Bitter sweet

Well here i am the last week of volunteering... i had some things i planned to write but i have now forgotten.
But anyway. i guess this last weekend i have just spent some time really reflecting on the past 10 weeks. Wow what an experiacne... if you are so inclinded or have ever remotely thought of doing something like this! DO IT!!!!! what are you waiting for.

Though this has probably been the hardest, most personally challenging, cluture thrown in my face..etc experiance in my life. I have also learned more about myself and other in such a short amount of time.

I have realized basically all people are the same. Teenagers are really ALL the same... :) we all cry, laugh, sing, dance... want to bond with others. yes there are wonderful peopel and crappy people everywhere you go. But it is the relationships with the wonderful people that really make the difference.

I will so miss my learners. We have had such a good time, teaching each other. Lots of laughs and hard work all together. I will miss fire side chats with my family. Smell of fire in the morning, i will miss the sunrise on my walk to school on the rocky, dusty road, the overly crowded (20+) people in a "taxi" when you are tired hot and everyone is bring back heaps of things back home... even that...

But i wont miss the blantant hitting on that happens when you are a female here. Sexism is a problem. If i am with a guy (volunteer) and we are walking around together... no one will approach you b/c it is assumed you are eithe r married or in a relationship. But since all the male volunteers have left or i am in town with my sister... Ish... men approahc every single time...
" My sisiter... hello... what is your name... where are you from... i want to see you again... what is your number... " i am not kidding this is pretty much how it goes. No, i dont feel unsafe or threatened.. b/c it is in day light of a busy town... but holy cow... guys give it up.
Nothing about my responces or body language gives you any idea i am interested... they keep on badgering at times... keep in mind many of these men are already married...
Yes i have had teachers at my school hit on me.. multiple times.
I have no come to saying ... "you can have my husbands phone number..." "What...oh i just want to be your friend... " ....sure that is what you want...

my sister was telling my mom and brothers many of these stories and my responces to them... we were all laughing and laughing... so i should say not all the men are like that here... like my brothers and many of the teachers at school are very respectful.

Those few that ruin it for the rest...

But as i said overall i will really miss Venda and how hard people laugh here and enjoy life, even when they have so little. I look forward to coming back to visit...

Like a proud parent

So i gave my first exam to my students. I have 40 learners in my class.. yes over crouding is a big problem. but i just finished marking the tests and all but 5 passed. I am so proud of them. they are definately getting it! I woke up this morning and realized in one week i leave Venda... i only have 3 days of class left! Where has all the time gone.



One of the things to get to learn about when you truely live with people is all the customs of the region. And one that happens here that is quite known is the circumcision ritual. Basically, what i have picked up on is that when a boy is 9-11 ish older boys who have done the ritual take the boys to the bush.

They dress in the traditional clothes and parade though the town roads, singing a specific chat... you hear them coming from a long distance away. then the go out into the bush. this is winter time and it gets down to freezing at night. they are out there for i think about a week... perform the task.. clearly things are not sterile ... and i cant image in the knife/blade is all that sharp. Ouch.

I know they are also taugh some secret saying or something so other men/ boys know if you have done the ritual... kind of a passage of manhood. There are other things that go on, but stories are vague. b/c it is very secretive.. if you are found spying you are beaten VERY badly.



My mom maria refused to let her boys do it.. b/c no surprise here, infection is a huge problem and sometimes can leaad to death. Maria didnt want her boys to die, so she refused and sent them to a medical doctor.

Mmm Brocolli

I have officially intoroduced brocolli to venda... well someone knows about it, b/c i found it at the grocery store, keep in mind it was the only head of it around. But anywho... i cooked up some stir fry last night and it was a big hit. My sister and brother love it! but everyone was coming over looking in the pan and clearly had never see this vegetable...
But my mom , maria, tried it and approved with two thumbs up of my cooking! yahoo. Doing my part to provide vitimins to the family... and they now want me to teach them how to cook it so thay can continue to eat it later.... :) It didnt even occur to me that they had never seen or hard this delisious green veggie...

Yesterday was my sister's 19th bday. So i cook her the stir fry and also bought a cake for her. and cooked more smores.. played lots of music and all of us were in the kitchen laughing and dancing for her birthday... let me tell ya... when the cake was brought out... all my brothers were so excited... "CAKE"... so much so Zwido in jest says... "christa... tomorrow is my birthday... my special day..." And i also think he had about 7 smores... ha... such fun.

The itsy bitsy spider...

Okay so not so itsy bitsy... this thing was easily larger than my fist... and it was in teh house! on the door to my sister's room. and i am not kidding you it freaked me out. I am not scared of spiders or so i thought... but this thing i was so freaked out. Thank god my brother , Zwido was there. he had killer aim with his shoe and killed it with one throw. Ahhh... this is why i need boys around.

Speaking of Zwido, he is 16, and cracks me up. he is always smiling, or singing, or dancing ... but can fix anything, the truck, the clothes iron dropped on the floor and broke, so he took it apart and fixed it! miracle... just overall quite clever.
Yesterday, i was out for a run and started by myself... and all of the sudden i am a 1/3 of the way in... "Christa!!!" and here comes Zwido... okay these boys have got to stop catching up to me... very demoralizing.. just kidding. I loved it so i had a buddy the rest of the way. I am so going to miss my Venda family. I have really been invited to be one of them... (sigh)

Ahh tea time with my teachers... have to run... Cheers everyone.
Oh thanks again for all of your thoughts and comments, great to hear from everyone. I think of you all often!

The fun continues...

So i am all better, feeling great and on my last leg, only 8 days of class left. I cant believe it. Time is flying. I do have to admit I have begun to think about some of the things i have missed from home... like driving my car, and green vegateble salads (becca you should be proud), a proper shower...

