Monday, May 11, 2009
Sunday, May 3, 2009
DONE!
I'm DONE!! just finished my oral presentation, and now I'm done with Junior year...wahoo...see you in 5 days!
Also, I went back to visit my home stay family yesterday, I arrived to my neighbor running down the hill to greet me, then hugs and steam bread from mama, who said she is excited for my mama that she gets to see me soon, but that shes going to miss me. Then I played some stones...i know longer possess the "mad stones skills" that I did when I left Cato Manor, but I held my own, more than I can say for when I first arrived. I ran into several girls in my dance class during my time there, who asked when we were going to have dance class again. I couldn't believe how sad I felt in having tell them there wouldn't be any more dance class, that I was going home.
After saying a final farewell to Cato we made our way to the Victoria street market, and went through the meat and fish market on the way there. How come you cant get cow heads complete with hair in the US? God, Im going to miss this country. The market was great, just good to actually be out in the streets of Durban and not in a classroom. I spent the rest of the night laying low, went to a movie and out to dinner with some friends, and really just trying to live up durban in our final hours.
On monday we head to St. Lucia for a croc and hippo tour and 1 day safari, then back to Jo'berg and home Thursday night...landing Friday morning in JFK around 8. Crazy, just crazy to be leaving here. In standing up there and talking today about my experience with the NGO i worked for, I realize just how much Ive learned, just how much Ive gotten to be a part of life in rural south africa, in so many different forms, and Im incredibly grateful for it all. Corny i know. Like I said before, if there is one more thing I would do before I leave it would be to live in a deeply rural area for a period. So I could hold on to that and remember it as vividly as it all felt when it was happening. Then again, I MORE than happy to be heading home to you all. Ngiyakuthanda!
Also, I went back to visit my home stay family yesterday, I arrived to my neighbor running down the hill to greet me, then hugs and steam bread from mama, who said she is excited for my mama that she gets to see me soon, but that shes going to miss me. Then I played some stones...i know longer possess the "mad stones skills" that I did when I left Cato Manor, but I held my own, more than I can say for when I first arrived. I ran into several girls in my dance class during my time there, who asked when we were going to have dance class again. I couldn't believe how sad I felt in having tell them there wouldn't be any more dance class, that I was going home.
After saying a final farewell to Cato we made our way to the Victoria street market, and went through the meat and fish market on the way there. How come you cant get cow heads complete with hair in the US? God, Im going to miss this country. The market was great, just good to actually be out in the streets of Durban and not in a classroom. I spent the rest of the night laying low, went to a movie and out to dinner with some friends, and really just trying to live up durban in our final hours.
On monday we head to St. Lucia for a croc and hippo tour and 1 day safari, then back to Jo'berg and home Thursday night...landing Friday morning in JFK around 8. Crazy, just crazy to be leaving here. In standing up there and talking today about my experience with the NGO i worked for, I realize just how much Ive learned, just how much Ive gotten to be a part of life in rural south africa, in so many different forms, and Im incredibly grateful for it all. Corny i know. Like I said before, if there is one more thing I would do before I leave it would be to live in a deeply rural area for a period. So I could hold on to that and remember it as vividly as it all felt when it was happening. Then again, I MORE than happy to be heading home to you all. Ngiyakuthanda!
Friday, May 1, 2009
Count Down
I just turned in a 60 page paper on the relationship between NGO management, communities and funders...which means Im DONE!, which means Im coming home! I have an oral presentation on my paper on Sunday, then Monday we head up to St. Lucia, and I will get a second chance at the croc and hippo tour, I will have to choose more carefully who I sit next to this time, and maybe purchase a shot of one of the several varieties of alcohol stocked on the boat if i make an decision in seating. Tuesday we safari it up, Wednesday we travel up to Jo'berg, and the Thursday we peace! I'm gonna miss it here, and making plans for being back in the states feels weird to say the least, But i can't wait to see you all! I'd love to have one mor rural stay, those were the moments i enjoyed most here, and maybe an extra day of safari, but other than that...bring on home, its time to be back with my family. In other news, I have an internship in DC for the summer, working with the global aids alliance, and I should be able to keep doing research on NGO funding, which will be great, and will most likley turn into my thesis. But enough about school, my academic director, when i had my last meeting with him, discusing how difficult certain aspects of my project were offered me this for advice in writing my paper..."Just throw yourself a party when its all over." NOT so helpful when I sat down to tackle my paper...but now that its all over...its sounding like pretty great advice. So my bed and I are going to have a party today...I'm calling it the epic nap. Don't know when or if I'll write again, we'll basically be on the roa from here on out, and then home. I'm so excited to see all of you!
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Leaving Mtuba
So in my final hours with the organization, Ive started to find my place, and truly enjoy the work the organization is doing. Today, without asking anyone, with my new found, im leaving, so it doesn't really matter, boldness, I hoped in a vehicle and went out to one of the units. Computer education, I have found, is the same in every language! Perfect, not only that, but my hours of surfer the web and clicking refresh, finally came in handy. The students, many of whom have never seen a computer before, think that I am a computer goddess. (good thing I'm leaving now) It was great to see though. This organization is doing great things for students. It is going out and relating to the students, and trying to educate, the most important thing you can do in an epidemic such as this. It is a shame that I could not have seen this earlier on, and been more a part of this. While I may have seen a lot of the office, and lot of my computer screen, I have also met alot of students who are getting answers to their questions about sex, HIV/AIDS, that they cannot get elsewhere. Now, I am actually sad to leave. Now, I actually want more time to experience the students and the work the organization is doing. Weird, to actually feel any sort of connection to this place and these people. I havent forgotten my critiques, I have simply learned that I was placed where there were problems, perhaps in hopes that I could magically fix them, just with my presense, perhaps because thats the easiest place to put someone when you dont want to deal with them, who knows. Tomorrow is the election, and then on Thursday, I will help with an education class in the morning, before I head back to Durban. To do some serious amounts of writing, and serious amounts of playing, and live up the last bit of my time in South Africa.
