The One-Month Mark

We have now been in Peace Corps Training for a month and so much has happened. We are kept VERY busy, Every day we have two to three hours of language training, then about five hours of lectures or classes on everything from classroom management to dealing with poverty to safety to cultural differences. It is all challenging, especially Setswana, the language we are learning. David and I are struggling with it. Some of the sounds are not ones we use in English and forming your mouth to make those sounds is difficult.

We began this adventure at a defunct teacher training college where we lived in dorms for our first week here. It is winter here. The weather was SO cold when we arrived and central heating is not common in rural South Africa, so we just had to endure. Fortunately, the Peace Corps provided a couple of very heavy blankets that kept us warm at night, but getting ready for bed or getting up in the morning was very chilly. The temperature in the morning was about 50 degrees and it took some time to get used to it. We both wore our coats, sweatshirts, scarves, gloves and hats whenever we went out. The classrooms were very cold too. In the last week I’ve noticed that it is getting slightly warmer. Winter is ending here, but I’m not too sure I welcome summer as they say it is very hot.

In the afternoons the weather warms up considerably and when you are in the sun you don’t need the extra clothing, but as soon as the sun goes down it gets very cold again.

It is also very dry and some of us have had minor breathing problems because of it.

After our first week here we were moved to host families in the village. We lucked out with a lovely widow who has a nice house with running hot and cold water, a nice kitchen and bathroom and even a washing machine. It works differently from an America washing machine, but it is easier than hand washing. Of course, when we go to our permanent site we will probably have to haul and heat water and wash clothes by hand, but for now, I’m enjoying a little more luxury.

The one thing that is very different is that many houses like our host’s are not completely finished. Our bedroom has no ceiling. We just look up at the rafters and the tin roof. She has drywall to put in a ceiling but has probably never felt like she had enough money to hire some one to do it. David thinks it may also help keep the house cooler in the summer by not having a ceiling.

The food so far is good. Other than the bogobe (see previous post) we have lots of vegetables—cabbage, green beans, Swiss chard (they call it spinach), beets, carrots, potatoes, etc. The apples right now are small but very crunchy and delicious. Many families have orange and lemon trees in their yards.

We have learned to take a minibus or “kumbi” to town. In the smaller rural towns the kumbis are the main means of transportation. They hold 15 passengers and as a rule do not leave for their destination until all seats are filled. This can mean waiting a few hours for a kumbi to be ready to leave. Since we are not supposed to be out after dark, it means we have to plan well and make sure we leave with plenty of time in case a kumbi is slow to fill up.

There is a lot of reference to “Africa time” around here. It means that things to not always happen in the punctual way things often do in America. It is more relaxed here but that can drive an American mad. It takes some getting used to.

After the first two weeks we were allowed limited use of a computer lab that has very slow access to the Internet. It can take 20 minutes to load a page. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. It also is fussy about the type of computer. My Macintosh has no trouble connecting, but David’s PC and some other PCs cannot connect.

We have attended some interesting events with our host families. I went to church with our host mama and her sister-in-law. The service is much different from the one I am used to. It lasted about three hours. I really enjoyed the singing, but I did not understand the preachers.

We had a field trip to the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg. It is really well done. The entrance recreates the building entrances during Apartheid when whites and blacks had separate entrances. There are large displays of the hated passes that all people had to carry on them at all times. If blacks were caught without their passes they could be sent to jail. The passes also had to be filled in correctly. Then there are film clips of incidents that occurred while the blacks were trying to get the right to vote. It was a very moving experience.