The Love and the Land

When I actually stop to think about it, it makes me feel quite overwhelmed. Last year this time I was on the other side of the country in the sandy sweltering bowl of the Kalahari living a life so different from what I’m living now that I can scarcely believe I am still in the same country. When I close my eyes I can still see it…still feel it…the low rusting tin roof of my crumbling brick house…the dingy rug covering the cracked and uneven foundation…the heat of the early summer sun…the glare of the sand …my host mothers sweet round face smiling up at me…the fiery sunsets burning from one end of the horizon to the other…that familiar glow of the pale earth at dusk. It was my home…my whole life. It was a simple life, but at the same time a challenging life…the blistering heat and freezing cold of my un-insulated home, the scarcity of water and constant hauling to and fro of buckets, the constant treating of water and constant battle with pests. I can say, however, that both despite and because all of this I love my life there. I loved the place and the people and the land. I felt like I was one of them, among them, living their life the way they lived it. I couldn’t help but take pride in the humility of it all. I couldn’t help but be thankful every day for the experience. For, there is nothing more odious to my mind than being privileged, ungrateful, and blind to the plight of the “two-thirds world”—as it is often called in international political literature. Learning to understand this way of living and breaking free of any sense of entitlement or callousness to those who live in such, or even much worse circumstances was one of the greatest motivating factors for joining the Peace Corps at all. The struggle of life there was my motivation and inspiration every day. 

…But one day in late September I woke to find myself in this brave new world. It’s been a full two months, but I fear it hasn’t yet sunk in yet. I was there when it all happened…the displacement, the waiting, the anticipation and disappointments of the search for a new home, yet it still feels like a dream. A dream that passed in such a blur…a dream from which I have not yet woken. On the day Charlie brought me to Lorraine I remember feeling numb on the inside. The war within between feelings excitement and sadness was too much—and as is typical for me in such cases—they were forced back into some deep chasm of the heart from which they may, or may not ever emerge. It’s where all my dark feelings go. There, left untended, they haunt me from time to time, casting shadows on my heart at the oddest of moments. I just stared out the window the whole drive watching the scenery go by. It was so enormous and majestic. Everything lush and green, with mountains and valleys swelling and dipping as far the eye could see. This was a land of plenty. Endless acres of fruit trees lined the roads leading through Tzaneen and all along the stretch to the village the rocky mountain faces loomed large above the land scape. By now it has become a familiar sight. Just as the familiar rumble of tires on the bumpy gravel road to Bona Bona became the comforting sign that home was near, so too have the mountains of central Limpopo. I have learned to love those mountains. When the shadow of our local mountain appears on the horizon I have started to feel a similar sense of relief as I did when heading for my home in the desert. Yet there is still a long way to go. It is such a different world from what I’ve known. 

When I open my eyes in the radiance of the 5:30 am sun I still sometimes feel surprised by how high the ceiling is in my new home. More shocking is the fact that I’m sprawled diagonally across a bed from which my feet do NOT protrude. When I crawl out from under the mosquito net my feet touch a carpeted floor, and across from the bed I see my school things piled on a two person sofa. My tired feet shuffle out of the door and over to the bathroom…a REAL bathroom. It isn’t pretty: narrow with black tiles and toilet, basin, and bath in an ugly 70’s pea green. When I sit on the toilet I can easily rest my head on the sink—something my American and German friends would surely find obnoxious—but the remarkable thing is that there is a toilet at all—and indoors at that! Not to mention a basin and bath with running water! Gone are the days of bathing in buckets and storing water. Two months in it still feels like a miracle. I never imagined I’d feel that way about what, by American standards, is the ugliest most impractical bathroom imaginable, but life in the Kalahari has changed me. It is needless to say that my new family is rather well off. I live in 1 ½ rooms of their old 3 room house, adjacent to the main house. Yet it is almost the size of my old host mother Ma T’s, main house. This families main house is far more luxurious…it feels like any home in America, complete to coffee maker, treadmill, and flat screen TV. I almost cried when Mel first took me to see the house. Not only it the house itself remarkably comfortable but also the yard that surrounds it. The courtyard is beautifully paved and is swept and scrubbed daily by the cleaning lady. The lawn surrounding the courtyard is beautifully landscaped, with vibrant green hedges trimmed and shaped to perfection, throngs of palms, cycads, rose bushes and other assorted tropical plants. To the back is a vegetable garden and throngs of mango and banana trees. It is like a small paradise in every way. Just outside of the compound walls the local mountain seems close enough to touch. I could hardly imagine a more beautiful place to live. Added to this is the amazingness of my new family. A husband and wife in their 40’s with 4 children. Both are employed as teachers and are caring and ambitious people who run multiple small businesses in addition to their teaching careers. They are well educated, as are their four children ages 7 to 23. They have shown me such kindness and hospitality. Already I feel very close to them. 