This past Sunday, I worked a 14 hour day. We arrived in a community at 730, gave a presentation in hopes of bringing the mobile units to them, then moved to another community, where we had set up the units. Over 200 people came and waited for the next 12 hours to be seen my the councelors and nurse. The clinic closest to them (45 minutes away) was out of medication, and they were going to sit for as long as we were willing to stay, and we stayed until we had seen every last person. While it was a long day and I arrived home after 11, to a very worried family, it was great to see the organization supply a much needed service to the community. While it was done in the most half-hazard way I have ever seen, I am beginning to understand something. These people were willing to wait 12 hours to be seen by the nurse. It doesnt NEED to be a time of arrival, enough staff to tend to the patients, really any sort of organization at all, because they are there, which is WAY more than these people had before they showed up. Africa style. Lesson learned. It will be sad to leave here, Mtuba, an Africa, but I know its time, and I know I'll be back.
This past Sunday, I worked a 14 hour day. We arrived in a community at 730, gave a presentation in hopes of bringing the mobile units to them, then moved to another community, where we had set up the units. Over 200 people came and waited for the next 12 hours to be seen my the councelors and nurse. The clinic closest to them (45 minutes away) was out of medication, and they were going to sit for as long as we were willing to stay, and we stayed until we had seen every last person. While it was a long day and I arrived home after 11, to a very worried family, it was great to see the organization supply a much needed service to the community. While it was done in the most half-hazard way I have ever seen, I am beginning to understand something. These people were willing to wait 12 hours to be seen by the nurse. It doesnt NEED to be a time of arrival, enough staff to tend to the patients, really any sort of organization at all, because they are there, which is WAY more than these people had before they showed up. Africa style. Lesson learned. It will be sad to leave here, Mtuba, an Africa, but I know its time, and I know I'll be back.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Sanibona! Its been a while, but to be honest, theres not much to update on.
I arrived up in Mtuba two weeks ago. An interesting town, there are 3 Peps (the equivalent of old navy), a grocery store, 2 banks and a muthi market (traditional medicine) and thats about it. If one Pep doesnt havent, the others will i suppose. I'm living in a village about 20 km from Mtuba. It takes anywhere from a half hour to an hour to get to work in the morning by mini bus taxi, the dirt roads through the village can take quite a while depending on the route the taxi takes.
Once I get to work...every day brings something new.
For the first few days I was able to head out with the mobile units, and while my Zulu skills are getting slowly better, I'm no where near a point where I can teach health education to the rural communities the clinics serve, nor am i even CLOSE to being able to gossip in zulu, and this is how a large part of the time in spent ou on the units amongst staff. I have however, found that I make a mean glass of juice from concentrate and have a true knack for handing out apples and scones to community members, and for the first week this has been my number priority.
Since the schools were on holiday and the units normally visit high school level learners, we have been out in the community for the past week. I saw my first pack of zebras in my second week, passing through a game reserve to visit a community 2 hours from Mtuba. So that makes the count about 12 zebras, 1 black mamba, 60 baboons, and 25 marriage proposals, and counting. Mom and Dad: if a heard of cows arrives at your door step, know I must have been given an offer I couldnt refuse, so far I have had no trouble politley declining these requests in a mix of zulu and english. While being freakishly pale and speaking a funny language has become old hat to me, it never ceases to amaze those I come in contact with as we head to rural areas with the units.
Community involvement has been at an all time low recently and I have starting working with the head of community outreach in order to draw in new communities. This role again, involves my excellent juice making skills, and my ability to type contacts into a computer and press print, but it has been an excellent lesson in the neccesary steps involved in involving the community, and sometimes not involving them. It seems that despite my good intentions, there is a system running here, that has been impossible to break into and offer potential improvements or ideas. Frustrating, but certainly a lesson in patience, and the importance of learning through observation.
My first weekend here, after a long day out with the units in which no one used our services, i was invited to a braii (barbeque) with one of the units drivers, and the three peacecorp workers who also work with the organization) Lessons learned: dont let some one convince you that you should put salt and lime in your hard cider, it is NOT a tequilla shot, there is a limit to how much meat one person can consume, and ive found it to be 6 pieces of ox heart, 5 pieces of ox liver, 2 cheese sausages and 4 pieces of jerkey...but thats just me.
Over Easter, I headed to St. Lucia, about a 15 minutes mini bus taxi from the edge of the village, where I went on a crocodile and hippo tour and horseback riding on the beach. St. Lucia ia a strange place, located just minutes from rural South African villages it is Afrikaaners on holiday central. I've since headed back to work, and well, not been up to all that much lately. The organization I'm working for is currently trying to diversify its funding, and I have tried by hand at grant writing the past few days. Well, grant fixing. But I've also spent long, very important, business hours, checking facebook and repeatedy refreshing my gmail account only to find that no one from home has written me an email at 4 am eastern time. Hopefully, I will be back out with the units soon, and able to see the work they do in a school setting rather than a community setting. For now, I'm here, refreshing my g-mail account...again.
