Is this looking up?

I have a couple of stories I want to relay when it comes to Mmapula’s life in Peace Corps South Africa, in the village, but I think first I need to catch the ol blog up on the last week or so…
I just did my dancing around my room to my iPod and ate some Oreos (yep, you can find them in South Africa, they’re just not the same as in the States, they taste different, and they’re a lot crunchier, harder), so I think I’m ready to report on my day.
I’ll be honest, the last few weeks have been more than rough. After I got over my initial shock of saying bye to so many people in Pretoria and, in general, having a pretty crappy week there, I just became numb… floating… trying to make it through the days. It wasn’t all bad, there was the glimmer of hope that’s always there… the glimmer that reminds me things will eventually even out, stabilize, and get better… I just have to stay strong and make it through the rough stuff. Making it through can mean a lot of things. It can mean throwing yourself into your work. It can mean taking some time off and watching movies on your laptop, eating comfort food, and lying about. It can mean maintaining, crying when you need to, doing what it takes to just move through the days until everything starts to look up, until you discover you’re getting your strength and drive back. I maintained. Used what energy I did have to get through the days. I haven’t talked much about my work in the past because I haven’t had much to report. After Swearing-In and becoming real, true PCVs, our group was told to spend the first three months at our sites observing, soaking everything in, learning about our organizations, networking, and getting to know our new places of residence. The observing, soaking things in, and not jumping right in with all kinds of ideas was something that I did with ease. I’ve always been like that with big changes in my life, it takes me a little while to find my comfort zone, my niche. I did panic a little when I thought that maybe my organization would expect me to start working on projects immediately, but those worries were squashed pretty early on with all the “Be free, Mmapula”s and “Just rest”s. So from September (after Swearing-In) to December (when we broke for the holidays), I spent a good amount of my time everyday in the office reading book after book, writing letters the length of novellas, laughing with my coworkers, and picking up on how my office operated. I learned a lot and I think it's good I had such time to understand the way things in my office are run. Over the holidays I got to talking with other PCVs and started getting excited about all the project ideas I had; when it was time to head back to the village and to work, I was a little nervous, but ready to get down to work. Thing is, I didn’t start working. I went to a few meetings. Went to a few events. Went to Pretoria and got thrown off course. Went to Kruger for some respite/repair/refuel time. Went into the office. But there was no work. I spent a lot of time trying to concentrate on new books, on writing letters, on getting excited about projects, but the motivation just wasn’t there. I can’t say that all hope or motivation was gone… I would get excited every once in awhile, would try, but if things didn’t start to pan out, it didn’t take much to completely deflate me, take the wind out of my sails. I can’t really point at any one thing that went wrong or that was so bad I couldn’t handle it… it’s just everything… all the little things that start to stack up. It sounds negative, I know, but it just seems like every time something good would happen, I would be “up” for just enough time to think things would be good for awhile. Then…BAM! BAM! BAM! Negatives seem to happen in small groups, when it rains it pours. The whole time the negatives are flying I am shaking my fist at the heavens… Why? Why? Why? I plead. I beg. Just give me a break. Give me time to take some breaths. To not be angry. To focus on all those awesome little things. To focus back on wanting to be here. And then one day, things are fine. I wake up, I’m in a good mood, I’m excited for what the day might bring, I’m confident about trying new things. The last week or so I’ve been late to work every single day. My office expects me there at 8 and I have waltzed in around 9. It’s me being passive-aggressive I know. While other PCVs in my group have talked with their NGO’s, set up schedules, and then gone out into the community to work on many different projects, I have turned my situation over and over in my head. I don’t want to change sites. I don’t want to change organizations. I love my coworkers and love all the hard work that is coming out of the office. I just can’t sit still anymore. I can’t sit and I’ve been sort of paralyzed when it has come to being proactive in addressing my NGO’s project manager. This week I hit a wall. I have been patient. I have waited, I have complained about other people not helping me or being supportive or being unresponsive, and I just hit the end of my rope. I knew I needed to step outside my box, needed to put some energy into remedying the issues as opposed to driving myself to the point of insanity and then just throwing up my hands. I went to my ally in the office for help. Yesterday Synett and I sat outside on a bench for 45 minutes and threw around all kinds of ideas. I needed her to be excited and she was excited. Excited, supportive, a friend, and just plain awesome, just the way Synett usually is. At one point Mogale joined in the conversation and out of nowhere I asked,” Hey guys, if the pay here was better, do you see yourselves being able to work here for a good long while?” Synett said she could, she liked the office. Mogale said he was interested in getting out and seeing things,”like you did, Mmapula.” All the sitting I’ve done has made me realize that non-profits in South Africa run into the same challenges that non-profits in the States do. It depends on the NGO’s, but a lot of issues I’ve come face to face with are some of the same ones crippling organizations I worked for at home. There are people in power, making decisions about money, who aren’t on the frontlines, who know little about the clients the organization is serving. There is mismanagement of money, of staff, of care. There is not enough money. Staff members are expected to work hard for very little money. There is no support for the staff members who are on the frontlines, who absorb negative things on a daily basis. I feel as though my NGO is on a good path, it’s stable right now, and is in a good position to head towards more stability and sustainability. This is why I want to stay with them. Every single person in my office cares about the work that they’re doing and cares about having the organization move forward, grow, expand, and become more sustainable. Talking to Synett gave me some relief. I got a burst of energy. I networked! I ended up calling a woman I had met at a meeting a few weeks ago in Tzaneen. Her organization is mentoring my organization and I’m hoping to be the middle person in the process, maybe go to town a few times a month and gather information to take back to my office. She sounded really excited about my interest in helping out so I’m excited to see how my meeting with her in a couple of days will go.
