Time for an UPdate. Things with school have been unusual lately. Strikes have kept my school closed for all but two weeks since the beginning of June. The three week winter holiday was thrown in there, but all in all five weeks of regular schooling have been cancelled so far. On June 1^st, I walked to school to find chains and a padlock around the gate and a sign warning people not to open it. I heard from my principal that men from my village and from the surrounding area were striking in order to get the government’s attention. Their list of demands was long but the main components included: paved roads, government housing and more access to water. She explained that they forced the schools in my district to close because it gave them greater leverage at the bargaining table as the government only really listens to protesters when the schools are involved. The strikers claim they are trying to improve their communities but they are causing more harm than good. Hijacking a bunch of kids’ education to achieve an end is such a noble strategy...

That first week they set up roadblocks on the only road to town demanding money to pass. Tires were burned and barricades were set up in the middle of the road so vehicles couldn’t get through. Me and the other volunteers affected laid low, sharing information with each other about what we knew and stories we’d heard. Peace Corps advised us not to go near school or engage in any discussions about the strike. The Peace Corps security officer was talking to the local police stations trying to get a handle on the situation and when it would be diffused. That weekend the provincial elections were taking place, and since there were going to be a lot of high profile government officials in the Northern Cape’s cities, the strikers amped up their tactics. They set up more roadblocks on the main highway that connects my shopping town with the city of Vryburg, rocks were thrown at cars, more fires and rioting.

 Peace Corps decided to evacuate me and a couple others, meaning they wanted us out of our villages before the elections began. Evacuation and consolidation are terms used in PC’s emergency action plan, put in place in case of natural disasters or political turmoil. The other volunteers and I used to joke about being consolidated alllll the time- if the littlest thing was reported in the news, we’d be like “Code Blue! better consolidate ASAP” to us it meant a party in town for a couple days while whatever “danger” we were in passed. So it was pretty unreal that it actually happened. I’d heard stories of vehicles being chased off the road by gangs of men at the roadblocks and other unsettling things so I tried to brace myself for anything on the morning I had to get to town. I made it fine, the only transport out of my village was with a taxi driver who was part of the strike effort, so they let us pass at the roadblocks without any issues. A group of PCVs and I were consolidated together that week and it was just as fun as we’d talked about. We posted up at our favorite guesthouse. It was like our own embassy, American ground, in the midst of the African strife. The newly elected officials promised the protesters they would begin construction work on paved roads on July 1^st, so the chains came off the gate and the fires were put out. School re-opened with five days left in the term, just in time for the students to fail their biannual standardized tests. The nation-wide exams are extremely difficult and without the two weeks of prep time before, there was even less of a chance for them to do well.

I came back to school after the break hoping the new term would get off to a fresh and functional start. That illusion was gone the following Monday when I again found the gate locked and an empty school yard. The government hadn’t done anything by the deadline and since there wasn’t even the pretense that the demands would be met, everything started up again. From what I’ve heard, it seems like men in different villages are banding together, feeding off each other’s energy, which is what is keeping them strong and resolute. The strikers burned a PCV’s school to the ground about 200 km from me, so it feels more serious this time. (Needless to say, she doesn’t live there anymore.) My school was broken into and the only two computers were stolen, all the school records and grades gone with them. There have been other reports of burning schools and homes--people have figured out that if something burns, they get attention and news coverage so it’s happening more often. I’ve heard they won’t back down until they “see the bulldozers” for the new roads.

To be fair, the roads in this area can barely be classified as roads. They’re sandy and rocky, they’re dangerous to drive on and it makes getting anywhere a very long process. The Northern Cape is like the province that South Africa and time forgot. It has the least people and it’s the least developed. I sympathize with the strikers’ desire for a better infrastructure, for basic needs that would do a lot to enhance their quality of life. To a certain extent, I can even understand why they are holding the schools hostage, because it’s the only way they have a shot at getting what they want. I just hate that it has to be like this, that so many students are missing out on many weeks of learning, that none of them are getting their daily school meal from the National Food Program, and that no adults seem to care.

