Smooth as a skippin' rock

It's a true Monday and after a full weekend I'm not sure how to get myself in a place to handle the day. Saturday we got our stipends deposited, so, after washing my hair and having tea and toast for breakfast I headed to find a koombi to town. I had to walk a little ways from my village, to just past the hospital, before I caught a taxi heading to the taxi rank, but the walk was good, allowed me to clear my head. When I got to the taxi rank I was immediately whisked away to the last seat on a Tzaneen taxi.. and it was the front seat ( in some areas this isn't such a good thing, as the front seat people are in charge of taking the money and counting it for the driver, giving people change, etc.. but not so much around here). The man occupying the middle of the seat, in between the driver and myself, was the guy I had met a few days before on the main road in Metz. He's from Nigeria and is in the area for 2 months to work on the road crew, laying pipe, filling holes, and tarring. An interesting guy with some interesting things to say. He asked where I was from in America and my reply of, "Texas" was met with,"Oh, I've been to Sheffield." Sheffield, Sheffield. Where is Sheffield? Is it in Illinois? No, no, that's Springfield. "Hmm, I'm sorry, I can't think of where Sheffield is in the States. Do you remember which area of the country it was in?" "No, no I don't, but I'll be heading back to the UK soon and there's a chance I may be placed in Sheffield again." "OH. Sheffield in the UK. Uh huh. Yeah, I've never been there." Then before I could attempt to explain that no, the UK and the US are not the same country... the driver turned up the dance club music and the three of us spent the rest of the trip in a yelling conversation (had to let the music be heard by everyone... and the driver didn't want people going to sleep) about game reserves and what you're supposed to do if you find yourself in a situation where you're in the middle of nowhere with an elephant looking as though it might want to stomp you. (You clap loudly) Town. This weekend wasn't the best weekend to head there as it was month end (when everyone gets their pension and grant checks), lines that are already pretty long, were going to be three times that. But good coffee and a chance to meet up with some other volunteers made it worth it. I ran my errands, bought the Lucky Dube CD I've been wanting (ever since a burned copy corrupted my iTunes), got some new paper and a good pen for letter writing, and sat at Woolworth's finishing up a couple of my Newsweeks from the last Peace Corps' mailing. Lunch was at the good Indian restaurant with Jaceson, VIrginia, Erin, and Ronda, before I headed back to the taxi rank. I had the taxi luck. When I got to the taxi rank, I was able to get the last seat on the koombi heading for Metz and piled my two grocery bags (6 litres of milk, cheese, crackers, 2 liters juice, lentils, cereal, bread, and butter) in for the ride. I ended up sitting next to a guy who talked to me about the current situation in Zimbabwe (sad and overwhelming) and who used his internet phone to look up a few news articles so I could get caught up. Got back to the village pretty quickly, hauled all my food back to my room and sat on my bed, not sure what to do with myself. Antsy, tired, fried, overwhelmed, claustrophobic, trapped, blah, stressed, tense, emotional, you name it, I was feeling it. I got to talk to a good friend from the States... and although it was a good conversation and I was very much in it, I couldn't tell you half the things I said. Yesterday, because I was having such a hard time I just threw myself into washing all my clothes and spending the day cleaning my room. I'm just tired. I don't want to complain. Don't want to come across as complaining, but it's a risk I'm willing to take. I AM TIRED. I don't want to leave here. I don't wish I had more amenities. I'm ok where I am... I'm just exhausted, worn out, worn down. This is isn't the kind of exhaustion that is remedied with sleep, I get plenty. It's the kind that is rooted in being here for almost a year, taking in so much, and feeling your limbs shake because you're starting to buckle from some of the pressure. I know I'm lucky. I recognize this everyday. I have made the choice to be here. I can leave whenever I choose. And I choose to stay. I wish I could be someone who could just take it all, absorb it, and not complain, someone who can take the weight and not bend, but I don't think that it's very realistic to put such expectations on yourself. Nothing is perfect.. no one is perfect. I am living with way more amenities than I ever expected to have when I signed up to do Peace Corps, but I'm also living a very different life than I once thought I would live during my service. I know I've gained a lot of positive things and grown a lot as a person, learned a lot about the world and how big, yet small it is... and I'm really, really hoping that, after all has been said and done, the negative things I've seen, heard, and absorbed during my time here, that mess with my head on a pretty regular basis, won't end up doing more harm when I'm through with my service. I really, really hope.
I've been thinking a lot about the work I'm doing and trying to do here. A few big things have happened to spur such thoughts.
*Abby left to fly home for a visit last week and while talking to her about all the feelings attached to making such a journey... I was having my own little panic attacks. AMERICA?! I'm eventually going to go back there. What the hell am I going to do when I get back there? How am I going to handle going out at night? Not having to spend so much time alone? People asking me questions about here? People not asking me questions about here? Realizing more and more how I've changed? Seeing people I love and hold so close after so much time of not seeing them? Consumerism? Options and options and options? Yards and houses and cars NOT behind big, tall, barbed, electrified, fences and gates? Lots and lots of white people. A wasting of resources. Pressures. Thoughts of the future.
