I felt that this was a day that was worth documenting.  To me, this was a day that epitomizes what life in the Peace Corps is like.  It was about 50 degrees and cloudy/rainy.  I started the day by walking roughly four miles to the royal kraal for a community meeting.  I sat for two hours in the community center, a building with a roof but no walls.  It’s perched on the top of one of the tallest hills in my community, the biting wind blowing straight at us the entire time.  The meeting was on a very interesting and worthwhile topic (sex and gender-based violence in the community).  However, it was all in Siswati which meant I sat there for two hours, shivering and completely oblivious to what was being said, except for the rare times that what of the women next to me so graciously translated.  I then walked another mile back to the tar road to catch a taxi to town.  About half way there, my whole foot suddenly felt like it was on fire.  I ripped my shoe off and found the culprit, a bee stuck in my shoe!  Bees here must be different from bees back home… or maybe it’s just been a while since I was stung because my fingers started tingling, my heart started pounding, and my foot hurt so bad that I couldn’t put any weight on it.  Just then, I saw a taxi approaching, flashing its lights at me (its way of asking if I wanted a ride).  I flagged it down and staggered over to it, all the passengers inside staring at me the whole time.  By the time I got in to town, the pain had let up enough for me to walk, and I was no longer afraid that I was having some kind of deadly allergic reaction to the bee venom.  I had two hours to kill before a meeting at the local children’s home, so I spent almost the whole time eating food.  I feel like all I do here is eat.  I spend almost all my money on food, and I’m still hungry… all the time!  I finish eating, and I just want more food.  I’m really not exaggerating on this point.  I have always liked food.  Even back home, I ate.  But here I eat a ton.  I calculated it and, on average, I walk/jog 30 miles a week, some weeks more.  It is a constant battle trying to get enough calories into me on a Peace Corps budget.  While making my way around town, I was proposed to five times by five different men, which is really the norm in my town.  Finally, I sought sanctuary at the Children’s Village an hour before my meeting, cold and tired of being harassed.  My meeting was VERY successful!  Worth everything I went through.  I have about three different projects I am going to be working on there (more on that later) and my counterpart there is very enthusiastic and seems to be really invested in her work.  I walked out of the meeting just in time to see my taxi back home pulling away.  I ran down the road, trying to flag it down.  My driver saw me, rolled down the window and signaled that he’d be coming back.  That meant that I had over an hour to wait…just as thunder rumbled in the distance and the skies opened.  As I made my way through the downpour, I remembered that I had left my laptop out in my hut…lying right under one of the spots in my roof that leaks.  I just prayed that it wasn’t raining hard back in my village yet.  There really wasn’t a point to obsessing over it.  My laptop ended up being fine, but that definitely isn’t a mistake I’ll every make again.  Luckily, there is a covered shed at the taxi park so I at least had cover.  I hunkered down, bought another snack, and stuck in my i-pod to wait it out.  About 30 minutes into my wait, one of the taxi drivers from a neighboring village (they all know me by now) walks up to me with a piece of paper.  I hesitantly turn off my music and read it.  It’s a love note…I figured as much.  “Dear baby.  You are beautiful.  I love you very much.  Please marry me baby.  I want to be your husband.  I love you baby.  Write me back your response.”  Some days, I would be amused at this.  Today, I wasn’t.  I told the man no about ten times before sticking my headphones back in and walking off.  Finally, my taxi pulls up.  By this point, there are about 30 people waiting for the one taxi back to my village.  No one wants to have to wait in the cold rain for another hour until the next trip so a mob scene literally ensues.  People crowd the door.  There is pushing and shoving.  Like I said, I really wasn’t in the mood.  I just stepped back and watched.  Luckily, my driver likes me, and technically, I had been waiting the longest of everyone.  He had my back.  He locked the door, cracked the window, and told everyone to step back and let me on first.  I gave him a thankful smile, climbed on and watched as everyone proceeded to try to pack as many people as possible into the 14 seats.  We made it back to the village, and I walked the 100 yards to my homestead in the pouring rain, only to remember that I forgot to stop at the local store to buy airtime.  It was thundering, lightening, and starting to get dark, but I REALLY needed airtime so I sucked it up.  I carefully navigated through the mud, puddles, and pouring rain to the neighborhood store where one of the men standing out front whispered that he loved me.  Believe it or not, I still wasn’t in the mood.  I just gave him a look, pulled up my hood, and took off for home again.  I plan to spend the rest of the night cuddled in blankets watching a movie.  It was a brutal day, but at the end of it, I have to say that I love this place more than ever.  This day was what being a Peace Corps volunteer is all about.  Enduring the not so pleasant, the endless marriage proposals, walking miles and miles through mud and rain for that one moment when you feel like you are actually achieving something.  That something is actually happening.  That your presence here is making some kind of positive impact, no matter how small it may seem at the time.  And I love it.

