On life becoming normal....

Well I wish there was a bunch of stuff to update on but apparently once you hit a certain point in your Peace Corps service life begins to become a little bit less of an exciting adventure and more of a routine and well, more of an actual day-to-day normal life! This has actually been a pretty great transition for me. Although the language is still a very difficult hurdle to overcome, the culture is much less exhausting to me than it once was, and integration into my community seems to happen more and more everyday with much less effort. Most of all, life here in the village has become very comfortable… really that’s all that I could have asked for!

One big change I’ve noticed in myself is my capability of dealing with free time. During training and for the first few months at site, I had no idea what to do with my copious amounts of free time. I would read, pace around, journal, and pretty much just count down hours until it was time to do something (prepare a meal, go to bed, fetch water, etc.). Not that I didn’t enjoy it, because it’s definitely not a rough lifestyle. It just took some adjustments. Especially coming from the insanely busy year I had before the Peace Corps with two packed semesters to graduate, a thesis to write, work, applying to the PC, along with the normal jam-packed social life of a soon-to-be college grad.

Now I find myself basking in my free time, and most of the time just loving it. I can now spend an entire weekend in my village without going to town and carelessly find ways to fill my time. Even weekends where I don’t have to wash my clothes (which is normally occupies half of my Sundays). It’s great, and though I am normally one to find joy in a busy life, I recommend everyone adopt a little more careless free time into their lives. I spend my days reading, cleaning, journaling, coloring and playing with the kids, lesson and project planning, jogging every now and then, and just sitting around with my family. It’s awesome!

The only downside to this new feeling of normalcy is work actually feeling like work. Who knew Peace Corps was actually a job? It is definitely more fulfilling than most jobs, and small successes feel better than I could have ever imagined (even if it really is as small as one of my students remembering a vocabulary word). The only real issue is that I feel like I am constantly in a struggle with my educators. One day it will be about how I am not a secretary and shouldn’t be called every other second to type something. I’ve been remedying this lately by flat out saying “no, but let me sit down with you while you type it” and show them how to use things like excel and word. The next day it will be either them pulling me out of the classes I am teaching for some pointless “meeting” (I am not even going to get started on how much South Africans love their useless gatherings), or pulling my students out of my class for some menial task (like running to the shop to buy them soda…. and no that is not a joke). Really frustrating. Most of the time I’ll just walk to the meeting, ask what it’s about and if they really need me, and walk straight back to the class. Maybe… just MAYBE they’ll begin to see the importance of a teacher actually…. gasp…. TEACHING. I know, quite the concept!

The worst of it all is the corporal punishment that I’ve been witnessing. You know what? I hate the term corporal punishment…. this is flat out child abuse and I think the phrase just covers that up. It seems to only be getting worse with my educators becoming more relaxed around me, although they know my firm stance against this. The worst part about this is that although they know how I feel, they think its funny how sensitive I am. For instance, one morning when I was on a computer working on something while the morning assembly was going on, I looked out the window only to see my principal going down a line of students smacking each of them over the head with a meter stick for being late. One of the teachers walked in and laughed at the horrified look on her face, saying how funny she thought it was that I get so upset. I was nearly in tears... really really funny I know. The worst is that the kids are huge tattle-tales. The second one learner does something wrong someone else runs and tells on him, only resulting in the smacking of all those involved. You’d think they would learn that telling on people is a lose-lose! I lost even more hope the other day when the ONE teacher that I was almost positive did not hit her kids ran at a group of kids with a whip (yeah, the kind used for donkeys) for fighting. She also is a firm believer that the reason Matric (the test for seniors to graduate high school) rates are so low is because S.A. has made corporal punishment illegal. I’m not even going to start on how illogical that is.

I’ve been trying my best with them, I just know that it’s going to take a while for them to see where I’m coming from. These things are all they’ve ever known, and then one day it just became illegal. I want to show them why the government decided to take that step, and that hitting kids really doesn’t make them learn better. This may be one of those uphill battles, but I am going to keep trying!

Anyways, this post wasn’t really meant to rant about things bringing me down, because all in all life is good. The great part about being in this phase of my service is that I am very invested in my community and my mind is overflowing with wonderful ideas for projects, and I’ve had an awesome time collaborating with a couple of other volunteers on them! It’s hard because I don’t want to become too invested in any one idea, I really want to follow up with the ones my community wants and sees the need for. I am trying to maintain my realism in all of this – I know that the actual lasting impact I have on my schools may be very small (as almost any previous volunteer will tell you), so I’m just holding onto each small success with all I have and going with it.

