One Thing For Sure

The other night MmaDiapo came to my window and asked me to come in her house and greet a visitor. I greeted and we all sat around her sewing room talking. The lady asked me how long I had lived here and was shocked when MmaDiapo responded with one year and 6 months. She asked when I was leaving and I said I didn't have too much longer, it was a month and some days after THE farewell party. And the conversation went along... we talked of the weather and THE farewell party and how beautiful all the skirts MmaDiapo made me were. All the while MmaDiapo sewed, passing pieces of material under the needle of her sewing machine. Just as I was gathering my things to head back to my room she stopped and said, "Mmapula, you know, I hope you do not forget me, forget us. Please try your level best, try 100% to remember us when you go." I admit, I stumbled over my words. I told her I wouldn't, told her there was no possible way, and when I felt like I had reassured her, I walked back to my room. That night was the first night I cried in a long time. It's starting to hit me that I'm really leaving. It's a big topic of conversation with people in the village, at Kodumela, with other volunteers, and with people at home. Time is flying and I'm trying to enjoy my last months and days here, trying to focus on one day at a time, while balancing thoughts of a big change.
How do I even begin to describe how grateful I am to MmaDiapo for taking me into her life, heart, and home? How do I put into words to the whole Phokungwane family that I think they're pretty incredible, some of the strongest people I've ever met? How do I tell Rejoice that her true friendship is something I'll carry forever? And what about the kids that always yell "Hiiiiiiiii Mmapula!" when I'm on my way to work? Or John at the post office? Or Ledile, Mpho, Maite, Collins, Enos, MmaTapa, MmaMichael, Mosie, Letebele, Danny, Cedric, Millicent, Maria, Mosoma and everyone else at Kodumela? The ladies on the corner selling vegetables? Phenyo and Tshepiso? I don't think I could ever find words that would carry all my feelings, I really don't think it's possible. "I love you, guys" doesn't seem to cut it and "thanks" seems too simple.

Christmas 2008

Vilanculos, Mozambique, December 2008. In the morning the water would recede and anchored boats would be stranded on the sand. In the evening the water came right up to the walls lining the ocean edge of town and your footprints from earlier would be washed away.
When you're far from your home and family and friends in the States over the holidays... you spend time with your Peace Corps family and travel. Yep... since it's June and "winter" here (although it's still pretty hot), I thought I should post photos of my trip to Mozambique... that memorable trip to the country just to the East of South Africa.
We took a taxi from Nelspruit, South Africa to Maputo, Mozambique one afternoon and the very next morning we were taking a taxi at 4:30 to catch the bus that would take us to Vilanculos. A bus ride that included: a chicken, a man practically sitting in our laps,
stops where people tried to sell us cashews, bread, bottled water, cold drink, thermoses, suitcases, shoes, and so much else, heat, humidity, dust (I still have dirt in the clothes I wore), dozing, a point where every hour or two we would all just look at each other, say "uh, is this really happening?", and then laugh hysterically,
and a view of the man we so affectionately named "barrel" who was sitting on a barrel in the aisle, surrounded by fermenting tomatoes, luggage, and bags of mealie meal.
On the potholed road that resembled Swiss Cheese, we would drive for a long while without seeing a town or even people, and then suddenly there would be a little pocket of houses made of thatch.
The heat and humidity were pretty incredible... not to mention the South Africans who were also taking their holiday at the backpackers. By the first day I had a routine down... After a night of trying to sleep, sweating, praying that music at the bar would be turned down just a little bit, and swatting mosquitoes (even under the net!), I would wake up early and head out to the lapa (thatched roof over an outdoor sitting area) to drink tea with anyone else up. A little while later I would go get ready to venture into Vilanculos, the village we were staying in, for some exploring.
Nathan and I would walk about 15 minutes to the coffee shop and on the way we would always run into Jeremy. He was selling these woven wallets. A nice kid who became part of our routine.
Cafe Mozambique is where Nathan would get an espresso and I would order a cappuccino. Sergio always made them well and helped us choose the local pastries we should try.
We would sit at a little table and plan out our day... where we would walk and what we would check out. One day we walked the whole length of town and visited the school where there was a UNICEF tent (donated when there was a typhoon that hit in 2007), the local CARE (international relief and development organization)office, stood in the office of a fancy hotel and soaked up the air con, visited a restaurant where Richard Gere once ate, saw the more touristy and "white" part of town, and then caught a ride with some locals to a nearby port.
Yes, I gave that woman next to me my bottle of water so she would pose with me.
After a walk through town, we would go back to the backpackers we were staying in. It was right on the beach and had a nice view of the Indian Ocean. The walk always took a lot out of me... it was just so hot. I would then spend a couple hours in a hammock reading my book (Nathan was usually in the other one reading his) and would sometimes be lulled to sleep by the whir of a sewing machine. A local woman would come each day and make all the tourists skirts, shirts, pants, and bags out of traditional material.
One of my favorite places was the market....
With its material...
fish...
food and people. The market was full of all kinds of little walkways, stalls selling everything you can imagine were everywhere.
Mpho and Mmapula. A few of us spent a nice morning haggling and buying material. See the bags we got made? The fabric mine is made of has tea kettles all over it. This photo is compliments of Paul and Jess Vig.

