A Tale of Two Ovens (and other stories from the past two weeks)

It’s official! Tony and I have graduated from trainees to full-fledged volunteers. On September 17, 2009 at the Mmabatho Palms Resort and Casino in Mafikeng we swore in with our 39 fellow friends and trainees.

But let me back up a little and explain how we got there…

After our site visit we returned to our training village, Marapyane, and our first host family to finish up training and take our dreaded tests. The most feared and evil of which being the LPI or Language Proficiency Intake. Our task was to sit in a room and have a 30 minute conversation with our tester in Setswana. This was followed by a randomly drawn situation card which ranged from useful scenarios like – You meet someone on a taxi that you think can help you with a project you’re working on, explain your project and ask them if they’d like to get involved. – to completely useless scenarios like – Your family is coming to visit from America. Call a hotel and make a reservation for them. (I call this useless because everyone, even Tswana speaking people, would use English to do this). Peace Corps requires a score of intermediate-low to pass and I was sure I failed miserably but somehow both Tony and I scored intermediate-high! I’m still slightly convinced that the tester mixed up my tape with someone elses but whatever, I’ll take it.

After testing came shopping day…l bet you’re wondering why I followed that with a … and not a !, because if you know me at all, you know that I have a love/talent for shopping. Not this time. We were dropped off at the Collonade Mall in Pretoria at about 11:15 and told to be back and ready to go by 2:30. That gave us approximately 3 hours to buy everything we needed (house-wise) for the next 2 years. That means pots, pans, an oven, silverware, plates, storage, etc…Now, we can definitely get most of these things in our shopping town but then the problem becomes how to get them from there to our village since the only transport back and forth is by taxi and taxi = many people packed into a kumvi and definitely not enough room for stuff. So it was either get it now or risk not being able to get it for a long time. In an effort to maximize our time we and some of our other couple friends developed a divide and conquer strategy. The boys took half the list and went one way, the girls took the other half and went the other way. This would give us plenty of time to get everything AND have lunch and a beer before we had to leave. It’s fail-proof, right??? Wrong, don’t worry we find a way to mess this up, just you wait.

The whole thing was a blur, frantic conversations about which electric kettle was the better buy, lamp shades flying, “are these dish cloths ugly?” It can be best compared to an episode of that show Supermarket Sweep, except not fun and with no cash prizes at the checkout counter – just a problem with my credit card that forced me to jog to the opposite end of the mall to withdraw cash from the ATM.

After all of our items were finally purchased and packed onto the truck the girls team and I went to the *Spur (see below for an explanation of this amazing establishment) for a celebratory beer. All was well until the boys showed up and Tony and I discovered that ‘oven’ was on both of our lists. That’s right, we bought two ovens. Tony sprinted back to the truck to try and get it off to return it only to find that the truck had already left. I tried really hard to care but I was too worn out and really enjoying my beer and friends at the Spur and I figured we’d work it out somehow, which we did - thanks for buying our spare oven Hillary! So all in all, shopping day = mass chaos/confusion/insanity but all worth it for the beer and friends at the end.

After shopping day and testing, all that was left was to say goodbye to our host family. This was much harder than we thought it would be. We’d grown used to the crowded house, the loud music, and kids 24/7 and we’d really come to love the entire family. The last night they bought us a cake and threw a little goodbye party and we exchanged gifts. They gave us a beautiful set of embroidered sheets and we gave them a set of new knives, a photo album full of family pictures we’d taken over the past 2 months, and Connect Four of course (because every family needs connect four). This is most definitely my favorite new picture:

I think that pretty much brings us back to swearing in...which was awesome. We got to relax with all of our friends one last night at a super nice hotel and casino before we all went our seperate ways. The new US Ambassador to South Africa was there too and he even posed for a super cheesey prom style photo with the couples and the Peace Corps country director! Which I don't have because my camera batterie went dead before we took it - but here's a pic of me and Tony right before the swearing in:

