dispatches from KZN

2011-02-12T18:05:00.000+02:00

Siya and Becca, doing what they do best. March 2010.

2011-02-10T12:00:00.001+02:00

Gah, that face! Smiso. St. Theresa's, December 2010.

2011-02-09T12:00:00.001+02:00

Feeling patriotic as the World Cup begins. Durban, June 2010.

prayers needed.

2011-02-08T16:17:00.012+02:00

I want to take a minute to thank all of you friends and family for keeping up with my blog this long, especially since I have been home from South Africa for almost two months now. It was very hard to leave, and even taking the effort to choose a photo to post each day is almost heartbreaking. But one of the best things about the Augustinian Volunteer program is its sustainability, and I took a lot of comfort in the fact that after Meg, Mary-Kate, Becca, and I left South Africa to come home, another group of volunteers would be taking over for us as the new year began.

Though I have only met Erika and Damien, they, along with Jenny and Tyler, are incredible young people with a passion for service that will do them well in their year ahead. But unfortunately, this group of people has already encountered more hardship than I think I faced all year.
Your prayers are needed.

One of this year's volunteers, Jenny, who replaced me at St. Leo, is in the hospital and about to undergo very serious and risky open-chest surgery.

And in addition, Tyler, another community member, has a brother named Kyle who is currently in hospital in Johannesburg with a brain infection.

During my year in South Africa, I learned a lot about the unexpected turns that life can take, but I have to say that since being home, these tragic surprises have been much more numerous and much more unexpected. We just have to keep trusting that we will be taken care of.

Please keep this AV community and their families in your thoughts for the next few days, and, most especially, in the next few hours. Having a strong network of good people sending positive thoughts their way may just be the magic touch. Thanks.

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2011-02-07T12:00:00.000+02:00

Oh Bheki, how I miss you. St. Theresa's, December 2010.

2011-02-06T12:00:00.000+02:00

Early-morning coffee & rusks. Mosethla Bush Camp, September 2010.

2011-02-05T12:00:00.000+02:00

Luke. St. Theresa's, April 2010.

2011-02-04T12:00:00.000+02:00

Assembly. St. Leo, March 2010.

2011-02-03T18:25:00.000+02:00

Chez Tomlin. Cape Town, April 2010.

2011-02-02T00:15:00.000+02:00

Another amusing South African town. South Coast, July 2010.

2011-02-01T00:00:00.002+02:00

Sboniso, Zama, and Sno. St. Leo, December 2010.

2011-01-31T04:51:00.000+02:00

Sfiso. December 2010.

2011-01-30T04:49:00.000+02:00

Andrew and his patriotic pants. Durban, June 2010.

2011-01-29T04:48:00.000+02:00

Elephant mud-bath! Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve, April 2010.

2011-01-28T12:00:00.000+02:00

The walk home. Drakensberg Mountains, March 2010.

2011-01-27T12:00:00.000+02:00

"Robot" straight ahead! Simon's Town, August 2010.

2011-01-26T12:00:00.001+02:00

"Look Miss Sinead! We're Adidas!" Siyabonga, Qiniso, and Sabelo. St. Leo, October 2010.

2011-01-25T12:00:00.000+02:00

All smiles in the shade. Pomeroy, November 2010.

2011-01-24T12:00:00.001+02:00

Zebra: stripy and hungry. Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve, April 2010.

2011-01-23T05:43:00.000+02:00

Lindani. Heritage Day, September 2010.

2011-01-22T12:00:00.004+02:00

Sari'd! Essenwood Market, August 2010.

2011-01-21T12:00:00.003+02:00

One would hope that means "smooth"...?

2011-01-20T12:00:00.005+02:00

Mean Girl Becca, ready for the Drakensberg. March 2010.

2011-01-19T12:00:00.000+02:00

Heritage Day at St. Leo. September 2010.

2011-01-18T02:39:00.001+02:00

Zebra-eye view? Madikwe Game Reserve, September 2010.

2011-01-16T18:12:00.001+02:00

Penguins. Robben Island, March 2010

2011-01-14T22:44:00.002+02:00

Field trip to Durban, March 2010. Ayanda, Sizwe, Wandile, Lusanda, Lihle, Lindo, & others.

2011-01-13T17:06:00.000+02:00

Because everyone loves stickers. Especially Lungelo, Luke, Baby Sfiso, and "Shorty" (Mthokozisi).

a good year.

2011-01-13T17:03:00.000+02:00

When I think about 2010, I feel quite short on words. I've been asked, "So how was your year?" or "How does it feel to be home?" and of course, my year was life-changing and it feels really good to be back at home, surrounded by familiar faces and simple wonders that I will never again take for granted.

But I still feel that I haven't done any justice to the year I spent in South Africa. I don't know how to go about telling my story, so I've decided to share some photos, maybe an accompanying story, and piece together my year this way.

The next community leaves for South Africa's sunny shores in just a few days. I'll spend a few hours with the four of them on Saturday evening, and I feel so excited for the adventures they're about to experience, yet a part of me yearns to be stowing away and tagging along for the ride. Now that the holidays are over and I've been reunited with the people and the country I left behind one year ago, I feel as though I should be going back-- back to school, back to St. Theresa's homework time, back to karaoke on Wednesday nights at The Highlander and Durban's beachfront and rugby matches on the weekends and Robson's delicious microbrewed beer. Thinking about it all makes my heart hurt a bit.

As for the here and now, I'm frantically applying for jobs whenever I can in education, housing, and academic non-profits in New York and Philadelphia, and recently applied to a few graduate programs as alternatives, in case the whole employment thing remains out of reach. I'll find something, I know-- and for now, I'm content to enjoy the snow while reminiscing about the Durban summer.

Enjoy the photos, but I'm pretty sure that there's as much for me as they are for you. And thank you, ngiyabonga kakhulu, for keeping up with me.

P.S. I'm also back on my old blog. Though life is not as "different" as it was this time last year, I still like to think there are things worth noting.

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"hello is so easy... but goodbye? goodbye is very hard miss sinead"

2010-12-06T18:52:00.001+02:00

I've been through a few break-ups in my life, but saying goodbye to South Africa feels like the worst one of them all. It's a lump in my throat when I wake up in the morning, the echo of my bare walls and empty closet, the pain in my heart when I go through my photos to pick a couple to print for the people I love. It's tight hugs from the boys at St. Theresa's, one last bunny chow with our feet in the Indian Ocean in Durban, handmade cards from the learners at St. Leo's who, in January, couldn't speak a lick of English. It's that inevitable knot in the pit of my stomach on the final drive to St. Theresa's, St. Leo's, Gogo Gloria's house, church in Kloof, passing the Siyakwamukela eThekwini sign on the drive into Durban.

Pinky, in Grade 4, said it best. "Saying hello is so easy! But goodbye? Goodbye is very hard, Miss Sinead."

South Africa has shown me just how much love my heart is capable of... but there is no doubt that I will be leaving a large piece of it here when I go.

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saying "siyabonga".

2010-11-25T20:37:00.002+02:00

Happy Thanksgiving! While we won't be celebrating with a big turkey dinner until Saturday, I've been thinking a lot today about being thankful, and how unbelievable it is that Thanksgiving is upon us once again.

It's one of my favourite holidays, though a relatively new addition to the Cloughley Repertoire of Excuses for Massive Eating. When we first moved to the US, Thanksgiving was a foreign concept and an excuse to take the few days' off from school or work to visit somewhere we hadn't seen yet: Chesapeake Bay, the Virgin Islands, Colonial Williamsburg. There was also the memorable year when Dad attempted to serve pheasant to our not-yet-developed palates. As the years passed and my parents' collection of fellow ex-pat friends grew, we gathered at someone's house for a dinner in the late afternoon, replacing our extended family with similarly isolated immigrants.

But then we returned to our comfortably insular selves, and the past few years have seen Thanksgiving morph into a family celebration all our own. Our day usually consists of serving lunch at the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, then lolling around with a few glasses of wine while the turkey cooks, followed by dinner and more wine, then falling asleep to our latest Netflix in the basement. At dinnertime, each person goes around and mentions something for which he or she is thankful.

Last Thanksgiving feels so long ago, but here I am, one year later, eating samp and beans for dinner... and through the haze of my end-of-school-term exhaustion, feeling very thankful.

Things For Which I Am Thankful (or Will Be In 13 Days) 2010:

1. The post-volunteer luxury it will be to be able to say No

2. The ability of my family to remain loving and such an unbelievable comfort to me no matter where we happen to be

3. Every single child at St. Leo's for bringing a love into my life that I didn't know existed (and that I didn't know my heart was capable of containing)

4. My faith

5. Insoles for running shoes that give them a new lease on life when new shoes are out of my financial reach

6. The Great Avocado Saturation of South Africa

7. Every letter, card, mix CD, and bag of coffee I got (or got lost) via mail this year

8. My health and the health of everyone I love

9. Skype

10. The ability to read and write, and other advantages of a good education

I think I'm still thankful for the ways I felt blessed prior to this year, but it is the overlooked privileges that I appreciate today. As the Zulus would say, Siyabonga Baba.

Enjoy your turkey/tofurkey!

what it's worth.

2010-11-22T20:10:00.000+02:00

"To Shinad

Hi Shinad How are you me I am fine. I would like to tell you something. Shinad at first I did not like white people because of aparteid but I have realise that you must not hate somebody just because of the colour. You must not judge some body the colour of the skin, and since I have relise that you are a good person and you are a kind person. And even you are not near me I will always love you. You show me the love that my parent never show.
Shinad I love you with all of my heart

From: Hlengiwe"

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at a loss.

2010-11-15T19:46:00.001+02:00

I've been sitting here for about an hour, scrolling through the hundreds of photos I've taken over the past few weeks. With this fancy new camera and very little time to read a multipage manual and actually figure out how to take good photos, I've just been taking craploads and hoping that some turn out okay. There was Heritage Day at St. Leo's and St. Theresa's, various community outings (and spider sightings in our house), and the day I brought my camera to school "just in case". I ended up spending twenty minutes doing a Grade 7 boys' photo shoot, and now, looking through these pictures, I'm meditating on the 23 days I have left here and wondering to myself how I can possibly feel so excited and relieved to have the end in sight... but also, feeling so sad at the prospect of leaving these kids, most of them probably forever.

A selection:

I'm feeling a little short on words tonight.

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smooth criminals.

2010-10-31T17:00:00.004+02:00

St. Theresa's often has little assemblies for parents, foster parents, and caregivers who come to collect the boys when it's time for holidays. Back in March, before the beginning of Easter break, my boys in Cottage 4 prepared this little number for a rapt audience. After lots of rehearsing and covering their left hands in glitter to look like a glove, they took to the stage.
From left to right: Bheki, Sihle, Khumbulani, Philani, Llewellyn, and Eugene... and Michael Jackson of course.

It may not be Thriller, but it's as close to a Halloween post as I could come-- springtime in South Africa is not exactly festive for today's celebrations. Happy Halloween, ghouls and goblins!

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pineapples in heaven.

