Misellaneous interesting tidbits/funnies from the week thus far:
The day before yesterday we walked by a house with about 12-15 clearly drunken guys blasting music. This seems to be a common occurrence here and the music is usually horrible house/techno crap (in my opinion)...but not this time!!! This time they were blasting Phil Collins! It made me tear up a little.
A few days ago we heard a rumor about this guy that sells sandwiches out of his house. Tony and a few other trainees went in search of this secret sandwich man and were able to track him down. The sandwich consists of 2-4 slices of bread, a giant slice of Peloni (still not sure exactly what this mystery meat is), a giant sausage, french fries, and some sort of strange mango acai sauce??? I don't know...but it was pretty damn good. He will also make you a grilled cheese or french fries and he sells giant sodas. So basically he's like Jesus. Our own personal sandwich jesus.
Celine Dion is creepily popular...
Tony tried to make Paap the other day he totally did it way wrong. This made our host mom laugh for about 30 minutes straight. To the point where she almost cried and actually went outside and invited the kids and other random people inside to see Tony's failed attempt at cooking Paap.
According to the Setswana dictionary the word "laba" means "to pick something out of the eye with the tongue."
Random people continuously stop us when we're walking home to ask if we're ok or if we need anything. One guy even offered us his phone number so we could call him in case anyone messed with us.
****In response to a couple of questions:
Yes! Tony and I are together. We were told throughout the whole application/interview process that we would be split up for training but when we got here they told us we'd actually be together. :)
Both of us ate the chicken feet. Tony liked them, I did not. We also had livers for dinner the other night. I tried really hard to put it in my mouth but ultimately I decided that the best option for me was to shovel them onto Tony's plate while no one was looking and pretend like I ate them.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Friday, August 7, 2009
Safe and Sound in South Africa
Dumelang!
As I type this we’re sitting in our home-stay family’s living room watching our 432nd game of soccer (I’m only exaggerating slightly). So I guess you can go ahead and assume that we made it to South Africa! In fact, by the time I’m able to post this to the blog we will have been here for a little over two weeks.
After a brief stop off in DC for staging and a yellow fever shot we endured the almost 19 hour flight to Johannesburg, South Africa which, thanks to free South African wine, wasn’t so bad. After landing we drove another 2 hours away to the Marapyani Teacher’s College near Mpumalanga Province where we stayed in the dorms with the other trainees for the first week. After that we met our host-mom and moved into where we’ll be living for the next 6 weeks while we finish training. Our host family is super awesome. Our “mom” stays home during the day with the younger kids and our “dad” works in Johannesburg so can only come home once or twice a month. We have 7 “brothers and sisters” and a few others that seem to be cousins (I think) but stay over most of the time. They range in age from about 16 to 4 months and they’re super sweet. Their house is very modern compared to many others in the village and, from what I can tell, we’re two of the few trainees that got matched with a family that has a flush toilet and indoor plumbing. Which is pretty awesome now but probably not preparing us for the very likely possibility that we’ll have a pit toilet and an outdoor tap at our permanent site.
Right now our days are packed full of teaching classes, school visits, language lessons, security and medical lectures, and cultural immersion activities. Here are some of the things we love, don’t love, and are learning to love ☺…thus far.
Things We Love
Tea Breaks. Lots of tea breaks.
Donkey Road Blocks. Donkey’s are just cute, especially in mass quantities. They also get out of your way when you walk towards them.
Peace Corps Friends – Pretty much everyone else here is awesome.
Cute Kids – there are small children all around our village. Some stare, some wave, some run away, but mostly they run after us screaming “Lekgoa!!,” which means “white people.”
Our home-stay family
Super Cheesy South African Soap Operas – Our favorites are Scandal! and Generations.
There are orange trees everywhere!! Everywhere! There are also lemon trees, pomegranate trees.
Things We Don’t Love
Shots -Yellow fever, hep B, rabies1, rabies2, rabies3, meningitis, typhoid, MMR, Varicella…just to name a few and we’ve got more coming.
Boiling our drinking water.
Roosters. At both the college and our home-stay we’ve had tons of roosters. I used to think it would be cool to have chickens and roosters. It’s totally not cool and FYI, roosters don’t just crow when the sun comes up. They crow whenever the hell they want and, in fact, seem to prefer the hours between 2am and 5am.
Chicken Feet – Yeah, I ate them…and I probably won’t do it again.
Things We’re Learning to Love
Setswana - Setswana is the Language we’re learning and the key to our success in South Africa. All I can say is, we’re definitely not in romance language territory anymore. There are noun classes galore and letter combinations I don’t know if I’ll ever master. Verbs don’t just have one or two meanings…the verb ‘tshola’ can mean to accommodate, contain, adopt, keep, carry, treat, or handle depending on the context. And if you wanna get even more random there is ‘utlwa’ which can mean to hear, feel, taste, understand, or obey. Luckily, most people can speak at least a little English so between that and our horrible Setswana we get by on what Tony and I call Setswanglish. We have also been given Setswana names. Mine is Mpho, which means gift, and Tony’s is Lebogang, which means “to give thanks.”
Washing our clothes by hand.
Paap – Paap is a mixture of water and cornmeal with a consistency that I can only describe as congealed grits. It doesn’t have too much of a taste but is usually served with meat and sauce. I don’t know that anyone really LOVES or HATES paap. It’s just there…existing on your plate so you might as well eat it, right?
