Let me take a moment to check my attitude at the door…

A phrase I haven't uttered since PST, although I felt it's resurrection necessary given my moodiness these past few weeks.

With less than two weeks left in the term I am trying to keep life in perspective.  For starters, it’s rather confusing to acknowledge that it is nearly December. What with the fact that it has been in the 90s, and “sweating profusely” has become my normal state of being. I am simultaneously welcoming the break with open arms and honestly terrified of it.

And like most things here, time easily molded into delicate folds of origami waiting to be tucked somewhere as a token representing a particular period of my life.  It is now officially the start of break. I spent the last two weeks trying to pull the school calendar together and solidify as much as I could in preparation for the coming year.  While seven weeks feels like eons of time, I know that before I know it will be January, and I’ll either be accustomed to the still silence of an empty campus, or will be anxious for it to be brought back to life with the sounds of laughter and school bells. 

November was very good to me. It showed that friendships had deepen, my language had developed and solidified the sense that I am in the right place.  Although I was extremely anxious about it, I was able to launch my student council, which I am also extremely excited about.  It took over a month for me to put the right signs together to communicate it’s purpose and persuade the students I had rendered as leaders to want to be on board. While I do not currently have a counterpart at the school (another teacher per say) one of my best friends here, Sokuhle who teaches sign in Manzini, and is a real role model to the students, has been able to come here and help me explain it to the students and communicate it’s significance. For the time being I have six students who I am going to begin providing leadership training to.  This includes how to run meetings, setting an agenda, writing minutes, and public speaking. However, part of the responsibilities we’ve discussed include how they are going to be role models to the younger students. The concept of “setting an example” is not the same as the one I grew up with, and so I’ve had to think carefully about how the group should transform, be legitimized and what role exactly the students should play. Thankfully, they are super excited and really liked the idea of building skills. I was worried at first as Sokuhle and I listed the responsibilities and expectations that they would back out. However, I am truly lucky to have Sokuhle, as he was very encouraging of the students and articulated that we were there to support them. I am intrigued to see where things go in the next year. For the time being I bought them all little notebooks to write their ideas in, so I have a glimmer of hope that they’ll think of something over the break. 

In the past few weeks I feel like I finally stopped feeling like a Mlungu (foreigner).  This is also evident in the realization that I am beginning to forget that I stick out like a sore thumb, and am the cause of many double takes.  This is mainly due to the fact that I feel like part of a team here at the school, and have been slowly chipping away at multiple language barriers.  It’s an incredible thing when you realize that people have chosen to trust you, and that the respect you’ve worked hard to exhibit is being reciprocated.  I was honestly a mess back in July when I first moved in with my host family and stuttered along through the syllables of siSwati.  If you could have told me that I was going to be as happy as I am now, PST would have probably (… maybe) been a lot less miserable, and full of anxiety. The fact is, I feel so fortunate to have made the friends I have, and that I was able to feel comfortable enough here to let my guard down enough to learn to laugh again, rather than feeling constantly on edge. We all joked that it was the mefloquin (malaria prophylaxis) that was making us paranoid… but I think it was just my brain rapidly trying to process everything that was around me.

For Thanksgiving we were all invited to the Country Director’s house for delicious kudla. It was really nice to have the opportunity to hang out with my fellow PCVs and some of my favorite food. I was a little bummed at first, because that meant pulling me out of school during the last two days of the term, and year. I knew that when I’d return the following day, most, if not all, of the students would have been collected by their parents or bogogo.  It reminded me of the end of the first summer when I bawled like a baby after my campers were picked up… these silly kids always weasel their way into my heart.  It was a pleasant surprise to see that a few were still here when I got back. I had arranged a skype date with my family (the first one in 5 months!) and I had just logged on, when they came out of the dinning hall, and the older girls filed into the teachers lounge… I don’t know how they find me sometimes. It was pleasantly fun. They hung out during the skype date and got to “meet” my family, and I interpreted as much as I could. It made me incredibly happy to see these two worlds kind of collide for a little while. They even gave them sign names, which was neat. I think in some ways that described my experience here far better than me just rattling off what I’ve been doing. 

