Past Updates

So here are the updates I had sent out in the past....

UPDATE #1

Hi everyone!

Sorry I haven't written sooner, it's been a crazy month. It's almost 2pm here in Polokwane, and this is the first chance I've had to use an internet cafe. (well, I tried 2 weeks ago but it was closed by the time my friends and I showed up) I hope that everyone back in the US is doing well; my news info has been sketchy at best...basically just what I'm picking up from local South African newspapers...but I hear that Katrina was pretty insane.

I'm being charged by the minute here, so I can't be long. If you've emailed me since I've been gone, I have read them all. Unfortunately, I don't have time to write back to everyone. And in the same vein, I can't really start up a blog because I don't have that kind of time.

I'm having an incredible time. After Philly, we all took a 17-hour flight to Jo'Burg and then a 3 hour busride to a town called Mokopane, where we were sequestered in a "compound" for 6 days of training. After that we went off to live with our training host families, in a village called Moletji, about 40 km northwest of Polokwane. Moletji is a beautiful village; endless savannahs as far as the eye can see, gorgeous rock cliffs. It's kind of like the American SouthWest...but prettier. I'm staying with the Lekoloane family; they're great.

Everyone else here is awesome; there are 87 of us in Moletji, all staying with separate families. We have classes about 10 km from where my house is, so a bunch of us ride our bikes over there daily in groups...it's a helluva ride, over bumpy dirt roads. I've spent more time riding a bike here than I have in ten years. I've had to maneuver around herds of cattle crossing the road sometimes, which is exhilarating. I've seen enough cows, chickens, roosters, goats, and donkeys here to last me a lifetime.

The villagers are amazing, all so friendly. When we ride our bikes together in groups, people stop and stare. Little kids wave, jump up and down, and sometimes run alongside us, yelling out "La Huwa!" (white person).

I think that when I first showed up, I was worried that all of my fellow Peace Corps Trainees would be serious "save-the-world" types, not with too much in common with me. But everyone's fantastic, and I'm getting along great with people. I think I realized it the first time i said "giggity" and somebody replied "hehe awwwwwright"

I'm just on my way back to Moletji now from a week-long visit to my Site, which is where I will be for the next two years. I'm in Moletji until October 13, and from then on I will be at The Site. I'm not gonna go into detail about it now; I'll save that for another time.

So far it's been quite a journey, with plenty of ups and downs. Definitely more ups than downs though. Nights can get boring; it's not really a good idea to go out at night, and so I'm usually stuck in the house with the host family, reading. Usually it's dinner, reading, and bed by around 9pm every night. And speaking of food....the staple of the diet here is "pap" which I can't really describe...it's a thick corn porridge with a consistency of week-old mashed potatoes. I love it. But chicken feet....definitely not a fan of those. One of the guys said it was like biting into a baby's hand, and I find that pretty accurate. Disgusting stuff. I've had plenty of time to read; in fact I just finished "Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail '72" (Hunter S. Thompson) last night. Definitely check it out if you get a chance. It'll make you think twice about ever going into American Politics, if that's your thing.

Anyways, my time is running short. I'll be in touch again, hopefully in less than a month.

Take Care,
Omar
September 14, 2005

UPDATE #2

Hey everyone;

I'm at the internet cafe right now, with some time and a small bit of money, so I can actually write a mass email. Thanks to all of you who have been emailing me; it's great to hear from you. Keep it up!

I'm still living in Moletji at the moment; I have one more week left of training. Next Thursday we are all leaving Moletji and going to Pretoria for our swearing-in ceremony, and then we all depart for our individual sites.

Just to give you a geographical perspective, Moletji is about 30km northwest of Polokwane, which is where I am right now, using the internet. Someone asked me if Polokwane is anywhere near Cape Town....well, let me say, Polokwane is about as far away from Cape Town as you can get and still be in South Africa. I'm much closer to Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Botswana than I am to the South Africa most people are familiar with. I'm nowhere near the beaches of Durban or the whales and sharks of Cape Town. I'm about 3 1/2 hours north of the ghettoes of Johannesburg, though.

I am pretty close to Kruger National Park, though; it's one of the most famous safari parks in the world. And once I get to my final site, I will be even closer to the park. I've already had a chance to go there once, and I saw giraffes, water buffalo, impalas, ostriches, crocodiles, hippos, zebras, and a lot of elephants. Very cool stuff.