To keep myself from going crazy with cabin fever, I stayed at another volunteer’s site for a while helping out at his school, teaching a couple classes and pulling kids out individually to work on literacy and basic reading skills. I’ve also been trying to get my act together with grad school applications. It’s a weird situation to be in. One of the only things that was constant in my life was school. Uncertainty is all around, but the one thing that I knew for sure was that I’d be going to school everyday. It’s not an exaggeration when I say I don’t know what’s going on the majority of the time. I’m always resisting the urge to make sense of the vast number of things that aren’t making any sense at any given moment. I never know what’s coming next, I have no idea who the ten people are in my host parents’ house, or if I can get a hitch to town, or how long I will be waiting for who knows what, or what that person is trying to say to me. But focusing on the things that are more structured, like school, helps me to deal with the rest of the chaos. I thought the school system was stronger than this and I thought education mattered more than this. Throughout the whole thing I haven’t felt particularly unsafe, but I know if things continue PC will probably want me and a couple other PCVs to move sites. I love where I live though and I’ll do whatever I can to stay, so I’m hoping things don’t escalate in a dangerous way and that school opens sometime soon.

In the middle of all that madness I had about the three coolest weeks a person could have. My parents came to visit! Because I was distracted with the strike, I didn’t really realize how much awesomeness was about to hit me in the face, it was way more epic than I anticipated. I got to Cape Town a couple days before they got there. It was great to have time to myself in an actual city, to walk the streets with a cup of coffee in my hands and pretend like I lived there. It didn’t hurt that Cape Town is one of the most awesome cities ever. My parents got there safely and I wasted no time getting comfortable in our sweetass apartment. We did all sorts of stuff- went on a wine tour, climbed Table Mountain, went to Robben Island, walked around the waterfront, went to a Rugby game, watched the EuroCup final, met up with a bunch of other volunteers and their families/visitors. It was great that they got to meet some of the people I spend the most time with. I have to say my parents thoroughly blew me away with their coolness- staying out late, buying everyone drinks, telling stories, game for anything. It was nice to talk and talk and talk, to explain about everything related to this experience and hear about what was going on at home. It was surprisingly normal being with them given the unusual environments we were in. I also got to feel like a kid again. I wasn’t alone and completely responsible for myself for a change… My mom cooked dinner, my dad made fun of me nonstop when I wanted to watch Real Housewives and other trashy TV—just like old times on their couch in Gainesville.

From Cape Town we flew to Zimbabwe and crossed the border into Zambia for a week. There was some sketchiness at the border and it took a couple hours for our comfort zones to expand to the run down streets of Livingstone, but once we got settled it was great. The first night we walked to the bridge of no-man’s land between the Zambian and Zimbabwean borders to watch the full moon illuminate Victoria Falls. That was around the moment when I realized how sweet the next couple days were going to be. We went on a game drive in Botswana for a day, a river safari on the Chobe river, walked on trails around the falls, got to go right up to the edge, went on a booze cruise on the Zambezi river, rode Elephants through the bush, saw so many animals.. It was awesome for me to see other parts of Africa, I wanna travel through this whole continent. I’m looking for applications for travel buddies so if you’re interested holla at me ;)

Our next stop was my room, the center of the middle of nowhere. It took us three days of traveling to get there but I am so glad they came. I was kinda stressing about it beforehand, worried that it would be difficult to bridge the gap between the two very different cultures. But my parents and my host parents got along so well so easily, my worries were for nothing. Kindness knows no nationality, the goodness in everyone’s personalities broke through the language and cultural barriers. As corny as that is, I’ve watched it happen over and over again. I’ve lived with five host families in three countries on two continents in three languages, and every time I’ve gotten lucky. We made dinner together, walked around, visited school, played cards, shared pictures. We took things slow and simple which is the only way to be in the village. They handled it all really well. I feel more connected to both sets of parents now, but especially my real parents who understand my life about a million times better now that they’ve seen it for themselves.

