A stolen camera and a turkey dinner…

It was Tuesday evening and I was packing for my week and a half thanksgiving/life skills training vacation when I realized that my camera, which I keep in a drawer by the side of my bed, was missing. Now I had not used my camera for about a month so at first I thought maybe I moved it somewhere else or let someone borrow it. I searched my room (which takes about 5 minutes to do, thanks to its size) and called some friends, and after nothing turned up, I realized that my 14 year old host brother had taken it. Why, might you ask, would I automatically assume it was him? Well…

First off, my host family told me he steals. They warned me a couple days after I moved in, which was great news to me, as you can imagine. Second, the kid likes to creep around my hut. My host family has caught him lingering around my home a couple times and I have seen him peeping in my windows, one time getting a full on naked view (poor kid!) Finally, the morning that my camera went missing, I noticed that when I came back from the outhouse someone had been in my room. It had rained the night before so there were footprints on my straw mat that were bigger than my flip flop size. I figured it was him and I quickly checked to see if anything was missing, but my money, phone and laptop were all sitting out and were all still there, so I thought I was safe. Thought I scared him off before he could do any damage. Guess I was wrong.

That night, once I realized what had happened, I ran next door to my family’s house in the pouring rain to tell my grandma what I thought happened. She told me he probably did take it, said sorry a few times and then asked me what I would do. Nothing. What could I do? He is 14 and clearly has issues so….

The next morning at 5 am my grandma woke me up to give me back my camera. She was standing there with my host brother and a neighbor (I still don’t know why he was there). I later found out (from my grandma) that my host brother had stolen money from his grandfather, disappeared for the weekend, came back with neighbors following him claiming their things were missing, ended up in the police station for the night, was beat by the police (best part of the story considering my host grandma doesn’t speak much English and this whole thing involved hand signals), and then returned to the house were he immediately stole from me. Glad to see he learned his lesson with that beating and all.

I am never having children- especially not a boy.


The next day, my life improved greatly as I headed off to meet the other 11 PCVs in KZN to celebrate thanksgiving. We all stayed at an Italian villa that someone’s supervisors own. It came complete with a pool, DSTV, enough bedrooms to house 15, and wonderful running water.

We spent thanksgiving swimming, cooking and drinking and I can say that a) thanksgiving is much better when it is with friends instead of family (no offense family) and b) after hardly eating meat (or good food) for about 10 months, I had a new love for turkey and stuffing, two things I normally hate. See, I am changing and growing. Thanks Peace Corps.

We then spent the next day chilling at the beach, eating leftovers and swimming in the Indian Ocean. For a girl from Michigan, such post-Thanksgiving day activities are unheard of. No snow- it is a miracle!!

is it time for a change?

i want to start off by saying that yesterday was my brother's 22nd birthday. i cannot believe that is has been a full year since i helped my brother celebrate 21 in chicago. i don't think it was what he had in mind for his 21st, but we had fun and hit up some sites together and to be honest, it was the last time that we really spent time together before i left (not sure what went down over xmas). anyways, HAPPY BIRTHDAY LITTLE BROTHER!! it seems as though both of us are now at the point in our lives where our next 'big birthday' is 30. how scary is that.

moving on to things pertaining to my life, i got my dear little cat shobi shobi castrated yesterday. poor little guy is no longer a man. now the reason i am sharing this with the few people that read my blog is not because my cat is the only thing i have to talk about but because the process of me taking my cat to the vet both entertained and annoyed me greatly. as you may know, i cannot drive while i am here so i depend fully on public transportation aka the taxis. every morning i walk about ten minutes to get to the place where i catch a taxi in the morning. yesterday, shobi shobi accompanied me on the walk, stuffed nicely in his plastic lunch basket i bought as his carrier. as one would expect, he was angry at what i was doing to him, so he meowed and meowed from his little cage. when it was time to get on the taxi, he had a little fit in the basket and made everyone in the taxi stare at me with disgust (mind you he is inside a contained area and not really bothering anyone). i apologize and take a seat in the back, putting the basket on my lap. the entire 20 minute ride into town, people kept turning around and glaring at my cat. i was able to calm him down by petting him and he meowed maybe 5 times during the ride, but each time some person sitting in front of me turned and glared. now i know that most zulus don't like cats but lets not pretend like this is the first animal they have seen on a taxi. it is very common for chickens to be in boxes or bags, squawking and flapping in their containers, angry at the world. and i have even had friends who have had goats on their taxis, leading me to believe that animals are not off limits. what bothered me about this whole situation is that most people in my village know me, so the mistakes and strange things i do usually don't get the look of hate but instead that kind look of silly umlungu. but no, they were not forgiving at all about my cat and it pissed me off. if i had any other choice, i would not have taken a damn taxi!!

