Hi friends and family!

I am back in Durban, sadly. I said good bye and left Bhekuzulu yesterday morning, and got picked up to come back and write my independent study project, which I am not overly excited about. It was incredibly nice to take a shower and buy real sort-of-american tasting food last night, but now I get to spend all weekend writing a paper. I’m actually almost done in South Africa- this week is all about this paper, we’ll be presenting our papers this weekend (since when is it okay to have school on a Sunday? Its almost worse than BC’s Saturday evening final policy. Well, maybe not really, but it’s close). Monday we leave to drive somewhere, and somehow end up at a game park on Wed. where they promised me I would see an elephant (i might not leave if I don't see one, seriously), and then we fly out to America that Thursday.

The last three month or so has been really good- I loved living in a village, and the organization I was working definitely had some problems, but was pretty cool. Wed. was election day. Tuesday night, the US government was kind enough to send me an email telling me not to travel to Estcourt, among other places, or it’s surrounding villages, because there could be violence. Thanks America. Fortunately, there was no violence, but I felt pretty adventurous being somewhere I shouldn’t be.

Here's some pictures from the last month now that my internet is working:

This is Madlebe. Amadlebe are ears in Zulu, and as you can see, she has huge ears. She was really cute, and if it weren't impossible to bring flee-bitten unregistered dogs to America, I probably would have.

This was from Easter. I'm standing on the top of a mountain after a really long hike. It was beautiful

Another picture from the hike.

This is me in front of the house where I lived. My door is the one in the back. Notabo (in the orange) was the daughter of one of the workers at BSSP, and Nodofu, who was five, really cute, and totally crazy, is her cousin or something.

Election day! Me and some random people who are really excited about Jacob Zuma. The girl on the left works at the centre, and I have no idea who the man is, but he was wearing a Zuma sign.

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My favorite creche baby! Her name is Nqo, and she's really cute. She also has a family, so unfortunately I couldn't take her with me.



Creche babies eating breakfast. They are much cuter than this picture does justice.

Sanibonani!

I finally made it to a computer, so here is a [no so brief] update. I’m living in the rural village of Bhekuzulu, which is a tiny village about 20k outside of Estcourt (a really small town which basically consists of a crossroads and a couple of stores north of Durban). I work every day at the Bhekuzulu Self Sufficient Project (Bhekuzulu.wordpress.com if you’re interested, it would take too long to explain everything that goes on here). I live in a bedroom out back of Nozipho’s, the project’s finance manager, house. Musa, the program manager, lives next door to me, and Therese, the American Peace Corps volunteer lives inside. They’re all pretty cool. I think we’re the only house in the village that has running water (there are things visibly swimming in it and I got really sick the first weekend from drinking it, but hey, its running water nonetheless). So all in all it’s a pretty great place to live.

I have a Zulu name- it is Mbali Hadebe. Mbali means rose or flower, and two of the little girls who live here picked it out for me. Hadebe is a joke, because like 2/3 of our village have the surname Hadebe, although they are not related. No one can remember American names here, because they sound so strange, so everybody but Therese calls me Mbali or Mbali Rose. The director’s sister’s name also happens to be Mbali Hadebe, which is rather inconvenient, but whatever.

BSSP is doing pretty well by South African standards- they accomplish things, no one is stealing money as far as I can tell. They employ as many people as they can afford to, because unemployment is 89% in this municipality and the HIV prevalence is 43%. If that means nothing to you, let me interpret- that’s almost as bad as it could possibly be. However, lots of people means not much for me to do, which is actually probably good. I mostly hang out at the crèche, which is like a pre-school/day-care for kids too young to go to school. Picture 45 really cute zulu children kept in a small pen and excited about anyone who wants to play with them. Sad, but absolutely adorable. I’ve taken more pictures than any of you will ever want to look at, trust me. Last week, schools were on Easter break, so Therese and I wrote a little over 100 letters to local and international funders, trying to get grants for the center. This week, schools are back in session, so they’re starting up the afterschool youth program again, which I’m excited for.

