Two Years Under the Belt

I feel like I am off my game. Since my computer broke 2 months ago, I've not done any writing. I'm forcing myself here to sit down and share my thoughts, but my words have escaped me. The other day I read a sample of my writing that was from my last month in America (May 2012). I couldn't believe how well I use to write! Being here, my use of the English vocabulary is about the standard of my overall cleanliness... which isn't much; it comes with the territory. I'm so glad I forgone grad school for the time being. It'd be a quick dose of reality when I see my first paper dosed with red markings. My first task upon arrival, besides eating a foot long from Subway, will be to get re-acclimated into the English language (which doesn't mean learning such phrases as “turnt up” or “I can't”). It'll be nice to speak in a manner that isn't slow and not take any pauses.

Speaking of coming home, you're probably wondering when that is. If you've been a faithful reader or have noticed that my heading says “two years in Swaziland”, then you know that two years is now now. However, my work is far from over, and I still have a ways to go. Peace Corps lets us COS (close of service) within in a three month period. It is the month before our swear-in date in July, then officially 2 years in August, or a month after our swear-in date in September. Most PCVs are jumping on the first plane in July, I'm waiting a little longer. I initially was planning on extending my service for a third year, so I had been living and making plans like I was going to be around for some time. For personal reasons that include missing hot showers, I decided last minute to come home as scheduled this year. This decision threw a wrench in my plans. I have several projects that now I need to close and then pass over. I also didn't plan on being home so early. So rather than take the GRE and apply to grad schools now, I am going to take the remaining months of the year when I am home to get sorted. I will share more of those plans in a later blog when it comes closer to check out of here, but I am content with my decision.

This past week we had a COS conference at this beautiful lodge in Swaziland. It was our final workshop and the best one yet! This conference gave us the logistics of how we leave the country; there are a bunch of checklists and signatures to be had if I ever want to leave. We also spent the bulk majority of the time preparing for when we are back home. We learned about our options as a RPCV (returned peace corps volunteer), and how to market all our skills that we have obtained over the two years. The biggest skill I think all of us could say we have mastered, is patience. We joke, but going back to America, to a fast pace- stressed induced culture, we will be rather zen-like compared to the rest. That is a skill that can only be acquired through waiting countless hours for transportation, meetings to start, and people to show up. It is tested by taking days to have clothes finally cleaned and more importantly dry, by taking years for people to finally pronounce your name correctly, let alone remember it. It is well-tried though our cooking skills and learning how to make something out of nothing, and from being interrupted every five minutes by a pack of little hands knocking on your door as you try to sleep in on your day off.

At the conference, someone said that as a PCV, we got a Ph.D in Life. At this point, we are all, whether we admit it or not, a glass case of emotions-- and we should be. We've seen and been through more than most ever will, and now it is coming to an end. Our standard of living varies between each PCV, and so do our experiences, but as we came together last week, we all shared the same frustration, the same concern, and the same sense of pride for our community. It's so cliché, but these two years have taught me to enjoy life and make the most of every opportunity.

Africa Game of Thrones

This article was originally published in the Atlantic Magazine by Thor Halvorssen and Alex Gladstein 
Everything in this article is accurate and currently happening in this country. Peace Corps doesn't want us to get involved with politics here, and by posting this, I don't believe I am. I am simply stating the facts that everyone knows to be true.If you want to know more, you can private message me. I think it's important for people to know the realities of what really goes on here. You can read the original article HERE of See article below:

Africa Game of Thrones
 
Imagine a mountainous kingdom at the edge of a lush, tropical continent, where one house has clung to power for hundreds of years. The aged king passed away after ruling for more than six decades in one of history's longest reigns. He fathered more than 200 children but left no heir, unleashing an epic struggle between the queen regent and a handful of challengers in the royal court. Eventually, a 14-year-old boy, the product of one of the king’s hundreds of illegitimate affairs, was chosen as successor, and his mother was wedded to the dead leader’s corpse to legitimize the plot. Selected as a puppet, the new king quickly outgrew his courtiers and became notoriously cruel and corrupt.
Today, the new king rules from a castle and employs a royal guard to protect his 15 wives. He often picks a new wife in a national festival each summer where his servants round up tens of thousands of the most beautiful young virgins from all across the land. There, they dance shirtless, and the king examines each one, choosing his next bride.
This is a feudal society where the majority of the population are poor farmers, tilling land supervised by the royal palace. Through his relationships with foreigners, the king earns plenty of coin, but hardly any of it trickles down to the poor. Although surrounded by spectacular and exotic plants and animals, the king's subjects suffer from a lack of basic goods and modern medicine. More than one in four adults is afflicted with an incurable, often-fatal disease.
His Majesty has no rivals. Under his banner of a golden lion, he dictates the future of his people after chatting with his small council. Political parties are illegal, and any defiance or criticism of the royal family is outlawed. Even insulting the king’s name is liable to be punished by imprisonment. The king controls all feudal lands and local barons, along with the court system, press, police, and army. Any who choose not to bow their heads to his decree are rewarded with a stay in the royal dungeons, where a pair of leg irons, or worse—an ancient and excruciating form of foot torture—is the punishment of choice.
Considered the father of his people, the king’s legitimacy rests on ritual and superstition. To protect himself against demons, the king imbibes charms and potions. His royal court and ministers routinely grovel on the ground. If His Majesty deigns fit to visit a subject’s home, the chair in which he sits must be destroyed—or else, it is feared, an evil sorcerer might attack him.
We who write this are not on the production team of HBO’s Game of Thrones. We work in a human-rights organization in 2014. Yet we could be describing King’s Landing. Regrettably, however, this is no tale from Westeros: It is an accurate description of Africa’s last absolute monarchy, a tiny country near the continent’s southeastern coast called Swaziland.
King Mswati III, the real-life ruler of Swaziland, has held total dominion over this realm since 1986. Of course, Mswati’s lifestyle also includes the trappings of modernity: Maybach limousines, a DC-9 jet aircraft, and foreign bank accounts worth billions of dollars. The habitual treatment of his critics might be medieval, but his corruption parallels that of Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, and Equatorial Guinea strongman Teodoro Obiang.
Mswati does, in fact, select his new wives from tens of thousands of half-naked women crammed into a stadium. Elsewhere, 80 percent of the Swazi population makes less than two dollars per day. HIV, the incurable illness mentioned earlier, afflicts 31 percent of the country’s adults, the highest national rate on Earth. The average Swazi can only expect to live about 50 years.
Amid this bleakness, Swaziland is also home to some larger-than-life heroes whose bravery rivals that of any character found in George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones. This week, for instance, the human-rights lawyer Thulani Maseko and journalist Bheki Makhubu sat in prison, on trial for the crime of questioning the independence of Swaziland’s judicial system.
Last year, King Mswati violated a constitutional ban on foreign-born judges and personally installed Michael Ramodibedi of Lesotho, a pliable Mswati loyalist, as Swaziland’s chief justice. This February, Maseko and Makhubu wrote defiant articles in The Nation—the country’s only independent media outlet—excoriating Ramodibedi for imprisoning Bhantshana Gwebu, the national motor-vehicle inspector. Gwebu was just doing his job, but a car he impounded happened to be owned by one of Ramodibedi’s colleagues. Gwebu has been released on bail, pending his trial.
In Swaziland, following the law instead of a royal judge’s decree lands you in jail. So, in retaliation for their investigative journalism on Gwebu’s arrest, Mswati’s police raided Maseko and Makhubu’s homes, violently seized them, and brought them to “justice.” In true Westerosi style, they were arraigned not in a court of law with due process, but in the chief justice’s private chambers. As you read this, Maseko and Makhubu are in leg irons, lumped in dungeons with common criminals. The day before his arrest last month, Maseko accepted an invitation to speak in Norway at the Oslo Freedom Forum, which is organized by the Human Rights Foundation, about the state of human rights in his country. He’s scheduled to speak on May 13—if he’s released from jail in time.
“There is peace” in Swaziland, the head of the country’s only trade union once remarked. “But it’s not real peace if every time there is dissent, you have to suppress it. It’s like sitting on top of a boiling pot.

My Peace Corps Application Timeline

As my first post I figured I would start with showing everyone what I have gone through this far to get to the point I am today. In just one week I will be getting on a plane and leaving for Swaziland.  It has taken me exactly 2 years to get to this point, so if people think I have been overly-excited, it's because I have been fighting to get to this moment and so glad that I have made it.

*June 2010- Submitted my application

*September 2010- Interview in Washington D.C. with my recruiter. Was then nominated to serve as a volunteer somewhere in Asia by Aug. 2011.

*October 2010- Started working on my medical kit. By mid-October I received my Dental Clearance. Was denied my Medical Clearance due to an “abnormal pap smear”.

*January 2011- Appointment made with specialist to try and clear up what was wrong with me

*March 2011-Test results came back bad.  Was diagnosed with Stage 0 Cervical Cancer.Went through more procedures and treatments to get better.

*May 2011- GRADUATED!!! Having a degree is one of the qualifications to volunteer.

*May 2011- Peace Corps sent out letter saying that due to government budget cuts, there would be no more volunteers going out for the rest of the year.  This was good news for me, as it still bought me some time to get my medical clearance.

* July 2011- Results came back good after my 3 month check up!

*August 2011- Since I now have some time before I leave, I have started working on my Master’s of Arts in Intercultural Studies.

*October 2011- Results came back good after my 6 month check up. Finally got my Medical Clearance! Though now my nominated region has changed and up for review. I now have to be placed in a medically qualified country, should I get sick again.

*February 2012- My placement officer tells me he will be sending my invitation out soon and I will be going somewhere in Africa.

*March 2012- Received my invitation in the mail. I’m going to SWAZILAND! (as a youth and community development volunteer).

*April 2012- More and more paperwork! Since it has been over a year since my Dental Clearance, I have to get it alllllll done again. This takes me over 4 weeks to complete.

*May 2012- I’m almost done. I got my Dental Clearance, but the Medical Office still needs me to get another check-up since it’s been a year since my procedure. Thankfully everything is coming back good. After a few doctor visits, I have been fully Medically Clear for service! Plane ticket is booked this month as well.

*June 2012- Turned in my 2 week notice at work and moved back to Ohio. On June 26^th I will be getting on a plane and flying to Africa.

Future Date
*September 2012- After I have completed my 3 months of training, I will be swearing in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer.