Returned for Site Visit, on to Swearing-in

I just got back from my site visit and I am extremely excited to get back there after swearing-in next week. My new family consists of a mother and father, both in their early 50s and a 24 year-old brother. They are all businesspeople and excited to be hosting me for the next two years. I will move back in with them and begin my 3-month “Cultural Integration” period at my permanent site immediately after swearing-in.
I will be splitting my time between two primary schools and one teacher’s college in the Mpumalanga province. I can see my first school from my yard and am a 5-minute walk from my other school.

My first school has kids in the grades R-6 (R is the same as kindergarten) and has very few resources. The classrooms are falling apart, the administration is crammed into one room, and lunch is prepared in a tin shack. They have plans to start a community garden to provide food for the school and are waiting for the Department of Education to build an Administration Building. The principal said the most important thing to her was starting a community library. The obstacles to overcome are going to be getting books and making sure that there is a literate population who will use and appreciate the resources provided by it.

My second school is also R-6 but it is much richer in resources. By February 2009 they will have a brand new library, computer lab, kitchen, and flush toilets. The big projects the principal of this school would like me to do are training the teachers in using computers, incorporating them into their classes, and organizing their new library. I attended a workshop on map reading put on by the Mpumalanga Department of Education with some faculty from this school. The material was at about a 4th grade level but quite a few of the teachers were having difficulty with it. I ended up co-teaching the workshop since the instructor was having difficulty explaining a certain concept. The workshop leader and attendees requested that I return for part II and III of the workshop to help.

The fourth part of my assignment will be working on community development. My supervisor has noted that major problems include: alcohol abuse, illiteracy, unemployment, and a lack of afterschool/out-of-school programming for youth. After surveying the village I have a few ideas to address these problems.

Since arriving in South Africa I have not found a place other than a game reserve that was not covered with trash. People drop garbage on the ground immediately when they are done using it no matter where they are. When neighborhoods are kept clean, people take more pride in their community and crime tends to decrease. Working with the Municipal Department I hope to create a culture of garbage collection and treatment that the community will embrace. On top of cleaning up the village, jobs will be created addressing the unemployment problem.

There is a large tract of land that is littered with trash and is criss-crossed with footpaths that is surrounded by houses. Many children and young adults are playing in their individual yards but avoid this area. I would like to find community members who are interested in turning this into a public park. By cleaning up this space, the village will be provided with a place to hold community events and activities and children will have somewhere to play together.

I know there are people at my village who a desire to change the community but I have not been able to locate them yet. My neighbor is a teacher who teaches in the community but attends church in another village. He gave me a list of great ideas that he has never shared with anyone so they have just remained ideas. He has the connections and potential to make great things happen but hasn’t taken the initiative to make them happen. I think the underlying problem is that they don’t know how to turn ideas into initiatives that get results.

During my visit I was given a lot of glares by the black community since they probably assumed I was an Afrikaaner. As soon as I said “Lotjhani…”(hello…) their suspicious looks turned to smiles since they were happy that I was learning their language. I found it interesting because that is opposite of my experience in America where a lot of Americans expect people to speak English well and get frustrated when they don’t.

Sadly, while I was away at my site visit I found out that my training home stay father had died. Immediately when I returned I was moved to a new home stay where I will stay for the remainder of my training.
On Friday I have my language evaluation, Saturday is the funeral for my father, and then swearing-in is next Friday. This has been a very stressful emotionally draining set of weeks. I will be settled-in in two weeks time and look forward to providing you more information on my progress.