Saturday, December 24, 2011

Christmas in South Africa year one

We had hiked up to the top of the mountain behind our place.

Our last posting from us here in South Africa was in November.  During this time the weather has gradually changed from spring like to early summer and the land has become greener as the result of periodic rains.  We are becoming more and more familiar with the climate and are relieved that the mid 30s⁰ C temperatures (upper 90s⁰ F) during several days in November did not persist for days on end.  There have been cooler days offsetting the hotter days.  Nevertheless, we have been using our electric fans to keep us cool, wear short pants often, and walk with an umbrella to shade us from the hot sun. It will probably take us some time to become used to this latitude which at 30⁰ South of the Equator is comparable to the latitude of Orlando Florida.  We have been warned that the hottest weather will show up in January and February.

Our saving is that at 2000 meters above sea level and with less annual rainfall, the climate is much drier and cooler than elsewhere nearby in South Africa.   There are other Peace Corps volunteers from our class serving west and northeast of us.  To the west the climate becomes hotter, drier, and more desert like.  To the northeast the elevation is lower and it rains more, so the climate is hotter and more humid.  We consider ourselves lucky to have avoided these two extremes.

Our work at the schools tapered off during the last half of the 4th term which ended in early December. During the last few weeks (yes weeks) exams were scheduled so classroom instructions were done before the third week of November.  Merideth and I gave final exams to our grade 4 learners in social studies and economic management systems.  During grade 4 the students start to be taught and tested in English instead of their home language (Setswana) so most of the year the success of each student depends on how well they know English.  This in turn depends on whether they are exposed to English at home.  We found many grade 4 learners had limited English comprehension so teaching them without being fluent in Setswana to translate or testing them on anything in English was questionable.  We got test results ranging from 15% to 90% because the range of abilities in each classroom is very widespread.  You pass if you get 30% or better.  The school year ended in early December.

When the new school term begins on January 16th Merideth and I expect to start a new phase of our volunteer experience.  Merideth plans to work at three of the local primary schools with small groups of learners that need help catching up with grade level.  She would also like to work with some of the foundation level (grades R-3) teachers with their work to introduce English to the curriculum.  Gary plans to work with some of the math teachers at one of the primary schools and at the high school however they think he can help.  In addition he has some other projects in the works at all four schools that will keep him busy.

For ten days in December we went to Pretoria for the last of our Peace Corps training. It was held at a nice convention center with hot showers which were a treat to most of us volunteers.   Food was provided by a buffet that was very good so most of us ate too much.  The highlight of the classes was a session about HIV/AIDS that was excellent.  After our daily classes we were able to play some volleyball and have some dance parties.  It was good to see all of our classmates again and to hear how everyone was doing at their sites.  Our next get-together as a group will be next September for a mid-service training.

We came here with fifty-six volunteers in our group.  After about five days, one man left for home on his own.   And then at about week six, an older man was sent home for medical reasons.  During our December training, one young woman was diagnosed with a serious medical condition and left for the US.  And just this week, another young woman left for personal reasons.  So the group of 56 is now at 52.  It is not unusual for Peace Corps groups to lose volunteers throughout the service period ending after two years with half of the initial numbers.

Back in our village, before the training we moved from our house down in the middle of the village up the hill to the mission where our permanent housing was located.  The PC couple we are replacing were great help to us in getting to know the village and left the Peace Corps while we were in Pretoria for training.  It was nice to move into the apartment and finally settle down.  The apartment consists of three rooms – a bedroom with attached bathroom;  a small kitchen with stove, refrigerator, cabinets, and table and adjoining half bath and sink room; and a lounge/den room containing a desk and someday a couch for relaxing.  With our move-in allowance from the Peace Corps, we purchased all of the items left behind by the departing couple.  There was even a small black & white TV that gets four channels. This inheritance of household stuff was really convenient for us and we expect to do the same for the couple that might follow us.  We consider ourselves to be very lucky to have such a nice place to live when compared to most other volunteers.  We do have to keep our doors to the outside closed at all times so that the baboons that wander around the mission grounds do not get inside and wreck the place.  We hear them run across the metal roof.

For Christmas we plan to go to Mass at the Catholic Church located about 300 feet from our apartment.  Merideth brought to Africa the two Christmas stockings she made for us back in 1976, and we have put a few items in them.  She is going to make a ham for dinner and an apple pie for dessert.  It will be quiet and relaxing.  By the way, South African wines are excellent and inexpensive.  We can buy a 5 liter box of decent red for about $10.  The Cape Town wine region is on our list of places to eventually visit.

