You Know You're a PCV in South Africa When, Redux

The internet is a funny place. Three years ago I made a list called "You Know You're a PCV in South Africa When..." and posted it on this blog. You can find it here:

http://jadeinsouthafrica.blogspot.com/2008/08/you-know-youre-peace-corps-volunteer-in.html

Today, innocently browsing the interweb in between job applications, I found this youtube video someone had made, largely (though not entirely) out of the material from my old post:

I'm not sure whether to be flattered, or offended that I wasn't cited or asked for permission.

Return of the Fuzzy Fruit!

Careful followers of this blog may remember the Incident of the Fuzzy Fruit from 2009. (See comments here, pictures here).

For everyone else, what happened was this.

E, Milenka, and I were on holiday in Mozambique. Any good holiday involves randomly buying things you think might be edible off the side of the road, especially if you're driving for twelve hour stretches listening the same 5 mix CDs. Accordingly, we bought the fuzzy fruit.

After sawing at the fuzzy fruit for an hour, we finally got it open. Inside, we continued with the theory that it might be edible, though tasting it wasn't much confirmation.

Though we opened the fuzzy fruit, we never solved its mystery. Until--Return of the Fuzzy Fruit: 2011!

E and I were once again on holiday, this time in Kenya. A day at the lovely Gede ruins peaked when out guide pointed to a piece of fruit lying near the ruins. I squinted. It looked familiar.

"E," I said, "I think that's the fuzzy fruit."

"That," our guide pronounced, "is the fruit of the baobab tree."

Baobabs are kind of a big deal in Africa. They are enormous, old, and a pretty common sight in touristy places. I saw the one below in Botswana. You would think that after seeing so many of them, I would have figured out what its fruit looked like by now, right?

We told our guide our story from Mozambique, probably confirming any beliefs she had already that Americans are totally nuts. She also didn't quite believe us, but every look closer confirmed it: the fuzzy fruit is the fruit of the baobab tree!

It turns out that the correct way to open the baobab fruit is NOT to saw at it for an hour with a pocket knife. Instead, you're supposed to break it in one hard blow with any handy rock you can find.

Opening the fruit further confirmed it. The baobab fruit had the same little pellets of styrofoam-textured, slightly sweet fruit around seeds as our mystery fuzzy fruit did. It turns out, we were not poisoning ourselves--fuzzy fruit is edible!

A satisfying conclusion to an abandoned mystery! Eventually, everything comes full circle.

Lebanon Pictures

http://picasaweb.google.com/jade.lamb/Lebanon

The 10 Best-Documented Days of My Life (Namibia Pictures)

Never in my life have I taken so many pictures in such a short time as in Namibia. Here are just a fraction:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Jade.Lamb/Namibia03

Great Zimbabwe Pictures

http://picasaweb.google.com/Jade.Lamb/GreatZimbabwe#

The Great Zimbabwe Nightmare/Awesomeness

A travel tip: when you intend to travel during the Easter holiday in Southern Africa, don't wait until the day before you want to leave to buy your bus ticket, even when peer pressure is exerted. (Corollary tip: know when the Easter holiday is.)

Yes. Well. Instead of about five days, I spent 24 hours in Zimbabwe. The only available ticket to Masvingo was so close to when I was scheduled to fly to Windhoek that it barely seemed worth it--but I've found that when my other option is two more nights in Pretoria, I sometimes make extreme decisions. So I got onto a bus Monday night with two other volunteers and sixteen hours later (four hours behind schedule) I arrived in Masvingo.

Getting from Masvingo to Great Zimbabwe, 27 k away, was complicated but not difficult, unless you consider the fact that I was carrying everything I own on my back, and that it turns out my possessions are compact but heavy. Basically, we convinced the bus driver to let us off in town instead of the Shell Garage stop, then walked oto the University of Great Zimbabwe to catch a combi to Great Zimbabwe. We arrived in the early afternoon at the Great Zimbabwe Hotel, where the front desk very graciously agreed to store my luggage and charge my phone (which is also my only remaining timepiece). From there, we walked 700 m to Great Zimbabwe itself, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Basically, Great Zimbabwe is the ruins of an 11th-13th century civilization in Southern Zimbabwe, for which the modern country is named. I needed to see it all in one afternoon, so I asked for a guide and got a fantastic one who spent about 3 hours showing me around. Photos are forthcoming.

