Archives....the old stuff
These are old letters that some of you might have...pictures will come with time
14 October 2005
Dumelang borra le bomma! That is how I would greet you all in Setswana. Greetings are a big thing here. Everywhere you go, you are expected to greet the people you see, even if they are all the way across the street in the very back corner of their yard. If you see them and they see you, you must shout out a greeting of some kind. And people get upset if you don’t – like you are ignoring them on purpose. It is a nice concept – saying hello to your neighbors and strangers alike – something we don’t do in the US. Even we, as weird foreigners, are greeted everywhere we go. Think about how many people you greet when you walk down the street – only those you know, right? Maybe you mumble a hello to a stranger every now and again, but probably not often. In the big cities here you don’t greet everyone, but here in the villages it is rude not to.
The hospitality we have received has been astounding. Two families now, have taken us into their homes and treated us as family. The Kgadima family, at our training site, and now the Gaelejwe family, where we will be living for two years. We are living in an entirely separate house, next door to our host family. Our host father’s sister used to live there but she passed away a few years back and the house has stood empty ever since. The house is huge – 4 bedrooms and a kitchen, but they have sectioned off two of the rooms for us and fixed them up, and it will make for a good home. We still have to get some things to get settled in completely – like a small stove and fridge so we can cook for ourselves, but we are so glad to finally be in one spot for more than three weeks. We have a pretty large yard that the neighborhood goats, turkeys, and dogs like to wander through. I think we are going to set up a compost heap, and a pit for burning our paper trash, as there is no waste pickup. We have a lovely little pit latrine out in the corner of the yard too – no running water inside. We have installed a water storage tank – also known as a (clean) plastic garbage can – in the hallway, and will only have to carry water from the spigot down the road every couple of days. We do have electricity though, which is more than some of our friends have, so we are lucky. There are no street lights in the village, just little lights to illuminate the yards of the homes in the village, and nothing but the African bush surrounding our village, so we have some spectacular night sky viewing. Currently, there is a full moon, so we haven’t really gotten to take advantage of it yet, but the moonrises have been pretty awesome too, so it’s ok.
We are just beginning work in our schools – we will work with four in the area. One is close – in the same village that we live in, but for the others we will have to travel through the bush by bicycle to get there, which should be pretty awesome. Two of them are about 7K away from our village, and the other is about 5K. We will definitely get some exercise. It gets pretty darn hot here, and it’s not even really into summer yet. We are creeping up on the rainy season, and can’t wait. The dust here is unbelievable. It is a pretty dry climate, as we are on the fringes of the Kalahari Desert. Sometimes it gets really windy and these huge dust tornadoes form and blow through town. They are quite impressive. But the dust should calm down some with the advance of the rainy season, and things will hopefully turn green too. We want to plant a garden and grow some vegetables, and I can’t wait to see everything turn green. Right now the landscape is mostly browns and yellows, but we hear that things turn green, and that there are even flowers at times. I can’t wait. It has only rained twice in the two months we have been in South Africa, but they were pretty spectacular storms. The sound of a pounding rain on a tin roof is so loud, that you can’t talk to someone sitting next to you. You just have to wait until it passes.
I hope you are all able to see the photos we have attached. The first one is of our host father in Moletsi with a pen that Adam made and we gave to them as a gift. The next one is our entire Moletsi host family – Me with Johannes in the back (he’s 21), then Adam with our host father and mother (Michael and Makwena) and Daphney (25) in the front. Then group photo is from our swearing in ceremony – those are our friends and ‘neighbors’ – the other 8 volunteers in the NorthWest Province. Then there is a photo of Adam climbing a large rock outside of our village, one of me on my birthday, a photo of the dusty soccer field near where we trained, and the last is of the Jacaranda trees in Pretoria. They line the streets there – it is quite amazing. We were there at the right time! So enjoy! We will send more when we can. So until next time…
Hugs & Kisses,
Adam and Andrea
October 28, 2005
Hope all is well back in the States and work is going well for everyone. Things in South Africa are well. We completed our 7 weeks of training on Oct 13 and have been at site since. Training was pretty painful in the fact that it was extremely disorganized and long and boring! But that is all done now. The bright part of training was getting to know all the other volunteers from the US (88 in all) and our host family (the Kgadimas) that we stayed with. We stayed with a family that treated us very well and we were said to leave.
So we are finally at are permanent location for the next two years. It is a small village called Manyeding. The village is about 25 km outside of a great little town called Kuruman which you should be able to find on the map. It is on the border between the Northern Cape and Northwest Province. It is considered the Kalahari Desert where we are!? We are currently working with 4 different primary schools around our village. They are 1, 3, 5, and 8 km away from our home so I will get to ride a bunch while I am here. The people have been great and our host family (the Gaelejwes) here has been more than hospitable. We have a home next to our host family’s home. It is a brick house (large bricks) that we have taken over two of the rooms as our living quarters. We have a great long drop out back (pit latrine)! We don’t have running water however there is a consistent tap that we can fill up everyday. We do have the luxury of having electricity so that is nice because we have a small electric stove and lights! We really haven’t done much yet (as we aren’t really suppose to do much in the beginning but show our face and make contacts) we are helping a few things. And at the beginning of Dec is a month and a half long school break. We are on travel restriction from the Peace Corps (can’t travel for the first 3 months) so we will be in the village looking for stuff to do when that happens. I am hoping to get a soccer camp together to fill some of the time. That along with lots of reading and looking at donkeys. Our village is overrun by donkeys and goats….it is pretty amusing. The are donkey carts taking people around the village. Our village doesn’t really have any tar roads so it aint a bad options of transport but sadly I have yet to ride one. The village is just off a tar road though but not many cars travel on it. The stars at night are incredible though because of the lack of light pollution. I have never seen so many white lights in the sky! The only lights outside are those from a few of the houses with outdoor lights (one, two at the most) TV is a favorite pastime at night although we don’t have one. They are crazy about a few things on the tube: wrestling, yes WWE Wrestling which no one believes me is fake, soccer of course…..which South Africa is holding the World Cup in 2010, and soaps! They have a few from the states along with some south African version the most popular being Generations. One other crazy thing about the tube is the languages. Some shows like Generations the actors use at least 3 different languages with subtitled English and the news is done like 5 times in 5 different languages. South Africa has 11 official languages…so yeah, that is a lot.
The food is good. And we have been feed very well by our host families. The one staple food is called bogobe which is a kind of porridge that most people eat EVERY day! It is easy to make and it CHEAP and filling. It is made with water and processed corn meal. Boil water and mix in corn powder…stir! That’s it. Variety is not a big word in the diet scheme although you can find pretty much any food in the big towns as it is back home.
We have seen some wildlife so far but not in abundance. Lions in a cage at the one place we stayed for two days. Baboons giraffes warthog zebras and impalas along the roadside on one of our many trips to around South Africa during training.
What we were sent here to do was be a resource to our schools and thus far we have been doing a lot more this early on than I expected! School here is different to say the least. Two of the four schools we will work with have multi level classrooms (which I am guessing the older ones in the group may have experienced, haha) in which say, grade 3 and 4 are in the same class with the same teacher!? It is crazy. That along with the fact that the resources are quite limited and the teachers really don’t understand the new curriculum. There are a few obstacles to overcome but I really think there is a lot of promise in getting these kids a better education so that can achieve things. Another problem is just keeping the teachers in the classroom…on payday almost all the teacher will leave early 10 (school starts at 8) to go to town to pay bills and buy food!?
The beginning of the school days is my favorite part of school. It is called assembly and all the children live up according to grade and saw prayers and sing in unison. You the say “Hello learners” and the children will reply “Hello teachers, thank you”. Then they start a left, left, left right left and march off to class. I will eventually take some pics and video to share but that will be a while.
So this letter is so long because we have access to computers at 2 (no 3 now) schools now. We usually have some time to kill to so hopefully everyone will get a letter every once in a while. We hopefully will go to town 3-4 times a month to use the internet so I can actually send the letters to all of you. Hope no one is offend at mass sending of letters written by me (my African name is Thabo which means happiness) and Andrea (her african name is Lerato which means love) but we are hoping to keep in touch with everyone on our adventures through space and time. Sorry if you are getting repeat info too….I forget who I talk to and what I say. If you want to contact us by snail mail….we enjoy getting things in the mail
A. Liberatore
PO Box 2239
Kuruman 8460
Republic of South Africa
That is all for now. I have no real travel stories yet. All the traveling to this point has been planned out by Peace Corps. Once our first three months are up we will be traveling to some awesome places…I cant wait. I think the first stop will be Transfrontier Park and trying to catch a glimpse at the big five animals of SA. This park is closer than the famous Kruger Park (we will make it there too in time) to us. I can’t wait to travel because of all the possibilities.