Last week we were visited by another Peace Corps couple and all went to visit a nearby Cheetah recovery program where cheetahs, wild African dogs, and other animals are fostered in anticipation to returning them to the wild.  Our Facebook page has a picture of us petting a cheetah.

On the 30th we will fly to East London down on the Indian Ocean coast and spent ten days at the Buccaneer’s Backpackers where we can enjoy the ocean and relax.  We will tell all about that in our next chapter.

We hope everyone that reads this had a wonderful holiday and wish all a 2012 that fulfills.  We are thankful for our opportunity to experience this part of the world and are humbled by how fortunate our lives have been when compared to our fellow human beings.  Please reply to this posting with comments so we know what those reading it are thinking.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Blog Posting #3 on November 6, 2011

Hello again from South Africa. It is early November 2011 and this is the third entry to our blog. Plus we will be adding after this entry links to a bunch of our photos on the Picasa web site.  

 If you are interested in knowing how to locate our village here, please email me at ggaffney1951@gmail.com and I will send you the name of the village and the Google Earth coordinates so you can zoom into the location of our site.  For security reasons we aren’t supposed to name our village in the blogs.

 We are about halfway through the second phase of the Peace Corps training where we follow a weekly outline of things to do with our schools as we focus in on what we will be doing once training is over and the new school year starts in January.  My thoughts now are that I will work at one primary school and at one high school with Math.  Since I have also been getting involved with some water, wastewater, and waste problems at the schools, I expect I will continue with those activities next year.  Merideth is thinking that she will be working with small groups of students in three primary schools.  During the next few weeks we will be getting a better idea of exactly what our job will come to be in 2012.

 Last week we both bought mountain bikes with money given to us by the Peace Corps. Merideth and I went for a morning ride around our village last Saturday and have begun to ride to the schools each day.  It’s nice to have a faster way to move than walking.  We just have to be careful to lock them because we have been warned they will be stolen if we are careless. One day I got a flat tire which I patched and then the tire went flat again.  A seam of the tub had ripped.  I took the tube back to the bike shop where they gave me a new one and I got another spare tube just to be safe.  The boys at school all marvel over these bikes and it makes us feel guilty because they don’t have any type of bike.  We tell them work hard at school and get a good job and you will someday be able to own an even better bike.  They want so bad to take them for a ride but we know once we start it will never end so we have resisted.

Two Saturdays ago we went to “Sports Day” with one of our primary schools.  It began with a bus ride for about 45minutes on Saturday morning to a nearby school.  The bus was crammed full with students many who were standing in the isles and others who were sticking their heads and arms out the windows.  No one seemed to mind.  The event took all day ending with a very hot and crowded bus ride home.  A photo of Merideth on the bus is with the linked photos and on my Facebook page. Merideth was the Girls and Boys Cricket Coach.  Her boys’ team won first place and a trophy which she presented to the morning school assembly the next Monday.  My girls’ soccer team lost their first game so they were out.  It was a madhouse event with about six schools and hundreds of kids attending. There was limited adult supervision of the children throughout the day. However this is not a problem because these children are used to being on their own since at school where they are sometimes left unattended in their classrooms.  We were all exhausted when we got home.

Our village has about 5 to 10 thousand people - it’s really hard to estimate.  There are two high schools, one trade/secondary school, one middle school, and at least four elementary schools here with each school having about 700 learners.  In South Africa students are called “learners”, teachers called ‘educators” and mathematics is “maths.” Although most people speak English, we sometimes struggle with understanding their English and ask people to repeat their words. The learners like the way we speak probably because it’s the English they hear in movies.  By the way, we can buy current movie DVD’s for about $1.25 at the street stands but their selection is limited and dominated by shoot-them-up action films. We are often hard pressed to find one we want.

Our village seems pretty typical.  It is located at the base of a low east-west mountain range lying just north of the village.  The rocks are red weathered sandstone and in many areas the soil is rich black organic silt. The village looks out to the south across a wide valley with another east-west low range of mountains about 10 miles to the south.  On the south side of the valley we can see waste dumps from the platinum mining that dominates this region.  The mountain sides are covered with low growing thorn trees which have now turned green with the spring.  We can hike to the top of the peak just north of this village in about 30 minutes and have a good view of the entire valley.  The terrain reminds us of the US southwest in Arizona and New Mexico.