There is so much I'd like to be doing, but no one to effectively voice this or set about putting any of it into motion. For example, on Saturdays we go to communities because schools are not in session, but no communities have been choosen for this coming Saturday and there has been no attempt to make this decision, only an attempt amogst staff members to hand the decision off to other staff members, and as the times goes by, the less likley we are to attract community members, since we will not have time to advertise. I've mentioned this several times, to serval people, but ah lass, I am destined to continuing clicking the refresh button.
Hopefully, my last week with the organization will bring more exciting, more involved experiences, I can only hope. The countdown: 21 days. I can't wait to see you all again, hopefully will more exciting stories that the tale of the never changing gmail account. I love you all, and miss you more than you could possibly know. Salali Kahle! Ngiyakukhumbula! (I miss you)
I arrived up in Mtuba two weeks ago. An interesting town, there are 3 Peps (the equivalent of old navy), a grocery store, 2 banks and a muthi market (traditional medicine) and thats about it. If one Pep doesnt havent, the others will i suppose. I'm living in a village about 20 km from Mtuba. It takes anywhere from a half hour to an hour to get to work in the morning by mini bus taxi, the dirt roads through the village can take quite a while depending on the route the taxi takes.
Once I get to work...every day brings something new.
For the first few days I was able to head out with the mobile units, and while my Zulu skills are getting slowly better, I'm no where near a point where I can teach health education to the rural communities the clinics serve, nor am i even CLOSE to being able to gossip in zulu, and this is how a large part of the time in spent ou on the units amongst staff. I have however, found that I make a mean glass of juice from concentrate and have a true knack for handing out apples and scones to community members, and for the first week this has been my number priority.
Since the schools were on holiday and the units normally visit high school level learners, we have been out in the community for the past week. I saw my first pack of zebras in my second week, passing through a game reserve to visit a community 2 hours from Mtuba. So that makes the count about 12 zebras, 1 black mamba, 60 baboons, and 25 marriage proposals, and counting. Mom and Dad: if a heard of cows arrives at your door step, know I must have been given an offer I couldnt refuse, so far I have had no trouble politley declining these requests in a mix of zulu and english. While being freakishly pale and speaking a funny language has become old hat to me, it never ceases to amaze those I come in contact with as we head to rural areas with the units.
Community involvement has been at an all time low recently and I have starting working with the head of community outreach in order to draw in new communities. This role again, involves my excellent juice making skills, and my ability to type contacts into a computer and press print, but it has been an excellent lesson in the neccesary steps involved in involving the community, and sometimes not involving them. It seems that despite my good intentions, there is a system running here, that has been impossible to break into and offer potential improvements or ideas. Frustrating, but certainly a lesson in patience, and the importance of learning through observation.
My first weekend here, after a long day out with the units in which no one used our services, i was invited to a braii (barbeque) with one of the units drivers, and the three peacecorp workers who also work with the organization) Lessons learned: dont let some one convince you that you should put salt and lime in your hard cider, it is NOT a tequilla shot, there is a limit to how much meat one person can consume, and ive found it to be 6 pieces of ox heart, 5 pieces of ox liver, 2 cheese sausages and 4 pieces of jerkey...but thats just me.
Over Easter, I headed to St. Lucia, about a 15 minutes mini bus taxi from the edge of the village, where I went on a crocodile and hippo tour and horseback riding on the beach. St. Lucia ia a strange place, located just minutes from rural South African villages it is Afrikaaners on holiday central. I've since headed back to work, and well, not been up to all that much lately. The organization I'm working for is currently trying to diversify its funding, and I have tried by hand at grant writing the past few days. Well, grant fixing. But I've also spent long, very important, business hours, checking facebook and repeatedy refreshing my gmail account only to find that no one from home has written me an email at 4 am eastern time. Hopefully, I will be back out with the units soon, and able to see the work they do in a school setting rather than a community setting. For now, I'm here, refreshing my g-mail account...again.
There is so much I'd like to be doing, but no one to effectively voice this or set about putting any of it into motion. For example, on Saturdays we go to communities because schools are not in session, but no communities have been choosen for this coming Saturday and there has been no attempt to make this decision, only an attempt amogst staff members to hand the decision off to other staff members, and as the times goes by, the less likley we are to attract community members, since we will not have time to advertise. I've mentioned this several times, to serval people, but ah lass, I am destined to continuing clicking the refresh button.
Hopefully, my last week with the organization will bring more exciting, more involved experiences, I can only hope. The countdown: 21 days. I can't wait to see you all again, hopefully will more exciting stories that the tale of the never changing gmail account. I love you all, and miss you more than you could possibly know. Salali Kahle! Ngiyakukhumbula! (I miss you)
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The Unveiling
Ok so i have a project...I am going up to the Umkhanyakude District to work with Mpilonhle an organization that sends mobile clinics out to schools. The clinic has both an educational unit, that focuses on nutrition and healthy lifestyles as well as teaches basic computer skills, as well as a unit that examines and treats the students, and helps them contact the appropriate resources to continue there care. I will be living with a family there for about 3 weeks starting April 1st, and studying the way this organization balances holistic care and health education with immediate treatment based care. Sounds fancy huh? Basically it means I'll be working my butt off in whatever way possible to help this organization, meanwhile learning what its all about. Umkhanyakude is right near the Mosambique border, and yes, is in a high risk maleria area...I start the drugs on Monday...maybe this blog will become a telling of my nightmares and hallusinations from now on :)
Before I head up to Mpilonhle, I am in the middle of a big paper about the effects of organized activity on the lives of girls in South Africa. Fun Fun...But the view of the beach I have while attempting to finish massive paper is a fair tradeoff...well its back to my paper for a bit.