Training is almost done; it has been interesting. Let me just say that it has prepared me for the frustrations and patience that life in the Peace Corps will require for the next two years. Constantly changing schedules, conflicting information or complete lack thereof, lots of waiting around, and not as much real meaty information as we need. To give an example: we are all learning different languages based on where we will be placed at our final site. Some people are learning SePedi, some are learning SeTswana, IsiZulu, SiSwati, TshiVenda, or XiTsonga. For the first two weeks of training I had been learning TshiVenda, and then I arrived at my site, where I realized that they don't actually speak TshiVenda. So I've had to switch into the XiTsonga group and catch up with everyone else. I think I've been doing pretty well with Tsonga though; our final language exams begin tomorrow so I'll know for sure how I'm doing then.

Current Peace Corps Volunteers have been at training with us periodically, and some of them have privately told me how disorganized this training is compared to theirs, in the past. I guess it's because we have a new Country Director, a new Training Manager, new Logistics staff, new Language Coordinators, in addition to this being the largest group to ever arrive in South Africa (all previous groups had been between 30-40 people; ours is over twice that amount).

I will be very sad to see training end, though, and that is because of the people I've been around. One thing I didn't get to talk about much last time was my fellow Peace Corps Trainees. When we got here, there were 88 of us total. Now there are 86 of us. About 50 in the Education Group, and the rest in the NGO Group. One of the highlights of my experience so far has definitely been the people I've had the good fortune to be around. I don't think I've been this at home in a group of people since I was at Columbia U; I've definitely made friends that will last a lifetime. There is a lot of diversity in the group, people from all over the country, with all sorts of backgrounds. But there's definitely a common independent, adventurous, easygoing trait runs through us all.... I guess it goes hand in hand with joining the Peace Corps. Part of me is very sad that I won't get to see all of these people every day for the next two years. And this includes, not only my fellow trainees, but my host family here, and the awesome language trainers we have.

I've started fasting for Ramadan. Yesterday was my first day, and it was pretty tough. Recently, the weather here has been really hot, dry, and sunny, around 30-33 degrees celcius every day. Today is cold, windy, and cloudy though (a welcome change). Thankfully, while I'm fasting I'm getting picked up in Peace Corps transport for training every day; I don't have to ride my bike for miles and miles over bumpy dirt roads in the heat like I have been doing. I'm not fasting alone, though; there are a few other Muslims in the group. In fact, out of the 86 of us here, the most popular last name is "Ahmed"...there are 3 of us Ahmeds here in the group. And in fact, just to give another idea of how awesome my fellow trainees are, my friend Nichole decided that she would start fasting with me. When I asked her why, she said "We can be each other's support system."

As time has gone by, I've gotten a much clearer idea of what I will be doing here in South Africa. Schools in the rural areas are in bad shape; not enough teachers, not enough materials, not enough anything. Classes are overcrowded, and schools are falling apart. During the Apartheid years, these schools were basically left to rot. Under Bantu Education, education was very limited for the black population; critical thinking was suppressed and memorization was enforced. Blacks were only educated enough so that they could do whatever jobs they were allowed to have....teacher, nurse, etc. And now many people, who had been educated under that system, are teachers at those schools, teaching in the only way they know how to teach. The government has enacted reform, but there is a lot of work to do. I have spent some time in the rural primary schools during training, and got to see what they are like. I also spent a day at a "Former Model C School" ...basically a former Afrikaaner school. The differences are shocking. It's literally the difference between First World and Third World, just a few kilometers apart. I find that to be the situation with many things here in South Africa....the proximities of 1st and 3rd worlds, the frustration of those who are so close to the 1st world but not a part of it. No wonder there's so much crime.

I've also had my eyes opened on the real HIV/AIDS situation here. I must say, South Africa is basically the forefront of the world HIV/AIDS battle. It has one of the highest percentages of population infected in any country in the world (I think maybe only Botswana and Swaziland might be higher), and it also has the highest number of HIV positive people out of any country in the world. Just to give some perspective, the country with the second highest number of HIV cases is India, and India has a population of over 1 billion people, whereas South Africa has a population of only 45 million. I think that the percentage country-wide is about 20%, but among the female population of sexually active age, the infection rate is 1 out of 3. That's staggering. And the disease is really stigmatized here. The national government is trying to institute a program of treatment, but it's still having problems. Anti-RetroVirals (ARV's) are in short supply. I think that the timeframe from initial infection to death, here, is between 3 to 5 years, or so I've heard. Compare that to 15 or 20 years people are living in America. A group of us just gave an HIV/AIDS workshop to a small group of local teachers yesterday, so it's pretty heavy in my mind right now.