Adam
November 4, 2005
Greetings all.
We had a pretty slow week here. We are still getting used to our schools, and they are still getting used to us too. We are working with four separate schools – all of them are primary schools. The one in the same village where we live, Manyeding, has about 225 students, grades 1-6, and seven teachers. It is our host school, and the one we spend the most time at. Our host mother is the third grade teacher here. It is probably the school with the most resources that we work with. They have a computer and copier, a staff room and principal’s office, a small and VERY disorganized library, and even two extra, unused classrooms. This contrasts quite a bit with another one of our schools, which is about 5K away. It only has grades 1-4, and about 50 kids, but there are only two teachers, and one big open room. They have no electricity (which isn’t as big of a problem as it sounds – at least not in summer), no computer, no staff room, and toilets with no doors. But life and learning seems to carry on there also. One of our other schools has about 170 kids, grades 1-7, with 6 teachers and a secretary. The school is a little run down, but they have a working computer and copier also, electricity, and really nice, new toilets. Our fourth school is another smaller one, with 80 students and three teachers for grades 1-6. One teacher has grades 1-3 in one classroom, and grades 4&5 and 6&7 are together. Multi-grade classrooms are something that we have never experienced before and which will provide quite a challenge. It seems to me that two grades in the same room is somewhat manageable, but three is another story. If any of you have any bright ideas for managing a multi-grade classroom, we’d love to hear it!
All in all, the school day is pretty similar to what we have in the US. The day starts with assembly, which is something the US doesn’t really have, where all the kids gather outside in the courtyard of the school to sing hymns and pray, and get school announcements and whatever other information they need to know about the day. (Kids with non-christian religions don’t have to participate in the hymns & prayers if they don’t want too.) Then they all march, and they do actually march, off to class. The school day is from about 7:45 to 1:00 for the younger kids and 1:45 for the older ones. All schools require uniforms – usually a black dress or pants with a blue or white or kakhi collared shirt. Another thing that is pretty different from the US is that after assembly and at the end of the day, the kids clean the school – sweeping and wiping off all chairs, windows etc, and watering the gardens if there is one.
One of the biggest problems we face are teachers who aren’t in the classroom enough. They enjoy chatting with one another, basking in the sun, or doing their lesson plans and grading during the time that they should be in the classroom teaching. It’s a pretty big problem, and one that we don’t really know how to handle yet. The school system in general needs quite a bit of help – especially in these rural schools, which is why we’re here, I guess. South Africa is changing over to a new kind of teaching – more like American classrooms, with lots of group work, and critical thinking, and hands on projects. Before the new curriculum, teachers just stood at the front of the room and talked, and made the students write it down and repeat what they said. The word of the teacher was the word of God, and you weren’t allowed to question it, or ask questions at all for that matter. So it’s a hard transition to make. Things were even worse during Apartheid, when the government thought that it wasn’t necessary for black South African’s to know any science or math. And all of our teachers grew up during Apartheid and were taught in that way, which makes it hard for them to turn around and teach in the new way. So we are here to help them make the transition, as well as just help them develop their resources and develop their math and science programs. Three of our schools have small libraries, which just means that there are some extra textbooks and a few (maybe 30) reading-for-fun books sitting on a shelf in the staff room, collecting dust. Most of the reading-for-fun books are in English, and not setswana, which is also a problem. Classes are taught in Setswana until fourth grade, where it is supposed to change over to English. In grade 4 it is probably half English, half Setswana, but will be totally English by the time they reach high school.
At times it feels like a big challenge, but other times I can see some of the steps we can take to slowly change things. Right now, we are just getting to know the schools and the staff and students. We are reviewing school policies and budgets, and teaching 50-year-old teachers, who have never seen a computer until a year ago, how to type. The school year is almost over, so we will probably not get into anything too big until next year. Next week starts final exams, which will continue until the end of the month. We are going on a field trip next week with one of our schools to some historical sites in the nearby town, so that should be fun.
We have been pretty busy at home too. We are cleaning up our yard, trying to goat-proof our fence, and start a garden. Yesterday we made a screen door out of our iron security door and some mosquito netting. We have started baking for our host family too – we made rice krispie treats, chocolate chip cookies, and banana bread so far, and they loved them all. Life is pretty slow here sometimes, but we haven’t gotten too bored yet. I think I will enjoy having time to bake and cook yummy meals and work on all kinds of other projects. Adam is going to pick up a guitar and will be a rock star by the time we head for home. Maybe we will come back with all kinds of skills we didn’t know we had.
Well, I hope life is good back in the US. We still haven’t had much time at the computer to use the internet when we are in town, so sorry to those of you who have sent e-mails. We will get around to responding one of these days. Hope you all had a great Halloween – it was a holiday sorely missed by Adam and I. Maybe next year we will introduce the idea to our village and see what happens. We are moving into summer now and it is weird to think that it is getting much colder for all of you.
Take care and we will write again soon…
Andrea
The photos are of a cool sunset the other night, and one of our host school and some of the kids…
Another weekly installment of the Adam and Andrea newsletter. Or Thabo and Lerato, as we are known here. Those are our Setswana names. Adam is Thabo, which means happiness, and I am Lerato, meaning love. Awwwwww, isn’t that cute... Today, we have a brief tour of our house for you – complete with photos. As I think I have said, we live in a pretty large house, that had been sitting empty since our host father’s sister passed away a few years back. The entire house is empty, but we only occupy two rooms of the house, as that is all we need. Here is the view from the front:
We made a screen door out of some mosquito netting that the Peace Corps gave us, and wrapped it around the security door that we have on the front door. It works quite well… Here also is our entry-way and you can see our lovely water storage container – aka trash can and our PC issue bicycles.
This is our living room and kitchen – they are in the same room. We have bought a small stove/oven – it’s about the same size as a microwave, so that we can cook for ourselves when we want to, but we have found that most of the time we eat dinners with our host family and cook only breakfast and lunch for ourselves. Also seen here is our bedroom – on the other side is only a bed, so there is no photo of that. Yes, that is a guitar…there is much free time and Adam hopes to FINALLY figure that toy out! It’s not very exciting.
Next you see our ‘tub’ – literally – that we bathe in, which is also in our bedroom. Yeah, baths are interesting – I think I speak for both of us when I say that we miss showers. Don’t take that for granted!! Baths are usually concluded with smelling of one’s self to make sure that the bathing has satisfied the removal of odor. One of our friends here has already set up a shower with a solar camp shower and I hope, no am, going to do the same once I get my hands on the right materials and a little more time. And the moment you’ve all been waiting for, the toilet! Our lovely little outhouse. What Lerato calls an outhouse, I like to call an office where most of my thinking goes on. :o)
And finally I’ll include a few photos of our family for you too… Our host brother Paseka all dressed up for church and the baby, Tlhalefo. And check out this sunset! We have to reduce the quality of the photos, but this is an awesome photo, I assure you. The house is a rondoval – a traditional African house that belongs to our neighbor. Monate! (beautiful!)
Otherwise, the week went very well. We went on a field trip to town with one of our schools on Wednesday, which was fun. We went on a tour of the post office, library, bank, the natural spring ‘the first eye’ that our town is famous for, and an old mission just outside of town. The mission is where the first bible was printed in all of Africa, by a man named Robert Moffit – and his daughter married David Livingstone, who many of you may know as someone who explored much of southern Africa. We took about 65 kids on a bus, all over town, and without ever taking roll from the moment we left school, we managed not to lose any of them. I think. We had another huge, noisy thunderstorm last night. So much for sleeping when those things come rolling through. It’s pretty awesome, though. Well, that’s about it for now. Final exams have started which basically means half days for the kids. They last about two weeks, and then it’s the end of the school year. That’s about it for me, I’ll pass it over to Adam for a few words…
The kids getting on the bus
One fun thing this week is that I have finally started to exercise regularly which a good thing. I am now known as the one who runs and ALL the children want to join in. Some days that means that I run a little slower to let all the other children follow….the thing is I am the only one wearing shoes and we are running on gravel at time!? Actually some of the kids like to wear slippers when running!