St. Patricks Day is making me miss you all very much, I hope youre all celebrating in style and that the Luck of the Irish is with you!
Before I head up to Mpilonhle, I am in the middle of a big paper about the effects of organized activity on the lives of girls in South Africa. Fun Fun...But the view of the beach I have while attempting to finish massive paper is a fair tradeoff...well its back to my paper for a bit.
St. Patricks Day is making me miss you all very much, I hope youre all celebrating in style and that the Luck of the Irish is with you!
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Impendle, A Weekend out, Amatikulu
Sanibonani!! Hey all!! Sorry to have taken so long to write again, this experience has been full of ups and downs, some that couldnt be put in to words. I traveled with a highway hospice for a day and saw HIV/AIDS patients, some days away from death, others only 4 years old and on ARVs, not fun to see, put important to understanding the deadly combination of poverty and disease that exists here. The next day we visited an orphanage, again, a harsh reality of the conditions that exist here, but an overall uplifiting experience, these children lead a great life now that they are at the orphanage, and having a 5 month old baby fall asleep in your arms while feeding him his bottle, and playing firetruck with a trouble maker 2 year old...how could that not brighten your week. We also visited an art show, the world opening of Make Art, Stop Aids, it will travel around the world after it leaves here, the pieces were amazing, and several incredibly hard to handle.
The next week we traveled to a rural area called Impendle. We went on an amazing hike along a river and then up a mounatin to a massive plateau covered with Khoisan paintings. I'll upload pics as soon as I can they were truly amazing. The hike felt great too! The hike included a black mamba(dealist snake in africa) in the trail, some crazy colored grasshoppers, massive spiders, and a rather territorial pack of baboons. The next day a bunch of us went for another hike our own, i was dubbed leader to watch for snakes ( we dont cover than in Widerness First Aid training, but whatever) that led us to a HUGE pack of baboons, who checked us out from the cliffs before we got to a waterfall and pool weve named Baboob Lagoon, where we bathed. We spent those few nights living in a large hut together, braiiing (barbequing) and then moved to the rural village to live with families. Katie and I stayed together...gogo (zulu for grandmother) was awesome, and kinda crazy) and the rets of the family was great too. They took us for walks and taught me how to play net ball (before the hoop fell on someones head, but thats another story) Our sisi (sister) is training to be a commmunity health worker, and gogo runs a nursery, and would rant (going from english to zulu) about how women have babies for grant money but dont want to raise them. I miss them terribly but batombile our sisi has already called to catch up. We were locked into the house, from the outside all night, and katie and I bonded over sharing a bucket to pee in. Real friends arent afraid to pee in the same bucket I guess. The van got terribly stuck on the way to pick us up to visit the clinic, and spent the morning trying to get itou, showing up to the clinic with with mud up to our knees, and the van still stuck in the mud. We went around with homebased care workers, less depressing than the last time we did this in the urban area, and then chatted with sisters at the clinic.
We recently said goodbye to the mamas weve been living with this whole time, and moved into a hostel before going to another rural location. Last Thursday Britney and I took our families our to dinner (ribs and milkshakes all around) to say thank you, and then on Friday we had a going away party with all of our mamas, it was sad to say goodbye, especially to my neighbor Shlindile, who I have spent time playing stones with after school and who introduced me to the young group of dancers I have been teaching occasionally. I will also miss mama, and the place I am used to calling home.
Then we went to the hostel for the weekend, decided it was about time to stop getting turned down from bars and dace clubs, and bought ourselves from lbd(little black dresses for those of you who dont speak girl) We went out on the town one night, and danced the night away, and the next layed low with some serious amounts of movie watching and beach time, and made ourselves a quiet candle lit dinner.
This past monday we headed to another rural location, Amantikulu. A strange mix of families, some had nice houses with TVs, cars, electricity, the works. Katie and I stayed together again, our home did not have elctricity. It was made up of several huts, on for cooking, and boy did we eat, and learn to cook, Ill have to make you all some Rural South African breakfast, its got quite a kick to it, in the form of curry powder. Our mama was a community health worker, she goes from house to house and educates the community. We went on her rounds with her one day and the next visited a sangoma (traditional healer) and a rural school, and then learned how to bead...everyone else is bringing home a lovley beaded AIDS ribbon...I will not be...I fail, arts and crafts have never been my thing, I accept it and embrace it. Then we returned to our mama, who well, didnt really talk to us at all, all week, but she had serveral neices who although then did not speak a word of English, we managed to hang out with very broken Zulu every night. I have been leaving pictures of all of you scattered around Africa, with my address on the back in return for my families addresses and pictures. I have also aquired a coveted recipe for steam bread while here...just wait. Oh, mama (real mama) I have taken serval pictures of long drop toilets inside and out since you inquired.
Which leaves us at today...I'm moving into our apartment (Aidan, Molly, Katie and I) will be living in an apartment on the Indian ocean for the next two weeks, to get TONS of work done, before we head to where our independent studies will be. I finally had an organization email be back about my indpendent study, I'm going to call tomorrow to try to sort our details, I wont tell you all about it, as to not jinx it, but hopefully soon I will be able to unvail my final project. Thats all for now I think, hopefully I have pictures soon, sorry for how long this, but its a fun update, and hopefully interesting ( I think, i hope?) let me now about news state side, a little bird told me a RGM is in town?? hi! Hope all is well with you. I love you all!! Ngiyakuthanda!! Stay Well Salani Kahle!!