Life as a Peace Corps Volunteer

September 5^th, 2012

It has been cold and raining for almost a week now.  I have been largely stuck inside the whole time, reading, cooking, occasionally trying to do something productive.  It’s hard to haul myself out from under my tent of blankets, though.  The thermometer in my hut barely passes 50 degrees during even the warmest part of the day.  How my skin longs for the heat of the sun, to be released from the prison of layers I have been wearing since this wretched weather started days ago. 

It is times like this that I feel so disconnected from my life back home, so utterly caught up in my world here that I almost feel as if I am existing in a whole other universe.  It’s amazing how quickly the body can adapt.  How quickly new habits are formed and old habits are forgotten, my life here so different from the one that I led back home.  Things that at first seemed so daunting and burdensome have now become the norm to me.

One of the most defining elements of life here is water.  The most critical part of existence.  Vital to every living being, but yet, something that I have so taken for granted all my life… up until now.  You never really realize how much water you use in your day-to-day business until you have a 25-litre jug of it sitting in front of you, and you know that’s ALL you are going to have until the taps open again in three days.  But really, I don’t need more than that anyway.  Another thing I have learned since being here…how little water we actually need to get by.

Everyday, I boil two litres of water and immediately filter it.  This is my drinking water for the day, occasionally a little of which I will use to cook with.  In the evenings, I use another few litres to wash all my dishes from the day.  Finally, I use a mere litre to bathe.  And that’s it.  Except for laundry days, which are few and far between for me.  Here, I’ll go three or four days without washing my hair.  Likewise, I’ll wear my clothes at least four or five times without washing them.  When water is such a precious commodity, you wait to wash something until it is truly dirty.  When I do wash (either my hair or my clothing) it is all done by hand with a bucket.  My “bathroom” consists of a plastic basin with a shower curtain hung around it and my toilet is the pit litrine in the back corner of the homestead shared with the rest of my family.  As foreign as this all may have seemed to me six months ago, before I found out I was joining Peace Corps, it is amazing how normal it all is to me now and how little I actually miss of the amenities from home.

Village life was also a fast adjustment, mainly how different my daily routine is here.  There are no street lights illuminating the dirt roads of my village.  When night falls, it is DARK! No one is out and about after 6pm in the evening (except those types of people you definitely don’t want to be sharing a pitch black street with).  As soon as darkness descends, I padlock my burglar bars, lock my door, and latch all the windows.  I usually fix dinner, do the dishes, take a quick bucket bath and am in bed by 8pm.  Likewise, I rise much earlier.  My sleep cycle here is basically controlled by the sun at night and the roosters in the morning.  The roosters start crowing at 4:30 every morning like clockwork.  I’ve only used my alarm clock once since arriving in the village over a month ago.  Once the roosters start, there is no more sleeping.

The way I conduct myself in the village is also very different than I ever carried myself back home.  Swaziland remains a very conservative country.  In addition, as a young white woman, I get a TON of male attention here….rather aggressive male attention.  I am proposed to no fewer than three or four times every time I go to town.  As such, I dress modestly and carry myself modestly, as well.  Whenever I leave my homestead, I am in a skirt or dress that goes at least to my knees, if not all the way to my ankles, along with a shirt with sleeves and a high neckline.  I’ve noticed that dressing in such a way really does cut down on the amount of harassment I receive. 

Finally, one of the most welcome habits from home that I have quickly broken here is my obsession with time, schedules, appointments, etc.  Every time I leave to go somewhere, I take my time.  I stop to chat with every single person I pass on the way.  Sometimes it’s just a greeting.  Other times people want to ask questions and find out more about what I’m doing here or what the U.S is like.  If I’m not walking to my destination, I have to wait for the khumbi, which runs on no particular schedule, coming and going as it fills up.  Even when I am walking, most days the road has been muddy and riddled with puddles, making for slow progress.  My village is gorgeous though, and I never mind the detours and long journeys.  I often just make up excuses to get out and walk.  I’m soaking it all in as much as possible before I’m back in the hustle and bustle of home. 