Amidst all of the beauty and my growing affection for this new place and its people, however, I still sometimes feel a pinch of guilt; a small bit of pain at the thought that once again I am living among the privileged.  When I see the large, succulent dark green leaves of the spinach growing in our garden, I remember how Ma T struggled and scratched in the Kalahari sands for months just to coax out a few considerably less impressive heads of spinach.  When I turn on the pipe to fill my bath tub I think of all the children of Bona Bona carting buckets of salty water from the tap to their homes across the village. And I can’t help but wonder what my neighbors think of me. I am already apt to be seen as the “rich American” by those around me, but to live with a well-to-do-family only furthers that image and may give the impression that I only associate with such people…that I think myself above them. Whenever I drive past the kids walking barefoot to school in one or the other of my mom’s cars, I feel the pinch. Of course this could all be hyperactive American cultural sensitivity at work, but it worries me none the less. Guilt of this kind is a common part of the Peace Corps experience and I suppose it will never go away. In Bona Bona at least, it was less acute than now. Yet I also realize that even people here who are struggling have things much easier than the people of Bona Bona; They can grow food for one, they are also close to town and transport is readily available and most importantly there are businesses and an opportunities to make some sort of living. In truth Lorraine is more of a town than a village. It is at least 20 times the size of Bona Bona and far less rural. It is remarkable what a difference location can make. It is remarkable that two so drastically different ways of life coexist…but this is the defining reality of life in South Africa.  

Given the circumstances, starting over in Lorraine hasn’t been all too difficult compared to adjusting to life in Bona Bona. I am in a much more comfortable living situation and much better prepared for the challenges of village and school life. Furthermore, I can admit that despite the pain of separation, I have always secretly wanted to live in the Limpopo province. It is what I desired most at the beginning. And it is all rather incredible that, through a unfortunate turn of fate that fancy of mine has now become a solid reality. It is strange how things work out sometimes. Sometimes at the morning assembly I just stand outside of the principal’s office and take in the sight…the learners all huddled in the middle of the school yard—a swarm of blue and grey; the rows of rusty colored brick classrooms neatly aligned on a balding patch of earth; above, the dark shapes of the mountain peaks to the west. It is a particularly impressive sight on partly cloudy days, when patches of sun accent the greenery on the mountain side and the cumulus clouds in an electric blue sky lay on the summits like a blanket. Added to the scene are the voices of children singing their morning choruses and saying their prayers before heading to class. Morning assembly is a scene that has become so normal to me it hardly strikes me as unusual anymore, though it is something that would never happen in an American school—particularly not the praying part. Here it is standard and sometimes, if I close my eyes I can imagine I’m at assembly at my old elementary school in Bona Bona, with all of my old students. I can still see their faces in my mind. 

 

It has been decided that I will work almost exclusively in the primary school for the remainder of my time in country. As was the case last year, I have begun my work here in the fourth school term. It is always a rather chaotic time of year in which schedules and structures maintained throughout the year seem to speedily disintegrate. I’ve earned enough by now, however, to know how to cope with the chaos. I’ve devoted myself to teaching grade 6 and grade 3 English. I’ve been taking full advantage of the extra class time created by preoccupied and overburdened teachers who cut class periods in order to catch up on marking and paperwork. It has given me much needed “quality time” with the students, getting to know them and what they need the most help with. Making the shift from an elementary school with 200 learners to one with 800+ learners has required some serious adjustment on my part. With grade 6 being a class of almost 100 learners we got off to a rough start, but by the 3^rd week of teaching I really felt I was getting the hang of it. I feel optimistic about the coming year. I feel optimistic about the plans now coming together in my mind and the relationships I’ve been forming with my family and colleagues. I feel optimistic about the potential of this place and its people. One thing is certain in this life: sometimes we lose things we love. But it is equally true that sometimes, we must let go of what we love to receive what we need…or an even greater love that what we’ve known.