hours later, when i brought poor shobi shobi home, he was still drugged up and resembled a drunk person. he would wobble when he walked, fall over, then get up and wobble some more. then he peed on my bed and puked on the floor. don't know about you but all of those things have happened to me at one time or another while intoxicated...

moving on, the title of this blog comes from my current attempt at a site change. basically, i am fed up with my back/knee problems and want to be closer to a physical therapist. i also want running water so i can stop carrying water altogether, which is heavy even in smaller quantities. and to be honest, i have been at my current site for almost 8 months and i don't see myself fitting in here in any sort of role other than that of administrative assistant, which is not what i came here to do. most of the problem is me and not knowing really what i want to do. however, i feel as though too much time has passed now and i cannot break out of the role that i have been shoved in. most days i still spend doing nothing and it drives me nuts. basically, i have had enough...

i am looking into an organization in durban called the aids foundation. i have contacted them and plan to meet them sometime over the next couple of weeks. if they decide they want me (which they may not) i would move to durban and work under their director of research. the idea of all of this excites me so much that i really hope it works out. finally, i might have work that entertains me or at least makes me think. and i would be living in a city which is what i wanted all along. i also could see a physical therapist without having to take an hour taxi ride to the next city. wouldn't it be lovely!?!?!

lets hope it works out. for your sake and mine!

the view from outside the US...

i realized today how interesting it is to be outside the US on an election day. the news this morning was all about the election (understandably) but what fascinated me most was not the random interviews with americans living in south africa but was instead the news clips on election activity occuring in other african countries. there were parties and celebrations in kenya (again, not surprising) but they also discussed musicals/plays that have been made about barack obamas life. and in nigeria, they showed cars driving around with barack obama bumper stickers, exactly the same as the ones in america. i suppose an election like this is a rare occurance. not all presidential nominees are half black. not all have relatives that live in africa. but to see the excitement of africans for our potential future president makes me smile and proves to me just how global this world is... even on this continent that so many people see as dark and underdeveloped. it is not often that a majority of the world gets excited about an election.

i would go on to other, more personal topics now but i find that nothing exciting is going on in my life these days. i am still alive however, and i suppose that is the most important part.

i also have a new tattoo. that makes five.

it seems as though my body is trying to tell me something...

well folks, it is official. i have a slipped disk or a perforated disk or something like that. good news i guess, since it means the back pain i have been haing for the last 3 months wasn't all in my head. let me replay for you what happened...

end of june: i bent over to feed my cat and WHAM! the pain hit and i had to fall over on the floor. spent a week in bed (luckily at a PC training so i was staying somewhere nice) and took lots of meds.

beginning of july: back at site only a couple days and it happens again. i have to spend a long weekend in bed with only my cat to take care of me. again, meds saved me.

last weekend (durban): my friend and i went to have a fun weekend away and of course, as is my lcuk, it happnes again. we are at a mall and the pain just sneaks up on me until i have to go and lie down in a bathroom. could hardly move the rest of that day and the next day i decided to taking sleeping pills in order to handle the 3 hour taxi ride home. it was horrible!

so after the third 'incident' i was told to venture up to pretoria to see a doctor about this little probelm. yesterday i saw that doctor and had a mri done, only to find out that one of my disks in my lower back no longer lines up with the rest of my disks. he is a troublemaker. he is also black and the rest are white. so VOLIA, there is where the pain is coming from. now what...?

doctor said no to surgery, at least not yet. i still have control of my bladder and my legs so surgery isn't needed and hopefully never will be. basically, i have to take meds and go to physical therapy for at least 6 weeks. the disk will eventually pop back into place as long as i am careful and i do my pt.