This next week I’ll be back at IDM (where I spent my first two months here), attending a training in which we are allowed to bring a counterpart with, and talk about program design. 

We interrupt this programme for a breaking news update: The storms here are incredible, and I am thankful that they tend to occur in the evenings, when I am safely indoors tucked beneath my snuggie. You know it’s intense when the wind makes it through your closed windows. Usually I get tired of the lights flickering and end up chillin’ by candlelight. Also, I discovered that with enough force the rain also makes it's way through the door... so I had a lovely pool forming in my hut... oops.

Anywho. 

Other than that, I don’t really have much else to share… save for some gems I’ve been gathering for a few topic-focused posts.  But that’s for another day.

Insert Creative Title Here

I’ve now been in Swaziland for over four months and it feels like home. I am in love with my site. The students are incredible, and the teachers continue to be supportive and a good source of laughter.  I feel as though I am really part of this community, and that has really helped in my settling in. Although I’ve only been living at my new home for two months, it feels like I’ve been here much, much longer (but not too much long).

One of my favorite things about my site situation is that I live in an apartment next to pretty much all of the bothishela that live at my school. This means that in the early evenings, or after dinner I can spend time chatting with their families, gathered around the TV watching Generations (anxiously awaiting the terribly intriguing plot twists…), and sharing the occasional meal.  I have made it a tradition that once a week I cook for my counterpart Sanelisiwe and her family. It has been a really nice exchange, and makes me feel like part of a family, and Sanelisiwe enjoys learning new recipes and sharing food, so it generally works out. Most importantly I feel like a real person again, in other words, I feel like myself again.  Zinhle and I used to joke during PST that we weren’t real people, because we felt that we couldn’t act the way we would naturally, as we were trying to adjust to a different culture with different social expectations, while the same time feeling constantly like we were on stage wondering whether the audience was going to laugh with us or start throwing rotten vegetables. Thus, I spent much of PST honestly anxious, and uncertain. However, now that I feel more comfortable here, and understand when a joke is being made, and when I need to quickly exit stage left… I can laugh with the audience instead of feeling laughed at. It’s honestly quite wonderful.

So where am I going with this…?

Sanelisiwe has a daughter who is five years old, and at the age of being super curious and wanting to participate in everything.  She was sitting on a bucket in the kitchen and I decided it would be a great idea to take a piece of my hair, and drape it across my face above my lip, and below my nose, making a silly mustache. This sent her into a fit of giggles. Sanelisiwe then turned around (although she was in the middle of cutting some chicken), and burst out laughing. This has become a defacto move if ever I feel I’ve walked my way into an awkward moment or if things start getting too serious.  Sanelisiwe has also been extremely wonderful in making sure I’m doing okay, inviting me along when she goes into town (hey, she even stopped the car long enough for me to snag some pictures of a few giraffes), and not letting me miss out on the incredible VoetKoeks at Shopprite. That’s a quality friend right there.