The Lady of Limpopo

The story of how that “pivotal moment” finally came goes back to the previously mentioned evening in Pretoria...sometime in the middle of the two weeks I spent sitting around there. It was one of those days on which there was a mixed bag of volunteers staying at the guest house (PCVs generally tend to frequent the same accommodations throughout their service. A note to my South African friends running hospitality businesses: win over a few PCVs to your establishment and you’ve given yourself a gift that just keeps giving. Once it catches on, more PVCs from that group will start coming, as well as subsequent groups that find out via word of mouth…it’s not a bad business strategy…continuing…) On said night a group of us went out to one of our favorite local establishments to have a few drinks and chat it up. Amongst the group was a wonderful young lady id only just met…ill call her Mel. Mel was of one of those “older generation” PCVs who was just about to finish her service and head back to the US. She’d been going through all those “close of service” (COS) motions and it was an emotional time for her and the others of her generation. As we sat over our wine she began to tell me about her village and the worked she’d done…as well as the work she’d started and hadn’t finished. As she was talking I started having a really strange sort of feeling…I suppose it was like a premonition or some kind of divine hint that this was more than just another great PCV story. I listened with great interest as she went on about how she’d started organizing a library at the high school there. Funds had been raised and payments made for a shipment of books from a donor organization in the US. They were poised to receive enough books to make for a respectable collection. Yet here she sat, suddenly in the middle of her COS. The clock had run out on her. The books were to arrive sometime in the near future, but who could manage their delivery now?  What would happen with them? It was like watching a dream die…all her hard work and planning gone to waste. I could see the pain in her face as she explained.

 It was at that point that something clicked inside me. I became certain…this was not just a chance meet like any other—neither was it just another evening out for drinks. No indeed! This was none other than providence at work. How else could it be that the two of our paths had crossed at that particular juncture? And how indeed did it come to be that in so large a crowd I happened to sit across from her at the table? One may never know. All I know is that it fit like a glove. Me, there with my sorrow at being ripped away from my old community and all the preparatory work I’d done—including preparations for a library at the high school, which lay a ruinous ash heap at that very moment (just like all my aspirations for that village)—and she, with all her regret over the very same work that now would be left desolate. I looked at her over my wine glass, my eyes widening with amazement. She caught my gaze and instantly knew what I was thinking. “Hey! Maybe you should come work at my site when I leave!” I agreed heartily “Absolutely!” The rush of excitement between us was palpable. We both vowed to contact our supervisor about it and see whether or not it was a real possibility. I had no idea what her site was like. I knew only that it was in Limpopo province somewhere near Tzaneen, but my heart had instantly latched on to the idea. Somehow I just knew it was right. We wasted no time in contacting our Peace Corps supervisor about the prospect the very next day. I’m not sure how long I would have been stuck in limbo otherwise. Perhaps two more months would have gone by before a new placement was found for me. But as it was, God intervened to do the work the Peace Corps was too preoccupied to do.  

Over the next few weeks my supervisor as well as Mel herself worked together over the next few weeks to seal the deal. Naturally there were a lot of organizational details that had to be sorted out before I could actually move in. Housing with a family had to be arranged and approved of…the school(s) had to agree to have me, the Department of Education in Limpopo had to agree to host me…and of course, as is common here in South Africa, every person in that department with a shred of say on the matter had to say their piece twice over before anything could happen. This latter detail inevitably led to some being jerked around emotionally for me. There were a few days of tension in which the department tried to insist on putting me at a location of their choice, rather than in Lorraine ga Sekororo, where Mel had been serving—even though all the preliminary details had already been worked out.  This provided a good dose of frustration for all of us on the Peace Corps side. In the end, however, providence reigned and on a sunny day of late September I was on my way from the capital to the Kalahari to get my things and move clear across the country to the heart of Limpopo…the country’s fruit capital…in every way the opposite of everything I’d known in Bona Bona.