so here i am, with a back that doesn't work and a lot of pain. i am not sure what caused it but i think it is how i carry my buckets of water and how i do my laundry. since i don't really have any other options on how i do these things, i am not sure how i am going to change this, but who knows, i am sure something will work itself out.

personally, i think my body is telling me it doesn't like living in a hut. that's ok though, cause my mind is telling me the same thing. heather=not peace corps material

in other fun news, a canadian couple are coming next week to volunteer at my org for 3 months and the husband is an IT spcialist. he is going to help me get computer classes up and running at my office, and since i am in the process of getting another computer lab put into a community center, he will help teach classes there too. i never thought that i would be doing anything IT related, seeing as how back home my brother and my dad are the computer gurus (dad works at IBM, brother is studying computer software engineering). but here i am, the computer expert at my work, who everyone comes to for help. i guess some of the knowledge my dad and brother have rubbed off on me. who would have thought- heather, an it person in africa. so much for hiv/aids.

muggings, bedbugs and a little bit of church...

so last week was a rough week. seems to happen that way. can't be just a rough day. has to be an entire week of misery. last week was that week. started off on monday with an attempted mugging. i was walking down the street at about 3pm, only 4 blocks from the peace corps office, headed to the pharmacy to get the meds that the pc didn't have in stock. i am strolling along, keeping a close watch on the purse, thinking what beautiful weather we're having when two guys come up from behind me. i hear them coming and i slow a bit and stand off to one side so they can pass me. they pass me but are walking very slowly so i have to slow my pace even more. then all of a sudden, they both turn at me and close around me. one grabs my purse while the other one tells me to give the man my phone cause he has a gun. i scream no really loudly and yank back on my purse, turning my body in the process. then i scream help. there are people around that see what is going on and i think this scared the muggers cause they just kind of stood there. some people called me over to them and walked me down another street, away from the muggers. a white man driving by in his car pulled over after seeing what had happened and offers me a lift back to peace corps office, a whole 4 blocks away.

once i get back to the office, i burst into tears. i was so annoyed with myself for taking a purse, for not putting my money and phone in my bra. living in small town bergville made me comfortable, thus allowing me to let my guard down. unfortunately in south africa, you can't let your guard down. when you do, assholes try and mug you.

a couple days later i was back in safe bergville. i was proud because i had braved the jo'burg taxi rank and made it home safe and sound. little did i know that i had carried some friends back with me- bedbugs. the first night back in my hut was normal, that is until i woke up in the morning and had bites around my waste and on my feet. thinking something must have been in my bed while i slept, i got dressed and went to work, thinking nothing of it. when i went home that evening, i shook my bed off and decided to switch my pjs, putting the ones i wore at the hostel in pretoria back on. i went to sleep thinking the bug was gone. the next morning, however, i woke up to have bites all over my back. it looked like chicken pox all over again. disgusted and itchy, i dragged all my blankets outside and hung them on the line. then i sprayed my bed, my sheet and my blankets with Doom, the kick ass bug spray. not knowing whether it was bedbugs or fleas, i scooped up shobi shobi and covered him in two kinds of flea killing medicine. finally, i gathered up all of the clothes i had slept in for the last two weeks and took them to the washing place in town. when i returned home, i had purchased another can of bug spray and i again attacked my blankets and sheets. i also covered my mattress in Blue Death, a white powder used to kill all kinds of critters. even with all of the chemicals, i was still scared to sleep in my bed, so that night i slept on top of all the covers and froze my ass off.

i am still not sure what was attacking me in my sleep but i think it was bedbugs. after talking with one of my friends who stayed at the hostel with me, i found out that she too had some sort of bites or rash on her body. it seems as though i picked the bugs up from the hostel bed and carried them all the way back to kzn with me. i believe that i have the problem under control now since the bugs weren't actually in my bed but on my clothes. occasionally i still get a bite but i am hoping that it is from something flying around in my room and not crawling around in my bed.