So the Peace Corps slogan is "The toughest job you'll ever love." I have a tough two years ahead of me, I know it. But, I have to say, i LOVE it here. Coming to South Africa was definitely a great decision.

I'll write again soon. In the meantime, keep sending those emails. I want to hear about life back home. I'd like to post pictures, and hopefully I will soon. In the meantime, one of my friends has posted some pictures on his blog, so I'll link some of those. They're pretty old, though...I think they're from late August.



Take Care,
Omar
October 6, 2005


UPDATE #3

Hey all;

So it's been about 3 weeks since I've written, but it seems much, much longer. A lot has changed. After my last update I took my Xitsonga final exam; passing is Intermediate Mid, and I scored Novice High. It's not a passing mark, but seeing that I had to switch languages about halfway through, I think I did pretty well, and so did the training staff, because that Novice High was a passing mark for me. And so training was coming to a close, and we got ready to say goodbye to Moletji. There was a big farewell celebration on Saturday, the 8th, complete with traditional dancing and fresh food (which my friends had earlier killed and skinned, and which I, of course, took to-go in some tupperware).

On Thursday morning, the 13th, we said goodbye to our families at the crack of dawn, and saw the sunrise on our way out of Moletji. Our Swearing-In ceremony was in Pretoria, about 4 hours south of Moletji. That was a really sad day; it was tough saying goodbye to all of the amazing friends I've made here. I will see some of them, namely the Education Volunteers, at In-Service Training in February, but as for everyone else, I have no idea if I will get to see them until Close Of Service in October 2007. And that's assuming we all make it that long. But even then, 4 months of not seeing each other is long, when we've been spending every day together for the past 8 weeks.

So now I write to you as a Peace Corps Volunteer, no longer a Peace Corps Trainee. Let me tell you about my site. I'm living in a SMALL village called Gonani, which is part of a larger village called Shikundu (sometimes referred to as Xikundu or KaXikundu). If that doesn't make sense, think of New York City, made up of smaller boroughs, each with its own officials and own identity, but part of NYC and under the NYC Mayor. Similarly, Gonani has its own Induna (headman) but is under the jurisdiction of the Chief of Shikundu. Gonani is waaaaaay up in the Northeast part of the country, well above the Tropic of Capricorn. It's about 100km (60 mi) south of Zimbabwe, and 20km (12 mi) from Kruger National Park's Punda Maria Gate (and beyond Kruger, lies Mozambique). Gonani is also about 6 or 7 km from the nearest paved road.

Out of all 11 villages under Shikundu, Gonani is the smallest (only 80 families), and it is the poorest. The main language spoken here is Xitsonga, referred to here as Shangaan. A small minority of the people speak Tshivenda, because Gonani borders the Livhuvhu River, and on the other side of the river is Venda. Supposedly there are crocodiles and hippos in the river, but I haven't seen any yet.

The nearest main town is Thohoyandou (where I am right now, writing this email). It's about 45 km west of Gonani. To get here, I have to walk 45 mins at a brisk pace, 1 hour at a leisurely pace, to the Shikundu Taxi Rank. Then it takes about an hour by combie (minibus taxi). I have to take one combie to Basani, and switch to another combie to Thohoyandou. Thohoyandou itself is a great city; it's a sprawling, dirty mess. I love it.

I have 3 primary schools to which I'm assigned: Gonani Primary, which is a 5 minute walk from my house, Mayeke Primary, which is near the taxi rank, and Manghena Primary, which is further. I'll talk more about the schools another time; it would take too long to go into it here.

