Happy Birthday to Me

Finally found out what it feels like to celebrate my birthday outside of the United States. Not all that different or exciting actually, but I was thankful to have friends around.

My 36^th birthday was this past Saturday and while there wasn’t really much to celebrate, there were plenty of people that were happy to join the party. At first I really didn’t tell anyone. No particular reason why, I just didn’t. But eventually people started to figure it out. My host family knew because apparently I told them long ago when I first arrived (I don’t remember), and they wrote it down. The other volunteers in the area eventually just looked up my birthday in our contact book when I refused to tell them. And the teachers and learners made the discovery through a combination of hearing it from my host family and the administrative clerk at my school. My admin clerk had a very large celebration/function at her home on Saturday, and she, as well as several other teachers, invited me to come and told me how important it was. I really didn’t want to seem rude and just say “no, ” so I finally told her the reason I was not able to come was because both of my host sisters would be coming home to visit for the day for my birthday. She said that it was, of course, no problem, and then immediately told everyone else what was going on.

36th Birthday "Party" with 3 other SA PCVs.

Despite being extremely low-key, it was the perfect way to celebrate. I met up with a few other volunteers after school on Friday in our shopping town, and we bought some snacks and party favors and then headed to my house for the night. After everyone left on Saturday afternoon, I had a chance to take a walk around the village since it was a beautiful day to get out and take pictures.

One of the many stunning views I see around my village.

During my short excursion, a number of learners who live near me gave me “birthday cards” that they made at home. They were really cute, and the materials they used to make them were priceless. One of the cards actually had the words “Happy Mother’s Day” written on the inside.

Birthday cards!

During the late afternoon I got a phone call from my parents in America wishing me a “Happy Birthday.” And later that evening, I spent a couple of hours with my host family playing Uno and eating cake while we chatted about birthday traditions in America and South Africa – for the most part, they are the same.

Birthday Party with my host family. Cake included!

If the same exact thing happened next year, I certainly wouldn’t complain. It will probably be here before I know it!

Happy Feet

Since I arrived here in September, I have been complaining about the mud. Maybe not out loud or in writing, but in my mind I curse the mud daily, usually hourly.  It is especially bad on my walk to and from school, or to and from the road to catch a taxi, or to and from my tuck shop, or to and from my pit latrine. It really doesn’t matter how short or how far I need to walk, there is mud on the path. The problem really lies in the fact that it started to rain the day I arrived at site, and it more or less has not stopped. I still remember my second day at school – I just barely made it to school through all of the mud because my shoe broke along the way. It continued to rain throughout the rest of the day, and the walk home was even worse. I seriously considered going home at that point. I mean America home.

Why not just go out and buy a pair of boots? Unfortunately, September is the END of the winter season (and beginning of the wet season, apparently) and boots in my size were in short supply. So for the last seven and a half months, I have been toughing it out using my hiking shoes, “gogo” shoes (the equivalent of fake Keds), flip flops and whatever cheap and insufficient boots I could find in town that fit. The part that really gets me is that I know how important it is to take care of my feet!  I’ve had various foot problems in the past, and keeping my feet in tact was at the top of my priority list when I was preparing to come here. Clearly a huge fail on my part. Not to mention, I knew I was miserable. I just kept telling myself that everything was fine. Its not like I am the only one that has to walk through this sludge every day. Although it certainly felt like I was the least apt.

All of that changed this past weekend. The winter season stock recently arrived in stores, and I was first in line to make my selections. I bought a sturdy pair of rain boots that I can wear to work in the garden, wear to walk around the yard and village, or wear to walk to and from school on the worst of rainy days. I found two additional pairs of nice boots that I can wear to school. And I treated myself to a pair of childish, furry boots that I have absolutely no place to wear, but I figure I will don them when I go to town on a dry weekend. That last pair also happens to be fairly warm, so I will likely wear them around the hut when it gets really cold. With what money did I make these fine purchases? Truthfully, I don’t know. In theory I have money set aside every month for “clothing and shoes” but most months it gets spent on something else. I’ve told myself that I just spent that part of the budget for the next two months, but I’ll just have to wait and see if I need to eat a few more packs of two-minute noodles rather than the gourmet pasta I usually eat. Haha. Doesn’t matter: totally worth it. I have already been in a far better mood the last few days because I know that I don’t have to worry about the state of my feet and shoes upon my arrival to school. All those months I really was kidding myself – everything was NOT fine! But now it is, and hopefully will be for the remainder of my time here.

