What a Difference a Day Makes

This past weekend, I went shopping to get some things for my house/room that I have been looking to get since... well, since I first got here. I'd just like to take a moment to explain how much of a difference certain items can make in one's daily activities.

I like to think that I'm somewhat of a minimalist. That's not actually true. But I'd like to think it. If I had my choice, I'd own a lot of little things that make life easier/more enjoyable, like a grilled panini press. They make sandwiches so much more delicious, it really blows my mind as to how it's physically possible. But of course, being broke on top of the fact that I live in Africa, limits the amount of things I can actually buy or own to make up a somewhat luxurious lifestyle.

Being a minimalist here, then, means simply that you can get by just fine without much of anything. That more accurately describes me. I can get by without much, I just don't prefer it.

My living situation is relatively cozy. Before this weekend, my room consisted of a single bed with a thin, soft mattress (though I prefer harder ones), a white wooden chair (not quite sure why it's in here), a very small dresser, one bag of luggage with my warm clothes packed away, a lockbox to store expensive items in, two boxes of books and Peace Corps bound informational packets (a lot of them), the small Peace Corps medical kit, a flyswatter (best investment ever), and a one square foot cardboard box that I keep my snack food in. The walls are decorated with a map of the world, a map of Africa, small holes where someone tried to hang up pictures, and the remains of formerly high pitched buzzing mosquitoes.

As of this weekend, I introduced 3 items to my room which have made all the difference in the world - especially when it comes to nitely activities. The three items include:

1- A CFL bulb where there formerly was just an empty light socket.

2- An oscillating stand up fan.

3- A screen for the one window that opens.

Previously, when coming home at nite, if I wanted to read, or write in my journal, or kill crawling insects, I had to keep my headlamp on for the entirety of the process. It was doable, but it eats up batteries like whoa, it makes my forehead sweat and get itchy after lengthy wearing periods, mosquitoes have learned to avoid the light's glare, hiding in the shadows of the room, and it attracts moths directly to my face - exactly the spot where I don't want them.

To sleep in my room, I would close my curtains to prevent very big bugs from flying in at nite (not always a successful endeavour), and close my door to keep the cats out, thus creating a stagnant, overheated cave to sleep in/lose weight in from all the sweating that occurs throughout the nite. Again, it was doable, but not ideal.

Well my goodness, the afforementioned 3 items have truly made all the difference in the world. I cut the portion of steel screen for my window with kid scissors from a large sheet that was borrowed to me, and luckily I had my straight eyes on, and managed to cut it relatively square and accurate. I attached it to my window using all purpose Prestik, or Sticky Tac, for those of you playing the home game. It works for now.

The combination of the screen, fan and light, made for an incredibly enjoyable first evening with all three. I wrote in my journal, with my room light glowing, a cool breeze coming to and fro across my body from the oscillating nature of the fan, all the while listening to the {tik.... tik..... TAK...} of bugs both large and small attempting to fly thru my screen, much to their dismay, and to my immense enjoyment. I smiled every time I heard one of their failed attempts. The best part was that I managed to sleep thru the entire nite without waking up to kill any mosquitoes, thanks to the tag team of the fan and screen.

I bought a shower head to screw in so my showers don't feel like someone is peeing on my head, but unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to try it out, because we've been out of water this side for the past few days. I'm anxious to try things out when the situation rectifies itself/we decide to fix it.

Next up is fashioning a screen door from reeds - luckily I have some contacts stateside who can walk me thru the construction process. Then I can simultaneously keep the cats out, and have a cross breeze coming thru the room. Just like heaven should be.

Catless and breezy.

Just kidding.

Only kinda.

The Joys of Being Sick

None.

Did you really think there were joys to being sick? Catching up on your DVDs you haven't seen doesn't really count as a joy. More like a "Well, what else is there to do?" type activity. But I suppose I can't exactly leave it there. This would be too short of an entry. Those of you who were expecting a sort of enlightened, optimistic outlook on time spent being sick, I am sorry to disappoint. But you should know better.

I have now been relatively unhealthy for the past week or so with various ailments - nothing serious or deadly, but my goodness is it a pain in the ass/neck. (Well, throat really)

Any time you travel abroad, especially to countries considered to be in the third world, you must half expect to get sick. It doesn't seem to be an option, it rather seems like an inevitability. It could come from drinking bad water, from not being used to the food, from being in overly crowded public areas where the vast majority of folk don't understand the concept of "private space" and proceed to cough and hock up a lung not next to you, but on to you, or it could even come from from jumping into a pond or lake you assume is fine to swim in, only to realize afterwards that parasitic snail lavae has seeped thru your skin and you have contracted bilhazia. you can google that for an explanation. Fortunately, I personally have not gotten sick directly from any of the afforementioned experiences. Yet.