Saying good bye to my family and friends there was a painful ordeal. It was hasty and sloppy. The Peace Corps driver tasked with chauffeuring me (who I’ll call Charlie) did his best to entertain me on the hours long drive from the capital. He was great company indeed. On the way, we stopped to pick up another volunteer (Kay, as I will call him) who had been my closest neighbor. He’d offered to help me with the move. It was time to rip off the band aid. We had set out around 6am and arrived at Bona Bona around one. It was such a strange feeling being back after such a long absence. The familiar faces of my neighbors and students could be seen milling about the school yard and down the sandy road towards my old home. My chest tightened when we drove through the gate into my Host family’s yard. I had seen my mama in two whole months and hadn’t been able to speak to her at well. I nearly cried when I saw her sweet round face looking up at me from her petite frame. She was so glad to see me. She asked me what was happening and if I was going to stay. I tried in very broken Setswana to explain that I couldn’t…that I had to leave. I was sure she was very confused. Charlie tried to explain more fully in Setswana. She simply nodded and didn’t say much. I could tell, however, that she was disappointed. I unlocked the door to my small brick house and Charlie, Kay and I entered. I had to be fast. Lingering would only make it worse—beside which, time was of the essence. We had to drive back down to Vryburg before it got too late. I rushed to pack clothes and other essential belongings and speedily rake through the other items for anything thing that might be of secondary importance. 

It was a great help and comfort to have Kay along. He was quick and smart about packing and kept me moving when I inclined towards emotional paralysis. I no more than an hour the deed was done, the truck was loaded, and I had a few minutes to exhale. I have never been good with long good byes. So after presenting some small gifts to my host mom and her daughter in law and grandchild; and after taking a few more pictures with my family I quickly said goodbye and was whisked away. I felt numb inside. I managed to stop briefly at the primary school to say goodbye to the teachers there. When I arrived some of the high school students were there taking and exam so I peeked in to say goodbye…somehow that goodbye hurt the most…to see their excited faces when I came in followed by the pain and confusion as I explained that I wouldn’t be coming back. My last stop in the village was to see what was left of the high school. It was really eerie….the school yard almost seemed post-apocalyptic. All that remained were hollow shells of the buildings; strewn inside were corroded and caved in slabs of metal that once were the roof, atop the ashy carcasses of tables, chairs and metal filing cabinets. It looked very much the way I felt at that point in time. All the way back down that bumpy 25k of gravel road (which was at fault for all this mess) I couldn’t stop thinking about that scene.

Limbo (Part2)

It had been the idea of the Peace Corps supervisor for the region of Northern Cape (NC). Why should I sit around at a guesthouse being bored out of my mind when I could try to make myself useful at the Pre-service Training (PST) of the upcoming generation of volunteers?  (At that point in time the plan was to find a new site for me in NC. It only made sense…i would be living in the same climate and language zone. Furthermore, the fact that 2 volunteers from that region had resigned their service meant that at least two sites were already prepared to host volunteers and were now left without. It was an easy solution…Unfortunately, something Peace Corps hadn’t counted on interfered in that plan…but more on that later.) So, much to my delight I was invited to go to the training site in Mpumalanga province to teach a few training sessions to the newbies. Mpumalanga is a different world from where I’m from in the Kalahari. It’s known for is lush greenery and rolling hills. Yet the pleasure of the land itself was only secondary to the excitement of getting the opportunity to meet the new volunteers. In a way it would be like meeting myself a year ago—and since I would basically be starting my Peace Corps experience from scratch in a new place, it was only appropriate for me to be at PST again as well…unusually serendipitous timing to become displaced I dare say!

The new volunteers (SA26) turned out to be quite a charming group. They were quite different from my own youthful and rambunctious group (the 24’s.) They had a larger percentage of volunteers 40 and above and at least half of the group are actually trained teachers. One got the sense that they were dedicated hard working people who took their Peace Corps calling serious. There weren’t as many fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants types, looking to make something of themselves by means of the Peace Corps experience, as was the case for our group. I got along with them quite well I found. Being able to teach adults in their native language was a welcome change from teaching elementary level Setswana speakers. It seemed almost too enjoyable to be considered work. Needless to say, I felt very useful for at least 10 days and made some new friends while I was at it. (Aside: Included among those new friends was a gentleman who spoke at least 4 languages fluently…including German (my favorite of course) and who happened to have done a study abroad at the University of Tuebingen, in Germany—at the same time I was there doing my master’s degree. What a strange bit of coincidence! To think…I must have passed him numerous times on the street, not knowing id be meeting him about 5 years later in South Africa of all places!...Small world.)