A few new and essential additions to my shoe collection.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

I have always been one of those people that wanted to be "into gardening." You know the type: when you come into school or work on a Monday and ask “what did you do this weekend?” they respond with “I spent the whole weekend working in the garden.” And they always sound so happy when they say it. It’s such a nice way to spend time outside. But up until now I’m pretty sure I couldn’t get a weed to grow. Sad, really.

I had a feeling (or was really just hoping) that this would change once I started my Peace Corps service. To be honest, I have no evidence it has changed yet…but it is coming soon, because this past weekend I spent two full days learning to garden, Permagarden style. Apparently (and I did absolutely no research on this other than to ask the workshop facilitators) the method has been around for “thousands of years” but we credit the formal naming and documenting of it to an Australian who coined the phrase and technique some time in the 1970s. We covered only the very basics: creating a seedbed to start growing seedlings, double-digging a trench bed to use for growing vegetables, companion planting, mulching, crop rotating, composting, and starting a wormery.

Each of the PCVs that attended the workshop were required to bring a counterpart from either their school or village, who would also be learning the techniques, in an effort to spread the knowledge a little further. Even though my school has a school garden (turns out they are required to since they are a part of the National School Nutrition Programme), I really wanted to focus this project more in the community, since nearly all of them garden. I would have loved to bring my host mother since she works in our family’s garden almost daily (with fair results). But since care for my 4-year-old host sister was not available, my host mom arranged for me to bring a neighbor who sometimes helps her in the garden as well as gardens herself. So Sbongile and I set out on Friday for the not-so-nearby town of Bulwer to learn a few things about digging in the dirt.

The weekend was full of great hands-on practice. We dug a seedbed and then learned how to best keep in protected and cared for so the seeds would grow to healthy and hearty seedlings. We dug a trench bed about knee deep and then filled it back up, layer by layer, with things like tin cans, shredded paper, compost and raw food waste, and brush in between layers of soil. By the time it was filled back up, there was plenty of soil to pile on top to create a raised bed that would be used for the actual planting. Seedlings were brought along so that we could practice choosing a host of plants that were both appropriate for the season as well as planting near each other. Although there is nothing wrong with planting a whole bed of cabbage, alternating cabbage with beetroot every other row is even better! Lastly, we gathered up the materials to start a small compost pile – there is actually more to it than just throwing everything in a big heap in the yard, who knew?

At the garden workshop with the Peace Corps facilitator Malapane, and my counterpart, Sbongile.

So time to get my garden gloves and garden boots on! (Actually, no one here uses gloves, and I’m going to need to get out and by myself some garden boots next weekend.) Then time to find a little spot in the family garden for digging. They have been offering me space since I arrived in September, so it’s about time I gave it a try! Most important thing is to start small. If I can get a few good things growing at my house, hopefully I will spark some interest, and Sbongile and I can pass on the techniques to others. Finally a project outside of the school! And now I can be one of those people who talks about working in my garden all weekend long.

School Holiday Highs and Lows

I’m no stranger to school breaks – I’ve been on plenty. But the school “holiday” I just finished felt rather different from all the others. For starters, it is weird to travel “away from home”, when you are already very much away from home. It’s like a dream within a dream: a vacation within a vacation. Perhaps that’s the reason for the second big difference: it was REALLY hard to come back from it all….

After an extremely relaxing and low-key Easter, I and two other PCVs spent Easter Monday at Black Rock beach not far from Kosi Bay at the northern end of KwaZulu-Natal. Seriously amazing. Weather was perfect. We had nearly the entire beach to ourselves. There were some incredible black, rock formations (hence the name) just nearby that we climbed and photographed.  Swam a bit in the Indian Ocean. Got a great tan. Ate macaroni salad and freshly picked guavas. Could not have imagined a better way to spend my last day in the area.

At Black Rock Beach on the Indian Ocean.

The "black rocks" at Black Rock Beach on the North Coast of South Africa.