The other teachers have also been extremely welcoming, and what is neat is that the Head Teacher suggested that I do little workshops with them in the mornings before class, focusing on topics such as mental health and wellbeing. This has been a neat project to work on, and a great way to become part of the team. We just completed In-Service Training (which was a crazy two week reunion…) and upon my return to campus several teachers came up to me and told me they had been bored in the mornings because I wasn’t there to teach them. The Head Teacher told me yesterday that she is going to change the schedule a little bit, and have classes start later in the day so I have more time in the mornings for my workshops. I am very excited because my latest topic is Goal Setting and Planning.  I think as many of you know, I enjoy a little structure in my life… and the school has been without a school calendar, thus, things sort of just happen, or they sort of don’t.  In thinking about the projects I wanted to start, but being unable to follow this schedule intuitively, (as I feel the teachers here have a sixth sense of knowing when things will happen…) I offered to help make a calendar. I am SO excited. Seriously. I had the teachers generate a list of ideas of things they want to do next year… clubs they want to start, programs they want to develop, and fun activities even for the teachers themselves. They came up with an incredible list. I then asked them to write their name next to the activity they’d be interested in working on, and was pleasantly surprised that EVERY teacher signed up to lead an activity, and some even signed up for multiple activities. I had been really stressed that I was going to be the only one starting projects, and that I wouldn’t have any support, so anything I did would just fizzle out upon my departure. Now I feel like even if some of the things still don’t actually happen, the teachers are learning the skills to program activities in the future.  I’m having them write up little plans for these activities so that we can give each other feedback on how they can best be carried out.  Some teachers even came up to me and said they were excited for 2014. This with the break in two weeks is really encouraging. 

So where might you also find me?

Begrudgingly (although, admittedly, I am enjoying it now…) I was placed in charge of the library operations at the beginning of this term.  It’s been a love/hate relationship for sure, but I’m now at the point where I know enough sign to communicate “library clean please now close” quite effectively. Other students also tend to follow my lead and help me tidy up, and ask each other to wrap-up and go. The other day, however, had me questioning what on earth I had gotten myself into.  It was the third or fourth day of rainy, cold weather, and it just so happened to be pay-day. This means that the teachers were excused from class so they could go to the bank. However, what I didn’t factor in, was that all of those kids, that would normally be in class, would be free, and want to remain in doors because it was unnecessarily cold outside. Therefore, my 11 person library class quickly expanded to 20, then 40, and before I knew it I had over seventy students crammed into the library, which is half of the entire school. Me and 70 students. For all you camp counselors out there, that’s a pretty terrible ratio.  I kind of forget where I was going with this, but I think for as much as my blood pressure went up during the two hours I spent in overseeing that many children as the library was pretty much bursting at the seams, it made me realize that for starters, I really can never guess what I’ve gotten myself into here, and secondly, that despite that horrible ratio, I must be doing something right, because the library closed in a relatively orderly fashion, and I’m glad that, despite my better judgment, I agreed to work in the library this term. It has served as a means through which I have really gotten to know the students, and figure out what role I want to have within the school. I think many of them have incredible leadership potential, and if I didn’t spend 15 or so hours a week hanging out with them in the library, I might not have been able to see that, or know how to communicate with them as well. I also made two checkerboards out of cardboard, and that has been a big hit.

This past week (as noted above) we were brought back together at our original training site to have “In-service Training”, it was much more difficult than I thought to tear me from site, and as I walked through the school gate I had to hold back tears, because I realized how much I was going to miss everything about the school for the next two weeks. While I do think it has been a nice break, and great to catch up and learn more skills, I am looking forward to being back in my house, sharing laughs over tea and chasing the pre-schoolers around pretending I’m a lion.  I think this means I’m integrated.

School holidays begin in December, and although I’ll miss the students, I am looking forward to having time to work on some of the projects I have started to develop, and practice my SiSwati. There are a few vendors in town that I am looking forward to hanging out with. I got super excited because I saw a “South Africa” version of “Monopoly” in Shopprite at a reasonable price and bought it immediately. I then proceeded to march proudly through town clutching the game like it was a long-lost teddy bear. As I strolled through the Bomake market my pal Mavis saw me and exclaimed, “Bongiwe! Can I play that game with you?” after which she promptly stated “I will beat you”, and I remarked “Challenge accepted”.  It’ll be fun to spend a couple days playing monopoly in the market (although I am sure my game will become a little rough around the edges), and hey, I’d say that’s a lesson in financial literacy.  This moment, along with many others that I now cherish, are why I am enjoying this experience so much. This is truly the most incredibly opportunity I have ever had.