To make a long story short, most land except inside towns and cities in South Africa since 1994 is tribal, which means it can’t be bought and sold, the chief has to give it to you. Which creates a number of issues, including the fact that since you can’t count your house as an asset, you can’t get loans. The chief of this area’s daughter is kind of petty, supposedly, and kicked BSSP off its land last year behind her father’s back. So, now we have new land, which is bigger, and we’re in the process of building all new buildings, which will ultimately be way better, but at the moment is hugely inconvenient. The office is currently in a stick and mud building (typical here), which is fine, except its freezing and the mud falls off the walls and jams the printers and computers on a regular basis. So, I’m mostly learning why its really hard to accomplish anything in rural South Africa, but also a lot about NGO’s, the peace corps, funding, and HIV. And cute kids, of course.

Life is really slow in rural villages- pretty much nothing happens. On the weekends, for instance, literally nothing happens. Maybe, you might do your laundry if you were feeling really crazy, or possibly even ride a minibus into town. But, I kind of enjoy it. Also, everyone wakes up at the crack of dawn, literally (probably because that’s when the chickens get up). I decided to go running at 6 am the other day (if Zulus see you running, they either think you’re running away from something and get concerned, or just think you’re crazy), and literally the entire village was not only awake, but also standing in the one and only dirt road here, and staring at me. I quit after about 2 minutes. Also, we burn our trash, and goats and stray dogs come and eat it, usually while its still burning.

I made friends with one of the local dogs, who Musa named Madlebe (zulu for ears- she has huge ears), who is really cute. But, it’s a problem, because South Africans do not befriend animals ever, even though there are crazy half-starved wolf-dogs everywhere. Madlebe now follows me around. She came to the crèche today, and tried to get in, which was bad.

For Easter, I went to the Drakensburg (big mountains in the middle of SA) with 3 other girls from SIT who are working about 30k way from me in Ladysmith. We got to hike, and ride horses in the mountains, and we met a bunch of other Americans at the hostel, which is weird, because that’s the first time I’ve bet another American here beside Therese.

So all in all, expect pictures of cute kids and beautiful mountains when I eventually make it back to real internet.

Also, I’m coming home in three weeks, which I alternately dread and get very excited about. It feels like I’ve been in Africa forever, but also like I just left America. Its also definitely autumn/winter? now, which means it drops to like 60 at night, which feels freezing. Sad to think that will be about the temperature of NY/Boston when I get back, and everyone else will think its downright hot out.

Some thoughts about the last week and a half…

Last week was pretty much the week of school work, so I spent my life buried in my computer trying to finish a big paper, create a presentation, and write an Independent Study Project and fill out all the forms. I did in fact finish, miraculously, which is good. The owners of the hostel we’re staying think we’re crazy, because all we did all week long was write papers, but whatever.

Saturday, we helped out with Durban’s first Relay for Life. We were sort of volunteered without a lot of choice by Christine, our program director’s wife, who is a cancer survivor. It ended up to be pretty fun however. I was expecting it to be kind of like BC’s relay for life, and just as poorly organized, if not worse (sorry BC, I’m sure you did better this year :-P). Wrong. The event was enormous- there were over 90 teams, and a ridiculous number of people there. There were 60 or so other volunteers, not including the 11 of us that went. It was kind of crazy though, because it was at this enormously huge rich high school that was bigger and more ridiculous than BC, which makes you a little sick when you’ve been hanging out in brick buildings without no running water and pit latrines, which the government builds for rural areas. But, they raised a ton of money for cancer, and we met some interesting people. I spent Sat. afternoon parking cars- a large number of people complained about having to park their BMWs and Audis in a field, which really annoyed me- but otherwise people were really nice, and they did a really good job with the relay itself. And then we sold coffee, tea, water, and muffins all night long, and cleaned up in the morning. There was a crazy lightning storm in the middle of the night (we were outdoors), which was so cool, because South Africa lightning is crazy, and sometimes goes sideways and turns the sky purple. And the rain never came, so that was really good.

I’m leaving Wednesday afternoon/evening to go to Bhekuzulu, where I’m doing my Independent Study Project. I think I finally have everything set. I am getting picked up in Durban, and driving the 50 or so K to Bhekuzulu, a really small rural village. I’m living with a woman named Fezile Hadebe, who is the program director. I actually have no idea what I will be doing, but I sincerely hope it involves playing with children. I also am hoping Fezile has kids, but we’ll see. I’ll be there until April 24^th, at which point I’ll come back to Durban and write another paper. I have no idea what internet is like that rural, so you may or may not hear from me between now and then.

