Home away from home

Though I am typing this blog at an internet cafe in a small shopping town in Northwest Province -- it was handwritten by headlamp lighting in the darkness of a power outage that lasted all night last night. At the time I could hear my temporary host siblings singing the theme song "food, glorious food" (from the musical Oliver) -- their bellies full from the very Americanized Italian meal I'd just cooked for them: spaghetti pasta with a creamy tomato, spinach and onion sauce I made from scratch and a salad with carrots, cucumber, tomatoes and (forgive me Italy) ranch dressing. In my past 8 weeks in South Africa this was one of the only 2 meals I've been "permitted" to cook for myself.... and, thus, one of the very few vegetarian meals I've eaten in my temporary homestay house. I'm delighted by the romance of having eaten the meal by candle-light (during the power outage).
*Dietary control is easily one of the biggest sacrifices I've made in joining the Peace Corps -- at least for these first few months.

So, now for the exciting news I promised you 2 weeks ago: I LOVE MY SITE PLACEMENT!! Beginning 20 September 2007 (after the swearing-in ceremony in Pretoria) I will be living a in a deep rural village surrounded by a multitude of mountains, fruit trees, and rivers. Apparently, from December through February/March fruit will be so plentiful that I will actually (so the locals say) get sick of eating: Mangos, Avocados, Papayas, Bananas, and berries fresh from trees... I think they gravely under estimate my unfaltering, tireless affection for fresh, organically grown produce!
Despite the lush seasonal produce, my village remains VERY poor. Challenges facing the community include: unemployment, under-education, illiteracy, significant health issues (see previous entry), lack of adequate resources for health care, and terminal illnesses and death from treatable diseases resulting from inadequate access to said health care. During my brief stay in my beautiful new hometown, I was made to hike rocky mountain paths for several hours everyday. It seems, everywhere you are going is far away and LOTS of mindful walking is required. Of course, you can imagine this is both exciting for the outdoors-lover in me, but also disheartening in terms of the community's previously described socioeconomic context.
One afternoon during my site visit, when my supervisor and I were conducting home-based care (HBC) rounds we walked at least an 1 1/2 hours to visit a sick patient. Keep in mind, she and her 19 other counterparts are unpaid, they have been doing this work for free since their organization was founded in 2002. You can imagine the trouble the sick patient, unable to walk or even leave his bed, faces in accessing adequate treatment for his health challenges.
Walking around my village and responding to choirs of people yelling "lekgowa, lekgowa!" (white person, white person) has led me to suspect I am the first white person to live in my village, and am certainly the first white person MANY of the community members (especially the children) have ever seen in person. The majority of their reactions demonstrate outward fear of me, others are clearly confused, but most everyone seems very excited that I've come to live with them -- little do they know: the honor is all mine.
As far as my workplaces are concerned: The clinic I volunteer with is strapped for medical supplies and serving a far larger population than its human resources can manage, and my small HBC organization lacks even a building -- we have meetings under a tree in the clinic yard, where we sit on borrowed benches, and our distant 'drop in-center' for orphans and vulnerable children is a sad little rusted-out, corrugated steel shack that has no capacity for keeping the rain out and nothing but firewood inside... at the same time, the women I met from each group seem full of self-less motivation to improve the livelihoods of those they serve. They AMAZE me beyond words. Equally, but differently, amazing is the umbrella organization I will also be collaborating with (a 45 minute taxi ride over the mountain pass). Their capacity for networking, facilitating outcomes-based programs, and acquiring resources for responding to the needs of the community FAR FAR FAR outweighs that found in my own community -- the organization and its leadership will be great assets to me in the coming 24 months.
To my great pleasure, while volunteering with these groups -- I will spend my next two life-changing years sharing residence with a 53 year-old traditional healer and her family! For those seeking more info on precisely why, as a graduate of Anthropology, I am SOoo flipping excited about the interesting combination of my work assignment and my new homestay situation, please Google: Sangoma and/or Ingyaka. Let's just say: my medical anthropology teacher would be incredibly jealous.
My room is not much to speak of, it is relatively small but has potential to become pretty cozy with some work -- it is attached to one of three 2-bedroom house-like structures within our family's gated "compound" area. In addition to the tree structures, which have electricity but no running water, there are two roundavels/huts on the property -- one for storage and the other for cooking and bathing. My family does not have a functioning stove, so they cook over a fire every night -- mainly Pap/Bagobe (the staple here) and some meat source. Having been a vegetarian for the past three years, and still readjusting to eating meat, you can imagine what a laugh I got when I woke up one morning to find a bag with raw, bloody goat legs (hooves and all) laying on our kitchen table -- and later that night had the pleasure of eating them! I'll never look at local goats the same ;-)
The number of family members living in our compound fluctuates, but while I was there there were 10 --> my Sangoma mother, 2 of her mid-thirties daughters, 1 of their husbands, 2 fourteen year old boys, and 4 fantastically well-behaved children. On my first night there, my host mother had me knell at a small 'shrine' like area that had several rocks and twigs sitting out... she began to speak in her mother-tongue (Sepedi/ Northern Sotho) to each of the rocks and twigs and I quickly understood that each one represented a different one of her ancestors -- she was introducing me to them one by one and explaining that I would be staying there with them and why. Afterwards, I was fed dinner and told my new name: "Pheladi." This name derives from the verb "phela" which means to live/ to be alive/ to survive. So my name essentially means "a woman who is living." To add further meaning, this is the name of my new host-mother's late mother (now labeled 'ancestor') -- who was also a traditional healer and who trained my host-mother in traditional healing. During her lifetime Pheladi managed to earn enough to purchase the compound in which we stay -- so, she is seen as the hero of her family because she has allowed them to be safe and "live here in peace." I was given her name because my new family believes I have come to watch over them. I am incredibly honored and humbled by both the gift of this name and my warm welcome into my new family. Falling asleep that first night, I truly felt I had found my home away from home here in South Africa.
Despite the fact that the vast majority of folks in my village don't speak a lick of English (including my lovely host mother) and that their level of economic hardship is the greatest I've yet to witness, I feel more at home there than I have felt in MONTHS. Though they lack nearly all of the basic amenities that I have been privileged with through out my life, the smiles on each of my new friends, co-workers, and family members' faces transparently reveal their rich relationship with what has often been called "true happiness" <--happiness that is not bound to material wealth or possessions, but resonates love in its most honest and compassionate form. I have so much to learn from these people -- and I see so much space and potential for positive change. It is going to be an AMAZING 2 years!