I'm living with Mackson Maluleke, his wife Happy Shuma, and their 3-year-old daughter, Hlaluko. We live about 5-10 minutes walking uphill from the river. There is a large fenced in property (to keep cattle out); the family lives in a house, and about 50 feet away is another small, barren, tin-roofed house where I am living. The village has no electricity and no running water (as I said earlier, it is the poorest of 11 villages), but we do have solar-powered lights, so I don't have to burn candles at night. There is a large water container next to my house and a water tap 1/4 mile downhill. When I arrived, groups of local schoolkids brought buckets and buckets of water and filled up my container, which was very cool. I have to boil my drinking water, though, which is a pain. I have a gas hotplate connected to a gas cylinder; I use it to cook, and to boil water. I have even been cooking pap! When I have to go to the bathroom, I have to walk outside to the latrine, which is basically a small tin structure, with just enough room to sit, and a hole that I'm too scared to look down. It smells terrible, and as the weather turns hot, the place fills up with loud, buzzing flies. Over the past 2 weeks I have gotten used to hand-washing clothes and dishes outside, and taking my baths in a basin which is just big enough for me to sit in, with my knees resting on the rim and my feet dangling in the air. I don't have a fridge, but the family has a gas-powered fridge inside their house that I use. I'm definitely getting used to sparse, bare-bones living. And I must say, the village is great, and kinda what I expected an African village to be like....except for the giant Telkom cell tower directly in front of my house.

Looking back, I had it easy in Moletji. But, then again, the electricity, running water that didn't need to be boiled, flush toilet, and family cooking dinner for me every night was a nice jumping-off point for me, sort of a buffer zone between Manhattan and Gonani.

I'm still fasting. I have to say, these past 2 weeks of fasts, since I arrived in Gonani, have been the toughest fasts of my life. It's very hot here...the past week has consistently been in the low-mid 30s (around 90-95 degrees F) every day. It's HOT, especially when I don't have a fan, and my house heats up during the day. I've been pretty thirsty every day. All this, while I've been adjusting to this new place, has only added to my difficulties recently. At least I know it will only get easier from here!

Last Friday, I came into Thohoyandou, where there is a large Indian/Pakistani/Muslim population, to go to the Masjid (or, as they say here in South Africa, "Muslim Church") and pray Friday prayers. Imagine my surprise when the khutba (sermon) started, and it was in Urdu! I silently cursed myself for never having bothered to learn Urdu as well as I should have when I was growing up. That was a surreal day; I woke up in Gonani, where they speak Xitsonga, then went to Thohoyandou, where they speak Tshivenda, went to the Masjid where they speak Urdu, and then prayed in Arabic.

Let me talk about the family some more; Mackson (or Max, as he's known) is 30 years old, and a great guy. He's the acting Induna for Gonani. He speaks English better than most people in the village, and since most don't know any English at all, and since my Xitsonga is only at a Novice High level (see above), he has also been serving as my translator when neighbors stop by to see me. He's a really friendly, easy-going dude. Everyone knows him, and everyone likes him. His wife, Happy, is friendly as well; she doesn't speak English as well, though, so it's a little tougher. She's younger than me...21, I think. And little Hlaluko is the cutest little girl. It's been great these past 2 weeks, seeing her going from being afraid of me and shy around me, to being indifferent to me, and finally to being open and playful with me. I must say, the more time I spend with this family, the more I feel like the next 2 years will be easy. Oh, and I forgot to mention, I've been given an African name.....I am known now as Ndzivalelo Maluleke.

There have been definite highs and lows these past 2 weeks. Thirst, heat, and loneliness have been lows, but there have been just as many, if not more, highs. A cool basin bath after a hot day is FANTASTIC. The music blasting out of speakers here, both Shangaan music and Kwaito music, is everywhere, and its addictive. The schoolkids are hilarious; on my first day back to Mayeke, I rode in on my bike, and all 500 students gave me a rockstar welcome, running after me, laughing, cheering, clapping, surrounding me, trying to shake my hand. It was really something.

And, finally, I have to mention the stars. Millions, endless stars. I don't know if there are many things more beautiful than a clear, cool, starry South African night sky. It's gorgeous.

Anyway, that's all for now. I'll write again next time I get a chance. In the meantime, I now have a PO Box, so write if you get a chance. I can't answer emails individually because my internet time is limited, but I can definitely answer letters, because my free time is definitely not limited. It'll give me something to do at night. My address is:
Omar Ahmed
PO Box 1054
Saselamani, 0928
South Africa

Till then, take care.

Omar
October 26, 2005