Twinkle

It was one of those evenings where everything that I'm going to remember about the day happened in about 45 minutes. And within those 45 minutes everything looked beautiful, the mountains were a little sharper, I breathed a little deeper, I made my supper a little slower, and standing outside my room with all the lights off and the stars twinkling above (with the moon half full) I talked to the universe, talked to all that is bigger than I am. I leaned my head back, closed my eyes, and let everything out. I teared up, felt everything cut pretty deep, opened my eyes, and rattled off a short monologue to the silhouettes of the mountains about how I was eternally grateful for everything; what I've seen and done, what is to come. To think we're all so small, just little dots on this Earth, and sometimes things that we experience, we see, feel so big, immense, shaking. It's times like tonight that I want to store away in my memory, in my heart, wherever they're easily retrievable, so I can pull them out when I need a reminder... a little boost... or maybe, I should say, something that will bring me back down, connect and ground me to the bigger picture. So that's what I did, I wrote everything I was thinking in my journal, I committed what I could to memory, and then I took out my colored pencils and the plainest piece of paper I could find and wrote THANK YOU FOR THIS LIFE. I got the gummy, sticky, tacky stuff that I use to put up everything on my wall (it even works to plug up leaks in a tin roof... trust me I've tried it!) and I put it up on the side of one of my new shelves, right at the end of the bed, so when I wake up in the morning, that's the first thing I'll see when I open my eyes.

Striking

It's striking. I went to visit a couple of other volunteers this past weekend. Good ol South Africa had public holidays on monday, thursday, and friday of last week. Sweet! I left last Thursday and managed to make it to my friend Keri's for the night in about 51/2 hours and 6 taxis. I love it. I love the feeling I get when I board a taxi, we wait for it to fill up, I buy an avocado to eat in the mean time, we pay, and then the koombi starts off towards the next taxi rank. I love being squished next to people. I love hearing the music (one driver even put his memory stick into the stereo and played mp3's... I was fascinated). I love trusting myself enough to venture across the province, across South Africa. I love looking around sort of lost, maybe confused, and having someone offer help, answering my question, giving me directions. So I went to Keri's, spent the night, went to Abby's (2 more taxis away) the next day... spent the whole weekend hiking, keeping warm and dry (it was cold and rainy), talking, eating, and watching movies. Then Monday... started the whole process again, in reverse. On taxi number 5 or so of my journey I sat all the way in the corner, the 4th seat, next to a guy who introduced himself as Numbuso. He asked the usual questions... where I was from, what I was doing here, etc., but in a different way than usual. I could tell he was truly interested. He asked questions that referred to my answers. Asked how I felt about being in South Africa. Was I missing home? Was I scared riding on the black taxis? Did I like it here? He said he expected it was hard. (it's always so nice to hear that... ) I told him it helped to meet nice people who were willing to help me. That I wasn't scared. And then... right before the taxi turned into the rank he looked me straight in the eyes and said, "Mmapula, God has a plan for you, you'll be ok." I was kind of stunned, taken aback. I thanked him, but felt like that wasn't enough. How do you thank someone enough for giving you air? Allowing you to breathe a little easier? The last months and weeks I've been on the ups and downs. I'm riding them out, but it's exhausting and sometimes I feel so low I'm not sure how to drag myself back up. The little things help, but sometimes they're not enough motivation. We got out of the taxi, him holding my backpack while I made my way through to the side door, and we parted ways in front of a taxi he was supposed to be taking. Sepela Gabotse. I walked to catch my next taxi, found I was in the wrong rank for long distance trips, and turned around to head in the right direction. It was seconds I know, but Numbuso was gone. He was there, we shared this taxi ride, he gave me the push, and then he was gone. It works out that way a lot. I have a list of people I keep in my head. A list of people who have crossed my path just when I needed some sort of sign, but only stayed as long as they needed to. It's funny. They have no idea how I remember them, or if I do. I do though. I remember them very well.

