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. :-)
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
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...
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...
Thursday, August 7, 2008
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.
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.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
so where do you work?
want to know how to make yourself look like an asshole?
get on morning taxi to work, like usual, with coffee and book to read. wait for taxi to fill up and have someone sit next to you. wait for person to ask you random questions about how you live in a village, etc., etc. in attempt to try and make conversation with random person, ask where in town they work. then have the person tell you that they work at THE SAME PLACE AS YOU. now you are an asshole.
that's right folks. i did this just the other day on my way to work. the woman, whose name i still do not know, was someone new and i don't think she is permanent staff, but she works at world vision all the same. she just looked at me and asked, "didn't you see me at work yesterday?" then she proceeded to name people who i work with, in case i thought she was making it up. i didn't know what to say. i couldn't bring myself to ask her anymore questions, in case i was already supposed to know the answer (hence the reason i still don't know her name!) anyways, that was a great start to the day.
in further life news, today is saturday and i am at the office. tomorrow i will also be at the office. this is a lot of overtime, seeing as how i get paid NOTHING. such is life. things are quite hectic here as we are behind in putting data into the computer. there are 5 or 6 of us who are working around the clock. the other night, jamie (sa15 pcv) and i stayed at the office, taking turns working on the computer and sleeping on a mattress on the floor. i don't know if i will be doing that again. i spent the next day exhausted and cranky, and i ended up leaving early. part of me feels like saying screw it to the whole thing but i feel really badly for the women who are working their butts off to get it done, so i will stay and help. it should all be over by wednesday...
in addition to the wonderful data entry, world vision recently received a gift from BIC of pens, pencils, crayons, highlighters, etc. lots and lots and lots of all of these products. i was put in charge of going through all of this stock and organizing it. nothing like hours of manual labor. boy do i love lifting heavy boxes over and over and over again. once i sorted and wrote out all of goods, i then have to divide it into 4 and resort it all. did i mention that i love my life??
... since i returned from the wonderful peace corps training, i have had a series of mishaps occur in my life. i threw my back out like an old woman and was unable to leave my bed for 4 days. those were 4 thrilling days, spent alone with my kitten and my dvds and some pain meds. i dropped my lovely cell phone in a bucket of water (surprised it hasn't happened before now) and it stopped functioning properly. it works again, but i can't let the battery die because if i do, it is almost impossible to recharge it. it also doesn't like to connect anymore with the charging cord, so it takes a bit of blowing and jiggling to get it to work. and yesterday, to top it all off, my water kettle stopped working. no more coffee in the morning or hot bucket baths for me. the piece of shit was only a month or two old, and get this, i think it stopped working because it got wet. doesn't that seem odd.
next weekend i am planning an escape. so are about 12 other peace corps volunteers. we are going to durban for an i need a break from work/i don't have a site/i am leaving in 4 weeks type of get away. i have not yet been to durban ever, so i am quite excited... mostly to see the ocean again. and lets be honest, to party the nights away.
get on morning taxi to work, like usual, with coffee and book to read. wait for taxi to fill up and have someone sit next to you. wait for person to ask you random questions about how you live in a village, etc., etc. in attempt to try and make conversation with random person, ask where in town they work. then have the person tell you that they work at THE SAME PLACE AS YOU. now you are an asshole.
that's right folks. i did this just the other day on my way to work. the woman, whose name i still do not know, was someone new and i don't think she is permanent staff, but she works at world vision all the same. she just looked at me and asked, "didn't you see me at work yesterday?" then she proceeded to name people who i work with, in case i thought she was making it up. i didn't know what to say. i couldn't bring myself to ask her anymore questions, in case i was already supposed to know the answer (hence the reason i still don't know her name!) anyways, that was a great start to the day.
in further life news, today is saturday and i am at the office. tomorrow i will also be at the office. this is a lot of overtime, seeing as how i get paid NOTHING. such is life. things are quite hectic here as we are behind in putting data into the computer. there are 5 or 6 of us who are working around the clock. the other night, jamie (sa15 pcv) and i stayed at the office, taking turns working on the computer and sleeping on a mattress on the floor. i don't know if i will be doing that again. i spent the next day exhausted and cranky, and i ended up leaving early. part of me feels like saying screw it to the whole thing but i feel really badly for the women who are working their butts off to get it done, so i will stay and help. it should all be over by wednesday...
in addition to the wonderful data entry, world vision recently received a gift from BIC of pens, pencils, crayons, highlighters, etc. lots and lots and lots of all of these products. i was put in charge of going through all of this stock and organizing it. nothing like hours of manual labor. boy do i love lifting heavy boxes over and over and over again. once i sorted and wrote out all of goods, i then have to divide it into 4 and resort it all. did i mention that i love my life??