*While Abby was in the air flying, possbily, over the ocean, some people from my "place" were in the village. Yep. Oh yeah. Metz village had some Americans visit! On Thursday morning, the pastor from a nearby village who is on my NGO's board of directors, stopped by the office. "Ah, Mmapula. There are people from your place here." "Whaaaaat!?!" "Yes. At the Lutheran Church. You should go greet them." Oh you better believe I was going to greet them! We locked up the office and headed down the main road to the church to meet all these people. I'll admit, I was a little nervous. I'm pretty comfortable in the village and with people from the village... and I'm comfortable with PCV's.. but I've had some mixed experiences with people from the international community who are here to do any sort of volunteering. I ended up spending the day with a great group of people. On a trip connected with their church they had come over to provide basic dental and eye care to hundreds of people in the local villages in the Metz area. It was good to see instant results.... people who were having pain because of infections in their mouths could have teeth removed... people who couldn't read because their eyes wouldn't allow them to.. were given, not one, but two pairs of glasses (glasses and sunglasses).. people were smiling, needs were being met. It was awesome, heartwarming, and really, really good for me to witness. I know all the volunteers were tired.. they had been working long days, were seeing all sorts of sad cases, were spending hours and hours giving parts of themselves, and were exhausted. Such work is exhausting. Over the last few days I've met so many people who have come up to me and asked me if I knew the group. "Oh good! They helped me get glasses!","I haven't been able to read my Bible for some time now, but last night I got to!", " My tooth had been bothering me, but now that it's gone, it feels better on that side of my face!" They helped and touched hundreds of people during their short time here, but I'm most touched by the members of my African family who were helped. It's a personal thing. Maria (MmaDiapo's older sister), Margaret (her daughter), and MmaDiapo's brother's wife all got glasses on Friday. Thursday they tried to get on the list to be seen, but showed up after all the numbers had been given out. On Thursday night I encouraged all of them to get up really early and get to Lorraine (the village the volunteers would be in on Friday) before 9am so they could have a place in the queue. That's just what they did. They left their houses early and at lunchtime on Friday, when I was coming back from the office, all of them showed me their glasses, smiling big, and talking excitedly.
*I read an article in the May 26/June 2nd, 2008 Newsweek called "An Immigrant's Silent Struggle", about a man, Robert Kosi Tette, who had immigrated to the US from Ghana about 10 years ago. He recently went back to Ghana for a visit and wrote about the thoughts he had had as he sat at an onion seller's stall in Accra. The quote that struck me and has stuck with me is as follows:
"It was as though I had run 10 consecutive marathons, one for each year abroad, and my body screamed for rest. My trip home was in anticipation of a respite, but instead I felt as though I were drowning in a melting pot of cultures. Part of me wanted to settle permanently in America and put closure to the direction my life was heading. Another part still longed for the uncomplicated life I once knew in Ghana-despite the illusive price of acceptance. Most of us leaving home never quite considered how much we would change or the scarring challenges ahead of us. I could still remember a time when my thinking was no different than the onion seller's. Someone had seen beyond that and given me a chance to come to America, so I still felt compelled to give something back. Perhaps I should have been asking myself if I really wanted to trade places with the onion seller. Deep down I knew my answer was no. Enlightenment had come with the loss of innocence and a silent struggle. My cultural dichotomy was no different from what other immigrants from other cultures faced in America. I could stop dwelling on being torn between two countries by accepting my new identity as a progressive blend of the two and embrace new responsibilities."
*Friday, in the office, Esther compiled a list of the "poorest of the poor" children and families our NGO serves and later on that day we spent a couple of hours unloading 50kg bags of mealie meal and plastic bags full of beans, laundry soap, powdered milk, and other needed items, from a bakkie (pickup truck). Watching those families come from far off villages, most of them remote, back next to the mountains, to pick up the food and haul it back to their homes really struck a chord. So many children who don't have food. Poverty staring us all in the face. So many people awkward about asking for the food, but needing to do so.
Things to think about.
I'm off to work... I feel better getting some of my thoughts out there... but before I go I'd like to extend a thanks to all who read this blog, who comment, and who send me good thoughts. Thanks to you. Support is greatly appreciated.... and thank you for bearing with me and my writing. My grasp on the English language is slipping... and although I try to practice with a Word Power book, reading all the time, and keeping up with my letter and journal writing... I still have trouble spelling certain words, making grammatical decisions, and completing thoughts. So thank you, loyal readers. Thank you very much.