That is all for now this week…
Peace & Love from South Africa
Thabo & Lerato
Adam & Andrea
18 November 2005
Dumelang,
Well like I like to say another week another weekend!? All is still well in South Africa. The temperature seems to be a bit on the rise which means the hot will be getting hotter and then the hotter will be getting really hotter! My english has been improving. Last weekend we watched our host brother (well I guess he is our host nephew...the child of our host sister) get baptised! It was an exciting day for him and the braai (which is South African english for BBQ) afterwards was great. Lamb and cow...mmmmmm! The church service is what I would have considered to be a little long (at least for my taste). I know you are thinking that I can hardly sit still for the long 1 hour church services at home. So how long was this service you ask? And might I mention first that the service is Setswana….and although my Setswana is getting better and I know the general idea of what is happening in church....4 hours is still long for a service. Yes that is not a misprint, the church was four hours long. Got there at 9am and left at 1pm! And for some unforeseen reason I was not gnawing on my arm!? Surprising I know. Tlhalefo was a handsome little guy in an all white outfit complete with vest and bowtie!
Running around the villages continues and the other days we had 20 children with us! At a parents meeting at our school, our host mother encouraged the parents to tell their children if they see us running to come and join. It is pretty entertaining to be a part of. I think if I were to run and jump off a bridge the kids would too...but no need to worry for there are no bridges anywhere near. I should try jumping on a cow or something though.
Schools are going even more chaotic now since grades 3-7 are in final exam periods. The children arrive at normal time 8 and then have anywhere from 1-3 hours of free play time until the test starts. We are trying to convince the teachers to have class before the exam but have yet to prevail!?
Other good news is that we have pets....two different kinds. There is a natural spring in our village so there is an abundance of pond life. I am going to rig up a fishing pole one of these days and fish for the pan fish that are swimming around. But the pets that we got are tadpoles...just something to watch and talk to!? It is more exciting talking to tadpoles than to myself!? Our other lovely pets are two turkeys, Dr. Hyde and Mr. Jekyl that our host father bought for us the other day. These guys won't live the happy life the tadpoles will. Next weekend the 7 other NW volunteers that we became friends with during our training will come and celebrate Thanksgiving with us in the village of Manyeding! One of the turkeys will meet his fate on Thursday. Our host father will teach me how to take a live turkey and turn it into a delicious Thanksgiving meal! My first Thanksgiving slaughtering experience. I can now cross that one off my list....much to the dismay of the wife!? Our host father also promises me to take me hunting in the field....not sure to hunt what but he promises that we will kill something.
So the letters may get longer and more frequent now…over the last two weeks I have been figuring out how to use, and teach how to use our host family’s computer. I am using the term computer very lightly here. I have calculators that are more powerful and my camera has more memory! But it takes me back to the old days when we got our first computer….and were running from a DOS setup. I typed most of this letter in Word Perfect 5.1 on their computer last night and thank to Bill Gates and Windows XP, I imported it right into Word. The computer is very slow and quite interesting to figure out all the old commands and not having a mouse. I also have setup the printer….which is an old dot matrix that is supposed to use the continuous feed paper of the olden days. I got it to print…although not the most beautiful. It uses an old ribbon for ink like typewriters used!? But our host mother wants to learn to type and it can definitely do that. It seems like everything here is back a few decades! The computer also has a few classic games!! California Games being one of them!
The baptism….part of the marathon church service along with our host dad and his grandbaby…and a close up of the handsome little guy
Our friends, Mr. Jekyl and Dr. Hyde…aka Thanksgiving dinner and a back up!
Peace & Love from South Africa
Go Siame le Sala Sentle (Be alright and Stay Well!)
Thabo & Lerato
Adam & Andrea
******************WARNING***************************
This message contains images and descriptions that may be unsuitable for those who have heart disease, diabetes, weak stomach or other aliment that doesn't like carnage of innocent animals to make delicious feasts!?
******************WARNING****************************
02 December 2005
Dumelang Everyone!
Happy Belated Thanksgiving!
I hope your feast was as big and monate (delicious) as ours was! We were busy all last weekend cooking and entertaining our friends who came to visit. There were 7 Americans that came and celebrated Thanksgiving with us on Saturday! It was quite the event and the food was awesome and plentiful.
The event of Thanksgiving actually started on Thursday (actual Thanksgiving) when I took part in slaughtering both Mr Hyde and Dr Jekyll. It was quite exciting although it wasn’t as barbaric as I thought (or probably hoped) it would be. But, I did finally pass into manhood by slaughtering my first animal! Finally, no more little boy here. Although this is kind of gory, it is much better than buying the one in the store...and the vegetarian even ate a little turkey on the account that the birds lived a happy life and died a noble death!?
Slaughtering from the eyes of the slaughter goes a little something like this:
1. Discuss whether to use a thipa (knife) or selepe (axe).
1a. Boil water with fire in giant cast iron pot
1b. Go into kraal with someone else and chase turkey down
1c. Grab by wings and carry over to slaughtering log
2. Decide on axe
2a. Place neck of turkey on log
3. Use axe to cut throat
4. Hold bird until blood drains out and stops moving
5. Take bird and place in giant bowl (I mean giant)
6. Pour boiling water over turkey in bowl
7. Remove every feather by pulling
8. Put turkey in another bowl filled with lukewarm water
9. Bath turkey as if it is a small child that is very dirty
10. Take knife (and let me tell you the knives here are no where close to being sharp....maybe five years ago but not now!) and cut off head and feet (for those of you thinking that these don't get eaten here...think again. The neighbor lady that helped with the slaughtering took both the heads (turkey heads, turkey heads, eat them up yum!) and feet of the turkey as payment...and was going to eat it for dinner!? We have tried chicken feet a couple of times, not very exciting, and Andrea is not a fan at all. It is weird that what you are eating looks EXACTLY the same as it does on the animal. The problem with the feet (haven't tried heads...yet, although our host sister tells us that if we eat heads we will get smarter, eyes and we will get better sight and ear to hear better.) is that there isn't that much meat and you have to eat around the nails. Imagine eating chicken skin off the feet of a chicken....yup that is it.) The heads were then taken and skinned in a way. She didn't take all the skin off but if you think of what a turkey head looks like, it ain't pretty and has weird skin growths that need to be picked off. Exciting! The feet also need the top layer of skin or shell or armor or whatever it is that is on them. Now think chicken feet 10 times bigger. After soaking in the boiling water for a while, you grab each toe and pull. You pull until the outer skeleton slides right off. It was pretty wild to say the least. Then proceed to do the rest of the toes and right up the leg! If I were to ever imagine what a dinosaur leg would look like, that is it. Moving on...
11. Make an incision near the butt
12. Pull out the insides (again, the lovely neighbor lady was very excited to have more dinner) and wash and clean. Cleaning the insides involves empting what Mr Turkey had for dinner yesterday and the day before.
13. Cut off neck farther down
14. Carefully cut out stomach from the top, meaning where the head is. (Again, neighbor lady excited about food and again you can see undigested food this time!)
14. Hack a hole through one leg
15. Take some wire and thread it through the leg
16. Hang turkey from tree branch for about an hour to dry out
17. Repeat with other turkey
18. Place in freezer
19. Dream about eating them
20. Put in refrigerator
21. Daydream about eating them
22. Cook them
23. Eat them up, yum
That is it folks, the day and the life of Thanksgiving Day turkey!
Now, what it must have been like from the eyes of the slaughteree:
Just spending another quite day in the Gaelejwe's kraal feasting on some delicious corn and water with epsom salts...yum. The chicken are once again entertaining us with their theatrics and one of the other males turkeys from the neighborhood is back on the other side of the fence trying to act all tough and say this is his land we are treading on. He has come everyday we have been here raising his tail feathers like he is some kind of king of the world...but he can't hurt us because he can't come in and we can't get out. Oh wait...who are these two humans coming into the kraal....they are not the normal guy with the yummy food. Ut oh, it seems like they want to play. Yeah, chase me around the kraal...this is fun. Playing is so much fun. I will run away so they can't catch me. Maybe hiding under here...nope, they got me. Be gentle there big guy....my wings are delicate! Ah, maybe we are going somewhere fun. Easy big guy. No its alright I don't want to lay down...especially on this hard pillow that looks like a log. WAIT....what is going on, no no no..........
Andrea's viewpoint: I am not going to watch!
See, at least my viewpoint has a happy ending!