2010-10-30T10:53:00.001+02:00

Mlungisi Mzobe was buried on a Saturday in October, in between the morning sunshine and afternoon storms of springtime in South Africa. He was just eighteen years old.
I only spent a few scattered hours with him here and there; the funeral was the most time Mlungisi and I ever spent together. During the strike, when Becky was visiting, we helped Mary-Kate bring a few of the healthier patients from the Respite Centre to the shopping centre for ice cream. Becky and I sat with two guys, both named Mlungisi- one older and one younger. They both insisted on large plain vanilla soft-serve but with the chilly August wind blowing in through the door of the shop, were too cold to finish. We got lids and they brought their ice creams back to put in the fridge for later. Mlungisi was happy to answer the simple questions we asked him about where he came from and his family, and when he asked about my life, he could not for the life of him understand why I would want to be a teacher in Molweni.
The next few times I saw Mlungisi, he was in bed at the Respite. I remember he had the most graceful, slender fingers that would rest on the blanket of his bed.
When he got moved to a private room, he knew the outlook wasn't good; patients didn't just get moved to private rooms for increased privacy.
I would run in to pick up Mary-Kate or Meg from work and go to say hello. Once we had to run out to Spar to pick up some Sprite for him. He never failed to request food or drink from the careworkers-- there was the time he asked for a pineapple and just kept it by his bedside. I don't think he ever ate it. Or when someone would make a run to KFC; he couldn't eat fried chicken, but he'd order something and just have it next to him on the bed. It always reminded me of a book I read as a child, where a man who couldn't afford food would satiate his hunger on the smell of dinners being prepared in the alleys behind restaurants.
A couple of weeks ago, after he'd been moved out of the private room and back into a regular bed, Mlungisi was discharged from the Respite and transferred to St. Mary's Hospital. I was sad that I wouldn't get to see him anymore, but hopeful that the transfer meant that all his hard work was paying off; that his CDC count was climbing, that his TB wasn't the dreaded MDR variety and that he was finally back in control of his own body.
He died on October 14th.
All the other people who had come to say goodbye were doing so to a body they no longer recognized. Though his smile and those long, slender fingers were the same, the sickness had sunken his eyes, shrunken his skin, and worst of all, frightened such a kind, caring young man. That's what upset me the most-- Mlungisi was terrified of dying. I think that's what kept him fighting and hanging on.
In the photo that his family placed on his beautiful coffin, I hardly recognized Mlungisi's face. I'd never seen him look so healthy. But it served as a reminder that no matter how sad I felt at Mlungisi's funeral, my grief was minor in comparison to that of his gogos and siblings, the friends he grew up with, his fellow students who came in their uniforms. School uniforms don't belong at a funeral.
Mlungisi Mzobe will never be a father, never watch another soccer match, never run around causing trouble with his friends again. And he never did eat his pineapple... but I'm pretty sure that they have pineapples in heaven.

Phumula no thula, Mlungisi.

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overheard in south africa.

2010-10-20T16:47:00.001+02:00

We've been working on Alphabet Books with Grade 4 for the past few weeks, and today we tackled the letters L, M, and N. First we brainstorm a list of words that start with each letter, then each table chooses one to write a sentence about and illustrate.

Teacher: Ok, so what starts with the letter N?
Learner: Nice... noisy... ninja!
Teacher: Yes, ninja starts with N. Good. Now think of a sentence using the word "ninja".
Learner (without missing a beat): Bruce Lee is a ninja.

I will never, ever understand the way in which Bruce Lee and Jean Claud Van Damme have infiltrated Zulu culture.

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a note on hope.

2010-10-17T17:11:00.001+02:00

I know I'm guilty of complaining a lot on this blog about the struggles I face as a volunteer, and the bad days that accompany my work.. but Monday of last week took the cake. It was a can't-hold-myself-together, crying-in-front-of-students, sobbing-on-skype-to-mum kind of day.
Sinead and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

Fast forward to Wednesday, and wine and cheese with the friars at Kloof, and scenes of the Chilean miners' rescue being played out on the TV. I was absolutely glued to the screen as Number 16 and Number 17 stumbled to the surface, into the arms of the people they thought they'd never see again. The last time the news was so saturated with one story was on September 11th we murmured to each other. I couldn't believe my eyes, nor my ears the next morning on our drive to work, as the deejay congratulated Chile on the rescue of all thirty-three men. I think I've become skeptical... pessimistic even. I didn't think they could do it.

It was nice to see some good news for a change. Stories like the successful rescue give me a renewed sense of hope, which, more often of late, I need more than I need air to breathe.

warm fuzzies.

2010-10-07T19:45:00.002+02:00

1. discovering that some of the Koki pens (markers) we've been using at school are smelly ones!

2. chick lit set in philadelphia

3. cheese & wine before wednesday dinners with the augustinians next door

4. being a robot sister with niamh and meg

5. mrs h.s. balls chutney

6. playing dress-up with the babies at st theresa's (especially sfiso, pictured above)

7. the moment every day when philane in grade 6 asks me to "have a dinner" with him on friday

8. FINALLY hearing grade 4 ask "please may i borrow" instead of "please borrow me a pencil"

9. (big) sfiso's pencil sketches

10. unexpected letters in the mail

Today, I'm happy. I told you South Africa makes me mental.

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schizophrenia.

2010-10-04T21:21:00.001+02:00

All I've been asking is to work. I came to South Africa to forge relationships with people across racial, cultural, and economic boundaries. I came to work, to be a teacher and attempt to teach vowel sounds and strengthen English speaking skills.
And with the World Cup, and strikes, and holidays, and the laziness of the government, I've been sitting at home far more often than I'd imagined, writing letters and applying for jobs.
Then school reopens, and instead of brimming with joy to be back in the saddle again, I find out that someone attempted to break into the library over holidays and spend half the morning being deafened by the sounds of Sir Sibisi and some of the Grade 6 boys (who should have been in class) busting open the locks so we could get inside our classroom. Then three-fourths of Grade 6 didn't show up for class and Bec was feeling really sick, poor thing, and the whole day was such a disaster.

And, to top it off, it's been raining since I woke up.

I am aware that this blog makes me sound like a textbook schizophrenic-- elated to be here one moment, depressed the next, and flitting from emotion to emotion day after day, minute after minute. But I might be a schizo at this point. To feel "get me outta here" mixed with "ohmygod two months left" and "i can't believe i actually have to say goodbye", with a generous splash of "hanging out with my family and friends is going to be paradise", I just feel so mixed-up and over saturated with every sort of feeling that I'm completely exhausted.

I'm going to bed. Goodnight.

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springtime.

2010-10-01T10:24:00.001+02:00

Another early morning, another month begins... the first of October is here and with it, Durban's signature humidity and the gorgeous purple, yellow, and magenta blooms on the otherwise bare trees all around. Spring is in the air and though it gets up to almost ninety degrees during the day, I'm enjoying the heat at the moment. It allows for Sundays spent reading at the beach, gives enough light for running after our return from St. Theresa's in the evenings, and now that the nine-month mark is approaching, emotions are running high at 8 Warwickshire Crescent.

Two weeks ago, we had our final site visit from the office back home; April, our esteemed director arrived and after a brief stay here in Bothas Hill, we packed up the car, awoke at an ungodly hour, and drove north for twelve hours until we were 20 kilometers from the border of Botswana, at the Madikwe Game Reserve. We stayed at Mosetlha, a bush camp and eco-lodge inside the park, at Becca's recommendation-- she had stayed there as part of her six-week study abroad experience in Pretoria during college. Though some might have found the idea of no running water and no electricity daunting, the four of us have stuck to a low-maintenance regimen since beginning our year in South Africa, so heating our water in a donkey boiler and using paraffin lamps at night was lots of fun. We had two game drives a day with our guide Sam, and my favourite part of the program involved a cooler full of beer and cider, snacks, and beautiful sunsets halfway through our evening drives.

We saw tons of animals, even a handful of lions which I'd missed on my safari with my family in Hluhluwe-Umfolozi back in April. I think the highlight of the safari was our evening drive on Saturday; we spotted a baby rhino and his mother racing through the bush, with two young male lions following closely behind. After two minutes, the lions gave up and settled down for yet another nap... proof that big cats and small cats are all the same: lazy!

Otherwise, we had a lot of rest and relaxation time. On the way home, we had to drop April off at the Johannesburg airport, and decided to make a stopover in Jozi before driving back to Durban. On Sunday afternoon, we paid a visit to the famed Apartheid Museum, built in 2000. Each visitor to the museum is assigned either White or Non-White upon purchasing a ticket, and must enter using the appropriate entrance.

Unfortunately, that was the beginning and end of the segregation simulation; the rest of the museum was laid out for us to peruse as we wished. It was enlightening, but I found the exhibits a bit confusing and the layout was not exactly chronological.

The most interesting insight for me was being in the city where my parents spent the first few years of their marriage back in the early Eighties. The city has changed a lot since then, as has South Africa itself. I wrote my high school research paper on apartheid, but to look out over the Johannesburg skyline and feel connected through family and history and my present experience was a really powerful and moving feeling.

Meg has some family that stay in Sandton, a suburb of the city, and they graciously hosted us on Sunday night. After a delicious breakfast of fruit and yogurt and muesli on Monday morning, the four of us, armed with our AA Road Atlas and recommendations from friends and family, explored Parkhurst and Melville. We only spent a few hours walking around, then had a bite to eat before our drive home... but I really enjoyed Johannesburg and I hope I get to go back and spend more time someday.

Meg and I also made it a real South African roadtrip by investing in some biltong to chew on. South Africans are awfully proud of their version of beef jerky, and though I was thirsty for about eight hours after devouring a packet, I think I'm hooked!

It was a great trip-- especially with the addition of my new camera to the family. I still have a lot to learn, and I'm nervous when it's around sticky children and the dusty wind, but I'm still very excited.

We're on school holidays again; this time it's spring midterm break, which seems like a funny way to describe the three weeks that we had school since the World Cup. But I've busied myself with job applications in the hopes that someone will hire me come December. I've discovered lots of education non-profits on the East Coast that have openings, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some sort of sign... and trying to remain in-the-moment about my last two months here in South Africa.

a sociology lesson.

2010-09-27T11:38:00.000+02:00

the itsy bitsy spider.

2010-09-15T19:00:00.001+02:00

Back in early March, Becca and I spent a whole Wednesday teaching Grade 4 our fantastic repertoire of three songs... "Old MacDonald Had A Farm", "This Little Light Of Mine", and.... "The Itsy Bitsy Spider".

Enjoy.

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worth 1000 words...

2010-09-13T20:57:00.002+02:00

Here are a few snapshots of life as it's happened lately...

Back in July, our community took a trip to a game farm with our friends Brian, Matt, and Martin... lots of giraffe viewing and quart drinking ensued.

We reaped the many benefits of the Durban International Film Festival, and might have gone on a top-secret poster-stealing mission on the streets of Durban one night... as the organizer of said mission, I was elated.

One of my favourite books we've got in the library (along with The Gruffalo), Room on the Broom led to a really great creative art project with Grade 5.

Sanele wore his pants up to his neck one morning. Gosh I love that face.

And then Becky came to visit!!

We met in Cape Town, and toured Stellenbosch to taste some delicious South African wine...

... and drove around the coast in style in our little red Kia (free upgrade, no big deal).

Even though school was closed due to the strike, she got to meet and consequently fall in love with our St. Theresa's boys.

We spent a day touring Durbs-- complete with a formal introduction to the Indian Ocean.

And then we celebrated Becca's (far left) 24th birthday with a Mexican fiesta at home.

I bought some gorgeous Indian silk at Essenwood Market (6 metres for R100... that's about $15!) and got to try it on as a sari, but I don't think I could pass for Indian.

Then we introduced Becky and Meg, Mary-Kate's friend from home, to the joy that is the Durban Sharks playing a rugby match in the Currie Cup.

On her last day, Beck and I took a short drive towards Pietermaritzburg to a game reserve called Tala, which was small, but we got to hang out with lots of wildebeest (yes like the ones that killed Mufasa) and giraffes... cue Becky doing lots of animal impressions, all day.