I am also excited because I am now a Co-Director for the GLOW Camp that occurs annually in the April/May school break. GLOW stands for “Girls Leading our World”, and the camp counselor in me is pumped beyond belief. It is also exciting because Zinhle is the main director, and I like the other volunteer who is the other co-director. It’s going to be a really fun and enriching experience. 

Well, I think that’s a reasonable summary of October for now… every once and a while I pause and am awed that I am where I am, doing what I’m doing, things no longer seem so foreign, and I can easily see how far I’ve come since the end of June, which is a pretty neat feeling.

Until next time,

Salani Kahle. 

A sign that I'm aging...

I just posted the same post... again... and have no idea how to delete it... oooops.

Behind the Scenes: The making of “Bus Twister”

Today (Note: This entry was written on September 27th) was exceptional. A leading indicator of this was the presence of a marching band that casually strolled through the Matata Bus Rank, in full ensemble, brass instruments braying, trotting to the beat of the giant bass drum. Peacefully watching this scene from the bus windows, I could not have imagined that an hour or so from then, I would be uncontrollably laughing at a stesh in Zinhle’s community (which I shall henceforth refer to as “Candyland”).

We had entered the big bus destined for Candyland well over half an hour before it’s scheduled departure time. All seats were already taken. No big deal, we’d just stand in the aisle, and cling to railing for dear life, just as PST trained us to do.

Soon we were packed in like sardines, so much so that there actually wasn’t any space left on the floor to move my feet. I was trying to position myself so that my backpack, or shopping bag wouldn’t knock anyone unconscious.  Then the umholeli decided we could fit more people.  Already there were probably 60 or so people on the bus… not including the various packed in between the seats.  At this point I’ve been pushed maybe 8 or so rows towards the back of the bus, a way from Zinhle and Futhi.  There I stood crammed between some increasingly irritated passengers, trying to smooth talk my way with “Ncesi, Make, ncesi”.  I thought there was no way we could possibly human tetris ourselves into a more condensed space. Woof, was I wrong.  And the umholeli was being craftily strategic. Soon I was back-to-back with Futhi, with Zinhle chillin’ on my right. We were our own Bermuda triangle of Peace Corps Volunteers.  I was also growing increasingly irritated, as I truly appreciate and value personal space, of which there was none, and snarked, “Look, here we are together, it’s like herding cats.” By this time there was probably an additional fifty or so people sandwiched in the aisle.

By the time the bus finally inched its way out of the busy plaza in Matata (home to a Super Spar… that had a plethora of drool-worthy groceries…), we had already navigated through a string of seriously redundant conversations (the kind that would normally be found amusing, but do to the unnecessarily close quarters, were now rather irritating…)  “Why are you here?” “What are your names?” “I want you to marry me”, “Oh, you speak siSwati!” “You don’t know enough siSwati! I will teach you.” Not to mention the fact that I spent five minutes tolerating a baby kicking my butt (literally), and Futhi almost lost an eye as a glass panel nearly made contact with her face.  By this time, barely a km into our journey, we were all reaching a breaking point.  (I may or may not have ranted in German for a couple of minutes… much to the enjoyment of Futhi and Zinhle).

Zinhle reassured us kakhulu that the bus was never ever that crowded and that it was usually a pleasant ride. Sure. Of course, mmhmm.  We concluded that life is just crazier at the end of the month. I mean people did just get paid.  And marching bands always draw crowds of people… Right?

Then it dawned on me… How were we going to get OFF of the bus… Well… I mean, it was obvious, we just needed to climb over like fifty people in time to scream stesh at the top of our lungs and hope that the bus stopped… Easy as pie.

So fifteen minutes-ish into our journey, Zinhle and I said our goodbyes to Futhi… as much as we could given the movement restrictions, and began the trek to the front of the bus. (We had roughly 20 minutes until her stesh).  Thus, “Bus Twister” was born… Right foot lunged over a toddler, left hand clutching bags, bags also held up by another passenger, right hand  on seat in front of you, left leg pirouetting.  Seriously.