Friday was a school Farewell & Choir Celebration at our host school. It was a farewell function for a educator (their word for teacher) that had retired in 2003. So the party was right on time for South Africa. There is always a running joke about whether the time for an appointment is actual time or African time because African time is anywhere from 2 hours to 2 years later!? The party was also to celebrate the achievements of the school choir that achieved 1st place in three different languages (English, Afrikaans (kinda like African German), and Setswana). The party started right on African time. Everyone was told 9am but it didn't start til 10am...let me tell you how much patience I have acquired in just the first 3 months!? The party involved speeches (and a lot of them) and singing from the choir, and traditional dance. The traditional dance was great. Our host mother is the organiser of the dancers and they did about 7 different dances. About 2/3 of the way through (12:30am..this was one long party) the party the MC of the event and an educator at our school asked me to give a speech (sure why not!?) about the educator that was retiring (this lady that I had talked to for five minutes and I didn't know at all and had just had 7 others give at least 15 minute speeches about in Setswana)...sure why not. But I gave a short speech (1 minute) which I think one other person understood (Andrea) and then sat down. The party ended and the meal was finally served at 2. We were told the party would be from 9-12...instead 10-2:30. We finally left because we had to get started on the pies for the Thanksgiving feast on Saturday and all our friends were coming.
Saturday was Thanksgiving South African style. We started cook the meal at 8 or so. We cooked one turkey normally in the oven....which was delicious. And the other one I was in change. My host mother and I cooked it in a big cast iron kettle (that some people still cook all their meals in) outside with fire. Are you surprised that I volunteered to cook with fire!? It was a lot of fun and a good thing to learn, and I got to play with fire. We first cooked it in boiling water and then cooked it in a couple of inches of oil to give it some extra flavor....it was extra tasty! I also made the mashed potatoes in the cast iron kettles, although it was a bit smaller than the turkey one. I also took another step into manhood…carving my first and second turkeys (extra manly)!
The feast was huge and consisted of about 10 things. And we fed probably about 30 people. Every time I went back in the kitchen for seconds or thirds or fourths, there were new people trying the turkey and sides! But all the Americans sat down and enjoyed the feast with our host family. The desserts were also delicious and the pumpkin bread was to die for! After dinner, a couple of the girls that are always over at the house came and sang some songs as a thank you for tasting the feast. After that, and as we were about to head next door to our place and let the triptofin set in, a different group of girls came over and said they wanted to do some traditional dance for us. After about an hour of traditional dance on the porch, the place turned into a dance party with music and people coming from all over to have a good time. It was kind of crazy. There were 40 or so people on the lawn and the porch dance until it got dark out!? After that….we finally had some time to let the triptofin set in!? Sweet, sweet full stomach dreams.
That was our Thanksgiving weekend....it was a different, but that just goes along with who I am I guess. Hope all had a good Thanksgiving and took time before their feasts to share what they were thankful for. We did here....everyone was thankful for everyone back home and everyone here that makes this place as close to home as it can be! It was a great time.
That's is all and I will hand it over to the lady so she can tell her side of the story.
Peace love and slaughtered turkeys!
Hey all,
Well, Adam talked quite a bit there, and covered just about everything, (sorry for so much talk about the turkeys - he is so proud of that, and rightfully so, I suppose.) so there isn't much left for me to say. We really did have a great Thanksgiving. It was so much fun to have all the other Peace Corps folks here. It was the first time seeing many of them since training, and it was fun to hear everyone's stories about their schools and families and villages. We literally cooked from 8:00 in the morning until 2pm. It takes a lot of work to make a meal for 30 completely from scratch, and mostly without recipes! And I mean we used an actual pumpkin for the pies and bread. It was so rewarding to work that hard on cooking and have it turn out so well. Everyone here was really impressed and had a great time. It was definitely a Thanksgiving we will remember forever.
I don't really have much else to say. Just another quick note, today (Dec 1) was World AIDS Day. I think I will write an e-mail about the AIDS epidemic here some other time, but I'm guessing most of you didn't even know about AIDS day. It is always Dec. 1st (I can't believe it's December!!) so put it on the calendar for next year. We had a small candle lighting and prayer service at school, and then Adam and I went to church with our host mother for a special service. There were huge gatherings all over the country to remember those lost and pray for those who have the disease. I will leave it at that, and talk about it another day.
I hope you all had a great holiday and had fun going out Christmas shopping too. I definitely don't miss packed malls during the Christmas season!! School ends for the year on Tuesday, so we will have LOTS of time to write very soon. :o)
Love to you all,
A&A
Peace & Love from South Africa
Go Siame le Sala Sentle (Be alright and Stay Well!)
Thabo & Lerato
Adam & Andrea
1 The turkey meeting his match
2 Defeathering and bathing the birds
3 Neighbor lady showing the prize
4 The insides
5 The birds hanging out to dry
6 Me and my pride and joy
7 Golden brown fried bird!
8 Host ma and I watching the kettles
9 Carving
10 Table set for a king
11 Giving thanks before gorging
12 The table all set up
13 Traditional dance on the porch
12 December 2005
Greetings one and all!
Well, we are officially into our school break now, and I think I am speaking for both of us when I say we are officially bored too! No, it’s really not so bad – we are making a few improvements to our house like putting up shelves and hooks, goat-proofing the fences, and just taking time to read and hang out with our host family. So far, it hasn’t been too bad. I have successfully coaxed a few plants to grow in our garden, so I am hovering over those little green pepper plants and trying not to let them die again. I think they’re actually going to make it this time. They have been planted for about two weeks now and the sun hasn’t burned them to a crisp yet so I think they’ll be ok. It is watermelon season here, and they are CHEAP! (10 rand, which is about $1.50) Our host family bought one the other day and we ate it in the yard and then just threw the seeds in the ground and for some strange reason, they sprouted! So now we’re growing watermelons too. They’re outside the garden fence though, so pretty soon the goats will take notice and probably gobble them up. Hence the fence improvements I have spoken of earlier. Unfortunately for the goats, Adam also purchased a slingshot over the weekend, so hopefully we can fix the fence and spare them his wrath.
We took a little overnight trip to the next closest town, Vryburg, on Friday just to have a look around, see some new scenery, and visit with 4 of our friends who live in the area. We stayed in a nice little hostel for the night and had a braai, or barbeque, out on the patio and just relaxed in the company of fellow Americans. The highlight of the trip though, by far, was that our room at the hostel had a shower!! I don’t miss it so much when I’m at our house and taking ‘baths’ in the tub, but showers are just sooooooo much better! Don’t take them for granted – I think that is one of the things that I miss most!
Adam and I got to meet the Chief last week. When the new government was formed, they incorporated the local chiefs into the government system because it is such an old and established system that they couldn’t just do away with it. They basically serve as the local representatives, and still preside over the village court system too. The chief of our area isn’t particularly loved and respected by his subjects, but it’s just a good idea for us to meet him, so we went with one of our school’s principals last week. We had to wait about 2 hours, and then met with him for about 5 minutes before he had to meet with someone else. He seemed like a nice enough guy. We talked a little longer with his wife, who seems to want our help with a few things, so we’ll see where that goes. We found out when we got back home, that our village’s youth (who are fed up with the chief because he is never at his office and apparently doesn’t do anything) had somehow gotten the keys, and locked him and his staff out of the Tribal Office that day. Ooops. But we met his daughter, who is about our age and studies in Cape Town. She was really nice, so at least maybe we’ll make a friend out of it, and maybe have a place to stay in Cape Town.
Last week, school ended for the year on Tuesday, and we headed to a park in town to have a BBQ (yeah, we’ve been doing a lot of that lately!). The park was packed with teachers from surrounding schools there to celebrate the end of the year. It took about 2 hours to cook all of the meat that they had bought – for only 10 people! When we served up the plates, everyone received about two feet of sausage, three rolls, two slices of steak, and salad. The plates were literally overflowing. Adam and I just looked at each other like ‘are we supposed to eat all of this??’ but everyone just laughed – apparently they just usually make enough for everyone to take a bunch home with them for the next day or for their families. So we carried a huge bag of meat and bread home with us.
Well, I think that’s about all the news and stories for the week. We had some milestones, but not much really happened. I hope you are all well, and we’ll talk to you again sometime soon.
1 Meattttttttttttttt!
2 Andrea and some teachers
3 Like a lion...Adam too enjoys meat
4 Boy is getting BIG
Peace & Love from South Africa
Go Siame le Sala Sentle (Be alright and Stay Well!)
