulating amongst the little girls. I have tried to discourage this. In any case, Thula has offered these words of comfort: ‘your butt is good for your culture.’ I can only interpret this as: you are doing okay given your racial handicap.

And huge news: my homestay sister from Moletjie had a baby girl… that she named Sonia! She is wicked cute. I am putting all my big-butt dreams in her. In this picture, she's wrapped in a blanket I knit her.

There’s still time to donate to the marathon thing I am doing. You can contribute up until May 15th I’m told. Come on people! Let’s provide an excellent education to some promising Mpumalanga youth!

I'll be going to Swaziland in a couple weeks... that should be sweet.

Comin’ Out

2006-02-21T16:27:00.000+02:00

Sadly, this is not the post for which Martha et al have been waiting. I have been hesitant to disclose to too many people my intentions of running a half marathon. I tend to perform poorly in the face of big expectations (I believe that the element of surprise is critical to being perceived as awesome) and since it’s been pretty much grueling, I didn’t want anyone to know what a quitter I really am. But… surprise! I’m running a half marathon this Saturday. I’m pretty confident that I’ll finish as I successfully ran 12 miles (20K) this last Saturday in preparation.

Training has pretty much eaten my life. Warning, understatement to follow: training for a marathon is hard. I’m sure everyone comes across their own challenges in preparing for a marathon, but when I started to come up with a list, I had so many I decided I needed to organize it for easy reference. The following is ordered by specificity to my situation.

General Challenges
• Your life, for better or worse, is training. This means alcohol, illness, and socializing past 10 pm are not options;
• I’m pretty much ready to end the day by the time I arrive at work; and
• Blisters and smelly workout clothes.

Venda
• Venda is ridonkulously humid. I start running at 5 am – while it is still dark outside – just to finish before it gets so hot I can’t go on. We’re talking temperatures well above 100° F (38° C), but the humidity, oh the humidity;
• Then there are the hills. Lonely Planet describes Venda as an enchanting area of misty mountains. Misty mountains are significantly less enchanting when you’re running through them for hours;
• My housing situation is sort of iffy on the water front. Water only turns on at around 6 am, so there is no way for me to know before I start the day’s run if the water will be put on or not. If it happens to be one of those days when the water doesn’t turn on, I get to simmer in my nasty, nasty sweat until I am able to scrounge up enough water to ‘clean’ myself. This morning, for example, I bathed in an inch and a half of water after a 75 minute run. I will not discuss the color of the run-off or where I found the water. Needless to say, I am a dirty, dirty girl; and
• And then there is the local reaction to the white chick running around their neighborhood for hours. Hordes of school children run after me, pointing and laughing as we go. But it’s not only children. Really, men and women of all ages get a kick out of chasing me through the streets. And I am not what you would call a social runner.

Personal Problems or Why My Skin Hates Me
• I’ve been troubled with various skin conditions that make running less pleasant. The mango allergy evolved into a full blown reaction that covered me from head to toe. I ran in spite of it, which was really nasty because when you run for hours in extreme humidity your surface area seems to liquefy into a sweaty mess… during which time having oozing blisters is less sweet;
• There is this mysterious synthetic material that I have an allergic reaction to when my skin is wet and in contact with it for a prolonged amount of time. I have had the attendant rash thrice: once when I selected a bathing suit poorly – I don’t want to relive that day but consider if you will where bathing suits are snug; second time I was wearing these hipster-sheik pants and I was caught in a downpour; my final experience with this allergy has been while running – every time I run for more than 60 minutes, which is four times a week now, I have a ring around my waste and around my chest where the elastic from my shorts and sports bra collect sweat. Sweet;
• Oh yeah, I got a wicked case of boils… curiously located in my butt dimples… which I once considered cute; and
• One of my feet is bigger than the other and so my right sneaker is too small for that foot. As a result, three of my toes on that foot are bruised, perpetually… perpetually bruised toes.

I am suffering.

In any case, I’ll be running a half marathon in Polokwane on Saturday. Since I’ve come this far, I figure I should try to do a full marathon and at the very least I can always cop out and just do a second half marathon. And what’s the fun of running a full marathon (or an ultra-marathon, if I can manage walking the last 6 miles or 10K) if it isn’t for a good cause… soooo here is my shameless plug:

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Less than two months to go until…the Second Annual 2006 Powerade Longtom Ultra & Half Marathon in support of the Kgwale le Mollo Foundation!