I turned 23 last week! Yay for me! It was a very relaxing birthday, and a pretty normal day in the village, which is a pretty good reflection on what this next year has in store for me. I did receive a plant from my school for my room and the kids sang to me in English and Setswana.

This turned out much longer than I expected… my goal was to start writing shorter posts on more specific topics instead of the all-too-general update on life in S.A. thing. Oh well, maybe next time! Oh also, I’ve made a little resolution to get more pics up on here, so start expecting that at least! One thing about life becoming so normal here is that I feel much less inclined to take pictures of things, especially in the village. I’ll work on that for the sake of my fellow readers. Tomorrow I am headed to a workshop on creating libraries in a neighboring village and then to a pasta dinner and sleepover with some volunteers! Should be fun!!

Loss

One of the hardest things about being gone for so long is what happens at home without you there. I was very saddened upon hearing about the death of my Grandpa John, which happened last Tuesday morning. Apparently he had been going downhill for a few weeks before that, and suffering from dementia more and more in the last months. Unfortunately this followed my other Grandpa’s (Bill) death by only a few months. I am aware that I am at that age where people typically start losing their grandparents and that it was definitely both of their times to go, but loss is never an easy thing to deal with. I have to say that being away from home and my family during this time is very difficult, and I find myself constantly thinking about everyone, and wishing I could be with the family during this time.

One thing that’s for sure is that it really was his time. I wasn’t around for the worst of his mental state but from what I’ve heard it didn’t seem like his quality of life was very good. I am thankful that my last memories of him are very positive and that he still knew who I was. Hopefully he’s in a better place now and we can all be assured that he isn’t suffering anymore!

This post is just to let the Mayer family know that I’m thinking of you guys all the time and really wish I could be there for his funeral tomorrow! I hope that I am still there in spirit. R.I.P. Grandpa John!

Lobola craziness

Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend the lobola ceremony for my host “sister”, Mpho (I use quotations because she doesn’t live here and is actually one of the many grandchildren of mma and pa mokhukhedi), and it really turned out to be quite the ceremony!!!! The lobola, or the bride price the husband has to pay to the bride’s family to get married, is one tradition very much still followed here in South Africa. Traditionally this is paid to the family in the form of cattle, and the wife’s family would decide on a lobola price during negotiations that occur right before the wedding. Nowadays it seems that this is mostly paid in rand, although there are still people who follow the traditional practice and pay in the form of livestock.

Commonly the lobola isn’t paid for a while after the actual wedding, giving the husband time to accrue the funds. This was the case with Mpho and Dick, as they were married about a year ago. So the actual ceremony where this is paid is quite the event, and lasted for well over 24 hours! It all started last Friday afternoon, when Mpho shows up and mentions this will be taking place that night. In my experience with other South African ceremonies, I was expecting a long and involved meal, probably including both families and members of the community. What I didn’t anticipate was this meal occurring at 5am, following a giant all-night party!

The party was at my host family’s house, so I was pretty much there for the whole thing. At about 10pm people started showing up, and the women got to the kitchen to prepare for meal #1, which was pap and mince meat. The women were all pretty excited that I stayed with them and cooked, and this was definitely a much better option than hanging out with the men who were getting drunker by the second! After this meal people just kind of hung out, danced, pretty normal party stuff. I began helping Mpho with the big meal that was to occur in the morning, and the preparation for this meal was pretty big! We cooked pap and rice over the fire in extremely large cauldrons in the old mud/thatched roof house. This was fun but after a while I just about died of coughing from inhaling smoke (little ventilation) and had a giant bloody cut on my foot from trying to break up wood with my feet in the dark (not smart).

At about 1am I had to retire to my bed for a nap. I was so, so, so exhausted. Not only was it just way past my bedtime, but dealing with drunk men and trying to understand Setswana in the wee hours of the morning is not an easy feat! After an hour or so of napping I re-entered the party and continued to help prepare for the meal, this time cutting up more squash than I could fathom in my tired state. So up until now the party has been strictly with the wife and her family… in fact the husband doesn’t attend this ceremony at all. At about 4 the husband’s family starts arriving (from a neighboring village), and welcomed by our party with singing, dancing and cheering. Mpho was pretty stressed at this point because the meal was not yet finished. So the women and I all gathered in the kitchen and tried to get everything finished! Meanwhile the husband’s family gathered in the living room and were presented with drinks of all sorts, including the traditional bottle of brandy that just sits in the middle of the table all night as an offering from the bride’s family. During this time there were also many speeches, prayers, songs, etc. Finally around 5am we brought the meal out, which included the meat (a sheep slaughtered that day in our backyard!), squash, rice, pap, tomato/onion gravy, green beans, and a mayonnaisey carrot salad.