We went to bed early that night (which wasn’t much of a challenge since we were exhausted from all the fun in the sand and sun), ready to travel to St. Lucia on Tuesday morning. For the first time that I can remember, traveling on public transport went without a hitch. We were just in time to catch the 6am taxi from Manguzi to Mtubatuba and we only waited 15 minutes or so to be on our way from Mtubatuba to St. Lucia. Since we planned on spending the whole day traveling, it was a welcome surprise to arrive at our backpackers by 10am with the whole day ahead of us. We had a great time exploring the little town and taking way too long for lunch at the Thyme Square coffee shop. When we stopped by Shakabarker Tours to enquire about a hippo and croc tour for the next day, but we felt so good we just decided to take the sunset tour that evening! The forecast indicated that clouds and rain were on their way, so we figured we might as well enjoy the good weather while it was available. The tour was outstanding and got us within arms reach of the mechanical hippos – just kidding, they were all very real – it was just crazy that we were able to get so close.

On the hippo tour in St. Lucia.

Turns out it was a very good thing that we got the tour in that evening because, in fact, in rained nearly the entire remaining 48 hours that we were there. And I didn’t even care. It was so great to be hanging out with other Americans and talking about all the crazy, unbelievable shit that happened at school during the first term. We also watched a few movies, took short walks on the nearby nature trails when the rain let up for an hour or so, and ate a TON of food, including sushi. Sushi! We even got to talking about our plans for school during term 2 and some of the new things we were going to try. I actually felt excited to go back to school and that my vacation did exactly what it was supposed to do – re-energize me. It was difficult to say goodbye on Friday morning, but I was headed home feeling amazing.

Sunset in St. Lucia.

And I still had one more short holiday reunion to go! One of the PCVs in my area had family visiting from the states, and they invited us to spend Friday night with them at a local lodge to end our holiday break on a high note. We watched a beautiful sunset, prepared and ate a terrific braai, took a night drive through the bush and spotted a few animals, and generally had a great time sharing stories of our different vacations. It seemed the perfect way to end the holiday.

So when I got back to my site on Saturday afternoon, I was overwhelmed by how down I felt almost immediately. I figured when I got back, I would unpack, toss all my dirty clothes in the basin to soak, organize my vacation pictures, and catch-up with my family. In reality, I really didn’t feel like doing anything. I stared at my backpack for a while, wishing it would just unpack itself. I dreaded the fact that I had absolutely no food in the house. It meant I was going to have to go to town on Sunday or eat nothing but eggs, beans, and bread for the week. Not my first choice after the gourmet dining experience I just had. And I really didn’t feel like socializing with anyone. I felt like I was moving in slow motion and there was no point to anything I was doing. It was a bizarre feeling. The rest of Saturday sort of passed by; the only thing I did was walk to the nearby shop to get some bread and some Sprite. I more or less got my clothes in a pile of things to wash, and I went to bed early. I think the only thing I said to my host family was ‘hello’. Not my best day.

When I woke up on Sunday, I tried to snap myself out of the funk by finishing my laundry and getting ready to go to town. Luckily, the sun was out, so my laundry would dry. Unfortunately, transport to town on Sundays is always a little unpredictable, and it took nearly two and a half hours of waiting and riding to arrive at my desired destination. Not fun. But in an effort to keep up a good attitude, I got my groceries, and then headed to one of the local shops to buy some shelves to help me organize all my papers. Organizing always makes me happy, so I thought I would give that technique a try. Thankfully, getting home was not quite as bad as getting there, and I when I arrived, I still had enough energy left to put together my new plastic basket shelves and arrange all my school stuff. By the time I went to bed, I was feeling a little better about waking up in the morning and heading to school.

Being back at school today was culture shock. I forgot how little English they speak at my school (not just how bad the English is, but how, in general, no one even tries to speak English throughout the course of the day.) After being nearly Zulu-free for the past week, my head was spinning from having to work so hard to communicate. And once again, I felt like I was moving in slow motion. The kids were almost comatose. The teachers said over and over how little they felt like teaching. I taught my class in the morning and spent the rest of the day looking through old papers and deciding what to save and what to throw away. I have a plan for tomorrow, but really, I’m more worried about how long this feeling is going to last. This weekend I’m going to a workshop on gardening, so it’s only a four-day week. Going to take things one day at a time… I’m sure everything will be fine in a few days. But now I know how it feels to come back from a vacation within a vacation. Next time, I’ll be prepared.