It’s been a while since I’ve written, thought I should update. Hope everyone is doing well. Things in the southern hemisphere have been good. I just got back to my village from a two week break which separates term 1 and term 2. The break was really good. It started with the marathon fundraiser which took place in Sabie, Mpumalanga, about 6 hours from my village. It’s a beautiful mountainous area which provided gnarly views and even gnarlier hills for the marathon. I ran/walked the 21km (13 mile) half marathon with my friend Elise. We skipped across the finish line, arms linked, at 3 hours and 2 minutes. It was a lot of fun. There were stations every few km where people would hand out water, powerade, coke, and sometimes candy. I was quite confused as to why anyone would want coke while they were running a marathon, but I definitely took the candy every time. Crazy people who actually trained for the marathon got in around 2 hours (some were under 2), and the super slackers who walked the whole thing and stopped for beer at one of the water stations did it in over 4 hours, so I figure we were in the middle-ish. In addition to the half marathon there was also the ultra marathon which was 56 km (34 miles), and 6 or 7 super crazies from our group did it. The fastest guy from our group did it in 5 hours and 30 minutes. Dude’s crazy. All he does is run. To compare, the slowest guy from our group did it in about 8 hours. Our 60 person Peace Corps group all stayed at a hostel which was a lot of fun. It was cool meeting and hanging out with people from other PC groups.
So anyway, from Sabie I headed to Pretoria with Elise and another girl, Gabi. We hung out for 3 days then they both left for trips and that night Mike got in, and we hung out for 3 more days, then it was off to a fancy hotel for a week long training which was put on by PEPFAR, and they’re not afraid to spend money on us. One night there was a gala dinner in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps. It was pretty cool.
Then I got back to the village and the pit latrine (outhouse). I’m used to it now, but it’s crazy how close these 1st world cities and 3rd world villages are to each other. Pretoria is like any big city with tons of nice restaurants, movie theaters, parks, malls, hotels. But then you leave the city and not even 30 minutes away are super poor villages with shacks, half built houses that people live in anyway, pit latrines, shoe-less kids, intermittent electricity, and goats and cows walking around. It’s pretty crazy, and apparently one of the reasons that South Africa has one of the highest drop out rates in Peace Corps. It’s disturbing how you go from a place with everything to a place with almost nothing in a couple hours. But, I must say, it’s a nice break to be able to hang out in Pretoria once in a while, see a movie, eat out, use indoor toilets. Having cities like Pretoria, Durban, and Cape Town in country means we can visit them any break and they’re not too far away. This makes Peace Corps South Africa a completely different experience from Peace Corps in the rest of Africa, as medical patients who are sent here from all over Africa like to point out. But getting back from vacation this time it was easier to readjust to the village again than the last time, so that’s good.
What up? I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Years! Several of you, my devoted readers, have expressed interest in making donations of some sort to my schools and whatnot, which we still definitely need, but here is an opportunity for you to help fund a scholarship for a worthy student to attend an excellent independent high school in Mpumalanga Province called Uplands College. The KLM Foundation is an organization that was founded by two PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) who served here in South Africa a few years ago. They use an annual marathon as a fundraiser for the scholarship and the child they choose is very carefully selected, having gone through a four-tier application process. So far seven children have been chosen and are doing very well at the school and beyond. If you want to know more about the organization their website is www.klm-foundation.org.
I will be participating in the marathon which is on March 27th in Sabie, Mpumalanga, not too far from KrugerNational Park. You can either do a half or an ultra marathon, and I will be participating in the half, which is 21.1KM (13 miles). Many Peace Corps volunteers will be taking part, probably over 70 of us, so it should be a lot of fun to meet people from other groups and run in this beautiful part of the country, which I haven't been to yet.
In addition to having a good time though, the main reason for taking part is to support the KLM foundation. There may be other projects I encounter along my way here, but this is very worthy indeed, and one for which I am asking your support in the form of a donation. Please give what you can; any amount is appreciated. Even if you can only give $10 or $20, it is much needed. (Of course, we would love larger donations!) And it is tax-deductible. So please go to the KLM website to make a donation, just click on the 'donate' photo. Make sure to put my name in the white box where it asks for the Longtom runner you want to sponsor (Longtom is the name of the marathon).
