So this week as I was washing my laundry by hand and listening to my iPod on shuffle, one of Dr. Easton’s infamous recorded lecturettes came on. I was reminded of my fabulous friends and professors in the SIDES department. I also was reminded, again of a Dr. Easton colloquialism in talking about our papers for his class. I keep throwing my dishwater out into the bushes only to find that I’ve also thrown out a fork or spoon. He’s always commenting about how we don’t want to “throw the baby out with the bathwater” when we establish our arguments.
Thanks for all the support and emails I get from all of you. I hope you enjoy reading these updates. And thanks to Miz Cobb for making sure it all gets posted!
Right now I’m in the middle of what we in South Africa Peace Corps (SA PC) call “lockdown.” It’s the first three months while you are at your permanent site. For the first three months we are supposed to work really hard to make the village our home. We are also supposed to create a portfolio all about our village and organization that we are working for. Since I’m working at schools, my portfolio is mostly about the schools I’m working with. So I’ve been doing a lot of interviews and observations.
But “lockdown” also means that you are only allowed to spend the night away from your village one weekend a month. I really think it’s a good idea, because it forces us to spend the weekends going to weddings, funerals and parties in the village instead of visiting other volunteers, which I know would be tempting in the beginning when we are getting used to being the only American for miles and miles (I mean kilometers and kilometers).
I’m learning that no Peace Corps experience is the same. In fact from what I’m hearing the different countries do things completely differently with training, regulations, and schedules. If you’re going into the Peace Corps, I’d suggest following a blog of someone who is in the country you’re going to because that is going to be closest to your experience. But even that might not be similar. The people that I trained with (all education volunteers) all have different set ups in their villages, and the people who are health volunteers have even different situations. I recently visited a volunteer who lives at a game reserve outside a big city and works at the municipality office. She lives in one of the “cabins” at the game reserve that are rented out to vacationers and has a maid come in everyday. At first she refused the maid service, but the reserve pays the maids per cabin they clean, so she was preventing them for getting paid, so she allows them to clean for her.
Some of my friends live in villages with grocery stores, while others have to take an hour bus ride that costs 10$USD to get to a grocery store. Some people love the families they live with and eat dinner with them every night. I prefer to cook my own food and just spend time with my family in the afternoon and on weekends. I’m working at schools where the principals are really receptive to my ideas and they let me put my plans in action. Other people have principals that are not so open to new things. Some people have toilets and showers with running water, while I’m swiping cockroaches off my butt when I use my pit latrine. You just can’t compare your experience to anyone elses.
At the end of our “lockdown” period we have a 10 day training session the first week of December in Pretoria to discuss what we’ve seen/done so far and talk about establishing new projects, etc. We also bring a “counterpart” or helper from our village for 3 days of training so that we can have someone help us work with Life Skills. Life Skills focuses on HIV/AIDS with youth, but also targets decision making skills, confidence, genders roles, and healthy living. I have been talking to my fellow volunteers about international education and a few of them want to know more. So I asked one of my supervisors if I could do a session on an “overview” of International Development Education during this training workshop. She said yes, so I’m signed up to lead a session. I’ll probably need some assistance from the SIDES department in putting the session together. I basically
want to explain the concepts of EFA and UPE and explain where we are in this process and how ideas about development education are evolving (ie Learning for All instead of EFA).