August 16^th, 2012

“My Love Affair with a Mountain Village”

I rise each morning with the sun and, of course, the neighborhood roosters that act as the village’s alarm clock, faithfully ushering in each new morning with their cacophony of crowing.

This is, by far, my favorite time of day.  The homestead is still quiet, the rest of my family still savoring their last few moments of sleep while I quickly rise to savor my only few moments of solitude around the homestead.  I swing open the wooden door to my thatched-roof rondavel; the warm air, still heavy with sleep, rushes out as the crisp morning air rushes in to replace it.  The valley lays below me, a velvet blanket glittered with silver lights scattered here and there.   Daylight has just begun to peek above the hills, the sky blushing a soft pink along the horizon. 

I slip outside, still in my pajamas.  Having the homestead to myself means that this is the only time of day that I get to leave my house without modestly donning a knee-length skirt or dress first.  Immediately, my neck cranes upward to catch a glimpse of the moon precariously hanging in the little darkness that remains above the mountain top, a few stars still faintly twinkling their last twinkles of the night.  Here, I love that I can mark the passage of time in moon cycles.  In fact, in Siswati, the word for “month”  (inyanga) also means “moon.”  At home, I’m too busy and distracted to notice things such as the waxing and waning of the moon.  Since arriving in Kudzeni, it has become one of the highlights of my day. 

Spring is on the way…I can feel it tickling my skin.  The African sun has yet to break the Swazi winter, leaving the mornings pleasantly cool.  The valley below still lays blanketed in a thin layer of mist, not yet ready to rise and face a new day.  I cautiously make my way down to the pit latrine in the dawn’s faint light.  On the way, I pass my family’s kraal, where the cows lay snuggled under their usual tree, the low branches offering some shelter from the biting wind.  They lazily raise their heads from slumber to acknowledge my presence.  Sometimes I even mumble a greeting in reply, “Kusile inkhomo.” (Good morning Cows).  In this moment, I feel as if it is just the cows, the mountain, and I ready to greet the sun’s first rays.

By the time I have finished my morning rounds, the sky has brightened, the stars all faded, the rocky hillside red above me, bathed in an early morning glow.  Likewise, the homestead begins to awaken around me.  As I retreat to my hut, I hear the first cries of my sisi’s baby, the door to the main house slamming repeatedly as my younger bosisi dress for school, the clamor of hooves as our herd of goats rush past my hut to spend the day grazing the mountainside.

Six days a week, I set off down the dirt road for training, my two dogs, Tiger and Boss, following along behind me, their entire backsides wagging with excitement.  I hear faint cries of “Bongiwe!” coming from the children on the homestead up the mountain from mine.  I always smile and return their waves, loving the feeling of belonging that their greetings give me.  When we reach my neighbor’s homestead, we are joined by Heather (a fellow volunteer) and her puppy, Kona.  Together, the five of us make our way down the mountain, the puppies wrestling contentedly, occasionally rushing off into the tall grasses in pursuit of some ever-elusive prey.  We pass groups of timid school children, marching purposefully in the opposite direction on their way to the local primary school.  They all smile and offer shy waves, giggling as we pass.  After seven weeks, we have become a part of their morning routine, just as they have become a part of ours. 

After hours of tedious training, my mind breathes a sigh of relief when the bus finally drops me at the base of my beloved mountain each evening.  I almost always opt for the “shortcut” home, following a narrow, dirt path that weaves through thick, brittle grasses then under and around a grove of mango trees before depositing me back on the main road halfway up the mountainside.  The heat hangs so heavy by the afternoon that the edges of the surrounding mountain tops always appear hazy and blurred at this time of day.  But as I complete the final leg of my journey, crossing a small stream and climbing ever higher up the mountain, there is a merciful drop in temperature.

Cold evenings are spent huddled around the fire in our outdoor kitchen, chatting with my bosisi as they prepare the evening meal.  As darkness descends, life on my homestead begins to draw to a close.  My bhuti gathers the wares of his small outdoor shop and safely stows them away for another day.  My babe and oldest sisi arrive home from a long day of work in the city on the last bus of the evening.  In the distance, I hear the yapping of my dogs and the shrill whistles of my bhuti, followed by the vibration of dozens of hooves on the packed earth as the goats and cows are herded back down the mountain and into their kraals for the night.

As the first stars begin to shine, I retreat to the sanctuary of my own hut.  Although evenings remain crisp, I now fall asleep to the lullaby of crickets singing below my window, and once again, I am reminded that spring is on it’s way.  

TRAINING

We arrived in Swaziland after a grueling 36 hour-long journey on the evening of June 28^th.  I can guarantee that all 41 of us were in bed, fast asleep by 8pm.  Training began at 7am the next morning and would become a near constant in my life for the next 8 weeks.  Looking back now, it’s hard to believe that was almost two months ago.  It honestly seems like a whirlwind.

We had training from 8am until 3 or 4 in the afternoon six, sometimes seven, days a week.  I considered it a Peace Corps boot camp of sorts.  Any and every topic was covered, some obsessively so.  There were Technical sessions.  Health sessions.  Cross culture sessions.  Safety sessions.  Language sessions.  Really, the Peace Corps tries it’s hardest to make sure we are at least somewhat prepared to become active and productive members of our Swazi host community once they finally cut the cord and set us loose at the end of these two months. 

Swaziland, in general, is considered one of the hardest Peace Corps posts.  For anyone who doesn’t know, it has the highest prevalence of HIV in the world….Yes, in the world.  Just to throw some statistics out there….the current prevalence of HIV is estimated to be at 31%.  Within pregnant women, the latest survey shows it to be almost half (Pregnant women by definition are women who have had unprotected sex, so they are more at risk).  Up until two years ago, each person who was invited to serve in Swaziland would receive a personal phone call to discuss the mental hardships of the post before accepting the assignment.  Because of this, we went through extensive HIV/AIDS training and mental health training, as well.  Even as a Youth Development volunteer, HIV/AIDS will figure into almost everything that I do here.  Each one of us is going to encounter death and dying at some point during our 26 months here, and I am already anticipating how that is going to affect me. 

It wasn’t all serious…there were fun days thrown in every week or so.  Some of my favorites:  We had half of the 4^th of July off so that we could all visit the Country Director’s home for the traditional PC cookout. By this point, we had only been in the country for about a week, so I wasn’t yet having serious withdrawals from American culinary goodness.  The taste of home was still nice though, and I’m sure that I will appreciate the burgers and baked beans even more come next July 4^th.  We had a cooking contest one Sunday morning where we were split up into groups of four.  We each had to cook a meal using our PC cookbook and a propane cooking stove.   Our group made a Mexican feast of red rice, home-made tortillas, fajita veggies, beans, and chips with quac and pico de gallo.  There was also a two-day long training retreat at a permaculture center in Northern Swaziland where we all learned the ins and outs of starting our own gardens here.  We learned to compost, propagate plants, companion planting, irrigation and water conservation… I took notes religiously hoping that I can try to develop a little bit of a green thumb during my two years here. The last night of the retreat, we had our first traditional braai…. I plan on having many more for fellow PCV’s in the future.  So much fun!  (Yes, I realize that most of my highlights involved food.)

Most days though, training was honestly a lot to take in, and there was little time to rest and process any of it.  When we finally got home at 4 or 5 in the evenings, there was more work to be done.  We all stayed with host families throughout training, which meant evenings were spent bonding and learning more culturally.  I often sat around the fire for several hours with my brothers discussing Swazi politics and answering questions about the U.S.  Then, once I finally had time alone in my hut, I had to boil and treat water, cook dinner, wash dishes, take a bucket bath, and spend what time I still had left studying Siswati or journaling…when honestly all I wanted to do was lay in bed and watch movies all night.  But I made it through the 8 weeks, passed my final exams and language assessment… and will be officially sworn in as a PC volunteer later this morning!   

And thus begins the three month long period called integration, where I have nothing but time, time and time.  For these next three months, we are not supposed to leave our site (except for one evening a month), and we are also not allowed to begin work on any projects yet.  Instead, the point of integration is to… integrate.  I will spend these next three months getting to know my community, building relationships, making myself visible and available, and hopefully learning enough to start to develop a plan for my last 21 months of service here. 

Another adventure begins Monday.  I leave for 26 months in Swaziland as a Youth Development Volunteer with the Peace Corps.  Right now....my life is absolutely crazy.  My emotions and mind are running wild.  I can't sit still for more than a few minutes before I start thinking of about a million things I need to do in the next 48 hours before my departure.  I guess it is good that I am so busy because it hasn't given me time to freak out yet.  The panic moment will probably come when I hop on the plane, buckle in, and actually have a few minutes to myself to breathe.  Be on the lookout for more to come.... I just wanted to get this blog back up and running before I depart.  Thus begins one of the biggest adventures of my life...