Birds, bugs, and a tiny new kitten

I have recently found out that I share my rondeval with a lot of birds. They like to build their nests in my thatch roof. I can sometimes here them at night, rustling around, shifting to get comfortable. It creeps me out so I put my headphones in a pretend it doesn’t exist. It the morning I usually hear them chirping and flapping around. So far, I have been ok with sharing my hut because the birds have stayed on the outside and I have stayed on the inside. However, last week when I got home from work, I found myself under attack. I opened my hut and walked into my first room which is my kitchen. I heard a commotion in my bedroom, so I pushed back the curtain and walked in. I instantly heard very loud chirping. All of a sudden I had a bird flying at my head, squawking and flapping, trying desperately to escape. I, of course, ran out of my hut screaming, unsure of what to do next. I went to get my host father, who started laughing when I told him. He walked back to my hut with me and as we were approaching the door, the bird dive bombed at us, finally finding his freedom. We ducked, and then my host dad told me everything was better and walked away. I spent the next 10 minutes making sure there were no other birds that had infiltrated the thatch. I am paranoid that there is a hole that they can get through now, so every time I hear them making noise, I look around and make loud noises hoping it will scare them. I am not so sure that it actually works. I also recently found out that something called bird lice exists and that I have to be careful not to get it. I was told that I will need to bug bomb at least every 6 months so that their lice doesn’t bother me. GREAT!

Along with the birds, I have found that I share my home with these sweet little bugs with pinchers. They are gross, but a lot smaller than the cockroaches that I shared my room with in Limpopo, so I try to just put up with them. We had a rather hard rain a few nights ago (which is uncommon because it is winter, which is the dry season) and I found that these bugs multiple when it rains. Either that or they fall out of my thatch (damn thatch is the cause of all my problems). I was walking around killing them left and right! They were on the walls, on the floor, crawling out of my stove top, crawling around my dishes, etc. It was AWESOME! Finally, I busted out my Doom bug killer and sprayed my whole hut, feeling satisfied that I had done my best to exterminate them. The next morning, I woke up to find the dead bug bodies all over the ground in both rooms of my hut. It was a joy to walk around picking them all up at 6am. And sadly, this only deterred their attack because the bugs have now reappeared, there solely to make my life miserable. Hopefully, when I bomb for the bird lice, these little bitches will also die!

Following this trend of creatures living in my house, I am happy to announce that I am now the owner of a tiny kitten! It is a seven week old male tabby cat and it is so damn cute! I had asked my neighbor to look out for a kitten for me, thinking that she would tell me when she knew of someone with a kitten and I could go and check it out and decide if I really want one. Just kidding! I came home from work the other day when it was dark and muddy and two boys were waiting there for me- with a kitten! My neighbor had sent them over once she had seen me walking home from work. I was excited, but not prepared at all for a new kitten. I had nothing to feed it, no place for it to go to the bathroom, and nowhere for it to sleep. And the thing looked scared to death and wouldn’t stop meowing!! Things have settled a bit now, I went to the vet and bought de-wormer and flea powder, I got a litter box and some cat food, and the kitten seems to be warming to me. I decided to name it unoshobishobi, which means tadpole in Zulu, which everyone here thinks is ridiculous. He sleeps with me most nights, curled up on my chest. Recently, he has started to wake up at 3 am and bat at my face. It is really annoying but I can’t kick it out of bed because he is too damn cute. I am totally in love and glad that I have someone to keep me company in my hut. Now I have to figure out how to get it back in the US, if the little thing actually lives that long!

bye bye heather, hello gugu

that is right folks, my new name is gugu, short for gugulethu which means precious or treasure or something like that? i hear different things every time. one thing that everyone does do when they hear my name is laugh. i take this to be a welcoming thing, like you are one of us cause you have a name we can understand. i am probably wrong.

so i have been in bergville now for 10 days. 10 long, interesting, confusing days. i am still alive and i haven't burnt my hut down with my candles yet, so i consider this a victory. it has definitely been interesting! i had a breakdown my first night in my hut because it was so dark and nothing was unpacked. i cried like a baby and then went to bed at 8pm without making dinner. since then, i can honestly say that things have gotten much better. everything is put away and i have kind of gotten the hang of things. my bedroom is pretty cozy and cute, with pictures up everywhere. my kitchen is functioning and will hopefully become more welcoming once i have spent some more time decorating it. i use tons of candles and paraffin lamps as my source of light and i cook (sometimes) on my two burner stove top that burns the green gel. i have a SWEET collection of buckets that i am proud of. i have buckets for dishes, buckets for laundry (which i haven't braved yet), buckets for water, a big ass bucket for bathing, and another one for mopping/throwing out my dirty water. oh i also have a bucket for peeing. it is pretty sweet. i have fetched water once since living there and it is a pain in the ass. the pump is a 10 minute walk away and i cannot carry the water back without the help of my 17 year old host sister, who throws the bucket on her head and walks back without using her hands to hold it. she totally puts me to shame. i have a whole new appreciation for how much water i use, and i have learned to bathe in a very small amount of water. i think hut life will be ok, if a little boring. the nights get lonely and i would kill to be able to watch a movie on my computer. i am considering buying a car battery and running my laptop from that. i will let you know how it goes.

i have absolutely no idea what i am doing at my ngo, but the people are very nice and i think i will like it. i have spent the last week and a half just following around joseph, my direct supervisor. most of it has been meetings or trainings that are all done in zulu, so i understand very little. what i gather is that the trainings are important and interesting, and it makes me angry that i cannot speak a lick of zulu. this also makes me wonder how i am going to help the hiv/aids sector when most of their work is done in the community or with community members and it is all done in zulu. i promise you all, i will never be fluent in zulu. guess i will just have to see how these first 3 months go.