My unexpected temp job as a PST trainer came to an end sooner than I was ready for it to and was followed by some quality time in the First World hub of South Africa—Pretoria. I’m not sure how I spent my time during that two week hiatus in the capital, but the days seemed to fly by at an alarming rate. I had nothing to do, but was somehow plenty busy. Many of my fellow volunteers passed through during that time…those from my training group and several from other “older” groups…all for various committee meetings. There were also a few who were displaced like myself. Those two weeks may not have been productive in terms of my job as a PCV, but I did reap yet another harvest of new friends. One such friend was young woman close to my age of Trinidadian decent. I found, for the first time someone who understood me and could truly relate to me my particular version of the Peace Corps experience. Being a first generation American of Caribbean heritage gives one a particular slant on things that differs from that of the average mainstream, hardcore American volunteer. Sometimes in Peace Corps life, having that one person who “gets” you means the difference between coping well and being out on a LIMB (…it’s one of those great acronyms that specialists love to come up with. It stands Lonely, ­Isolated, Miserable, and Depressed…a common part of PC experience. So there you have it! I DID learn something new at my second PST!) 

While I was sitting in the capital, my supervisors were busy trying to find me a new place to live. The aforementioned plan to put me deeper in the Kalahari had a wrench tossed into it when the fires of Bona-Bona began to spread. The stretch of gravel road the villagers were raising hell about there stretches on for another 50 kilometers or so through NC and down towards Kuruman. The villages in which I could have potentially been placed are unfortunately also along that road and in South Africa, malcontent seems to be contagious. After the much publicized Bona-Bona incident, other villages began to protest as well, closing down their schools for indefinite amounts of time. As it was reported, they were refusing to reopen schools until they saw evidence that their demands (for the road to be paved) were being met. The original hope of my supervisors was that things would die down, reality would set in in the villages, and in a few weeks id be able to move to the area. But after an entire month of waiting, things had only gotten worse. It was time for plan B. Plan B, it turns out, would come one casual evening in Pretoria via a conversation with a fellow volunteer over a few glasses of wine. What began as a fleeting and perhaps in some way alcohol inspired thought, turns out to have been the intervening hand of God…but more on that later.

As fun as it may be to enjoy the sheer delight and utter luxury of a hot shower and buffet breakfast—especially when you’ve spent a year in the bush—life at a guesthouse gets old very quickly. One gets the sense that one is no longer living in the real world and participating in real life. After two weeks in Pretoria, I was ready to try do something useful again. The best thing I could think of: visit more volunteers at their sites and try help out in any way I could.  In South African schools there is no end things that need to be done. And even if only for a week, helping hands are always welcome. It was another unforeseen adventure. After a brief inquiry, I wound up doing a small tour of the Venda and Tsonga regions of northern Limpopo province. Both regions are known for the heat, humidity, red soil and the abundance of fruit trees. In particular, mangoes, avocados, oranges and bananas thrive there. A number of volunteers from my group are currently serving there and I visited 3 or 4 of them on my trek. As volunteers we have very limited spaces in which to live and as such I did my best not to over stay my welcome—which meant traveling to a new site every 5 to 7 days. This part of my adventure in limbo turned out to be the greatest. As I drove through the Venda country side I allowed the vivid images of landscape and daily life to wash over me. I had come here before on my last vacation, but now I was seeing it from a new perspective…now I was seeing more of the rural life. Across the undulating landscape, brightly painted thatched rondevalls, stood out against the rusty colored soil. Children could be seen playing in the school yards, the sound of their songs and chants dancing across the village. Along the main road, throngs of old women wrapped in the vibrant colors of traditional Tsonga and Venda dress could be seen carrying over-sized burdens of groceries on their heads or selling colorful assortments of fruits and veggies from wooden lean-tos. When walking through the villages I sometimes had the pleasure of joining young girls for a round of “skipping” (which is jumping rope.) or watching throngs of kids playing in the street or watching high school boys practicing soccer on bare fields in the evening light. I did some teaching, some drawing, and some sitting around observing in those days…days that turned into a few weeks. Before I knew it, another month had gone by without my notice. It was then, in mid-September, that the pivotal and long awaited moment finally came.

