I've been in South Africa for a year now, and in Mapayeni for nearly ten months, a time that is naturally introspective to the PCV. I've accomplished less than I hoped but more than I feared. As the cast of Rent asks, "How do you measure a year?" I could summarize the postings past, listing again all that I have done, things I have gained or lost, but it's an exercise that seems besides the point to me. Instead, I'd rather take this opportunity to think about the year stretching before me. I feel, though at times I felt as though I would never feel this way, as though I'm positioned to do a lot in my second year as a Peace Corps Volunteer.
Exciting things to look forward to:
Developing more training programs for drop-in centres
Finding out if my VAST grant gets approved
Developing computer literacy program for high schoolers
The Mapayeni Drop-In Centre growing and strengthening
Parents visiting
Welcoming SA 19 when they arrive
Encouraging more people to submit to the Diversity Blog (I say encouraging, they say badgering...)
Playing with the small children who are no longer afraid of me
...and hopefully a few pleasant surprises.
Of course, there are a few things I am not looking forward to. For example, as I discovered yesterday, a year really takes the novelty and sense of productivity out of doing my laundry in a bucket. But fingers crossed that the good will continue to outweigh the bad, as I think it has so far in 2009.
(Also: Happy slightly-late Chinese New Year. It's the year of the ox, which is also my zodiac year.)
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Back to the High School
The administrator at my organization, Free, has decided he wants to start a computer literacy program at his alma mater, Edward Homu High School. Free is about my age, and back in his day, Edward Homu (the high school in Mapayeni) was a pretty good institution for a rural South African school. It had a full staff, a respectable matric (like graduation) rate, and a working if unsophisticated computer lab. Since then, however, standards have dropped steeply. Attendance by both students and teachers is spotty, curriculum standards have changed multiple times, and the place is falling apart. Attendance isn't exactly helped by the fact that as soon as school begins, the gates are locked and tardy students (easily over fifty every day) aren't allowed in at all; the students often linger in front of the gate, afraid of the reprisals they'll receive from family if they return home. The computer lab remains, though dusty and unused; there is no staff to run it, or students who have the education to take advantage of it. So, Free and I went this morning to see if they were interested in us beginning an after hours computer literacy program with them.
They were interested. However, by now the computers are so old and unused that they are basically non-functioning; repairing them would be prohibitively expensive and the software on them hopelessly out of date in a world where the computer industry doubles its efficiency every eighteen months. The school has enough difficulty providing desks and chairs for learners, much less textbooks, much less computers. We left them with a promise of bringing by the forms for a Dell Foundation grant, the foundation that has generously donated computers to many organizations, including Khanimamba. Even if they get the grant, it will probably be a few months before they are here and installed. Everything here happens slowly.
They were interested. However, by now the computers are so old and unused that they are basically non-functioning; repairing them would be prohibitively expensive and the software on them hopelessly out of date in a world where the computer industry doubles its efficiency every eighteen months. The school has enough difficulty providing desks and chairs for learners, much less textbooks, much less computers. We left them with a promise of bringing by the forms for a Dell Foundation grant, the foundation that has generously donated computers to many organizations, including Khanimamba. Even if they get the grant, it will probably be a few months before they are here and installed. Everything here happens slowly.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Training Begins!
With not too many more bumps than should be reasonably expected, my training workshop for drop-in centres began this week and ran for three days. We ended up having between eleven and fifteen people there each day of the week, from eight different drop-in centres. Hopefully, the trainings will continue over the next year into a full program that covers all aspects of running a successful drop-in centre.
The training was a three day workshop on the organization of a drop-in centre (or really any organization--much of the material we used was the same material the trainers use for creche trainings). We covered writing a constitution, vision and mission statements, roles and responsibilities of employees and board members, the definition of management, and a few other related topics. Overall, I think it was pretty successful--the learners learned something and seemed engaged in what we were covering.
