In My Jozini Mountain Home

So our move is complete and we are starting to settle into our new digs in the area surrounding Jozini. Many things have changed for us and in many ways it feels like starting our Peace Corps experience fresh and new again. Almost every aspect of our life in South Africa has changed. The most constant thing is that Liz and I still really like each other a lot. Living in Peace Corps has always been an exercise in adaptability so we are taking each thing in stride and really it feels good. In fact, our new situation is much more like what we expected things to be like when we signed up for Peace Corps in the first place. So in the following paragraphs I will try to highlight some of the major changes and how we are coping with them.

Perhaps the biggest difference is that we have gone from an area where there were two prominent tribes, the Afrikaaners and the Tswanas to an area where the Zulu tribe is prominent. Different african cultural groups differ slightly one to the next but many things overlap. The biggest difference for us is that the language is very different. Our shopping town, Jozini, is on a tourist route in the area and besides a few Peace Corps volunteers living around this gives the only presence of white skinned folks. This seems refreshing at first. No one is too amazed to see us and people greet us in English or isiZulu as to opposed to Afrikaans. Always there was a big question as to why we didn't speak Afrikaans. We have learned to greet in isiZulu and inquire about people's well-being and we may try and identify someone who can tutor us so that we can learn more as many of the educators are encouraging us to learn.

Another major difference is the conditions that we are living in. Before our move, we were living in town with enormously spacious accomodations and we enjoyed many of the trappings of civilized life such as indoor plumbing and garbage pick-up. We had his and hers bathrooms and the biggest bathtub that I've ever had. In South Africa, the word 'town' connotes a place with western style shops and infrastructural advantages that cannot be found in a village. In the village, we have no indoor plumbing and no running water. Our house is quite small but we have manage to get organized this week and now it seems cozy. We use two large plastic tubs for doing our dishes and we have a separate one devoted solely to bathing ourselves which is more or less a spongebath-type situation. I was quite nervous about this but have found it rather easy to adapt to actually. We only have to walk 30m or so the tap and we keep a 5 gallon bucket (like the ones that kids use to drum on on city corners and subways), in the house that we have to fill about once a day. The water is sanitary and suitable for drinking. Toilet facilities are provided by a cinderblock structure set above a 50ft hole in the ground. In our time here, we have used a variety of pit toilets and I would say that this one is one of the cleanest and well constructed ones we've encountered. At night, instead of getting dressed, unlocking the house and walking 50m in the dark, I choose to use a bucket that we previously used as a trashbin. The speed of our mobile internet connection is confined to GPRS which is a snail's pace compared to the 3G signal we could sometimes cajole out of the cell tower in Swartruggens. We are hosted by a well-respected family that owns the surrounding plots. There are a few houses on the plot we stay on but the others are all vacant with our host family living in the adjacent plot. We do enjoy our privacy but we also enjoy having some neighbors that know us as well so we are pleased with this aspect of our set up. The only ones we share our plot with are the chickens and the cattle and the cattle are gone most of the day with the cattleherd our host family employs. We can see the school we are working in from our house so our commute is mercifully short as summer is in full swing and the sun is merciless.

The climate is significantly more tropical on this side. The heat has seemed oppressive and they say the worst is yet to come. Luckily, the staff room at the school we are working at is air conditioned. We are now taking malaria tablets and sleeping beneath the mosquito net which keeps out much more than mosquitos and we are grateful for that. It is the rainy season and the first rain we saw brought a small crab to our porch which was suprising as we are still 100km from the sea. Jozini, sits atop a small mountain/big hill and is next to a very large lake. You can walk to the dam wall from town and it's really quite scenic. Pictures are probably forthcoming but the slow internet has put this lower on the list. We share Jozini as a shopping town with 3 other Peace Corps volunteers which is great. They are staying in the next village which is only about 4km away from us. Two of the volunteers are also married and a part of the education project so we have been able to see their place and show them ours which is totally different from Swartruggens where we were rather distant from other volunteers. There is also a volunteer from the community health project staying around but we have yet to meet her.

We have move from office-based work to school-based work. We have only spent a day and a half at the school so we cannot really comment on what it's like working there but it is certainly a new and different atmosphere. The school offers all grades from Kindergarden to Grade 12 and has around 60 educators. We are struggling to remember people's names. Many of the educators teaching secondary grades are young men and this is refreshing. Very few of the educators in the Northwest Province were close to our own age while here most of the educators are actually younger than we are. Having lived in South Africa for more than a year already, we are much more comfortable with our surroundings than we first arrived. People often say, "You must be free." I am no closer to knowing what this really means than when I first arrived, but we do a much better job of acting it out. So far I think we have impressed our new colleagues with our jovial spirit. The first day there we saw a notice in the staff room that announced a race to take place that very day and despite the great heat and the midafternoon timing of the race, Liz and I decided to participate. Liz finished first amongst the female educators which was very impressive to everyone. The men were frightenly fast. Physical fitness is typically not a priority amongst african women so Liz downplays her accomplishment but I think she should be proud of the example she sets for the learners. The best part of the race, by far, was the finish line. Many of the learners were waiting at the finish line and screamed and cheered to greet each runner as they finished. It was actually extremely exhilarating.

Despite all of these changes, these changes are less than joining the Peace Corps in the first place. We didn't suffer a lot of fear or nervousness wondering what things would be like as even though we were not living in the village we were exposed to the conditions of the village frequently and although we were not working in a school, we were familiar with the ways that schools operate and are run. I think in the time we've been in South Africa we've really developed some of the skills that we need to live happy and healthy lives while integrating into the community. When we first arrived in country we were leaning towards having a site with more ammenities because we didn't want to be so tired from dealing with village life to work effectively but in fact, we have learned that those ammenities do little to make Peace Corps service easier if the work at a site is not fulfilling.

The area we are now staying is surrounded by tourist destinations and top-notch game reserves. It's less than a year that we will be staying here. So by all means, stop hem-hawwing about whether or not you're going to come to South Africa and start making plans. We'd love to share this experience with you.