When, exhausted, we finished around five, I had nearly 7 hours to kill before my bus was scheduled to arrive. I retrieved my bags and went to the hotel restaurant. I had arranged with the taxi driver who had taken us to the park to pick me up, but he never showed up, so the hotel helped me find another way back to the bus stop. The hotel found a guy who was about to go into town with his girlfriend and greed to take me, too, at what seemed at inflated rate considering I'd only paid $2 to get there (and by the way, it's very strange to use USD after so long on rand). They turned out to be very nice, and like everybody else I'd met in Zimbabwe, had a lot of complaining to do about their government. I think Zimbabwe might be my favorite country--it's beautiful, friendly, safe, and well-educated.

I waited at Wimpy Burger for a few hours for my bus, spending most of the time sipping Coke Light in order not to fall asleep in the restaurant and worrying that the bus would be late, whidch would in turn make me late for my flight to Winhoek. A four-hour delay like the trip up would mean that I would arrive in Pretoria, which is about 45-minutes from the airport, 2 hours after my flight's departure. This was not the plan when I bought the ticket, but the cost to change it was exorbitant. Miraculously, I arrived in Pretoria exactly on time, and despite multiple misdirections (because ORT does not believe in labels), I arrived at my gate with 10 minutes to spare before it closed. And proceeded to fall asleep before the plane even took off, waking up only when my delicious and extremely large mid-afternoon meal was served on my two-hour flight. I hear you now have to pay just for peanuts in America--true?

Today I'm leaving Windhoek--pictures and more forthcoming.

Salani Kahle, Mzanzi!

I meant to write this a week and a half ago, when the poignancy and disbelief of leaving were still fresh--but life happens. I have plenty of what's happened since to share, but I will try to stay on topic.

I left.


Well, what more is there to say? Doesn't that simple statement encompass everything? Wouldn't any detail of emotion or uncertainty pale in the face of the simple statement of fact?

All right, so I haven't processed it yet. I'm still focused on plans--what visa I'm getting, if I'll miss the flight to Windhoek (ETA: I didn't), how to fill out a FAFSA (off topic: I heard Duke made it to the final four last weekend!)--that the reality of Peace Corps being over is far away. I'm still in a happy delusion that hanging out at the Masvingo Wimpy Burger waiting for the midnight Greyhound is just another holiday (where I am writing this longhand), and that any discussion of Durham real estate is just as purely speculative as any previous trip to Craigslist has been (don't mock, it's a low-megabyte hobby). I still refer to Peace Corps in the present and schizophrenically seesaw between listing America and South Africa as my country of residence on visa forms. I've burned my Peace Corps manuals in a glorious bonfire and passed on my Khanimamba portfolio to our staff, yet still I worry I've forgotten an obligation.

Ah yes. The last days. I burned my Peace Corps manuals, as I said, in addition to countless other accumulated trash (why did I savfe all those half-done crosswords?), and handed things at Khanimamba over to the trainers and administrators. My room went through various permutations ranging from complete cleanliness to embarassingly improbable clutter as I sorted through what I wanted to keep, burn, or give away. In the end, I ended up with two backpacks full, a feat undermined by the generosity of those I've known here (a traditional straw mat is currently residing in the sleeping mat compartment of my backpack; let's not talk about certain baskets) but nonetheless accomplished. Work was not accomplished in the quantities I had expected, but nonetheless the _project_ succeeded--the trainers have begun to run the course without me.

And goodbyes were said. I never felt like I knew so many people until it became time to tell people I was leaving. Beyond the obvious--coworkers, family, neighbors--people grow to expect your presence: taxi drivers, the women who work at Roman's (a pizza place), security guards. Word spread quickly: weeks before it was planned, people I didn't know asked me when the farewell function would be. In the end it was a small affair, a braai with coworkers, family, and neighbors, but it was a wonderful opportunity to exchange thank you's and final thoughts.

That's all I have for now. I really do think that I expect, at the end of this trip, to return to Giyani and Mapayeni and all their accompanying frustrations and reqards. I doubt that will change until I return to America.

So a question for all of you: what will shock me most when I return?

Pictures from my last months can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/Jade.Lamb/FebMar201004#

Stay well, South Africa!