Five Weeks in one Backpack: Update

I am in the PC office between journeys. LST was really productive, we learned a lot about running life skills groups for youth in our communities. There were speakers from the CDC giving general background, as well as more experienced volunteers running mock sessions with us to discuss and practice faciliation skills and techniques. There was time to reconnect with volunteers I hadn't seen since IST in July, a beach, and a cheese plate at every meal. Great week overall.

GTOT was another productive week. We turned previously-arrived at learning objectives into a schedule of events for SA 19's pre-service training, and created lesson plans for all of the sessions they'll be having. There were also role-playing days where the language and cultural facilitators practiced their lessons, with the volunteers acting as students. We were some very troublesome pupils, far more disruptive than most trainees usually are, but I think that the new LCFs came away from the sessions much more aware of how difficult teaching Americans can be. I'll be going to PST in early March to facilitate a few sessions. Unfortunately, Tsonga, my target language, isn't being taught this time around, so I won't get to help out with language classes, nor will my LCF be back.

The most exciting part of GTOT was of course the fact that the water was off for the last three or four days we were there. Now, PC brought in barrels of water for us to use, but no water in an environment designed for indoor plumbing is a lot different from no water in a village with pit latrines. We grumbled, though mainly in an amused way. There was much discussion of bowel movements, but also something of an epiphany: GTOT was held at the same place that SA 19's training will be held, though PC has sworn up and down that the water issue will be resolved by then. What if we hadn't had running water our first few days in Mokopane? We would have been very unhappy indeed. After over ten months in rural South Africa, it's a problem to work around, but fundamentally not a big deal, and a source of humor more than anything else.

The title of this post is inspired by the fact that all of the things I took on this trip originally fit into one backpack. This is the same backpack I used in high school for my textbooks. Since I'm traveling between many of these places on public taxis, it's really the only reasonable way to pack. I plan to do a lot of laundry this month. However, the amount I have with me has already expanded frighteningly. Not only did we receive many, many manuals during LST, I went shopping in Durban and Pretoria, and picked up books at the PC library. I'm going to have to start shedding possessions soon.