Look forward to my memoir, titled after this post.
J/k.
Greetings from Swaziland, one and all!
I turned 30 today, and naturally I've been thinking about what that "means." I'm delighted to have this milestone birthday in an interesting place, and I'm lucky I can spend it with Jack and some friends. Shenanigans will ensure, I assure you. They will be limited in scope, but they WILL happen.
As I reported to Jack this morning, this is the first birthday I've had where I do feel different. My 20s are over. It's time to get serious.
Or is it?
Peace Corps affords a lot of time to think. Volunteers are frequently alone (or feel alone) and can ponder their futures. I was making a list of goals before 40 -- I can't believe that's my next decade -- and they included some serious things and some fun things. I want to have a satisfying job that allows for some semblance of work life/home life balance. I want to be financially secure.
There are some fun goals as well. I want to learn to juggle. Jack has tried to teach me, but this is one of many coordination-focused activities that do not come naturally to your narrator. I want to learn to sail, and I want to sky dive. I want to have visited six of seven continents. I almost added goals that included activities we have planned for next month in Cape Town, but I thought that would be cheap. Let's make these goals mean something, right?
I also graduated from public health school this month. I am now a MASTER of something, which is exciting. I also now owe the government an uncomfortably large sum of money. There better be some payoff in that Hopkins name (and education). But I'm lucky enough to not have additional debt, so I think I can handle it. Or, I should say, we can handle it. That's right, Jack -- I hope you enjoyed our highfalutin' education.
I was actually a little bit sad not to be able to walk for graduation. I didn't think I would care. It seems like so long ago, but I worked pretty hard last year, and no one called my name or gave me a gold star. I got into an honor society that I think would have allowed me to wear a special thingy over my robe! But that's OK. I'm doing Bono's work in Africa, after all.
The support group I work with is about to go forward with its grant request for funding. They want to start a chicken business to generate income for themselves and their families. I plan to make a video to show y'all what it's all about, and we'll be asking for your financial support. Stay tuned!
Jack's family is visiting in June, and my parents have officially booked tickets for August. We're extremely excited to show off our corner of the continent, and I hope to have some photos for you soon.
Jack and I also are planning our trip for when I COS (close of service) in 2014. We're thinking Victoria Falls, the Serengeti in Tanzania, Madagascar and Mozambique. It gives us a lot to look forward to, though there's still plenty of work to be done.
I'll leave you with a story.
I was waiting for a lift last week from two women. They're working on a study of the integration of family planning and HIV services, and I was going to watch them conduct interviews. We were to meet at a crossroads in a town called Hhelehhele (yes, it might be the greatest town name in the SWZ). They were running late after being caught at a roadblock, and I was tired of sitting in the sun. I wandered over to a stand where a woman was selling fruit. I bought a banana. This woman was large and smiling. She was missing most of her bottom teeth and spoke excellent English.
"Can I give you another?" she asked "Just for being my friend?"
This is not uncommon. Many of the women who sell fruits and vegetables at stands here are outgoing and lovely. She was no exception.
"Of course, thank you," I told her.
We started talking about Obama's upcoming visit to South Africa, and I told her what I was doing in the country. I asked if she had children.
"Yes, I have four," she said. "My one son, he had eight children, from many women. Now he is dead from HIV, and his wife is dead too."
She told me how she cared for three of the grandchildren at home. They go to school, she told me, but they aren't brilliant. I thought about these children with their seven siblings and missing parents. I wondered if their grandmother made enough money to support them. She was selling homemade dish soap. I bought some of that, too.
I stood in the shade of her rickety tin shed and we talked more, about our lives, my parents' upcoming visit and things such as Swazi names. I told her I love that Swazi names mean something. Mine, Nonhlanhla, means lucky. Phindile (I think) means "another girl." Sibusiso means blessing. My favorite is Velaphi, or "where did you come from?"
After an hour, my ride pulled up in the gas station across the street. I told the woman I had to go and thanked her for talking with me.
"I hope you come back and greet me," she said. "You were such a blessing. You made my day."
"You made my day, make (mother)," I told her. I meant it.
I describe this encounter to give you a sense of a typical exchange here. So many people in the Kingdom are outspoken and kind. They talk of their troubles, but most choose not to dwell on them. The vast majority of people I have met are eager to engage in conversation. It really makes me feel at home here.
Now, onward into my 30s.
Salani kahle.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Friday, May 17, 2013
We're excited for you, G11!
Hey, everyone. This post is directed to the incoming Peace Corps trainees of Group 11. One of my favorite blog posts from a G9-er last year was the one with tips for us newcomers (thanks, Rebecca!).