Then our guests left, and we were left to celebrate St. Augustine Day with the Augustinian sisters next door and our three friars/friends-- Fr. Frank, Baba Benji, and Fr. Jack. I made mum's poached pears as a little tribute to St. Augustine, and they went down a treat.

Unfortunately, my digital camera bit the dust two weeks ago; keeping it safe in a case was to no avail, and the screen cracked and would cost about $350 to fix. But, luckily, I'm really excited to announce that after some hefty discussion with my parents, this little baby is on her way to me as we speak.

Our coordinator April is on her way for our last site visit, and she arrives tomorrow night. We'll have two days here with her, then on Friday morning, we'll be driving up to Mosetlha Bush Camp, in Madikwe Game Reserve, up on the border of Botswana, for a weekend of safari adventures. We'll finish our trip with an overnight in Johannesburg on Sunday. We mainly want to see the famed apartheid museum in Jozi, but I'm really looking forward to spending a small amount of time in the city where my parents spent two years before I existed. Even though much has changed since the early 80s, I'm excited to see it nonetheless.

status quo.

2010-09-12T15:07:00.001+02:00

I've been thinking a lot about how important the idea of status is to the Zulu people I've encountered. This covers everything, from the latest technological possessions to cars to even which students have the sharpest pencils in the classroom.
One of the hardest things that I've realized about teaching is how easy it can be to pick favourites. This isn't even restricted to St. Leo's-- at the boys' home, too, there are certain kids that I get along with and who feel more comfortable around me than others. There's Sanele, in Grade 4, who cannot sit still and has been known to steal food from kindergartners at break time. But he calls me "Mrs. Sinead" and it makes my heart melt. Then there's Bheki at St. Theresa's; he may drool when he gets overexcited and eat chicken liver pate straight from the container with a spoon, but I just love that Kanye West face of his.
But playing favourites doesn't even mean that kids feel left out if I feel the need to pay special attention to one or the other. It's all about having things. Children here are more concerned about having the sharpest pencil in the class, or being able to buy unhealthy snacks at breaktime instead of eating the prepared samp, finding an old Bluetooth on the ground and wearing it around the schoolyard, with more pride than the most successful investor on Wall Street.
And this phenomenon isn't restricted to children either. Mary-Kate told me last week about a Zulu man who had asked the nun sponsoring him through nursing school if he could get a car. She agreed to help him, but then made a very good point: this guy didn't have a drivers' license. He seemed completely unperturbed by this. He just wanted a car.
It's easy to say that this all comes from people who don't have much taking pride in what they can get their hands on, but when a hefty paycheck goes towards purchasing the latest flat-screen TV in a rundown tinroof house with no running water, I feel very confused at the logic.
It's also easy to expand these scenarios and take a look at the government of this country (and elsewhere). Government officials spend big bucks on flashy cars, expensive suits, and family vacations, while in the same city, someone even related to them might be suffering from treatbale TB with no money for medicine.
I never mean to express political criticism, but I can't help noticing how even the microcosm of St. Leo's is a small-scale model for how things operate on a national level in South Africa.
Mum has been faithfully clipping articles from the Financial Times that might pique my interest, and when a package arrived the other day with two books from my sister (who is studying abroad in Paris at the moment; read her blog here), it also had a giant stack of articles with it.
One of them, written back in July, is an interview with six different South Africans post-World Cup. It is a really interesting piece, with many points I've been reflecting on, but in a much more succinct and articulate manner. You can find the article here, and I'd highly recommend taking the time to read it.

Oh, and school is open again, much to my relief. More on that later...

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overheard in south africa.

2010-09-12T14:54:00.002+02:00

We often find ourselves playing "hairdresser" at St. Theresa's when the boys have finished their homework and all the soccer balls are in use.

Volunteer: So I think I'll probably chop all my hair off when I get home.
Philani: You should relax it, that would look nice.
Volunteer: I actually don't need to relax it, it's sort of "naturally relaxed", you know what I mean?
Philani: So who relaxes y'all's hair then? God?

.

struck.

2010-08-24T20:00:00.004+02:00

The beach in Durban where the FIFA Fan Fest was set up just six weeks ago.

It's been eleven days since I've worked at St. Leo's. In that time, which started out as a Friday I'd wanted to take off to spend time with Becky in Cape Town, all public servants in South Africa are on strike. Government schools (and some private ones) are closed, as are government hospitals and most clinics. The sick can't get treatment, and more importantly, those with HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis who depend on regularly scheduled medicine have no access to their prescriptions. Children enrolled in government schools sit at home or at a relative's house, bored out of their minds, because their families cannot afford to send them to private school in the first place. Sadly, many of these kids depend on their biggest meal of the day coming from the school kitchen, and they will go hungry unless they find aid elsewhere.

Themba is in hospital with a stomach ulcer and other complications, and when Becca and I went to see her today, she told us that she'd had a phone call from Smangele Khumalo, a learner in Grade 5. All Smangele told Themba was that she was very hungry; Themba did her best to convince her that the strike would end soon, then hung up the phone and cried for the rest of the night. We also spoke about how fortunate Themba is to be able to afford care in a private hospital-- otherwise her ulcer would go untreated and the fibroids they found would have gone unnoticed.

I've been talking a lot with people, both in South Africa and at home, about everything going on, and the general consensus is that the issues causing this strike are so deeply rooted in South Africa's turbulent and segregated history that it's really hard to be hopeful about the outcome. There has been very little said on the government's part, and the president is no better; Jacob Zuma's latest announcement was that he had attended the highly anticipated Springboks/All Blacks rugby match in Soweto last Saturday with his cabinet members. For people who suffered through centuries of being powerless to now have as much influence as they can get is a recipe for disaster (see: Julius Malema, and also the ANC's recent announcement to enact a media tribunal on all journalistic coverage of government policies and activity).

And the poor of South Africa cannot win. Those who wish for higher salaries are using the only advantage they have-- their ability to work-- to change the minds of those they elected to power in the first place. And those affected by the strike are equally annoyed at the government. The ANC was elected to power in 2009 by the very people it is now turning its back on. The blame game turns into an endless cat-and-mouse chase with lots of pointed fingers and not much progress.

But no matter who is to blame, the fact of the matter is that people are starving, children cannot attend school, and the sick will die without access to proper treatment and medication. The results from matriculation exams (the equivalent of the Leaving Cert, GCSE, or other final exams to graduate high school) in this country were already abysmal, and now with exams so close, there is a very good chance that South Africa's meager 15% pass rate will dip even lower.

And all this in a country that just six short weeks ago played host to one of the most widely-viewed sporting competitions in the world. In Durban alone, trillions of rand were poured into the construction of a beautiful airport and magnificent stadium, as well as the complete and much-needed renovation of the Golden Mile along the beach front downtown. People were hired as "beach guards" to look after worried tourists' buckets and spades while they took a dip in the balmy Indian Ocean. Peace Officers strolled along the road with municipal police to keep people's minds at ease. In the fan parks, people gathered in the warm Durban winter to watch soccer together, regardless of nationality, race, economic status, or age.

But now it's over, and garbage collects on the beach while police officers busy themselves with forcing the homeless off benches along the promenade. Now that the strike is in full force, they've been dispatched to places like Addington Hospital in the city, where they were forced to fire rubber bullets into a crowd of protesters. Parents of some of the learners at St. Leo and elsewhere have lost their jobs, and the scar that runs so deeply in this achingly beautiful country cannot be covered up any longer.

In one of Durban's newspapers called The Mercury, a piece by someone named Danie Joubert was published in yesterday's Opinions section. Though the column was striking in many ways, this passage in particular stood out to me:
It is obvious we have our social investment priorities wrong. We can convince ourselves to spend hundreds of billions on sports stadiums and infrastructure that had a one-month emotional impact and a limited future utilisation return value, but we cannot convince ourselves to invest the seed capital in human capital formation that assures future harmony and prosperity for a nation.

I can only hope that some sort of agreement can be reached, and soon. With the lives and well-being of the poor, especially children and the sick, at stake, a resolution needs to happen before things get any worse.

.

this just in...

2010-08-12T13:56:00.000+02:00

We had to close school at 10:00 this morning. Amid alphabet matching games and practicing vowel sounds with Grade 3, Themba received a text message from someone she knows that there had been threats sent out against St. Leo's; it would have been dangerous to stay open. I asked Olwethu, one of the girls in Grade 7 who won a scholarship for high school, if she was happy to have the rest of the day off. "No, it's boring at home," she said. It made me think a lot about how I've taken my education for granted... if thirteen-year-old me had had an unexpected early dismissal, for whatever reason, I would have been absolutely over the moon. But for the majority of kids at St. Leo's and elsewhere here, school is the one thing that keeps them busy, interested, and happy.
I hope this strike doesn't last too long.

So instead, we're at home baking peanut butter cookies, I'm throwing my clothes into a bag, and hoping that when I get home from Cape Town this will have all blown over, and we can go back to school.

in the line of duty.

2010-08-11T21:14:00.003+02:00

When the end of a month approaches, I often find myself feeling a bit down. I don't know where the feeling comes from, but I do know that unfortunately, I'm not the only one in my community who gets the end-of-the-month blues. And July was no different. With the World Cup over, the weather much chillier, and work back in full swing again, we were all feeling a bit blue as July came to an end.
And then August arrived, but instead of perking up, the weather took a turn for the colder and my mood didn't improve much. There are the usual frustrations that accompany work, and anyone who has volunteered in a program like mine (or who has lived with a group of people he or she cares about) knows that living in community isn't always a walk in the park. But something about the past two weeks has really made me feel exasperated, and after a tear-filled conversation with Mum on Saturday night, I decided that something needed to be done about it. I'm not the type to count down the days until this year is over, though when December comes, I think I'll be ready to hand the job over to someone else. I scribbled down a list of things that make me really happy here, and thought I'd share a few thoughts.

Things Worth Smiling About

1. Walking through the schoolyard at St. Leo's and hearing children of all ages call out, "Hi Miss Sinead!" when I'd expected having to change my name when I started teaching. Even if I sometimes get called Shanela, which means "to sweep" in Zulu, I'm okay with that.

2. Seeing the sun rise in the morning-- yes this does remind me that my wakeup is very early here, but the colors in the sky over the valley at 6:30 in the morning are just breathtaking.

3. Moments at St. Theresa's like on Tuesday, when Philane was in charge of cooking dinner. I peeked my head in the kitchen every few minutes to see if he was okay, and not long before I left for the evening, he presented me with the finished product: a small dish of rice, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, and pilchards (with a little dab of mayo on the side; it's all about the presentation) to try. I can't even remember what it tasted like, but the look on his face when I broached the topic of culinary school was something worth remembering ("You mean a kitchen? A big one? Of my own?")

4. When teaching grammar and sentence structure seems to be futile, and then Mary-Kate and I are standing in the classroom, teaching nouns. We divide them into people, places, and things, and ask the class to give examples of each. When trying to get the kids to say "learners" two weeks ago, the following happened:

Teacher: Okay, so what are you guys?

Thabiso: People!

Teacher: Good, that's right. Now, what kind of people?

Thabiso: Black people!

5. Seeing Visa/Vie and Altiplano at the Durban International Film Festival (we also saw My Hunter's Heart but it was absolutely atrocious). Getting to participate in the film festival was really unexpected and a pleasant surprise for the most part. If you have Netflix, I recommend adding Altiplano to it immediately. Amazing film.

