Grant Projects!

I spent most of last weekend writing grants for a couple of projects that I’ve been involved in.

The main grant I’m working on is for some women in the next village (1 hour walk or $1 public taxi ride if you can get one) over. They came to me wanting to start a “Home Based Care.” These are huge in South African villages: basically HBCs are the rural community’s NGOs that have about 10 local women on salary and can literally do anything from starting recycling programs, make home visits to ensure people are taking their medication or host after school programs for kids. Or, in a lot of cases, do absolutely nothing – just have a bunch of women sitting around all day.

Anyway I’ve been working with about 6 women for the past 3 months, teaching them Life Skills (more on that later) and helping them figure out how to really get their organization growing. We’ve decided to start with them teaching Life Skills to boys and girls clubs at the local primary school and then have monthly meetings
with the parents in the community. The Life Skills that the women and I have been working on basically encompass the skills needed to keep yourself healthy (focusing on avoiding HIV). So HIV/AIDS  and STI (Sexually Transmitted Infections) prevention, communication and decision making skills and relationship skills. We do condom demonstrations – those bananas never know what’s about to hit them – and focus on the facts and myths about HIV.


Because of the culture here, many girls feel they cant say “no” to males and/or can’t demand that men use condoms. So we practice ways of saying “no” and assertiveness. Also it is culturally acceptable for men to have multiple sexually partners at the same time (and most do, even if they are married and/or religious). This is why the HIV infection rate here is so high.

The above reasons explain why Life Skills education is essential in South Africa.  The black South African cultural norms are a hot bed (pun intended) for sexually transmitted diseases. Most non-profit organizations in the country in some way work with Life Skills education or HIV/AIDS prevention.

Its been interesting to work with the 6 women. Even though they have volunteered to teach Life Skills classes, they are still so shy. Part of it is that we speak mostly in English (their 2nd or 3rd language) and that they have never been this close to a white person before, but some of it is that, they too are still embarrassed by some of the topics. Parents don’t talk to their children about the facts of life and they tell me that there aren’t even Sepedi words for sexual organs. Slowly, slowly slowly they are opening up, they are becoming more confident and we are forming friendships.  I’m not sure if their organization will be up and running by the time I leave, but they at least will have a good start.

I tried to attach a picture of me and my best friend, Tebogo. (Unfortunately my Internet connection didn't allow it)  She is 22 years old, in Grade 10 and has a 18 month old son named Rodney. Tomorrow I’m going to a funeral with her. And you may have heard me mention funerals before. We will be cooking all evening, spending the
night, then waking up ridiculously early to finish cooking and go to the ceremony that will start at 6 am.

Dear friends and family...

As usual, it has been a while since I wrote you an update about my life!

Now when I first told many of you that I was going into the Peace Corps, some of you wondered why the Peace Corps is actually in South Africa. South Africa hosted the 2010 World Cup and is considered an "emerging economy” not a developing nation. I hope that my e-mails thus far have convinced you of why we are here: the rural areas seem to be a completely country than the modern urban areas. This week in The Economist, there was an article that pretty much summarizes the situation in this country and gives you insight into the politics and current economic condition. Its worth a read if you have any interest.

I have now been taking bucket baths and living in a rural South African village for 15 and a half months. Which means, if everything continues as planned, I will be here for another 10 and a half months. And honestly I can’t wait to get back place with convenient transport and easy access to Mexican food.  Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m where I’m supposed to be, but it’s a daily struggle.

This country has to be one of the most racially tense places in the world. With apartheid (their version of segregation) ending in 1994, I encounter the effects of racism on a daily basis. This past month it has really been on my mind. Race and color is constantly part of the conversation here.

An new Peace Corps Volunteer recently moved to my area, so I’ve spent some time travelling with her. She is African American and it has been interesting to see how she can blend in when we are out shopping or using public transportation. I'm jealous that she doesn't get stared at all the time, but the downside is that she is not treated with the respect I get in these same situations. When the public taxi marshalls see me coming they are happy to help the only white person in the rank and are further impressed at my local language skills. My fellow volunteer is pushed aside and looked at with aghast when she makes one tiny language mistake. When we are together, speaking in rapid English with American accents, people stare at us and you can see them trying to figure out our relationship.