That hardly means it ran completely smoothly. The first day, Tuesday, we were supposed to start at eight and didn't end up starting until eleven thirty. Actually, we began at nine, and realized after half an hour that the people in our training room were actually there for a different training taking place in the next room over. Then the administrators at Khanimamba started phoning around and rounding up the people who said they were going to come, and we managed to actually start after a late tea break. We still ended up with a decent showing, though, and several of the people promised to bring other people from their organization the next day.
Which they did! Day two we had our peak attendance, fifteen people. We were planning the sessions a bit by the seat of our pants, as the trainers and I had a different idea of what the title of the course meant. In the end, I think that their interpretation, which covered some very basic practical topics that are mainly listed above, was the right call. I also didn't realize that I would have two trainers doing the sessions with me, though it was definitely helpful that there were as they both had a habit of wandering away just before their presence might be useful, and I needed them to translate and clarify much of the part of the workshop I ran.
Anyway, we kept adding things to the agenda of day two during the morning of day two. There was a couple extra hours of padding built into the schedule that I had made because I figured we would start late (which we did, but only one hour this day) and that one of our trainers would take more than her allotted time because she is very garrulous when in front of the classroom (that's okay, the learners like her and she explains things well). However, with three extra topics added on, we ended up having to move half the day two agenda to day three. At the end of the day, we had the following conversation:
Elisa: Tsakani, why do you think we ran so late?
Me: Well, we did start an hour late.
Elisa: Mmm. And we had to spend a lot of time explaining things, because this is all new to them.
Me: Mmm. Yes, that. And of course, we added three extra sessions. That might have been why we didn't finish the agenda.
Elisa: Ohhhh.
But day three we easily made it through the agenda, even though once again Elisa took way more than the time allotted. I had given myself three hours to do a session that should only take an hour, so even with starting late, we were home free.
Even though the sessions were pretty successful, it wouldn't have been nearly so much without Elisa and Emma, our trainers, since the learners had a lot of trouble understanding what I was saying. My American accent takes some getting used to, and I had to adjust to speaking a lot slower than I think of as a reasonably slow presentation speaking voice, as well as constantly modify the way I phrased things to make things easier to understand. A lot of nuance was lost--I had to translate "enthusiastic" to "excited" for one exercise which was interpreted by the learners as over-excited, and therefore a bad thing to have in employees--but it improved over the course of the week.
Running a training course in rural South Africa is also a lot different than running a training with Americans. Exercises that I had originally planned as group brainstorming, for example when defining abstract terms like "leadership," that would have ended in a laundry list of alternate definitions, had to be done backwards. We did small group work where the laundry list we would have created at the end was made up beforehand, and the learners had to assess whether the things on the list were good or important and why or define them or some such. This is because people aren't used to critical thinking because of the way the education system is and therefore first, don't participate and second, don't give very thought-out answers when they do participate. The language barrier doesn't help either--one of my favorite participants defined the difference between planning and organizing as, "planning is when people get together and plan, and organizing is when people get together and organize." I knew she had more to say than she was able to express, but....well, welcome to my week. A lot of the brainstorming resulted in jargon that the people speaking didn't understand but either saw in their handouts or remembered from earlier sessions; people would sit debating alternate spellings of a word (both wrong) instead of spending the time at hand. I learned very much to appreciate my own education this week, even more so than I had before.
The training was a three day workshop on the organization of a drop-in centre (or really any organization--much of the material we used was the same material the trainers use for creche trainings). We covered writing a constitution, vision and mission statements, roles and responsibilities of employees and board members, the definition of management, and a few other related topics. Overall, I think it was pretty successful--the learners learned something and seemed engaged in what we were covering.
That hardly means it ran completely smoothly. The first day, Tuesday, we were supposed to start at eight and didn't end up starting until eleven thirty. Actually, we began at nine, and realized after half an hour that the people in our training room were actually there for a different training taking place in the next room over. Then the administrators at Khanimamba started phoning around and rounding up the people who said they were going to come, and we managed to actually start after a late tea break. We still ended up with a decent showing, though, and several of the people promised to bring other people from their organization the next day.