And last but not least, Becky, my best friend from college and former roommate extraordinaire, is coming to visit... and arrives tomorrow! She's en route from LA to Atlanta right now, and then flies to Johannesburg. She'll meet me in Cape Town tomorrow night, and we'll be spending the weekend there, before coming back to Durban for ten days. It'll be so nice to have a familiar face around for the next two weeks. Becky was a Jesuit Volunteer in San Francisco until the end of last week, so having someone here who has an idea of the volunteer lifestyle will be great. I went to visit her in SF in November of last year; I can't wait to show her my life here in South Africa!
The past couple of weeks have been really draining, especially because there was a massive strike brewing for all public workers, including teachers, at the beginning of the week. It looks as though things are operating as normal now, but police officers visited St. Leo's on Tuesday to make sure we were safe-- as the only school remaining open in the Molweni area, we were at risk when the wrath of other teachers threatened us. Hopefully settlements will be agreed upon soon, and schools and hospitals won't suffer too much.
That being said, I still feel as if there's nowhere else I'm supposed to be. The above are just a few of the reasons I get up in the morning, and though it's easy to get bogged down by the rough patches, making an effort to stand in the winter sunshine every once in a while is really worth it.

because this monday needs cheering up...

2010-07-26T20:28:00.001+02:00

Today was a frustrating day at St. Leo's. Grade 6 has the nasty habit of neglecting to show up for class, and since most of the teachers weren't in their classrooms today because of one meeting or another, there was no authority present anywhere aside from a couple of 12-year-old prefects with sticks in hand, ready to smack their subordinates on the arm.

So, instead of posting something negative, here's a real gem from our Grade 6 Term 1 Vocab Review last week. Keep in mind, Andiswa is eleven years old. The kids were asked to use two of their vocabulary words in a sentence; look at his second one.

My favourite car was Land Rover but my wife says she doesn't want a Land Rover, she wants a BMW.

Great sentences, indeed. But 4/5 nonetheless.

overheard in south africa.

2010-07-19T21:39:00.006+02:00

I've gotten myself mired into a Tickle War with a couple of the Grade 3 boys. Then this happened...

Teacher 1: Sphelele! You're not laughing! Aren't you ticklish?
Sphelele: No... I'm Zulu!

.

the view from here: the 2010 world cup in photos

2010-07-12T21:34:00.006+02:00

You've seen the matches on TV, heard "Waka Waka" and "Wave Your Flag" more times than you can count on the radio, and I've shared articles with you about South Africa's struggle and success in hosting this year's FIFA World Cup... so what now?

I thought I'd do something a bit more exciting, and give you a peek at what June 11th to July 11th looked like from where I stand. I left the United States on January 11th, making the opening day of the World Cup a five-month marker, and the closing ceremony our six-month anniversary as AVs here in South Africa. And what a month it was.

We decorated the St. Leo's library (our classroom) with projects about the World Cup...

... and went a little crazy as the term came to an end.

I got to judge a World Cup art contest-- no easy task, I promise you...

... and also banned vuvuzelas from the classroom.

We had friends in crazy flag trousers (and vuvuzelas)...

... and strangers in crazier flag UNITARDS (and more vuvuzelas)!

Then the world became that much smaller when we met a fellow Villanova alum (Class of '97 anyone?) at the fan park on the Durban beachfront.

We refereed intense soccer matches during our holiday programme at St. Leo's, complete with future Bafana Bafana star athletes...

...and taught Kwazi, Kwanele, and our 45 other campers how to make yarn bracelets in their favourite team colours.

We watched Bafana Bafana beat France with some of the boys from St. Theresa's, in one of the stickiest, most sugar-laced afternoons yet...

... and decked ourselves out in red, white, and blue to hit the beach...

... twice.

And last night, we wrapped up the festivities with some of our closest friends, feeling sad and relieved and proud and very, very exhausted, all at once.

And now we have fresh crayons, a return to routine, and five more months to make the most of our time here in South Africa.

running to stand still.

2010-07-10T16:44:00.004+02:00

This volunteer year is a test of endurance in many ways. There are the tough situations at work, when undernourished children don't have enough to eat at break time or suffer from sores on their little bodies, betraying the secret of their illness. There's the challenge of living with three like-minded, strong-willed women who don't get enough sleep at night. There's the 6000+ miles between my four favorite people (and two cats) and me, and though God gave us Skype and GChat, there's no e-equivalent for the comforts of home.
And, as if these things weren't testing my endurance enough, I've taken to running. My shin-splinting, asthmatic, tired body is subjected to a couple of miles most evenings after work, before the sun sets.
I was never much of a runner; at best I could sprint the 200 meter dash, and when I got to high school, a track team didn't even exist. The prospect of running 5 kilometers as part of the varsity cross-country team was daunting, but I decided to join and working on my stamina was a project I tried for years to accomplish. In college, I tried to keep up with running but late nights in the library coupled with seasonal illness and a side of college nightlife made regular runs hard to come by.
Now, though I find myself more physically exhausted by work (and occasionally play, to be completely honest) than I've ever been before, I make a special effort to drag myself around "the loop", a mile-and-a-half stretch of quiet suburbia across the road from our house. I've taken great comfort in spending thirty minutes with just my iPod and my thoughts, and to my surprise, the fixation on exhaustion and breathing trouble and sore muscles I'd struggled with in the past has now melted away.
Today, on a particularly beautiful Friday afternoon, a U2 song filled my headphones, called "Running to Stand Still". It's an old one, from The Joshua Tree, but I was struck by the lyrics as I cooled down and stood looking over the valley.

And so she woke up
Woke up from where she was lying still
Said I gotta do something about where we're going.

And there it was. My mind is no longer thinking about exhaustion, or muscle pain-- it's simply too preoccupied with other thoughts to focus on the physical aspect of exercise. I enjoy running so much here because I've finally got things more important to think about than myself, and I'm really glad to reach that realization. One of my goals of my time here was to focus on things other than personal issues, and it seems that my mind's inevitably begun to shift that way.
The service I do here is time-consuming and draining; it often requires a complete commitment of mind and body to get through the days. And so, when it comes time to reflect on my life here in South Africa, the best way I've found to do so is by physical activity-- it's when I'm most active that I find a quiet moment or two. It really is running to stand still.

ngyiabonga.

2010-07-09T17:57:00.005+02:00

Ngiyabonga-- thank you, so much, for all of your kind notes, emails, and messages regarding my blog post earlier this week. It's really nice to know that I have a caring, supportive network of people when I'm feeling overwhelmed by life as a volunteer. I really appreciate anyone even reading this little blog, let alone having feelings about it; it means a lot to me. And you're all in my thoughts just as often.

Thanks.

the spectrum.

2010-07-05T19:46:00.000+02:00

When I signed up to be an Augustinian Volunteer, and even during my time as an undergraduate at Villanova, I became accustomed to "reflection" pretty quickly. Whether it was at AV Orientation, during a service break trip during college, or even in some of my classes, the idea of "reflecting" on my experience was something the Augustinian mindset got me very used to. So when I came to South Africa as a volunteer, and an Augustinian Volunteer at that, I was fully prepared to "reflect". I didn't know it would be so hard, and I certainly had no idea that it wouldn't be just frustration, or guilt, or sadness, or joy at one time-- I didn't know that my head and heart would take on the gamut of emotions every single day.

After a week and a half of a really successful time with the St. Leo's kids and our summer programme, we had to end things early. There had been kids showing up that we didn't know-- the word was out that we had soccer balls and sandwiches and so these other children from Molweni began to outnumber our own kids. Themba and Ayanda, two coworkers from St. Leo's, were both a great help to us during the camp, but last Tuesday, Themba pulled Mary-Kate and I aside and told us that she didn't think continuing the camp was safe, for us or for the children. She pointed to one of the teenagers wearing a Bafana Bafana jersey and playing netball in the grounds and said, "That girl's family lives here in Molweni... and I know for a fact that her father and brother are professional thieves. Who's to say that they didn't send her here to get information for them?" While it's hard to believe that situations like that arise, they do, and putting ourselves in the middle of them compromises too much. We also heard rumors that the older kids who showed up to play soccer were stealing sandwiches from the younger St. Leo's students, which made me more upset than anything. It's hard enough to dole out food to hungry kids, but dealing with these older kids taking advantage of our learners was really hard to hear.
We went ahead with the movie screening we'd planned for Wednesday-- nothing beats hearing Zulu kids singing along to High School Musical like any good pre-teens would-- and then said goodbye to everybody until we see them again next week, when school restarts. I'll be really relieved to get back to seeing them all every day again.

With the camp ending early, I had to find some other way to occupy my days, so I decided to work a day at the Hillcrest AIDS Respite Centre this past Friday. Though I'm not cut out for that kind of work on a daily basis, I often feel like I should put more pressure on myself to be challenged-- and that's how I found myself standing over one of the patients, giving her a bedbath. I'd never done something like that before, and it was hard. Really hard. She was in a lot of pain, and even raising her arm so I could wash underneath was a huge effort, but I tried to make lighthearted conversation, even telling her that her legs were long enough that she could be a model. I realize now that the comments were just to keep myself distracted.
I spent the remainder of the day on Friday holding Bianca, a one-year-old who had just been admitted, with her mother, the day before. She's HIV positive, has TB, and looks more like a 4-month-old than one whole year. Although she's sick, she's happy just to have attention and be held like any baby, and I really enjoyed spending time with her. She has the most beautiful eyes-- and is so curious! All I can do is spend time with her and hope that she gets better soon.

Then the weekend came, and with it, more World Cup festivities. These past few weeks have flown by (it's already July?!) but all this waving of flags and blowing of vuvuzelas has gotten really tiring. I'm happy with how South Africa has handled all this commotion so far, but I'm really nervous for the aftermath. That being said, we had a nice weekend, spent some time at the fan park and down around Durban-- even enjoying a Greek lunch on Saturday in the gorgeous winter sun. After a long afternoon nap in the sunshine yesterday, we invited a few friends over for a small 4th of July celebration... and we even conquered lighting the charcoal barbecue all on our own! And, even though the USA is out of the World Cup, I had another excuse to don my soccer scarf last night-- once the sun goes down around 5 or so, it gets really chilly up here!

And now it's Monday, and already today I woke up exhausted after another restless night of sleep. I laughed with the kids at 1000 Hills, as we played games and sang "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes". I vented frustration to Becca after another failed attempt to pick up a pension for Gogo Gloria, who lives at the bottom of a steep hill in kwaNyuswa and can't walk thanks to infected skin grafts, the result of terrible snake bites on her legs. I heard from Mary-Kate that the patient I bathed on Friday died over the weekend, and consequently went for a run to clear my head. I sat on the hill and cried. I met an Irish woman named Mary who is on a silent retreat at the center next door. I caught up with my family back at home via videochat, and laughed at their jokes..... all in one day.

My work here is tiring, and challenging, and stressful, but it's the emotional work that is most grueling. My roommates and I often joke that our friendships have been put on overdrive-- we have one year to become roommates, community members, and hopefully, friends. But every day here is overdrive. Every single day, my emotions go from one to the other and back again, and before I know it, the day is over and I lie in bed, completely overwhelmed at the thought of my life here. And that is why blogging is hard, writing letters is hard, talking to people on the phone is hard-- the process of reflecting on my daily life seems sometimes to be a task too gigantic to undertake sometimes.
But I'm trying. Thankfully, Becca, Meg, and Mary-Kate are incredibly understanding, patient, loving people who deal with me on a daily basis... and vice versa. We've made some really good friends with South Africans as well, both our age and older. The Augustinians we live with are fantastic, and even my students at St. Leo's seem to have a sixth sense about my emotions.
So even though it's hard to be here, and be present, and process everything all at the same time, I'm forced to be held accountable for how I feel, and that's a challenge I really value as the sun sets at the end of the day.

some further reading...