On the other hand, people in my village are used to me now, but I am the only white person that most of them have ever had a friendly conversation with. Life in the village leaves very few opportunities for Sepedi people to meet anyone from a different race and its interesting to hear about their thoughts. This week I had a very
intelligent boy in my Grade 10 class write in his journal, “What do you like about our village, because I know you don’t like black people?” I was shocked that after living here for over a year, a boy that I work with on a weekly basis still thought that all white people were racist. Later that day I had a conversation with this boy about his journal to see if I had done something to make him think this. It turned out that he didn’t have a specific reason for his assumption, he just thought I had been pretending this whole time. It breaks my heart that the people in my community have had such negative experiences with people of different colors.

Makes me realize how important it is that I am living in this community for 2 years. If I do nothing else in my entire Peace Corps service, I have shown that friendship, kindness and respect transcends color lines. I have attended funerals, initiation parties, church services and weddings. I have helped cook and prepare for these
events. I have dressed in traditional clothes and danced the traditional steps. I take public transportation and buy my food at the monthly market.  I laugh, joke and visit with people who haven’t left the village in months. My job is more than working with teachers, teaching English and educating people about HIV/AIDS. Its about improving race relations in a small community in Limpopo, South Africa. And slowly by slowly, I think I'm helping to accomplish that goal.

Better Late than Never!

Today I sat down to write you guys a letter and realized that I
literally haven’t sent out any updates since the beginning of March!
What?!?! I do apologize. Time flies when you’re living the dream.

Monday was the beginning of the 3rd quarter in the South African
school system. Here we begin the school year in the middle of January,
which is kind of nice because the school year coincides with the
calendar year. Its also winter here in the Southern Hemisphere. It
doesn’t get down to freezing where I live, but we have to bundle up
because no one in this country has central heating.

I just passed the year mark of living in South Africa. Wow. Hard to
believe I’ve been here that long and at the same time, hard to think
about having more than that left to go.

Guess the reason I haven’t written in a while is that I’m getting so
used to everything that most of my daily life seems normal, and
nothing to write home about. However, despite how long I’ve been here,
I’m STILL figuring out how this community works. Last weekend I went
to my first burial society meeting. Believe it or not, there are at
least 5 different burial societies in my village of 1,000 people. A
burial society meeting is a monthly meeting where the women get
together and plan for funerals. Here all the community women and men
gather together to help the family with the funeral. They cook a huge
meal which is served to the guests after they walk back from the grave
site. In this village, hardly a weekend goes by when there isn’t a
funeral, usually for someone who was “sick for a long time” (which
most likely means that they had AIDS).

One thing I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to is being stared at ALL
the time. Everywhere I go, people are staring. If its not because I’m
the only white person in that part of town, then it’s because I’m
walking through the city with my huge backpack. Sometimes I get really
frustrated by all the stares, but I’ve recently tried to combat it by
just smiling back! You’d be surprised how many smiles I get in return
and how good a smile is for promoting race relations in this broken
country.

Quick story to end this update. Last month I had some friends visit
from America. We were travelling around the country when we decided to
take a local metro train in Cape Town. Being a poor Peace Corps
Volunteer and being used to taking public transportation, I decided we
should purchase 3rd class tickets . We got on the train in what looked
like the 3rd class car - there was graffiti all over, the windows were
clouded over. Unfortunately, we thought wrong. When the guy came
around to check the tickets, he told us we were in the 1st class car,
kicked us off, and made us pay a fine that was 6 times the amount we
paid for the ticket; plus we had to wait for the next train and STILL
ride in the 3rd class car. Of course we tried to explain that we were
confused tourists, but he was having none of that. It all worked out
because on the next train we met some cool kids that were playing my
favorite South African house music jams on their phones. Just the sort
of thing that continually happens to me in this country – a
frustrating experience that stems from things not being made clear,
turns into something good.

