What’s it really like? July 14, 2013

I’ve now been with my host family for almost 2 weeks, so the overload of everything new is beginning to sort itself out. In 2 more weeks I’ll get a phone, and hopefully will have more than just sporadic internet after that. For now, we’ll make do with my skills at giving you visuals through words.

I live in what other PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees) refer to as “Posh Corps”. My room is spacious, there are carpet pieces on the cement floor, and I have electricity, a chair, a double bed and a small dressing table. Even the outhouse is clean. Of course, we all haul water, then boil it to wash and filter the boiled water to drink. None of us have heaters in our rooms, which get pretty cold at night, and my one light barely lights up the room. Bucket baths have become a way of life, and washing hair is a major luxury since it must be done early on a sunny day, and our time is pretty well scheduled for us. The dogs, pigs, roosters and cattle provide background music, and twice already the tap has gone dry, once for 4 days. I still had water, but it definitely cut back on cleaning and doing laundry.

My family is wonderful – we interact often enough that I believe I’m building trust, but there are enough spaces in our time together that I don’t feel crowded. They are helping me learn the language, and seem endlessly patient with me.

The roads are – words escape me. None of the roads out here have names, and are red clay, eroded into interesting shapes. There are no bar ditches to direct water, so use your imagination. To find where another PCT lives, you meet the person and follow her/him to her homestead. Even with directions, it’s most confusing, since some of what looks like road turns out to be driveway. But most homesteads have fences and gates. Also, the way is as likely to be a path as a road.

Most of the places I’ve seen have gardens and/or fruit trees, as well as livestock running loose most everywhere. That would be chickens, geese, turkeys, an occasional pig or 2 and some cattle. My family has 5 options for cooking: in the fireplace or outdoors with pots on 3 legs which come in a variety of sizes, using the wood cookstove, the electric range or the electric two burner. They haul water, too, and everyone bathes twice a day. I dread it because it gets so cold. I have it somewhat down: top half first, dress it, then bottom half, but I think we all have our own methods.

Peace Corps is easing us into cooking for ourselves (which starts next week) by having a week with 2 cooking activities. First we planned a typical Swazi meal, shopped locally (which meant asking around for which Gogo (grandmother) is selling what). There are also the equivalents of corner stores, with limited goods, within walking distance. We found fresh sugar beans, Swiss chard, a chicken and beets. The store had curry powder, and one of us had some onions. We were good to go. Then we were allowed to shop at a bigger grocery store, and today we made American food. Yummmm! We competed in groups, and our group won prizes – mind was an amazing looking little device that looks a little like a top, and is used to juice lemons and oranges. Yes!!!

Language continues to be a big part of our training, and also a real challenge for me. Ah well, I just keep plugging away, and hopefully it will all gel at some point. The letters are what we know and use, but the sounds are different, and the structure of the language is very different, which makes life most interesting.

This week we are going to visit a school (I get to go to the high school – YES!) and to the chief’s residence. We’ll also be asking our host family members what they do each day. I expect it to be most revealing.

I started with What’s It Really Like, and truthfully – I don’t know! There’s still so much to absorb, to incorporate into my new normal. I’m most grateful for my camping and river skills. I know how to look around, see what needs to be done, and find out how to do it. I’m pretty good with faking it, hooking up my propane stove and keeping things tidy so I can find them again. For all of you who helped me gain those skills: THANKS!

My challenge to you: If you had to write a blog about What’s It Really Like for your own life – what would you include? Exclude? Why?

It’s Harder than I Thought: July 11, 2013

“Leave your expectations at home!” we were advised. So I did. Yeow! I had no idea… Peace Corps has integrated volunteers for more than 50 years – they have it down. They toss us in the water, but make sure there are people and lifesaver rings around to keep us from drowning. Then, slowly, support withdraws. Every now and then I realize I’m not in a pool, but in an ocean, and take on faith that I really will be swimming before long.

Our days are chockfull. Language classes are the most intense, especially for me, since sometimes I think my brain is just a sieve. I hear and repeat and write and use and hear and repeat and still forget. Fortunately some is sticking, and that gives a place for more to stick. It’s just much more slowly than I would like. Tonight I’ve been re-writing my notes so I can find what I need more easily, and practicing with flash cards.

In addition, there are classes in safety and nutrition, and hands-on lessons in all kinds of skills, including composting (building a compost pile, rather than keeping an ongoing compost pile for food scraps) and permagardening. The soil here is like Oregon red clay, so I hope to bring home some of the experience many of you already have.

We’re on our own for breakfast and lunch, and with stores as we know them out of our reach, I’m making do with what the Peace Corps gave me and what I can get locally. Today we sought local food for a meal we will make tomorrow; that consisted mostly of talking to each other and other groups of students (our group has 4 students, one thisela (instructor). We found a live chicken (which someone will kill for us, but we will have to clean), beans, fresh beets, green peppers and rice. The emakotapeni (avocados) are just ripening and we didn’t find any, though a couple of days ago I bought a couple of not yet ripe giant ones for about 20 cents) each. Yummm! I hope to be able to cook for my host family soon.