Soccer. Soccer. Soccer. They love to play it, they love to watch it, they love to talk about it…a lot. We seem to have arrived at the very beginning of the season for the Premier Soccer League and our family’s favorite team seems to be the Kaizer Chiefs. We know this because every time they score the kids grab gigantic plastic blowers and run out into the yard screaming. Every time.
I think that pretty much sums up our first couple of weeks. I'll post some pics later this week! We hope everyone is happy and well! ☺ Miss you all!
Tsamaya Sentle,
Kim and Tony
BTW – If you want to send us mail you can send it here:
Kimberly Longshore/ Trainee or Tony Parise/ Trainee
Peace Corps
P.O. Box 9536
Pretoria 0001
South Africa
We like mail ☺
Also feel free to post/ask questions and we’ll answer them on the blog.
As I type this we’re sitting in our home-stay family’s living room watching our 432nd game of soccer (I’m only exaggerating slightly). So I guess you can go ahead and assume that we made it to South Africa! In fact, by the time I’m able to post this to the blog we will have been here for a little over two weeks.
After a brief stop off in DC for staging and a yellow fever shot we endured the almost 19 hour flight to Johannesburg, South Africa which, thanks to free South African wine, wasn’t so bad. After landing we drove another 2 hours away to the Marapyani Teacher’s College near Mpumalanga Province where we stayed in the dorms with the other trainees for the first week. After that we met our host-mom and moved into where we’ll be living for the next 6 weeks while we finish training. Our host family is super awesome. Our “mom” stays home during the day with the younger kids and our “dad” works in Johannesburg so can only come home once or twice a month. We have 7 “brothers and sisters” and a few others that seem to be cousins (I think) but stay over most of the time. They range in age from about 16 to 4 months and they’re super sweet. Their house is very modern compared to many others in the village and, from what I can tell, we’re two of the few trainees that got matched with a family that has a flush toilet and indoor plumbing. Which is pretty awesome now but probably not preparing us for the very likely possibility that we’ll have a pit toilet and an outdoor tap at our permanent site.
Right now our days are packed full of teaching classes, school visits, language lessons, security and medical lectures, and cultural immersion activities. Here are some of the things we love, don’t love, and are learning to love ☺…thus far.
Things We Love
Tea Breaks. Lots of tea breaks.
Donkey Road Blocks. Donkey’s are just cute, especially in mass quantities. They also get out of your way when you walk towards them.
Peace Corps Friends – Pretty much everyone else here is awesome.
Cute Kids – there are small children all around our village. Some stare, some wave, some run away, but mostly they run after us screaming “Lekgoa!!,” which means “white people.”
Our home-stay family
Super Cheesy South African Soap Operas – Our favorites are Scandal! and Generations.
There are orange trees everywhere!! Everywhere! There are also lemon trees, pomegranate trees.
Things We Don’t Love
Shots -Yellow fever, hep B, rabies1, rabies2, rabies3, meningitis, typhoid, MMR, Varicella…just to name a few and we’ve got more coming.
Boiling our drinking water.
Roosters. At both the college and our home-stay we’ve had tons of roosters. I used to think it would be cool to have chickens and roosters. It’s totally not cool and FYI, roosters don’t just crow when the sun comes up. They crow whenever the hell they want and, in fact, seem to prefer the hours between 2am and 5am.
Chicken Feet – Yeah, I ate them…and I probably won’t do it again.
Things We’re Learning to Love
Setswana - Setswana is the Language we’re learning and the key to our success in South Africa. All I can say is, we’re definitely not in romance language territory anymore. There are noun classes galore and letter combinations I don’t know if I’ll ever master. Verbs don’t just have one or two meanings…the verb ‘tshola’ can mean to accommodate, contain, adopt, keep, carry, treat, or handle depending on the context. And if you wanna get even more random there is ‘utlwa’ which can mean to hear, feel, taste, understand, or obey. Luckily, most people can speak at least a little English so between that and our horrible Setswana we get by on what Tony and I call Setswanglish. We have also been given Setswana names. Mine is Mpho, which means gift, and Tony’s is Lebogang, which means “to give thanks.”
Washing our clothes by hand.
Paap – Paap is a mixture of water and cornmeal with a consistency that I can only describe as congealed grits. It doesn’t have too much of a taste but is usually served with meat and sauce. I don’t know that anyone really LOVES or HATES paap. It’s just there…existing on your plate so you might as well eat it, right?
Soccer. Soccer. Soccer. They love to play it, they love to watch it, they love to talk about it…a lot. We seem to have arrived at the very beginning of the season for the Premier Soccer League and our family’s favorite team seems to be the Kaizer Chiefs. We know this because every time they score the kids grab gigantic plastic blowers and run out into the yard screaming. Every time.
I think that pretty much sums up our first couple of weeks. I'll post some pics later this week! We hope everyone is happy and well! ☺ Miss you all!
Tsamaya Sentle,
Kim and Tony
BTW – If you want to send us mail you can send it here:
Kimberly Longshore/ Trainee or Tony Parise/ Trainee
Peace Corps
P.O. Box 9536
Pretoria 0001
South Africa
We like mail ☺
Also feel free to post/ask questions and we’ll answer them on the blog.
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