Its Nelson Mandela’s birthday today! The first black president of
South Africa and an amazing example of how to encourage cooperation in
the midst of hatred. Here the tradition is to volunteer for 67 minutes
today in honor of him. Don’t worry – I think I’ve got that covered for
today:)

Christmas!

One of Dr. Easton’s favorite stories came to my mind as I wrote this today. The one about a man who was apologized to his friend for writing such a long letter, because he didn’t have time to write a shorter one. That describes me with this blog post. 

Today I cleaned my room/house while listening to Christmas music and while sweating profusely.


I drank tea out of a Christmas mug, but it was iced tea.


I dried my dishes with a Christmas towel, after I took a cold bath. 

Basically my point is that I’m in the middle of the South African summer, yet its Christmas time! Its hard to remember that its really December and the holiday season.  School’s out here because their summer vacation starts the beginning of December and runs through the middle of January.


I kind of like that set up –  during the busy holiday party season kids are out of school and people can schedule their summer vacations around Christmas and New Years. 

Of course vacation and busy holiday season with parties and what not are not exactly my daily reality in the village.  Instead the “festive season” is business as usual here in the village with a few extra family members coming back from jobs in the cities. 

I actually recently got back from an adventure in the city myself. After our first 3 months in our villages all Peace Corps volunteers in SA get together for some more training. To the training we bring one person from our village with us. This person is to become our “counterpart” – working with us to organize activities and hopefully taking complete control of the projects we help start.  

During the training we learned about program development and management and we started gathering ideas for projects we want to start. Paulina, my counterpart is one of my neighbors who is on part of the School Governing Body. She is very excited about working with me, but lacks experience and background knowledge in setting up programs. 

The training was funded by PEPFAR (as US grant that funds HIV/AIDS initiatives).  I’m pretty sure I learned everything there is to know about HIV during the training. For instance, did you know that after the initial infection, if someone with HIV takes good care of their health and has a high CD4 count, they can have unprotected sex without infecting their partner? Life with HIV doesn’t have to be the death sentence it once was! People are living long and full lives as long as they know their status and take measures to lead a healthy lifestyle. 

One of the best moments of the training was when they gave us all a game called Master AIDS. It was an adult version of Chutes and Ladders that substituted in condoms and viruses. Land on a condom and you climb up the board, land on a virus and you slip back to the beginning. But of course you must answer a question about HIV before you even get the opportunity to roll the die!


The training was a great opportunity to get excited about the upcoming projects I will be working on. Sometimes its easy to get discouraged in the village, but meeting up with other volunteers who are experiencing the same things that I’m experiencing and have the same desires that I have is awesome. Now the problem is that I’m inspired about too many projects and now I need to narrow/focus my attention on just a few. Currently I want to focus mainly on establishing libraries in the schools that also cater to the schools. I’d also like to continue and expand a young women’s support group and an exercise club that have both spontaneously sprung up.

In other news I was one of 3 people in my group of 55 volunteers that was elected to be part of the Volunteer Advisory Committee (VAC). The VAC meets once every quarter with PC staff members to discuss current issues and concerns that volunteers have. It was an honor to be elected in this capacity (plus it means a free weekend in the city every quarter!) – I’m excited to get to know a little bit more about how the Peace Corps office functions. 

Now I’m off to start my own Christmas vacation! It will be my first Christmas outside the US and away from family. To ease the pain I’ve saved my pennies for a vacation with a few other volunteers hiking through the Drakensburg mountains and ending in the beach town of Durban for New Years! We’ll be staying in hostels the whole trip and on Christmas Day we are taking an 8 hour hike to a famous waterfall. Don’t worry, last weekend I bought a Santa hat from a guy selling them on the street. If its not too hot, I’ll be wearing it the whole time!