 The village has paved main roads and dirt roads elsewhere. There are a few small grocery stores where one can buy items like milk (in an unrefrigerated box), bread and other basics. There are a number of shibeens (bars) here but we never go there.  We hear people playing music throughout the night and have gotten used to hearing the beat of the music when we are falling off to sleep.  Once a week we travel by taxi about 5 miles to a supermarket in a shopping mall where we load our groceries into two large clothe bags and carry them in the taxi back home.  It costs us 8 rand or about $1.25 each one way for the taxi ride to the supermarket. We catch a taxi as it passes by on the road. The taxis are plentiful and are mostly Toyota vans holding from 8 to 14 riders. 

Most people here are poor and live in modest small metal sided homes.  It is hard to get work and, if you do have a job, you probably have to commute by either bus or train towards Pretoria. We have found the villagers to be friendly and welcoming.   When you pass someone in the street, it is important to greet them using Setswana.   Most people get a kick out of us greeting them probably because it is rare for them to have an interaction in their home language with anyone like us. We were introduced to all of the learners at the four schools when we arrived here in September so a lot of the village kids know us.  They call out to us whenever we walk by their homes.  We often heard the kids shout “Malome” or “Mpho” as we pass by their home to which we reply “Dumela, O kae? (Hello. Are you well?)  There are not many cars in the village so there is little traffic.  There are more people walking on the roads than cars passing by.

Except for the other Peace Corps (PC) couple here who are from Boston, I think Merideth and I are the only foreign people in this village.  In December the other PC couple is done with their service so we will move from our house here in the village into their place about a ½ mile away.  They live on the north side of the village at a Catholic mission facility that backs up to mountains.  This mission was established by Italian priests in the 1920s and now houses the local Catholic Church (called the Roman Church here), five priests (four work in nearby churches and stay here), an alternate-type public high school, a health clinic, a convent for nuns, a trade school (teaching computers, bricklaying, woodworking, cane works, and metal working), a high school, and a primary school.  The last two are two of our assigned schools.  The four or five sisters currently here are leaving in November to consolidate their services nearby because there are not enough younger nuns coming to staff their facilities.  They will be replaced by sisters from another order coming here from Zambia.  We will be sad to see the current sisters leave because it has been fun getting to know them.  One is from the US with the others from Ireland.  They are leaving behind their two dogs in the care of the new sisters and we told them we would take the dogs on walks once we move.

Recently I spotted some young guys playing pickup basketball outdoors at the mission and was able to play with them.  It was my first time to play basketball in three months. The court was very uneven and the rim had no net but I was happy to find this game.  Since they said they play there most afternoons, I am looking forward joining them in the future because the court is close to where we’re going to move to in December. 

By the way, I have become a rugby fan since the Rugby World Cup began in New Zealand. Since the South African Springbok teams were the 1995 and 2007 World Cup champs, rugby is popular here.  In case you don’t know, the All Blacks (New Zealand) just played the French for the World Championship with the All Blacks winning 8-7.  Rugby, soccer, and cricket are big sports in SA.

In December we will be moving into a three room apartment up at the mission. The apartment has a reliable water supply and a ‘geezer’ which an electric hot water heater.  Unfortunately, down here in the village our water supply has been marginal.  The quality is fine but the quantity is poor.  There is only pressure some nights so we have three large barrels in our house that we fill at night and then use water from the barrels as needed during the day.  We had one stretch of six days with no water.  When we need water throughout the house we use buckets.  In an emergency I think Merideth and I can live on less than ten gallons of water per day.  We take bucket baths (4 gallons/day) and dump the bath and dishwashing water (4 gallons/day) to flush the toilet.  I have become expert at using a minimal amount of water to wash the dishes.  We heat the kitchen water using an electric kettle and use an immersion heater in a pail to heat our bath water. The house itself is nice.  It has a refrigerator, an indoor bathroom, and a regular kitchen with faucets and drains just no water coming in through the taps.  We have electricity - it is 220 volts but all of our electronic stuff can run on 220 so we didn’t need a transformer just a plug converter.  We live here with a young man who is a policeman in a nearby town.  He works four twelve hour shifts and has four days off during which he usually goes home to Rustenburg about 100 km west.

Our diet is not much different than that we were used to having in the US.  We don’t have a TV so we have been reading a lot of books and usually get to bed before 9 pm.  Some afternoons the local kids come by and we sit outside with them.  They enjoy showing us their dance moves and lying in my hammock. We have been teaching them how to play the card game “War.” As in school, we are trying to learn how to say their first names correctly but it is hard because many of the names are unfamiliar. They crack up when we mispronounce.

