2016 into 2017 - Let's go!

End to a great 2016

2016 was my first calendar year enjoying the beautiful country of South Africa, my home.  2016 brought the good, the bad, the unfortunate and the too great to even describe events and I wouldn’t be the person I am without any of those wonderful events. 

As a Peace Corps Volunteer, I had what I would call an incredibly successful year. My primary job of teaching some of the greatest kids I have ever met led me to challenge myself as an educator that I never knew I would have to do.  In the beginning I struggled with language barriers, kids who had given up because they had been held back 4 or more times, lack of effort, more interruptions than Hillary had during a debate with Donald Trump, and a general confusion of what I was even supposed to be teaching.  As the year went on, I learned what made my students tick, I learned where they live, and I learned how we could work together to motivate them to try their best and succeed in English language learning.  Now I won’t say that the middle and end of the year didn’t hold its challenges as a teacher…it did.  My mom can attest to the fact that I called her multiple times crying in my office with the door locked because I didn’t think I was getting through to my kids or this was all just too hard.  However, with each of those days…I got better, my kids got better, and we figured out a way to work together. I’d call that a pretty great success story.

This is my Astro-Quiz team or "the big 4" as we like to call them.

If this wasn’t rewarding enough, I was blessed to start a library open to all learners in grades 4 through 7 (I’m working on the younger kids, but my Tshivenda is not quite up to snuff), worked with my Creative Arts class to paint a World Map on the side of our school, led a GLOW (girls leading our world) club after school, led a BRO (boys respecting others) club after school, coached an amazing team of Astro-Quiz (like quiz bowl but with only astronomy related questions) ladies, and led an after school yoga program (Roots Tribe Yoga) centered around self-awareness and taking care of yourself inside and out.  I also found great success (and failures) in taking 68 girls (20 girls from my school) to a 4-day girls empowerment camp more than 3 hours away from where they live.  Now that this blog post is sounding a whole lot like a VRF (Volunteer Report Form) (and also sorry about that), the point of my rambling is to share with you all that my year here has been anything but boring and to also share with you how I felt my year went.

My grade 7 creative arts class working on our world map.

(Side rant: Living in a village is not boring.  Do I get bored on the occasion? Yes. Did I get bored on occasion in the United States? Yes. I still struggle to get everything done that I need to accomplish some nights and I spend other nights doing just what you all do at home…binge watching tv shows. So although our lives look pretty different while you all are living in houses and drive to get your groceries and I am living in a rondeval on a beautiful mountain, my life is anything but boring. (Okay, end rant…sorry about that).  )

However, its also nice to get out of the village every once in a while and vacation in some first world (and some not) amenities.  I was blessed to have worked a lot of hours in the years leading up to my Peace Corps service that has allowed me to vacation during each of my breaks.  These wonderful vacations took me to places such as Cape Town (with my beautiful parents – love you!), home to America to visit for 2 weeks (I learned all about Pokémon Go…which seems to be irrelevant now), Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana (where I maybe hurled my body off of a perfectly good bridge), and India and Sri Lanka (bless this crazy, colorful and unique culture).  Blessed doesn’t even begin to cover these experiences.

All in all, I’d say 2016 was a good year for personal growth for myself….even if things weren’t working out so well globally and nationally back at home.

My 20 GLOW girls at the end of CAMP GLOW. 

Struggle bus 2017

This year didn’t start off the best for me per say, but I can definitely say that it can only go up! (And it has been.) The New Year started out in Sri Lanka for me.  Sri Lanka has some of the most beautiful beaches I have seen this year (haha…get it…it’s the only beach I’ve seen this year).  However, here is where things for the year went wrong…

1.  Our first day of the year, we thought we would start off with a snorkeling trip…which turned out to not be our greatest idea.  Long story short, we ended up on a tiny boat with a tinier man who then proceeded to row our boat to the coral reefs. With 2 life jackets for 3 people, choppy waters, and very poor weather, we were successful in seeing precisely nothing while some of us ended up feeling rather sea sick and unamused at the entire experience.  Not the best way to start of the New Year…but we will recover. 

2.  So, we headed back to Colombo later where we would fly out the next morning (5 am to be exact).  However, upon arriving in Colombo, we couldn’t leave. Because our layover in India was more than 24 hours before we left to go to Johannesburg, they wouldn’t let us check-in to the airline and insisted that we deal with our mistake elsewhere.  After some panic, we came up with a plan to call their office at 8 am when they opened (it was 3 AM at the time).  After an eventful day of two offices, 5 hours waiting at a travel agency, many tears, and $200 later…we had a flight home. 

