target acquired

“You can get HIV/AIDS from a mosquito.”
a. Strongly Agree
b. Agree
c. Disagree
d. Strongly Disagree

But what about a neutral option you ask? Think about this one, you’ll get it. I have faith in you.

So we finally found out our site. And all of us were even lucky enough to visit their individual sites and home. I will be stationed out in Eastern Mpumalanga in between Mozambique, Swazi Land, and Kruger National Park. Say these two syllables with me “Jack-Pot”. Now travelling to these countries will only cost me a certain large percentage of my monthly allowance (I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say how much I make, but let’s just say you probably make more than me in a day then I do in a month) rather than a larger percentage of my monthly allowance. Hip Hip Hooray x3.

Before we did our 1 week site visit we held a supervisors workshop somewhere in eastern Mpumalanga. Everyone got to meet their supervisor and/or counterpart and we got to learn how their organization works/functions/what they expect out of us/what we expect out of them/break dance battles. It’s going to be sad leaving all these other silly peace corps people behind. They were a cool bunch but such is life. It took about 5 hours total worth of travelling to get from where we are now to where I’m going to be stationed. We ride in these things called “Kumbis” in Siswati their called “ikumbi” for the singular and “emakumbi” for the plural. You probably think whoa that’s silly and although I may be inclined to agree, I say just accept it. They are just very large taxi vans that fill up the entire van with people, every seat must be filled no matter where you’re going. Just hope when you hop on one of these that there isn’t a baby in front of you that pooped in its diaper, a guy sitting next to you that has never seen soap before, or the person on the other side of you swore you were Jackie Chan. I’m all for being Jackie Chan, but come on dude seriously? I’m about to throw up here, you can at least open the window.

My town is pretty sweet. It’s semi-urban and near the mountains. It’s a pretty place with some pretty decent views. The weather is hot as hell even though they claim it will be winter soon. It seems my stay will be a bit different from most other peace corps volunteers. My family that I’m staying with has electricity, full furnished kitchen and bathrooms, and satellite tv. I know what you’re thinking but think of it this way. I’m not here to live out my romantic fantasies of living in some random hut in which I am pitted against the elements in an everyday struggle that I may or may not survive. I’m here to work. I’m here to do a job. I have a pretty cool supervisor and the home based care unit that I work at seems to have its stuff together, or at least as well as an underfunded organization can have its stuff together. I do not know the full details of the organization (or if I’m even allowed to post the details of the organization or if I even want to) so I will talk about it more in depth when I learn more about it. The entire district is split up into several parts. Each home based care is in charge of an area and they have workers that attend to the needs of various patients in that area in the patients’ on home. If they are in need of greater medical help then they are referred to the clinic/hospital which may or may not exist. I will be helping improve the capacity of such an organization. I am pleased to learn that the home based care I work for works has partnerships and a good referral system with other organizations. They partner with hospices, orphanages, food kitchens, social services, and others. I will see what work needs to be done in the near future.

My host father is a retired school principal and my host mom seems to be a department of education hot shot who is in charge of hiring and managing teaching staff in the region. They have 5 children but all are grown up and have left the house. I take walks around the town to get acquainted with the area and the people. I’m hoping the novelty of having a “Chinese” person around will simmer down and the people around will realize “hey this guy is serious about staying here for 2 years let’s stop gawking at him from the side of the road.” Hopefully that day will come sooner than later as well.