Hanging Tough

The last month has been a trying one. The good news is that we are safe, healthy, and strong, and still dedicated as Peace Corps Volunteers in South Africa.

About a month ago, we ended up leaving our site due to the educators' strike. Our office where our flat is is where educators are likely to protest, and they did protest there off and on, during the three weeks the strike was on. Though strikes here are relatively commonplace and generally strictly peaceful, you just never know when something is going to happen (when someone who's had too much to drink might get overexcited), and Peace Corps does not take chances.

We did a good job trying to keep busy though, moving at first to our buddy Anne's site, not far from our's. There are some really neat aspects of Anne's work, which continued during the strike since it is a private educational camp-type experience, and we made some great contacts there, should we be in the position to be able to collaborate with her counterparts in the time ahead (developing new curriculum). It was great to see Anne, and some other volunteers who visited Anne's site up in the mountains during the weekend. However it was also still a very hectic time, as Tim and I were moving back and forth across the country helping with preservice training for the new education volunteers, and due also to the fact that we told our supervisor Palma we would try and stay with her and offer her support while she began recovering from neck surgery.

Palma passed away from an emergency heart surgery two weeks ago. We will miss her in very many ways. In the first place she was like a grandmother or mother to us, and the only person around who thought about whether or not we were managing to get our grocery shopping done or stay warm during the winter. She was also our friend, and the three of us enjoyed taking excursions to Pilanesberg together as well as spending time with her family and friends as well as members of our own Peace Corps Volunteer "family."

We also miss her as our supervisor. Last year when we had some problems with our housing (and thus our site) immediately after swearing in, Palma was familiar with the Peace Corps mission and essentially talked us into working at the Area Office, under her charge. She managed not only subject advisory but also transportation logistics here, as well as our own work, and in fact as soon as she was away from work to recover from her neck surgery we realized that no one else at our office could easily do all that she did.

We were able to return home one weekend to attend her funeral, and this was a good opportunity to meet more of Palma's family as well as reflect on our special connection with Palma that flourished over the past year.

After Palma's funeral we stayed for the final week of the strike in Pretoria, handling our mid-service medical and dental check-ups, and trying to relax and refresh together after a rough month, half of which we spent away from each other. We went to the Pretoria Zoo, and we also got to meet and help prepare new Peace Corps Response Volunteers who were headed for the Eastern Cape for short-term projects with the Department of Education. We also had some productive conversations with our Peace Corps supervisors regarding our work in the future, and got to hang out with some education volunteers completing their service and some other volunteers from Rwanda who were there for medical reasons. And we got to eat twice at our favorite Chinese restaurant.

We are now back home for the time being. Though the past month of dramatic happenings, work interruptions, and constant traveling make me feel more like a proper Peace Corps Volunteer than I ever did before (that's right, we do live in a developing country...), the strike has made being productive a challenge for us now, as no one wants to take educators out of the classroom after so much class time has been lost...despite all our plans for workshops with educators and administrators. However we are making a plan with our Peace Corps supervisors to ensure that we are still able to do good work in the next year. (That's right! Only one year left!) We are also looking forward to a day or two of mid-service training at the end of next week, followed by the school spring-break holiday during which we will be doing some traveling around the Northern Cape and celebrating the amazing adventure of our two years of marriage. Hope all is well on your side of the world.