The online donation is preferable, but you can also mail in a check. Please make it payable to "Kgwale Le Mollo (US)" and send it to:
Please make sure to include a note that your donation is on my behalf.
Thanks so much for your support, and especially for supporting the child who is chosen to attend UplandsCollege next year. I'll let you know how the weekend goes, and how many funds we, Peace Corps volunteers, collected.
Dudes, what up? I’m going to warn you in advance, this is a long post, you might want to grab a sandwich or something before you start it. So I just got back from a month away from my village. The first week was for our in-service training which was located at a nice Lodge in Piet Retief, about 8 hours east of my village, in MpumalangaProvince. At the training the main thing we learned was how to write and apply for grants for small projects that we want to do in our schools or villages. The rest of the sessions were pretty much pointless, but required. It was fun to be with the whole group again and see how everyone is doing at their schools and villages and whatnot. From some of the stories told I realized that I’ve got a pretty sweet setup compared to some other PCV’s. Some people are having problems with their host families, or their schools are huge and unruly, or not all their furniture has been delivered yet. Some still haven’t gotten their wardrobes that the Department of Education is supposed to deliver, so they’ve been living out of their bags this whole time. I was lucky to replace a volunteer so all the furniture was already here, my family and the principals of my schools know what the Peace Corps is and how it works, and the village got used to seeing a random white person walking around all the time. Lots of people are having trouble with these things.
My birthday fell on the last day of training. Everyone was saying happy birthday to me all day, it was kind of weird because people who had already said it to me said it again and again the next times they saw me. I guess the South African custom of saying hi and asking how a person is every time you see them, even if the two occasions are 10 minutes apart, has rubbed off on people. So the next day we left and my friends Terri, Danny, Mike, and I headed to Pretoria to start our vacation. We got a ride (6 hours) in a big Peace Corps van because they had to go back to the office anyway, so that was nice. We stayed in Pretoria at a hostel near the office for four days just hanging out mostly and getting to know our way around Pretoria. We went to the mall, Mike and I got tattoos, and we went to a cricket match. I got a red and black star on my shoulder blade, I like it a lot. The guy who did the tattoos was an American. He moved to South Africa three months earlier from Detroit. It cost 500 rand, which is about $70, and I used my Peace Corps living allowance money, so basically, the American government paid for my tattoo. The cricket match was South Africa against India, a big match up as they’re apparently the two best teams in the world, and I had no idea what was going on. It was a fun atmosphere though, and when they took a break (I have no idea if it was a half time or what because they play all day) people were allowed onto the field. The dirt area where the bowler throws was roped off, but the grass area was open. Kids darted down there to kick around soccer balls or hit cricket balls. We went down and walked around just because we could. Oh, another exciting thing we did in Pretoria was make burritos for dinner one night. Because it’s a big city they had tortillas and salsa, the only problem was the beans, no black or refried here. We ended up mixing a can of chili beans and a can of kidney and mashing them up, which turned out ok. But over all the burritos were awesome and everyone liked them.
So from Pretoria Danny, Terri, and I took a bus to Siyabuswa, our training site to visit our old host families. That bus ride was one of the most ridiculous experiences I’ve ever had. We left mid afternoon after the cricket match and the bus station was filled with people leaving Pretoria for all the nearby villages. Siyabuswa is about an hour and a half from Pretoria when the Peace Corps drives us, but the bus probably took closer to two and a half hours, maybe even three. First of all, getting on the bus is a chaotic affair. People are pushing, yelling, and trying to sneak by you to get on. So we had to fight our way through the crowd to get on the bus, and there were bags everywhere that you had to climb over. There weren’t enough seats either so Danny ended up sitting on our bags in the aisle, and Terri switched back and forth from sitting on my lap to his. It was super ridiculous. Oh, but getting off was by far the worst. I somehow was in the front of our group getting off, and it was still pretty crowded. So I tried to make my way through with my bags and no one was moving to make it easier so I didn’t make it to the front before the bus driver decided to keep going, so then the people behind me wanting to get off started yelling for him to stop, and then pretty much everyone was yelling like crazy so he stopped. And then someone finally grabbed my bag and passed it forward and with the help of people pushing me from behind, I finally made it to the front and got off. We all vowed to never take one of those buses again. Next time we are definitely taking a taxi even if it is more expensive.