Classes start early (between 7:00 and 8:00) and end in the afternoons – sometimes not until 4 or later. Then it’s back to our homesteads to do chores: haul, boil and purify water, do dishes and laundry, clean our homes and ourselves, interact with our host families. And though the days are sometimes warm, nights are cold without heat. Add in that we are in a foreign country where we are surrounded by language we don’t understand, in a culture that could take our actions as offensive no matter how we mean those actions… We’re adults, with others structuring almost all our time. Yep, definitely harder than I thought.

All of my energy seems to be going into just learning and surviving; it feels like all work and few rewards. Then it hit me: this is how people who are making changes in their lives feel. Sometimes overwhelmed. Sometimes as though no amount of trying can be enough. Sometimes as though the goal is invisible.

So, of course, the next questions arise: How can I

• Reward myself?
• Use this experience to understand and communicate with others?
• Enhance my teaching skills?
• Build self-confidence by looking at what I am learning and accomplishing?
• Give myself credit for what I have already learned?
• Pay attention to what I am feeling and realize my students will be feeling this way, too. Then discover how I can acknowledge, honor and address that experience?

Just recognizing how daunting these changes are helps. I’m more positive now than I was this morning. The answers will come with time, and framing the situation as a learning experience I can use also helps.

I know I’ll be swimming on my own soon; all I have to do is keep working as hard as I can, pay attention and allow my friends and family to support me. Oh yeah, and breathe.

I'M HERE - MICHELE'S FIRST POST FROM SWAZILAND

I’m Here – July 2, 2013

It’s been less than a week, and today I moved into with my host family, headed by Make (pronounced Ma’ gay) Mahlalela (see Makhosazana for pronunciation). There are many sounds in SiSwati that we don’t have in English, and my attempts to pronounce them are surrounded by laughter – mostly mine and a bit from those trying to teach me.

Our days have been crammed full of classes on everything from safety to language. It is humbling to discover how quickly those in their 20’s learn and how much longer it takes me. It’s hard not to compare myself to the best of them and to realize how short a time I’ve been here. My self-confidence is a bit shaken, for sure, add fears of “Can I do this?” abound. Turns out I’m far from alone in these fears.

The land is beautiful and surprisingly not unfamiliar. Another stereotype bit the dust: Africa does not look like my storybook images. In fact, it’s not all that different from Central America. Certainly the roadside stands would be at home in both Mexico and Guatemala. The buildings are different, since some are round (mine is a hexagon with cement floor and walls and a roof of peeled log struts, wooden slats covered with corrugated roofing). Another PCT said the landscape would also be at home in southeast Asia. Poverty is poverty?

As in other third world countries, this is a study in contrasts. There’s a modern mall not far from where the two lane pavement turns into packed dirt over which busses lurch and sway, carrying people to smaller roads that lead to homesteads.  I am in a community so small that when I googled it (even on Google Earth) the result was a “cannot find” message.

My home for the next 8 weeks boasts electricity and a tap for water not far from my door. Everything is most clean, despite pigs, chickens, at least one cow, and dogs. It also has a bed, chair and table as well as a dressing table and bedframe, so I can stash my luggage and other things under it. PC provided a two burner propane stove, fuel, bare minimum of cookware, a water filter with bleach to add to the filtered water, first aid kit, mosquito net (which isn’t needed since it’s winter here) and an assortment of buckets and plastic tubs. Now to figure out how it all works best for me.

For those of you drinking well water, you have my total envy. For those complaining about the taste of city water, try this: Get your water by turning on a tap and using a hose to fill a couple of buckets. If you want wash water, all you have to do is wait 3 days. Or boil it. However, if you wish to drink it, boil it for a minimum for 10 minutes (be careful it doesn’t all boil away), cool it enough so that it won’t break the ceramic filters, then pour it through the system. Make sure the screws holding the filters in place aren’t too tight (water has to get through) nor too loose (you don’t want them to leak). Wait forever. Add a few drops of bleach and you’re ready to try it. Blechhhh! Tastes dreadful! But at least it’s not full of little nasties waiting to take up residence inside us. Be grateful.

This experience is such a mixture of yearnings and blessings. I feel very safe here, though I do lock my door at night when I’m inside. I go out and look at an unrecognizable sky, stars bright, bright without the light pollution of our towns. There’s so much I want to know, and inexhaustible amount of knowledge on the internet is tantalizing close and yet unattainably far- at least for now.

Time melts. It’s nearly 10, and mornings come early. G’night.

Contact Temporary Change

Just had a quick email from Michele.  She indicates all is going well. Internet time is VERY limited to a couple of minutes.

She asked me to post that her tmplr address has been blocked for some reason.  So she is asking friends and family to please contact her through her chelbar address.  If you do not know what that is, please email me for information. maggie AT maggielynch DOT net.

Hope to have more to post at a later date.

For a bit of color, I thought I'd post the Swaziland flag and information from Wikipedia about it. I intend to use this as a focus for thinking about Michele and the next eight weeks of study and culture adjustment she will be doing with a host family.

The red stands for past battles, the blue for peace and stability, and the yellow for the resources of Swaziland. The central focus of the flag is a shield and two spears, symbolizing protection from the country's enemies. Its colour is meant to show that white and black people live in peaceful coexistence in Swaziland. The flag is based on one given by King Sobhuza II to the Swazi Pioneer Corps in 1941.  On it is an Emastosha shield, laid horizontally. The shield is reinforced by a staff from which hangs injobo tassels--bunches of feathers of the widowbird and the lourie. They also decorate the shield. Above the staff are two assegais-local spears.