About two weeks ago we started seeing weird stuff in our kitchen and realized that it was caused by a rat when our roommate saw it dart out an open window one day.  We were in the habit of leaving the windows open to cool off the room not knowing that the outside sill was how the rat got in at night. At first, the owner tried to kill the rat with some meat soaked in brake fluid but that failed. Then the rat kept getting braver and braver until one night Merideth and I trapped it in the kitchen by covering up its escape hole by the cabinets and closing the kitchen door. Armed with brooms, we then tried to kill the rat which went okay until the rat jumped on top of the stove, zoomed across the counter, and flew through the air towards Merideth  landing on the floor and scurrying off behind the refrigerator. Realizing we needed help, we called the owner from next door.  Merideth stood guard outside the closed kitchen door and said it sounded like we were having a game of field hockey in the kitchen as we chased and whacked away at this rat. Finally the owner managed to trap it under his broom and I finished it with the end of my broom.  Since then we have been careful to keep the windows closed and have had no more unwelcome visitors. 

Merideth and I have started to get involved at the schools with some projects.  We attended a meeting of the Green School committee at one school where we agreed to work on starting a composting program, trying out a better trash burning system, and helping to begin a recycling program. At this same school the principal has asked me to help them replace their old pit toilets. There is a local businessman willing to fund the work.  There is no property tax here so schools are entirely funded by the provincial government.  Since income levels here are so low, the village schools qualify for 100% provincial funding which means the government gives each school about 800 rands (or $125) per year per student for operating costs.  Teacher salaries and positions are determined and paid directly by the provincial education department.  Although 20% of the South African government budget is spent for education, these schools are still struggling to recover from the poor facilities and resources left when the apartheid education system was eliminated in 1996.

Two of our schools have limited water.  Last week both schools were without water for several hot days.  When water is available, the learners fill buckets from an outside faucet and hand the carry water to each classroom where there is a drinking water pail and a hand washing pail.  The schools have a free lunch program which for some of the students is the main meal they will get each day.  Each school requires the learners to wear a school uniform and there are programs to provide uniforms for the poorest families.  Many of the children have deceased or otherwise absent parents and live with relatives or grandparents. In spite of the poverty and things we see as deprivations, these kids are happy and joyful.  They arrive at school each day happy with smiles and laughter.

If you want to mail us something, email me and I will send you our address.  We are not in desperate need of anything because we have been able to find everything we need here. (Merideth injecting now: I would love to receive pictures cut from magazines.  I am planning on using them for teaching English to the foundation learners and the intermediate learners who are not grasping the language.  After one year of English instruction in grade 3, the learners are taught all their subjects in English starting in grade four.  It must be so frustrating for them especially the children who cannot understand any of the English yet.)

In December we move to the mission and then go somewhere for ten days of Peace Corps training.  After that, we return here to our village for Christmas and then before New Year’s plan on flying to East London which is a small city along the Indian Ocean coastline of South Africa where we will “holiday” for ten days at the Buccaneers’ Backpackers (google it).  I’m excited because they give surfing lessons and Merideth is excited because there is lots of hiking and beach walking.  Then we return to our village and get ready for the start of the school term on January 16th.

Merideth’s two cents:  Although it is still officially spring, last week’s weather felt like mid- summer with temperatures in the high 90’s.  With the hot, dry weather, water becomes very scarce in the village including the schools. This week we had rain with some cooler temperatures so my spirits were lifted and the village water supply improved. 

During the third quarter holiday break, one of the grade 4 teachers at one of our primary schools was transferred to another school in another village.  This is not an uncommon situation.  All the teachers in South Africa are hired by the provincial Department of Education.  So a teacher is obligated to go or leave a position whenever directed.  The principals do not seem to have a say in the matter. The fourth quarter started October 9th.  Gary and I became the grade 4 EMS (Economic and Management Systems) and Social Science (Social Studies) on Mondays and Fridays. I plan and lead Social Science and Gary plans and leads EMS.  This has been an adjustment and challenge for both of us. 

The grade 4 learners were first introduced to English in grade 3. Next year English will start in grade 1. As an education policy throughout South Africa all learners are instructed in English starting at grade 4 and going high school.  Having a teacher whose home language is only English (like Gary and me) is a challenge for both the learners and us.  Our Setswana skills are limited. The SA teachers can switch languages for further explanation and understanding especially for the learners struggling with English.  On the other hand our principals feel we will greatly improve the learners’ English which is a bonus.  But all in all, this has been a positive experience.

Sometimes I have to pinch myself as a reminder that we are truly in South Africa.  One minute everything feels like it could be America and then something is said or observed and I am back to reality.  That’s South Africa!  I think Gary covered just about everything else.


So that is how it was. 


Gary and Merideth


Monday, September 12, 2011

Now in South Africa...