By the time we rolled off the bus, all we could do was laugh. Uncontrollably.  Another umholeli decided we still needed to pay 10 rand… false. Despite showing him the ticket stub, he was not convinced, but our un-amused faces changed his mind.  The icing on this tumultuous cake was the visual experience of seeing a man peeing in front of the bus, before the bus continued on its merry way.

We stopped for a second, so I could get a drink of water, and I lost it. I full-on snapped a garter (that’s for you Katie D, and Jack!) In other words, I entered a state of laughing hysteria, at the stesh, in a community I’d never been to. I felt bad for the people standing nearby, whom I later was introduced to… they were Zinhle’s host family… I LOLed for a solid ten minutes. I calmed down, but only briefly, when we paused to ask how long the bus took to reach Nhlangano… and burst into laughter again when we were told Futhi was going to be on the bus an additional 3 hours.  3 hours.

If I had a personal bubble here in Swaziland, it’s been burst beyond repair. 

I apologize whole-heartedly for all the feet I stepped on today.

Sweet mother of a tortellini sauce-wad.

--B

The Rules of Bus Twister

Players: there is a minimum requirement of 100 players. Any less and it doesn't count.

The goal of the game: to get off the bus at your stesh.

Bonus points awarded when:

-you get insulted

-if you stand on one leg for more than 5 minutes

if you don't hit anyone in the head with your bag before the end of the ride

-you get more than 3 marriage proposals

Trump card: if you were transporting eggs and they make it out whole by the end of the journey you become the default champion of Bus Twister

Sample Situations you might find yourself in while playing:

-right hand on bar above, left hand on baby's head, left foot two rows down, right foot hanging aimlessly in the air, bag on top of gogo

-right arm holding baby, left hand holding eggs, right foot in between someone elses', left knee up against seat, with the guy next to you proposing

-both hands on railing, left food wedged under a seat, right foot trapped behind someone else, butt kicked by baby, head positioned awkwardly, close to someone's armpit

*Some PCVs were mentally harmed in the making of this game.

Warning! Playing bus twister may result in hysterical laughter

Life on the Plateau

I'm currently enjoying a hybrid swazi and american meal. It's a hybrid because instead of lipalishi (or 'Pap' ... porridge of the corn variety) or rice on the side, i've thrown in some spaghetti mixed with the chicken stew I just cooked for my counterpart, Sebe. What's amusing to me is how used to customs I am (dare I say finally?) becoming. The language here is pretty direct, and often requests come as orders or demands. So at 3pm this afternoon when Sebe declared 'tonight you will cook for me' it was easy to just smile, and say 'sure thing, I'd love to'. Sebe, along with the other bothishela (teachers) have been an amazing support system for me over the last few weeks. And I feel much more at home here than when I was timidly peeking around my door, trying to figure out how I'd make any friends. I broke the ice pretty easily through sharing some chocolate muffins and no bakes with my neighbors. I've been both exhaustingly busy and bored out of my mind. Vive la Integration (I probably used that phrase wrong) but so is life.

I've been helping Ruth with computer lessons, teaching her the fine art of googling, and the magic and wonder of copy and paste. I also enjoyed a 2 hour hike with the computer, agriculture, and PE teachers. I am also pretty impressed with how I've been handling the heat. Although I'm on a plateau that experiences a 5 or 10 degree difference than hotter parts of the country (and offers an INCREDIBLE view when I take a kumbi out of town) it is still sweltering. Today, I was about to head into town when I was intercepted by the head teacher. Being the noob that I am, I was not carrying an umbrella to protect myself from the sun. It was rather sweet, she asked kindly, 'as a mother' for me to wait to go to town until it gets cooler.  What made this action all the more justified was the fact that someone had died of heat stroke in town earlier in the day.