You have about a month left stateside, give or take, and I'm sure you're excited, nervous and uncertain about what to expect. Here are a few tips, tricks, do's and don'ts:
- Eat all the Mexican food you can fit in your belly. You won't get it here unless you make it yourself, and we're all chronically short on black beans. We do have some Chinese, sushi and Indian food, but it's not as good as what you're getting now. Eat all the ethnic food. All of it.
- If you want to mail yourself a package instead of packing everything in bags, go for it. It's not a bad idea. Things you could include in that: cooking spices, hot sauce, sharp knives, an extra book, summer clothes -- small stuff that you'll need eventually but not necessarily immediately. If you do this, however, you'll still have to haul all that stuff from your training village to site. You'll spend two months in a training village with your group before being moved to your permanent village.
- Bring paper, envelopes and/or cards if you want to write letters. You can get all that stuff here, but it's easier during pre-service training if you already have it. For those first two months, you won't have much freedom.
- Peace Corps will tell you to bring $50 in USD to exchange at the airport. Most of us exchanged more than that, and it's not a bad idea to have some extra cash on hand. They take U.S. dollars in Zimbabwe, for example, which might be helpful if you go to Victoria Falls.
- DO remember that you can get a lot of the clothes and toiletries you need over here. Yes, bring your favorite eyeliner if you want it (makeup is expensive here, too), but don't bring 12 skirts or three huge coats. You don't need as much as you think you do. You will probably overpack. Most of us did. You will have to haul those bags around, and it's pretty damn annoying.
- You will get sick of your clothes. Bring things you like, but remember that you'll be hand washing them for two years. They will probably get worn out and might not make it back home.
- Bring media with you! If you have the most recent season of a TV show you like, G10 PCVs will loooooove you. I'm sure we'll love you anyway. But we definitely watch a lot of TV and movies in our downtime. Download a VLC player if you don't have one (you can do that here, too).
- DON'T worry. Tell your family that Swaziland is a reasonably safe place, and Peace Corps is cautious. Once you get here, you'll realize it's not intimidating. Swaziland is a friendly country. Violence and theft occurs but isn't commonplace, especially for volunteers.
- DON'T expect to be out after dark much during the next two years. Volunteers are told to stay on their homesteads at night, and most of us are pretty careful about doing so. This is a key crime-avoidance strategy. Most of your time out in the dark will be spent with other volunteers when you're in town.
- DO bring an updated Africa travel book if you want one. There are a lot floating around the office, but things do change quickly around here. You can also have this mailed to you later. It's nice to have during integration, when you have a lot of hut time that you can spend planning future travel adventures. I didn't have one and wished I had.
- Consider linking up with a teacher friend to correspond with his or her class. Peace Corps has a program connecting volunteers to schools, but sometimes it takes months. Letter writing is a great hut activity, and it's especially fun in your first months, when you're processing everything as new.
- DO think about where you'll want to travel. You get 24 vacation days per year, and there are tons of possibilities. You won't have great Internet access here, so spend some time poking around to get to know the cool spots.
- DO encourage your family and friends to visit. And if you want or need to, you can go home during the next two years.
- If you have a hobby like knitting, bring supplies for that. You will probably have a lot of hut time in the beginning.
- DON'T be afraid to get in touch with current volunteers if there's anything you need to know. There are no stupid questions, I promise.
- DON'T look at Peace Corps as something that requires you to put your life on hold for two years. You'll be living your life for two years -- it will just be significantly more interesting than usual.
Be excited! We're excited to see your smiling faces at the end of June.
You have about a month left stateside, give or take, and I'm sure you're excited, nervous and uncertain about what to expect. Here are a few tips, tricks, do's and don'ts:
- Eat all the Mexican food you can fit in your belly. You won't get it here unless you make it yourself, and we're all chronically short on black beans. We do have some Chinese, sushi and Indian food, but it's not as good as what you're getting now. Eat all the ethnic food. All of it.
- If you want to mail yourself a package instead of packing everything in bags, go for it. It's not a bad idea. Things you could include in that: cooking spices, hot sauce, sharp knives, an extra book, summer clothes -- small stuff that you'll need eventually but not necessarily immediately. If you do this, however, you'll still have to haul all that stuff from your training village to site. You'll spend two months in a training village with your group before being moved to your permanent village.
- Bring paper, envelopes and/or cards if you want to write letters. You can get all that stuff here, but it's easier during pre-service training if you already have it. For those first two months, you won't have much freedom.
- Peace Corps will tell you to bring $50 in USD to exchange at the airport. Most of us exchanged more than that, and it's not a bad idea to have some extra cash on hand. They take U.S. dollars in Zimbabwe, for example, which might be helpful if you go to Victoria Falls.