3.  All seemed well, we got on every flight with no issues.  On our flight from Ethiopia to Johannesburg, I started feeling quite sickly. I thought it was just a headache and it would be fine once I got some sleep. I still had the headache when I woke up though. My headache turned into a migraine that just wouldn’t go away, which lead to vomiting and pain so bad that I couldn’t see.  So, after 2 more days in Pretoria than I would have wanted…my migraine was (mostly) gone and I was on my way back to site..or was I.

4.  Transport…in the US, I had a car…in South Africa, I rely on public transport.  2017 has not led to the greatest of relationships between this public transport and me though.  Upon trying to leave for Pretoria the first day…my bus never showed up (strike 1), but on the second day I was very successful in getting back to Venda.  Upon getting to my shopping town in Venda, I discovered that taxis are not currently running to my village because we have gotten too much rain and the roads are of poorer quality than usual.  (The roads leading to my house are mountainous and a bit rough to begin with…that will happen on a mountain though.) Luckily, I ran into a family from my village who was finishing up their meal at Nandos.  They promptly invited me to join them and informed me that they would be taking me home.  That #blessed (thanks Bruno Mars) life was back! Struggles to get in and out of my village has continued in the following weeks of January (since I wrote this post in the beginning of January) and while taxis still don’t really come to my village most days and walks from a neighboring village down the mountain (about a 2 hour walk) are usually a big part of any journey away from my village, I have found the beauty and fitness in the 2 hour walks and found an appreciation for taxis that I never knew I could have. Isn’t that what life is all about? Finding your privileges and finding out how good you have it so you can appreciate all that you have more? I sure think so.

Roots Tribe Yoga with skill & sillyness.

Since these series of unfortunate events (which I hear is now on Netflix??), my luck has mostly been turning around! With some minor problems with getting in and out of my village because of rain being the biggest issues I have faced, I would say 2017 is bound to get even better yet.  I believe we will still struggle with transport for another week or so (its still raining…my love/hate relationship with rain has never been stronger…), but I know that in time we will have that semi-reliable transport in and out of the vill once again!

Thanks to those of  you who listened to me complain (mostly my mother- thanks Pamela!) in the beginning days of 2017 and those of you who listened to me complain via this blog post! Its nice to come out of situations knowing that they could have been worse and they now serve as funny stories of luck not always being on our side. 

Cheers to another year of teaching, struggles, happiness, changes, and the biggest change of all….the year of America! See ya in a few (more than a few) months America!

Year 1 Complete

Well, we made it.  I have officially been in South Africa for over one whole year.  It has been a year full of finding friends, a collective 28 days of diarrhea, an exhausting seven months of teaching English as a “first additional language,” a year of travel, a year of just utter chaos, and most importantly a year of adventurous happiness. 

I’ll be the first person to tell you that when I joined Peace Corps and was told I had a month until departure, I was beyond terrified and I questioned my decision to do it almost every day of that month.  I thought I would make it a year and want to come home.  In fact, I was just about convinced that that is what would happen. I didn’t believe in my ability to be away from home for two years and I didn’t think I would be happy being solo for so many hours during the week.  Anyone who knows me knows that I love to talk and I love to be around people…pretty much constantly. 

PST (pre-service training) fed into this version of me since I talked to other trainees until 5 every day, spent time with my host family until 7 or 8 and then spent the rest of the evening glued to whatsapp. Moving to my site proved to be somewhat what I expected and everything more.  Did I struggle with my lack of social interaction? YES. Did I cry a couple of times here and there? YES.  Did I send an obnoxious amount of voice messages to my American and Peace Corps friends? YES. (And maybe I still do…) But finding the peace and happiness in being alone has overall been a good experience to show me that my friends will always be there but sometimes being happy with yourself means really being happy with….well, just yourself.

Another Peace Corps Volunteer recently did a blog post about her ups and downs during the first year and I thought that was a great idea! (Thanks Michelle!) So I’m going to steal it, with a twist.

As a true Hoosier….I give you the top 10 moments of my first year of Peace Corps Service. (Thanks David Letterman).