And now a few words from Garideth

It’s September 12th now. We are slightly over two months in South Africa.  For those of you wondering why nothing has been posted it’s because we just now have a reliable internet connection and can finally update our blog.  A lot has happened to us here and we will try to summarize the events below.
On July 5th we flew from Idaho to Washington DC and spent a couple of days at a Georgetown hotel gathering the Peace Corps (PC) group together and being introduced.  While in DC Merideth and I were able to visit and have a nice dinner with niece Mickey Menard. There were fifty-seven of us in this PC group which is known as South Africa 24 or SA-24 because we are the 24th group of volunteers to go to South Africa (SA) since 1997 when Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton agreed PC would have a presence in SA.  The group mostly consists of recent college graduates with a smattering of us older folks and the makeup of the group is representative of the ethnic and geographic variety one would find in the general US population.  There are three married couples and about eight people over fifty.  The oldest volunteer was seventy.  Youngest was 22ish. Merideth and I are the only ones from Idaho.

From sultry and humid DC we flew to Atlanta where we boarded a direct flight to Johannesburg.  After 17 exhausting hours in the air we arrived here on July 8th as it got dark.  We are nine time zones away from where we started in Idaho.  When it is noon in Idaho, it is 9 pm here.
At the airport we were met by some of the staff from the South Africa Peace Corps office in nearby Pretoria which is the capital of the South Africa located about 30 miles north of Johannesburg. We then loaded our two bags each (up to 100 pounds total) into a large bus and travelled a couple hours northwest to Madikwe College, a small community-college type institution located near the resort Sun City.  Peace Corps was able to use the college facilities because it was during the school’s winter break.  Remember summer north of the equator means winter here.

Unloading from the bus, we were ushered into a large assembly hall where the Peace Corps training staff was awaiting our arrival.  This group included about sixteen South Africans who were hired as our language and cultural facilitators (LCFs) for the next two months.  The LCFs took the stage and proceeded to welcome us with a song.  Although we were exhausted from the long flight and shivering from the freezing cold in the unheated building, the magnificence and outright beauty of their singing was something none of us will ever forget.  This was our first taste of the singing tradition of South Africans.  In subsequent days as our training proceeded we were to experience this talent again and again in the schools and churches.

For the next five days we stayed at this site sleeping in unheated dorms rooms under a pile of blankets (it hovered at freezing overnight and hit about 65 degrees during the daytime), eating food provided by an Afrikaner catering company, and attending classes to introduce us to South Africa.  No cell phones.  No internet.  No leaving the grounds except when escorted in Peace Corps vans.  And we discovered that central heating of homes is rare. At the end of this week we were divided into language groups of four to six headed by an LCF (ours was Lebo), assigned one of four native languages to learn (ours was Setswana), and bused to a village north of Pretoria called Makapanstad.  This village is where Phase 1 of our community integration phase or pre service training (PST) was to occur.  

Upon our arrival in Makapanstad, we were matched up with host families who had agreed to house members of SA-24 for the next eight weeks. Our host family was Catherine Llale, a 69-year old widow with four grown children.  We called her Ko-ko which means grandmother.  She has a four bedroom house and off and on cares for her youngest son’s two young boys aged 2 and 4.  We were provided our own bedroom and right away got involved with cooking and other household chores.  The house has a small well (borehole) in the backyard and an elevated tank (a Jo-jo) that supplies water into the kitchen and bathroom of the house.  Out by the street there was a tap where my job was to fill 25 liter buckets and haul them into the house.  Because this water was better quality than the borehole water which was very hard, Ko-ko preferred that it be used.  In the back yard is a two-seater outhouse and a pit where all the household garbage was dumped and periodically burned. The bathroom and kitchen drainage goes to a septic tank in the back yard that only plugged up twice while we were there.  Our accommodations were average when compared to the other trainees.
For our required by the PC daily bath, we place a large plastic tub in the bathtub and using water heated in a 25-liter pail and a scoop, we stand in the plastic tub and wash.  It’s called a bucket bath and is not so bad once you get used to it.   It’s the way most South Africans grew up washing.
Makapanstad consists of about a thousand homes on more or less one-acre fenced tracts. Everyone seems to know each other with any news travelling through the village faster than imaginable.  The terrain is flat with grass and small thorny scrubs and trees.  A paved (or tar) road splits the village and provides the major route through the village.  All of the other roads are gravel or native soil (a red silty sand) and mostly ungraded and bumpy.  Random herds of goats, burrows, and cattle can be seen wandering the village roads.  Because of these loose animals, fencing is everywhere to enclose property and keep the gardens safe.  The village is governed by a tribal chief with the tribe owning all of the land and leasing the property to the tribal members.  .  It is rare for anyone to sell a house.  Instead homes are kept in the family.  Homes range from marginal one room shacks to elaborate brick homes one might see in an upscale US subdivision.  It’s wild.
In Makapanstad the villagers are all black which constitute about 75% of the South African population.  Afrikaners make up the next largest group at about 15%.  The remaining group consists of what are called colored which can be Indian or other mixed races. While Americans might be reluctant to describe someone by race, in South Africa it is not considered to be so politically incorrect. 
There are no street names or obvious geometric arrangement to the village which with the flat terrain makes walking to a destination a challenge.  The predominant form of transport for villagers in and out of town is the 13-passenger Toyota van which line up at the village taxi stand.  This is where the taxi fills with passengers departing only when filled.  For us in the PC the taxis will be how we travel since we cannot drive.  The fares are reasonable – it costs 11 SA Rand or $1.50 one way to ride the taxi from Makapanstad to the nearest shopping site.  Except for some small corner (tuck) shops, Makapanstad had limited shopping so we travelled to a nearby shopping center for items unavailable locally.  At the shopping spots there are modern malls with clothing, grocery, and other stores just like in the US.

