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Published: October 20th 2012
OK get ready for a bumpy ride! I have one hour to use my laptop on battery power before I take this on a flash drive to my shopping town, KwaMhlangawhere I’ll post it at the internet cafe. Yesterday afternoon we had a brief hailstorm and last night lots of thunder and lightning, and the power went out. I could finish one episode of Star Trek Next Generation and read a book on my Kindle. This was the quietest night I’ve ever had in SA. Some house(s) in the neighborhood can be counted on to have have loud driving house music, that lasts all night, really all wknd. Luckily, I sleep well anyway. The power is still out this Sat morn, but I CAN do my laundry because we have water. We were out of water for 6 days, I filled up my household pail from the barrels that Zanele, the 30-year old “last-born” daughter who stays with Martha. Not wanting to cart water for laundry, I waited until it came back and got right to it when I got home from school. Zanele said something about getting it done before it went away again. So after the first rinse, the water was gone again! It’s hard to tell what people know about why, when, the water goes out...there’s usually a shrug and “I don’t know, it just happens a lot.” But then again, there is information floating around via the neighborhood conversation, and I’m not part of that, and can’t understand the language(s) well anyway. Zanele had refilled her barrels at midnight because she had left a faucet open which alerted her that the water was back on. So she was prepared for having the water return for 12 hours and then losing it again. This has only happened twice since I’ve been here.
So the hailstorm reminded me of growing up in North Dakota. I’ve been recalling so many things that I’ve forgotten, and I think by running through them here, you will read about random things that I hope are of interest. (Photos of the village, school, my living conditions will come sometime) The weather and the sky here are like North Dakota. We’re not in our summer yet, but 2 weeks ago it was very hot and I remembered what it was like growing up with no AC in North Dakota. The sheen of perspiration all over. I have a fan which helps immensely, and I remember my Grandma’s tips about keeping curtains closed to keep the sun out in the day, and letting cool air in at night. Of course the tin roof, with no ceiling underneath it, heats up fast in the sun. It’s also very loud, louder than the rain on the metal roof of my Idaho cabin, because we had insulation and a wood ceiling under it. Oh yes, and there are mosquitoes like ND, but not so bad yet, we’ll see. I am not taking malaria meds. PCV’s in two areas are taking malaria meds. A woman in my age group had to leave her site after a month because the meds were emotionally unsettling. They apparently give people weird dreams, cause depression, etc. So Linda is on medical leave, staying at a Backpackers (a hostel) in Pretoria, until she feels better and then they will find a new site for her where malaria meds aren’t required. It is suggested we get the meds if we travel anywhere malaria could be a problem, and Kruger Park, where all the Big Five animals are, is one of those spots. The medicine we are given is called something like meloquinine...not sure..but there are other types of meds to take if that one is too hard to take. Can’t forget the wind which is so like ND. I have to hold on to some wire on the inside of my outhouse door, so that the wind doesn’t blow it open on me and I have an open view right across the street! Or I should say they would have a view…
OK, it’s quite obvious that living in my little home here would remind me of life in my Idaho cabin. Cell service that fluctuates from 0 bars to 4 bars is so like what we had at our cabin the last few years. Now the Idaho cabin has great service, good for when I go there by myself. I've had practice at making do with limited furniture, and cooking. And I am used to finding my way around in the dark. I lent the little camping headlamp which Roseann gave me to the man who was hooking up an outside light. Martha has been worried about me getting to the outhouse at night ( here it is about 1/3 the distance at my Idaho home) so she asked a man in the neighborhood to do this job. Even though it was getting late, he went home and brought back his tools and started. After working a while, he said something to Martha, who yelled at Zanele (people here holler at each other across the room, across the yard, from their cars...they are great hollerers!) I asked what he needed...a hammer! After he cut the wire to connect to my overhead light bulb, it turned out to be too short. I inspected the situation and saw a way to route the wire differently so it would be long enough. Ouma, Martha’s daughter who lives down the street, said...do you know something about electricity too? Well, I know that the shortest distance between 2 pts is a line, but I told her that I had helped my husband pull electric wire to wire our house.
Previous jobs...Holden Village and AmeriCorps are volunteer organizations which prepared me for the training in July and August (which now seems like years ago) There I was with the other trainees, many of them in their 20’s. People had opportunities to express their opinions at briefing sessions...and you have to be patient, considerate, open-minded, a good listener..you know the drill. PC training is a difficult job given the differences in ages, work experience, etc. in the group.
Working at the prison...here the similarity to my SA experience is cultural acquisition. When I started at the prison I didn’t do much for 2 months, I just sat in the school and watched the other teachers, wandering around talking to the clerks (inmates working at the school) about their jobs there. At the school here it’s the same, mostly to gain the trust of the teachers that we’re not taking away their jobs, and we can see what areas we would be most helpful in. But the thing is, it takes time to understand how and why things are done, and you can’t just ask questions right away, because you don’t know what you are seeing when you are seeing it.....At the prison things were done in peculiar ways, and later I would find out there was a security issue that made that happen. And you learn to think security after a while..along with the workshops and the 3 week training I went to later. So here I see things happen that seem strange, some things I ask about, others I will wait and see. Right now I’m trying to figure out why some people put large “cold drink” (soda) bottles out on their lawn. (about 1/3 of yards have lawn, the rest are dirt, some are cow pens, some have vegetable gardens) They fill the plastic bottles with water and lay them on their sides about 6 feet apart on the grass. Any ideas?
Other random things.. I am helping a teacher with the library. We just got lots of donated books, and she brings her English “learners” in to check out books. She looks at each book to see how long it is and decides a different checkout time for each. We drove to KwaMhlanga to see the public library, which was very small (had 2 computers, and 4 tables with about 10 people there) The librarian showed her the Dewey system, etc. and then explained that they are no longer checking out books. People have to come there to read. This is because people were not returning the books, or they were cutting out pictures to use in school projects. She shook her head helplessly. 2 observations: People really have had NO experience with books that belong to the public and the responsibility that entails, and the librarian has no idea what to do to educate people to use the library. Schools have the same trouble, the few resources there are don’t get used because “the learners will just destroy them.” Recalling my church library, gave me ideas for parties for responsible library users, and reading competitions that should teach the learners how to use the library. Another thing I’m organizing is the storeroom at the primary school so I can get the powdered tempera paint out of the boxes where they leak all over the textbooks and library books underneath. I get so dirty, I bought a large button down the front dress, and where my rubber shoes..and the other teachers and learners are aghast when they see how dirty I get. Have I told you that shoes are important here? The women have nice looking fancy shoes..I don’t think I’ll be converting them to Birkenstocks. Anyway, while moving around all that paint, it reminded me way back to junior high when I would help the art teacher with his summer art classes. I’d forgotten all about it, but now I can remember that store room vividly.
I have really enjoyed those moments when something from my past comes back so sharply, even hanging out the laundry, I remember my Grandma wiping off the metal wire with a rag. Is it because I have fewer people to talk to, and I’m thinking about so much, as I’m finding my way in this new place? I don’t know, but it is a gift to remember things from my past like this.
Time to go, I have used up the battery power, sorry it got long, couldn’t go back and streamline.
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Diane euting
non-member comment
Happy Birthday
Hi Carolyn, I hope you had a happy birthday! Was there some sort of celebration for you, or maybe they don't do that sort of thing there. I am enjoying reading your blogs...You are an amazing person.....Looking forward to hearing more from you! Love, Diane