Which they did! Day two we had our peak attendance, fifteen people. We were planning the sessions a bit by the seat of our pants, as the trainers and I had a different idea of what the title of the course meant. In the end, I think that their interpretation, which covered some very basic practical topics that are mainly listed above, was the right call. I also didn't realize that I would have two trainers doing the sessions with me, though it was definitely helpful that there were as they both had a habit of wandering away just before their presence might be useful, and I needed them to translate and clarify much of the part of the workshop I ran.
Anyway, we kept adding things to the agenda of day two during the morning of day two. There was a couple extra hours of padding built into the schedule that I had made because I figured we would start late (which we did, but only one hour this day) and that one of our trainers would take more than her allotted time because she is very garrulous when in front of the classroom (that's okay, the learners like her and she explains things well). However, with three extra topics added on, we ended up having to move half the day two agenda to day three. At the end of the day, we had the following conversation:
Elisa: Tsakani, why do you think we ran so late?
Me: Well, we did start an hour late.
Elisa: Mmm. And we had to spend a lot of time explaining things, because this is all new to them.
Me: Mmm. Yes, that. And of course, we added three extra sessions. That might have been why we didn't finish the agenda.
Elisa: Ohhhh.
But day three we easily made it through the agenda, even though once again Elisa took way more than the time allotted. I had given myself three hours to do a session that should only take an hour, so even with starting late, we were home free.
Even though the sessions were pretty successful, it wouldn't have been nearly so much without Elisa and Emma, our trainers, since the learners had a lot of trouble understanding what I was saying. My American accent takes some getting used to, and I had to adjust to speaking a lot slower than I think of as a reasonably slow presentation speaking voice, as well as constantly modify the way I phrased things to make things easier to understand. A lot of nuance was lost--I had to translate "enthusiastic" to "excited" for one exercise which was interpreted by the learners as over-excited, and therefore a bad thing to have in employees--but it improved over the course of the week.
Running a training course in rural South Africa is also a lot different than running a training with Americans. Exercises that I had originally planned as group brainstorming, for example when defining abstract terms like "leadership," that would have ended in a laundry list of alternate definitions, had to be done backwards. We did small group work where the laundry list we would have created at the end was made up beforehand, and the learners had to assess whether the things on the list were good or important and why or define them or some such. This is because people aren't used to critical thinking because of the way the education system is and therefore first, don't participate and second, don't give very thought-out answers when they do participate. The language barrier doesn't help either--one of my favorite participants defined the difference between planning and organizing as, "planning is when people get together and plan, and organizing is when people get together and organize." I knew she had more to say than she was able to express, but....well, welcome to my week. A lot of the brainstorming resulted in jargon that the people speaking didn't understand but either saw in their handouts or remembered from earlier sessions; people would sit debating alternate spellings of a word (both wrong) instead of spending the time at hand. I learned very much to appreciate my own education this week, even more so than I had before.
Friday, January 9, 2009
The Rest of Vacation
After Cintsa, we went to Port St. Johns, where we stayed at Amapondo, a great backpackers on the beach which had a very relaxed atmosphere. Every day they do some sort of excursion, and on Christmas Eve we went on their "Mystery Hike." First we went to the Blow Hole, a natural phenomenon where waves crashing against rocks look like a whale's blow hole. To get to the Blow Hole, you must first walk down a steep, rocky path; then climb down a ladder; then climb across a narrow ladder; then up another ladder to another cliff; then finally down from the cliff to a slightly smaller cliff next to it. Before doing this, they show you the memorial stones of people who have died there and tell you stories about tourists who met their end at the Blow Hole in the last few years. Since it was also an incredibly windy day and even from the top I felt like I was going to be blown away, I decided not to go so far as to venture any the ladders and therefore, survived. The view was still pretty great.
Next we went to a traditional Xhosa spa, for lack of a better name. They covered us in clay and then mud (there are pictures on the Picasa album). It's supposed to be very good for the skin. Getting to each part--the clay cave, the mud pool, etc.--involved climbing barefoot up a steep, rocky wall, but yet again I narrowly avoided death. The next stop was a restaurant for lunch, where we were exiled to the porch seating so that we didn't shed clay all over the indoor seating. Finally, we had to jump in the river--the day was so windy that we were forbidden from going into the ocean--to get off the clay so that the backpackers' drainage system wasn't permanently ruined by the clay. That evening there was a seven course dinner to celebrate the holiday.