I don't know exactly why I've gotten sick. One of the kids probably just passed something on to me last week. That's the most obvious way to get sick I suppose. Someone you know (most likely a small, somewhat adorable yet awfully dirty child with no sanitary sense) passes some godforsaken bacteria your way thru breathing on you, shaking your hand, or slobbering all over you after a nice big sneeze when they've forgotten to cover their mouth. As I'm sure we're all aware, children escalate this situation when they proceed to wipe the snot that recently emerged from their nasal cavity onto the nearest cloth, which is usually your shirt. There's no way to avoid these common situations, and by the time you realize what's happening, it's too late to do anything. Life. It's a four letter word.

The majority of my week was spent finding my voice again after I had lost it for 2 days (I found it under my bed after I cleaned my room - the spiders were holding it hostage), as well as coughing, coughing, coughing, coughing, COUGHING so much and so hard that I actually developed a giant knot in my back that felt and still feels like a gremlin is trying to escape from between my spine and shoulder blade. I've taken electrolyte supplements, drank vitamin C super energy booster drinks with literally 1111% of your daily recommended vitamin C intake based on a 2,000 calorie per day diet (it says so on the packet), sucked on lozenges and cough drops, taken both ibuprofen and non-aspirin painkillers, and eaten about a dozen cappucino flavoured muffins with chocolate chips in them. ALL AT THE SAME TIME.

Not really at the same time. But over the course of the week, that is how I've self-medicated. All I really wanted was some heavy duty cough syrup, some Tylenol PM to knock me out at nite, and a slingshot with pebbles to keep the cats away from my muffins.

Getting sick really messes with your psyche. This is especially true in a far off land where mom isn't there to pamper you and bring you tea and soup, tell you what pills to swallow and when, give you endless hugs, wait on you hand and foot, and bring you anything you want while you watch your favourite childhood Disney movies that are still on VHS tape. Not that my mom ever did that. (She totally did - she's the best) This week, now that I'm all grown up and still getting sick, I found that all negative thoughts were entering my head as I lay in bed, watching my Scrubs episodes and a pirated version of Pirates of the Carribean 3 (no pun intended). I was upset I couldn't match the progress we made last week with the vegetable garden project we started, and then I started thinking that we'll never get diesel for the tractor at this rate. If we don't get diesel, we can't plow the land again, if we can't plow the land again, we can't make our furrows, if we can't make our furrows, we can't start planting, if we can't start planting, nothing will start growing, if nothing starts growing, WE CAN NEVER EAT VEGETABLES FROM OUR GARDEN.

I found that when I felt ultra-bad, I was getting fleeting thoughts of "I'd rather be sick at home on my own couch"... "WTF am I actually doing out here? Do they really need me? What good am I doing here? I can't even understand what's being said half the time..." Blah Blah Blah.

I then began thinking of all the projects we have in mind here on the farm and how there's so much to do and we'll never actually get to do any of it and blah blah blah blah whine whine whine. I'm fully aware that all these sentiments are completely unfounded, and whereas normally I would think and approach these situations one step at a time, and more importantly, optimistically, I found myself having such a negative attitude towards everything. Then this morning I woke up feeing about 70% as opposed to 25% (so still not 100%) and just like that, I started thinking about how many things we will get done next week if I just keep getting a little bit better each day. My sense of optimism was back overnite and all it took was me not feeling devil claws inside my throat and chest ripping me apart every time I coughed. The three letters and package from home I received yesterday made me smile quite largely, and I credit them with speeding up my recovery as well.

Before coming over to this side of the planet, I received a very uplifting and supportive email from a friend of mine who I've never actually met (I don't even know what she looks like!), yet she has been an invaluable resource to me. Robyn has worked/volunteered around the world with various international development and outreach projects for a number of years now, so she knows a thing or two about what volunteers abroad go thru. She wrote one thing in her email that stuck with me, and I'd like to just copy and paste it here to share with you, because it has done a lot to keep my spirits up when I go thru a rough patch...

***not much i can say that you don,t already know, but would love to send my support by saying-- freaking out is normal just go awith it, when times get rough remember that home will ALWAYS be there and just as college or something goes by and life continues all of this will also go by and you will marvel at how you continue your joey life having completed peace corps, that said though_ take it one step at a time and dont let your thoughts get ahead of you, you will probably get sick after 3 weeks- it will only make you stronger, you will probably come out with more questions than answers which means you really get it, use support when you need it (write me anytime!), and know that this doesn,t have to be a phase or lifequest or something but can just be a very real career; part of your life; part of the life of others if you want OR it can just be a fantastic experience that makes you better in any field. safe journey and be well, safe, happy and inquisitive***

If there is any joy to being sick, I've found that it is realizing that you are strong enough to take on and overcome your illness, and when you do get better, you emerge stronger than before and with a more optimistic view of your own life.