... since i returned from the wonderful peace corps training, i have had a series of mishaps occur in my life. i threw my back out like an old woman and was unable to leave my bed for 4 days. those were 4 thrilling days, spent alone with my kitten and my dvds and some pain meds. i dropped my lovely cell phone in a bucket of water (surprised it hasn't happened before now) and it stopped functioning properly. it works again, but i can't let the battery die because if i do, it is almost impossible to recharge it. it also doesn't like to connect anymore with the charging cord, so it takes a bit of blowing and jiggling to get it to work. and yesterday, to top it all off, my water kettle stopped working. no more coffee in the morning or hot bucket baths for me. the piece of shit was only a month or two old, and get this, i think it stopped working because it got wet. doesn't that seem odd.
next weekend i am planning an escape. so are about 12 other peace corps volunteers. we are going to durban for an i need a break from work/i don't have a site/i am leaving in 4 weeks type of get away. i have not yet been to durban ever, so i am quite excited... mostly to see the ocean again. and lets be honest, to party the nights away.
Friday, June 20, 2008
ten new computers and some time off work
today is friday. today is also the last day i will be in bergville for quite some time. tomorrow i head off to far away provinces and long lost friends. well, not quite. tomorrow i leave for a peace corps training in polokwane. that is right- i am returning to the province where this experience all began. i will also be reunited with the rest of sa17. some people i will be happy to see again, after three long months. others i could do without seeing, well, forever. i am not entirely sure what this training is about and i don't really care. i am just excited for a break from the same same that is my life. i am also excited to have my lockdown end, so that i can start taking weekend trips to explore different parts of sa. and, in all honestly, i am excited to have hot running water (even if it is only a bath) for a few weeks. i will actually smell nice again... i hope.
did you know that i can go about 4 days without bathing and my hair only starts to look gross on the 4th day? that is pretty amazing to me. i have stopped bathing, usually doing it twice a week at most. it is too cold. and it takes too much time to heat the water and pour it in my shower bag (repeat this 4 times) and then struggle through bathing in the middle of my room in a bucket when it is cold and the bucket isn't big enough. then i have to get dressed (quickly to prevent freezing) and mop up all the water on the floor and dump out all the water that i used and so on... the process is annoying and wastes my time, especially when i like to be asleep by 8:30-9. plus the only one who has to smell me is my kitten and he doesn't smell that great either (typical man).
today is friday. today is also the day that the ten slightly used desktop computers are being put in the new computer lab at my work. i am very proud. this is the first task that i have accomplished at my work. granted, it wasn't as hard as it could have been since there isn't a lack of funding at my ngo. but either way, i helped get them here. yay! i have to put passwords on them all and i plan to use animal names on 9 of them. the last one is getting michigan, so that i can represent.
today is friday. today is a good day.
ps- i won't be posting for the next 3-4 weeks. i am sure this will upset you all.
did you know that i can go about 4 days without bathing and my hair only starts to look gross on the 4th day? that is pretty amazing to me. i have stopped bathing, usually doing it twice a week at most. it is too cold. and it takes too much time to heat the water and pour it in my shower bag (repeat this 4 times) and then struggle through bathing in the middle of my room in a bucket when it is cold and the bucket isn't big enough. then i have to get dressed (quickly to prevent freezing) and mop up all the water on the floor and dump out all the water that i used and so on... the process is annoying and wastes my time, especially when i like to be asleep by 8:30-9. plus the only one who has to smell me is my kitten and he doesn't smell that great either (typical man).
today is friday. today is also the day that the ten slightly used desktop computers are being put in the new computer lab at my work. i am very proud. this is the first task that i have accomplished at my work. granted, it wasn't as hard as it could have been since there isn't a lack of funding at my ngo. but either way, i helped get them here. yay! i have to put passwords on them all and i plan to use animal names on 9 of them. the last one is getting michigan, so that i can represent.
today is friday. today is a good day.
ps- i won't be posting for the next 3-4 weeks. i am sure this will upset you all.