So anyway, the visit with my first host family was awesome. It was really nice to see them all again, especially the kids. They were so excited when they saw me pull up, they ran out from the yard, jumped on me then grabbed my bags to take them in, it was cute. So after the quick two day visit we left hoping to get all the way to the east coast to St. Lucia which didn’t happen. The main problem was that we were traveling on a Sunday which is a slow travel day here, so we ended up waiting 6 hours for the taxi to fill up in Siyabuswa before we started on the first leg of the 8 hour journey. We only made it to Piet Retief because of the late start and the four of us headed back to the lodge we stayed at the week before because it was close to the taxi rank and was cheap enough, especially because we crammed 4 people into a 2 person room. It worked and we all only had to pay 80 rand each, which is about $11. So we got up early the next day and didn’t have to wait too long for the taxi to fill up then traveled the rest of the way to St. Lucia. So it took us 6 taxis over 2 days to travel what we could have driven in one day if we had a car… But St. Lucia was pretty cool once we got there. It’s a touristy beach town which reminded me a lot of home. It was fun; there were a lot of Peace Corps people there because of the family dinner Mark, a fellow PCV, invited us all to. The dinner was at a nice restaurant which was advertised as being Mozambican, Angolan, Portuguese, and Brazilian, yes, all of them. It was mostly chicken, sausages, and shrimp. Mark’s family was really nice and they even paid for the whole meal, which after doing the calculations I discovered had to be around 2000 to 2500 rand, which is only like $300 to $350, but in rand it sounds like a ton. Super nice of them though. The beach was really nice (warm water though, which was weird) and one day I took a hike with two older Peace Corps volunteers to the estuary and we saw hippos and crocodiles which was pretty gnarly.
So from St. Lucia our group split up and I joined up with another one and headed down to Durban which is the third largest city in South Africa. It’s on the Indian Ocean like St. Lucia and has the largest population of Indian people outside of India. Mike, who is Indian, said it felt really weird to be around so many Indians, but I think he liked it too. I liked Durban a lot. It was nice to be back in a big city. Our hostel was located right next to a main street of restaurants and bars which was fun. Also, I got a few things in Durban, which included a haircut, a bad sunburn, and cellulitis on my ankles, which led to me getting pain medication and an anti inflammatory as the ankles were badly swollen. Apparently sunburns crack the skin, so bacteria must have gotten in through the sunburn on my feet and legs. The anti inflammatory didn’t work so for about 5 days I was limping around in sandals getting blisters because my feet wouldn’t fit into my shoes anymore. But whatever, it wasn’t too terrible, I lived. From Durban a group of us took a night bus back to Pretoria and I went to the Peace Corps doctor. She gave me different medication including an antibiotic which worked within a few days and now my feet are back to normal.
So that’s about it, school starts up again tomorrow, I’ll be helping in 4th and 7th grade English classes, possibly some math classes, teaching teachers how to use computers better, and working on sports stuff. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Hello everyone, I hope you all had a gnarly Thanksgiving, I definitely did. A former Peace Corps Volunteer who lives in Polokwane, Joanna, hosts an American Thanksgiving every year for all the Peace Corps Volunteers in the area. She did Peace Corps about 5 years ago, decided to stay and married a South African. She’s really nice and has two super cute little boys. So there were about 25 people there, 8 from my group and a bunch of people from other PC groups. It was cool to meet some new people. Joanna and her husband take care of the turkey and everyone else was in charge of a dish. I was supposed to make mashed potatoes, but my friend Mike really wanted to do it so I let him. I peeled a bunch of vegetables instead, and did a lot of dishes. The food was great, and there were a bunch of gnarly pies. Since everyone stayed the night and we ate early, there were a couple more rounds later. I probably ate more that day than I normally do in a week in my village. I don’t eat much here, partly because it’s a hassle to go to the store and also because I have to carry it all up the hill, but it’s fine.