That said, next week, I'm heading back to the vegetable garden.

Time. Or the lack/abundance thereof.

Hootie and the Blowfish wrote a song about time. And if you were even half conscious during the mid-90s, you have heard it before. It was an ok song. He sang something like:

TIME's a wasting
TIME's a something
TIME you ain't no friend of miiiine...

I think he was hinting that time seemed to be always running against him, or going too fast. But who really knows? Hootie was a funny guy. So cryptic in his lyrics. Anyway, point is, I don't believe Hootie (or his Blowfish) had ever been to Africa. If he had been, he would have had a very different concept and maybe even written an entirely different song about time. I don't blame Hootie for not being to Africa. But I'm here to explain why thing's might have changed so drastically had he been a visitor to the motherland.

Side note before we get started: For those of you keeping count, my mosquito kill count is currently at 132. And somehow the pests become more and more invisible as the nites go on. I'm getting very good at killing them once they've entered my ear cavity at nite, though it's not a pleasant clean up job.

It's now just before 6 am. Though you'd never know it by checking the wall clock in my house. It has been stuck at 12:47 and 46 seconds for months. I see it as a perfect symbol and a daily reminder that I am now running on Africa time. I have been up for 45 minutes, as has the sun. Now, maybe it's just me, but 5:15 seems a wee bit early for the sun to rise. It really doesn't matter. People start mulling about any time they please. Sunrise means rise and shine for kids going to school that day, 8-10 am for those with nothing better to do with their day, and some as early as 3 am to get a head start on the people they intend to steal from. Sadly, this does happen quite frequently. Poverty + Unemployment = Crime.

But this isn't about crime in SA. This entry is to attempt to shed some light on the issue of time in this country, if not this entire continent.

I will start out by stating that all of South Africa is on the same time zone, even though technically, the country should fall under 2 time zones. I imagine that this makes things easier on a national scale, though I'm not quite sure how, but it confused the hell out of me the first time I came out east to my site and it got dark a whole hour earlier than it was supposed to. I honestly thought my watch had been screwed up overnite, or that I had been completely delusional about what time the sun actually set every evening for the first 7 weeks of my stay. I was soon informed of the time zone situation. Hooray for not being delusional.

I am currrently writing up a proposal to the government here to further reduce the number of time zones in Soth Africa to zero. You see, people don't abide by time constraints like we're used to in the US. Times set to meet, to start something, to arrive somewhere, are all taken as guidelines rather than concrete agreements. (Just like Deltones practice, as I recall) Unless of course it's 8:00 pm. Generations (the most popular soap opera here, which is in Zulu) comes on then, and whole families and most often their American Peace Corps volunteers who stay with them, come together to watch it. But regardless. The attitude towards time here can be very convenient and sometimes relaxing when you don't feel like rushing to get something done or when you can't get to a meeting on time because you have no mode of transport, or something similar. However, as Americans, we often like to get things done or have things done now now now. When this doesn't happen as fast as we would like, we get mad mad mad. Or just irked off a bit at first. But give it some time. It grates on you after a while.

Take fast food for instance. There actually is no such thing as fast food here. If you go to a fast food place like a Chicken Licken, or a Steers, expecting to put an order in, wait 3 minutes, get your food, get in the car and go, you must be reminded that these places do not exist in America, you are in fact in South Africa, and you will wait 15 sometimes 20 minutes for a single chicken burger with nothing on it but mayo. (Mayo is put on a lot of things here I've realized) Our first restaurant experience in SA was touched on earlier in my blog. We waited almost 2 full hours to see our food. The first hour and a half was just waiting to get a waitress.

We have all learned some key terms when it comes to South Africans' concept of time. Here below are short sayings, which I translated into english for your convenience.

1- Just Now - used as in "We're going just now."
American translation = anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour, depending on who said it. Sometimes used when referring to past tense as well. "I got back just now." - also alludes to anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour ago.

2- Now Now - used as in "I'll be back now now."
American translation = about 5 minutes or sooner. "Now now" is supposed to mean immediately, or at this very second. You'll find it's misused often, or maybe confused somewhat intentionally with "just now".

3- Tomorrow - as in "I'll get back to you tomorrow."
American translation = well... there are two. 1- Never 2- Fuck off.