My favorites for the last couple weeks

I told the proposal for funding that I worked on last week where to go. Well, Tanya and I sent ours off to Pretoria through a courier service (thanks to her office!). It was stressful. Really. It didn't require many hours of work or anything, but it did insist that I use my brain and actually THINK and well, I haven't done that in a good 9 months. Made me miss school a little bit. After hitting one obstacle after another with phone numbers not working, the office we were sending things to not trusting email (so our electronic versions had to be burned to CD's and sent with our hard copies), and trying to make deadlines... we were through at 10am on a Thursday. What do you do after you finish a proposal and are tired of looking at your office? You congratulate yourself and head over to Tanya's for a viewing of the movie classic "Titanic" (until the electricity goes out and leaves you hanging at the part where the last part of the ship is about to go down) and you stuff yourself silly with nachos, guacamole, and some homemade salsa. Yeah, that's how you do it.
MmaDiapo gave me a stalk of sugarcane from her farm just down the tar road from the village. You're supposed to break a piece off at the joint, tear the bark off with your teeth (that's African style... I used a knife) and the chew the inside pulpy part until you've gotten all the sugary sweet juice out.
This is a sad attempt at trying to show, through digital image, what a chewed on piece of sugarcane might look like... but you get the picture.
A couple of weeks ago, on a Sunday morning, MmaDiapo hosted a society meeting in her yard. The night before, the electricity was out for a good few hours and I had to help Margaret bake scones over the fire so they would be ready by morning. This is a classic example of how people may have access to amenities such as electricity here, but don't rely too heavily on them.... always using traditional methods as the most reliable way of getting things done. My job was to hold the torch and shine its beam on the table where Margaret was patting out dough or over the cast iron pot to see if the scones were browning nicely. A few times she asked if I was ok... and if I needed to take a rest. "Oh Mmapula! You must be so tired! Please go and have a rest!" Really, holding the torch was not that exhausting (can you believe it?!). The meeting the next morning was a success...burial society members met (each person pays R25 a month and when there is a death in their family, all the society members show up to help cook food and attend to details of the funeral. MmaDiapo is busy most weekends with society work, we have a lot of funerals around here, at least a couple every weekend), issues were discussed, and after cooking all morning, large amounts of food were consumed. Butternut, cabbage salad (cole slaw), beets, pap, sour porridge, steamed cabbage, chicken, beef, tripe, chicken intestines, bread, and mashed potatoes that were cooked in large three legged pots, with jelly (Jell-o) and custard for dessert. Finish the day off with a glass of Sprite and then go take a nap (or wait, that's what I did).
When you bring out your camera at the drop-in centres kids go wild. I was chased around by packs of kids wanting to see their faces on my LCD screen. Hilarious. It really is funny. Whenever you pull out your camera they move forward and keep moving towards you as you're snapping photos. They just get so excited. I call this one "Up in yo face". Doesn't the kid right in front look like he's very much moved by all that is happening?
Thanks to Tanya for inviting me along to paint at her organization's drop-in centre, Lafata. After all the painting was finished, the kids posed for a picture.This drop-in is the model of what all drop-ins should be.... nice building (which is their's(this is rare), fridges, storage space, many income generating projects (chickens, beads, and biscuits), and the shelter where the kids eat that we painted.
And this is Mmapula posing with her new beaded belt! The woman next to me (who is also wearing one) is the one who made it and everyone else helps out at the drop-in centre. Some work with beads, some work with the chickens, some work with the kids, and some make biscuits (mmmmm, I like me some biscuits).
I love this picture. A couple of weekends ago Tanya and I went to Hoedspruit to run errands and hang out at the cool little coffee shop. We stopped by the new post office and met Sipho and the gang. Sipho told me that he didn't want me to suffer while in his country and if there was anything he could do to help me... I should let him know. I told him I would greatly appreciate a picture of the Hoedspruit Post Office staff.. and yes... because he didn't want me to suffer... that is exactly what I got. I love that they didn't bat an eye when I asked them to hold up my stamps for international mailing and that James, not having any stamps to hold, posed with the calculator. From left to right: James, Sipho, Busi, and Leonard.
Balloon village with Idah and Mogale. A couple of weeks ago Mogale and I went to shadow one of my organization's carers, Idah, in the village of Balloon. In order to get to Balloon we took a taxi down the main tar road and got out at the cross for Moshate (another village right off the main road). We then walked to a circle of trucks parked under a small group of trees just past the shebeen, and it was there that we found our ride into the village. Some people rode in the back, Mogale and I got in the front, and we made our way winding through the red dirt into, yet another, remote village our carers and organization are trying to serve. It's beautiful isn't it? Right next to the mountains. We spent the afternoon climbing up the side of the mountains checking on patients, eating guava right off the tree, talking about how good cold drink would be, dispelling any rumors that we were from Eskom (oh the very famous people in charge of electricity in this country), and talking to (being surrounded by) kids who had just gotten out of school. Oh, and I drooled over all the ripe avocados hanging from the trees.. they're in season now.