That's about all that's new. Also, much as I love receiving mail, don’t send me any more real mail, because it likely won’t get here between now and when I leave, because this country hasn’t really got its act together as far as the postal service goes.

At least I'm not in Madagascar...

The good news is that I did not in fact decide to study in Madagascar. Apparently there was a military coup there this week, and all the Americans studying or living or whatever there got pulled out and sent home. Which would be really unfortunate. There's another SIT group there who all had to go home, and they don't get credit for the semester, which is even more unfortunate, because then you can't even graduate on time. Of course, I should not speak too soon, because elections here are coming up on April 22, and things are pretty crazy. The last elections were totally violence free, but KZN is a stronghold for the IFP, (the Inkatha Freedom Party) which is the major opposition to the ANC, the ruling party (African National Congress- think Nelson Mandela). Here, you vote for a party, not a candidate, and legislative seats are then assigned based on the percent of the vote won by party, and the winning party gets to assign the president and executive cabinet. All the parties are actually horribly corrupt, but the ANC will win for sure. Which is sort of unfortunate, because Jacob Zuma, their presidentially candidate, has been on trial for rape (the circumstances he got off on were a bit questionable), has no formal education, and is currently on trial for corruption and graft or something. It's widely believed that if he wins (there's no way he won't, the ANC usually gets about 2/3 of the vote nationwide), he will change the constitution so he cannot be prosecuted. And, Nelson Mandela has been campaigning for him. Its great, really. We've been told to not go to polling places if we will still be in KwaZulu Natal, and to stay out of the streets. But we're really not too worried about there being violence. The ANC actually split this year, because their previous president, Thabo Mbeki, who "resigned" (and also was crazy and an AIDS denialist and told people not to take their ARVs, but to eat African Potatoes, Beetroot, and Garlic instead), was also corrupt. Wheh the ANC kind of pushed him to resign, a chunk of the party broke off and called themselves COPE. But they haven't been too successful in getting a lot of support for their party. It is a little odd that people keep voting for the ANC, because they have actually accomplished very little of what they've promised, but they do, probably out of loyalty for ending apartheid. So, in case you were holding some falsly optimistic view that things in South Africa have been great after 1994, you're wrong.

Instead of updating my blog, I'm actually supposed to be writing at 40 page research paper on zulu masculinities, which is not going well at all. This is reallly the only thing academic we have done so far, and its really the only work we have to do for an 8 credit class, but I am still procrastinating.

In other news, I think I found my independent study project. We have the month of April to go anywhere in SA we want and study something health related. Yesterday, I got permission to hang out at the Bhekuzulu Self Sufficient Project, which is an NGO in a very rural village about 50K outside of Durban, which works with HIV/AIDS doing community outreach, education, prevention of mother to child transmission, care of orphans and vulnerable children, and youth projects. Translation- I can play with really cute kids for another month, and call it academics. The downside- there is a very good chance I come home having adopted multiple children. Just so you've all been warned. And, there is a peace corps volunteer working there who I can either live with, or live nearby. I'm working on tracking down her contact information, because sometimes speaking with native english speakers is helpful when planning stuff.

Okay, I've exceeded the amount of time I can actually procrastinate on writing this paper and still get it done this weekend, sadly.

Updates and a brief lesson in South African history

Here's whats new in the last week:

On monday we went to Amatikulu, our last rural village, and stayed for the week with community health workers. Community health workers are kind of like medical social workers, but with far less training. They basically walk super long distances to rural homesteads and question people about their health and report back to the clinic. It helps clinics keep track of what's going on in a community, provides a link between people who are ill and unable to make it to medical care and the local clinic, etc. They also do basic education, to teach people things like how make oral rehydration solution, when to take kids for immunizations, etc. Or at least that's the hope. Most of us left with the impression our CHWs needed a lot more training... Also, a little depressing the health situation of most rural people. In theory, its a good system intended to cover the health care gap in rural places, but doesn't work out quite as well as you wish it did. On the up side, I spent a bunch of my evenings hanging out with the gogo (it means grandmother) of the homestead, who really loves Jesus and I think maybe was convinced I was a missionary. But, we had good conversation (super random that she spoke english- none of her daughters did, only the grandkids). She can't walk well, so she sits on a mat and weaves grass rugs all day. She gave me a grass rug as a present which she had made right before I left. It is a really awkard shape to try to get back to America, but I like it a lot, so I'm determined to find a way to get it home.

