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.