It was really quite the night! I noted many interesting cultural tidbits throughout the night (I was a question-asking machine… I found it all very fascinating), like how Mpho and her daughter Nolly had to wear part of the sheep’s intestines as necklaces for the night and the next day! Not sure where this practice comes from or what it signifies, they just told me it was “tradition”. Also tradition was that Mpho and Nolly weren’t allowed to partake in the big meal prepared, and instead had to eat all the random sheep parts that were cooked together and served with rice! Mpho said it was pretty disgusting, but again just another tradition! Oddly enough I never even saw when the actual lobola was paid to the Mokhukhedi family… at some point I do believe they were presented with R8,000 (about $1500). I went to bed around 6 when the husband’s family left, because frankly I could barely stand at that point. I expected others would start going home and do the same… but alas I was wrong again. I woke up and bathed around 9 and everyone was still at the party and never slept! And they stayed til like 4pm on Saturday! This is including my 80 year old gogo, who was drinking beer and dancing well into the afternoon. Yup, I was outpartied by my 80 year old African granny.

It’s times like these where I realize how truly exhausting it can be to attempt immersion into another culture. The whole night I felt like I didn’t know what was going on, what was being said, not knowing what people were yelling about (and they yell A LOT), constantly being approached by strangers wanting to know me (and me having absolutely no idea who most people were), etc. Of course this is what I wanted in this whole experience… to learn about a new culture and be pushed out of my comfort zone and past what I thought were my limits. But truthfully the actual process can be one of the most draining things ever!!! It really is a constant learning experience though, and at least now I’ll be able to get through weddings and funerals just fine because in comparison to the lobola those are nothing!

This leads me to think about what it would be like to have a price negotiated by my father in order for someone to marry me.. doesn’t seem like an idea I’d like to entertain. What I wonder is how weird this must be for the girl… is it like they are determining the worth of the girl or is it just decided based on the wealth of the family? Perhaps after two years I will know the answers to such questions. I will say that it seems to be less about the actual money that’s paid and more of a process of uniting the two families. Either way it was all very interesting for this western girl!!!


P.S. Sorry for the lack of pictures... in an unfortunate series of events my camera battery died and the adapter i need for the charger was broken. One day I'll have pics for you guys!

Running for a cause!

Hi everyone!!!

So as some of you know, I have decided to participate in my first half-marathon, one that is convienently also a pretty awesome Peace Corps fundraiser! The Longtom Marathon is in a small town called Sabie in the Drakensburg Mountains (Mpumalanga Province) and is March 27th!

The marathon is used as one of the main fundraisers for the Kgwale Le Mollo Foundation, which was created by two South Africa PCV's in the SA11 group. The KLM Foundation sponsers disadvantaged youth from rural areas to attend Uplands College, a private secondary school and a leading institution in South Africa. KLM sponsors the selected stundents to attend the school from 8th grade and on, providing a 5-year bursary covering tuition, housing, and academic support. The students are chosen based on leadership potential, academic success, as well as a commitment to social responsibility.

Here are some websites with further info:
Longtom Marathon site
KLM Foundation site

As participants running on behalf of the KLM Foundation, we are each required to fundraise a minimum of $100. Spread out, this could be reached (and passed) very easily! In fact, over 60 volunteers participated in 2009 and raised $15,000 - pretty impressive!

In my opinion this is one of the most sustainable things I have seen from Peace Corps Volunteers in South Africa. Not only is the foundation an amazing way to change the lives of youth that would never have access to such an opportunity, it utilizes a fun event that a very good number of PCVs attend every year to raise money. This is a great chance for PCVs from different groups in South Africa to meet eachother, run a marathon, and help a GREAT cause!!!

Don't you love when it gets to the asking for money part??? Really $100 could be reached very easily so the littlest bit definitely counts. Here are the two ways to donate on behalf of yours truly:

Method 1: Online (preferred)

1. Go to the KLM Foundation website.
2. Click on the Donate photo in the upper left corner.
3. This opens up a secure https connection for people to donate.
4. Make sure you put 'Kristin Mayer' in the Longtom Marathon field so they know the donation was made in my name.