The first time it was really made obvious to me that there was an entire culture of not caring about time (for better or worse) was during my overnite stay in Soweto in 2005. After staying out rather late with my hosts (who were all in their mid-20s) going to various house parties and shebeens and feeling completely awkward as I was rubbed up against by every passing person who was overly sweaty, smelly and drunk and wanted to be near the strange bearded white guy, we were supposed to meet up with the rest of the group at a big church in Soweto the next morning, around 9:00 am. I woke up the next morning around 7:30, feeling very tired and strange about the events from the previous nite, but got dressed, gathered my things, and headed to the main house to meet my host brother and his gogo for breakfast. I get there, and there is no host brother and no breakfast. Just gogo, who didn't speak any English, sitting with a cup og tea, watching her TV. Fifteen minutes later, host brother enters. We then go for a walk to find breakfast. The walk takes about 35 minutes round trip. Eating breakfast slowly with gogo takes another half hour. Walking to find host brother's friends takes 20 minutes. Waking friends up takes 10. Getting one of them ready to come with us takes 25. Walking to pick up a kombi takes 10. Waiting for a kombi takes 10 (though I was assured it never takes that long to find a kombi in Soweto). Kombi ride takes 15. By the time we arrived, the church service was ending - and for those of you who don't know, church services here are very long. Usually over 2 hours.

What stuck out more than anything about this whole experience was not so much the process or amount of time it took to accomplish the simple task of going to church, and getting there on time. While on the way to the kombi, I asked my host brother and his friend if they were concerned at all about getting to where we had to be on time. His friend responded with something that shocked me a little bit. He said, "Pshh, man... as a black man it doesn't matter what time I get somewhere... As long as I'm there." That small comment opened up worlds of understanding about the mindset here.

I have to admit - on the whole, I rather enjoy this change of pace from the

"Crap, I've only got 3 hours until my paper's due and I haven't even started research yet."

Or

"Rehearal is starting - where the hell is Colin?"

Or the ever hectic

"Today I've got class at 9 and 10:15, meeting at 11:30, I want to eat lunch sometime, class at 1, work from 2 - 5, I'm meeting this person for dinner at 5:30, then I have rehearsal 7 - 10 then I have to meet with 2 peope to study for a philosophy test tomorrow, which is actually at the same time as part testing, so after the test I have to run to the music building and hope I'll be allowed to part test later, then I have to go and pick up this person from the train, and then I have a music lesson and then I'm the lead dancer in my dance show which is actually happening OH CRAP THE SHOW STARTED 20 MINUTES AGO."

The good side of African time includes not worrying when our kombi breaks down X number or times, thus putting us massively behind schedule to get where we're supposed to be. You know that when you arrive a few hours (or days) late, you can explain - kombi broke down - or you can at least expect not to be grilled on why you've come so late.

The other day, I started my 10 minute walk to the farm after numerous unsuccessful attempts at trying to find a trail that leads to the other side of the stream here. I got about half way to the main house, until I met "Uncle Leo" and his dog Zeus (a small daschund), who were on their way to check on Leo's herb garden, which is on my side of the road. We talked for a minute or two, and then I asked to join him. He was glad for the company, and eager to show off how well his herbs were coming in. Leo walks incredibly slow, which can be frustrating when trying to rush somewhere, but in the case of that day, we didn't need to walk any faster than Leo's walking stick reccomended. We were out on our errand for a long while, and I arrived at the farm an entire hour and a half after I had originally intended to. In my excursion, I was able to talk to Leo on a more personal level than when we are at the farm, and I learned a bit more about his past, his passions, and the depth of his knowledge on various subjects from herbal gardening, to world history. It made me understand why it's not important to be rushing to a destination all the time, especially here in South Africa. It works to my advantage to just let things happen, and not be hesitant to do something that hasn't been planned ahead of time.

These types of events are what make so many memorable life experiences. Unexpected and spontaneous detours, saying "Ah, what the hell? Why not?" and just going and letting things happen. We seem unable to do that many times in our lives in the US, because we are always expected to be somewhere, to be doing something specific, to be abiding by our planned out day schedule.

Here, we can definitely set our own schedule, and then, if we find it's not working for us, we can just change it or disregard it altogether.

Do I have a point in all this rambling? Or any type of conslusion? Probably not. I can get you one by next week though. Just be prepared to wait a month.

The Infamous Bucket Bath

Did you ever go bobbing for apples? I always thought it was a rather silly concept - one is expected to unlock their jaws as much as possible to wrap his or her teeth around not a delicious piece of candy or chocolate, but rather around a spherical medium sized piece of fruit, without the use of one's hands, and on top of all this, you are supposed to be blindfolded during the process.

I'll take things that are a waste of time and hurt my jaw and frustrate me to no end and leave me hungry for 200, Alex.

