I'll post pictures soon, at least I hope

So a couple of things have occurred since my last post. I’m pleased to announce that all Siswati language learners passed their oral language exam for the first time in the history of Peace Corps South Africa. Take that establishment. Amazing really, the training area in which we are stationed in doesn’t even have Siswati speakers. Tis a true testament to what good teaching and teamwork can accomplish. Sitting in a room for 30 minutes talking in a language that has clicks in it and one that you have yet to hear naturally outside of the classroom to a person that you don’t even know can be a bit nerve racking.

Training has officially ended as well. No more learning about needs assessments, internalized oppression, marginalized populations, ngo’s, the development field, culture and why women cast spells on men to make them buy data bundles for their internet phones among other things, income generating activities, learning about what kind of learner are you, and other things. Not that learning about those are a negative thing, I’m just saying, no more learning about them. Ya dig?

Can we now cue the song “It’s so hard to say goodbye”? The end of training means no more of the other volunteers around you anymore. No more waking up to house music you swore you were hearing the night before and then you realize you did hear the same house music the night before because it never stopped and it was actually the same song that has been playing on an 8 hour loop. Gotta love living near a village bar yeah? It means no more of your host mom filing official complaints with the peace corps as to how I don’t make the bed in the morning. Sorry ma, it’s just not me, come on I’m just going to mess it up again. Same with bathing, I’m just going to get dirty again right? Okay I bathe, but there’s only so many times you can do it with a bucket and say “yeah I get it, you actually can bathe in just 2 liters of water and be pretty clean, and those with showers have been wasteful this whole time till you come to the realization that even though it saves the fish it’s sure as hell tiring.” I’m going to miss my host family. They will be my original South African family forever. It’s interesting to see the bonds that are created so quickly in such a short time span (say 2 months or so). They’ve taught me a lot of stuff which will be useful in the coming months. But now it’s time to move out and do what we were assigned to do.

I was officially sworn in as a peace corps volunteer on Monday, 6 April 2009. Wait I put the 6 in front of the April instead of after it. Yeah yeah I know so un-American, because evidently the entire world does it instead of the U.S. Oh well stuff happens. It was pretty uneventful. I swore to do a bunch of stuff like work to the best of my abilities to uphold the constitution of the United States of America. Weird I know. Government protocol I guess. The day after I was sent off to site which I was never so happy to go to a new place in my entire life. Signals the start of something new I guess. It’s different. I live in a compound that is not a part of the main house in which my host family would have stayed in, if they were ever home. The town is a much larger one than that of the training site village. I guess I’ve lost my sense of community. But hopefully I will regain that in due time. I finally did my 1st official day of work which included helping sort out financial statements and taught people how to type and use Microsoft word so they would be better prepared to do grant work or help them manage files better. It may not be sexy and glorious, but hey it’s a start, and if the basics can’t be done then you can kiss the rest of it goodbye. I also now have regular access to internet so I’ll be posting more regularly (that is if I don’t get lazy) so keep checking up on this, if anyone is actually paying attention that is. Till next time people, I’ll try to have pictures up and running on this blog site and on facebook so get excited, or disappointed.