Method 2: Check

1. Make out a check to: Kgwale Le Mollo (US)
2. Put a post-it note saying the donation is in my name with the check.
3. Mail it to:

   KLM Foundation (US)
   c/o Bowen Hsu
   461 So. Bonita Avenue
   Pasadena, CA 91107

It will be interesting to see how the running part of it all goes! From October-December I was doing really well running 4-5 times a week, which is very unusual for me as I have never really been a runner. But Dec/Jan it has been a struggle to keep going with vacation, training, and the insane HEAT. The only slightly cool time is around 5am! So I'll definitely have to kick it in gear for the next 8 weeks or so! There are plenty of people walking it, so really I'm OK with doing maybe a run/walk, which will also give me a chance to take some pics of the spectacular scenery!

Like I said, any little bit counts, its tax-deductable, and for a truly worthy cause. That's what I call a win-win-win!

Reflections on IST

In the land of Peace Corps acronyms (which could be a blog post in and of itself), this one stands for In-Service Training. I’m not quite sure if IST is the same in every PC post, but for South African volunteers it’s basically meant to re-group everyone after our 3-month lock down phase, discuss what we learned, challenges we faced, and possible projects for the school year. While some of the sessions were pretty informational, what it really meant for us volunteers was a week of hanging out and having fun, catered meals 3 times a day along with morning AND afternoon tea breaks, and a couple days in Pretoria since most of us cannot make it back to our sites in a day. Overall a very good time was had by all!

We arrived last Friday at a teacher training college in the Mpulanaga Province and training began with a day and a half of language sessions in small groups. This was nice in theory, but to me it seems kind of silly to think we were really supposed “learn” much in this short time. It did help to reinforce and review some grammar points, which are sometimes hard to pick up on when your language learning is almost solely conversational and informal. It did make me realize I should work harder at finding a language tutor in my village, because the potential is there to become really proficient in Setswana. When I first arrived here I made it a point to look for a tutor, but it became sort of half-assed when I realized the only ones jumping on this opportunity were men who wanted the chance to pay me regular “visits”. But perhaps with some more diligent searching I’ll be able to find someone with better intentions!

Other sessions included how to deal with corruption, being a “resilient” volunteer, the state of education in South Africa, cross-cultural issues, and of course got a few more shots! I was hoping for more sessions on things like project design and management, but I guess that comes more at LST (Life Skills Training) in March. It was nice for the new teachers in the group to get some advice and ideas from the more experienced teachers for different activities and methods to use in the classroom!

Of course the week wasn’t all educational, and we took full advantage of every evening we had to all hang out together! Activities included a “PCV” themed costume party, a mini-Gossip Girl marathon, mattress skateboarding in the hallways, a couple giant and epic games of capture the flag on the campus (I have battle wounds to show for it!), a really hilarious talent show, and Peace Corps Prom (obvi). Kinda felt like a big high-school sleepover, but much better! I guess this is what happens after months of little socializing…

We definitely took advantage of our days in Pretoria and lived it up in the first world. Within the two days I was there I saw three movies: The Stepfather, New Moon, and Brothers (in which I cried from beginning to end), gorged myself on pizza, Chinese food, ice cream, and beer, and spent entirely too much time in malls. It was awesome. We also did a lot of file-swapping on our hard drives (yay new movies and music!) and I got about 10 new books to read… not bad!

Now I’m back in the village again, and thankfully this transition has been a lot smoother than the last. IST gave me the little boost of motivation I needed to really get some projects going. These gatherings are great if only for the opportunity to talk with the other volunteers about their sites and get ideas for different projects... it’s great to see what everyone is up to!

So what’s on the horizon as far as projects go? A couple of girls in my area are equally as enthusiastic about doing a girl’s leadership camp for sometime this year, so we are going to start planning that (which I’m super excited about… I’ve heard from other volunteers who have organized this that it was one of the most rewarding things throughout their service!). I am also going to try and start up an after-school girl’s club that focuses on life skills and HIV/AIDS education, along with fun things like crafts and games. Hopefully this week I will start volunteering a few days a week at the adult education program that happens after school – I will gladly accept advice/ideas from anybody with experience teaching adult literacy! I really want to get involved with the clinic and do some sort of community health project, so I am going to make more of an effort to meet the right people who would get involved in something like this. Other than teaching my own classes, I will be using time in school to plan lessons and team-teach with other educators (specifically with Grades 1-3 Numeracy and Grade 4 English), work on putting together a library, and help sort out the administrative mess that both my schools are in by digitalizing their records and documents. I’m sure other projects will come up as the year progresses but I think this will be a good start! Wish me luck!