Earth Day

HAPPY EARTH DAY!
Today, I was lucky enough to ride along with Tanya, and a few people from her office, to visit one of her NGO's drop-in centres in a nearby village. What a great afternoon and what a great way to celebrate Earth Day! The kids at the centre were able to plant 5 small trees (that will one day grow to be nice, big, shade trees) all along the edge of their play yard. Thanks for bringing Earth Day to Limpopo, Tanya. What a Peace Corps Volunteer!

9 months ago...

A celebratory lunch at the Hlohlowe Drop-in Centre. I love me some beans and porridge.

Mma and Rra Motupa (he's on my NGO's Board of Directors) and their son, Innocent, who is also celebrating 9 months living in South Africa (he was born right around the time I came here)

9 months ago today a Megan, a slightly different Megan than this one here typin', left Austin, Texas to start the beginning of a new adventure. Woohoo, Peace Corps South Africa!
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about how far I've come, both in physical distance and as a person. I've been in a good, but strange place. Last week or the week before, things shifted and I find that, now, I seem to know more about/identify more with South Africa than I do about/with the States. A lot of things have happened in 9 months. Births, deaths, weddings, new pets have been acquired, new buildings have gone up, skylines have changed, birthdays have passed, bars closed, new albums have come out, people signed mortgages, new cars have been bought, and people started dating people I've never met... don't know at all. It's a weird feeling. It's especially weird when you know all these people who have lived these things...they're important to you, you want to hang on to them, and you're so far removed. You know? I know it's expensive and the time difference makes it difficult to call me. I know it's expensive to visit me. I know writing is hard. I know what it's like to be busy... it's just I've never known it so much from this side... the side where people have moved on from the novelty of me being gone... me being gone in Africa.... and I haven't moved on. It's still big to me. Still changing for me. While it's a weird feeling, it also feels really good. This is where I'm living right now, this is my home, and to feel more settled, more at ease, means I'm lighter and I'm more ok with the day to day punches that occur. Being able to shrug off all the little things, the differences that once bugged me so much, I'm able to focus on things like, oh I don't know... work! I can start getting excited about different project ideas and figure out how I can think them out with people I've spent the last months networking with.
I just wrote a long overdue letter (along with the shift, the writer's block I was suffering from the last few months has finally been knocked down) to a good friend talking about how I felt 9 months ago. I can't pinpoint one single emotion. I know in the weeks leading up to leaving I was nervous and excited, but more than anything I was numb. While in the States it never quite sunk in how serious this move was, how different everything was going to be. (Two days before I left, when I still had all my packing to do, I went and saw the latest Harry Potter movie because that was a priority). Saying goodbyes, packing, stressing. More than anything I was in survival and coping mode, there wasn't a lot of emotion, I had to get done what I needed to get done, whatever was right in front of me, and that didn't leave a lot of room for any reflection or reaction. When people would ask why I was doing this, I couldn't give them a clear answer. I couldn't really say anything that captured everything I felt and accurately described my decision making process. In February, in the middle of weeks of being low, it hit me.... the answer. I do this, I am in the Peace Corps, because I believe this is what I need to do. It's not a hippie thing. It's a people thing. I believe that as a human being, one of my duties on this planet is to help others, bridge some gaps, make peace, smile, shake someone's hand, share food under a tree, hug a kid, laugh with a gogo, do what I can to make information, resources, and options more accessible. It's a people thing.