2010-06-21T21:03:00.000+02:00

If you want to read further about the effect of the World Cup on South Africa, here are a few articles I've been reading over the past few weeks-- some positive, some negative, but all really interesting.

Andrew Harding on Africa: Will the World Cup transform SA?

NY Times Op-Ed: Freedom's Blaring Horn

NPR: South Africa Hides Its Homeless Ahead of World Cup

NPR: Deford on South Africa: The Big Stage is Pricey

The Guardian: The Real Test for South Africa Comes After the Final Whistle

The Guardian: Africa Doesn't Need the World Cup to Change Its Fortunes

that's not the humidity you feel... it's AYOBA!

2010-06-21T20:53:00.004+02:00

Today is the shortest day of the year... or the longest, depending on the hemisphere. Down here, the sun set around 5pm and the thought of the days getting longer gives me a lot of joy.
Though the South African winter is heavenly, the short days sometimes make me feel like hibernating... which is what I did for the majority of last week, when my annual bout of coughing, sneezing, and general unhealthiness took over. Those kind of symptoms usually rear their ugly heads come October at home (my brief encounter with pneumonia last year? Anyone?)-- which makes me right on schedule, on southern hemisphere time of course. Luckily, with some rest and TLC from my roommates, the World Cup holiday provided an excellent opportunity for recuperation. As a bonus, I also got to spend some quality time with the Fitzpatricks, our longtime family friends. They're here in South Africa to see some World Cup matches and to revisit a country they left behind back when my parents left, so it was really nice to have an adopted family for a little while. They stayed at a friend's house in Umhlanga Rocks, a northern suburb of Durban that I hadn't visited yet, so I enjoyed seeing another part of the city.

The World Cup has been a very unique aspect to being my year as an Augustinian Volunteer here in South Africa thus far. It's colored everything I've done, from geography lessons at St. Leo's to weekend plans to rearranged schedules and new safety precautions. Though I was apprehensive about South Africa's readiness to host such a massive event, and though I still have some reservations about the impression that people who visit are getting of this country, I've been overwhelmingly impressed by the festivities thus far. It hasn't been easy to be away from the kids we see five days a week ordinarily, but the sense of celebration that has taken over the city, the country, and most likely the world at large, is hard to ignore. Even if "Wave Your Flag" and "Waka Waka" are played on repeat on the radio (or at clubs in Durban), I still feel a wave of emotion when they come on during half-time down at the fan parks on the beach. I'm happy to deck myself out in South African gear for Bafana Bafana games, or drape myself in red, white, and blue to see the US play.

Meeting people from all over has been an amazing experience as well, especially when we get asked, "Oh, are you here for the World Cup?" Though they could be pure social interactions, these encounters offer us an opportunity to explain our work here, and just last weekend we met a Yale graduate who is also a full-time volunteer, up north in Mtubatuba; his organization uses soccer as a vehicle for HIV/AIDS education in the bush.

It's hard to be a volunteer with a full-time job when the rest of the country seems to be on vacation; the influx of visitors to Durban alone have really boosted the energy of the city, and it's made it very difficult to return to our jobs come Monday. Today was the first day of the holiday program we're offering to our learners at St. Leo's, and after a restless night last night and feeling generally apathetic about the prospect of working this week, I was so happy to see some of my students and spend the day with them, playing soccer, doing word searches, and feeling relieved knowing that at least some of them were keeping themselves occupied during this extra-long break from school. Becca was a star and led the kids in a paper mache project which they all loved! The camp will continue for the rest of this week and next week as well, and we've been assured that the numbers of kids will only increase over time. It's nice to interact with our learners outside of a teacher/student relationship. I only hope they'll remember who the teacher is when July 13th rolls around!

All in all, I continue to hope that this World Cup will result in more positive than negative for South Africa. I'm nervous at the prospect of all the jobs that have been created for the month-long event becoming obsolete, and reports of missing children in some of the areas we work in have started to surface, but I hope that they come from misinformation and are no more than rumor.
In the meantime, all we can do is make an effort to keep the people we serve safe and happy, and let the rest of the month unfold as it will... and maybe enjoy a little ayoba on the side.

it thrills me right down to the marrow

2010-06-14T21:38:00.000+02:00

I can't count the number of times I've sat down to post an entry here and share my crazy life over the past few weeks. One appendix surgery, water and electricity outages, a midyear retreat, and a World Cup later, it's almost mid-June and sometimes the speed with which time passes is scary (especially when I mark my time according to blog posts!)

So, I'm going to cheat now and write a list of things that are important to mention, and write a real entry soon, hopefully with photos!

We had two visiting groups, one from Villanova University and one from Malvern Prep, at the end of May... and they got the real African experience when we didn't have water and then didn't have electricity in the space of five days!
My roommate Mary-Kate had to get her appendix out a few weeks ago, very suddenly, but with a couple of days in the hospital, lots of rest, and some good old-fashioned TLC, she's on the mend and is back to work for the most part.
We had our midyear site visit from Pat, our supervisor back in the US, and though we had to rearrange plans because of MK's surgery, we had a really nice retreat and took some time to reflect about reaching the midyear point in our year of service... thank goodness we live next-door to a retreat house and got to get out of our house for a weekend!
School closed last Wednesday for winter break, meaning a four-week break for the World Cup holidays which is a bit longer than usual. We've organized a holiday program for some of our learners, which starts next Monday-- and I've been taking the time without the kids to organize the library! It needs lots of work, but I'm happy to have some time to do it before our two-week camp starts. I miss the kids a lot already.
I got to go and see Johnny Clegg with some of my roommates and our South African friends last week, which was a really cool experience-- he had a band called Juluka during apartheid with a Zulu man named Sipho Mchunu, and was banned from playing in public spaces and things... now he tours mostly as a solo act, but seeing him the night before the World Cup kickoff was a big thrill. How can you not love an artist who has a song with lyrics like I'm sitting on the top of Kilimanjaro; it thrills me right down to the marrow?!
Last but not least................. the World Cup has arrived! Everything is in full swing here, and while I had and still do have some reservations about South Africa hosting the event, we spent a lot of time at the fan parks down in Durban this weekend, standing on the beach overlooking the Indian Ocean, deafened by vuvuzelas and sharing the excitement with people from all over the world-- and the significance of such a momentous event being held in this country is overwhelming. I just hope it continues without a hitch, and that I can find some time to enjoy it and still keep working hard. Some good family friends, the Fitzpatricks, are flying to South Africa today for some of the games, and I'm really looking forward to meeting up with them and seeing some friendly faces later this week. I also ran into a guy who went to my university while at the fan park on Friday night; sometimes the world is a very small place!

Hopefully I'll find time to concentrate on some more reflective writing soon, but for now, I'll go on feeling very lucky to be in South Africa this year.

grade 3 goes mtv.

2010-05-26T16:15:00.000+02:00

When Grade 3 won't pay attention at the end of the day, sometimes all you can do is dance to Beyonce. But I'm almost positive I've never seen Beyonce dance like this...

worth 1000 words...

2010-05-19T16:51:00.001+02:00

back to 'ubuntu'.

2010-05-19T15:44:00.002+02:00

You know you live in South Africa when you go for your Saturday morning run and see what you are convinced is yet another pesky monkey... but upon closer inspection, it turns out to just be a cat.

And then you go two days without running water because "the reservoir is empty" and have to fill up buckets, jugs, anything you can find-- just to be able to wash dishes and brush your teeth-- when the eThekwini Municipality water truck trundles down the street. You learn why Zulu women carry their heavy loads on their heads; who knew it would be much easier to walk back up Warwickshire Crescent once you learn to maintain balance with a couple of kilos on your head? And then, after dutifully accepting that you'll have to suffer one more day before trekking to the parish at Kloof for a shower, the water spurts out of the taps and for the next couple of days, every time you turn on the tap you'll be thankful for the gift of running water.

Amidst homesickness, frustration, even fatigue, it's hard to forget where I am. Constantly being reminded of my surroundings has helped to bring me back to the reasons I decided to sign up for this crazy experience.
I stand at morning prayer with my students at St. Leo's, basking in the smiles on their faces, humbled by the devout way they close their eyes and fold their hands while they pray. I watch the boys of Cottage 4 at St. Theresa's Home for Boys struggle through the choreography during a dance class, and can't help loving them even when they won't sit down to do homework. They're getting ready to perform at Moses Mabhida stadium here in Durban during the World Cup, and the prospect of seeing them on TV might be the thing I look forward to most during this FIFA fever craziness.

I share frustration, sadness, and laughter with the three other girls in my community-- even sometimes sharing silence too-- and our level of comfort and closeness with one another is such a good thing to have. We may spend every waking moment together, but we can't be completely tired of each other yet, and we're not, if our excitement about a weekend away together is anything to go by!

It's not easy to be a volunteer, and I have to admit that May has been the toughest month personally so far, but with the midway point in sight, I'm trying really hard to keep in mind the fleeting nature of time. Before I have a chance to absorb all my experiences and feelings during my time here, that time will have passed and I'll be back in the US, heartbroken to have left my year here in the past.

And so, I'm repositioning myself and getting back to where I was before-- excited, motivated, and feeling very lucky to be able to nurture the friendships and relationships that South Africa's ubuntu has given me.
I am, because we are.

"A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed."

- Archbishop Desmond Tutu

the god of small things.

2010-05-10T19:34:00.000+02:00

Sometimes, it's in the smallest ways that you realize someone is looking out for you after all.

Found by Becca, taken while camping in Scottsburgh this weekend.

a monday in may.

2010-05-03T21:49:00.000+02:00

In many ways, I find it hard to believe that the first of May has come and gone. Here in the Southern Hemisphere, the green is draining out of the trees and grasses and the flowering trees have long since shed their blooms. But the weather continues to surprise us Northern Hemisphere natives, and with trips to the beach in what should be the onset of winter, I can't complain about the weather.

I find it really hard to keep up with this blog thing, which is hard to admit because I really enjoyed blogging previous to my arrival in South Africa, when my life was much more average and the most exciting things in my day were discoveries on the internet. But the pace of my life as a volunteer has been very different than I'd expected coming into this year.

I have to take things one day at a time, because trying to think ahead, especially when I'm feeling stressed out or homesick and lonely makes the next seven months seem very long indeed. Making lesson plans from one week to the next is about the furthest thing I can do in advance, and even that is a real effort most of the time. With long workdays, language barriers (which are being broken down little by little, but still), and four hundred learners in the classroom a week, I'm exhausted when I get home at the end of a day, and by the time Friday rolls around, having a drink with my roommates and our South African friends is a real treat. After laundry, a trip to the farmers' market, maybe some time at the beach or out in Durban on a Saturday night, and mass together with my community, all of a sudden Sunday night has come and gone and Monday rears its ugly head once again.

But I can't complain. Though the days are long, weeks are flying by and I sometimes feel like time is passing too quickly. Although I miss home very much, I'm very distracted most of the time which helps keep my mind off the many miles in between me and the people I love. But I'm managing fine, and finding that I have very little trouble operating normally in a culture and society very different from that of the northeastern United States. I had suspected in the past that I was adaptable, but I think being in South Africa has made me realize how grateful I am for the spectrum of experiences I've had thus far in foreign places, and how they've shaped me into a receptive, interested person.

In other, petty news...

