Home for the Holidays

I was very blessed to come home to America for the holidays. I spent a total of 19 days in the states and stayed moving the entire time. Before the wheels of the plane touched down in Ohio, I had already traveled 24 hours; so when I step foot on American soil, I was both emotionally exhausted and tired. So much so, that I cried during my first meal, this consisted of soup, salad, breadsticks, and peach tea at Olive Garden.  Yes, I was a mess. My trip home was great, but I was disappointed in some aspects. For starters, I realized I am missing my “bear fat”. When I left Swaziland, it was high 90’s, and for my time in America, it was as cold as -6! Although I longed for the cold weather that an Ohio winter brings, my body was rejecting the freezing temperatures. As a result, I didn’t enjoy the weather as much as I had anticipated. The second thing was that the time was too short. I didn’t get to see nearly as many people as I had hoped for. I was really only limited to a few family members. So any of my friends reading this, just know that I love you, and I will definitely make a plan to see all of you when I am back, that is if you haven’t forgotten about me. This leads me to my next point.

I was surprised by how no one really asked about my life over here. I shared very little about my experience, aside for the 30 minutes I presented in church. Sure people asked how I was, and how I like it over there. But my response was “fine” and “a lot”. I felt like once people realized I was ok and I wasn’t getting chased by lions, they were satisfied. I honestly was never asked to go into detail about what was going on over there. Sure, people know I volunteer and teach at a school, and they may have been somewhat informed by reading my blog. However, there is so much more I wanted to share in person with everyone, which could never be expressed on the blog. It was simple things that I wanted to share really, the detailed information of Swazi culture, personal stories of people who have affected my life here, and what the places I’ve traveled to look like. I had been warned to be prepared for this- people not wanting to listen to “swazi this” and “swazi that” all the time, but I feel like I really didn’t do much of that anyways. It’s true; this is really my own experience.

Now that I got that out of the way, I can say that I did have an enjoyable time. The biggest shocker was how big my niece and nephews have gotten. I need them to stop growing, like right now. I’m glad I got to spend time with them. I took the two oldest ones bowling and for ice cream, and I had the youngest one the majority of the time. I was also fortunate to see one of my spiritual mentors’ for coffee and chat for a few hours about our different ministries. After a week in Ohio, I went to North Carolina for three days, and then spent another day in Virginia visiting my old stomping grounds at Liberty University.  Then finally beating the snow storm that was on our heels, made it back safely to Ohio.

There were some things that I really missed about both places, because I am a PCV, most of these are food related. I missed buying Starbucks coffee from a convenience store, Chipotle, and proper customer service. What I missed from Swaziland was the fresh food. I looked in my mom’s freezer to find frozen dehydrated eggs. Like seriously?? I guess I am so use to everyone having a chicken, including me, that lay fresh eggs.  When I went to Sam’s Club, I had to take a picture at how much they charge for mangos! True to fashion, the final day was spent we me frantically packing and doing all the last minute shopping. I swear procrastination suits me. I will say that I successfully packed everything, except for my camera charger. Ncesi, no pictures to post anytime soon.

Valentine’s Day and the Week Long Cold

Valentine’s Day was pretty fun this year. It landed on a Friday, which meant that there was definitely going to be some events planned. For me, being dateless [by choice], I chose the option of being with my church family for their annual Valentine’s Day dinner. It was held outside in our courtyard under the stars, so romantic eh? You mustn’t forget that it is summer here, so being outside is perfect, unlike what I am seeing from back home. Sorry east coast.  I wasn’t the only person without a date, and then, it didn’t even matter. It was just nice to be with a good group of people, about 50 people were there. I told my dad I feel old, this event reminded me of the ones that him and my mom would always go to, and leave me at home with the babysitter.

There was a lovely dinner prepared by a couple from the church, and the waiters were all the young boys, by young, I mean my high school students. Throughout the night they had games and prizes. Our table had to come up with a sing about love. My first instinct was to sing Nat King Cole’s, “L is for the way you look at me”, but one of the other ladies at the table suggested Barney’s song “I love you, you love me”. You can tell who has the children. Then there was the dance contest. Couples went up, and then men, and then women. I was the obvious choice for that one, and the way I won was by blowing kisses to the judges (the waiters). I said “you gotta know how to work an audience”. Anyways, all of these various games awarded points for my table. I am glad I sat with who I did, because we all had the competitive spirit and won! It’s amazing what little things excite me here.   One thing is for sure, it made me miss my church family back home, and all the different activities I did with them. That was basically my life growing up.

