Peace Corps Mid-Service Training

Since last Friday was the last day of term 3, on Saturday I was on my way up to Pretoria for our official Peace Corps Mid-Service Training conference. As the title suggests, it marks the halfway point (or little over in this case) of your service and gives the Peace Corps a chance to get all volunteers in for a medical and dental checkup as well as a few session about how your service is going so far.

Some good news from the conference:

• Of course it was wonderful to see and catch up with those few volunteers that live far, far away. There are a few people that I have not seen since our last conference in December and I will probably not see again until the Close of Service conference in May of next year.
• We finally managed to get our act together as a cohort and we designed and printed out a group t-shirt – a task we started more than 13 months ago. No matter, it got done and they look great. Because really, what experience isn’t complete without a t-shirt? Here we are in all our glory!

The Battlefields Crew: Liz, Katie, Me, Will,
Paige (SA25), and Laura (5 for 5, no ETs)

The Ohio Crew: Me, Amy, John, Erik,
and Katie (5 for 5, no ETs)

• Amazing breakfast every morning courtesy of Khayalethu Backpackers in Pretoria.
• I picked up my new glasses. As a side note, the pair that I brought with me was completely destroyed by the dust that blows at me all hours of the day and night. It looked like there was a huge smudge on both lenses, but really, it was that they had hundreds and hundreds of tiny scratches. But now I can see clearly again.
• I got some sleeping medication. Hopefully I will be able to re-train my body to sleep through the night again.
• We went out and drank most nights. Hard to say if that is good news, but I will put it under good news because one, it was fun, and two, I was able to stay up a lot later and recover a lot faster than I thought possible at 36.
• I ate a lot of McDonalds ice cream. Again, this may not sound like good news but ice cream is simply not something I have available to me, ever. And McDonald’s ice cream in South Africa is practically gourmet (and costs $0.30). Or at least you know now what I consider gourmet after a year of cooking in a hut.

That’s about all the good news I can think of.

And some bad (or maybe more correctly called, annoying) news…

• At my medical checkup, they found my blood pressure to be rather high. Now, full disclosure, apparently everyone’s blood pressure was high that day and the medical officers think there may have been a problem with the cuff. But even so, I have surprisingly never had even the slightest problem with my blood pressure, so I was a little concerned. After the Medical Officer asked me a few questions, like “Are you feeling more stress than normal?” (well, yes, as I am in the Peace Corps) and “Have you gained a lot of weight since you got here?” (if you check my chart you will see that complete opposite has happened.), it was determined that I am probably consuming ten times the amount of salt and sodium that I did in America. So, I was told to cut back on the popcorn and 2-minute noodle dinners and they would check it again next time I was in Pretoria.
• When I went to the dentist, I was given the bad news that I have 3 cavities. This was actually of little surprise or concern to me. My teeth aren’t great to begin with, and probably the person with the most reservations about my going into the Peace Corps was my dentist. He gave me three tubes of prescription toothpaste before I left and said to let him know when I needed more. Needless to say, the dentist day wasn’t so fun and in a few weeks I would be back for more.
• I did need to avoid / ignore a few of the volunteers that I feel the world would be a better place without. I’m sure there were a few people that felt the same about me. I’m fine with the idea that the whole world doesn’t need to be best friends. Civility is enough.
• Most of the Peace Corps discussion sessions were poorly done. Least surprising thing ever. Barely worth mentioning at this point.

All in all it was a fun week. Truly. It was a much-needed break from site to see friends and make sure I am not doing too much permanent damage to my health and well-being.

A Fond, Final Farewell

When I arrived last September, I was greeted by a principal who had been head of the school for just over 18 years. Quite an accomplishment indeed. But shortly after my service began at the school, I was surprised to hear that the principal would be leaving at the beginning of the following school year and a new principal would be joining us soon after. Her last day was planned for the 31^st of January.

I am not sure why, but it is common practice to have the farewell function (aka goodbye party) for a retiree months and months after s/he has left. The claim that I have heard on more than one occasion is that it takes a bit of time for the school, the teachers, and the parents to save up enough money to throw a proper party. So it was not until this past Thursday, the second to last day of the third term, that our school was able do things up right.

Our freshly painted school.

The tent for the farewell function.

The major planning started a few months back. Teachers and parents had several meetings to discuss the gifts the former principal would be given. After much deliberation, it was decided that the teachers would contribute enough to buy a Laz-Y-Boy recliner and the parents would collect enough to buy a new washing machine. Rather impressive gifts in my opinion. The walls of the school were to be freshly painted so as to look its best. A tent was ordered and a DJ was booked. And of course, the guest of honor was invited to attend. Oddly, it is custom to create a special invitation to invite the honoree to her own function. I thought this bit strange, to be honest, but I was assured it was common practice and it would be an insult if she was not to receive this special notice. I wonder what would have happened if she had responded “no” to being able to attend…

Some of the smaller, but still important details were left until the week of the function. The learners were busy cleaning the classrooms and the school grounds the day before. The teachers planned the menu (although since nearly every Zulu function has nearly an identical menu, that wasn’t that difficult) and did the grocery shopping the day before as well. And at the last minute (and by last minute, I mean the morning of) the program was set and typed up and copied for members of the audience to pass around.

The Girl Guides act as the welcome wagon.

The teachers are busy preparing the meal.

The day of the ceremony started out a bit hectic, but things settled down after the guest of honor arrived. She phoned when she was about 10 minutes away from the school so that she could be properly greeted and welcomed onto the grounds. While she was the principal, she was also a leader of the school’s Girl Guides (like Girl Scouts) and so they played a large part in many aspects of the ceremony that day, starting with her welcome. They actually formed two lines, one on each side of the road, to walk with her car as she neared the school gate. They were singing a typical Girl Guides song to give her a proper greeting. A bit of time was spent taking pictures before she headed into the room where all of the special guests for the day would eventually sit and eat. Not long after her arrival, other guests (mostly friends of the former principal) began to pop in to wish her a happy retirement and see how she was doing. When a fair number of people had arrived, the current principal signaled that it was time to begin. Many, if not most, of the teachers stayed behind in the kitchen to prepare the food for the refreshments, but a few were able to join the crowd of people sitting in the tent to watch the various students speakers and performers pay tribute to the former principal.

Some of the grade 5, 6, and 7 boys
perform at the ceremony.

The principal enjoys her recliner.

The real excitement came when it was time for the gifts. The principal seemed thrilled with the various blankets and other small items given by friends and individual community members. But she was simply ecstatic when she saw the washing machine and the recliner. She sat herself down and spun a round a few times before finally standing back up to give a speech including memories of her time at the school, words of advice for the learners and teachers, and a note of thanks to everyone for making the day such a great success.

For the next day.

Whether we started later than usual or things just took longer than expected, I could not say. But we did not start serving the meal until nearly half past two, which was quite late. People hurried to finish their food and say their goodbyes, and before we knew it there was nothing but piles of dishes left behind. Overall, it was a lovely function to thank the principal for her years and years of service and wish her all the best for a very happy retirement. I hope to have something similar many years down the road.

Annual National Assessments (ANA)

It is that time of year again. During the second week of September, in schools across South Africa, learners in grades 1-6 and 9 write the national standardized tests, known as the ANAs, in language and maths. In grades 1-3 the language is a learner’s home language (in our school’s case, Zulu), but starting in grade 4, no matter what a learner’s home language, they write an ANA that tests their English skills. Everyone takes a maths ANA as well. Again in grades 1-3, the maths exam is written and to be answered in the learner’s home language, but again, starting in grade 4, everything is done in English. No one likes the ANAs, of course, but standardized tests are an unfortunate way of life at this point, so there is no use grumbling.

I found that much of the process here is nearly identical to America. Lots of paperwork for documenting everything, assigned seats for the learners in the classroom, specific set times when each test is to be administered, instructions to be read aloud and examples to be done together before the test is given, two proctors per room (there was even a “training” session that the principal had to administer to the teachers about how to proctor appropriately), more paperwork for reporting scores and absent students. If there were major differences, I certainly didn’t notice them.

There isn’t much else to say about the test itself. Teachers, principals, and even past volunteers complain about how poorly the test is written, how many mistakes it has, how it doesn’t follow the curriculum, any number of things. But in truth, I didn’t find any of it to be true. I’m not saying it was a great test of knowledge, but every question that was on the test was not only part of the curriculum, but was at an appropriate level of difficulty. I found only one mistake, and it was not really that big of a deal. In general, I actually thought the test was quite fair. It just seems unfair because so many of the learners in the rural areas (our school is no exception) do not seem to be able to pass.