Now we're back at our pemanent site...for good. We are in what Peace Corps refers to as "Phase 2" or the "Community Integration Phase," until December 17th. During this phase (which used to, very accurately, be called "Lock Down") we are pretty much forbidden to go past our shopping town because we are supposed to be getting to know the community and our fellow teachers (although we do get a few weekends leave for Thanksgiving and to visit other volunteers at their sites). This is all great - EXCEPT, 5 days after we got here school let out for Spring Break and all the teacher's left town so we have A LOT of free time. Like, A LOT. Sleeping late is out of the question because the chickens won't allow it, I've yet to get any knitting or art supplies from town, and reading, interneting, and watching movies can only kill so much time in a day. SO, Tony and I have developed this list:

TOP TEN THINGS to do during a Spring Break on Lockdown:

10. Make your own horse shoes

9. Fashion a weight set out of concrete and rebar

8. Try to lure baby goats with rotten carrots

7. Learn how to raise chickens for eggs

6. Start a running club - (possible with absolutely no effort by jogging through the village and seeing how many children will stop what they're doing and randomly decide to jog with you - despite the fact that they're wearing giant combat boots or no shoes at all)

5. Listen to the hand-crank transistor radio while waiting for solar batteries to charge

4. Chase cows away from your laundry

3. Stare out the window of your current house at your future house wondering when the renovations that were supposed to start a week ago will actually start.

2. Take a bus to town and sit there in the hot sun for 45 minutes while two women scream at eachother because one of them threw the other's corn meal out the window.

1. Hypothesize ways to keep your margerine from melting because you can't figure out how to get the rifrodgerator you bought from town to your house.

Let us know if you can think of anything else we could do!

That's all for now!
Tune in next time for a tour of our rondewal, and an update on our new house.
Later,
Kim and Tony

Livin' on the Edge...of the Kalahari and a Bipolar Meltdown

So I guess it has been a while since our last post and a BUNCH has happened, I just haven’t had time to sit down and write about it! I’ll try to organize this the best I can. I wrote about three different posts during this month but didn't have a chance to post them so this will be an attempt to combine them all:


Sickness! –About half of our training group got the flu! It sucked pretty badly and enough people got it that they ended up moving quite a few people (including Tony and I, because our family was sick, as was I) back to the college so we could recover. Our little “quarantine” actually ended up being really fun and I got to know a few people that I didn’t know that well before…and don’t worry parents I am fully recovered. ☺


Host Family Hang-ups – Now, don’t get me wrong, we REALLY love our host family. They’ve been absolutely wonderful to us and I feel like we’ll stay in touch with them for years to come. That being said, I am 100% ready to move out and regain some personal space. We live in a VERY large family and privacy/quiet time is pretty much impossible. The noise starts anywhere from 5am to 7am, depending on what day it is, and it starts with multiple slamming doors, yelling children, a crying baby, and -what I find MOST baffling- house music blaring from the living room speakers. The music is the worst. Why??? Number 1, it’s sucky music, and number 2, it’s so incredibly loud that, at times, I feel like it’s shaking the whole house and I’m seriously concerned that the windows in our bedroom are going to shatter. You probably think I’m exaggerating...but I’m not. The music continues from about 5am to at least 7pm, sometimes later.
I’m also really ready to cook start cooking for ourselves. As much as I appreciate them cooking dinner for us most nights, it usually ends up being some sort of boiled meat and paap, and I feel I’m missing out on some very important food groups…mainly fruits and veggies. As a result we pull oranges off of our neighbor’s trees and pound lemons (which are much less sour than in the US) like nobodies business.