Thabo & Lerato
Adam & Andrea
14 October 2005
Dumelang borra le bomma! That is how I would greet you all in Setswana. Greetings are a big thing here. Everywhere you go, you are expected to greet the people you see, even if they are all the way across the street in the very back corner of their yard. If you see them and they see you, you must shout out a greeting of some kind. And people get upset if you don’t – like you are ignoring them on purpose. It is a nice concept – saying hello to your neighbors and strangers alike – something we don’t do in the US. Even we, as weird foreigners, are greeted everywhere we go. Think about how many people you greet when you walk down the street – only those you know, right? Maybe you mumble a hello to a stranger every now and again, but probably not often. In the big cities here you don’t greet everyone, but here in the villages it is rude not to.
The hospitality we have received has been astounding. Two families now, have taken us into their homes and treated us as family. The Kgadima family, at our training site, and now the Gaelejwe family, where we will be living for two years. We are living in an entirely separate house, next door to our host family. Our host father’s sister used to live there but she passed away a few years back and the house has stood empty ever since. The house is huge – 4 bedrooms and a kitchen, but they have sectioned off two of the rooms for us and fixed them up, and it will make for a good home. We still have to get some things to get settled in completely – like a small stove and fridge so we can cook for ourselves, but we are so glad to finally be in one spot for more than three weeks. We have a pretty large yard that the neighborhood goats, turkeys, and dogs like to wander through. I think we are going to set up a compost heap, and a pit for burning our paper trash, as there is no waste pickup. We have a lovely little pit latrine out in the corner of the yard too – no running water inside. We have installed a water storage tank – also known as a (clean) plastic garbage can – in the hallway, and will only have to carry water from the spigot down the road every couple of days. We do have electricity though, which is more than some of our friends have, so we are lucky. There are no street lights in the village, just little lights to illuminate the yards of the homes in the village, and nothing but the African bush surrounding our village, so we have some spectacular night sky viewing. Currently, there is a full moon, so we haven’t really gotten to take advantage of it yet, but the moonrises have been pretty awesome too, so it’s ok.
We are just beginning work in our schools – we will work with four in the area. One is close – in the same village that we live in, but for the others we will have to travel through the bush by bicycle to get there, which should be pretty awesome. Two of them are about 7K away from our village, and the other is about 5K. We will definitely get some exercise. It gets pretty darn hot here, and it’s not even really into summer yet. We are creeping up on the rainy season, and can’t wait. The dust here is unbelievable. It is a pretty dry climate, as we are on the fringes of the Kalahari Desert. Sometimes it gets really windy and these huge dust tornadoes form and blow through town. They are quite impressive. But the dust should calm down some with the advance of the rainy season, and things will hopefully turn green too. We want to plant a garden and grow some vegetables, and I can’t wait to see everything turn green. Right now the landscape is mostly browns and yellows, but we hear that things turn green, and that there are even flowers at times. I can’t wait. It has only rained twice in the two months we have been in South Africa, but they were pretty spectacular storms. The sound of a pounding rain on a tin roof is so loud, that you can’t talk to someone sitting next to you. You just have to wait until it passes.
I hope you are all able to see the photos we have attached. The first one is of our host father in Moletsi with a pen that Adam made and we gave to them as a gift. The next one is our entire Moletsi host family – Me with Johannes in the back (he’s 21), then Adam with our host father and mother (Michael and Makwena) and Daphney (25) in the front. Then group photo is from our swearing in ceremony – those are our friends and ‘neighbors’ – the other 8 volunteers in the NorthWest Province. Then there is a photo of Adam climbing a large rock outside of our village, one of me on my birthday, a photo of the dusty soccer field near where we trained, and the last is of the Jacaranda trees in Pretoria. They line the streets there – it is quite amazing. We were there at the right time! So enjoy! We will send more when we can. So until next time…
Hugs & Kisses,
Adam and Andrea
October 28, 2005
Hope all is well back in the States and work is going well for everyone. Things in South Africa are well. We completed our 7 weeks of training on Oct 13 and have been at site since. Training was pretty painful in the fact that it was extremely disorganized and long and boring! But that is all done now. The bright part of training was getting to know all the other volunteers from the US (88 in all) and our host family (the Kgadimas) that we stayed with. We stayed with a family that treated us very well and we were said to leave.
So we are finally at are permanent location for the next two years. It is a small village called Manyeding. The village is about 25 km outside of a great little town called Kuruman which you should be able to find on the map. It is on the border between the Northern Cape and Northwest Province. It is considered the Kalahari Desert where we are!? We are currently working with 4 different primary schools around our village. They are 1, 3, 5, and 8 km away from our home so I will get to ride a bunch while I am here. The people have been great and our host family (the Gaelejwes) here has been more than hospitable. We have a home next to our host family’s home. It is a brick house (large bricks) that we have taken over two of the rooms as our living quarters. We have a great long drop out back (pit latrine)! We don’t have running water however there is a consistent tap that we can fill up everyday. We do have the luxury of having electricity so that is nice because we have a small electric stove and lights! We really haven’t done much yet (as we aren’t really suppose to do much in the beginning but show our face and make contacts) we are helping a few things. And at the beginning of Dec is a month and a half long school break. We are on travel restriction from the Peace Corps (can’t travel for the first 3 months) so we will be in the village looking for stuff to do when that happens. I am hoping to get a soccer camp together to fill some of the time. That along with lots of reading and looking at donkeys. Our village is overrun by donkeys and goats….it is pretty amusing. The are donkey carts taking people around the village. Our village doesn’t really have any tar roads so it aint a bad options of transport but sadly I have yet to ride one. The village is just off a tar road though but not many cars travel on it. The stars at night are incredible though because of the lack of light pollution. I have never seen so many white lights in the sky! The only lights outside are those from a few of the houses with outdoor lights (one, two at the most) TV is a favorite pastime at night although we don’t have one. They are crazy about a few things on the tube: wrestling, yes WWE Wrestling which no one believes me is fake, soccer of course…..which South Africa is holding the World Cup in 2010, and soaps! They have a few from the states along with some south African version the most popular being Generations. One other crazy thing about the tube is the languages. Some shows like Generations the actors use at least 3 different languages with subtitled English and the news is done like 5 times in 5 different languages. South Africa has 11 official languages…so yeah, that is a lot.
The food is good. And we have been feed very well by our host families. The one staple food is called bogobe which is a kind of porridge that most people eat EVERY day! It is easy to make and it CHEAP and filling. It is made with water and processed corn meal. Boil water and mix in corn powder…stir! That’s it. Variety is not a big word in the diet scheme although you can find pretty much any food in the big towns as it is back home.
We have seen some wildlife so far but not in abundance. Lions in a cage at the one place we stayed for two days. Baboons giraffes warthog zebras and impalas along the roadside on one of our many trips to around South Africa during training.
What we were sent here to do was be a resource to our schools and thus far we have been doing a lot more this early on than I expected! School here is different to say the least. Two of the four schools we will work with have multi level classrooms (which I am guessing the older ones in the group may have experienced, haha) in which say, grade 3 and 4 are in the same class with the same teacher!? It is crazy. That along with the fact that the resources are quite limited and the teachers really don’t understand the new curriculum. There are a few obstacles to overcome but I really think there is a lot of promise in getting these kids a better education so that can achieve things. Another problem is just keeping the teachers in the classroom…on payday almost all the teacher will leave early 10 (school starts at 8) to go to town to pay bills and buy food!?
The beginning of the school days is my favorite part of school. It is called assembly and all the children live up according to grade and saw prayers and sing in unison. You the say “Hello learners” and the children will reply “Hello teachers, thank you”. Then they start a left, left, left right left and march off to class. I will eventually take some pics and video to share but that will be a while.
So this letter is so long because we have access to computers at 2 (no 3 now) schools now. We usually have some time to kill to so hopefully everyone will get a letter every once in a while. We hopefully will go to town 3-4 times a month to use the internet so I can actually send the letters to all of you. Hope no one is offend at mass sending of letters written by me (my African name is Thabo which means happiness) and Andrea (her african name is Lerato which means love) but we are hoping to keep in touch with everyone on our adventures through space and time. Sorry if you are getting repeat info too….I forget who I talk to and what I say. If you want to contact us by snail mail….we enjoy getting things in the mail
A. Liberatore
PO Box 2239
Kuruman 8460
Republic of South Africa
That is all for now. I have no real travel stories yet. All the traveling to this point has been planned out by Peace Corps. Once our first three months are up we will be traveling to some awesome places…I cant wait. I think the first stop will be Transfrontier Park and trying to catch a glimpse at the big five animals of SA. This park is closer than the famous Kruger Park (we will make it there too in time) to us. I can’t wait to travel because of all the possibilities.