To pass, a learner needs to score a mere 40% (so in the case of grade 5 maths, a learner needs a 24/60). With that in mind, I had two goals: have 17 out of 34 learners pass and have the class average above 40%. Sadly, I failed at both: only 15 individual students passed, and the class average was a 38%. But I was close! And while I know that in a lot of cases, close doesn’t count, I feel like in this case, it does. I was really proud of how well the kids did and I was excited with their progress on a few specific topics, especially multiplication of multi-digit numbers and long division. I am very much hoping that I can follow this group of kids to grade 6 next year and make that goal a reality!

21st Zulu Birthday Party

This past week, I wasn’t feeling so great, so I was not as excited as I should have been to attend the traditional 21^st birthday party of a distant female cousin in the next village over. But it was also one of those events that I felt like I would regret missing. So, I asked two of the other volunteers in my area if they wanted to spend Friday night at my house, wake up on Saturday and attend the party with me and a few members of my host family, stay Saturday night, and then head home on Sunday. Knowing that I would have company would make it a little more manageable, and deep down, we all love a good Zulu function. They said, “Absolutely, we’ll be there.”

The group travels from my village to the next village.

On Friday we met in town and then headed back to my village. And then on Saturday morning, we were ready to go, as requested, at 10am. Which meant that we left my house at 11am to walk over the hill to my uncle’s house, where we waited until about noon to walk with a group of about 40-50 others. The destination was a distant relative’s home the next village over, about a 60-minute walk through the fields. Probably more like a 40-minute walk, but we stopped a few times to do some traditional Zulu chants and the like. All part of the experience.

Like many things in today’s Zulu culture, you can mark your 21^st birthday with a traditional or a modern celebration. My host sister, Zama, celebrated her 21^st birthday a few years ago with a modern-style function, but yesterday’s event was a strictly traditional ‘umemulo.’ For two days before, all the girls in the village stayed with the birthday girl, basically having a 48-hour party. My host sisters kept telling me that there was lots of dancing, but I have a feeling there were other things involved as well. Then, on the morning of the function, they all went down to the river to bath and dress the birthday girl in a special ‘umhlwehlwe’ (which happens to be the skin of a cow.) A female cow was slaughtered and the skin fashioned into skirt and vest to be worn only at this ceremony, as the outfit will be burned not long after it is over.

Drinking 'umqombothi' before the ceremony.

During the time the girls were at the river, family and other guests (including my friends and I) made their way to the house. Hence the reason we weren’t in any rush to get there. When our group arrived, the guest of honor was not yet present, so we just waited around trying our best to mingle with the hundred or so other people that were waiting with us. The most common activity during this waiting period was drinking ‘umqombothi,’ homemade Zulu beer; not really a big surprise. It wasn’t long before there was a bit of a stir among the crowd, and we realized the birthday girl was making her way into the yard. 

Traditional Zulu dancing at the ceremony.

The rest of the afternoon’s ceremony consisted traditional Zulu dancing and singing. Families formed a few scattered lines of people in a large grassy area and then marched forward as a group with the birthday girl in the lead. On occasion we saw a lone, fairly intoxicated gogo (aka grandmother) dancing off to the side, a bottle of Jameson in hand. But most everyone else seemed to stick to the group effort. The girl was wearing a hat that held money if people handed her cash. For some reason, she was also carrying an umbrella with money taped to it at one point – not sure about the meaning of this, but I can only assume it had something to do with “making it rain,” haha. The traditional Zulu gifts of blankets, basins, and small clothing items, were piled up during the dancing and then whisked away into the family’s abode.

The birthday girl with her money umbrella.

Gogo has her own dance to do.

The tent for special guests.

After the traditional singing and dancing finished, special guests (including my friends and I) were ushered into a large outdoor tent where they were served a traditional Zulu meal. The tent was decorated quite lavishly, and on the table in the front sat an extremely large sheet cake wishing the girl a Happy Birthday. Did I mention that this whole thing does not actually happen on the birthday of the person, or even in the same month? It more or less happens on a date to be determined by the family at some point during the year that the person is 21-years-old. An interesting twist.

The birthday cake.