10.  Pam and Carl (my lovely parental units) visiting South Africa, receiving Venda names, hiking all over my mountain and then escorting me to Cape Town for a bougie vacation from it all

9.  Living with my host family in Moteti who gave me pap (a traditional African dish) every night and aided in my gaining of 10 pounds in just 2.5 short months by buying a 2-liter of Coke every night since they knew it was my favorite

8.  Waking up in the middle night (around 3 AM) with the worst stomach pains and only a few moments before disaster - with no time to unlock my door and burglar bars. I chose to desecrate my trash can instead of my pee bucket and well…I missed. #DiarrheaProbs #TMI (I know)

7.  Opening my library to 95 learners and having 20 learners in the library with a que of 40 outside the door on the first day

My "library" after I swept and moved some tables in

6.  IST (In-service training) where I had one of my many bouts of diarrhea and indulged in all of the cheese anyways

5.  Learning to wrap a baby on my back courtesy of my host mom (Lufuno) and my host brother who was 1 at the time

My library now

4.  Holding a menstrual health day for my girls and dispelling myths and stigmas about their periods

My girls with their signs of why menstruation matters

3.  Living without power for a month and half, cooking on the fire, and sleeping with 6 blankets since it was the middle of winter

2. Starting a CLUB GLOW (Girls Leading Our World)that makes my girls “happy to be a girl” (We cover topics like self-esteem, gender equity, healthy relationships, safe sex, goals and aspirations, and community change)

And the number one part to my first year of Peace Corps Service is….

1.  Meeting some of the best humans (Volunteers and South Africans) who support me in what I want to do, support me harder on my rough days, and keep me laughing and smiling for days

I’m sure there are a thousand other little moments that didn’t make my list like children yelling “ho naka” (you’re beautiful) as I sweat my life away on a run or the little moments of my kids understanding or finally participating or just lighting up my life in general.  Those moments are hard to tell stories about because there are just so many.  My kids are my reason for waking up and going to school every day and they are the absolute greatest.

I live in such a beautiful place.

With only a year left here, I keep thinking that I’m basically done but really my work is just beginning.  Within the next year, I plan to:

•       Hold a 4-day CAMP GLOW with a Let Girls Learn curriculum where girls will be further education on reproductive systems, teamwork, leadership, self-esteem, goals and aspirations, and how to lead a healthy life. 
•      Paint a World Map on the side of the school to increase global awareness and promote geography and social science learning
•       Hold a World Geography Day in which learners from all over the school interact with our new map with fun interactive activities
•       Zazi girls club for the secondary school girls – same general Let Girls Learn goals of GLOW
•       Roots Tribe Yoga – a yoga program aimed at getting the kids more comfortable, active and engaged in more productive ways of channeling their feelings
•       Teacher workshops – to share knowledge gained from workshops with the teachers at the school

So, there it is,  my past year in a nutshell.  Don’t worry, I’m still alive and well and I promise to TRY to update my blog a little more often from now on! One year in and going strong! See you in a year America!

And a shameless plug:

If you have any books that you no longer need, our library would love to take them from you! Just send it on over to my address here in Dzimauli. J Let me know if you are interested in sending books or school 

Phase 2 Complete

Little Successes

So, its been a while since I last posted and I would be lying if I didn’t tell you that my last few weeks have been filled with some of the biggest struggles I have ever found in my transitions throughout life.  These weeks have been full of struggles to find my place at my school, struggles of digestion, struggles of trying to find friends in the village, struggles to be myself again, and struggles to find my home in my new country.

These struggles have certainly not come because of a lack of support from my amazing family and friends back home, my school staff, my amazing host family and my amazing cohort.  But rather, these struggles are just the staples of what life has to offer sometimes.  We can’t grow and appreciate the amazing moments of our lives without also feeling the struggle.  I have appreciated the struggles that I have felt, but I also almost fully feel prepared to defeat them. 

As I closed out my tenth day of diarrhea due to a parasite in my body and chugged a bottle of powerade that smells like jalepenos (just don’t ask), my host father came to my room.  He had just accompanied me to my in service training where we had sessions on teaching practices, lesson planning, and the South African education system.  He came to my door to announce that this was the best conference he had ever been to, he wants to attend another in the future, and he cannot wait to implement new ideas in the classroom.  He further went on to say that he has phoned the principal about the library, he fears they have not taken the library serious enough as I have been working on it, and he wants me to let him know if there is anything he can do to help me in getting our library up and running. 

