hellloo :)

I’m here! It’s greaaat. Don’t know where to begin.. there’s too much to say but i’ll just start writing and see what comes out.

I got to DC on July 5^th and realized once again how much I want to live there in the future, that city is too cool. We were there for two days, meeting lots of people and dealing with logistical things and such. Flight was good, arrival was good. We spent the first four days in country at a college campus that was way nicer than I expected it to be. I think they didn’t want to shock us too badly right off the bat. The best part was the monkeys walking all over the campus. I thought it was hilarious every time I turned a corner and found myself staring into some inquisitive monkey eyes. Lots of info, lots of hanging out.. it was a nice transition before we officially started training.

There’s 56 PCVs in our group, which is called SA24 -cause we’re the 24^th PCV group in South Africa. Everyone is normal and cool, interesting to talk to, up for some serious adventures and fun to be around. Not that I expected otherwise, but you never know. I hoped for a couple people I would feel comfortable with, but I got many more than that. The first couple of days were really great for that reason cause there were so many people to get to know. I was constantly laughing and genuinely enjoying every conversation I had over meals or tea or late at night... it made the transition between leaving home and starting this new life really good and not very scary at all. 90% of the group is under 30 (most people are like 24 but there’s a few straight outta college kidz like me), the other 10% are retired and in their 60s. Of the 56, one of the guys graduated from UF two years before me, one of the girls was a Rotary Exchange student like me, 2 others went to college with two people I went to high school with, and one girl is good friends with a very good friend of mine who I met in South Africa last year. On top of that, 4 of us speak German fluently. All of that makes me feel like this is where I’m supposed to be. We’ve already started to build relationships that I know i’ll need to rely on when things get rough. We’ve had crazy awesome dance parties, good discussions about everything under the sun, impromptu jam sessions, star gazing sessions, soccer games, yoga and running workouts etc—all the ingredients for solid friendship foundations. We learned we get a good amount of time off to visit each other once we’re at our sites and additional time to go on trips together, so naturally the planning has already begun. Some of us will even live relatively close to each other since Peace Corps organizes our sites in clusters (from 5 to 15 people in a cluster) around a town that we can all meet up in. It’s nice to have a support system, jumping into the abyss with friends by your side is easier and wayyy more fun than doing it alone.

4 days after we got to SA, we moved to our training site, a village called Makapanstad in the North-West Province. We’ll be here until the first week of September, after which we’ll be placed in a specific site/village for the next two years. Makapanstad is pretty rural, not much development besides houses and shacks and the occasional bar. There’s cattle and other animals wandering along every path and there’s dirt/dust on the ground and in the air that’s causing my allergies to act up like it’s their job. Orange trees, lemon trees, trash scattered all around, makeshift fences and gates, alarm clock roosters, barking dogs, constant catcalls/crude remarks/marriage proposals directed at all the female volunteers, kombis or taxi vans speeding along the one paved road, and people walking around greeting each other are the normal sights and sounds of the village.

 Here I met my very own African grandmother :) Her name is Gogo Joyce and she’s made me feel really comfortable in her home. Grandmothers here are called “Gogos,” and they are by far the most badass members of South African society. People do not fuck with Gogos. We were told to befriend old women wherever we go because they’ll look out for us, make sure no one messes with us or tries to rip us off. Joyce is always smiling. She’s super helpful with my language skills, always teaching me words and phrases, patient even when I ask her to repeat things over and over. She gave me an African name: “Lerato,” which means love in Setswana. All the Africans I’ve met and befriended call me by my new name. She laughs with pleasure every time I introduce myself to her friends and neighbors as Lerato, I can tell she likes showing off her new American granddaughter.

Last weekend one of the guys threw a party (there aint no party like a Peace Corps party) at his house and we all had to ask our host moms and Gogos for permission to go. Some of them wanted to know Josh’s family’s name and address… flash back to middle school sleepovers haha. It was a little silly but nice to feel cared about by these African families who have voluntarily opened up their homes to a bunch of foreigners.

Gogo Joyce is teaching me how to cook! My parents told me I couldn’t come back til I learned to cook so I decided it was time to give it a shot. The food here is decent enough. During part of training we’re taught how to cultivate our own gardens which I’m really excited about. I’m almost looking forward to cooking for myself for the next two years (gasp). There are a couple reasons for that: Clean water and properly cooked food are a real issue for some of us. To drink a glass of water I have to: boil water, let it cool, filter it through a brita filter, and then drop some bleach in it, leaving me with a “clean” bleach-like tasting cup of water for my drinking pleasure. To brush my teeth, I have to boil water. To do the dishes, I have to boil water. To wash a piece of fruit I want to eat, I have to boil water. Never in my life have I thought so much about clean water- I already know it will be a central theme of my service. This makes cooking food much more complicated as well. Some PCVs’ families are not as sanitary as mine and it sucks worrying that everything you eat might make you sick. The point is that it will be nice to get to our sites so we can control what we eat and drink without offending anyone.