Rat Proofing? Maybe.....

When you have a rat that crawls through holes between the top of your wall and your tin roof and scurries across the middle log of wood that runs right over your bed... you do what you can to stop it.. you get creative. I now have many plastic bags plugging up all the holes, taking away any entrance it may have... and I think they help with the drafts, too.

Whew!

I got an email from Tamiko this morning letting me know that all my letters to her class made it! Yes! Yesterday was their last day of school and they were being dismissed at 1:05... my big envelope full of replies to their letters and a beaded animal for each of them was received at 12:15. Thank you international mail!

Radikgong Johannes Maake

Last week right before Rejoice and I went to Woolworth's we went to a bunch of stores in Tzaneen to piece together a school uniform for a schoolboy the ladies at Lafata Drop In Center in Madeira Village had identified as "one of the most in need" children. We went to the uniform shop and got him a pair of trousers (maroon) and then shopped around some cheaper stores for 3 shirts (yellow, blue, and white), socks, a sweater, and some shoes. Since this is my wedding gift to two of my friends who recently got married, I wanted to go all out... get him everything he might need... and am still trying to figure out if a track suit for winter is one of those things.
So that was Monday.
Tuesday we got sidetracked with stuff in the office so we didn't venture out anywhere.
Wednesday Cedric and Enos were running around Madeira buying eggs and getting seedlings from the greenery (both projects of Lafata) so Rejoice and I caught a ride.
It was Wednesday when we met Johannes. Wednesday morning when we walked across the football (soccer) field with a view of the mountains covered in fog, and huddled against each other when we were walking in the wind. We went to the primary school just past the field, talked to one of the teachers, and were immediately led into a portable building that was acting as a classroom and the principal's office. We were offered chairs and asked about our business at the school. We introduced ourselves and asked to speak to Johannes, we had a present to give him. He was called and a few minutes later, a lean, tall boy, with a big shy grin, walked into the room. His white shirt was worn and his grey trousers were too small around the waist, but man, that grin. My heart leaped. His grin grew wider when we handed over all the purchases... we shook hands, the principal thanked us, graciously, for our help, we took some photos, and not 10 minutes after we had walked in, we walked out.
Johannes is 13 years old and taking classes in Grade 1 at the primary school because he missed so much school throughout his childhood. Both his parents are living, but he is considered an orphan and at risk because his mother doesn't want to care for him and his father's wife doesn't want to raise him. He was living with an aunt last year, but she died, so he moved in with another aunt. No one really knows much about his current home situation (we're working on that), but he's on the register at Lafata and comes to eat when they're serving food.
It was a bittersweet meeting. Hearing the way his life has been going leaves me with a heavy heart... BUT I'm glad Rejoice and I, along with the ladies at Lafata, his teachers and principal, could show him that there are people who think and care about him and are very interested in doing what they can to support and help him.