Ups and downs and back to school

It’s true, the “rollercoaster ride” is a huge reality of life here. While I am overall quite pleased with how life here has taken shape for me, I am a passenger on this ride just about everyday.

Let’s start with vacation: a HUGE up. We’re talking one of the funnest times ever, with awesome people who understand each other, who can effortlessly converse and joke around, in one of the most beautiful places I’ve been to, blacks and whites interacting without shocking stares, etc.

Of course, that area of SA is not without problems. In fact, I would say (at least the area we were in) is more poverty stricken then where we live. Makes me think about how many more provinces the Peace Corps could migrate into to help….

In any case, vacation was really, really awesome and traveling is obviously a huge perk of this job.

Upon returning to the village, I was actually still riding the “up”. I was really happy to be back! I was embraced by my gogo in a big hug, and enjoyed the visits from the villagers asking how my holidays were, why I didn’t bring them anything from America (no matter how many times I say I didn’t leave the country…), or why I didn’t bring any seawater back (why didn’t I THINK of that?!). I was especially pleased that it really felt like I was returning home, thrilled with how comfortable life has become here as I’m coming up on 6 months in SA!

But, of course, after about a day of being back something started to weigh on me and bring me down a bit. I had an entire week in the village with nothing to do before school started, so perhaps it was due to just pure boredom and not having much to do. Maybe it was the sweltering heat, preventing me from even wanting to move, let alone do something productive. This kind of boredom was like nothing I had ever felt before, because there really were productive or useful things I could have been doing. But instead I just kind of paced around, took a lot of sweaty naps, and half-heartedly attempted to get back into my routine. I dunno, maybe it was just a little post-vacation blues settling in…

So there you have it, last week was just kind of a down for me. I felt really unmotivated, unsure of how the school year would begin and how teaching would pan out, and yes I’ll admit it: a little homesick. Luckily it didn’t really get to the point of really unhappy or sad, just kind of blah. (Perhaps my next activity should be to actually sit down and study my GRE vocab list, as “blah” seems to be the only word I can find to describe my feelings haha…)

Sunday things started to look up a bit with a gigantic all-day rainstorm. Turns out all I needed was for things to cool off a bit for me to actually get some things done!

School opened back up this week, and Monday and Tuesday I spent with the staff getting things in order for the learners to come on Wednesday. Frankly I was thrilled to get back in school – I finally remembered what my purpose here is and what it feels like to be… gasp… BUSY! What an incredible feeling… something I took for granted at home! Being at school makes me feel really good, and I generally really like working with my teachers. So school starting = things starting to look up!

Naturally, things head back down on Tuesday afternoon. We found out that the Department of Education has decided we no longer qualify for one of our teachers OR our administrative assistant. Apparently these decisions are made based on the number of learners in the school… so to them it only matters that there is an average of 35-40 learners per teacher and not that ONE teacher has to handle 3 grades and 8 learning areas (subjects) in one class. Oh, and we only learn of this the day before school officially starts. So now we are down to only 4 teachers, thanks DoE! And of course, everyone starts looking to me saying “So what can we do about this, Lorato?”. My response: ummmmm, welll…….

A big, BIG down of the past week and a half: there is no water coming to the community tap in the village. I’ve done some investigating on the topic, and apparently something at the municipality that controls our water supply is “broken”. Huh? Thankfully there is someone with a borehole in a nearby village, so my host family has taken the donkey cart there a couple of times and filling my buckets along with their own. I’m still in crazy water conservation mode, though, because if I run out I don’t know what I’ll do! (An upside to this: I’ve discovered that about 20 liters of water can go pretty far and last days! Read: I am getting kind of smelly, but so it goes in village life…)

Since then things have been kind of a mix of ups and downs throughout the days. The upside: teaching!!! I love my Grade 7’s. And there are only 9 of them this term (technically Grade 7 is part of the “Senior Phase” and therefore can not be combined with any other grades…), so this should be a pretty fun project for me. I know of other volunteers teaching with over 50 kids in a class, so I guess there are benefits to small schools, no matter how understaffed we are ☺. The downside: now that we have no administrative assistant, I spend a lot of time hiding from my principal because every time I see her she throws something at me saying “Type this, Lorato” or “Print this, Lorato” or something of that nature. No matter how many times I tell her I did not join the Peace Corps to be a secretary, she just doesn’t quite seem to get the whole point of my presence…

Overall the ups outweigh the downs, by a lot actually. I was still all smiles when my kids picked me up to walk to me school or when my Grade 7 cheered when they found out I’d be their teacher 3 days a week! But it is a kind of funny feeling to never really know what each day, or even hour, will make me feel like. Shall we henceforth name this PCBS: Peace corps bipolar syndrome?

a new year

Happy 2010!