- DO remember that you can get a lot of the clothes and toiletries you need over here. Yes, bring your favorite eyeliner if you want it (makeup is expensive here, too), but don't bring 12 skirts or three huge coats. You don't need as much as you think you do. You will probably overpack. Most of us did. You will have to haul those bags around, and it's pretty damn annoying.
- You will get sick of your clothes. Bring things you like, but remember that you'll be hand washing them for two years. They will probably get worn out and might not make it back home.
- Bring media with you! If you have the most recent season of a TV show you like, G10 PCVs will loooooove you. I'm sure we'll love you anyway. But we definitely watch a lot of TV and movies in our downtime. Download a VLC player if you don't have one (you can do that here, too).
- DON'T worry. Tell your family that Swaziland is a reasonably safe place, and Peace Corps is cautious. Once you get here, you'll realize it's not intimidating. Swaziland is a friendly country. Violence and theft occurs but isn't commonplace, especially for volunteers.
- DON'T expect to be out after dark much during the next two years. Volunteers are told to stay on their homesteads at night, and most of us are pretty careful about doing so. This is a key crime-avoidance strategy. Most of your time out in the dark will be spent with other volunteers when you're in town.
- DO bring an updated Africa travel book if you want one. There are a lot floating around the office, but things do change quickly around here. You can also have this mailed to you later. It's nice to have during integration, when you have a lot of hut time that you can spend planning future travel adventures. I didn't have one and wished I had.
- Consider linking up with a teacher friend to correspond with his or her class. Peace Corps has a program connecting volunteers to schools, but sometimes it takes months. Letter writing is a great hut activity, and it's especially fun in your first months, when you're processing everything as new.
- DO think about where you'll want to travel. You get 24 vacation days per year, and there are tons of possibilities. You won't have great Internet access here, so spend some time poking around to get to know the cool spots.
- DO encourage your family and friends to visit. And if you want or need to, you can go home during the next two years.
- If you have a hobby like knitting, bring supplies for that. You will probably have a lot of hut time in the beginning.
- DON'T be afraid to get in touch with current volunteers if there's anything you need to know. There are no stupid questions, I promise.
- DON'T look at Peace Corps as something that requires you to put your life on hold for two years. You'll be living your life for two years -- it will just be significantly more interesting than usual.
Be excited! We're excited to see your smiling faces at the end of June.
Monday, May 6, 2013
Lessons from Pretoria
Sanibonani, all.
I was hoping to be back in the SWZ by now, but that is not the case. Instead I've been camped out in Pretoria for nearly two weeks. I leave today, however, which is exciting. I'm sitting at the computer in the Peace Corps South Africa office and watching the gate for my ride.
As I think I mentioned, I've been here with a volunteer from Rwanda and one from Ghana. Their stories reminded me how different everyone's Peace Corps experience is. The Rwanda post has been open only four years. The post was closed around the time (before?) the genocide in 1994. The effects of the genocide are obvious. The volunteer told me that most of the Peace Corps staff from the time was killed during the fighting. Horrible.
Another Rwanda volunteer arrived today, by the way. She told me that she and members of her community have stumbled across mass graves while building road projects.
I asked her if she thought Peace Corps should even be in Rwanda. She thought a moment. "I don't know," she said. She told me that people still show up at the clinic hacked to pieces by machetes.
That experience is completely different from mine. Swaziland prides itself on being a peaceful nation. People do get murdered and assaulted, but it isn't commonplace. The civil wars that many African countries have experienced haven't happened in the Kingdom. Swaziland is far from perfect (show me a perfect nation, right?), but its missing generation is a result of AIDS rather than violence. Is AIDS any easier to deal with? I don't know, but antiretroviral medications sure as hell help.
Ghana also is mostly peaceful, it sounds like. The volunteer from there said the biggest challenge is the constant oppressive heat. I can typically wear my clothes a couple of times before washing them. She can't do that because of how much one sweats during the day. She said volunteers end up with a lot of skin rashes and ailments, and it sounds like bacteria are much busier there. Swaziland is more temperate, what with its not being equatorial, so we don't run into as many of those issues. But she adores the people and has had a wonderful time.
Ghana was the first Peace Corps country, and PC has operated continuously there for 52 years now. The country is not without incident, however.
Last summer (I was in Pre-Service Training), a volunteer stabbed and killed a man during a late-night altercation. It's my understanding that it was self-defense and the volunteer wasn't charged.
Just last week, a volunteer died of illness in Ghana. The same week, actually, a volunteer was hit by a vehicle and killed in Uganda. It was a tough week, and I think all PCVs are thinking about those volunteers and their families. There are many risks inherent in being a volunteer. Many of these are risks that permanent residents of these countries face every single day: HIV, malaria, vehicle crashes, etc. (Some risks, of course, are related to being of a different race/nationality and the perception that you as an American are rich.)