A Hat? Hair?

A couple of weeks ago MmaDiapo gave me a ride to town VERY early in the morning so I could catch a taxi to Pretoria. We left Metz about 6:30 so I was still waking up when we got in the car. As we turned onto the tar road I caught a glimpse of something on her head and had to do a double take. I couldn't figure out if what I was seeing was some new hair she had gotten or a hat. After we had been talking awhile everything was clarified and I was told that her oldest daughter had crocheted her new hat out of some fancy, fuzzy yarn.
Fast forward to last weekend when we were all sitting outside and Salome showed up with a bag of "funny hair"... all the kids insisted on putting one on and man, we got a good laugh.

Youth Day

It’s Youth Day today, a big South African holiday. It’s a day where all the children of South Africa are recognized and celebrated… they are important and the future of the country after all.

So many little details and so many things that have happened before this day… I’ll try my best to give a summary of just a fraction of it. It's a piece of history that helps to explain a little bit about the present. I am providing facts about the history... but I want to be honest... this was hard for me to read about. Although I see a lot of hope in my everyday life here in South Africa, I live in a place where there are no white people...there are no coloureds... and there are only a few Indians who live outside the village, but who own shops and commute to Metz each day to run them. I live in a place where people are identified by their color... where the words Black, Coloured, Indian, and White are used to describe people. I live in a place where my host mother has asked me if in America, the blacks live in villages, too. I live in a place where people want to talk to me because I'm white. Where people don't want to talk to me because I'm white. Where most people who aren't from around here, who don't know me, are always taken aback when they hear that this is where I stay. In some ways, I think things are getting better... but that doesn't make my heart hurt any less when I think about all the people I love here and the history of their country.

The beginnings….
The Bantu Education Act of 1953 was a law which enforced the separation of races in all educational institutions in South Africa. Whites, Blacks, Indians, and Coloureds were all sent to separate schools.
The introduction of the act led to the government greatly reducing funding and aid to schools serving black South Africans, black teachers’ salaries were very low, many black teachers weren’t properly trained, and the funding the black schools were getting was coming from the taxes paid by black South Africans… many who were poor. For South Africa’s white students, education was mandatory, of high standards and FREE. They had teachers who were properly trained and buildings that were in good shape. For Blacks, Indians, and Coloured students school was not free and if education was available, it was at times held in buildings without electricity, plumbing, and access to water. According to the Wikipedia article on the Soweto riots, in the 1970's the per capita governmental spending on black education was one-tenth of the spending on white. There was a VERY uneven distribution of resources in black (and other non-white) and white schools. Within the National Party (white government party) it was a common belief that there was no need to provide good education to people who would never be able to use it. Afrikaans would be a good language to know when working on the farms, higher level math wouldn't be needed because no job a Black or Non-White would get would require such skills.
On the morning of 16 June 1976, thousands (I’ve heard 20,000 is a good estimate) of black students marched through Soweto (SouthWestTownships, outside Jo’Burg) protesting the use of Afrikaans in their schools. The “Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974” forced black schools to use Afrikaans for math, arithmetic, and social studies, English for the sciences and African languages for religion, music, and culture instruction. The plan was for a peaceful protest. When students walked along their planned route, they came upon police barricades, so they switched their course…. and eventually ended up near Orlando High School (Orlando is a section of Soweto where both Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu have homes). There are different accounts of what actually happened… some say that students/children threw stones and provoked the police, while most of the students marched peacefully.… some say that a few police officers opened fire when they saw that they were surrounded by students. Whatever happened resulted in chaos. Tear gas was thrown, shots were fired, there was looting, people were wounded and killed.
Hector Pieterson, a 12 year old boy, was one of the first students to be killed. To this day a photograph of him being carried down the street by one of the other protesters, with his sister wailing as she walked next to them, is well known and a reminder.
There are varying accounts of how many actually died and were wounded that day, I’ve heard estimations as high as 566 school children were killed, while over 1,000 men, women, and children were wounded.
The events on 16 June were just the beginning of other protests, riots, and strikes by South Africans of all colors and backgrounds throughout the year.
You can read more here
In Metz, I went to church with my family and took pictures of the celebration they threw for all the kids. Everyone was dressed up, there was singing, dancing, and lots of praying....
Everyone at church listening to the sermon.