Friday, June 13, 2008
exciting news (for me) on the home front
so my bestest peace corps friend therese is moving sites. currently she is living in a town called pietermaritzburg, which is a two and a half hour taxi ride from bergville. all things considered, that isn't too bad but it isn't just the next town over. but soon that will all change. my good friend is moving (as i have already said) to a town called estcourt, conveniently located 45mins away from bergville. my life just got a whole lot better. now i can go visit her on weekdays and still get back to work in time. now we can travel together a whole lot easier. now on boring weekends we can just take turns visiting each others villages. it is going to be great.
... and she has hot water and a bathtub. OH YEAH!
... and she has hot water and a bathtub. OH YEAH!
Monday, June 9, 2008
i went hiking and camping and didn't hate it
that's right folks. i not only went camping (in the winter!) but i also went hiking and i must admit, i didn't hate either one as much as i thought i would. now granted, my two months of living without electricity probably helped open my mind to the camping idea a bit, but i have never liked hiking in my entire life. i do it from time to time cause usually there is something amazing to see at the end of a hike, but i hate the entire time it takes to get to the amazing thing and the entire time it takes to get back. i am too fat to be a happy hiker.
so the two volunteers who live in bergville, kristen and jamie, decided that they wanted to go hiking over the weekend. jamie's boyfriend was coming into town and he had a friend from american visiting, so showing him the drakensberg mountains was important. the group of us headed out to the cathedral peak area after work on friday and set up tents in the campground at the bottom of the mountains. we all sat around cooking dinner, drinking wine, making s'mores and trying to stay warm as the temperature dropped lower and lower. i must admit that sleeping was difficult and that i spent a good 12 hours not being able to feel my toes. however, that is the price one pays.
the next morning we woke up bright and early and packed everything up and headed to the start of the trail. we were doing a hike called rainbow gorge, which follows a river and leads, in the end, to a huge rock that has fallen and wedged itself into the gorge (the amazing sight at the end). the beginning of the hike was very steep and i was out of breath in about 5 mins. i thought i was going to have to tell them all that i was too out-of-shape to do the hike when kristen told me it got better. this is another reason i hate hiking- i am always the fattest or most unhealthy and it makes me feel like shit. everyone i seem to go with is skinny and fit and could probably run the whole hike (like the group i went with this time and the norwegians, to name a few).
anyways, she wasn't lying and it did get better. the hike probably took 5 hours total and involved some climbing on big rocks and a lot of hopping on stones back and forth across the river. i only fell in once and only with one shoe, so i consider it a victory. i must admit, the boulder at the end was beautiful and with the sun and the water coming down, it was well worth the hike there (probably not the hike back though). but throughout the whole thing i was laughing and having fun. maybe it was the company. maybe it was the fresh air. or maybe i have changed and i am the type of girl who now LIKES to camp and hike. i don't know. i don't want to know.
it was a good weekend.
so the two volunteers who live in bergville, kristen and jamie, decided that they wanted to go hiking over the weekend. jamie's boyfriend was coming into town and he had a friend from american visiting, so showing him the drakensberg mountains was important. the group of us headed out to the cathedral peak area after work on friday and set up tents in the campground at the bottom of the mountains. we all sat around cooking dinner, drinking wine, making s'mores and trying to stay warm as the temperature dropped lower and lower. i must admit that sleeping was difficult and that i spent a good 12 hours not being able to feel my toes. however, that is the price one pays.
the next morning we woke up bright and early and packed everything up and headed to the start of the trail. we were doing a hike called rainbow gorge, which follows a river and leads, in the end, to a huge rock that has fallen and wedged itself into the gorge (the amazing sight at the end). the beginning of the hike was very steep and i was out of breath in about 5 mins. i thought i was going to have to tell them all that i was too out-of-shape to do the hike when kristen told me it got better. this is another reason i hate hiking- i am always the fattest or most unhealthy and it makes me feel like shit. everyone i seem to go with is skinny and fit and could probably run the whole hike (like the group i went with this time and the norwegians, to name a few).
anyways, she wasn't lying and it did get better. the hike probably took 5 hours total and involved some climbing on big rocks and a lot of hopping on stones back and forth across the river. i only fell in once and only with one shoe, so i consider it a victory. i must admit, the boulder at the end was beautiful and with the sun and the water coming down, it was well worth the hike there (probably not the hike back though). but throughout the whole thing i was laughing and having fun. maybe it was the company. maybe it was the fresh air. or maybe i have changed and i am the type of girl who now LIKES to camp and hike. i don't know. i don't want to know.
it was a good weekend.
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