I'm also slowly beginning to find my place here. This was super challenging in the beginning, there's so much already at the school, so on the one hand I wasn't sure what I could bring to the table, on the other hand, it didn't take long for me to feel like two years is way too short. In one of the meetings held before school started the bothishela mentioned their interest for providing *we interrupt this message with a breaking news update-- I now am more frequently eating with my hands...* facilities for mental health. I began thinking about how helpful the 'wellness wednesdays' were that my sorority sisters wrote while I was in undergrad. One thing led to another and now I'm doing 'wellness workshops' every morning before class starts. The goal/hope is that the bothishela will begin introducing these topics to their students, and that after they get an idea about it, they'll co-facilitate with me. But for now it's been a pretty awesome experience. I've started on 'time management' and this morning was a huge success. It was all about organization,   and as a take away, I said, 'remember, the world's universal currency is time. Like money, we can borrow, lend, spend and save it. How is yours best used?' ... And a hush fell over the crowd. It's funny to be talking about things that now feel so second nature, that many of the bothishela    have never considered before.

I am also beginning the task of tackling the library, and have enjoyed working with Nomcebo for that... We're going to start up some literacy programs, and integrate the library more into the school' curriculum. Terrifyingly... I was handed the key to the library and informed that I was in charge. I guess previously volunteers have always been in the library. It's nice to be promoted to head librarian, buuut I am working on changing that. I have been opening up the library as an experiment to see how it is being used. The first day was chaos. Peace corps Pam... Er Bongiwe didn't mind the running, pushing, shoving and need for 'disaster tape' to be strung everywhere once I finally shooed everyone out of the library (thanks entirely to an older student that many are actually afraid of...) Today it was a very different scene. And what I really admire, is how much the kids want to hang out in the library, while not all are reading, today many spent an hour working on puzzles and memory games, and even reading news from the ancient stacks of The Swazi Times or National Observer.

The kids also enjoy leading me around and pointing out pictures, and I celebrated with them after they completed the puzzles. I am going to need to figure out times when I'll have the library supervised (hopefully by other people than just me) because I noted quickly that they really like it, and rather than fighting in the school yard, and tooling around would rather spend time looking through books. I saw that the past volunteer also offered study hall hours, so that's something I might start as well.

I'm also excited because tomorrow a group of students is performing a... Dance? At the hotel in town, promoting HIV/AIDS and family planning programs and education. It was incredibly to watch them practice so far. One of the young gentlemen is a phenomenal drummer, I'm going to try to film it tomorrow. It was really neat.

While the past week honestly made me a walking billboard for the importance of deep breathing (to put it simply... School started three weeks ago... Classes, on the other hand...) This week, so far is starting to feel like a breath of fresh air.

On Friday, I had a dinner of sorts, and enjoyed the company of several of my fellow pcvs... I made pizza, and even went all out and made pancakes for breakfast. I'm pumped because i'm going to be descending the plateau on Saturday, heading towards Matata, near Big Bend (cue the kumbi drivers 'Biggie Bendie') to visit my closest friend here, Robbin. It'll be nice to be back in village life for a weekend.

Because of my location to town, I tend to trudge on over nearly once a day.  My frequent visits have led me to make some friends with the bomake (mothers/women) at the market. Additionally, two waiters at a restaurant I've eaten at a couple of time, with ridiculous good food, have asked me to help them with learning English. I joked that I'd come in, order a milkshake and provide lessons, and before I knew it they offered to give me free milkshakes. So I'm hoping to find time now to tutor them once or twice a week. It's hard now though, as I'm trying to get a handle on my schedule, and where, when, how I should be spending my time.

But it's hard not to make time for milkshakes, hehe.

I think this entry does a far better job of summing up my life here, no matter how true my last one also was. Disgustingly, I probably ate like 50 'no bakes' last week. It was probably a sign from the weightloss and healthy eating spirits that I wasn't able to go into town to buy more butter today... Haha. Until next time, salani kahle.

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