We spent the rest of the time in Port St Johns going to the beach and other idyllic places with great views. Afterwards I made my way to Coffee Bay to meet up with some other PCVs. Coffee isn't the prettiest beach I'd been to in South Africa, but it probably had the best swimming. One day we went on the hike from Coffee Bay to the Hole in the Wall, about 10k. It had a lot of climbing and a lot of steep precipices, plus I wasn't wearing the right kind of shoes, but I managed to complete it by going barefoot for about half the hike. The gorgeous pictures from the hike that are posted on Picasa are courtesy of Kim, who borrowed my camera for the occasion. It was the best of all worlds, as I don't particularly enjoy taking pictures but I do like having them afterwards.
On New Year's Eve we had a game marathon that included rummy, Balderdash, telephone pictionary, and 30 Seconds (kind of like Catchphrase--but the South African edition). We'd met some PCVs from Mozambique by then, so they joined our motley crew and I think I might have played enough board games to satisfy me for the next year or so. The last day there, I took a surfing lesson. No, really. The water was pretty choppy and it was definitely pretty tough on me, but also a lot of fun. It was early in the morning, so I spent the rest of the day lying down, aching from being tossed about by the waves.
Getting back was about as painless as you can expect from two solid days of travel, including an overnight bus. I kept falling asleep in the taxis at inappropriate moments, but I made it back, to the welcome of my village and my family.
And, I've done several loads of laundry now, so I am very settled in. I start back at the office on the 15th. Happy post-holidays, everyone!
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Vacation Pictures
It turns out that posting pictures goes infinitely faster when I
substantially degrade their quality, which is why some of them have a
resolution about ten times better than others. Here you are:
substantially degrade their quality, which is why some of them have a
resolution about ten times better than others. Here you are:
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Five Weeks In One Backpack: Week Three
I am home. I have also awoken from my sleeping coma and gone grocery shopping, though I have a nightmarish quantity of laundry still ahead of me to do before I can really consider myself settled back in. As always, returning home was wonderful and I have to resist the urge to start immediately writing about my return rather than my time away.
After LST and GTOT, I took an overnight bus to Durban to meet Josh, who flew in to visit me for a couple of weeks. The bus ride was uneventful, or at least would have been, except that it began to rain, which is when the driver discovered that the windshield wipers weren't working and so pulled over and called a mechanic to come fix them. I was sleeping soundly and probably would have slept through the entire incident (one of my hidden talents is the ability to sleep in all circumstances), except that there was a white family seated next across the aisle from me who were very unhappy and very vocal about it. They expressed their frustration by being incredibly rude to the Black Greyhound employees. Finally, another white woman on board essentially told them to shut up, which seemed to give everyone else on board the courage to say the same. Other than other Greyhound trips, I haven't really had to confront too many racially loaded incidents like this one as Giyani is fairly monoethnic. However, out in other parts of the country, there is the constant haunting reminder of South Africa's tumultuous past and the PCV's inevitable uncomfortable role somewhere in between.
Arrived into Durban safely and still far too early in the morning, just happy to be somewhere where I could take a hot shower. Josh and I had a great time in Durban. We didn't spend too much time at the beach, which has unfortunately become much more polluted and crime-ridden than it was when dubbed the "Golden Mile." We visited uShaka Marine World, a Sea World-like place with dolphin shows and penguin feedings, plus a very cool aquarium. We toured the Kwa Muhle Museum, Durban's tiny apartheid museum, where we learned, amongst other things, the history of bunny chow, a meal consisting of curry inside a loaf of bread, a dish unique to South Africa. Evidently, under apartheid, Indian restaurants weren't allowed to seat black customers and the styrofoam take away container had yet to be invented, and so bunny chow became the first form of take out food. We went to Victoria Street Market in the Indian District, and I imagine that we wandered around more malls than Josh was expecting. Sorry, no Durban pictures, I was paranoid about carrying around my camera.