This morning I walked into my office and the Project Manager asked me why I was late. I mumbled some lame excuse and then had to go outside to not explode. Synett ended up coming to talk to me, then Synett talked to Esther, then Esther called an emergency meeting. It was what needed to happen. It had all been set up so that I couldn’t be passive anymore, I had to state my needs, and I did. “Mmapula’s Issue” was number 4.2 on the agenda. I wasn’t nervous, actually I was pretty calm. I stated that I loved them all and loved working with them, but that I was incredibly frustrated, felt trapped, and needed to have the flexibility to work on my own projects. I was here to help them and to learn from them. It went pretty well. I think now that everything is out in the open there is some relief. Before we moved to number 4.3 Esther asked if lack of work was the only thing bothering me, if there was something else they could help me with. The expressions on their faces, the speed at which they set up the meeting, made me realize that they all do support and care about me, that’s why I could look them all in the eyes and tell them the truth about how I was feeling.
“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”- Mother Teresa
Time does funny things here. Ask anyone who has worked in Africa if this is true. I think they may agree. Hours and hours can go by so slowly. Days can pass and you might have a hard time recalling what you actually did. And then you look back on the week and wonder where all the time went. It’s funny. I have days where hours will creep with nothing exciting happening at all and then in 20 minutes everything seems to happen all at once.
Last week I sat outside MmaDiapo’s house with some of her sisters (my host family makes up 4 houses on our road, it’s awesome) and the little ones before the sun went down. We talked about how hot a day it had been and how Karabo (she’s 2) cries when she has to leave me, as opposed to when she used to cry when she saw me. We ran through the list of questions I’m getting quite used to… Is it hot where you come from? What languages do people speak?.. and then there were some that I’ve been asked before, but that always take me off guard…. Are there black people where you come from? What language do they speak? How far from town do they live? These questions seemed strange to me at first because I grew up with black people all around me, I went to a high school where I was a minority, and I can’t ever remember questioning someone’s equality when it came to their skin color. These may seem strange to me from a Megan standpoint, but from a South African village standpoint they seem totally legitimate. Of course. There are black people in America, it’s just a lot of what represents America in South Africa wouldn’t really try to prove that to you. Of course. Here the black people you come into contact with most often speak more than one language because South Africa has 11 national languages. Of course. There would be the assumption that if there are black people in America they would be living in villages outside of town because that’s the way a lot of black people in South Africa live.
Yesterday, exhausted, I walked home from work, greeted Maria (MmaDiapo’s sister) and Margaret (Maria’s daughter) across the road, and then stepped through the gate to home sweet home. I had plans to take advantage of the fact that I was exhausted and take a nap. I wanted to change out of work clothes, turn on my fan, and lie on my bed with my iPod on until I drifted off to sleep. I got in my room and got as far as one leg out of my skirt before there was a knock on my door. “Mmapula? Are you busy? Can I talk to you for a second?” “Just a second, Maragaret, I’m coming.” One more leg in my pants, some water, and I opened the door. No Margaret. I walked to the back porch area of the big house and found her sitting with a folder open and papers all around her. “Mmapula, I need your help.” You do? My heart was leaping. Minus a few bits and pieces about where I work and where I’m from, my host family and I haven’t talked much about what I’m doing here. Margaret is a carer for another NGO in the village, actually just started volunteering there a couple of weeks ago, and wanted to make sure all her paperwork on the OVC’s she visits was in order. She wanted me to help her figure out what she should write about some of the visits she had been on. We sat for about half hour, at the end of the day, with her telling me about a few visits and me summarizing them, telling her what I thought was important to document. Through this whole conversation about work I learned more about Margaret’s family, more about how she feels about things, and realized that she is the perfect person for a carer job. I told her so. She’s warm, compassionate, smiles, and seems to genuinely care about the kids she’s visiting. I told her I had worked many jobs and had gone to school to study social work, so I knew how hard and draining and important caring for and supporting people was. She hugged me. “Mmapula you are a social worker? Really? That makes me so happy!” We talked a little more about what she was supposed to report to social workers here, what challenges the kids she visits seem to face, and then before we knew it, it was time for her to rush off and make Karabo’s supper.