Neither Ghana situation is indicative of systemic problems with PC Ghana, of course, but those tragedies are reminders that bad things can happen in any country -- even one that is seemingly stable.
These volunteers and I talked a lot about our families' reaction to our Peace Corps service. I think every would-be volunteer experiences a bit of pushback from worried loved ones. One volunteer said a family member offered her rent-free housing if she would only stay in the U.S.
I love my family and appreciate their support, though it probably wasn't 100 percent. They weren't totally comfortable, which is understandable. But I think part of Peace Corps is reminding yourself and those around you that it's OK to take risks. Other places often aren't as scary as they look on the news. And I can't predict the benefits of PC service, but I know they'll extend beyond my career to many (all?) other facets of my life. So I thank my family for somewhat grudgingly letting me go my own way. And your letters and packages are awesome!
I hope none of what I've written here offends or invades the privacy of those I've talked to. I've avoided giving names for a reason, of course, as these conversations weren't necessarily meant to be public. But I think the themes are important.
So this is what's been on my mind as I idle away time in Pretoria. Keep fighting the good fight, all.
Back to the Kingdom!
I was hoping to be back in the SWZ by now, but that is not the case. Instead I've been camped out in Pretoria for nearly two weeks. I leave today, however, which is exciting. I'm sitting at the computer in the Peace Corps South Africa office and watching the gate for my ride.
As I think I mentioned, I've been here with a volunteer from Rwanda and one from Ghana. Their stories reminded me how different everyone's Peace Corps experience is. The Rwanda post has been open only four years. The post was closed around the time (before?) the genocide in 1994. The effects of the genocide are obvious. The volunteer told me that most of the Peace Corps staff from the time was killed during the fighting. Horrible.
Another Rwanda volunteer arrived today, by the way. She told me that she and members of her community have stumbled across mass graves while building road projects.
I asked her if she thought Peace Corps should even be in Rwanda. She thought a moment. "I don't know," she said. She told me that people still show up at the clinic hacked to pieces by machetes.
That experience is completely different from mine. Swaziland prides itself on being a peaceful nation. People do get murdered and assaulted, but it isn't commonplace. The civil wars that many African countries have experienced haven't happened in the Kingdom. Swaziland is far from perfect (show me a perfect nation, right?), but its missing generation is a result of AIDS rather than violence. Is AIDS any easier to deal with? I don't know, but antiretroviral medications sure as hell help.
Ghana also is mostly peaceful, it sounds like. The volunteer from there said the biggest challenge is the constant oppressive heat. I can typically wear my clothes a couple of times before washing them. She can't do that because of how much one sweats during the day. She said volunteers end up with a lot of skin rashes and ailments, and it sounds like bacteria are much busier there. Swaziland is more temperate, what with its not being equatorial, so we don't run into as many of those issues. But she adores the people and has had a wonderful time.
Ghana was the first Peace Corps country, and PC has operated continuously there for 52 years now. The country is not without incident, however.
Last summer (I was in Pre-Service Training), a volunteer stabbed and killed a man during a late-night altercation. It's my understanding that it was self-defense and the volunteer wasn't charged.
Just last week, a volunteer died of illness in Ghana. The same week, actually, a volunteer was hit by a vehicle and killed in Uganda. It was a tough week, and I think all PCVs are thinking about those volunteers and their families. There are many risks inherent in being a volunteer. Many of these are risks that permanent residents of these countries face every single day: HIV, malaria, vehicle crashes, etc. (Some risks, of course, are related to being of a different race/nationality and the perception that you as an American are rich.)
Neither Ghana situation is indicative of systemic problems with PC Ghana, of course, but those tragedies are reminders that bad things can happen in any country -- even one that is seemingly stable.
These volunteers and I talked a lot about our families' reaction to our Peace Corps service. I think every would-be volunteer experiences a bit of pushback from worried loved ones. One volunteer said a family member offered her rent-free housing if she would only stay in the U.S.
I love my family and appreciate their support, though it probably wasn't 100 percent. They weren't totally comfortable, which is understandable. But I think part of Peace Corps is reminding yourself and those around you that it's OK to take risks. Other places often aren't as scary as they look on the news. And I can't predict the benefits of PC service, but I know they'll extend beyond my career to many (all?) other facets of my life. So I thank my family for somewhat grudgingly letting me go my own way. And your letters and packages are awesome!
I hope none of what I've written here offends or invades the privacy of those I've talked to. I've avoided giving names for a reason, of course, as these conversations weren't necessarily meant to be public. But I think the themes are important.
So this is what's been on my mind as I idle away time in Pretoria. Keep fighting the good fight, all.
Back to the Kingdom!
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