Now, imagine that same small bobbing for apples bucket, fill it up only half as much as you would to bob for apples, and bathe your entire body in it. Serious. This is the method of bathing used in rural South Africa, as well as in not so rural South Africa. But before I go on to what a pain it is for us shower-addicted foreigners to get used to, I will say that the bucket bath is rather effective in it's own endearing and frustrating little way.

When I first arrived at my homestay, I was actually very surprised to see that my host family had in their bathroom a medium sized bath that I was to use for my own bodily cleansing. At first I breathed a sigh of relief, but the relief didn't last too long. My host father showed me outside where I was to fill a large metal bucket with water, and start a fire to heat up the water. The process to bring such a large quantity of water (probably about 8 gallons or so) to a boil takes considerably long - about an hour to an hour and a half, during which time you can't just leave to do other things, but have to tend to the fire and keep the flames high and the coals hot. There was a lack of dry wood in the yard, and so many times I had to burn old and dried out cowpies, which do not have a pleasant smell when burned, especially not in large quantities. The metal bucket is ashy black, and if you touch any part of it with your hands or clothes, they turn instantly black. So in actuality, no matter how dirty you are before you bathe, you get twice as dirty just preparing the water for your bath.

This boiled water is poured into the tub (don't forget to stop up the drain as I had to be reminded, or you lose all your hot water - that was dumb of me), and then you get another large bucket of cold water from the tap to give your self a warm bath. The problem with having a medium sized tub to bathe in is that even with 2 large buckets of water, in the end, you only have about 2 inches of water to actually bathe in.

It was still winter time during my first bathing experience, and because the houses are made of mostly cement here, there is no heat and no insulation, so it's COLD in the house in the mornings, evenings and nite. I shivered as I climbed into the tub and soon realized I'm about 10 inches to big to lay down in the tub flat. That's ok. I crunched up a bit and started rolling around on my back and stomach as best I could to wet my body.

I was instantly frozen.

My hands were shaking as I reached for the shampoo - everyone suggets to wash your hair first - this was something I should have done before I soaked myself from head to toe. Rinsing my hair out was ripe with difficulties - I was so glad I didn't have my long hair anymore. Many girls got sick of their long hair too, and about 4 or 5 of them have since shaved their heads.

I soaped up as best I could, and repeated the rolling process, which is extremely uncomfortable in such a small space, and is a very humiliating process, even when by yourself - having body parts flopping around, getting caught behind your back or under your body, knocking your head against the side of the tub, having your ass up in the air, and all the while shivering and freezing in the cold winter air.

I used this medium sized tub method for about 3 or 4 weeks, and then got sick of the process. I gave up bathing for about a 10 day stretch, and then found my family had a small bucket I could use to have my first official "bucket bath". I also gave up the medium sized bath after what I thought was an obvious sign: one evening I poured the water into the tub and left for 10 seconds to get undressed and I came back to find a rather large cockroach had dropped from the ceiling into my bath water, and drowned instantly. I removed the cockroach, bathed, and told myself, "I think I'll stop here."

For my first official bucket bath, there was no outside fire involved. I boiled water in the kettle, and filled the bucket about halfway with cold water fro the tap, so I now had warm water again, but now it was about 5 or 6 inches deep instead of 2. I then had to think back to our first week here when current volunteers described different methods used for the bucket bath. Some buckets are big enough to kind of sit in. Mine is not. Therefore, the following methods seem to be the most commonly used.

There is the lean method, where you kneel on the floor next to your bucket and splash your body with water, soap up, and splash to rinse off as best you could. There is the stand-up method, where you use a wash cloth to wet yourself, soap up, and then use a cup or some such device to pour the water over your body to rinse off, trying your best not to spill too much water outside the tiny bucket. Then there's the dip and dangle method which is just as much fun as it sounds. You put your feet in the bucket, squat down, dip and dangle, and wash as best you can.

I have found that a combination of the lean method and the dip and dangle method works best for me. Although with these methods, I am only able to wash the main problem spots - hair, face, feet, crotch, and armpits. After those areas, the water is pretty much filthy beyond filthy, especially if you haven't bathed in 2 or 3 days, as is often the case with myself.

As I've mentioned before, as frustrating and annoying as this whole process is, it is effective enough to get clean.


But I have already made up my mind to build a shower in my next home.

Lack of info, lack of burgers

We have all been very busy the last few weeks. Most everything for us had been leading to yesterday, when our site assignments were finally revealed to us. In short, I am very happy with my site description, and I will have the chance to explore my site starting next week. So how does one keep busy for weeks on end with no access to the information super highway or a cell phone? I found out it is possible, and many times it is preferable. Radio has been heard rather infrequently in my experience here so far. Another obvious entertainment option is he good ol' Television set.