For our part, we had a great time. The dancing and singing started to get a little repetitive, and after about an hour of it, actually got pretty boring (although gogo certainly spiced things up), but it was a beautiful day, so we enjoyed being outdoors. After we ate, and the celebration moved into the evening hours, we knew it was time for us to go. For starters, people began to take pictures, and they all seemed to want a picture with us, which got a bit annoying. More importantly though, being out in the village after dark, let alone a village that wasn’t any of ours, is not a wise move. Happily, the family had arranged transport vehicles to take us back to my village, unfortunately it did not exactly take us to the door of my house. Luckily, one of the Zulus we were with had a torch (aka a flashlight) to help guide us home from the road. When we got back inside my house, we agreed it was a great event but would have been tough to be at without an American or two as company. It’s a good thing that deep down, we all love a good Zulu function.

One Year Anniversary

Hard to believe, but I have now official been a Peace Corps Volunteer for one full year. I swore in on September 2, 2012 and have been on a wild ride ever since. That is probably a bit of an exaggeration. There are have been ups and downs for sure, but for the most part it has been as expected and has been a great experience. And with less than a year to go, I feel like I have a lot to do in a short amount of time.

No one but me remembered this day as an anniversary, but oddly enough, a bunch of rather incredible things happened that made me think that everyone was secretly celebrating the occasion. I was not at site this past week, as I was spent the last week of August at the Pre-Service Training (PST) for the Education Volunteers that arrived in mid-July (more about that in a minute.) I sort of figured that all of the projects that I had left behind at school would be in ruins upon my return, so I spent the whole walk to school this morning preparing myself to smile and keep calm when I realized that it would take two weeks to get everything back in order. I was so distracted by my own concerns, that I didn’t even notice that in celebration of the first day of spring and/or summer (I wasn’t really sure) none of the kids were wearing their uniforms. Not to mention, that as I was wearing my winter coat, it seemed like an odd day to celebrate the weather warming up.

In any case, I asked my counterpart to be in charge of organizing the Reader of the Day program for the week I was away and the week I was back and I simply assumed that no one would read all week because she would have dropped the ball. Totally wrong! A grade 4 learner was ready to read on Monday morning and there weren’t any problems the rest of the week. After morning assembly, as I made my way to class, the teacher that watched over the grade 5 class during maths time presented me with a completed stack of packets from the previous week. As I glanced through the work I also noticed that a lot of it was correct. Now this probably meant that he had helped a few of them and they had spread the correct answers around, but I’d much rather have the right answers spread around than the wrong ones. Another nice surprise! Finally, before I traveled to PST, I asked the school cleaner and the grade 7 teacher to keep the school store open before school so that the kids still had access to pens and pencils (and so we would keep raising money). After I finished teaching this morning, the school cleaner came to me with just a few leftover pens and more or less the right amount of money based on what was sold. All of these good things sort of made me wonder if I was in the twilight zone! Or if it was a one-year anniversary miracle! I wasn’t even all that annoyed that the computer lab had been cleaned in such a way that nearly everything was unplugged. I just took a bit of time before the second break to plug in the nine computers that I know could be turned on at the same time and left the rest. It was such a good day that I stayed with the grade 6 learners after school for Computer Club and then headed home to get my laundry started. Perhaps not the most glamorous celebration, but one that made me feel as if my first year of work here was starting to make a difference. I couldn’t ask for anything more than that.

Welcome SA28! The PCSA Education Volunteers
serving from July 2013 to September 2015.

It was a nice to be away for the week at PST, as well, although a bit crazy to think that the next group is here and almost ready to swear-in. Before they know it, they will be celebrating their one year anniversary and I will be gone! For their training, two or three current volunteers were invited to be part of the training each week. Peace Corps rented a rather lovely house in what can only be described as a snobby, gated community for us to stay in during the week. Did I mention the house had electricity and way better network coverage than my village? I certainly wasn’t going to complain about that. Our days started around 9:30am, we were driven around everywhere we needed or wanted to go, and got home about 4:30pm. Side note: I nailed the sessions I presented on grammar, vocabulary, and starting a school library ;-) We did have to cook and clean for ourselves, but somehow we managed. And we even got to make cookies a couple of times. It worked out perfectly. Best (and pretty sure only) paid vacation of my life. Definitely going to apply again next year. I better keep practicing my English grammar and vocabulary ;-)