Arrival!

Well I'm here! I'll be staying in SA for the next few months learning Sepedi (also know as Northern Sotho) and experiencing the local culture.

We spent one night in DC last week (hard to believe it was only a week ago) getting prepared for what to expect and meeting our fellow PC trainees. There are 56 Peace Corps trainees in my group. Most are around 23 years old and either have just graduated or graduated a year ago. There are about 6 of us who are late twenties and then there are a couple of 40ish people. We even have a guy who is in his late 60s, lives in a house made out of old tires in Tennessee, and left his wife there for two years while he is in South Africa. There are 3 married couples, 2 of them are recently retired and the other is in their mid-twenties. Its a good group of people with a variety of life experiences.

The first thing I have to say about my time here is that it has been really cold. There is no heating or air conditioning in any of the buildings, and it is the middle of "winter" (which is very similar to a Florida winter). During the day I am fine outside in a sweater but when you are inside, without sunlight, and at night I have been freezing by butt off.

We spent the first 4 days staying in "blocks" (an 8 person house with a hall bathroom) and learning at a university. It was a good way to get oriented into a new place. We learned introductions and greetings in 4 different languages and started learning about the practicalities of life in SA (bucket baths, safety concerns, water treatment, what our job will be like, how to identify the different types of diarrhea, etc.)

People in our group will be learning 4 different languages based on where we will be located. At the end of our two month training we find out where we will be permanently located. I'm learning Sepedi language so that means that I will probably be stationed in southern Limpopo (a province), about 3 hours from the capital, Pretoria.

Right now we are staying with host families. Let's just say that my host family is really preparing me for what life will be like when I get to my permanent site. I am living with a "gogo" (grandma) and her 3 grandchildren. Her daughter comes by every once in a while (more on her later). My gogo doesn't speak great English and neither do the children, so communication is a problem.  I have my own room and there is a pit toilet in the back - it's kind of like a port-a-pottie and smells a bit like creamed corn (don't ask). You can't go out to the toilet at night, so when it gets late you have to pee in a bucket in your room and empty it in the morning. My first chamber pot experience!!!

I am boiling and filtering my water. We have electricity and a stove, but sometimes gogo cooks over a fire in the shed out back.

I have never eaten while watching TV, but I come to South Africa and my family watches TV while eating dinner! Evenings consist of bathing, watching TV, and doing my homework, which the kids help me with and then try to teach me new words.

My first night at the house, my new "sister" Francina, who is 25 years old comes in and starts boiling water for her bucket bath. After she finishes preparing her water she says to me, "Now you come with me to my room." When we get there she shows me where I can sit and then begins to take off her clothes to bathe!! I had literally known her for 5 minutes at this point. She chats with me while she bathes and I get a good demonstration of how actually to execute a bucket bath. Apparently this is culturally normal to bathe with girlfriends, but it was certainly a shocker to me!

It's going to be a tough two months, getting out of bed when it is freezing outside and then taking a bucket bath.(I'm thinking about chopping my hair since it is a bit difficult to bucket bathe with long hair;)