so after the stressful week, i decided to spend my weekend in my village, relaxing and watching sex and the city. my host family invited me to the opening of the new baptist church in my village on sunday, and although i have avoided church so far, i decided that it was about time that i make an appearance. the service was normal. lots of singing, lots of talk of god. afterwards there was lots of food, followed by lots of dishes that i helped the zulu women wash. then i brought out my camera and let the children take pictures for a couple hours until the batteries died. i actually had fun. that's right, heather had fun playing with the church children.

but the strangest thing for me was the going from watching sex and the city to sitting through a church sermon about sinning. my life here is so full of contrasts and contradictions. i am constantly being pulled from one direction to the other. sometimes it wears me out.

ok time to go flip through the Qur'an that someone gave me. :-)

random rides with random men...

some of the things i do here i would never do in the us. but then again, if i were in the us, i wouldn't be banned from driving like i am here. either way, it seems that i have become comfortable taking rides from from random men. i know this sounds really dodgy, but i promise it isn't. or maybe it is and i am just being silly. either way...

so it all started when the man in line behind me at the grocery store asked if i was heading home. i had met him before on my morning taxi to town and he works down the street from me. misinterpreting what he was asking, i said yes, thinking he wanted to walk to the taxi rank with me. as we walked outside, i realized that he had a car and was in fact offering to drive me home (he lives in my village). the car ride was fine, if not a bit awkward because of his limited english. he dropped me off at home and said he would pick me up the next day to take me to work. luckily he didn't show the next morning and i got out of what could have been an awkward situation.

this same type of thing happened again a couple weeks later as i was heading to work one morning. i was running late (as i often am now) and was waiting at the spot where i catch a taxi in the morning when a man drove by in his work vehicle. he stopped, reversed to me, asked me if i was going to be late to work, and then told me to get in. that particular day was when the nationwide strike was occurring, so we chatted about that, about how if he didn't go to work he wouldn't get paid, and about how he had a wife and family to support. he was nice enough, if a bit annoyed. was the fastest i ever got to work in my life.

following in my new trend, i was picked up this morning by the police. that's right. same situation, same driving past and then reversing back to me. there were two cops in the car and i wedged myself in between them. again, they were both very nice and asked me all the same questions that everyone asks me. the new twist in this trip was that the driver was blatantly hitting on me over and over again. he asked for my number and i told him i dropped my phone in a bucket of water. he told me i looked beautiful and i told him i doubted that since i hadn't showered in days. he was perfectly harmless with his flirtations and i laughed them off on the 15 min ride to town. what was funny about getting a ride with the cops was the reaction of some of my coworkers as i pulled up to the office in a the cop car. i think it surprised some of them... at least until i explained.

in other news, i recently finished a book about Mormonism that really impressed me. as many of you know, the organization that i work at is very very religious, so religion has been thrown into my life all of a sudden and it has been an interesting thing for me to deal with. i suppose that i am used to it all now and am somewhat numb to the daily religious routines that we go through here at work. anyways, there was a quote at the end of the book that i really appreciated.

"There are some ten thousand extant religious sects- each with its own cosmology, each with its own answer for the meaning of life and death. Most assert that the other 9,999 not only have it completely wrong but are instruments of evil, besides. None of the ten thousand has yet persuaded me to make the requisite leap of faith. In the absence of conviction, I've come to terms with the fact that uncertainty is an inescapable corollary of life. An abundance of mystery is simply part of the bargain... And if I remain in the dark about our purpose here, and the meaning of eternity, I have nevertheless arrived at an understanding of a few more modest truths: Most of us fear death. Most of us yearn to comprehend how we got here, and why- which is to say, most of us ache to know the love of our creator. And we will no doubt feel that ache, most of us, for as long as we happen to be alive."

interesting...

perhaps...

"perhaps as you went along you did learn something. i did not care what it was all about. all i wanted to know what how to live in it. maybe if you found out how to live in it you learned from that what it was all about." -hemingway


a friend sent me this quote and i find it very fitting. i still am no closer to figuring out what i am supposed to do here in middle of nowhere south africa, but i still learn things everyday. it may not be the right things or the most important things, but i learn nonetheless, and from the same same that is my life now, i am growing. i am trying to live in it.

♫