The next week we traveled to a rural area called Impendle. We went on an amazing hike along a river and then up a mounatin to a massive plateau covered with Khoisan paintings. I'll upload pics as soon as I can they were truly amazing. The hike felt great too! The hike included a black mamba(dealist snake in africa) in the trail, some crazy colored grasshoppers, massive spiders, and a rather territorial pack of baboons. The next day a bunch of us went for another hike our own, i was dubbed leader to watch for snakes ( we dont cover than in Widerness First Aid training, but whatever) that led us to a HUGE pack of baboons, who checked us out from the cliffs before we got to a waterfall and pool weve named Baboob Lagoon, where we bathed. We spent those few nights living in a large hut together, braiiing (barbequing) and then moved to the rural village to live with families. Katie and I stayed together...gogo (zulu for grandmother) was awesome, and kinda crazy) and the rets of the family was great too. They took us for walks and taught me how to play net ball (before the hoop fell on someones head, but thats another story) Our sisi (sister) is training to be a commmunity health worker, and gogo runs a nursery, and would rant (going from english to zulu) about how women have babies for grant money but dont want to raise them. I miss them terribly but batombile our sisi has already called to catch up. We were locked into the house, from the outside all night, and katie and I bonded over sharing a bucket to pee in. Real friends arent afraid to pee in the same bucket I guess. The van got terribly stuck on the way to pick us up to visit the clinic, and spent the morning trying to get itou, showing up to the clinic with with mud up to our knees, and the van still stuck in the mud. We went around with homebased care workers, less depressing than the last time we did this in the urban area, and then chatted with sisters at the clinic.
We recently said goodbye to the mamas weve been living with this whole time, and moved into a hostel before going to another rural location. Last Thursday Britney and I took our families our to dinner (ribs and milkshakes all around) to say thank you, and then on Friday we had a going away party with all of our mamas, it was sad to say goodbye, especially to my neighbor Shlindile, who I have spent time playing stones with after school and who introduced me to the young group of dancers I have been teaching occasionally. I will also miss mama, and the place I am used to calling home.
Then we went to the hostel for the weekend, decided it was about time to stop getting turned down from bars and dace clubs, and bought ourselves from lbd(little black dresses for those of you who dont speak girl) We went out on the town one night, and danced the night away, and the next layed low with some serious amounts of movie watching and beach time, and made ourselves a quiet candle lit dinner.
This past monday we headed to another rural location, Amantikulu. A strange mix of families, some had nice houses with TVs, cars, electricity, the works. Katie and I stayed together again, our home did not have elctricity. It was made up of several huts, on for cooking, and boy did we eat, and learn to cook, Ill have to make you all some Rural South African breakfast, its got quite a kick to it, in the form of curry powder. Our mama was a community health worker, she goes from house to house and educates the community. We went on her rounds with her one day and the next visited a sangoma (traditional healer) and a rural school, and then learned how to bead...everyone else is bringing home a lovley beaded AIDS ribbon...I will not be...I fail, arts and crafts have never been my thing, I accept it and embrace it. Then we returned to our mama, who well, didnt really talk to us at all, all week, but she had serveral neices who although then did not speak a word of English, we managed to hang out with very broken Zulu every night. I have been leaving pictures of all of you scattered around Africa, with my address on the back in return for my families addresses and pictures. I have also aquired a coveted recipe for steam bread while here...just wait. Oh, mama (real mama) I have taken serval pictures of long drop toilets inside and out since you inquired.
Which leaves us at today...I'm moving into our apartment (Aidan, Molly, Katie and I) will be living in an apartment on the Indian ocean for the next two weeks, to get TONS of work done, before we head to where our independent studies will be. I finally had an organization email be back about my indpendent study, I'm going to call tomorrow to try to sort our details, I wont tell you all about it, as to not jinx it, but hopefully soon I will be able to unvail my final project. Thats all for now I think, hopefully I have pictures soon, sorry for how long this, but its a fun update, and hopefully interesting ( I think, i hope?) let me now about news state side, a little bird told me a RGM is in town?? hi! Hope all is well with you. I love you all!! Ngiyakuthanda!! Stay Well Salani Kahle!!
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Hiking and Gwexintaba!
The first one is me and Laura at the edge of the continent of our hike. Thats the Indian Ocean...pretty sweet huh. The next is a hut in Gwexintaba. Not the one i slept in or even part of the series of huts my family lived in, but the same idea. They are clay with thatched roofs. The last is the 5th largest waterfall is ZA. This isnt the best shot, but it was in the right directions already. It goes down for forever and the view on the right side of the shot continues forever as well. Amazing!!
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Gwexintaba-- I Couldnt make this stuff up if i tried
I'm going to make this beginning of this one quick, although it deserves more detail, so I can tell you all about the village, which was incredible:
Ok, so we stayed in a backpackers made up of huts for the first two nights. We braiied the first night. Then we went on an amazing hike through plains, to the edge of the continent. First we went to a cliff on the edge of the Indian ocean, then hiked over a small waterfall and river, to a waterfall that empties into the Indian ocean. Then we went swimming in the river we had passed earlier. On our way back we passed people heading to the ocean to look for a woman who had been musseling and pulled in to the water and had not been seen.