SHELVING

This deserves its very own post for sure... as of 6 pm last night.... MMAPULA HAD SHELVES PUT IN HER ROOM! What a relief. After almost 9 months away from the States, almost 7 months in Metz Village, and 4 months in my permanent room... I can start to unpack my bags. It was kind of stressful, although as usual I seemed to be the only one stressing. After awkward phone conversations, plenty of waiting, language barriers, some stress about haggling the price, some stress about how they would end up, some stress about what, exactly, I was supposed to be doing to help the process along, 4 men showed up yesterday, had some shelves all built and ready to go. Yep. They picked up the finished pieces, held them up against the wall, and when Tanya and I said "Sharp" they eye balled it and pounded some nails in. When those nails were in I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself, hug the guys?, jump up and down?. Relief. Another challenge conquered and more lessons learned. They're sturdy, they're beautifully made, they were more money than I was prepared to spend, they're peace of mind and helping to keep my sanity intact, and they're a true gift to MmaDiapo and this room, for when I'm finished here, they're all hers. Pictures soon!

This is your life, Mmapula!

Over the last few months I've been trying to upload pictures into a web album, and then was going to post the address on here, but for a slew of reasons that hasn't happened yet. Here you go... little snippets of my world. The world where I wake up to people in my family chasing chickens in the yard (and eventually those chickens are then eaten), where it takes me a couple of hours to wash all my dirty clothes and hang them out to dry, where I sit and drink tea every morning in my blue room, where the sun shines directly on my room and creates , what I call, the "Easy Bake Oven" effect for several hours a day, where I get awesome drunken phone calls from the States, where cowbells are my alarm clock, where I pick lemons off the lemon tree across the road and think about all the lemonade I can make, where my pit toilet is the tiled, golden, palace of all pit toilets, where I walk to one of the coolest post offices ever and get to talk with John and Mathabele about the weather and what could possibly be in the big box I just received, where I hear Culture Spears' "Mmapula" played on repeat at the shebeen, and I wonder if I really love that song as much as I used to, where I learn so much. Yes. This is my life. Enjoy!

The main road through Metz Village. It's dirt right now, but soon it will be paved (a tar road!), they're detouring traffic and digging it up as I write. Beautiful, isn't it? Metz, with 6,000 households (and how many people actually live in those households?), is the biggest village in the immediate area.
Where I walk to pick up mail sent by you! The orange phone booth was such a tease in the beginning, there once was a phone and now there is not. My PO box is where the shadow is in the picture. It's the most fair and honest post office I know.
Snuggled right in between the hair saloon and the physiotherapist's rented rooms is the office of Maruleng Community Home Based Care. Welcome to my office! When you first walk in you must greet the whole staff (they're all very nice), and then we'll make you tea and get some bread or biscuits from the bakery, and you can sit and spend the afternoon with us.
The way the mountains look on my walk to the post office. A couple months after this picture was taken the whole yard to the left was filled with mealies (maize/corn).
MmaDiapo's house. Huge, huh? I live in her backyard, just passed the cows and the house her older brother, Daniel, is building. She works hard to keep everything looking so nice.
The green door is the door to Mmapula's room. It looks tiny and, well, I have to say, this picture isn't foolin' you... it is tiny... but it's home and I love it. I've been on quite the interior decorating kick... painting, getting shelves, MmaDiapo tiled the floor, I got a new pillow, and I've started putting things up on the walls (pictures!)... so I'll post some pictures when I have it in some kind of order. Maybe comparison ones... what it looked like when I first got it and what it looks like now? Yeah. That's my blue water barrel, too. Somehow it is always magically filled, water just appears!
The view from my room. MmaDiapo's carport, the mountains, the cows, and to the right is where Daniel's house is going up. Whenever someone asks "O dula kae?" (Where do you stay?), I answer, "Ke dula MmaDiapo" and they always assume I mean her brother, down the road, the retired principal. How do we clarify? I tell them she has the white Toyota Corolla. Things are always clarified after that. The big green drum/tank right behind her car is a rainwater tank. There is one end of a metal gutter attached to the top of the tank and the other is connected to the roof gutters... when it rains, water is collected! Right beside the tank is the tap that I get my drinking water from. Daniel is slowly building his house... he works during the week so he comes late on Friday afternoon and stays until Sunday afternoon, building it brick by brick. Brick by brick, weekend by weekend, I wonder when we'll have a completed new house?