We got back from Amatikulu thursday, and moved into the city for the next couple weeks. I'm living in another hostel with two other girls, and three more are going to join us on friday. Its a nice place, and low key, which is really good. Now that we're not traveling and have moved out of Cato, we have the bulk of our academic work due between now and april, which is depressing, and after having done nothing but draw a few pictures and maps since december, I am totally unmotivated to do anything academic.

Its sort of odd to be living in the city with white people. Probably the most clique thing you can possibly say about south africa is that there are two worlds here, a first and a third world, which coexist side by side. But its pretty true. And its real weird to go from living with Zulu families in what is effectively the third world, where you bathe with a bucket, and the water and electricity frequently runs out, and kids and chickens and stray dogs run around in the street and everyone is poor, to suddenly living in Durban, with running water, reliable electricity, showers, and internet access. The people that run surf and dreams are pretty typical white south africans, which makes them totally out of touch with whats going on in the rest of the country, and slightly racist (you can't totally blame them, everyone is here, it's kind of inevitable in a country where for 3 centuries your race determined everything about your life). The guy that owns the place is a native of south africa, and is convinced that south africa is 30% white. Actually, the answer is 9%, which kind of blows me away. He and his wife ask us a ton of questions, and were appalled at the idea of not having running water. Just so you are aware, slightly less than 1/2 of South Africa operates without running water.

The white population here generally has no idea what is going on outside the cities and rich areas where they live. They gate off their houses, with electric wires and razor wire and big scary dogs and burgler bars on all the windows and doors. Almost all of them hire out private security companies, because the police here are worthless. Which, crime is ridiculously high here, in part because starving people steal things, but also because the legacy of how apartheid was overthrown includes a lot of sabotage and violence. The ANC called to make the townships (where all urban black people were forced to live, and still largely remain) ungovernable in the early 90s. So, you can't totally blame them for protecting themselves, but in comparison to the townships and rural areas, where houses barely lock, and everyone just hangs out on the street and kids don't usually have shoes, it's odd. And its odd, because i feel like I can identify to a degree with the zulu population- obviously I don't understand what's its like to be a zulu or the experience of living here as a black person- but a lot of my views on south africa have largely been shaped by the opinions and stories of the people I've been living with, so I feel kind of out of place in the city, which is weird.

sorry this turned into a bit of a novel. congrats if you actually made it to the end!

We moved out of Cato this weekend, which was really sad. I'm sure I'll go back to visit at least a couple more times before I leave South Africa, but still sad not to live there. We had a big party friday night, with lots of traditional African food, and all the mamas dressed up. Saturday, I said goodbye to all the kids, which was the hardest. When I came down to say goodbye, all the little kids scream umlungu, because they can never remember american names (they have also taken to calling me umude, which means tall, because I'm the tallest of the white girls). One of my favorite girls, Mascuto, yelled at them, and told them I wasn't umlungu, I was umuntu. Umuntu is just a person, usually a black person. So, apparently I'm moving up in the world. I was pretty happy about that.

We are leaving for our last rural adventure today, and then we'll be in Durban for the remainder of March. And then I have no idea where I'm going...

We spent this weekend in Durban, at a backpacker's called Gibela. It was really fantastic and relaxing. A whole bunch of the girls wanted to go out clubbing with some sketchy Afrikaaner boys, so six of us decided not to and just hung out for the weekend. Which turned out to be a good decision, because the rest of them got mugged at knifepoint. Funny thing, apparently getting drunk and wandering the streets of Durban in the dark is a bad plan...

We went to a couple flee markets, which is kind of bad, because everything is really cool, really incredibly cheap, and there is a lot of artwork depicting elephants. And, its fair trade and supports local artists. If you know me at all, you will realize why this is a problem. Anyway, roommates and family, I appologize that African artwork will soon be taking over our house and apartment. Yesterday, we went to the Durban botanical gardens, which is the oldest garden in Africa (and by that, we of course mean the oldest garden made by white people), which was beautful. Last night we went to see Slumdog millionaire, which totally deserved all the awards it got, and then went out for ice cream. All for under $5, including the cab ride home. For all of you in America lamenting the economy, never fear, the South African economy is doing far worse, so the exchange rates get better by the week. We also cooked a lot of pasta and other such American food, which tasted fantastic after 6 weeks of African curry and rice. So all in all, a pretty good weekend.