Next stop was Cintsa, a beautiful, sparsely populated area far south along the Wild Coast. The backpackers was a bit noisy, but the beach was beautiful. We spent a couple days just vegging on the beach and by the pool before going to Inkwenkwezi Nature Reserve, which contains all of the big five (according to it--we saw no cheetahs).
Inkwenkwezi was a nice happy medium between going to a zoo and going to the massive Kruger National Park. The Reserve did game drives, so it knew just where to take us. They also had only a few specimens of each animal, so there weren't too many surprises to be found--we pretty much just drove with some other vehicles, for example, to the place where the rhinos were grazing that day. The lions were kept in a separate enclosure (presumably to prevent them from eating precious zebras), which we got to see, but unfortunately we weren't able to go inside as four of the lions were lying in wait at the entrance, ready to attack. We did however get some great pictures of lions hunting tourists. Last stop at Inkwenkwezi was the separate elephant reserve with tame elephants. Tame is not so exciting at first glance, but it did mean that we got to feed and pet them!
Next entry: Port St. John's
After LST and GTOT, I took an overnight bus to Durban to meet Josh, who flew in to visit me for a couple of weeks. The bus ride was uneventful, or at least would have been, except that it began to rain, which is when the driver discovered that the windshield wipers weren't working and so pulled over and called a mechanic to come fix them. I was sleeping soundly and probably would have slept through the entire incident (one of my hidden talents is the ability to sleep in all circumstances), except that there was a white family seated next across the aisle from me who were very unhappy and very vocal about it. They expressed their frustration by being incredibly rude to the Black Greyhound employees. Finally, another white woman on board essentially told them to shut up, which seemed to give everyone else on board the courage to say the same. Other than other Greyhound trips, I haven't really had to confront too many racially loaded incidents like this one as Giyani is fairly monoethnic. However, out in other parts of the country, there is the constant haunting reminder of South Africa's tumultuous past and the PCV's inevitable uncomfortable role somewhere in between.
Arrived into Durban safely and still far too early in the morning, just happy to be somewhere where I could take a hot shower. Josh and I had a great time in Durban. We didn't spend too much time at the beach, which has unfortunately become much more polluted and crime-ridden than it was when dubbed the "Golden Mile." We visited uShaka Marine World, a Sea World-like place with dolphin shows and penguin feedings, plus a very cool aquarium. We toured the Kwa Muhle Museum, Durban's tiny apartheid museum, where we learned, amongst other things, the history of bunny chow, a meal consisting of curry inside a loaf of bread, a dish unique to South Africa. Evidently, under apartheid, Indian restaurants weren't allowed to seat black customers and the styrofoam take away container had yet to be invented, and so bunny chow became the first form of take out food. We went to Victoria Street Market in the Indian District, and I imagine that we wandered around more malls than Josh was expecting. Sorry, no Durban pictures, I was paranoid about carrying around my camera.
Next stop was Cintsa, a beautiful, sparsely populated area far south along the Wild Coast. The backpackers was a bit noisy, but the beach was beautiful. We spent a couple days just vegging on the beach and by the pool before going to Inkwenkwezi Nature Reserve, which contains all of the big five (according to it--we saw no cheetahs).
Inkwenkwezi was a nice happy medium between going to a zoo and going to the massive Kruger National Park. The Reserve did game drives, so it knew just where to take us. They also had only a few specimens of each animal, so there weren't too many surprises to be found--we pretty much just drove with some other vehicles, for example, to the place where the rhinos were grazing that day. The lions were kept in a separate enclosure (presumably to prevent them from eating precious zebras), which we got to see, but unfortunately we weren't able to go inside as four of the lions were lying in wait at the entrance, ready to attack. We did however get some great pictures of lions hunting tourists. Last stop at Inkwenkwezi was the separate elephant reserve with tame elephants. Tame is not so exciting at first glance, but it did mean that we got to feed and pet them!
Next entry: Port St. John's
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