What struck us immediately about rural South Africa is seeing people everywhere walking along the streets and roads.  For the ordinary villager to have a car and use it to travel for local errands is unusual.  Villagers might live in a nice house that has electricity, water available, a television with a satellite, kitchen electric range, refrigerator, and other modern amenities but still rely on the taxis for transport.  What are absent from village homes are central heating and hot water plumbing.  When it gets cold and it did for us in July and August, one sits in front of an electric space heater at night.  For hot water in the kitchen, one uses an electric kettle or heats water on the stove. 
At Makapanstad we started eight weeks of training called pre service training (PST) following a schedule from Monday thru Saturday.  Typically we would attend a class of our language group in the morning (starting out at 7:30) and then go to a class of our cluster (three subgroups) or with the entire group for medical, safety, history, teaching or other such instruction.  The non-language classes were conducted by existing Peace Corps staff or Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) that had designed this program prior to our arrival.  This involved a lot of sitting in classes all day which soon became a grind.  The day ended at 5:00 and after making dinner Merideth and I were asleep by 9 pm.

We were able to enjoy three Peace Corps trips during PST.  Our first trip was July 30th when we travelled to Pretoria to visit the Voortrekker Monument.  This shrine was built by Afrikaners on a hill overlooking the city in the 1930s to publicize mass migrations in the 1840s from the Cape Town area by the early Dutch-German settlers wanting to escape rule under the British.  The Voortrekkers travelled into areas inhabited by African tribes where they negotiating to initially settle in the Pretoria area where no tribes lived.  The Peace Corps wanted us to see this aspect of South African history so we could appreciate the past and present role of Afrikaners who are the descendants of these early white settlers.  Our disappointment with this shrine was that it seemed to blame the British for starting Apartheid and failed to discuss what injustices the Nationalist Party gradually imposed after 1948.
August 9th is a national holiday called Women’s Day celebrating a march on Pretoria in the 1950s by women to protest the Apartheid government’s plan to extend travel passes to include to women.  This march of about 20,000 women was one of the few instances when the ruling party, the Nationalist, reversed one of their racist proposals and has become the basis for this holiday.  Since this was a day off for training, PC arranged to take us in the three Peace Corps vans to the Pilanesburg Game Reserve located about three hours away.   We managed to see giraffe, wildebeest, impalas, rhinoceros, one elephant, warthogs, zebras, and alligators.  We did not see any lions since it was midday when they are not so active. At one point we stopped on the side of the road while several giraffes calmly walked across the road and we were able to snap  a nice picture which I'll send later.

The last trip we took was to Johannesburg to visit the Apartheid Museum.  This museum follows the struggle of the South Africans rid the country of Apartheid and secure democracy.  It has a large section of the museum dedicated to Nelson Mandela who came to represent the movement for South African freedom and was the country’s first President after Apartheid was abolished.  He’s revered here affectionately known as Madiba and has moved to live quietly in the village he was
born in 1918.  He’s the same age as my Mom.
The Apartheid Museum was great.  It reminded us of the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC in that it depicts to what levels of brutality government stoop to retain power.  In fact one of the primary designers in SA of apartheid was a student of the Nazi plan in Germany.  This museum deserves a visit by anyone coming here.

