The opinions expressed are mine and do not reflect the positions of the Peace Corps or the US government.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

August 30, 2014

Got-It-In-One quote from one of my counterparts, Nozipho,"You (volunteers) walk so much you don't even know what color your feet are."

Came back to site to find that my host family is putting in a bathroom. As earlier noted, everything here is extremely labor intensive. What is done in the States with at the very least rented equipment to dig trenches for pipes is done here with picks and shovels. Earlier this month they connected the bore hole (well) to huge jojo tanks that are on top of a building to provide gravity flow pressure and to the main house. Now they are putting in a bathroom, which means pipes for the waste water. the septic area so far is a huge square hole, as deep as a person is tall. Yesterday the goats found it and had to be lifted out. Today construction continues. Over and over the things we take for granted are shown to be just that - things we take for granted, not necessarily the way life is in many other places...

September 14, 2014

So many things running through my head to share. Where to start?

Volunteering. It's not a common concept here in Swaziland. People keep marveling at PCV's who "give up" our lives for 2 years to help them. Even from home, people say they admire what we are doing here. I feel a bit like a fraud. Yes, day-to-day living conditions here are much less convenient than at home. But - what I get in exchange is so very powerful - life changing, you might say <grin>. Just like teaching, I feel I am learning and getting in return much more than I give. I see people whose courage and determination provide motivation for me to go on. I run into cultural differences, sometimes get hurt - and I also touch lives that I may not have ever had the opportunity to touch anywhere else. I'm sick a lot, and that concerns me - hopefully can figure out what is going on with that since it also affects my attitude.      My counterpart asked me if what I am doing here is enough - I asked for clarification, and she said, 'enough to keep you here.' Yes. Things go more slowly than I would like, in unexpected directions, in unexpected everything, as a matter of fact. Sometimes I wonder...

Who's this woman
inside my skin
whose life evolves
with slips and spins?

What are her dreams?
What shapes her days?
Just who is it
Who guards the maze

Where she pursues
her truth each day?
Stumbling to
unearth the way

One thing comes clear
Though answers blur:
The guide's within
She's me; I'm her.
        9/12/14

Kruger National Game Preserve was an incredible experience. A 5 day trip, though 2 were travel days. We stayed in a campground on the Sabie River and went on game drives (several) each day. I did a bush walk (with armed guides). It was another world.  Still working on pictures. Mine need a lot of work, and Robbin will share hers. When I can, I'll post them.

One of the best parts of the trips was that we got to be our stateside selves - not PCV's carrying heavy packs and being stared at. It was glorious and much needed.

The campground at Kruger had a restaurant with outdoor seating, and a wooden walkway,  both overlooking the river. Robbin, traveling companion par excellence, and I would get our morning coffee at just light, then walk down to watch day break over the river. The quality of light would slowly sharpen to soft clarity. Animals would be grazing, strolling along and into the water. Hippos slid into the water without a splash, then blew water at each other. Buffalo drank, steenbok and impala munched grasses. Storks flew overhead in formations, a graceful line sweeping and curling across the sky. Swallows dove and swooped in an every changing airshow. Quietly we watched. Peace. One morning I opted out of the drive and sat writing in my journal and observing. A troop of baboons made a run for the condiments on the table, grabbed something and then were run off by staff. Cheeky chumps, those baboons.

One day we stopped on a drive for some lunch. The tour included a bunch of 18 and 19 year olds, mostly girls. Several girls made sandwiches and sat at a picnic table. A troop of baboons rushed them and grabbed their food. The girls ran shrieking. One male baboon then sat at the table, calmly munching his stolen meal. The girls thought that was so funny they wanted pictures, so they started walking towards him with their cameras. What do you s'pose? He felt threatened, so he rushed them again. The guides had to throw stones and brandish sticks at the troop to get them to leave. Eish!

The drives were incredible. We saw lions (at a distance), a leopard (also far away), cheetahs, uncountable elephants, zebras, giraffes, impala, buffalo, steenbok, a couple of ostriches, crocodiles, hyenas, kudus, baboons (of course), monkeys, hippos, rhinoceri (is that the plural of rhinoceros?) and lots and lots of birds including eagles, storks, vultures, canaries and spare fowl.

Safari - I looked it up - means seeking out animals in their natural habitat to film or shoot. Guess we were on safari. It seemed so - many things. One was safe. As I stood on the wooden deck overlooking the river, I felt like I was on the edge of safety, civilization - but still apart from the daily life and death struggles in front of me. I saw the beauty, the peace, the calm, not the predators who must kill to survive, nor that prey that must escape or die. It made me think about Disneyland and how whole generations of Americans want to see dangerous worlds without being in danger. I know that any of us could have done something ridiculous, like try to pet the zebras, and gotten seriously hurt. But...

Some things I learned: Kruger is bigger than Swaziland (which is about the size of New Jersey) and is fenced. The only "clearing" that has been done here has been done by the elephants uprooting trees. The Big 5 (lion, leopard, buffalo (what I think of as water buffalo), rhinoceros, and hippopotamus) are so named because they are not likely to attack humans, but if they do either the animal or the human will die. Giraffes eat 16 - 18 hours per day. Angry elephants make a terrifying sound (a sort of screaming roar). Hippos grunt. Hyena scat can be white from the bones they eat.

We saw dazzles of zebras, journeys of giraffes, clans of hyenas and troops of baboons. Dazzles have great senses of smell and journeys can see great distances, so dazzles and journeys hang out together as a symbiotic method of detecting danger as early as possible. Zebras "cuddle" - face opposite directions and place their heads on each other's backs. That allows them to see in 2 directions for danger and to use their tales to keep insects off themselves and each other.

Even the vegetation was incredible, and I saw a vine that had wound around a trunk, then grown very long while still light and thin enough to be blown up to a very high branch. Ah, life...

Vine twines
up the trunk
curls and twists
thrusts up and up

what does it seek
so high, so high?
is it alive?
Or did it die

Despite the height
The dizzying flight
To reach the branch
so close to sky?

        ~9/4/1 Kruger


As we sat in our safe vehicles, high above the rivers, looking at the hippos, eyes and noses only showing, and the crocodiles visible only by their noses, eyes and small wakes, or else in a heap on shore, I remembered that Chris Korbulic and his kayaking group would sit in small kayaks or on shore observing the same kind of scene. My understanding and admiration for their courage increased unbelievably as I imagined myself in their place, seeing those innocuous looking, potentially deadly sights. I wonder how you did it, guys...

Life here, pre-Europeans, must have required an intricate and delicate balance with nature, a dance of life and death similar to that of other animals. How does what is here now compare?

1 comment:

  1. Hello!!!! I have just received an invitation with the PC and would like to talk to some returned PCV about their experience. As someone, who is there volunteering at the moment, I thought I'd contact you for your thoughts.

    I'm a bit on the fence about it to be honest. I have already volunteered a lot (including tutoring refugees and one summer in Europe) and currently have a teaching job here in the United States that allows me to spend my summers abroad if I so choose. So that's one option. However, the Peace Corps is another. I am trying to weigh the two - both experiences are beneficial.

    Would you be willing to send some thoughts on your experiences? (I have read your blog) Would you make the same choice again? Would you recommend Swaziland as a post? Frustrations? Best experiences? I understand that each experience is different, but I would like to hear your thoughts the same. It is important for me to hear from the people who were actually there vs just the PC recruitment staff.

    Thank you!
    Sunny

    ReplyDelete