Limbo (Part 1)

My host mom Matebogo, my sister Joyce and I sat outside for some time after the fire discussing what had happened and the future of the school kids. Where would they learn now? Would they have to hold classes under trees? How would any of that work when all the books had been reduced to ashes? Would they still be able to write their exams at the end of the term? How would the principal react? ( The principal of the School was away at a funeral at the time and I was certain he had no idea what had happened. I had tried to call him, but, naturally, he was unreachable.) No one knew.

One thing I did know for sure. There was no way I would be allowed to continue working in Bona-Bona. I had already once been evacuated during the havoc that ensued after the first demonstration in October of last year. After receiving the news, my Peace Corps Supervisor had made it plain that I would be evacuated from the village the very next day, and shouldn’t count on returning. Some time before I had explained to my host mother that there was a chance that I might be moved to a new village if things escalated, but I hadn’t really expected them to. Now, with the security officer already on his way from the capital to pick me up, I could find neither the words nor the heart to tell Ma T that I was leaving—likely for good. I used the afternoon to hurriedly pack a bag with enough things to last me at least 2 weeks. After id finished I sat for a long while staring at that bag and trying to work out how id explain to my family what was about to happen.

 It wasn’t until the next morning that I worked up the courage to approach Ma T. In the best Setswana I could muster, I told her that I was going away and did not know when or if I would return. She nodded as I explained, a somber look on her face. I could tell she was not happy about the news. I think she knew it was not very likely that id return. That afternoon, when the white SUV arrived to take me away she helped me carry my things out to the car. I gave her a long embrace. I’ll probably be back in two week, if only to get the rest of my things, I thought to myself. Then I’ll say a decent goodbye. She stood watching from the gate as the car drove away. I waved back to her. It will be okay. This isn’t the last goodbye. We drove past the charred shell of the high school as we left the village. It seemed so surreal.

I was under the very naïve impression at the time that the process of being relocated would be brief—a few weeks at best—and I would have at least a few days’ time to dismantle my life in Bona-Bona. Little did I know that I was just at the beginning of what would become a rather long period of waiting in uncertainty; a two month state of limbo riddled with hopes, disappointments, spells of boredom, and unexpected adventures. I had served in Bona-Bona for just about the year and now would be crossing that all important threshold at the one year mark. It is usually the point at which volunteers begin to feel settled at their sites and their carefully nurtured projects start to bear some fruit. I had no idea that at my 1 year mark I’d be busy starting all over again. It is a most disconcerting thought—knowing that a years’ worth of effort would literally vanish in a puff of smoke and that two months of service were essentially lost. At the same, however, I can say that limbo has turned out to be an invaluable and unique experience that has made my service twice as interesting as it would have otherwise been. 

My journey began with a visit to another volunteer, who is working just 2 villages away from Bona-Bona. I found it quite remarkable that just a few kilometers away from the flat, white sanded veld of my village there was this place of red sand, green trees and sandstone cliffs. It was a much smaller village than mine. With its low brick houses interspersed with mud-walled, thatched shelters it had the quaint and romantic feel of what one would typically associate with Peace Corps service.  Aside from the pleasure of tasting life in a village other than mine, it was a real treat to see another volunteer in action. I had not known this particular volunteer very well prior to my visit, but found her to be a most gracious hostess and devoted teacher. She has been dedicating her service to personally instructing the students in grades 4-7 and the difference she has made in the learning environment and attitude of the learners is palpable. Having the opportunity to observe her teaching…and even struggling with learners at times somehow inspired and motivated me. Firstly, because it reminded me that I am not alone in any challenges I face, and secondly, because I can see what a difference it makes. When we are in the midst of or work and all the frustrations it’s easy to lose sight of that. I made myself useful there for 2 weeks teaching Social Studies classes and helping to grade papers. But then circumstances intervened and sent me off on my first unexpected adventure… assisting Peace Corp in training the new volunteers—who had arrived only 2 weeks before.