During our stay with host families the Peace Corp provides food to the families to supplement their normal food supplies since the families receive no compensation and are volunteering their homes during our stay.  In our house the PC food provided the bulk of the food supply with Merideth and me providing the balance of the needs.  The grandmother Ko-ko said she relies on just her government pension for support.

As volunteers the PC provides us with enough money for food, transportation, and other necessities.  It amounts to about $300/month.  Our rent is paid by our sponsors, the South African Department of Education.  All of our medical needs are covered by the Peace Corps.

Our diet is not too much different than that available in the US.  We eat chicken, green vegetables, eggs, potatoes, oranges and apples.  There are oranges trees throughout the village still holding some of last year’s fruit.  South Africans like to eat pap which is made from corn meal and is close to grits as served in the south but it is bland and starchy.  We have also been eating a lot of peanut butter sandwiches for lunch.  What’s missing are fast food or decent restaurants in the village and since we are not allowed to go out after dark we end up going to bed early and getting up at dawn.  When we get to a town, we might splurge by going to a sit-down restaurant.

Night time in some villages can be filled with party music coming from homes and shibeens (bars) playing loudly throughout the night wee hours. Funerals are frequent events that have widespread participation and involve the slaughter of a cow to be cooked and eaten by everyone.  The moon in the southern sky looks upside down.  The village dogs start to bark once darkness descends and only stop once it gets cold.  And then the roosters start to crow about three am and we are up at six for our bucket bath and off to training.

We are learning Setswana.  In this culture the traditional greeting is important.  When South Africans are greeted by Peace Corps volunteers in Setswana, it means a lot to them and gain acceptance.  For some of the older villagers it may be the first time in their lives a white person addressed in their home language.   We are required to achieve minimum language proficiency during training and had our final verbal exam last week which we both passed. Merideth has surpassed me with her language skills and together we hope to keep getting better.
Throughout the first six weeks of training none of us were given any idea of where we might go to live at the end of training.  Merideth and I knew that our language meant we’d only go to Setswana areas.  There are nine native languages in SA besides Afrikaans and English.  English is the official language and is taught in schools starting in third grade.  That makes it easy for us because everyone speaks English as a second language.  In the schools principals may want us to just speak English because learners (the SA name for students) are tested in English.  During training we had two or three interviews with the Peace Corps staff responsible for the placements but were kept in the dark about where we might go until August 19th.   SA-24 is involved with education programs and with each volunteer assigned to work with two schools in their village under the supervision of a school principal. 

Members of the previous group, SA-23, were assigned to community health programs and are working with a non-government organization (NGO) to implement AIDs/HIV projects.  The frequency of HIV positive individuals in SA is one of the highest in Africa and appears to be affecting family dynamics as much as chronic unemployment and alcoholic abuse is in the villages.  Both contribute to the common situation seen in a village where the grandmother ends up raising the grandkids.

The suspense regarding where we all would move to from Makapanstad for the next two years came to a head on August 19th when site assignments were announced.  However, before then Merideth and I had an idea where we might go because Merideth had put some clues together during our interviews.  First of all, we were initially asked if we would object to living by ourselves at a religious compound with nuns and priests nearby rather than living in separate quarters with a host family as is typical.  And later, we were asked if we’d be okay living in temporary quarters until December when an existing PC couple were scheduled to leave.  And finally two members of the training group were a couple who had extended their service for until December to be able to finish out the school year.  We were told on August 19th that we will be living for the next two years in a village about 1-2 hours from Pretoria (depending on your mode of transport).  For security reasons we cannot reveal the village on line.  Email us if you want to know.  We are permitted to name the village in a private email. 

Before we left our training village Makapanstad the Peace Corps threw a party for the host families.  The morning of the party Merideth and I got up early and helped with the cooking.  Someone had slaughtered a cow the previous day and while Merideth helped preparing salads, I helped to start the open fire pit over which were placed about six large cast iron pots in which we cooked pap (the South African staple), chunks of beef, and cut up pieces of the cow’s stomach and intestines.  Merideth ate a chunk of cow’s stomach and intestine which along with her previous eating of a chicken’s foot says to son Devin “match that!”  

