Been here a year now

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Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written...

It is Term 3 already, it’s almost over in fact.
<ul style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal">Gr 12’s are working for their Trial Exams in all their learning areas this September so I am busy trying to cover all the Maths topics.<li class="MsoNormal">I become incredibly tired by this point each term.<li class="MsoNormal">I am considering extending my service so that I will be with my classes the entire school year of 2014 as well. End of year exams are in November each year.



I have been here over a year now.
<ul style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal">Our SA26 groups will meet next month at Pretoria for our mid-service health/dental exams and additional training.<li class="MsoNormal">Today our regional group of 6PCV’s (3 education, 3 health) are meeting at Kwagga (shopping town where the Roman’s Pizza is) to say farewell to Sharon Minick who is leaving tomorrow. (It is called Med-sep; to terminate your service because of health..... Her health issue is not a result of anything from being here, though Sharon has had bed bugs, and a parasite in the digestive tract previously. She has struggled with some things here...she has realized how much she really likes the First World !!! and there has been some cultural disillusionment. She was thinking of terminating her service sometime in the future, but the Med-Sep brought her departure early. I will miss her so much. She is in her mid-60’s with a wicked sense of humour.<li class="MsoNormal">Her departure brings our group down to 26 volunteers from 44 or something. I don’t keep track of these figures well. One important figure is that Susan and I are the 2 “elderly” volunteers remaining. Susan is far away in Kwa Zulu Natal. I travelled through Lesotho with her. There is one more older woman health volunteer I hope to see more of this year. It’s a question of getting our communication to work...neither of us have reliable internet from our village so we are slow to initiate and respond to communication which of course makes planning difficult.<li class="MsoNormal">PC’s Health Handbook includes a timeline called Cycle of Vulnerability and Adjustment. There is a dip at 12-14 months into your service which is described as the time of acceptance (honeymoon is over), emotional issues are fitting in, withdrawal, disappointment, and the tasks: maintaining connections (my apologies to all on that), developing compentency, beginning to feel normal



Here are three situations which illustrate : “What is this place all about? “Am I crazy to continue here?”

· For the first year, we Mpumalanga province PCV’s have furnished our rooms with items donated from schools or host families. The provincial Dept. of Ed contracts with PC to pay rent to PCV’s host families and provide furniture. They always drag their feet...After 9 months the rent payments began..but still no furniture. Volunteers, school principals, PCV staff made phone calls and sent emails. The district sent a woman to visit my room and write things down on some form. All a show, no results.... In July, the Peace Corps decided to go ahead and purchase beds and wardrobes for us. Yippee! and you will see pics of my room soon.

· The maths teacher at Sele has been on maternity leave for 5 months. After 2-3 wks, a replacement, Johannes Kgomo, was hired. He has been here for 4 months and has not been paid yet! He’s a young man whose family lives in Kwagga, but he rents a room here to reduce his travel expenses. He missed two days of work this week, and another teacher said it was because he doesn’t have any money. He couldn’t afford to renew his car registration a month ago, I know. So apparently he is scraping by with money from other sources and continuing to teach in the hope that the Dept of Ed will pay him sometime.

· Kameelpoort has been without water for TWO months now. It’s all politics, surprise, surprise. I will try not to sound too bitter about this...I have pictures of villagers waiting patiently in line to get water. I have done everything I can to conserve...kind of a challenge which of course I go for. (Back in the early Idaho log cabin days we were given a subscription to Mother Earth News, I believe it was called. It didn’t have much useful information, and we didn’t continue the subscription. One article was about how to open a feed sack with the little string at the top that unravels if you start it the right way...anyone know what I’m talking about? I remember an article titled something like “Taking a Bath with a Football Helmetful of water”) I am trying not to burden my host family with getting my water, so I give treats to two boys to wheelbarrow water from the school to my home once or twice a week. (The school has their own water supply) The story I hear is that our village has been receiving water from one municipality, Thembisile Hani, while Moroka municipality is to pay for the water. It’s possible that the previous water cut offs which were for 3-7 days at a time were also because of their difficulties...but now the T. H. municipality has stopped the water permanently because of non-payment. They say they are “negotiating” this now. I hear this word often on the radio. Unions, government officials, they all negotiate. And nobody holds them accountable for the suffering they cause. After the water had been out 2 weeks, the Moroka municipality placed plastic water tanks called JoJo’s around the village and now they send a truck to fill them. Villagers wheelbarrow or drive up with their water storage containers. At first the JoJo water supply lasted 4 to 5 days. But this got shorter and shorter, until one day the tank was filled in the morning and was empty by the end of the day. So a water culture has formed where people find out when the JoJo is filled and drop whatever they are doing to get in line with every container they have. If the JoJo goes dry, people leave their water containers lined up in the road to keep their place in line for the next time.

To sum this up: There is no concept of proper management for equitable, efficient distribution of basic services. Not an easy fix...possible reasons might be found in an article called “Cry, the Beloved Country” (from the name of an excellent novel) found in the Oct 20-26, 2012 The Economist magazine. (an excellent magazine Sharon has introduced me to)

The bullet format seems to help me keep my thoughts in order while writing this. Is this another indication that I am adopting South African ways? People here love to make presentation the priority..underlining neatly, and making title pages. This is really not me at all. It’s another interesting thing I am finding out about myself while I work and live here. I am not interested in making things look good, as my shoes attest to daily, here amongst fashion-conscious South Africans.

I had one more thing to share which I found in the Peace Corps magazine. A list of the top volunteer-producing colleges for 2012. For the first time, there is one state at the top for all three categories of schools. For large schools, University of Washington; for medium schools, Western Washington University, and for small schools, Gonzaga University, Spokane. And for those of you Lutherans from Holden Village, the 2^nd school for small schools is St Olaf in Northfield, MN. I thought many of you would be interested in this information.



After Term 3 is over, I hope to get to organizing photos for more blogs. Stay tuned. Maybe I can report that the water has returned by then!!!!

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Comments

[Roseann]

Water
Hi Sweetie, Your blog made me thirsty and longing for a bath. What a horrible state of conditions. Blessings to you as you continue to serve. Love, Roseann

[Cynthia Hosick]

Sending positive vibes your way.
Wow, Carolyn, you are really experiencing the nitty gritty of village life in Africa! Obviously PCV's have to make do like everyone else. I do commend you for hanging in there under really trying circumstances. I'm sure even your good letters don't even come close to conveying what it's really like! Hopefully I'll be going back to Kenya mid-December. Shompoles and I shipped 14 big boxes (about 2 tons, literally) of books, school supplies and toys to Kiserian last spring, and they are now stored in Shompole's office. Several more big boxes are on their way and we should be able to collect them from Nairobi when we get there. The school has one classroom of 4 operating now with about 7 or 8 pre-schoolers, and the shelves are being built for the library/technology room. When we get there, I'll be in charge of getting everything unpacked and put in order. More kids will come in next term, I'm sure, once the word starts getting out about the books and supplies (Shompole is taking over old surplus laptops, which he restores and will put in the library room). Almost no one has, anywhere, anything like this except in high class private schools. We're pretty excited about it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we go. Shompole has been back twice since we all went together, but Lorna can't go unless she has good caregivers to take care of her residents here while she's gone. Our summer plan came to naught in part because of that. Santa Lucia Academy is still just a little start up school, but because it's a Shompole project, and it's in town one their property serviced by their well, electricity and internet access, there are not the problems like there are in the rural Kenya villages -- the same kind that you have down there! I'll be eager to see your next photos.