So the day before Thanksgiving I went to Mike’s village and visited his schools and stayed the night. It was cool to see another place. His village is way out there, surrounded by mountains. It’s really pretty. We went to the graduation for the Creche (preschool). (I love that word btw, it’s really fun to say). It was quite an extensive ceremony. The kids were wearing tiny burgundy graduation caps and gowns, it was super cute. They all got up and recited a poem or something for everyone. The only one I understood was Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Then a group of women, probably the moms, did a somewhat choreographed dance for about 30 minutes, and then the teachers spoke for maybe another 30 minutes. It was quite long, but then there was awesome food after so it was cool. Then there were parties all over the village for the kids. It was kind of weird, Mike and I were at one house where there was music, food, and a bunch of people, and then all of a sudden, without an announcement that I could see, everyone gets up and leaves the yard and walks as a group down the road. We followed and after a 10 minute leisurely walk we get to another house where there’s a table with a cake and more food and music and the party continues. I’m not sure why the party had to migrate like that, instead of just taking the cake to the first house, but whatever.
So Mike also came to my village for a night, the day after Thanksgiving. It was cool showing him around. He couldn’t believe how much space I have and how nice my house is. The electricity was out that night so we cooked sausage, beans, and eggs on a paraffin stove thingy. My host brother Eugene ate with us and was quite stoked by the meal. He pretty much eats the same thing all the time, and had only eaten bread that day because of the lack of electricity.
School has been pretty slow the last week or so since final exams ended. A bunch of kids don’t show up to the last 3 weeks of school after exams, and sometimes the teachers don’t either, but that’s not new. So recently the kids have been playing outside or just hanging out for most of the day. There have also been kids walking around the village during school hours, no one really cares if they leave, it’s pretty weird. The schools are so different here than at home. There are constantly teacher-less classes, there is no such thing as a substitute teacher here. And 30% is a passing grade here and there are still tons of kids that fail. I administered a couple of exams one day, and it was disturbing how little the kids knew. For example, one true/false question for the 5th grade class was “A person can get Aids from drinking unclean water,” and an alarming percentage, at least half, put true.
So anyway, we have our second training next week which is at a super nice resort place about 300 miles from me. The other PCV’s in my area and I are traveling to Pretoria on Monday, staying there for the night and then taking a Peace Corps bus to the resort the next day. The training is a week long and my birthday is the last night, so I’m stoked. It should be fun to be with everyone. After the training I’m going to go to my friend Terri’s village for a few days and then a bunch of us are going on a trip. I don’t really know where we’re going as someone else is planning it, but we might go back to our training site to visit our first host families, which I really hope we do. But I do know that we’re going to St. Lucia for sure though, but not until a week after the training ends. A guy in my group set up a big Christmas thing there. His family is visiting from the U.S. and they’re doing a big dinner thing on the 21st, should be fun.
So I’ve been at my village a little over a month now and I really like it. I’ve been getting to know people, how to get around in taxis, where things are and whatnot. Transportation is a bit chaotic here, but I’m getting used to it. The taxis are kind of strange, way different than how they work in the US. They’re mostly big vans that drive around the villages cramming in as many people as possible before they’ll head to town or wherever you’re going. If you say you’re going to town that means Polokwane here, the main city 35K from me. You point up when you see a taxi if you want to go to town, point down if you want to go somewhere local. They also often stop to get gas with a full van.
Today I went to a nearby township called Lebowakgomo to meet Mike, a fellow PCV for shopping and lunch. I took a bus up to the main tar road, maybe 3 miles, then got off and took a taxi the rest of the way. There are some taxis that go directly to Lebowakgomo from my village, but you never know when they’re going to come around, so a woman waiting with me told me to get on the bus and showed me when to get off to get a taxi. People are really friendly and like helping me with things like this. One of my favorite things here is how everyone talks to people they don’t know everywhere they go. It’s like people are instant friends just because they live in the same area, which we all know is way different from the US.
So here’s some random info for you. Most people here speak enough English for me to have a conversation with them, which is nice, and there are a bunch of different English phrases that they use here which I like. One of my favorites is “that side,” or “this side,” which has a lot of different uses. Instead of saying “I’m going over there,” they say “I’m going that side.” When I asked my principal where he grew up he responded that he grew up this side. It’s quite entertaining. Another one is instead of asking where do you live, they ask where do you stay. I often reply “I stay that side” with a wave to the big hill. And instead of saying they don’t like something they say it’s not nice. And as I’m walking around people are constantly asking me “How is the morning?” It’s fun incorporating these different phrases when talking to people. They’re also very nosy and blunt here. Someone I don’t know is always asking me where I’m going, what I’m doing, and where I stay. An example of the bluntness is when speaking of the 66 year old woman in my Peace Corps group, my principals like to refer to her as the old lady. It’s not considered rude, the elderly are highly respected here.