Anyone that has talked to me about my school in depth recently knows that one of the biggest struggles I have been having at my school has been a lack of excitement or desire from the teachers in things that I have been attempting to get done.  Therefore, this was a huge victory for me and I am excited to see the new attitudes in action in our new term, beginning in January. 

Since I have last posted, I have…

• Found a waterfall near my house to play at on days off.
• Saw a beautiful rainbow in my backyard.
• Make my best South African attempt at a thanksgiving dinner.
• Became a Tshangane woman for a day. (Note: I’m usually part of Venda culture). 
• Ventured to IST where I found another beautiful waterfall.
• Received two wonderful packages from my mama and some of my greatest friends, Ari, Val and the kids.
• Played with a bunch of African animals.

 

IST – In Service Training

IST is the point in our service in which we get back together with our cohort (the 50 lovely people I went through my original training with.) This is the first time we all come back together since moving to our sites about 2 months prior.  During this training, we receive more technical training on language, cultural norms, safety and security, and technicalities of our work.  This is also our time to share stories and bond with roughly the other 47 volunteers who are going through the same types of struggles.  However, we also had time for socializing and bonding.

Crèche graduation

On one lovely Saturday, I decided to spend the day at another volunteers site and attend their local crèche graduation.  (Note: a crèche is a preschool.)  During the duration of this 9 hour program, community members made announcements about available resources in the community, many groups performed dances, and the crèche graduates received their diplomas and their new school uniforms.  Alyssa and I were VIP attendees of the ceremony and therefore partook in many pictures with all of the graduates and even performed the tradition tshitonga dance in front of the crowd.  It was a great day full of laughs, food, and cultural exchange.

Animal Interactions

As an education volunteer in South Africa, I have about four weeks off from school in December/January for summer/holiday break.  The first week of break was full of adventure for me!  The first adventure I took part in was a trip to Letaba River Lodge where I was able to snuggle with lion cubs, get climbed on by a crazed monkey, cuddle a leopard, and hold many other animals.  Despite the scratch marks all over my arms, this day was absolutely incredible.

On a separate day, we adventured to meet Jessica…the hippo.  Jessica is a hippo that lives in the home of a man and wife who rescued her after a flood carried her away from her mother and onto their yard.  They nursed her back to health, let her wander their house, feed her daily, and let her sleep on their porch every night.  She is like a child to these people.  Every morning, they allow visitors to come feed Jessica her sweet potato snacks and her warm sweet tea.  We were lucky enough to be those visitors this past week.  While hippos are known to be the leading cause of more fatalities than any other large animal, Jessica was as friendly as can be.  There were some precautions to petting, feeding, and loving on Jessica.  Following those directions gave me a feeling of safety though. 

 

Within the next week, I will be headed to Durban for a week to lounge on the beach and see another part of South Africa.  While holiday times creep up, it definitely becomes hard to not be at home with my family and friends.  I’ll be thinking of you all though as I swim in the ocean and sleep on the beach.  : )

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years!

Shout Outs

Since being absent from America, there have been several significant events that I have missed and have failed to acknowledge in celebration properly.  Those events are as follows:

My best friend/college roommate/biggest supporter got engaged to the perfect man for her.  Rarely have I seen a couple more in sync and in love. Congrats going out to Em and Alex – love you both!

One of my best friends from high school/my part-time landlord (who accepted rent in friendship and my reese’s puffs) graduated with her masters degree, got her dream job, and moved to my favorite city, Chicago.  Even though I’ll miss having my second home in Lafayette, I’m so so so proud of you Stacy for following your dreams and I can’t wait to join you in the city to let our plans unfold in a few years!

My dearest sister and best friend since birth moved into her own apartment with her boyfriend.  I could not be happier for the two of you Becky and Scott, but remember…no babies or weddings for 2 years! I mean it!

Two of the greatest people alive finally got married! After years of being the most fun and loving couple, my platter mama and Dave tied the knot! I love you both and I can’t wait to celebrate (hella late) your marriage.

My cousin and one of my biggest supporters Matina/Matt got a big, adult job with his company where he will be doing fancy, important things that I only sort of understand.  Have a blast in San Diego and then get your butt over to South Africa! Can’t wait for our Italy trip in the future. :)

One of my favorite coworkers I have ever had/partner in crime/and a truly beautiful soul, Danielle, started her second year of teaching 5^th grade with some of my former students.  It’s so great to have an insider to see how my chitlins are doing and to see the growth you are pulling out of them. Don’t be afraid to send them out the window though. ;) You can do it brucey!