Heartbeats

I’m not trying to take this entry down to “sad town” .. but I figure I need to continue to be true to my school and write about things that I think about and see and hear while I’m having this experience. Some things are hilarious, some things break my heart and when read, will break your heart, some things only get the response of a shaking of the head or a shrug because I’m not sure where to file them away. I’ve been meaning to write for weeks now, but even though the words were coming, the connection between them and pen and paper, or my fingers and the keyboard, was cut off. Sometimes I’m just overwhelmed. How am I supposed to remember all the little details that make one moment, one memory, whole? I can’t. But I try.
A couple of weeks ago, while I was on an adventure, out of the village for the day (a blog covering that coming soon!), I got a phone call from my friend John, the Managing Director of a water and sanitation NGO in Tzaneen (one of the towns closest to where I live). I was on the side of the main tar road, just past the old mealie meal mill, when my phone started buzzing in my bag… and kept buzzing. Not an sms, a phone call. A PHONE CALL! Frantically searching at the bottom of my bag (thank you, my Gueydan Museum tote bag compliments of my Grandma aka R.G. Dimple) and eventually after squatting and dumping everything out on the ground, I found it. I answered, calm, cool, and collected. Hey John! Turns out his organization had some extra money on the side due to the exchange rate (euros to rand) and if I could write him a proposal, to be turned in that next week, I could have some funds to cover a project in my village. A project in my village! So there, squatting on the side of the tar road, the contents of my bag in a little pile in front of me, I wrote in my moleskine journal the areas that needed to be covered in the proposal. And, there, in that spot, after I had hung up the phone (thanking him profusely for such an opportunity), I did a little excited dance, jumped up and down, and used some airtime to call Abby. I was out of breath and talking a mile a minute, but what an opportunity! MONEY! Money that I could spend on something I chose. My mind was reeling… there are a few projects I’d thought about either starting myself or helping out with in the village… and on my adventure I thought about all of them and made plans to meet up with Tanya to discuss them. That next week I met up with the Project Manager for an NGO in my village that does a lot of work with OVC’s (orphans and vulnerable children), I had decided to use the money to purchase needed things for a few child headed households in Metz and the surrounding area. Monday we had a meeting, Tuesday we went on home visits, and Wednesday and Thursday I wrote out my findings and fit them into a proposal complete with a background of all the kids the money would be helping (a total of 12), a budget, and a predicted output. It felt really good. One of those weeks where I kept saying over and over again… so THIS is why I’m here! Applying for money that I was going to, hopefully, get was exciting and fulfilling, but meeting all those kids definitely struck a cord with me, was the most important aspect of the work I was doing. There was the family of 7 that was in need of a pit toilet and had been disposing waste in a hole in the yard. The oldest was in grade 12. And there was the family of 4 (all under 18 as well) that had been able to move into their own house (built by the NGO), but was still in need of a toilet and a water pipe/tap for their yard. And there was Ophelia. Oh Ophelia. God, how that girl got in my heart. When I saw how Ophelia was living it was hard to shut down any emotional responses and ask her straightforward questions about her life and her history. At the ripe old age of 22 she is a veteran when it comes to living on her own and taking care of herself. Her mother died in 1999 when she was just 13. She’s been relying on herself and community services for 9 years. 9 years. Her home is one room that is very unstable and in great need of repair, the walls are cracked and the roof leaks when it rains. She is determined to finish high school, even though a few times she has had to stop and work to earn the money to cover her school fees. In her front yard, you will find the foundation for the house that the government promised to build her a year ago. She was so quiet, tough, and tried to hide tears when it looked like all the questioning was getting to be too much or something had hit a sore spot. Before we left I looked her straight in the eyes and told her that I admired her strength. And I do. We applied to get funds to fence in her yard to keep the goats out and so she could grow a garden, food to eat and also a little extra to bring in a bit of an income. And we asked for a bed to replace the boxspring she’s been sleeping on. I know this is a reality… and I know this is part of my reality… she is my neighbor, she lives in my village, I know a little bit about her life, meeting her has affected me….but I still shake my head and my heart hurts when I think about all the people all over the world who have no access to a proper toilet, a roof that is stable, clothes to keep them warm, food for their bellies, and clean water for drinking and cooking. If you don’t have these basics met how are you supposed to stay healthy? How are you supposed to focus on all the other things that make life that much harder?
My proposal was approved. Relief. Excitement. Hope. Next week, Mary, John’s wife and counterpart, and I are going to meet up in the village and discuss final little details. Families will have water and toilets and food and places to sleep!