The electricity goes out every once in a while. Last week it was out for 8 hours one day and 4 hours the next. The first day there was a lightening storm that night off in the distance. It was beautifully creepy with the lightening lighting up the sky over the pitch black village. The only lights were from cars driving over the hill on the tar road beyond the village. It was pretty gnarly. I sat outside with my “brother” Eugene watching the lightening and waiting for the power to come back on. He told me that he doesn’t like lightening because it’s associated with witchcraft here. They are very serious about witchcraft in South Africa. Eugene said he’s seen a love potion work a couple times. He says a woman will get fed up with a lazy husband, go buy a love potion, slip it into his food or drink, and he will become subdued and helpful. Eugene was trying to convince me it’s real, but I’m not so sure.
So we finally got some rain here a few days ago. It poured and there was more lightening. It is SUPER loud in my room when it rains, I liked it though. There’s a big tin water container right next to my window that makes a lot of noise in addition to the loud roof. I was glad to see that there are no leaks in my roof though. A friend in a different province said she has 6 leaks in her room when it rains, but it’s ok because she has 7 buckets.
Ok, that’s all for now. I hope everything is good that side!
1. Bokgobelo Lower Primary School 2. My house. 3. A view of the area. 4. Cows at the little pond down the hill from my house. 5. The "library" at Mphakanyane Higher Primary. I'm going to fix it up.
My new address is: Maggie McDonald PO Box 1964 Maja 0719 Republic of South Africa Should be much faster than the Peace Corps Office address, you can send letters or packages.
So I finally went to my schools yesterday for the first time, and today for about 30 minutes before my Principal decided he would take me to town to show me around. But yesterday I was introduced to the teachers and learners (their word for students here). Both are small primary schools, Bokgobelo Lower Primary is grades R-4 (Grade R is what they call kindergarten here), and Mphakanyane Higher Primary is grades 5-7. Both schools have about 120 students each. The lower primary has 7 teachers and the other only has 3, one class of each grade. They’re a five minute walk away from each other, and about 5 minutes from my house, so that’s nice. The facilities are pretty run down at the lower primary, old buildings, chipped paint, cracked walls, old desks and chairs. And the “playground” consists of painted tires that are half in the ground. The kids mostly play by running around or chasing each other with sticks. But on the side of one of the buildings there is a world map that the previous Peace Corps Volunteer painted. The kids like to look at it and it adds a nice bit of color to the school. The higher primary’s facilities are a bit nicer, but not great either. They do have a computer lab though which is pretty cool.
A couple days ago my principal showed me the trail behind my house that goes up into the mountains. You can see really far and it’s beautiful with the surrounding mountains. There’s also cactus everywhere and weird trees that look like small palm trees but have weird red cactus things coming out of the top. It reminds me a little of Arizona.
So things at my house are good. Ramoraswi left for Johannesburg on Sunday, so I have down time again which is nice. She’s a fun kid though. Her sister also left to go somewhere else for school, so it’s just me and Eugene (the social worker tenant) here right now. But Pinkie (my host mom) is here during the days working in the yard and doing other stuff but still staying at her house down the hill at night. She gave me a stove a few days ago to keep in my room. It’s pretty gnarly being able to cook in here now and not having to carry everything through the yard into the kitchen.
There are two dogs and a bunch of cats (at least 3) that live here too. One is medium sized black dog, probably a mix of some sort, maybe part lab, and the other is a small white dog, probably a Chihuahua mix. Pinkie calls the dogs Blackie and Whitie, quite creative. So Amber helped me rename them Whistle and Kazoo. Whistle because she misread “Whitie” when we were typing to each other, and then Kazoo because we thought it kind of goes with Whistle… and it’s a fun word. They’re both pretty hyper, fun though.
I graduated from the University of San Francisco in December 2009 with a degree in International Studies and minors in Politics and Latin American Studies. I am currently in the Peace Corps as a Resource Specialist in South Africa.
Disclaimer: The contents of this blog are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government, the United States Peace Corps, or any other organization I am associated with.