Sanibonani!

I finally made it to a rural village! It was pretty great. We left Friday, and spent Friday and Saturday night in Pholela, which is a hikers camping place in the Drakensburg, the mountains which run along the eastern coast of SA. We took a 6 hour hike in the mountains on Saturday, which was really hard, but real fun. This is a picture from the start of the hike- we hiked around the hill on the left and up to the top of a bigger hill behind it. The mountains in the distance with the cup in the middle is the border of the Kingdom of Lesotho, and allegedly the reason that Lesotho is the last remaining true kingdom in the world. Apparently Lesotho was the only kingdom that Shaka, the great Zulu warrior, failed to conquer. We actually were pretty close to those mountains by the time we turned around.


This is some bushman rock art we found at the top of the hike. The Bushmen, or Khoi-San (which literally means without land) were the only nomadic tribe in South Africa. The Zed version of Khoi-San history says that this art is probably around 200 years old, because the Khoi-San were killed off particularly fast after colonialism when the white settlers literally put a bounty on their heads, much like American settlers did for the Indians in some areas. So nobody really knows what any of this means, because they all died out or went into hiding and lost their culture in the process. Sad. This one looks like hunting to me, but you can use your imagination.

Sunday, about half of us went on a mini hike in the morning. We saw a whole herd of baboons, and then found this waterfall, which flows into a pond thing. So we named it baboon lagoon, and swam in it. It was fantastic. This is a particularly unflattering picture I rather enjoy of my classmates pretending to be baboons, with the waterfall in the background.

Sunday, after baboon lagoon, we left for the village of Impendle itself. It was particularly rainy on Sat, so promptly after arriving, the Thula Mobile, a 16 seater van which is our primary means of transportation in South Africa, got stuck in the mud. We got bailed out by Samantha, our American host for the weekend. I cannot even begin to describe Samantha. She’s about 35, born in Maryland, has ridiculous bleach blonde dreadlocks with beads and shells matted in, and has a masters in “peace studies,” whatever that is. She packed up and left America 12 years ago, built her own house in Impendle, and started a commune, which 10 other people have joined her on. She plays the guitar, is learning to fire dance, has not worn shoes for over a year, and when asked what she does here, stuttered around a bit and finally declared that she teaches natives to crochet waterbottle holders. She’s followed around by Cama, a former UCBerkeley employee, who wears nothing but purple. And has one giant dreadlock beehive, with excessive purple beading attached. Apparently when she cannot find the right shade of purple, she dyes her own clothing. The zulu villagers can’t quite figure out what their deal is (neither could we for that matter), but they tolerate them okay.

This picture is of my Zulu family’s homestead. There’s another house behind the traditional hut, and 11 people live there. They are considerably richer than my Cato family (doesn’t say much), but have no running water, because it’s a rural village. On the right, that shack is the kitchen hut, where they cook over a fire, and the veggie garden. Usually there was an abundance of chickens in the front yard- typically of most of South Africa that I’ve seen, and a longdrop toilet behind the kitchen hut.

We hung out with our families, had a crazy Zulu dance party (zulu’s know how to dance!), visited the clinic, hung out with some home-based care givers, and listened to a couple people from the clinic and various other development agencies talk about some more academic stuff. One of whom was a crazy old white guy who was also an AIDS denialist and spends his time running around trying to convince black people not to take their ARVs and buy his herbal remedies instead. At which point in the lecture, this crazy shopkeeper who had been following us around all weekend asked if drinking tea made of “the weeds you grow in your garden” would prolong your life if you had AIDS. When pressed, he finally specified dagga weed (marijuana). Tues, we were dragged by the head of environmental agency in Impedle to a school, where we planted like 4 flowers, and then the school had an assembly to thank us. It was one of the more uncomfortable experiences I’ve had here so far. Generally, its awkward to be a white American in predominantly black areas which have been oppressed by white people since about the 1400s, but this experience won for sure. So overall, and fairly educational but somewhat strange weekend.

That’s everything that’s been happening here. Keep me updated on your lives!

Cheers now,
Kara