My best friend/confidant/and the only person who can always calm me down, Kendall, decided on the chance of a lifetime to go with World Race to over 10 countries.  She leave in January and I could not be more proud of her.  If only I could be there for your panic moments pre-departure like you were for mine.  Our reunion in December will be so so sweet after our adventures though! I love you k.

My hip-buddy/best friend/lover booked her flight home! Even though I won’t be there this December
to help you with all of your tasks, take you out to eat at Jimmy Johns, and eat all of your taquitos, I absolutely cannot wait to see you next December in a true celebratory fashion. This is the longest our hips have been separated, but they will be reunited in the future. :)

And last but not least…

My mini me/other half started her final full year of college and is rocking it.  Along with rocking her district board position and VP position in Circle K. Only one more year and Germany stand in the way of our beautiful reunion. Keep working your butt off, Mo. It won’t be long until we are back to our city. Love ya lady.

Its been difficult to not be there for all of these moments, but I know that it will be so much better during our reunions when you have all of these stories for me and I have all the stories for all of you.  I could never make it through my experience without all of the inspiration and encouragement from you fools. Keep it coming!

Thanks for letting me be sappy. :)

One Month

My school. :)

I’ve officially been living in Mukondeni for a month and in South Africa for over 100 days.  In three short weeks, I think that I have started to adapt well to my new life and my amazing view.  My past few weeks have been spent with my host dad – who is also my counterpart since he is a teacher at the school, my host mom, my 6 year-old host brother and my twin 8 month-old brother and sister.

I know I don’t post pictures or post on Facebook nearly enough, but I promise I’m still alive! Since I have posted last, I have finally gotten my room set-up, temperatures here are reaching the 100 degree level, I learned how to wrap a baby on my back, found my favorite spot to sit and to workout (its nice and shady), I visited one of the biggest baobob trees in the world, and said goodbye to the two 8 month olds as they moved in with their gogo (grandma). 

I found this new friend the first night at my site.
I believe he is a roach/spider/something else
hybrid.

Living in my new village on my own has given me the ability to see my service as it will truly be.  There will be a ton of time alone, there will be super frustrating moments when I struggle with tshivenda and the fact that I’m not even close to fluent in it, and there will be times in which I struggle to understand why I have to bathe in one bucket and pee in another all in my rondeval.  However, there will also be moments where my learners run to greet me and almost knock me down a hill, there will be moments when I skillfully use my tshivenda to communicate with my gogo and secretly dance around my room to Chelsea Dagger in celebration, there will be moments when I get to sit in my backyard and realize that after years of dreaming, I’m in Africa in the Peace Corps. My dreams have come true.  Life isn’t perfect and neither is my service.  There are moments that make me question everything I have ever wanted and have challenged me beyond belief, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t have those moments back in America as well.  I’m living my dream watching as my 6 year-old brother has already made progress in his English and as the teachers tell me that they want to know all about how we teach in the United States and if I will teach them.

One of the largest baobob trees in the world.

The next few weeks (5ish weeks to be exact), I will be busy starting to put together a library with some help from teachers and learners at my school, teaching English to grade 6 and 7, continuing to try to meet everyone in my village and the surrounding couple of villages, and taking lessons on tshivenda.  Everyone feels confident that I will be fluent soon, but I’m not gonna hold my breath! Ha

The books that I found at school for the library.

My learners are always ready to help or learn. The top left is a picture of learners practicing their multiples by jumping and clapping every multiple of 4.  The top right picture are the primary learners rushing the car one day at school.  The bottom picture is my primary learner helpers helping me get the library organized by carrying desks.

Thanks for being patient with my updates!

P.s. The picture above is all of the books that I have for my learners and their library.  I'm in the process of requesting books from organizations, but even one or two sent my way could add up and help the learners at my school become stronger readers! My new address is listed below if you want to send books for our library or if you want to send me goodies from America. I'm really struggling with my access to new music, the lack of access to reese's, reese's puffs and cheetos. In case you were wondering. I also appreciate snail mail with dirty jokes, quotes and updates on the lives of people I love (that's you!). 

Address to send your love to: 

(Note: while appreciated, it is normally frowned upon to mail yourself to me, but visitors via plane are encouraged!)

Jessie Robinson

Luheni Primary School

PO Box 337

Dzimauli 0975

South Africa