Adam
November 4, 2005
Greetings all.
We had a pretty slow week here. We are still getting used to our schools, and they are still getting used to us too. We are working with four separate schools – all of them are primary schools. The one in the same village where we live, Manyeding, has about 225 students, grades 1-6, and seven teachers. It is our host school, and the one we spend the most time at. Our host mother is the third grade teacher here. It is probably the school with the most resources that we work with. They have a computer and copier, a staff room and principal’s office, a small and VERY disorganized library, and even two extra, unused classrooms. This contrasts quite a bit with another one of our schools, which is about 5K away. It only has grades 1-4, and about 50 kids, but there are only two teachers, and one big open room. They have no electricity (which isn’t as big of a problem as it sounds – at least not in summer), no computer, no staff room, and toilets with no doors. But life and learning seems to carry on there also. One of our other schools has about 170 kids, grades 1-7, with 6 teachers and a secretary. The school is a little run down, but they have a working computer and copier also, electricity, and really nice, new toilets. Our fourth school is another smaller one, with 80 students and three teachers for grades 1-6. One teacher has grades 1-3 in one classroom, and grades 4&5 and 6&7 are together. Multi-grade classrooms are something that we have never experienced before and which will provide quite a challenge. It seems to me that two grades in the same room is somewhat manageable, but three is another story. If any of you have any bright ideas for managing a multi-grade classroom, we’d love to hear it!
All in all, the school day is pretty similar to what we have in the US. The day starts with assembly, which is something the US doesn’t really have, where all the kids gather outside in the courtyard of the school to sing hymns and pray, and get school announcements and whatever other information they need to know about the day. (Kids with non-christian religions don’t have to participate in the hymns & prayers if they don’t want too.) Then they all march, and they do actually march, off to class. The school day is from about 7:45 to 1:00 for the younger kids and 1:45 for the older ones. All schools require uniforms – usually a black dress or pants with a blue or white or kakhi collared shirt. Another thing that is pretty different from the US is that after assembly and at the end of the day, the kids clean the school – sweeping and wiping off all chairs, windows etc, and watering the gardens if there is one.
One of the biggest problems we face are teachers who aren’t in the classroom enough. They enjoy chatting with one another, basking in the sun, or doing their lesson plans and grading during the time that they should be in the classroom teaching. It’s a pretty big problem, and one that we don’t really know how to handle yet. The school system in general needs quite a bit of help – especially in these rural schools, which is why we’re here, I guess. South Africa is changing over to a new kind of teaching – more like American classrooms, with lots of group work, and critical thinking, and hands on projects. Before the new curriculum, teachers just stood at the front of the room and talked, and made the students write it down and repeat what they said. The word of the teacher was the word of God, and you weren’t allowed to question it, or ask questions at all for that matter. So it’s a hard transition to make. Things were even worse during Apartheid, when the government thought that it wasn’t necessary for black South African’s to know any science or math. And all of our teachers grew up during Apartheid and were taught in that way, which makes it hard for them to turn around and teach in the new way. So we are here to help them make the transition, as well as just help them develop their resources and develop their math and science programs. Three of our schools have small libraries, which just means that there are some extra textbooks and a few (maybe 30) reading-for-fun books sitting on a shelf in the staff room, collecting dust. Most of the reading-for-fun books are in English, and not setswana, which is also a problem. Classes are taught in Setswana until fourth grade, where it is supposed to change over to English. In grade 4 it is probably half English, half Setswana, but will be totally English by the time they reach high school.
At times it feels like a big challenge, but other times I can see some of the steps we can take to slowly change things. Right now, we are just getting to know the schools and the staff and students. We are reviewing school policies and budgets, and teaching 50-year-old teachers, who have never seen a computer until a year ago, how to type. The school year is almost over, so we will probably not get into anything too big until next year. Next week starts final exams, which will continue until the end of the month. We are going on a field trip next week with one of our schools to some historical sites in the nearby town, so that should be fun.
We have been pretty busy at home too. We are cleaning up our yard, trying to goat-proof our fence, and start a garden. Yesterday we made a screen door out of our iron security door and some mosquito netting. We have started baking for our host family too – we made rice krispie treats, chocolate chip cookies, and banana bread so far, and they loved them all. Life is pretty slow here sometimes, but we haven’t gotten too bored yet. I think I will enjoy having time to bake and cook yummy meals and work on all kinds of other projects. Adam is going to pick up a guitar and will be a rock star by the time we head for home. Maybe we will come back with all kinds of skills we didn’t know we had.
Well, I hope life is good back in the US. We still haven’t had much time at the computer to use the internet when we are in town, so sorry to those of you who have sent e-mails. We will get around to responding one of these days. Hope you all had a great Halloween – it was a holiday sorely missed by Adam and I. Maybe next year we will introduce the idea to our village and see what happens. We are moving into summer now and it is weird to think that it is getting much colder for all of you.
Take care and we will write again soon…
Andrea
The photos are of a cool sunset the other night, and one of our host school and some of the kids…
Another weekly installment of the Adam and Andrea newsletter. Or Thabo and Lerato, as we are known here. Those are our Setswana names. Adam is Thabo, which means happiness, and I am Lerato, meaning love. Awwwwww, isn’t that cute... Today, we have a brief tour of our house for you – complete with photos. As I think I have said, we live in a pretty large house, that had been sitting empty since our host father’s sister passed away a few years back. The entire house is empty, but we only occupy two rooms of the house, as that is all we need. Here is the view from the front:
We made a screen door out of some mosquito netting that the Peace Corps gave us, and wrapped it around the security door that we have on the front door. It works quite well… Here also is our entry-way and you can see our lovely water storage container – aka trash can and our PC issue bicycles.
This is our living room and kitchen – they are in the same room. We have bought a small stove/oven – it’s about the same size as a microwave, so that we can cook for ourselves when we want to, but we have found that most of the time we eat dinners with our host family and cook only breakfast and lunch for ourselves. Also seen here is our bedroom – on the other side is only a bed, so there is no photo of that. Yes, that is a guitar…there is much free time and Adam hopes to FINALLY figure that toy out! It’s not very exciting.
Next you see our ‘tub’ – literally – that we bathe in, which is also in our bedroom. Yeah, baths are interesting – I think I speak for both of us when I say that we miss showers. Don’t take that for granted!! Baths are usually concluded with smelling of one’s self to make sure that the bathing has satisfied the removal of odor. One of our friends here has already set up a shower with a solar camp shower and I hope, no am, going to do the same once I get my hands on the right materials and a little more time. And the moment you’ve all been waiting for, the toilet! Our lovely little outhouse. What Lerato calls an outhouse, I like to call an office where most of my thinking goes on. :o)
And finally I’ll include a few photos of our family for you too… Our host brother Paseka all dressed up for church and the baby, Tlhalefo. And check out this sunset! We have to reduce the quality of the photos, but this is an awesome photo, I assure you. The house is a rondoval – a traditional African house that belongs to our neighbor. Monate! (beautiful!)
Otherwise, the week went very well. We went on a field trip to town with one of our schools on Wednesday, which was fun. We went on a tour of the post office, library, bank, the natural spring ‘the first eye’ that our town is famous for, and an old mission just outside of town. The mission is where the first bible was printed in all of Africa, by a man named Robert Moffit – and his daughter married David Livingstone, who many of you may know as someone who explored much of southern Africa. We took about 65 kids on a bus, all over town, and without ever taking roll from the moment we left school, we managed not to lose any of them. I think. We had another huge, noisy thunderstorm last night. So much for sleeping when those things come rolling through. It’s pretty awesome, though. Well, that’s about it for now. Final exams have started which basically means half days for the kids. They last about two weeks, and then it’s the end of the school year. That’s about it for me, I’ll pass it over to Adam for a few words…
The kids getting on the bus
One fun thing this week is that I have finally started to exercise regularly which a good thing. I am now known as the one who runs and ALL the children want to join in. Some days that means that I run a little slower to let all the other children follow….the thing is I am the only one wearing shoes and we are running on gravel at time!? Actually some of the kids like to wear slippers when running!