1. Our house is home to a mouse or two, one of whom I have named Wilbur. He likes to scratch in the room where Becca and I sleep at night, just to let us know he's still around. I wish he would eat the poison we left out for him but he doesn't seem to like it.
2. We got two flat tires in one week in our big car, thus continuing to prove my theory that I have the world's worst luck with car tires.
3. Though I've been much better at trying while here in South Africa, I still cannot dance, which my students love to point out every time we bring an iPod into class.
4. South African avocados are huge, mutant things (photo to come), but have gotten me horrifically addicted to homemade guacamole.
5. As my finances look quite shabby upon my return to the US come December, I have decided to bring the almighty bunny chow stateside. Look for "Sinead's Bunny Chow Shack" franchises opening near you in 2011.

I feel quite guilty that my lovely family paid me an extended visit over the Easter holiday, and I have yet to prove that they were ever here... so as soon as I can, I'll get some photos up here and try to recap our whirlwind ten days together.
But I think I'm afraid to start looking through the pictures as it will just make me miss home (and Mum's cooking) all the more!

And thus ends the most scattered blog post ever. Apologies.

the land of the free?

2010-04-27T10:46:00.002+02:00

Today is Freedom Day. How ironic is that.

We woke up at the normal time, all set to spend the day at 1000 Hills Community Helpers, where they host a baby clinic on Tuesdays. St. Leo's is closed (yet again) for the public holiday, so I'm not starting my week there until tomorrow.
Just as we were about to pile into the car, we got two phone calls-- the first from Meg, who was being sent home from the Respite Center to have a day off for the holiday, and one from Karen, telling us that 1000 Hills was also closed for Freedom Day today.
So there we were, four volunteers who'd cried off early from a party last night because we had to work today; "Volunteering never takes a holiday!" we'd said as we excused ourselves. And we had nowhere to work.
I decided there was a good opportunity to get my missing invoice from my toe procedure back in early March and then I'd finally be able to send off my insurance claim, so with eager roommates in tow, off I drove to Pinetown, where the process was shockingly painless. With form in hand two minutes later, and it now being only 8:17 am, Mary-Kate suggested we drive to Wyebank to visit Sbu, an 11-year-old who had been released from the Respite Center a couple of weeks ago.

Sbu was admitted for TB and thankfully tested negative for HIV, even though he lives in a child-headed household because his mother died of AIDS. He lives with his siblings and young cousins in a one-room shack managed by his 16-year-old cousin, who herself has a baby boy just 10 months old.
They were pleased to see us, I think, though the presence of an umlungu, or white person, always comes as a surprise in the valley. We had brought them a cake to share that the priests had given us, so we left that in the one room they call home and headed out to the yard to play a very pitiful game of soccer, though Sbu showed some pretty impressive moves when he wasn't coughing.
We played for twenty minutes or so, then got ready to leave. As we said our goodbyes, Sbu and his older sister Pamela approached us. Pamela goes to an Indian school up on the hill with a very good reputation, and her English is excellent. She drew close to Mary-Kate and then said, "My cousin (the 16-year-old head of the house) has asked me to see if you can get us some bread. For breakfast."
There we were, three people trying to say our goodbyes, and then suddenly, we're hit with the question. Several other questions began to run through our minds: If we buy them bread, are they going to expect us to provide bread every time we visit? What if we can't visit sometimes? What about the food parcels they're supposed to be receiving from the Respite Center and the Islamic Center up the road? And then, the hardest question of all... How are we, in our right minds, supposed to walk away from a household run by a mere child feeling like we did absolutely nothing to rectify the situation?

My image of poverty has shifted a lot because of things I've seen here in South Africa. The Sinead on a Villanova mission trip would have demanded that we get some bread immediately. But unfortunately, though those seven children would have eaten bread instead of cake for breakfast, that would have just been today. What about tomorrow, or the day after that?
The question of sustainable aid in situations like Sbu's takes center stage now. Their poverty is so much more than just no bread for breakfast. And I really don't know what hell I'm supposed to do about it.

As we drove home in silence, the happy buzz from an unexpected day off had long since evaporated into the humid air. Back in Hillcrest, people who had more than bread for breakfast yesterday, today, and tomorrow, donned bright white shorts and t-shirts and played a rousing round of tennis on their day off.

After all, that is what Freedom Day celebrates after all...... isn't it?

happy easter!

2010-04-04T08:08:00.000+02:00

Dear friends all over the world,

Happy Easter! I know I've been absent lately, but between internet limitations, busy schedules, and visitors (the Cloughleys are here!), it's been hard to get around to updating....... but this just means I'll have plenty to report when I'm back on a normal schedule again.

Enjoy the day and I hope all is well wherever you are.

learning to pray.

2010-04-04T08:03:00.000+02:00

This blog entry was written for the Augustinian Volunteers' website, which you can find here. I wrote about how my spirituality has grown so far during my year here in South Africa.

It’s another Tuesday at St. Leo’s Primary, and I’m seriously dragging. The photocopier is out of toner again, which means the vocabulary test that we’d planned for Grade 5 has to be a bit more off the cuff than I’d anticipated—but that’s the nature of teaching in this school. This is a place where almost seven hundred learners have been admitted to the school, despite lack of space and individual attention; a place where pencils are in such short supply that they have to be labelled with names to keep them from going missing; a place where teachers engaging their students in the classroom is the exception, and not the rule.

But St. Leo’s is also a place where the library is one of the most valued spots in the school; where the enrollment is so high that the administration can’t keep up, just because parents want their children to learn English with Americans; a place where the sound of young voices singing can make even the most miserable Monday mornings worth it. In a country where the population has big dreams and very little follow-through, the children at St. Leo’s are an example of the hope I’ve come to look for with each day that passes here in South Africa.

Break at St. Leo’s comes early; at ten o’clock in the morning, I’m not hungry and not ready to interrupt the day just yet. On this particular Tuesday, the four classes that follow break are even more of a struggle than the two I had this morning. We attempt to review some lessons from the previous weeks after the test is finished and graded, but the learners are lethargic and I’m losing my patience. I can only repeat myself so many times—a mystery is “a puzzle without an answer”, and “a chance to do something” is an opportunity, not often. And then, just when I’m about to resort to reading them a story instead, the bells from the church next door ring to signal midday, and the sixteen Grade 5 students in front of me stand up, fold their hands, close their eyes, and bow their heads. They begin to pray.

Yethi Maria, ogcwele igrasiya, iNkosi inawe, ubusisiwe wena esifazaneni, ibusisiwe nenzalo yesisu sakho uJesu. Maria ocwebileyo, Nina kaNkulunkulu, mawusikhulekele thina zoni, manje nasesikhathini sokufa kewthu. Amen.

As the words rise to Mary who hears and understands, whether in English or in Zulu, I close my eyes and lean against the bookshelf near my desk, reflecting on the day so far and silently asking God to help me through the rest. I open my eyes again and look around the room, at the boys and girls in front of me, praying fervently in the midst of the schoolday. My heart is filled with so much love.

This is the type of encounter with God I have come to know and appreciate during my time as an AV in South Africa—the prayers that offer me respite from the noise of language barriers, racial identity, and poverty.

Though I’m a teacher, I’ve learned from these students; learned that prayer has to be an integral part of every day, even if it is just a few Hail Marys quickly spoken during a vocabulary review, or hymns sung during assembly as the sun rises over the valley. The Zulus’ prayer life is one without expectations or judgment, where I can participate in a Zulu teachers’ prayer meeting in English and no one minds. The devotion to everyday spirituality that I’ve witnessed here in South Africa is inspiring, especially when the living conditions of some should adversely affect their wellbeing. But it is these simple daily encounters with a very present God that give South Africans the hope they need to push onwards. This entire year is my classroom, and the people with whom I spend my days are my teachers, gently guiding me towards the presence of God.

my south african pedicure

2010-03-13T08:41:00.005+02:00

I'll admit it: I really never expected to come to South Africa as a volunteer and find myself having a pedicure on March 12th, exactly two months into my year here. But, yesterday morning, there I was-- laid up in Casualty. After two painful injections to my big toe, the operation was over in about ten minutes. I made it to St. Leo's for the last two classes of the day, and then spent the rest of the afternoon on the couch with my foot up, painkillers within reach.

The bandage looks like something a cartoon character would have on, after an anvil dropped from the sky and hit them on the toe. The big bandage comes off tomorrow, so I plan on milking this while I can... and hopefully I don't have to be seen out in public today.
It was also amusing to be strategic about hiding my foot during our interview with PBS last night. When the show airs in May, you'll have to let me know how well I covered it up...

Photographic evidence, so you can all feel sorry for me or something:

Pre-op.

Cartoon toe.

Post-op.

happy happy news!

2010-03-12T17:43:00.000+02:00

In just seventeen days, I'll be driving to the airport to pick up my family! With good deals on airfare, time off from work on my end, and great South African weather, the package is just too good to be true.
There's talk of Capetown, a Sharks game & curry in Durban, Zulu mass on Easter Sunday, and two nights in a game park. I cannot wait!

See you soon, Cloughleys! (And I promise I won't make us crouch and take weird family photos on this holiday... maybe...)

jump-rope is dangerous.

2010-03-08T22:48:00.001+02:00

Last Tuesday, South Africa was abuzz celebrating the 100 Day countdown until the opening of the World Cup. St. Leo's was no exception; each classroom was assigned a participating team at random (ours was Switzerland, how thrilling-- we talked a lot about cheese and chocolate), and on Tuesday, each class dressed in team colors. After break, the teachers broke out into festive clothes of their own and with the whole school gathered around the schoolyard, the teachers decided to entertain the kids with some games of their own, one of which was jump-rope. I wanted to join in and not seem like the awkward volunteer, so Mary-Kate and I kicked off our flip-flops and proceeded to make fools out of ourselves, much to the delight of everybody.

And then, because I didn't wear sneakers and because I wanted to impress everybody with my skills, I left a chunk of my big toe on the schoolyard at St. Leo's. I came down pretty hard and stubbed my toe badly, but didn't realize anything was seriously wrong until a couple of minutes after I left the game and one of the kids pointed out the blood gushing from my foot.

When all was said and done, I hobbled away with some cuts and bruises. Now, a week later, I've had to visit a doctor from the parish who recommended that I take some penicillin and perhaps get a small procedure done on my toe to remove the possibility of an ingrown toenail.

It's surprising how debilitating a simple thing like stubbing one's toe can be when I'm on my feet all day teaching or trying to run around and have fun with the boys at St. Theresa's (after their homework is done, of course).

In other news, we've had the pleasure of hosting a couple of guests during the past week. Brian Strassburger, a former AV who served in the Bronx and then here in South Africa in 2008, is here for ten days. He now works for the Augustinian Missions Office, and his boss, Father Tony, arrived in South Africa last Thursday. They're here to play host to a film crew from Visionaries, a PBS television show that profiles various charities and non-profit organizations. The group has elected to spotlight the Augustinians for a future documentary, focusing primarily on their work with the poor in Philadelphia through ADROP, and the Augustinian mission here in Durban. It's really exciting, especially for those of us who enjoy public television.

I'm not sure if I'll make it into the final cut, but if I do, I'll be the one hobbling around in the background, with a large bandaged toe.

That being said, I did make it out to a club in Durban on Saturday night with a crowd of friends, sore toe and all. We had a really good night, and rounded out the party the next morning by grabbing breakfast at Suncoast, a casino on the waterfront in Durban. Bizarre, but true. It's been really nice to socialize with Brian-- looking at his photos and hearing stories of another community's experience here in South Africa has made me really appreciate my time here in a new way.