OK, the ridiculous part, on Sunday we started to head for the village with a few peoples stomachs unsettled, but the rain had made it impossible to get to this village (all dirt roads and very hilly) So instead we headed for a hostel nearby, and by near by i mean 2 hours our of the way. At the packbacker we enjoyed some karaoke and a very buggy night. I went to bed, woke up to one of my roomates vomiting, at which point i went to check on her. Another one of my roomates also came to check, then passed out, broke the door on her fall and started shaking. We called the director shed come to by the time he came, and I had checked her vital signs and her pupils. She seemed ok. terrifying though, I then tried to get some sleep but was continously woken up to one by one people heading to the toilet to vomit, and out the other end as well. Yeah, absurd I know. We think it may have been the water, were not sure though.
ok so only 10 of us out of a group of 22 ended up going to the village it is truly in the middle of no where and i understand why we didnt try to make it through these roads in the rain. We get to the village and take a tour and get to see the 5th largest water fall in south Africa, it was unreal, i didnt get to close to the edge for fear of falling over with nothing to catch me, but it went down and down for forever, then we dropped out stuff off with our host families. Then we went back to the house the assistant director of the program was staying in, it belings to some hippie from jo'berg who moved to this village when we got divorced 3 years ago, he wasnt there though. The director then left, and thats when i got really sick, which sucked. a band played some songs for us in Panda which is a mix of Xhosa and Zulu, most of which i spent going back and forth to the outhouse. awesome. We stayed in pairs at our homestays cause the men can be kinda sketchy in the rural places i guess. My friend sara and i had the most amazing host mom, she was hilarious. they speak xhosa and we speak english and we both speak a tiny bit of zulu so communicating was really hard, but this woman just laughed and laughed whenever there was a misunderstanding. And so we just laughed and laughed. It was such an awesome way to deal with the awkwardness. We watched her make corn in the cooking hut, and then moved with her to the eating hut, where we had cabbage and squash and beans and amazin bread. There were these baby goats that were running around inside the hut and we spent part of the deal with goats between our legs. There were also chickens everywhere. We did a pretty good job understand each other using zulu and the mama and her neice taught us some xhosa too. At one point after finding out that our ages were 21 and 20, the mama turned to us and asked us, "Why you so big (looking at sarah) and you so small." sarah by the way is not very big, which apparently means i am very small. o well. Oh, for the beginning of the night is was the mama, and her niece. Later the mamas husband showed up for a while during dinner, and her 12 year old son. The husband didnt stick around for long, but then Aunti as the mama was refered to by everyone, her niece and her son, helped us find our way from the eating hut to the hut we slept in. I've never seen so many stars in my entire life. EVER, it was unreal. Once we got to the sleeping hut, aunti, who was a dancer at ceremonies in the village, pulled out a knit skirt with bells on it and put it on and danced for us. Then she put the skirt on me and taught me how to dance. she then pulled out the beads she used to wear when dancing and put them all on me and showed me how i looked in a shard of mirror. Then when she took them off of me she handed me one and insisted I take it. its beautiful!! and such a cool gesture, and a memory of my dance lesson! Then they asked us to get ready for bed, which was a whole fiasco because we werent sure if only sarah and i were staying in the hut or if we all were, and then didnt look like they were sleeping there, but they also made no movements to leave, so sarah and i put boxers on under our skirts and then took our skirts off and got into our sleeping bags, and which point, the neice, who was fascinated by our sleeping bags zipped us alllllll the way up, and then down, and then up again. Then aunti pulled a bucket into the middle of the room, stood over it and pretended to pee, and laugh hysterically indicated it was used for if you needed to pee in the middle of the night. Sarah went to use the outhouse, and so she pulled out her flashlight, which also created entertainment for a while. Then they left, there were beds in the eating hut that i think they used for the night, and even that is fancy, most families have a sleeping hut where everyone in the family sleeps on the floor. We woke up the next mroning to a very insistant rooster at 6, and aunti prepared us a bucket of hot water for bathing. She was very pleased to see me wearing the necklace. She walked us part way down to the hippies hut and her son walked us the rest of the way. They were so wonderful and I wish I could have spent more time with them and felt 100 percent.
For all its ridiculousness I couldnt make this stuff up if i tried... sorry that one is so long, but ive already left out so much, overall it was an amazing weekends, with some of the biggest highs and biggest lows. Hope all is well stateside, I miss you all!
Ok, so we stayed in a backpackers made up of huts for the first two nights. We braiied the first night. Then we went on an amazing hike through plains, to the edge of the continent. First we went to a cliff on the edge of the Indian ocean, then hiked over a small waterfall and river, to a waterfall that empties into the Indian ocean. Then we went swimming in the river we had passed earlier. On our way back we passed people heading to the ocean to look for a woman who had been musseling and pulled in to the water and had not been seen.
OK, the ridiculous part, on Sunday we started to head for the village with a few peoples stomachs unsettled, but the rain had made it impossible to get to this village (all dirt roads and very hilly) So instead we headed for a hostel nearby, and by near by i mean 2 hours our of the way. At the packbacker we enjoyed some karaoke and a very buggy night. I went to bed, woke up to one of my roomates vomiting, at which point i went to check on her. Another one of my roomates also came to check, then passed out, broke the door on her fall and started shaking. We called the director shed come to by the time he came, and I had checked her vital signs and her pupils. She seemed ok. terrifying though, I then tried to get some sleep but was continously woken up to one by one people heading to the toilet to vomit, and out the other end as well. Yeah, absurd I know. We think it may have been the water, were not sure though.