Here's the pastor and the lady who was speaking for the day. They sat at a table in the very front.

About a dozen plates full of Simba's, Marie Biscuits, and sweets were passed around for everyone to snack on before the kids got their presents, took pictures, and we cut into the cake!

Here are all the kids lined up to get their treats. They're all dressed up in the traditional church uniform... white shirt and black pants or skirt.

Each kid received a bag of Simba's, their very own tin cup, an apple, and a sucker. AND they got their picture taken by Mmapula.

Traditional

MmaDiapo has been sewing every free minute she's found since the beginning of September last year. I hear the whir of the sewing machine on the back stoop early in the morning, late into the night, and all day some days. First she was trying to make matching dresses for a group of women going to a wedding in November. Then she was trying to finish up new orders that began pouring in when women in the village saw all the new dresses. And THEN, when I thought she had some time, I bought some material for her to make me a few traditional skirts. She can knock out a beautifully sewn and designed traditional skirt in a day... made to fit me. (If you look right behind her on the wall there's the peg bag she made out of scraps from all the dresses)
Today I wore her latest creation and got so many compliments. People were really impressed and everyone at Kodumela kept saying that I looked African. The skirt is sebotse (beautiful). By coincidence, Cedric, the Development Coordinator for Kodumela, and Rejoice were also wearing their traditional clothes, so we all had to take a photo.

Make Up Your Face

Maite told me that Karabo watched Margaret put on her makeup one morning... colored in her eyebrows, put on a little eye shadow, used some lipstick. That afternoon Karabo used the crayons I had given her to try and put "color on her face like Ouma (grandma)."

To The North And To The West Of Metz.. You Have Ga-Seleka

A couple of weeks ago I had a chance to go visit my dear friends and fellow volunteers, Thato and Boipelo Seleka (Paul and Jess) who live in the lovely village of Ga-Seleka with Safiri, the cat. Who's down for a few days of good food, good conversation, good people, nights spent in the mission house of the Dutch Reform Church, touching big baobabs, visits to the primary schools, girls' club fun, and checking out Seleka sites? Me.

Over the weekend we cut apron kits for their Girls' Club Apron Project and so the girls from club could sew their own.

We ate lunches of hummus, pita, tomatoes, and cucumber... treats we brought back from Pretoria. And Paul treated us to his mom's chocolate chip cookie recipe from home... cookies made from chocolate chips from AMERICA!

And we drank wine.

Morning prayer at the lower primary school.

There is NOTHING like standing in front of hundreds of school children in time for afternoon prayer. Pretty amazing to hear them speaking altogether.

The girls' club craft was making "Bohemian" necklaces that Jess and I tried out on Sunday afternoon.

Mma Seleka, one of the Grade 7 teachers and a girls' club leader (club meets in her room every Monday) and Mmapula.

Here's Jess with her girls' club student council girls.

Paul played baseball with some of the neighborhood boys on my last night... then we built a fire in the yard and sat and talked over supper while watching the logs burn down.

With coffee in go cups Jess and Paul walked me to the taxi that was going to take me to their shopping town... the start of my travels back to the village.
Woo! It was a good visit! Paul and Jess have a lot going on when it comes to helping out the schools they were placed with. Paul is running computer classes for some teachers twice a week, Jess is doing the prep work for girls' club and keeping on top of all the apron sales, and they also have to balance visiting with all the people they've befriended during their time in Seleka. Did I mention that on top of all that, they're good friends? They're good friends.