In my home here, there are two TVs. One is in the parent's room. I don't go in there. The other is in the lounge, but the only programming it receives is all-Jesus-all-the-time type programs. Pat Roberts, faith healers, pastors in Africa yelling at the top of their lungs about this and that. My host father loves it, and when he is home, he will watch that TV for hours on end. If you know me at all, you know that is something I don't choose to surround myself with, and so as a result, I don't watch TV here. Many other trainees have settled into a nice evening routine with their families. They eat dinner in front of the TV maybe around 7:00 or so, watch the news, and then at 8:00, the South African Soap Opera comes on - "Generations" it is called. I have not seen any of it, but many people seem to be getting quite addicted to it.

Because I haven't been settling down in front of the TV or Radio, I truly have no idea at all as to what on earth is happening on earth. This more than anything has been a tough thing to deal with - the complete lack of access to information and news from around the world. However, it is not something I notice all the time. It comes in spurts - maybe I'll hear a soundbyte about an American popstar and I'll think back to home when I would open the paper in the morning, and skip past that whole celebrity section in Newsday, looking for a headline and story I actually want to read. Or I'll come across a picture of my cousins currently serving in Iraq, and ask myself, "What has happened in the past month and a half since I've left?" The whole idea of being isolated and cut off from all sorts of news is completely foreign to those of us who live in the developed world. If the TV or Radio isn't turned on somewhere, then we're usually on the internet where there are updates my the minute on countless sites about all sorts of things you both want to and never want to hear about. If we skip the internet for a day, the next morning, most of us will wake up and one of the first things we will do is ge the paper and catch ourselves up on anything we may have missed.

So what's better or worse? No information coming in? Or what can be viewed by some to be a complete overload of information? In my own personal experience, I like the overload. But I can easily see how in places like rural South Africa, news is something that is not considered to be a priority, or even a necessity. Despite the fact that I have wanted to know what has been going on every now and then, it has been wonderful for my mental health to not be concerned about all the major happenings in America and around the world. I have been able to focus completely on myself, my surroundings, my short and long term goals, and most importantly, my attitude and my feelings as they develop and changed each day here. Things will only get more intense as I get to site, and start the whole adjustment process over again, and so it's great to be able to reflect appropriately on the day's events rather than getting distracted by or getting lost on the internet or TV.

As was mentioned in my last entry, the food that we've had access to here has left much to be desired. We do have some very good meals every now and then, but for the most part, it is a struggle to feel satisfied after eating. This is especially true at lunch time.

It was for this reason, that we were all very happy to have the opportunity to go out for lunch one afternoon at the only local restaurant in our town. We had seen the menu on a Thursday, and planned on dining out on the following Tuesday afternoon. On the whole, the menu looked very good, and we were all very excited to be a) not eating ANOTHER peanut butter sandwich for lunch and b) supporting the local restaurant by dining within their four walls.

I was excited because this would be the second time in three days that I would have the chance to eat a cheeseburger. The first burger was very much a let down. We had put together an American style BBQ and cooked burgers, hot dogs and sausages. Now, my burger was a let down because it tasted like a hot dog. If I had wanted to eat something that tasted like a hot dog, I would have had a hot dog. I was disappointed. So here was my chance to have a decent cheeseburger, to make up for the one that tasted like a hot dog. I was one of many who ordered a cheeseburger. After waiting about a half hour for the small restaurant to get everything out to us, we began to dive in to our cheeseburgers (some with bacon!) only to realize that every single cheeseburger was lacking the actual burger.

The roll looked very nice with the lettuce and tomatoes and cheese... but not as nice as it would have looked with a burger. Apparently the restaurant thought that everyone who ordered a cheeseburger had meant they wanted a cheese sandwich. A cheese sandwich, we all noticed, was on the menu in addition to the cheeseburger. So we didn't really know what to think. I imagine most of us were glad we didn't order the hamburger. What would they have given us? A ham sandwich? Just bread? It really is anyone's guess. They threw us all a small piece of steak to try and correct the situation - they didn't have any ground beef at the time. I watched as my friend John took his first bite into his steakcheeseburger. He clamped his jaw down on the small mass of miscellaneous items and went to bite thru and pull away...... and actually got stuck. His first bite lasted about 12 seconds, until he could finally get his teeth all the way thru the meat. I don't know how long he chewed on the wad in his mouth until he could actually swallow it, but it made for a good hoot.

That's about all for now. I really appreciate your comments. They make me smile a good bit.

I'll be back later on. Take care....

Ngilamba njalo

I have peanut butter permanently stuck to the roof of my mouth.