Everday i just love my mom, Maria, here more and more. I have found out she is a lover of animals. She has named all of her cows.. and the other day there was a slaughtered cow in the back of the buckie... i asked my sister.. oh is this one of our cows... "Oh NO!... mom wont kill her cows she goes and buys one, she loves her's too much" i just cracked up... I see Maria talking with them, so cute.
She is also very kind to the dogs we have. Most people here look at dogs as waste removal and an alarm system... and very dirty. So it is nice to see her be so kind to them.
She and i have also developed quite the communication system. Suprisingly enough it works well. The other day she was showing me how to cook the poriage. HARD work let me tell ya this woman is strong. we had a delightful time and had many good laughs out of the experiacne.

So the power was out ALL day in the entire area. So as night fell that is when it was really differnt. SO dark everywhere. we fortunately have the fire out back, so we all hung out there and laughed... i even had the stuff to make smores!!! So here i have now brought the american treat to them. It was a big hit... they loved it! Actually another request has been put in for them.

I have run out of books to read here and so i have managed to take some of the story books from the school to read. All are african stories and have been quite fun to read. Different story telling style and a much different subject matter. I have learned serveral cultural things from these stories... but my favorite was when one story described what they thought of white people when they first arrived... " fuzzy hair, skin that looks like in doesnt have enough blood, and noses that stick out like a bird beak!" I was cracking up...

Doctor Doctor... give me the news....

So yes, was very ill in northern rural south africa. And it is not fun trying to explain illness to people who english is their second language and disease isnt really understood. Keep in mind it is believed that if you are stung by a scorpion you need to find it and kill it or otherwise ... i dont know you hand will fall off.. and people still frequent witch doctors.

I went to the doctor and for $25 i saw the doc and was given heaps of drugs! i am not kidding like 20 pills a day.... i then drop the anitbiotic he gave me and took the stronger US version my dad sent me with... i couldnt hold out any longer the pain was a little too intense! I was tired of being in bed after 4 days... so thank you modern medicine.

Also, i am realizing what a blessing it is to have clean drinkable water. My house is lucky and has running water, but i have to boil everything i drink... and when you are sick and barely can walk... this is a real pain in the butt. But i survived adn i am probably a better person for it.



Oh also, god bless our house help. Yes i think i mentioned that we have house help, most people in SA do afterall. and she was amazing. Brought me hot tea and juice, bread and food, though i did eat much for about 4 days. BUt ahhh couldnt have survived without here.



Also this woman is amazing, she can get stains out of anything!!! i went hiking up a mountain here... a large hill for colorado people, and my shoes were stained red from teh soil... no need to fear WaPeggie, snatched them up and poof they look brand new. i am not kidding. She also pressed all of my clothes... ALL... including my underwear... that is a first for me. The house is cleaned everyday and the dishes washed... quite nice. So yes i have not really done much for myself in about 3 months. I do make my bed every morning, which i think is a first in my life...



As i mentioned a couple of the volunteers and i went for a hike last week. there is a moutain range... near us so we hike up. it was definately steep, but only about an hour hike. climbed up on some narly rocks... and also i am used to more of a worn out path.. well people have to hick up part of the hill with 10 litters of water on their head... so i dont think they want ot "recreate" up the thing any more... so clearly the path isnt used all that much. But wow the sight was amazing and had so much fun! made me miss CO.



hmmm what else. Oh so i basically think the school system is so out of wack it is insane. It is a damn miricle when these kids pass b/c they have 600 things working against them. First off they have ALL their test in english, but it is their second language and they have not nessicarily been taught it since they were kids so are starting classes in their teenage years. So here kids are expected to take a test in another language... which cover chemistry, math etc... so all their time in the test is focused on trying to just understand the question much less answer it... really unfair.
They work so hard and want to do well, but so much is against them.
Okay enough of my rant.

1st of the month...

The first of the month and the 15th of the month is when everyone gets paid around here. So last Saturday was a mad house in town! Basically, the lines at the banks and ATM are hours long and then once everyone is done there.. it is straight to the grocery store to stock up on food for the month. ( many of the wives like to spend as much of the money as possible, so then their husbands dont waste it on other things, like alcohol... this is what a local told me) I had forgotten that it was pay day and just made for an entertaining saturday...

I started off with a nice run in the morning on my usual route... out to a very distinctive tree and back. The usual. And then came home to get ready to go to town. So i went out to grab a taxi... as it stopped... i saw how paked... i mean overflowing with people the taxi was... i suddenly remembered... oh no...
Fortunatly i am not a big person... the guy in front open the door and there are already two guys and the driver up front... so they move on over and i hop in! the all four grown adults in the front, basically sitting on each other. As we are crusin along... a farmiliar song comes on the radio so of course naturally i begin to sing along. The 3 next to me all look at me in suprise then smile /laugh and join in! These are the things i love about africa!

Then i decided to go to the grocery store basically just to entertain me... it was a real zoo. so i got my usual 3-4 items and got in que with the rest of the town! it is so funny. Lines dont really exsit here. And if you are not on top of the person in front of you / being aggresive. Someone will come right on it front. But it dont really mind, b/c my personal space was destroyed weeks ago!

It is funny the things we find rude, like cutting in line, that are just a part of their life. Also the language is a very demanding language. Please and thank you arent used. So often when peopel translate , it is done directly so their english comes across as , in our minds, rude. But i have begun to realize it is not the intention.

One of the things this whole experiance has brought to light for me, is what being a minority is really like. And until you actually experiance it, you will never really know what it is like. And no offence to the white peopel in the US but you have no idea what it is like. And it is a feeling that you cant describe. But that is something all of the volunteers and i have discussed and i know i will remember that in my future experiances and being sympathetic towards others.