I dropped them off at the airport in Johannesburg and for once it was me watching them go through the security line instead of the other way around. They started their trip with a couple days in London and ended with a couple days in Iceland visiting my brother and sister. (I missed the part when my parents became such jetsetters…)  When it was over, I was ready to get back to my less action packed life. I was grateful that everything worked out, it was so great they could come.

Something else that’s made me happy lately is that my hair is slowly getting back to normal. To my complete confusion, my hair started falling out in January. It took me a while to realize what was going on. To realize that my hair had lost a lot of its thickness, that its texture had changed and that more than a normal amount was falling out every day. My first thought was that there was something missing in my diet, some nutrient or vitamin that I wasn’t getting enough of.  PC’s medical staff shot that down. They said that would be the case only if I was severely malnourished, which I’m clearly not. I went through a bunch of ideas, something in the water, my birth control, heavy metal poisoning of some kind etc, but the medical staff kept saying it was due to stress. They assured me it would most likely all come back at some point, even if it took a long time. One of the medical officers told me she’s seen hair loss in all four Peace Corps countries she’s worked in and that many volunteers lose their hair to varying degrees due to the stress of their daily lives. This seemed like a lame answer to me, hair loss seemed so extreme. I felt like there had to be some specific cause or chemical in my body causing it, and I just wanted someone to tell me what I could physically do or eat to fix the problem.  

I got my blood tested in SA and again during my visit in Florida to check for serious health issues, but thankfully they all came back negative. Stress seemed like the only answer, and the only prescription I got was to stop stressing. Funny thing is, it’s pretty hard to stop stressing about your hair falling out when it won’t stop falling out. It sucked waking up every morning to clumps of hair on my pillow, I could feel it getting thinner and thinner. I stopped brushing it altogether, washed it less and less, whatever I could to stop the mass exodus of hair. It made me realize that I’ve taken my thick healthy hair for granted my entire life. At the worst point, I lost about 3/4 of my hair. Fortunately, I had A LOT of it to begin with so it wasn’t too noticeable. No one could really tell unless I told them because I lost it evenly all over.

 It also played into this fear that I’ve had since I started PC, that I’m exposing myself to random health risks that will manifest themselves later in life. Messed up I know, but africa’s got the strange disease category on lock and my mind makes up some crazy thoughts sometimes. All I wanted was for it to grow back sometime in the future, even if it took a year or two. I got over it after a couple months though and around that time it stopped falling out in big amounts. Last week, for the first time in seven months, I brushed it! It’s not as thick as it used to be, but it’s definitely getting there. When it’s back to normal, I will add it to the gigantic mega huge supersize list of things I won’t take for granted again.

A couple other things that stand out recently: The West Wing is the greatest show ever created in the history of this universe. (Maybe the Curiosity rover will find out about some awesome TV shows on Mars but til then it’s West Wing 4 lyfe.) I’m about to finish the last season after many nights of pretending like everyone I know is wonderfully well-spoken and intelligent and works in the White House. The Colorado shooting made me sad, and also made me think about what it must have been like to be a Peace Corps Volunteer on September 11^th. It’s not comparable but similar feelings of American solidarity were evoked.  I’ve heard people say that living abroad constitutes a rejection of the US on some level. For me the truth is, living away from the States has given me a fierce and unique brand of patriotism that will never go away. Which probably has something to do with why I love the Olympics so much. I’ve been reading all the updates and watching how the medal count doubles as the “I’m the world’s superpower” race. Hoping the soccer girls can pull out a gold medal... Alex Morgan, marry me. I remember watching their World Cup match against Japan when I first arrived in SA last July. Some hints of controversy surrounding the amazingly talented Gabby Douglas remind me that it’s not only South Africa that has serious race issues. It’s all too easy for me to think that I come from this post-racial society and that the racial tensions I experience in SA don’t exist at home. But the truth is, the US still has plenty of work to do. Overall, I think international sports competitions help to ease racial and cultural tensions. It’s idealistic but it makes me happy to watch the world come together over incredible displays of human ability.

That’s all I got for now. I always start writing a blog with the intention of making it wayyy shorter than it becomes…