The eggplant and cultural exchange or something like that

Yesterday morning Synett and I were working on a funding proposal when tea time came around. The office had enough avocados (brought in from Synett's yard) and there was tea, but bread and atchar needed to be purchased in order to have the expected full spread. We walked to the chips' stand where William Letsoalo scooped atchar (green mangos marinated in fish oil) into a cup we had brought and then headed over to the bakery to get the bread... fresh out of the oven! We walked through the door, greeted people as we passed, and headed for the bread rack... about 20 loaves, warm and sweatin' in their bags, had just been brought out. And there, at the very top of that rack, were eggplants. I'll admit I got excited. Not really sure how I feel about eggplant. I've never really cooked with them, and although I'll eat them when they're in a dish, they're not my favorite vegetable. BUT I was excited... something new! My eyes got big and I asked the woman standing near "Ke bo kae?" (how much?) and decided to splurge on the R2 veggie for experimental purposes. I grabbed the prettiest one because I'm not really sure how to judge and handed over the R2 coin. As I was heading towards the door with Synett, describing to her just what I may do with it... "I could slice it and fry it! I could look in my Peace Corps cookbook and see if they have any recipes! I could put it in a spaghetti sauce! Oh I wish I had some Parmesan cheese! I do have noodles though... I could just cook it up with some onions and garlic and eat it like that"..... Ben, the bookkeeper for Taposa, called after me. "Mmapula come here a second, I must ask you just what this is." And, yes ladies and gentleman, the THIS he was referring to was the eggplant he had just sold me. "Ben, didn't you just sell this to me?" "Yes, I did... it was grown just down the road 1 km or so." "Oh. Well, it is very nice. I am excited to try to cook with it, to see what I can make, and if it will taste good." "But, what is it? Will you write the name of it right here?" And that's just what I did. I wrote "eggplant" in the ledger, right next to the box recording how many cans of garden peas had been sold. I then described how I've eaten egglplant in the past and some suggestions on how it could be cooked. He thanked me and said he might just try one himself. Those few minutes were very Africa. Very Peace Corps. It's the little things like that, that happen everyday and keep me intrigued. I tell ya, you never know just what the day is going to bring.

You are strong

Dear Ophelia,
I'm not even sure where to begin and maybe some of the things I'll end up writing here will sound silly in the end. I've walked by your house so many times since I've lived in Metz. It's on the way to the post office, it's right across the road from all those girls who always manage to laugh at me, and now it's on the road the taxis have to use to get anywhere in the village while the tar road is being worked on. I'm embarrassed to admit that I know I've seen your house multiple times, but I'm not sure if I've ever really looked at it. Today I looked at it. Today, when Mosie brought Tanya and I to your house, I really looked at it. I saw how cracked the walls were, how the light came in between the roof and the bricks. I saw how little the "fence" was doing to protect your yard. And most importantly, I saw beyond all that, I saw how strong you are. I'm sorry things have been so hard and such a struggle, but girl, you've got strength that not a lot of people would show through repeated challenges. It seems as though you've been through your share of heartbreak, but you still manage to shine. I want you to know that you shine. I stood in your room today, asked you hard questions and I got some hard answers. I watched you turn your face away from us and towards the window when the tears would automatically come. It seems as though a lot of people have abandoned you... left you to figure out things for yourself and you seem to be truckin along as much as you can. I commend you and am proud of you for fighting so hard, staying in school, managing things so well on your own. Thank you for showing me part of your world and for being so honest about things that are hard. I promise, I will try my hardest to help you. I really promise.
Your friend,
Mmapula