A couple of us are planning to contact MTV about making a cribs episode, Peace Corps SA style, since our living situations are so pimped out. Some of us have inside toilets (the chosen ones!), some of us shit in holes in the backyard, some of us have showers, most of us take bucket baths (i’ll let you imagine that one.) It can all feel pretty crazy. Sometimes I feel like i’ve time traveled back many decades. But it’s nice to live simply and cool to know I’m reducing my carbon footprint considerably. Taking a bath is quite a process. I have to build a fire outside to heat the water so I’m not taking a cold bath in the cold (it’s winter here and the mornings and nights can get prettttty cold.) The first time I did it I laughed to myself thinking “what the hell am I doing building a fire outside in the cold in Africa just so I can take a bath?? how is this real life??” but people can get used to anything, and it’s one of the many foreign things thats starting to feel normal to me.

I’m learning Setswana! It’s one of the more widely spoken of SA’s 11 national languages so I was stoked about that. About 3 million SA people speak it as well as all of Botswana’s population. We were broken up into smaller language groups of 4 or 5 and nearly every day we have lessons with our language teachers. It’s overwhelming but i’ve got the basics down. There is soooo much more to learn but having short conversations here and there makes me feel like I’m retaining a good amount of it. There are a couple of crazy sounds that I’m trying to master but I know it’ll take time. Meeting white people who can speak Setswana is not an every day occurrence around here. Some of the people I’ve met have never even spoken to a white person period. (Race and SA’s complex national history is a WHOLE nother humongous topic that I will save for another day.) Speaking the language well is extremely important… half our battles will be about building relationships in our communities and getting people to trust us- learning the language is the fastest way to integrate myself. Mandela’s words can explain it better than mine: “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, you will speak to his mind; if you talk to a man in the language he was born speaking, you will speak to his heart.”

We’ve also had a couple of school visits at different schools in the area to introduce us to the South African school system, making like 7 visits in total. I’m at a middle school that is pretty run down .. some kids don’t have chairs to sit on, no electricity, nothing on the walls, no flushing toilets (that’s pretty standard for everywhere though), a serious lack of teachers, lack of funding for basic school supplies and many other problems. However, there are a couple of teachers who definitely know what they’re doing and a good amount of students who want to learn. No matter what a school physically has or doesn’t have, I know it’s the teachers and students who will make or break my experience so I’m just hoping for the best later on.

In addition to language lessons, all the PCVs and training staff meet up nearly every day at a building in the center of the village to have training sessions about all the things that will affect us for the next two years: how to stay healthy physically and mentally, illnesses we need to watch out for, HIV/AIDS, sexual assault info, safety and security in general, race relations, what life at our sites will be like, teaching methods, the South African school system, the system under Apartheid, South African history and politics.. the list goes on and on. Sometimes my brain goes into overload mode and I feel like I can’t absorb one more word, but I’m impressed with how well organized and informative training has been. We’ll never actually be ready for what’s coming at us, but our awesome training staff is trying to at least make sure our villages won’t kick us out immediately..

I got internet on my phone last week which is soooo great cause now I don’t feel so disconnected. I can email friends and family, read the news, BBM anyone that has a blackberry like my mama :) text other volunteers here, etc. I find it funny that I had to move to Africa to get a smart phone for the first time haha but no complaints. It’s nice- I don’t feel so far away from home anymore.

Overall, life is real good. I’m very happy to be here with these people doing what we’re doing. It feels surreal about 10 times a day and i’m sure that’ll continue for a long time. There are moments when I feel SO high on life and others where I wonder how exactly I’m going to live here for so long. I recognize how incredibly much is waiting for me, how much I have to learn about this country, about Africa, about teaching, about race, about Setswana, about myself, about LIFE. I’m in no rush to learn it all at once as my schedule is pretty wide open for the next while. For now it’s about having as much fun as possible, and taking each day as it comes.

I’ve left out lots of things but I’ve already written a novel so I’m gonna call it quits for now. If you made it to the end, ke a go rotloetsa (I congratulate you). Hope you are all happy and healthy and lovin’ yourselves some summer days.  Drink an ice cold AMERICAN glass of water for me :)

Peace and love peace and LOVE.