Thank You, America.

The KFC Family Meal can be found ALL over the world! Never Fear! Here in South Africa, KFC really knows their target audience... instead of the biscuits you get in The United States... The Colonel provides customers with mini loaves of bread.

The Trousers and The Belt.

A few weeks ago when Rejoice and I were on our way to a drop in center our taxi driver asked her, in Sotho, what I was doing with her. Her reply? She is my belt and I am a pair of trousers, we go everywhere together. It's true, we do. In Kodumela, we share a desk in the front room of the office, we look up funding opportunities, we talk to the managers of all the drop ins, we run errands in town, we laugh a lot, and I think we work well together. I help with teaching her the ins and outs of Google searches and her Gmail inbox, patting her on the back, coming up with ways to describe what Kodumela is doing and what Kodumela would like to do to possible funders, getting excited about good news, encouraging her to keep trying when she hears not so great news, talking about the world, how we see some things the same and some things differently, and being a good friend to her. She helps with supporting ideas I have, calling me at all hours with plans she has for projects, being passionate, caring about all the kids she works for and with, being open to new and different things and...like I told her recently, "saving" me earlier this year. After staying so long in a not so positive situation with my first office, working with Rejoice has put air back in my sails... seriously... these last few months have renewed my faith in my service. We are a team and I love it.
Today we went to town to buy a school uniform for one of the orphans in Madeira Village. After getting all of our business taken care of, I took her to Woolworth's for hot chocolate and chai tea. We talked about our childhoods, we laughed, we high fived, and we talked about work for a long time. When there was a lull in the conversation and we were both kind of staring off, Rejoice said,"People are staring at us." And they were. Blatant staring from more than one table. There were no traces of ill will in any of the expressions, more curiosity than anything, but it made us stop and think. When you looked around, we were the only table with a black person and a white person. Could people tell how close we are? That we're not just colleagues, but we have a deeper appreciation for each other and are very good friends? We then started to realize how many times, over the course of the day, people were a little stunned when they found out we were shopping together... the uniform store, KFC, Roman's Pizza, the furniture store, the Indian Restaurant, the man on the street who asked where I was originally from and what I was doing with "the black lady".
I have to shake my head, sometimes such situations still throw me for a loop.

Do You Hear The Beat?

So after a crazy day and some miscommunications about THE farewell party being on 05 September instead of 01 August... things are all in line. Yes. Affirmative. THE farewell party will be on 01 August. Yes. Affirmative. As of about 1 this afternoon, THE farewell party will include a Big Brass Band playing for entertainment! My family knows me too well!!!

An Errand Day

Since this week was a little nuts and I haven't been out of the village for a couple of weeks, I decided to go to town and take care of a few errands today. I didn't really wake up in the mood to go, but had to go to the post office to mail off my final letters to THE Schilling Stallions, so I knew a walk would put me in a better head space. I walked down the tar road (usually I take a back way to avoid all the taxi traffic) to see if I could catch a taxi, but nothing came along. It was a beautiful morning and not many people were out and about... it was actually pretty quiet. In the distance I could hear the same brass band at the funeral... and even passed the procession on its way back from the graveyard.
When I was just past the tuck shop where everyone gathers to watch the football (soccer) games on TV, I met Mike. He was walking a little slow due to a limp, so I caught up to him, and we exchanged greetings and comments about how HOT it was even though it was early in the morning AND winter. After a minute or so a full conversation followed. He was with the Department of Housing and was coming out to Metz to walk to all the RDP (Reconstruction and Development Programme) houses being built. He wanted to make sure all the people who were responsible for the construction had shown up. It was a nice conversation. We didn't walk long before a friend of his pulled over and offered us a ride to the post office.
Mike and Richard, our driver. I told them that they shared their names with two very cool guys I know back in The States... my uncle and my dad.
On my way back to my room to pick up some last minute things for town, I ran into one of the guys working on the tar road. He wanted to know who he could talk to about a family of orphans living in Bismark, the next village over. I pointed him to Maruleng CHBC and Kodumela... told him someone at either place would know what to do... and thanked him for looking out for people in his village.
When I was in my room, I talked to Mabu, the shepherd, about the rat that has been in my room. YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT.... A RAT. For the past week a rat has been coming in a hole between my roof and the wall, crawling across one of the beams (directly above my bed!) that holds up my roof, and then escaping into a hole between his room and mine. I thought I could live with it... but then thought better. I REALLY don't want to get some paralyzing disease or have it fall on me during the night... so I was going to invest in poison. Mabu speaks very little English, I speak very little Sotho, we can all guess how the conversation went.. I used a lot of hand gestures, made my fingers into ears and showed my teeth... made a pretend tail... and finally just drew him a picture.
"Ah! Legotlo (Lay-ho-klo)! Yes, yes Mmapula!"