Our sixth week of training involved a group of us attending a workshop with our school principals at the Orion Safari Lodge near Rustenburg.  We all thoroughly enjoyed the hotel’s hot water, showers, and buffets!  We then travelled to our new village staying with the Peace Corps couple we are replacing.  We were introduced at the schools and became familiar with the village.  For three months we will be living in a house in the village and then in December moving into the apartment vacated by the couple after they return to the US.   The apartment is within a Catholic mission facility where there are four priests, five nuns, a medical clinic, a vocational training school, a 750 learner public high school, and a 700 learner public primary school.  The mission was established in the 1930s with the two schools becoming public institutions at some point.  The apartment consists of three rooms (kitchen, bedroom and study) and has hot water with a shower – a plum by Peace Corps standards.  The only drawback is that baboons live in the nearby hills and if the doors to your house are not closed they will get inside and wreck the place.  We are happy about the folks we have met, the living arrangements, and this village.
We were sworn in as official Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) on September 8th.  The US Ambassador to South Africa Donald Gips and his wife attended.  The ambassador and his wife are from Boulder Colorado and are friends with Bruce Reed whose folks Scott and MaryLou are Coeur d’Alene icons.   The ceremony was really nice. 

We moved to our new village the next day.  We share a house in the middle of the village with a young South African policeman and his fiancĂ©.  The only drawback is that the village and municipal water supply has been experiencing water supply problems.  Our house has water from 11 pm until 5 am so we get up and fill some basins with water in the middle of the night.  With this we are managing.  However, no one seems to know if or when a solution to the village water supply might be achieved.  Once again water is important element to our life.  The good thing is that the mission where we will move in December operates with its own water supply which has not been affected by this water shortage problem.  We’re praying it stays that way.

The next three months are called Phase 2 training during which we will be figuring out our roles in these schools and start implementing the plan when the new school year starts in January 2012.

We hope all is well with everyone in the US.  Stay tuned for future entries which we’ll try to post monthly.  We'll try to add pictures next time.

And that's the way it was.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Here we go. First entry.

This is the first entry in the journal that Merideth and I decided to do to let friends and family follow us as we volunteer with the Peace Corps in South Africa.

First of all the blog title.  We were trying to think up a catchy name and one night I dreamed of one.  It comes from the introduction of Andy Rooney at the end of 60 Minutes.  Or at least that's where I think it comes from.  And "Garideth" is a combination of our names Gary and Merideth. (Thanks Matt Dunkle)

Our interest in the Peace Corps (PC) started a few years ago when Merideth was reading online about the Peace Corps because our younger son Devon was interested in joining.   She discovered that the PC wants volunteers who have undergraduate degrees and Devon had not finished college.  She did read that the PC had no age limit and couples could serve.  This started us thinking.  Merideth had retired from teaching in 2009 and I was planning to retire at the end of 2010.  We had talked in retirement about doing some type of volunteer work overseas so the Peace Corps seemed perfect.

We applied in January 2010 and had a phone interview with a Seattle PC recruiter who nominated us indicating we'd most likely be serving in sub-Sahara Africa.  Next came a couple of months of compiling our medical information which we submitted in late May. Since we were not going to be available to leave until February 2011 at the earliest, the PC postponed any further medical review until November when they informed us we were medically cleared. 

When the new year arrived we grew anxious about not hearing something from the PC in the way of an invitation.  We tried to be patient and avoid calling every week to ask about our status.  Finally, when we were visiting Florida in late February, the PC called with some final interview questions eventually telling us to expect an invitation package in the mail when we returned home to Idaho.  On March 3rd, we got the invitation package indicating South Africa was our destination.  We were pleased and accepted the invitation.  We are scheduled to leave Idaho July 5th. 

We will spend a couple days in Washington DC and then fly to Johannesburg where we will travel to a training area for eight weeks.  When we get done with training, we then will move to our permanent site where we will live and work for the remainder.  We are both going to work in some type of educational program.  More details on our jobs will be provided when available.

Since March we have been working to arrange our affairs in anticipation of 27 months somewhere in South Africa.  We have made arrangements for our house and all the other things that need our presence.  With auto deposit and auto pay, we can make certain all of our bills keep paid.  In the meanwhile Merideth and I have been staying active by taking regular exercise classes and working through a to-do checklist that seems to never end.

This week our son Rowan from Boulder CO and son Devon from Missoula MT are visiting.  They have both been 100% behind our decision and plan to come visit us during our time in South Africa.  They are both at such good points in their lives that we as parents feel very comfortable going to Africa.  Thanks guys.

During last several months Merideth and I have been telling people that we'd be sending them an email containing a link to a journal that will allow them to follow us in South Africa.  So this is it.  We will try to update our journal before we leave on July 5th and then whenever we get the chance in Africa.  We are both very excited about this opportunity and have received positive support and encouragement from every person we have told of our plans. 

The only creature that does not want us to go is our cat Zoe pictured with us below.  Anyone want a nice cat?

And that's the way it is (thanks Walter Cronkite).