So I guess it was good that I was dateless anyways that weekend because I had been sick for 5 days straight. I got sick on Wednesday with a Cold; however here, a ‘cold’ means the “FLU”. Thus for arguments sake, I was telling everyone I had the flu. I’ve been sick many times like this before, so I knew what I needed to do, to nurse myself back to health. Good thing too, because I didn’t have any medicine. For every day I was sick, I would suck down 2L of orange juice and sleep. I would cook, but I was too exhausted to eat. Alternatively, I decided to make myself fruit smoothies. Every day I’d bust out my blender and chop up mangos, nectarines, plums, bananas, anything really. By doing so I have finally discovered that I can actually cook!! Smoothies count right?  I am finally starting to feel better, thank goodness. I am starting up my dance lessons again for the year, so I need my strength.  That’s it for now. Stay classy America.

Back to School Bash and Other Exciting Things

Finally! After months of planning, we finally had our back to school bash hosted by our Girls Club. It took a lot of work and patience, but we did it. With the help of SWAGAA (Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse), we were able to use their sound system. The bash happened on a Friday after school, it was “semi-optional” to attended, because really- these kids have their own agenda, and they would walk out even if it were not allowed. To our surprise, all the kids stayed. It lasted about two hours and was full of entertainment. We had 2 rap performances, raffle drawings, games, music, and my dance crew I manage led us out. Apparently people in a neighboring city were even talking about it the following day. I’ll take that as a good sign.

Well after this bash was done and over with, my stress level didn’t go down. I had to prepare for to take the Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT). It is the entrance test to work at the State Department (working for the American Embassy all over the world). Just like any government job, this takes nearly two years to get in- application process and what not. So no, I will not be leaving Peace Corps early; I just want to get a head start. I had spent a lot of time studying, though it is nearly impossible to study for this test. The FSOT consists of: US history, US government, foreign affairs and policy, technology, pop-culture, economics, business, management, math, and grammar. There are only 70 questions that you have to answer within 40 minutes. The best you can do is try to remember all the junk you learned in high school social studies class, cross your fingers and hope for the best. In addition, there are three more sections, all which are timed, that cover previous work experience and your comprehension of English grammar. All in all, the test is 3 hours. I did feel good about the test the first time I took it, that was until the computer system crashed with only 10 minutes left in the test.

I was writing my essay, when all of the sudden an error message popped up on the screen. In a panic, I had the facilitator take a look. We tried everything, and when we called the office in America, they were no help. It was over two hours of communicating over the phone, shutting down and logging on to computers that we had to call it a night. This then led me to be stranded in the capital city at night….. this is something I never want to experience again. To make a long story short, I was ok, and made it to safety. It just made me miss home a little bit; had I of had my car and a job that actually paid me, I’d not have to worry about money for lodging or a taxi. Oh well- it’s the Peace Corps experience isn’t it?! Anyways, they told me I might not be able to retake the test on Saturday because normally you can only take it once within the testing window. The State employee, who was very helpful, managed to get them to agree to let me take the test on Saturday, since it was their fault and not mine that the computers messed up. Sadly though, I had to take the whole test over again.

Despite the inconvenience of having to make another trip to town, I was happy that I was able to retake the test- gave me more time to study. I was happy to retake the test, until I started having an episode and couldn’t focus. I had woken up extra early to meet in town with another PCV, my lack of sleep was killing me, and so I loaded up on coffee. This normally would have never been a problem for me. In fact it never had been until that day. When I got up to the leave the restaurant where we were eating, I started to shake. I had no idea what was wrong, but I thought whatever and just went with it. By time I had arrived at the embassy, I was a wreck. Sitting down by the computer I was all jittery, I couldn’t focus on the questions, and knowing that time was against me, it made me panic even more. The first time I took the test I was cool and calm; I even had time to go back and check my work. This time around I was so frazzled. What really frustrated me was the fact that I am unsure of my English score. The grammar section which is my best, had me all confused; not because it was hard, but because the way it is displayed on the computer, it had my eyes racing and I was getting confused. In the event I do fail the test, it is not the end of the world, and I am ok with that. I will just take it next year. Fortunately I will be with Peace Corps (yea, I think I am staying that third year after all), so I still have time.

The last thing worth mentioning is that the internet availability is very limited now. I don’t want to say the wrong thing or get kick out of this county, so I’ll just sum it up to say that if you want to talk to me via skype or something, you’re going to be waiting. The wifi service shut down Feb. 1 and will be down until further notice. So as I write this blog and a few others, know I am doing it in real time and I’m not just slopping something together out of negligence. I still have my cell phone which uses data to access my email and facebook, but aside from that, I’m S.O.L. So today, and many many other days, I am thankful that I come from a country where internet is reliable even if it is slow. I will never take for granted my precious hours of free wifi while sipping on my chia tea latte from Panera Bread. Ok I got to go now; I’m making myself homesick… hmmm.