So I have safely returned to my village from my AMAZING trip to Coffee Bay. The area we were in is called the Transkei, and charactized by gorgeous green rolling hills, dense forests, and the best: tiny little village with TEAL rondaval huts everywhere! I guess they use this color because they use to make paint from some green plant, but now they just buy paint that color because it is traditional. It was a place I was just made to be.. so so pretty. The vacation was the perfect mix of doing fun adventurous things and just relaxing - we did lots of hiking, cliff diving, but most of all playing in the ocean! I realized that I become a little kid when I get to play around in big waves... it's pretty much the funnest thing ever. I was going to do surfing lessons but unfortunately the day I signed up for got cancelled. It's ok though... I'm sure in 2 years I'll have another chance considering South Africa is like a surfer's paradise!

The backpackers we stayed at (Coffee Shack) attracted a very interesting crowd of young people. I met people from more countries than I can even keep track of! It was really cool to hear about all of the amazing trips people are taking.It kind of reminded me of backpacking around Europe and meeting a bunch of travelers, but S.A. seems to attract more long-term travelers than I have ever met. Most of the people we met seemed to be traveling for at least multiple months, some even for years! The Eastern Cape is mostly home to the Xhosa people of South Africa, so I also got a chance to hear a new language (Xhosa has four different clicks in it and really hard to learn!) and see a new culture. It was interesting to see the things that are typically South African and those that are more unique to each ethnic group.

Another good thing about the trip was that I got to spend 2 nights in Pretoria, so i am becoming a little more familiar with the city and how to get around. This is where PC headquarters is so I'll definitely be having to make trips there throughout my service. It's crazy being there.. it's basically like being in any American city and does not make me feel like I am in Africa at all. We went to the mall, had some really good food (including an incredible Indian lunch buffet) and went out to the bars one night. The 1st world/3rd world juxtaposition in this country is something that is still really hard and confusing to deal with... but I won't pretend that it isn't nice to have amenities somewhat nearby. Oh and we went and saw Avatar... weird at times but I liked it a lot! We got to see so much different landscape on the way and back, and now I can't stop thinking about all the different possibilities for future trips.

Now I am back in the village and jsut getting my life back in order for school to start. I am very excited for this schoolyear to begin, especially now that I know what I will be doing and I am no longer in "observation" phase. At the school in my village I will be teaching Grade 7 English and Life Orientation. L.O. is basically like a life skills/health class, which will be good because I want to be able to show the educators I work with how to implement more HIV/AIDS education into the curriculum, and I think this will be a good way to do it. Along with teaching I will be holding teacher workshops on things like alternatives to corporal punishment, classroom management, lesson planning and delivery, positive reinforcemnet, etc. I will work at my other school Tuesdays and Thursdays and trade off working with each of the teachers. This way I will be able to do some team teaching and help the (2) teachers deal with having 3 grades in a class (not an easy feat). I am really happy I will get some solid teaching experience here, it's obviously really good experience to have long term and it will help me get to know a group of students a lot better... and hopefully my classroom will be a model for the other teachers on how to teach without beating your children! So this week I'm spending getting my lesson plans for the term ready to go and school starts up on the 11th.

These next few months are going to be really busy and probably fly by. In only 2 weeks we have our next Peace Corps training, called IST (In-Service Training). The purpose of this week is for 2 days of further language training and to discuss what sort of projects we will all be taking on in the coming year! It will be so nice to get the whole group back together and see how everyone's doing (there's even talk of a Peace Corps prom that may occur...). In March there is supposed to be the next training (LST - Life Skills Training), along with the Longtom Marathon and another 2 weeks of school break in between terms. The World Cup begins this summer and should be a crazy time in S.A.! I have a feeling summer (winter) will arrive pretty quickly...

Hope everyone had a great christmas and new years!!!! Pictures will hopefully come somewhat soon....