in a couple weeks my whole office is gone because they take vacation days. normally, i would use this time to travel, but since i am on lock down and cannot leave the bergville area, i am stuck. the thought of staying at my hut for a whole week without coming to the office makes me nervous, but i am trying to come up with ideas for how to spend my time in a productive way. i just met a teacher who teaches at the primary school in my village (moyeni) and i have asked her if i can attend classes at her school one of those days. she is now very excited and already asking me for my input on things she is doing. the risk you run in asking to OBSERVE something. she has also invited me to some womens prayer retreat as well, which i will have to find a way out of. ha ha. i will let you all know how it goes.

ok i have to go catch my work taxi home. time for some more pasta for din din. maybe i will knit tonight. or maybe just go to bed at 9pm. i am officially a grandma!

my rondavel in the middle of nowhere.

sanibonani all! sorry for my extreme lack of posting but i hardly ever have access to the internet these days (and will probably have very limited access for the next 2 years!) i have lots to tell, so this may be a long post!

so i have officially become a Peace Corps volunteer. we had a swearing-in service on april 3, 2008 which means that my 2 years of service started from that exact date. it was a fairly simple process of taking an oath, but it meant it a lot to me, seeing as how training was not the most fun time of my life. since i have finished training and become a volunteer, i have left the village of bakenberg and the province of limpopo for my permanent site of bergville, kwazulu natal. this is where i will be living for the next 2 years of my life (if i make it that long).

bergville is a tiny town in the drakensberg mountains. it has one grocery store, a couple banks and a post office. there are no internet cafes or movie theaters. the whole town is made up of only 5 or 6 blocks as far as i can tell. the ngo that i will be working for is called world vision and it is located in bergville. world vision is an international organization that has its headquarters in seattle. i am not really sure what they do, but i know that their main focus is children and that they are very christian (you will find that christianity is attacking me here in rsa). as far as what i will be doing at world vision, i am not sure. my first day is tomorrow and i am supposed to spend the first 3 months just observing so i can find a place where my skills will be most useful. i want to do something with hiv/aids, so hopefully that will end up working out. i am excited to work there but at the same time nervous because a) i am not religious and b) both people i am supposed to be working under are very very very busy and i am not sure if they will have time for me. at this point i don't want to be left on my own to figure shit out but i get the feeling that that is what i will end up doing.

i am not personally living in bergville, but will instead be living in a village called moyeni which is about a 25-30 drive outside of bergville in a pretty rural area. i will be getting to and from work via khumbi or minibus taxi, which takes a bit longer and is the main method of transportation for black south africans (you will probably never see a white person on a khumbi!) i am staying in a double rondavel (a round hut with a thatch roof) that doesn't have electricity or running water. my rondavel is located on a family compound, so they have a house next door to where i will be living in the same fenced in area. the family is very nice, although i am nervous about the 17 year old host sister for reasons i will not write here. there is a father, mother, young son, the 17 year old and a dying brother-in-law. their home is quite small but very cute. they have a jojo tank outside their house (it collects rainwater to use for water) and there is a pump about a 10-15 min walk away where i will also have to get water from. the village of moyeni is very cute but very rural. the houses are very spead apart and i am still not sure how i will get from house to house to get to know my community. a bike is out of the question because the roads are so bad that even a normal car can't get to my house; it needs to be a truck to get through the mud. the mountains are off in the distance and are what i see every morning and there is also a lake nearby, although nobody swims in it. i am scared as shit to live without electricity but i am going to give it a go. i am the only volunteer out of my group of 30 that doesn't have electricity. i will cook using a two burner stove that has a gel i pour in and burn. i bought a gas lamp and a ton of candles and i am hoping this will do. i have no refrideration so that should be interesting and i might see if i can get a gas fridge, although i am doubting that i can pay for that. i will continue to bathe in a bucket and do my laundry/dishes in a bucket. oh joy!

there are two volunteers from the group two before mine that also work in bergville. one of them works at world vision with me. they have a different living situation because they stay in an apartment in town (and no, i cannot do that. i have already asked!) they will be leaving in september but at least they will be around to help me for the first 5 months. antoher volunteer from my group was supposed to work in bergville with me, and in fact when we came to visit for a week in march she came with me. the rondavel that i am living in was supposed to be her home and she was supposed to work for world viison. she decided after visiting here that she wanted to work someplace else, so she did not return with me and my living situation and ngo were switched. needless to say, it has been a stressful few weeks for me being moved from one place to another and finding out that i was no going to have to rough it on my own.

i have access to the internet on my cell phone but it is slow and i cannot send emails from it. i can, however, check my emails and post facebook messages (go figure!) so you can send me stuff from time to time that way. i am in the process of trying to hook my phone to my laptop so it can serve as a modem but it isnt working and i dont think i will be able to get it to work on my own. plus, i dont have electricity so i will probably just leave my laptop at work and will thus hardly use it anyways. if you do want to stay in touch, please send me mail. i love writing letters and love love love receiving them. my new address is:

heahter o'neil c/o OADP
po box 37
bergville 3350
kwazulu natal
south africa

you can also try texting me, cause i am able to text america and europe. my cell number is +27838639307. if you text (or call!! it is free for me!!) from america, you would dial 01127838639307. anyways, it is an option for you all.

ok i think that is the pretty much all i have to say. i must admit that right now i am having a really hard time here and kind of want to come home at least once a day. i hope that things will get better once i have been here awhile, but i still have doubts as to whether peace corps is right for me. i guess we will see how it goes ;-)