That is all for now this week…
Peace & Love from South Africa
Thabo & Lerato
Adam & Andrea
18 November 2005
Dumelang,
Well like I like to say another week another weekend!? All is still well in South Africa. The temperature seems to be a bit on the rise which means the hot will be getting hotter and then the hotter will be getting really hotter! My english has been improving. Last weekend we watched our host brother (well I guess he is our host nephew...the child of our host sister) get baptised! It was an exciting day for him and the braai (which is South African english for BBQ) afterwards was great. Lamb and cow...mmmmmm! The church service is what I would have considered to be a little long (at least for my taste). I know you are thinking that I can hardly sit still for the long 1 hour church services at home. So how long was this service you ask? And might I mention first that the service is Setswana….and although my Setswana is getting better and I know the general idea of what is happening in church....4 hours is still long for a service. Yes that is not a misprint, the church was four hours long. Got there at 9am and left at 1pm! And for some unforeseen reason I was not gnawing on my arm!? Surprising I know. Tlhalefo was a handsome little guy in an all white outfit complete with vest and bowtie!
Running around the villages continues and the other days we had 20 children with us! At a parents meeting at our school, our host mother encouraged the parents to tell their children if they see us running to come and join. It is pretty entertaining to be a part of. I think if I were to run and jump off a bridge the kids would too...but no need to worry for there are no bridges anywhere near. I should try jumping on a cow or something though.
Schools are going even more chaotic now since grades 3-7 are in final exam periods. The children arrive at normal time 8 and then have anywhere from 1-3 hours of free play time until the test starts. We are trying to convince the teachers to have class before the exam but have yet to prevail!?
Other good news is that we have pets....two different kinds. There is a natural spring in our village so there is an abundance of pond life. I am going to rig up a fishing pole one of these days and fish for the pan fish that are swimming around. But the pets that we got are tadpoles...just something to watch and talk to!? It is more exciting talking to tadpoles than to myself!? Our other lovely pets are two turkeys, Dr. Hyde and Mr. Jekyl that our host father bought for us the other day. These guys won't live the happy life the tadpoles will. Next weekend the 7 other NW volunteers that we became friends with during our training will come and celebrate Thanksgiving with us in the village of Manyeding! One of the turkeys will meet his fate on Thursday. Our host father will teach me how to take a live turkey and turn it into a delicious Thanksgiving meal! My first Thanksgiving slaughtering experience. I can now cross that one off my list....much to the dismay of the wife!? Our host father also promises me to take me hunting in the field....not sure to hunt what but he promises that we will kill something.
So the letters may get longer and more frequent now…over the last two weeks I have been figuring out how to use, and teach how to use our host family’s computer. I am using the term computer very lightly here. I have calculators that are more powerful and my camera has more memory! But it takes me back to the old days when we got our first computer….and were running from a DOS setup. I typed most of this letter in Word Perfect 5.1 on their computer last night and thank to Bill Gates and Windows XP, I imported it right into Word. The computer is very slow and quite interesting to figure out all the old commands and not having a mouse. I also have setup the printer….which is an old dot matrix that is supposed to use the continuous feed paper of the olden days. I got it to print…although not the most beautiful. It uses an old ribbon for ink like typewriters used!? But our host mother wants to learn to type and it can definitely do that. It seems like everything here is back a few decades! The computer also has a few classic games!! California Games being one of them!
The baptism….part of the marathon church service along with our host dad and his grandbaby…and a close up of the handsome little guy
Our friends, Mr. Jekyl and Dr. Hyde…aka Thanksgiving dinner and a back up!
Peace & Love from South Africa
Go Siame le Sala Sentle (Be alright and Stay Well!)
Thabo & Lerato
Adam & Andrea
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This message contains images and descriptions that may be unsuitable for those who have heart disease, diabetes, weak stomach or other aliment that doesn't like carnage of innocent animals to make delicious feasts!?
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02 December 2005
Dumelang Everyone!
Happy Belated Thanksgiving!
I hope your feast was as big and monate (delicious) as ours was! We were busy all last weekend cooking and entertaining our friends who came to visit. There were 7 Americans that came and celebrated Thanksgiving with us on Saturday! It was quite the event and the food was awesome and plentiful.
The event of Thanksgiving actually started on Thursday (actual Thanksgiving) when I took part in slaughtering both Mr Hyde and Dr Jekyll. It was quite exciting although it wasn’t as barbaric as I thought (or probably hoped) it would be. But, I did finally pass into manhood by slaughtering my first animal! Finally, no more little boy here. Although this is kind of gory, it is much better than buying the one in the store...and the vegetarian even ate a little turkey on the account that the birds lived a happy life and died a noble death!?
Slaughtering from the eyes of the slaughter goes a little something like this:
1. Discuss whether to use a thipa (knife) or selepe (axe).
1a. Boil water with fire in giant cast iron pot
1b. Go into kraal with someone else and chase turkey down
1c. Grab by wings and carry over to slaughtering log
2. Decide on axe
2a. Place neck of turkey on log
3. Use axe to cut throat
4. Hold bird until blood drains out and stops moving
5. Take bird and place in giant bowl (I mean giant)
6. Pour boiling water over turkey in bowl
7. Remove every feather by pulling
8. Put turkey in another bowl filled with lukewarm water
9. Bath turkey as if it is a small child that is very dirty
10. Take knife (and let me tell you the knives here are no where close to being sharp....maybe five years ago but not now!) and cut off head and feet (for those of you thinking that these don't get eaten here...think again. The neighbor lady that helped with the slaughtering took both the heads (turkey heads, turkey heads, eat them up yum!) and feet of the turkey as payment...and was going to eat it for dinner!? We have tried chicken feet a couple of times, not very exciting, and Andrea is not a fan at all. It is weird that what you are eating looks EXACTLY the same as it does on the animal. The problem with the feet (haven't tried heads...yet, although our host sister tells us that if we eat heads we will get smarter, eyes and we will get better sight and ear to hear better.) is that there isn't that much meat and you have to eat around the nails. Imagine eating chicken skin off the feet of a chicken....yup that is it.) The heads were then taken and skinned in a way. She didn't take all the skin off but if you think of what a turkey head looks like, it ain't pretty and has weird skin growths that need to be picked off. Exciting! The feet also need the top layer of skin or shell or armor or whatever it is that is on them. Now think chicken feet 10 times bigger. After soaking in the boiling water for a while, you grab each toe and pull. You pull until the outer skeleton slides right off. It was pretty wild to say the least. Then proceed to do the rest of the toes and right up the leg! If I were to ever imagine what a dinosaur leg would look like, that is it. Moving on...
11. Make an incision near the butt
12. Pull out the insides (again, the lovely neighbor lady was very excited to have more dinner) and wash and clean. Cleaning the insides involves empting what Mr Turkey had for dinner yesterday and the day before.
13. Cut off neck farther down
14. Carefully cut out stomach from the top, meaning where the head is. (Again, neighbor lady excited about food and again you can see undigested food this time!)
14. Hack a hole through one leg
15. Take some wire and thread it through the leg
16. Hang turkey from tree branch for about an hour to dry out
17. Repeat with other turkey
18. Place in freezer
19. Dream about eating them
20. Put in refrigerator
21. Daydream about eating them
22. Cook them
23. Eat them up, yum
That is it folks, the day and the life of Thanksgiving Day turkey!
Now, what it must have been like from the eyes of the slaughteree:
Just spending another quite day in the Gaelejwe's kraal feasting on some delicious corn and water with epsom salts...yum. The chicken are once again entertaining us with their theatrics and one of the other males turkeys from the neighborhood is back on the other side of the fence trying to act all tough and say this is his land we are treading on. He has come everyday we have been here raising his tail feathers like he is some kind of king of the world...but he can't hurt us because he can't come in and we can't get out. Oh wait...who are these two humans coming into the kraal....they are not the normal guy with the yummy food. Ut oh, it seems like they want to play. Yeah, chase me around the kraal...this is fun. Playing is so much fun. I will run away so they can't catch me. Maybe hiding under here...nope, they got me. Be gentle there big guy....my wings are delicate! Ah, maybe we are going somewhere fun. Easy big guy. No its alright I don't want to lay down...especially on this hard pillow that looks like a log. WAIT....what is going on, no no no..........
Andrea's viewpoint: I am not going to watch!
See, at least my viewpoint has a happy ending!