Now, if the above statement were accurate, I would probably be the happiest half italian/irish boy in South Africa. (see picture for visual aid) I realize that may not be saying much, but the point remains - it would make me very happy. The rough translation of the title of this entry is "I'm always hungry." I'm not quite sure the reason for this, but it certainly is true. Everyday is a new opportunity to find ways to fill my belly in satisfying ways... the variety of which I must say is not very wide. I've come to rely on some very basic food groups...

1- Peanut butter
2- Bread
3- Apples
4- Cornflakes
5- Grilled Cheese
6- Dark Chocolate (a rarity for sure, but I include it because I love it so)

That's about it. My dinner's vary slightly because most nites my host mother cooks - usually chicken or a delicious potato and baked bean type stew accompanied by the South Africa staple dish, pap. (pronounced "pop") A little info on pap... It looks like mashed potatoes, but clumps together and has the texture of extremely dense couscous. It is also very very filling, and is usually eaten in large quantities to convince the body that it is indeed getting enough food. This may or may not be the case, but it does leave one feeling full. But as I mentioned before, I am always hungry here, and the time between dinners is approximately 24 hours (1 day for those of you doing the math) and with so much time in between big meals, I am always trying to pin down my craving so as to satisfy (temporarily) my hunger.

In the beginning of my time here, my cravings have ranged from Turkey Hill's Tin Roof Sundae ice cream with chocolate syrup (lots of it), to buffalo chicken wings, to homemade meatballs and sauce. Actually, those are the only 3 things I craved. I have since managed to direct my cravings (most of the time) to the above mentioned 6 food groups. Mainly because that's all I have to work with for most of the day.

Some here consider me very fortunate because my family owns not only a grilled cheese sandwich maker, but also has in the fridge, a large block of cheddar-type cheese. I don't really know what type of cheese it is, but it is cheese. I think. It's really good when melted. At lunch time at our training, many will venture out to the closest shop and buy for 25 cents each (in rand - very cheap) "fat cakes". Fat cakes are fried dough type creations. They are about the size of a lemon, and are served plain. This doesn't work for my taste buds, so when I splurge the 25 cents to have one, I use all my mind power to imagine that is is dripping with maple syrup and powdered sugar, and I am happy.

I have come to appreciate the boneless chicken breasts that are served in the US at all the major food stores, because eating chicken is definitely a project here, and all of us foreigners (well, maybe just myself) must learn to re-enjoy the process off sucking all the meat off the bone and getting our fingers all sticky and slimy with chicken grease.

Which brings me with no appropriate transition to our first experience in a restaurant in town. After I posted my last entry, I went with a few friends to a restaurant next door called "Spur". Spur is a Native American themed South African family restaurant. Kind of like a Friendly's if Friendly's had a giant Native American statue at the entrance to the restaurant and a menu telling of the legend of the giant burger which weighed over 6000 lbs and took an entire forest burning to cook it. To make a long story short, it took over 2 hours to get our food. The first hour to even be recognized that we were in the restaurant. And the food was just ok. We saw the manager running in and out of the restaurant multiple times, always returning with a big hunk of meat under his arm, which may have added to the lengthy process.

One final note on the topic of food here - I have been fortunate because I have been asked to cook only twice so far for my family. Others here have had to cook much more frequently with not many food stuffs to work with. My two dinners were success stories though. The first dinner was chicken with pasta. The pasta sauce was a Tomato and Onion mix with carrots, and that's really it. It was pretty easy and very much enjoyed by the family. The second dinner was scrambled eggs with cheese, baked beans mixed with fruit chutney and mayo, plain bread, and sour pap. I made the eggs very cheesy - almost too delicious I would say, because my 9 year old sister ate about 1/3rd of the eggs while they were still in the pan waiting to be served.

Pako has been instrumental in helping me prepare dinners - showing me where things are, then hiding them on me while my back is turned, she does most of the slicing and dicing of vegetables, gets out all of the flavouring and spices whether I want to use them or not, and she is great at laughing at me and overriding all of my decisions and actions made in the kitchen. Half pound of pasta. NO. Pound and a half of pasta. Add Salt. NO. Add other curry and acha. Add veggies to boiling water. NO. Add veggies to cold water. One sandwich each for lunch. NO. Two sandwiches each. Four eggs. NO. Six eggs.

It's been a lot of fun - especially when we make grilled cheese for school the next day and we "accidentally" add too much cheese to the bread and it starts melting out the sides and cooking all over the surface and when we open the grilled cheese maker we have to scrape off and eat the cooked cheese which is ridiculously delicious and we fight over the biggest pieces and the brownest pieces.

The only thing that would make it more delicious would be if I had peanut butter permanently stuck to the roof of my mouth.