Permanent Site Placements – YES! We finally got our permanent site placements. Tony and I will be moving to a medium sized village in the Northern Cape…basically on the edge of the Kalahari Dessert. We’re about an hour from a much bigger town called Kuruman. Kuruman is our designated “shopping town” where we’ll go every other week or so to get groceries, hang out with other volunteers, spend the night from time to time when we need to get away, etc…
We spent half of last week at our supervisors workshop at a VERY nice resort called the Red Sands. It pretty much rocked our socks off hard-core style. We stayed in these super awesome chalets and the food was ridiculous and there were monkeys that jumped all over everyone’s cars Jumanji style. ALSO, there were showers…yes, HOT SHOWERS. HOT SHOWERS. One more time…HOT SHOWERS. We went over some more Peace Corps Policy and met our future supervisors/the principal of one of the schools we were going to be working in. All in all, what these few days boiled down to was basically a cruel, cruel trick…a momentary stay in the lap of luxury before we were thrust out into the hardships of village life.
After our stay at the Red Sands our principal drove us to our future home. I’ll be honest with you here and say that after he left us, I cried for the first 30 minutes because our electricity wouldn’t work and our rondewal was SO tiny that, with our luggage and furniture, we could barely move. I was also slightly concerned about the fact that it was a rondewal (which is basically a round house with a thatched roof), due to my grass/pollen allergy…something I informed Peace Corps of...more than once. Plus, per Peace Corps policy, couples were supposed to be given a dwelling with at least 2 rooms.
BUT, as we settled in and met our host family…and Tony fixed the electricity…I regained my composure and decided that I would discuss the living situation with Peace Corps the following week. (Which I have…and we’ll be moving across the street into a house when we return in a week and a half or shortly after.)

The next two days we spent visiting one of our schools, observing, and getting to know the teachers and our host family. We basically live on the compound of an elderly couple. Our "dad" is awesome. When we walked up he was busy carving a giant wooden cane in the shape of a snake because he pulled a muscle while playing soccer at the senior recreational facility in the village. We later found out that his favorite retirement hobby is carving wooden toys…Tony almost cried. Everyone in the village was incredibly welcoming and happy to meet us. They made sure we had everything we needed and our principal took us around to meet important members of the community.
Our weekend activities also included a nature walk along the local river with some of the neighbor kids. They basically caught every animal they could find to show us, including giant grasshoppers, frogs, crabs, and baby goats. Later that day, hours after our nature walk ended, they even knocked on our door to show us a giant rat they’d caught...it was pretty gross…but also pretty funny. ☺

So, despite my minor melt down, we really had a great time at our site and are looking forward to living and working in our village. After talking to a few of the other trainees I found out that pretty much everyone had a similar melt down and we decided that Peace Corps is basically like a trip of bipolar insanity…complete with really high highs and really low lows. One minute you’re a puddle on the floor saying, ‘what was I thinking doing this!’ and the next you meet a group of kids or an elderly man that are so happy to meet you that you remember why you did and think, ‘how could I ever think of leaving before my two years is up!’ I think the hardest part will be being away from our family and friends back in the states but I’ve decided that the key is to take things one day at a time. The prospect of 2 whole years away from everyone is really hard to think about and on the bad days maybe I just need to think about getting through the month, or the week, or maybe even just that day.

For now, we’re back at our training site for one more week to finish up, say our goodbyes to our training host family, and have our swearing in ceremony.
Miss you all ☺
Kim and Tony


ALSO - If you wanna send us a package here are some things that we could use that we can’t get here or are too expensive/hard to get here:

DVD’s (movies or tv shows) – What we REALLY need is someone to get us an external hard drive, load it up with a ton of movies, tv shows, etc… that we like and then send it to us. This is asking a lot, we know, and are totally fine if this never actually happens.
Kraft macaroni and cheese
Magazines – Kim’s favorite is BUST but any girly magazines will do, Tony’s is whatever skateboard/science mags you can find.
Yarn and knitting needles
Nice Shampoo/conditioner
Flip flops
Luna bars (peanut butter cookie, cookies and cream, smores)
Jump ropes
Stickers
Deflated basketball
Stickers
School Supplies (I can be more specific about this later)
Dried herbs
Pretty things that will make us smile


Also – if you should choose to send us a package please make sure you write that the value is $0, wrap it in multiple layers of paper or bubble wrap, and say/write on the outside that it is either donated books, or religious materials. If you don’t, they’ll search it and charge us a bunch of tax in order to pick it up. ☺