Friday was a school Farewell & Choir Celebration at our host school. It was a farewell function for a educator (their word for teacher) that had retired in 2003. So the party was right on time for South Africa. There is always a running joke about whether the time for an appointment is actual time or African time because African time is anywhere from 2 hours to 2 years later!? The party was also to celebrate the achievements of the school choir that achieved 1st place in three different languages (English, Afrikaans (kinda like African German), and Setswana). The party started right on African time. Everyone was told 9am but it didn't start til 10am...let me tell you how much patience I have acquired in just the first 3 months!? The party involved speeches (and a lot of them) and singing from the choir, and traditional dance. The traditional dance was great. Our host mother is the organiser of the dancers and they did about 7 different dances. About 2/3 of the way through (12:30am..this was one long party) the party the MC of the event and an educator at our school asked me to give a speech (sure why not!?) about the educator that was retiring (this lady that I had talked to for five minutes and I didn't know at all and had just had 7 others give at least 15 minute speeches about in Setswana)...sure why not. But I gave a short speech (1 minute) which I think one other person understood (Andrea) and then sat down. The party ended and the meal was finally served at 2. We were told the party would be from 9-12...instead 10-2:30. We finally left because we had to get started on the pies for the Thanksgiving feast on Saturday and all our friends were coming.
Saturday was Thanksgiving South African style. We started cook the meal at 8 or so. We cooked one turkey normally in the oven....which was delicious. And the other one I was in change. My host mother and I cooked it in a big cast iron kettle (that some people still cook all their meals in) outside with fire. Are you surprised that I volunteered to cook with fire!? It was a lot of fun and a good thing to learn, and I got to play with fire. We first cooked it in boiling water and then cooked it in a couple of inches of oil to give it some extra flavor....it was extra tasty! I also made the mashed potatoes in the cast iron kettles, although it was a bit smaller than the turkey one. I also took another step into manhood…carving my first and second turkeys (extra manly)!
The feast was huge and consisted of about 10 things. And we fed probably about 30 people. Every time I went back in the kitchen for seconds or thirds or fourths, there were new people trying the turkey and sides! But all the Americans sat down and enjoyed the feast with our host family. The desserts were also delicious and the pumpkin bread was to die for! After dinner, a couple of the girls that are always over at the house came and sang some songs as a thank you for tasting the feast. After that, and as we were about to head next door to our place and let the triptofin set in, a different group of girls came over and said they wanted to do some traditional dance for us. After about an hour of traditional dance on the porch, the place turned into a dance party with music and people coming from all over to have a good time. It was kind of crazy. There were 40 or so people on the lawn and the porch dance until it got dark out!? After that….we finally had some time to let the triptofin set in!? Sweet, sweet full stomach dreams.
That was our Thanksgiving weekend....it was a different, but that just goes along with who I am I guess. Hope all had a good Thanksgiving and took time before their feasts to share what they were thankful for. We did here....everyone was thankful for everyone back home and everyone here that makes this place as close to home as it can be! It was a great time.
That's is all and I will hand it over to the lady so she can tell her side of the story.
Peace love and slaughtered turkeys!
Hey all,
Well, Adam talked quite a bit there, and covered just about everything, (sorry for so much talk about the turkeys - he is so proud of that, and rightfully so, I suppose.) so there isn't much left for me to say. We really did have a great Thanksgiving. It was so much fun to have all the other Peace Corps folks here. It was the first time seeing many of them since training, and it was fun to hear everyone's stories about their schools and families and villages. We literally cooked from 8:00 in the morning until 2pm. It takes a lot of work to make a meal for 30 completely from scratch, and mostly without recipes! And I mean we used an actual pumpkin for the pies and bread. It was so rewarding to work that hard on cooking and have it turn out so well. Everyone here was really impressed and had a great time. It was definitely a Thanksgiving we will remember forever.
I don't really have much else to say. Just another quick note, today (Dec 1) was World AIDS Day. I think I will write an e-mail about the AIDS epidemic here some other time, but I'm guessing most of you didn't even know about AIDS day. It is always Dec. 1st (I can't believe it's December!!) so put it on the calendar for next year. We had a small candle lighting and prayer service at school, and then Adam and I went to church with our host mother for a special service. There were huge gatherings all over the country to remember those lost and pray for those who have the disease. I will leave it at that, and talk about it another day.
I hope you all had a great holiday and had fun going out Christmas shopping too. I definitely don't miss packed malls during the Christmas season!! School ends for the year on Tuesday, so we will have LOTS of time to write very soon. :o)
Love to you all,
A&A
Peace & Love from South Africa
Go Siame le Sala Sentle (Be alright and Stay Well!)
Thabo & Lerato
Adam & Andrea
1 The turkey meeting his match
2 Defeathering and bathing the birds
3 Neighbor lady showing the prize
4 The insides
5 The birds hanging out to dry
6 Me and my pride and joy
7 Golden brown fried bird!
8 Host ma and I watching the kettles
9 Carving
10 Table set for a king
11 Giving thanks before gorging
12 The table all set up
13 Traditional dance on the porch
12 December 2005
Greetings one and all!
Well, we are officially into our school break now, and I think I am speaking for both of us when I say we are officially bored too! No, it’s really not so bad – we are making a few improvements to our house like putting up shelves and hooks, goat-proofing the fences, and just taking time to read and hang out with our host family. So far, it hasn’t been too bad. I have successfully coaxed a few plants to grow in our garden, so I am hovering over those little green pepper plants and trying not to let them die again. I think they’re actually going to make it this time. They have been planted for about two weeks now and the sun hasn’t burned them to a crisp yet so I think they’ll be ok. It is watermelon season here, and they are CHEAP! (10 rand, which is about $1.50) Our host family bought one the other day and we ate it in the yard and then just threw the seeds in the ground and for some strange reason, they sprouted! So now we’re growing watermelons too. They’re outside the garden fence though, so pretty soon the goats will take notice and probably gobble them up. Hence the fence improvements I have spoken of earlier. Unfortunately for the goats, Adam also purchased a slingshot over the weekend, so hopefully we can fix the fence and spare them his wrath.
We took a little overnight trip to the next closest town, Vryburg, on Friday just to have a look around, see some new scenery, and visit with 4 of our friends who live in the area. We stayed in a nice little hostel for the night and had a braai, or barbeque, out on the patio and just relaxed in the company of fellow Americans. The highlight of the trip though, by far, was that our room at the hostel had a shower!! I don’t miss it so much when I’m at our house and taking ‘baths’ in the tub, but showers are just sooooooo much better! Don’t take them for granted – I think that is one of the things that I miss most!
Adam and I got to meet the Chief last week. When the new government was formed, they incorporated the local chiefs into the government system because it is such an old and established system that they couldn’t just do away with it. They basically serve as the local representatives, and still preside over the village court system too. The chief of our area isn’t particularly loved and respected by his subjects, but it’s just a good idea for us to meet him, so we went with one of our school’s principals last week. We had to wait about 2 hours, and then met with him for about 5 minutes before he had to meet with someone else. He seemed like a nice enough guy. We talked a little longer with his wife, who seems to want our help with a few things, so we’ll see where that goes. We found out when we got back home, that our village’s youth (who are fed up with the chief because he is never at his office and apparently doesn’t do anything) had somehow gotten the keys, and locked him and his staff out of the Tribal Office that day. Ooops. But we met his daughter, who is about our age and studies in Cape Town. She was really nice, so at least maybe we’ll make a friend out of it, and maybe have a place to stay in Cape Town.
Last week, school ended for the year on Tuesday, and we headed to a park in town to have a BBQ (yeah, we’ve been doing a lot of that lately!). The park was packed with teachers from surrounding schools there to celebrate the end of the year. It took about 2 hours to cook all of the meat that they had bought – for only 10 people! When we served up the plates, everyone received about two feet of sausage, three rolls, two slices of steak, and salad. The plates were literally overflowing. Adam and I just looked at each other like ‘are we supposed to eat all of this??’ but everyone just laughed – apparently they just usually make enough for everyone to take a bunch home with them for the next day or for their families. So we carried a huge bag of meat and bread home with us.
Well, I think that’s about all the news and stories for the week. We had some milestones, but not much really happened. I hope you are all well, and we’ll talk to you again sometime soon.
1 Meattttttttttttttt!
2 Andrea and some teachers
3 Like a lion...Adam too enjoys meat
4 Boy is getting BIG
Peace & Love from South Africa
Go Siame le Sala Sentle (Be alright and Stay Well!)
Thabo & Lerato
Adam & Andrea
posted by aliberatinsa at 11:46 PM
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