The Beat of the Drum

I am so glad to be home.
Today was a long day.
Rejoice and I went to a workshop that the Provincial Government was putting on... and although I think all the information they were giving us was relevant and important, it's FRIDAY. They held it in Nkowankowa (about 40 minutes from Metz) so we left fairly early this morning to make it on time. We got there at 9:30, sat until 10:45, had teatime, and things finally started happening at 11. I was antsy, I couldn't understand most of what was being said, but was trying to be a part of the discussions, so I was exhausted, and more than a few times a few representatives from other NGO's couldn't understand why we would have a hard time finding funding if I was white and from AMERICA. Days like this are draining... after a few hours I'm so tired of being "on".
When we finally knocked off at 3, we had to catch a taxi to Tzaneen (even though it's in the wrong direction) to then catch a taxi to Metz. Since we were having to go to town anyway... Rejoice thought we should do something fun. So we did.. and man, it was fun.
In the ShopRite Mall not too far from the bank and The Hungry Lion (a fast food chicken place) there's a store by the name of Jet Music where we are regular customers. Rejoice stocks up on reggae and gospel, I'm trying to find some of the music I've heard on taxis and in the office to take home with me.
Today I was interested in purchasing the ZCC's (Zion Christian Church) Brass Band Collection. Awesome. I've been to a few ZCC funerals and weddings and one of my very favorite things about them is the big brass band that plays. They play and people march behind them. (Just like a New Orleans' Jazz Funeral!) When the band is used for church, the men and women are all dressed in their church uniforms and they "march to Heaven". To make sure the collection was the CD I wanted... the guy who always helps us, Solly, put it on in the store. Pretty soon everyone was marching to Heaven. We all marched to the beat and swung our right arms in time.
Sipho, Peggy, and Solly from Jet Music with my ZCC Brass Band CD!

Now I'm in my pajamas, about to go to sleep, and somewhere deep in the village, the Friday night vigil for a funeral is in full force... I can hear the drums and the trumpet. Not a bad way to go to end the day.

I LOVE Those Schilling Stallions!

A picture for me from Jessica

Woo! My 3rd grade pen pals went all out this last time... beautiful pictures, really long letters, and lots of good things to say. I just finished writing them back tonight and I'm glad I took a little longer to think about it all, decorate their letters a little more. This is one of the first big goodbyes I'm doing. The kids that side are finishing school at the end of June so this batch of letters is the last one. I'm going to miss their funny comments and drawings and am SO glad I had an opportunity to write them. They don't know how much writing to them saved my sanity at times... and helped me to open my eyes to noticing different things about my experience.


Dear Schilling Stallions,
No, you guys ROCK! Thanks for being such good friends and pen pals! It's been really fun writing you, it was always such a treat finding your letters in my mailbox. I hope you continue to learn all kinds of new things about the world, because there is so much to learn!, and that you remember two very important things... be nice to yourself and others AND have fun! Good luck with school next year!
Your Friend,
Megan

Tamiko said while they were posing with the bulletin board she put up in her room for all the things I sent, they all wanted to say "Ta-Da!" So... Ta-Da!