ok so only 10 of us out of a group of 22 ended up going to the village it is truly in the middle of no where and i understand why we didnt try to make it through these roads in the rain. We get to the village and take a tour and get to see the 5th largest water fall in south Africa, it was unreal, i didnt get to close to the edge for fear of falling over with nothing to catch me, but it went down and down for forever, then we dropped out stuff off with our host families. Then we went back to the house the assistant director of the program was staying in, it belings to some hippie from jo'berg who moved to this village when we got divorced 3 years ago, he wasnt there though. The director then left, and thats when i got really sick, which sucked. a band played some songs for us in Panda which is a mix of Xhosa and Zulu, most of which i spent going back and forth to the outhouse. awesome. We stayed in pairs at our homestays cause the men can be kinda sketchy in the rural places i guess. My friend sara and i had the most amazing host mom, she was hilarious. they speak xhosa and we speak english and we both speak a tiny bit of zulu so communicating was really hard, but this woman just laughed and laughed whenever there was a misunderstanding. And so we just laughed and laughed. It was such an awesome way to deal with the awkwardness. We watched her make corn in the cooking hut, and then moved with her to the eating hut, where we had cabbage and squash and beans and amazin bread. There were these baby goats that were running around inside the hut and we spent part of the deal with goats between our legs. There were also chickens everywhere. We did a pretty good job understand each other using zulu and the mama and her neice taught us some xhosa too. At one point after finding out that our ages were 21 and 20, the mama turned to us and asked us, "Why you so big (looking at sarah) and you so small." sarah by the way is not very big, which apparently means i am very small. o well. Oh, for the beginning of the night is was the mama, and her niece. Later the mamas husband showed up for a while during dinner, and her 12 year old son. The husband didnt stick around for long, but then Aunti as the mama was refered to by everyone, her niece and her son, helped us find our way from the eating hut to the hut we slept in. I've never seen so many stars in my entire life. EVER, it was unreal. Once we got to the sleeping hut, aunti, who was a dancer at ceremonies in the village, pulled out a knit skirt with bells on it and put it on and danced for us. Then she put the skirt on me and taught me how to dance. she then pulled out the beads she used to wear when dancing and put them all on me and showed me how i looked in a shard of mirror. Then when she took them off of me she handed me one and insisted I take it. its beautiful!! and such a cool gesture, and a memory of my dance lesson! Then they asked us to get ready for bed, which was a whole fiasco because we werent sure if only sarah and i were staying in the hut or if we all were, and then didnt look like they were sleeping there, but they also made no movements to leave, so sarah and i put boxers on under our skirts and then took our skirts off and got into our sleeping bags, and which point, the neice, who was fascinated by our sleeping bags zipped us alllllll the way up, and then down, and then up again. Then aunti pulled a bucket into the middle of the room, stood over it and pretended to pee, and laugh hysterically indicated it was used for if you needed to pee in the middle of the night. Sarah went to use the outhouse, and so she pulled out her flashlight, which also created entertainment for a while. Then they left, there were beds in the eating hut that i think they used for the night, and even that is fancy, most families have a sleeping hut where everyone in the family sleeps on the floor. We woke up the next mroning to a very insistant rooster at 6, and aunti prepared us a bucket of hot water for bathing. She was very pleased to see me wearing the necklace. She walked us part way down to the hippies hut and her son walked us the rest of the way. They were so wonderful and I wish I could have spent more time with them and felt 100 percent.
For all its ridiculousness I couldnt make this stuff up if i tried... sorry that one is so long, but ive already left out so much, overall it was an amazing weekends, with some of the biggest highs and biggest lows. Hope all is well stateside, I miss you all!
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Happy Valentines Day (be back tues)
Mawube nosuku oluhle iwezithandani! (Happy Valentines Day) I'm leaving tomorrow for the Eastern Cape. Its a five hour drive there, and then were camping out, hiking all day saturday and then staying with a host stay families in a local village for two nights. We will meet a sangoma (a traditional healer). I'm excited to get out of the SIT house, and this trip will be a good way to see if I want to do a rural or urban independent study project for the last month of the program. This is the most rural trip we will do, dung floors etc. The government did put in long drop tiolets (essentially crummy outhouses) though apparently some are overflowing (great visual huh) and others are used for storing pots and pans and not used at toilets. We shall see I think the language here is Xhosa, dont try to say it it has a click in it, which means my zulu wont be very helpful. It will most likley be a weekend with lots of time to catch up on work and spend way to much time thinking about life. Well, you can reach me on my ZA cell phone, and I should be online for a bit tomorrow morning usual time (1250 am your time) for a bit before we depart. Hope you all have a wonderful Valentines day. I already recieved a beautiful beaded bracelet from my Mama and a beautiful card from my real mama. Well, be back Tuesday...hambani kahle
Monday, February 9, 2009
Back to class!
Hi all, so I checked out dougs blog today an mine is infinitely less cool, and lacks pictures!! Sorry! Not totally my fault though, South Africa has really limited access to internet, so its incredibly slow, so downloading pictures takes years. Also, having a camera with you is asking to get mugged, so yeah. I did take some great pictures of the kids next store, but for know you'll have to imagine them.
The weekend was good On friday we went to stay at a hostel in downtown durban, it was a pretty nice hostel. I stayed in a room with 10 other girls from the program. At night we went out of the town. My, katie, molly and aiden went to a mexican resturant and had a quite large pitcher of margarita and lots and lots of nachos. The next morning we checked out an apartment to move into after we are done living with are homestays families, for our independent research projects. Beautiful!! on the water!! and with good access to buses etc, to get to work.
Im not sure if Ive said this yet, but I want to be working for a mobile clinic that tests and treats HIV/AIDS. Not sure yet if this will be a rural clinic or an urban clinic. Its all very up in the air now.
I cooked dinner for my mama on sunday, good ol baked mac and cheese, she loved it, infact she woke up early this morning and finished it.
So now I'm back at school and my homestay and staying there until Friday, when we take a 5 hour hike to the Eastern Cape, we'll then hike all day Sayturday, and then live in rural homestays until Tuesday, when we head back to our usual homestays in Cato Manor. Time for Class, more soon!