Here’s a little background: Two SA11 Peace Corps Volunteers, Alli Howard and Bowen Hsu, established the Kgwale le Mollo Foundation (www.kgwalelemollo.org), which sends a promising Grade 7 student from a poor rural area to 5 years of exceptional high school education at Uplands College in Nelspruit each year. The first scholarship recipient, 12-year old Refilwe Ndimande, was selected from a pool of hundreds of nominated students and is currently enjoying here first year in high school. Each year, Kgwale le Mollo will send a new student to Uplands. Currently, a number of people are helping to raise funds for Kgwale le Mollo from a variety of sources, including corporate sponsorships, individual donations, and the Longtom Marathon. As long as Peace Corps is here, we’d like to make Longtom an annual event.

How it works: Peace Corps volunteers sign up to participate in the Longtom Half Marathon (21 km/13.3 miles), for which they commit themselves to raise $1,000 from friends and family in the United States. The Longtom Marathon (www.longtom.info) will take place on Saturday, April 8th near Lydenburg in Mpumalanga. No one will be chastised for the amount they raise; any contribution is much appreciated so do not let that deter your participation. To those who find the word marathon intimidating, we had plenty of walkers last year so you’re welcome to walk. To those with a screw loose, you may run the Ultra Marathon, which is 58 km. We’ve arranged for a discounted rate to stay at Sabie Backpackers in Sabie. Participants will travel to Sabie on Friday, the 7th (there are direct taxis from Nelspruit and other places TBA). On Saturday, a bus will take us to and from the marathon and in the afternoon we’ll have a braai. Everyone will head back to site on Sunday. The event is a great opportunity to get in shape, socialize with fellow volunteers, break the routine of your lives at site, see another part of the country, and raise funds for a worthwhile and sustainable effort in the KLM Foundation. Hence, little coaxing from my end should be necessary. A number of people have committed to participating, but we’re waiting on more. When you sign up, I’ll send you details on the procedures of fundraising and logistics. Please sign up by March 10th at the latest. Come join us!

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If you’d like the donation form, email me at my tried and tested emailed address or at soniamarathoning@hotmail.com and I’ll get you the form. After the marathon, I’ll let everyone know how much was raised by myself and by other volunteers. I am told the organization, started by Peace Corps Volunteers incidentally, requires $30,000 to send the child through school and won’t enroll one until they have the full amount… so… let’s do this thing! for the children!

Special Props to...

Erich for becoming a pilot! Christie for her big love... of Starfuss etc

Communication

2006-02-07T16:19:00.000+02:00

• I think some social scientist needs to investigate the way people from different cultures give directions. In Japan, if I asked for directions, most of the time the person would whip out a piece of paper and draw me a detailed map, including irrelevant details, like bakeries and pachinko parlors blocks out of the way of my route – great if you are not in a hurry. Here, if you ask someone for directions, they will invariably respond “that side” and if you’re lucky, you might get a vague hand gesture that might have more to do with shooing a mosquito away than your inquiry. I’ve actually picked it up as a self-preservation tactic: when people ask me where I live now, I just say ‘that side’ and the person is pretty much fine with that;
• If you are using the word empower as a verb describing an action you are doing to someone else, 99% of the time you are being patronizing. No one has any business nosing around in someone else’s empowerment – that’s the whole point;
• “We are suffering.” I hear this phrase often and in cases where I would not use the word suffering. In point of fact, I do not believe I have heard it used in actual cases of suffering. It’s used almost flippantly. The prevalence of the word ‘empowerment’ in social development circles has probably played a role in the evolution of this phrase into the more politically correct version “we are struggling,” which is a little bit more optimistic, little bit more “empowered”; “we’re struggling” says to me we’re suffering, but we’re trying to do something about it. For example, in response to my perfunctory morning “how are you,” one colleague replied with “we are struggling not so much” today. What a relief.

Special props to my biggest South African supporters, Steve and Caz, for theirconstant support and … unspecified assistance this past holiday season.