In an ironic twist of fate, following a conversation on the ride home from work today about the lack of criminal activity during his volunteer year, Brian came home to find he'd been robbed. Though his passport and laptop are safe and sound, it's a little disconcerting that his possessions were stolen from this very property-- but it just means we all have to be a bit more vigilant about things like setting our alarm and keeping our slam door closed.

We'll all be sad to see Brian go, but in just a few weeks, Pat will be here for our first site visit of the year. Time really is flying.

Hopefully next time I sit down to write a blog post, I will be sans bandages and I'll have had my five minutes of public TV fame.

church dedications, birthdays, & other weekend things.

2010-02-27T14:47:00.003+02:00

I woke up at 6:00 this morning, after a night of disturbed sleep. The sun was shining through grey clouds and although I was really tired, I couldn’t get myself back to sleep again. That’s what happens when your daily routine starts at 6 am I suppose.

Though we’ve been without internet here in Bothas Hill for the past ten days….. ta-da! Life goes on. The break from contact with the outside world was refreshing at first, then tiresome when I turned 23 and couldn’t talk to anyone at home for the most part, but then it was liberating to be able to find other ways to spend our time. Work keeps me busy and though homesick, I was able to put my energy into teaching, reviewing for vocabulary tests with Grade 6 and 7, and swinging young boys around in circles after helping with homework at St. Theresa’s three afternoons a week.

The four of us spent Valentine’s Day in the valley at the dedication ceremony and Mass for a newly-built church at St. Helen’s Parish, one of the outposts of the Augustinian church in Kloof. We left the house at 9 am and didn’t get home until 3:00 that afternoon, but the ceremony itself was something that was really amazing to see, as these things don’t happen very often at all. The mass was a regular Zulu mass, but the words to all the songs sung throughout were printed in booklets, so Mary-Kate, Becca, and I made a good attempt to sing along which helped move time along more quickly. Following the Mass, the four walls of the church were blessed and a relic of St. Helen was placed under the altar. The archbishop of Durban was in attendance, and he and some other members of the church and community were thanked in a traditional Zulu ceremony, involving lots of excited yelling from the women in the congregation, the gift of livestock and beautiful blankets, and long speeches lauding each person’s contribution to the finished product. The inkosi or chief of the area was at Mass with his entourage as well, and it was really fascinating to see him and hear what he had to say about the dedication.

I can now count seeing live sheep during Mass off my bucket list. One was so nervous it even pooped on the church’s nice new carpet!

The choir in traditional Zulu dress-- mostly black with really colorful beading

The archbishop receiving his gifts: a headpiece, matching staff, and mink blanket from a woman on the parish council at St. Helen's

I wrote last time about going to see the Durban Sharks play some rugby, and the match was a lot of fun. We had some food and drinks beforehand, then made our way into the stadium just before the rain began. The Sharks lost (in a pretty dismal end to an exciting second half), but I think we all really enjoyed being there to see a game—and I hope I get to some more of the Super 14 series before too long!

Here's the walkway up to our seats, and you can see the arch of Moses Madiba Stadium (built for the World Cup) in the background

Our whole community at the game... Becca, me, Mary-Kate, and Meg

I had a very nice birthday; though I was far from home and missing contact with my friends and family very much, I was completely showered with kindness through letters and parcels that have been coming to 8 Warwickshire Crescent in a steady stream since the 17^th. Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness—even if the cookies did arrive in crumbles, or the cards got redirected and didn’t arrive until today, I feel very touched by all the attention.

Evidence of my recent monopoly of the South African postal service

We celebrated here on the 16^th, as it was Fat Tuesday. With my actual birthday falling on Ash Wednesday there wasn’t really much room for celebration that day. The community of four Augustinian nuns who live next door to us were eager to have us round for dinner, so we braved torrential downpour and some pretty spectacular African lightning and feasted on pancakes, carrot cake, and I was given a dozen orange roses in celebration. My housemates didn’t disappoint either— Meg treated me to a scavenger hunt on the morning of my birthday, I got some delicious Cadbury’s chocolate from Becca, and an amazing fish-and-chips dinner from Mary-Kate.

Last Saturday, we threw a braai which actually ended up being more of an American barbeque, and had some friends around for drinks and food. The rain held off and we had a really nice time, as evidenced by an Australia-shaped bruise on my upper arm, texts the next day from our South African friends, and the mountains of bottles and cans we dumped at the recycling center last Sunday. When you climb up on the roof of a poolhouse to be serenaded with “Happy Birthday” from friends you’ve only known two short months, life is really good.

Smiling faces having a good time at the braai...

... and my Australia-shaped bruise, one week later. The kids at St. Leo's love it.

On a more somber note, my faithful trusty iPod decided to conk out on me this week. I’ve had the thing for three years without a problem, so I was pretty sure that I’d see it fail some time during my year here, but not so soon! Hopefully with the arrival of some American visitors in March, I can get it home and fixed and back again without much issue. Listening to NPR podcasts on Sundays had become part of my weekend routine, and I’m really missing them already.

This weekend has been much more low-key so far, thank goodness. This morning, we made good use of our early rising and took a trip to the Shongweni Farmers’ Market, where we indulged in lattes and breakfast sandwiches. We bought hummus from an Israeli food stall, and also some fresh basil and oregano plants, which Becca planted outside our cottage this morning. At just over a dollar for each one, we really got a bargain. We then went to Stations of the Cross at Our Lady of Mercy which was nice. Stations never fails to remind me of my days at St. Ignatius School, where we’d pray them every Friday during Lent, reading out of grey, red, and black booklets.

The sky is very overcast today, but I’m happy to get a break from the oppressive heat of the South African summer. We have plans to have a community retreat day tomorrow at the Krantzkloof Nature Reserve, just down the road. There are rumors of a waterfall there, but with or without it, it’ll be a nice day of reflection and relaxation before March arrives.

incommunicado...

2010-02-23T18:27:00.000+02:00

Hi all,
Just a quick entry to let you know that due to a massive African thunderstorm last week, we've been without phone and internet for seven days now. I'm alive & well, missing home and all of you very much, but thank you so much to everyone who wished me well on my birthday, both near and far.
I'm thinking of you all every day and hoping that all is well on the other side. Hopefully we'll be back in the modern world soon!

one month (and one day) in.

2010-02-12T15:58:00.002+02:00

There's thunder brewing outside, much to my relief. A lot of people I've met told me that February was the worst weather month, much like at home, though the horrendous conditions here have little to do with winter storms and piles of snow. I haven't been so sweaty and hot in a long time.
I also haven't celebrated Valentine's Day in such a big way since cherry-flavored, heart-shaped lollipops and candy hearts and cartoon valentines in 8th grade. Today, being the last day of school before Valentine's Day on Sunday, the students at St. Leo's donned their red and white clothes and we spent the day listening to music, making Valentine cards, and watching performances by some of the children.

Some of the valentines we received today, for your viewing pleasure:

"Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet and so are you!" -- we've got a bit of a Parrot Syndrome going on. We wrote this poem on the board and everybody just copied it into their cards.

"To Sinead, Becky, and Mary-- happy valentine's day and I want to say you rock and you are good girls"

I like this one... it's to me and from me!

Teaching hasn't been easy in the past two weeks, because I've come to the perhaps obvious realization that I'm not here in South Africa on vacation. The famous "honeymoon period" of moving to a new place has come to an end, and I'm not longer enamored of our little white car with the worst engine in the world on the hills, or excited to be sweating while everyone at home suffers a winter blizzard. The kids at St. Leo's are still adorable on good days, but when I'm trying to ask for words that begin with the letter B and I hear apple or airplane, my frustration sometimes gets the best of me.
What has been very nice about settling in is the fact that my routine is more set in place-- I've finally begun to find things to do daily that make my time productive and happy. I feel more at ease with our South African friends, which makes hangouts on weekends much less stressful. I'm happy to say that I've started some relationships with a lot of the teachers at St. Leo's, and we've had really good conversations before school starts in the morning, or during car rides back to Hillcrest from the valley. Ayanda, my friend who teaches computers and maintains the finances at St. Leo's, has been a really great person to get to know-- she's really good with the kids and because she's our age, it's been really nice to get a young Zulu person's perspective on life.

That being said, I am really thankful to see another Friday arrive. This week was very exhausting-- I think the realization that my life is now all about being a teacher here in South Africa made me reflect a lot during the week. Though community life continues to go well, we've also been thinking hard about how to feel a kinship with the Zulu people we serve. Because our weekends so far have been spent with white people from Kloof parish, going back to the valley on Mondays is sometimes very hard to deal with. But now that the antidote to this somewhat schizophrenic existence has been suggested, I'm hopeful about continuing to strengthen relationships with both our Kloof friends and Zulu friends as well.

Though we're tired from our first week of "real life" here in South Africa, we've got lots of exciting plans for the weekend.
This evening, we've decided to bring the good ol' tradition of Happy Hour to Bothas Hill, and the Augustinians as well as their American visitors have been invited to our cottage for snacks and drinks. Tomorrow, my roommates and I plan on visiting the Shongweni Farmers' Market in the early morning-- and perhaps indulge in breakfast there. Then in the afternoon, we have plans with our friends from Kloof to drive to Durban for a braai (barbeque) and drinks before the opening game of the Durban Sharks rugby season-- in a series known as the Super 14. They'll be playing the Chiefs (from New Zealand) and I could not be happier to finally get to see a rugby game here, something I've been looking forward to for months. This all happening the weekend before my 23rd birthday is the icing on the cake!
And finally, on Sunday, the four of us will be joining the Augustinian friars for the dedication of St. Helen's Church, a brand new church just built for a Zulu community not too far from here.

I hope the temperature cools down by then, but for now, I'll leave you East Coast-ers to the winter storms... and cool myself off with a dip in the pool.

Usale kahle

overheard in south africa.

2010-02-08T21:10:00.001+02:00

On Five FM, a super aggravating national radio station:

DJ 1: I mean, polygamy could just be a cultural thing, you know?
DJ 2: Yeah... just look at Jay-Z. He's a polygamist and he's famous!
Volunteer 1: Did he just say Jay-Z is a polygamist?
Volunteer 2: Yeah, I think that just happened.
Volunteer 1: Jay-Z... hmmm... wait.... JZ...
Volunteer 2: OH! Jacob Zuma! I get it.

home is never too far away.

2010-02-05T20:01:00.000+02:00

jazz in the afternoon.

2010-02-01T22:21:00.004+02:00

After dropping Meg home from work on Friday, Maryann Carpenter (who runs Hillcrest AIDS Respite Center) stopped by to mention the Rainbow Restaurant, a venue in Pinetown (about 20 minutes' drive from here) that was rumored to have live jazz on Sunday afternoons. We were intrigued.

And so, after sleeping in late-- and by late, I mean until about 9:00-- we packed into our car, picked up Ruthie (Maryann and Steven's daughter), and drove to Pinetown to see what the Rainbow Restaurant had to offer us.

We took the exit into Pinetown, and my mind immediately flashed to all the dangerous scenarios that the AV staff had warned us about during orientation. We were suddenly driving through an area where shops were boarded up, garbage littered the street-- yet behind the somewhat grimy facade, people moved here and there, doing their Sunday business at a large outdoor market, selling wares and buying goods for the week ahead. Women with large parcels balanced on their heads always serve as a reminder of the exotic nature of my new home in South Africa, but as we drove down the busy street, it dawned on me that these women were merely making efficient use of their hands. Instead of being weighed down by shopping bags, they could now lead their children and grandchildren by the hand without fear of losing them in the crowds.