The weekend was good On friday we went to stay at a hostel in downtown durban, it was a pretty nice hostel. I stayed in a room with 10 other girls from the program. At night we went out of the town. My, katie, molly and aiden went to a mexican resturant and had a quite large pitcher of margarita and lots and lots of nachos. The next morning we checked out an apartment to move into after we are done living with are homestays families, for our independent research projects. Beautiful!! on the water!! and with good access to buses etc, to get to work.
Im not sure if Ive said this yet, but I want to be working for a mobile clinic that tests and treats HIV/AIDS. Not sure yet if this will be a rural clinic or an urban clinic. Its all very up in the air now.
I cooked dinner for my mama on sunday, good ol baked mac and cheese, she loved it, infact she woke up early this morning and finished it.
So now I'm back at school and my homestay and staying there until Friday, when we take a 5 hour hike to the Eastern Cape, we'll then hike all day Sayturday, and then live in rural homestays until Tuesday, when we head back to our usual homestays in Cato Manor. Time for Class, more soon!
Friday, February 6, 2009
Out for the Weekend
I have to make this quick, were on our way to the university of kwazulu natal for a lecture, and then we get a night out in downtown Durban. The township were staying in is not near downtown, and not a safe place to walk around at night, so tonight we are staying at a hostel near the resturants and night clubs. I wanted to tell you about the school, but I have to go!! More about the school later
Monday, February 2, 2009
Weekend in Cato Manor
Sanibonani!! Ok so I spent the weekend with my host family. My mama is very quiet, but I've learned that if I go out in the neighborhood their are plenty of kids to play with. Bubbles are particularly popular, and kids will spend however long your willing to blow bubbles for, popping them. I also learned stones from some little girls next stone, its similar to jacks. you throw a stone in the air, and before you catch it, you remove as many stones from a circle as you can, then you throw the stone again and before you catch it, you put all but one stone back. If you do this successfully you get to keep that stone and go again...I failed to do this successfully most of the time. Life at home is SUPER quiet, but at least I've been doing all my homework :) It seems like some of the other Mamas are more chatty with their students, but eh, I'm well feed, lots of beets latley, but im almost learning to like them. We are all celebrities in the neighborhood, and we can't go anywhere without people waving and laughing at our zulu. On Wednesday we are going to visit special needs schools. the one I am visiting is for junior high school age kids that are physically handicapped. Then on friday we are staying at a hostel in downtown durban to blow off some steam and go out for a drink and maybe some beach time Saturday, before returning to Cato Manor which is pretty isolated, and not much is safely in walking distance for the rest of the weekend. The following weekend we are going for a five hour hike, and then staying in a remote village (dung floors etc.) I'm excited for the experience, and the hiking. I won't get ahead of myself. For now I have a week of pretty intense class at temperatures that feel around 95-98. Part of me feels like I missing out on some of the culture others are getting in their actual homes by having conversations in their homes, that seem rather forced (on my part) but there are always kids playing outside. I have a test tomorrow on South African health demographics...should be fun. Hmmm, can't think of anything else. Here's a new zulu word for you: I love you...Ngikuthanda. the n is silent well sort of, and the th sounds like a t. More, when more happens...I miss you all! Oh a quick history of cato manor. It was originally land designated to the Indian population who rented it to blacks who couldnt own their own land, then they were kicked out of the area and it remained vacant until independence in 1994 when blacks moved back to reclaim it, as all the violence that happened here during apartheid have made it famous...thats the simple version its vastly more complex and actually involves raging violence over beer...all that for another time :) -hamba kahle!
Friday, January 30, 2009
Cato Manor for the Weekend
Hey, Entering the first weekend in Durban. We're spending the weekend with our homestay families...no internet access, call if you need me (i hear sykpe to my cell phone is the cheapest way to do this) Some families have beach or mall plans for the weekend, and church on Sunday, my family doesn't seem to have any plans but we'll see, I have work to do anyway. Hopefully it will be a chance to get more comfortable with each other. Time for my last class, I'll check in on Monday
Salani Kahle!
Salani Kahle!
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Finally Writing From Africa
Saniubona! (Hi!) Sorry to have taken so long to get anything up. Im at the SIT house right now in between zulu class and a class on the history of the area were living in. The trip was incredibly long, and the jetlag impressive. We stayed at a hostel in Jo'burg for three nights, and then took the 8 hour car ride to Durban. The ride was beautiful, it passes through farmland, the plateau lands, and then into the city. I put my feet in the Indian ocean for the first time two days, and managed to not get stung by jellyfish (unlike many others in the group) Tonight we move into our homestays where we will living for the next 5 weeks, after two nights in a hostel in Durban. We take day trips out to different areas in and around Durban on Wednesdays and most weekends, minus the first two were living with rural families. Thats all for now Salani Kahle!! (Stay Well)
Monday, January 19, 2009
predeparture hello
Count Down...3 days...eek! So heres the plan: I leave in 3 days from JFK at 520 pm on the 22rd, and land on the 23th in Johannesburg at 710 pm. From there im staying in Johannesburg for orientation then its on to Durban. The forecast for Durban all week: mid 70's...kinda awesome. The time difference is 7 hours, sort of a pain, but oh well. I'll have email access (same as always: kmack@bates.edu), and AIM, and while I can't skype using SITs internet, there are internet cafes nearby. Ok, so this is really just to see if i know how the heck this thing works...so i guess I'll write again in Africa...AHHH, incredibly scary and exciting!
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