South African Mornings - a quick note

It's only 6:14 am here - I woke up extremely early this morn. Actually, that's a lie. I'm sorry to start out my first entry in Africa with a lie. It just happened. The truth is, I wake up this early every morning, which might be more surprising if I didn't tel you that I go to bed by 8:30 every nite. The days are long days here - full of language lessons, HIV/AIIDS information, cultural sessions, and learning about how CBO's (community based organizations) and other related organizations operate in South Africa. That's the short version. The long version is longer and not nearly as interesting.

I'm able to compose this entry because I have access to my laptop at my homestay - which I haven't used much up to this point, except to show my family some pictures of back home. So now, whenever I do get to the internet, I will have written this up already, and will simply cut and paste on the computers at some internet cafe, thanks to a super idea by my brotha Dizzy, who got me a nice little flash drive which I expect will come in super handy throughout my time here.

By the way Nathan/Dizzy/Promise/SBG, your damn songs were stuck in my head for the entire first week and a half in South Africa, and for any of you reading this who hasn't heard the music, do it. www.myspace.com/promisesmusic - check back often for new songs, and marvel and the excellent photos of the artist. There Diz. Now you have to put up all your best songs because you now have a wider audience.

Back to South Africa. My homestay situation is great. I'm living in the Northwest Province near the Botswana border. My family is wonderful. Dineo (host mom), Titus (host dad) and their three daughters (my sisters) Pako, 9, Thato, 4, and Thumelo 9 months. Mom, Pops, and Pako all speak English, Thato and Thumelo, not so much - as should be expected by a 4 year old and 9 month old. Everyone here speaks Setswana, which is tough, because I'm not learning Setswana officially anymore. More on that in a sec. My family has the only 2 story house around, and it's a very nice house with an orchard on the property where Titus grows oranges, lemons, peaches, apples, guava, grapes and more according to the season. He grows a few different types of oranges - my favourite of which he called a minala - which is the size of a small grapefruit, extremely dense, and deliciously juicy to the point that if you bite into a slice and you're lucky, you can shoot a stream of orange juice about 4 feet away, completely unintentionally - I've done it twice already. Just ask the people I accidentally squirted. My room is on the second floor here, and one of the walls is all windows and faces east. So while I wake up in the dark, after about 15 minutes, the sun rises and paints a beautiful picture right in front of my eyes that even Bob Ross would envy.

I want to take you all back to kindergarten for a moment, and recall the times when we all read short stories about Old MacDonald and Charlotte's Web and other books about life on the farm. Books such as this usually reference a rooster cock-a-doodle-dooing just as the sun rises, giving the call for all to wake up. I'd like to take this opportunity to slander all the children's books authors who ever put that stupid idea in our heads because as anyone currently in the general presence of roosters, including all of us here can attest to, the roosters around here cock-a-doodle-doo whenever they cock-a-doodle-damn-well-please. Which means AT ALL HOURS OF THE NITE. I've become very upset with the roosters here, and so when I come across one during the day that is cock-a-doodle-dooing, I yell something like, "SHUT UP! YOU'RE 6 HOURS LATE! IT'S ALREADY DAYTIME! ARE YOU FREAKING BLIND?!? I JUST ATE YOUR COUSIN FOR DINNER LAST NITE!" or something to that effect. I think they get the point because they walk away like chickens.

The language situation is a bit tough at the moment. The reason for this is that the area we are in is a dominant Setswana speaking area. I know the basic greetings and a few side comments and questions in Setswana. But for my permanent site placement, I will be speaking Zulu, and therefore have daily lessons in the Zulu language. No one here speaks Zulu, and everyone expects me (and other volunteers here) to learn Setswana. It doesn't bother me very much, but it would make the learning process go much faster if I was living in an area where I had the chance to use the language I'm learning everyday. Such is not the case, and I am over it by now. I am very excited to be learning Zulu.

I will find out about my site placement most likely in about 4 weeks. I expect to be placed either in Mpumalanga or Kwa-Zulu Natal, which would make sense since me and a few other volunteers are learning Zulu, and Zulu is spoken predominantly in the afforementioned provinces.

I don't expect to have regular access to the information super-highway for a while yet. But when things are up and running here, I will be sure to give you a full account of happenings. That includes bath time, which is an experience that words will never do justice describing, but I will try, and I won't even include any graphic details. Trust me, it's for the best.

Don't forget to be awesome. Be back in a few weeks...

P.S. - If all my picture uploads have been successful, you will see that I was the most recent winner in the local Elvis Costello Look-A-Like Contest. In fact, I was the only entry, because no one here knows who the hell Elvis Costello is. It was an easy victory. One which I savour.