We found a parking spot after searching for the Rainbow for a few minutes. As we drove up and down the street, searching for number 23, I felt a bit uneasy that we had come; we were heavily in the minority and though I spend five days a week as one of the only white people in Molweni, I felt very strange in this new place with no idea what to expect. But we parked the car nonetheless, made our way to the other side of a busy main road, and through the gates to the restaurant. As we approached the entrance, a couple of guys hanging around outside the door greeted us with friendly smiles which put me at ease. We each paid our R50 to get in, and made our way inside.

The air was heavy with the smell of food, alcohol, and the buzz of bodies-- sweat mingling with excitement and satiated appetites all around. It was dim inside; the curtains had been drawn in an effort to keep out the heat of January's last day. All around, people laughed, talked, and paid no heed as four white American girls inched their way around the perimeter of the crowded space in search of a table.

After finding a spot to the right of the stage, we ordered some drinks and waited for the music to begin. On the other side of our booth, six men in impeccable button-down shirts laughed and chatted, bobbing their heads to the jazz record filling the silence prior to the first set. I don't know what it is that sets musicians apart from their earthly counterparts, but I knew just by looking at them that they were it. And sure enough, after a brief announcement from the proprietor, they ambled onto the stage and a dim hush overtook the waiting audience.

And then... jazz happened.

I'm trying so hard to describe in words the sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings of the three hours we spent at the Rainbow on Sunday afternoon, but I'm not sure I can do it justice. Though I've struggled a lot over the past few weeks with a very schizophrenic identity as a white American female volunteer, living and working here in South Africa, much of my confusion and anxiety melted away to the tune of a couple of saxophones, keyboards, drums, bass, and guitar. I felt that I'd been there before, yet I was excited to have discovered such a place amid the chaos of my new life.
With cold cider in my glass, warm jazz melting into the walls around me, and surrounded by faces that all seemed very familiar, I felt more comfortable than I have since arriving here in South Africa almost three weeks ago. The Rainbow seemed like an oasis in an unpredictable, confusing place-- and I was happy to relax there and drink in every last drop.

overheard in south africa.

2010-01-26T22:06:00.002+02:00

In a 6th grade classroom at St. Leo's:

Teacher: So, now that you know some things about us, we'd like to know things about you guys! Like... who's your favorite actor?
Student: Jean Claude Van Damm!

thoughts for sunday.

2010-01-24T16:23:00.003+02:00

When we arrived here at the house, there were a few magnets on the fridge left by previous volunteers, and this quote is on there. I read it every time I'm in the kitchen (which is a lot, let's be honest) and I think it's really great. It'll be especially appropriate when I find myself struggling with clutter, discord, or difficulty during my year here.

Out of clutter,

find simplicity.

From discord,

find harmony.

In the middle of difficulty lies

opportunity.

-Albert Einstein-

Happy Sunday!

tee gee eye eff.

2010-01-22T14:59:00.000+02:00

Well, here I am, surprised and relieved to be at the end of my first week of work at St. Leo’s. It felt quite nice to drive away today with the first week behind me, even though I only taught three classes this week (we’ll have to see how Grade 6 and Grade 5 go early next week).

The prospect of teaching primary school Oral English was very daunting, even though I’d wanted to try my hand at teaching from the beginning. There are other jobs available to Augustinian Volunteers down here; the other girls split their time between Hillcrest Respite Centre, a place for AIDS and TB patients to be cared for, and 1000 Hills Community Helpers in Inchanga, a centre where there are free clinics, childcare, and other resources for the people of 1000 Hills. I’m planning on spending some time at those worksites as well (especially when school is closed during the World Cup), but I’m officially full-time at St. Leo’s, a primary school in Molweni.

It was a relief to learn that I wouldn’t be alone at St. Leo’s; Becca and Mary-Kate alternate days and so there are two of us in the classroom every day. We see from Grade 3 to Grade 7, doing art projects with the younger children and more grammar and technical things with the older kids. All said, we’ll teach about 400 children a week, as each class averages about 70-80 children. This week was tricky as there are tons of resources left behind by former volunteers but sorting through all the worksheets and supplies is quite a chore. We concentrated on “getting to know you” sort of stuff this week, and through those projects we were able to get a glimpse of the level of language capability among the students. Thankfully, even though some are quite a bit more advanced than others, they’re really good at translating into Zulu for the kids who don’t speak much English.

Unfortunately, our Zulu lessons are delayed in getting off the ground so we’re stuck with whatever we pick up throughout the day.

Life here at home has been good; Pat left on Wednesday to go back home, so now it’s for real. We’ve got a bit of a schedule going for dinner and cleaning and prayers, but I think we may have to review our procedures a bit after January’s over. Time is already passing quickly—February starts soon! The weather has been quite changeable, but truthfully it’s been really an adjustment to get used to wearing shorts & sundresses in January! There’s also a large variation in weather from up here in Bothas Hill to down in Molweni; it tends to be much hotter in the valley. We lost power at school this week due to thunderstorms in the area, and the computer teacher, Ayanda, had to just sit and wait out the blackout. After school ended on Wednesday, Becca and I stopped by a Spar for groceries to make dinner for the Augustinians that night, and found the entire strip mall in darkness. Good thing I got a flashlight for Christmas!

And so we’re all very happy to see Friday. Becca and I have to run and pick up Mary-Kate and Meg at Hillcrest soon, and then we’ll wind down from the hectic week together. We’re hoping to get to the beaches in Durban soon, so perhaps tomorrow we’ll make the trip.

I hope you’re all well; though I’m not homesick just yet, I do miss being able to be so connected to everyone back home—but a break from the noise has been very nice so far. We’ll see how I feel come June or July...

settling in.

2010-01-18T17:26:00.001+02:00

So now that it's Monday, I've been here in Botha's Hill almost a week. Hard to believe already! I'm sure this is an omen that the year will fly by, especially once we begin work and get into our daily routines.
I thought I'd attempt to post a couple of photos to show you slices of the beginnings of a life here at 8 Warwickshire Crescent. Thanks to our new computer, I can now be a bit more diligent about this little blog.

The entrance to our little "cottage"

The amazing view of Embo from our property

My side of the bedroom I share with Becca

Life has been exciting but exhausting. I've been really struggling to find time to sit and process things as the days pass, but between grocery trips, visits to our worksites, and meeting new people, it's been hard to take quiet time. We've taken turns leading a small reflection every night, but I still like to sit quietly on my own and think things through. Unlike at home, I'm not at liberty to go for a run alone and think, though Mary-Kate and I did venture out into the neighborhood across the main road two days ago for a jog. Even stepping outside our gated property without the safety of a car was a really weird feeling, but it's quite safe; we just have to stay alert.
Food shopping at the supermarket has been an adventure in and of itself-- because we live on a budget, we have to be really diligent about saving money and making things last. Here in South Africa, it seems that milk in a bag and wine in a box will save us valuable rand.
Doing things like exercising and grocery shopping have slowly begun to make me feel quite at home here in South Africa. I find my mind less and less preoccupied with the fact that "I'm in AFRICA!" and more and more just struggling to get into a routine that will make me feel organized and productive, as I did when I moved to Villanova, and when I studied abroad in Paris. It's hard because I haven't started working yet, but tomorrow or the next day work will come and these more relaxing days will, I'm sure, be just a distant memory.

Sunday was a great day; our group went to two Masses which seemed like it would be a lot but was a really fascinating study in the dichotomy here in South Africa that we've come to experience every single day. Whether it be visiting the Hillcrest AIDS Center and then driving down the highway to a Western-style megamall, or spending two hours at a Zulu mass in the morning and then with the white community at Kloof in the evening, the differences between life in the valley and life in the hills are more striking as the days pass.
The Zulu mass at St. Leo's, though long, was really beautiful with traditional singing that blew us all away. It ended with a slew of parish announcements which is typical on Sundays, when the whole community gets to be together all at once and hear the current news. Deacon Lawrence announced that the Cardinal of Durban has mandated that every parish (even outstations like St. Leo's) contribute monetarily to the Haitian relief effort. I was really touched, because the people of St. Leo's, who typically would be the ones on the receiving end of aid requests, emitted such a generous spirit.
After evening mass at Kloof last night, a group of young adults from the parish invited us back to one of their houses for pizza and beer. It was a really lovely evening, and the four of us here were quite glad to make connections with South Africans our age who hopefully will show us around a bit! Our lives here in Botha's Hill, besides work and errands, will be quite isolated, as it isn't safe for the four of us to venture out, even in the light of day.

Our AV international director, Pat, is here with us until Wednesday. He was a volunteer when the South Africa program began, and he's been such a great source of information about work, recreation, and general other aspects of life here. After he leaves, the four of us will really be on our own-- driving on the opposite side of the road, handling our monthly budget, and making connections with people at our individual worksites all by ourselves. I can't wait to start working, though we haven't had a chance to learn much Zulu yet and I'd really like to be able to speak a little when I get to St. Leo's. I'm sure that will come with time.

So, to recap:
- new computer
- photos of 8 Warwickshire Crescent
- valley vs. hills
- Sunday routine
- excited to start working

Apologies for the rambling, but my mind is all muddled and I want to get everything out so I don't forget anything.

Salani kahle!
(May you stay well)

safe & sound

2010-01-15T18:41:00.000+02:00

Hi all!
I made it safely to South Africa, bags and all, and am currently getting settled and a bit sunburned. It's been very strange to take everything in, but all enjoyable and very exciting.

This is just a quick update because our computer is out of commission, so my connectivity has been low since arriving. I hope we can get our problems fixed soon and I can actually update with interesting news, but for now, just know that I'm safe & sound, enjoying the excitement, and ready to get settled into a routine very soon.

And of course I'm missing you all very much! Hope everything is good wherever you are, and hopefully I can post something more meaty when we're up and running.

a parting gift.

2010-01-08T18:26:00.000+02:00

This morning, after a pretty sleepless final night in my bed at home, I woke up to find this outside my window:

It wasn't much snow, but a beautiful scene to enjoy as I ate poached eggs with mum, dad, and Niamh around the table this morning. I've got to hand it to the big guy up there; he never fails to impress.

And, as an added bonus, my bags are packed with weight to spare. I was all stressed out about what to bring, but then stood back and realized that anything I've left behind (or God forbid, forgotten!) I can live without. With a more realistic outlook, it's the goodbyes with family, whether it be over the phone or by video chat with my family overseas, or in person with my sisters and parents later on this afternoon that will be the hardest part-- but from all accounts, this year is going to fly by. I'll be back home watching the snow and eating poached eggs in no time... and what a great year I'll have in the meantime!

See you in South Africa...

sanibona!

2010-01-03T00:34:00.000+02:00

So, here I am, with just over one week to go until I leave the US behind for South Africa. I'm a jumble of emotions right now-- anxious to get packed & get to SA, sad about leaving behind the people I love for a whole year... but luckily, I'm most of all excited to begin my volunteer year.
I have five days to go until I leave for New Jersey, where I'll have two days of orientation with my community members (Mary-Kate, Becca, and Meg), and then we leave for South Africa on Monday. Time has passed so quickly, and it's hard to believe that we'll be there so soon.

I'll be living and working in a region of South Africa called KwaZulu Natal, and the city closest to us is Durban, on South Africa's east coast. I'll be able to better describe my living situation after we arrive and get settled in, but for those who are curious, here's a map of my new home, with South Africa first and then KZN below (point A is where we'll be living):

And there it is. With subzero temperatures and snow in the forecast here outside Philadelphia today, I can say that I'm really looking forward to the southern hemisphere and summertime!
But for now, I'm surrounded by photographs, guidebooks, clothes, and sunscreen... and faced with the challenge of packing for an entire year in South Africa.