Integration

I've spent the past two days working on my VRF (Volunteer Report Form) and came across a question about integration. After reading my response I thought it was blog worthy. Take a look at what I had to say about cross-cultural integration. 

"Integration is something that is entirely up to the individual. From my experience and discussion with other PCVs, the amount of integration depends entirely on your attitude. If you have a willingness to learn and get involved in something by being a team player, integration will be quite easier than if you keep a closed mind and are timid to meet people.

In my community and even the neighboring communities, people have come to know me well. It’s an advantage that I live in a small city setting where houses are side by side, and you can’t help but be noticed. The thing I pride myself in is that people don’t know me simply because I am a white American. People know me in my community because of the work I have done. I refuse to sit in my house all day, so if I find myself going astray, I force myself to go sit in the library or take a stroll through the grocery store. My outlook on my service is since I am going to be here for two years—this is now my life; rather than since I am only going to be here for two years, I need to do as many projects as I can. By readjusting my position to establish this as my home, making relationships are the only way I can survive here. When those relations are genuine, people genuinely want to help you, and I think that is what makes a successful integration"

Kwa Zulu Natal

A couple weeks ago I got to spend some time in South Africa. I went to Johannesburg and Durban. SA is so different from Swaziland in terms of infrastructure. I honestly thought like I was in America. It was the closest to home I had been in 9 months. What made the trip even better was that I had Jason with me. We spent two days in Johannesburg—we went to the Apartheid Museum, World Cup Stadium, saw the Nelson Mandela bridge, went to a rooftop African market, and I saw my first McDonalds since being here. Since Joburg has a notorious reputation for being a dangerous city, we skipped walking through the city and stuck to our rental car. I really loved the museum. It still blows my mind that Apartheid ended within my life time just 20 years ago. The museum also had a nice Nelson Mandela exhibit which was interesting. Seeing the museum came at a perfect time for me. Currently in my class I am talking about human rights, xenophobia and the difference between race and culture. I wish I could have brought my students with me for this. The trip to Joburg was short lived, but I loved. 

              

Driving 5 hours through the Drakensburg Mountains was such a beautiful site to Durban. Again, I am so glad I am glad we decided on a rental car—public transportation on vacation just doesn’t seem like a vacation to me. Coming into Durban, I was taken aback by how similar it looked like an American costal city. Another unexpected surprise was just how many Indians were there; apparently Durban has the second largest population of Indians next to India.  Either way Durban was great. The weather was a little too gloomy and windy for my taste, so we only hit the ocean one day. Durban is also known for its great surf. The movie Blue Crush 2 was actually filmed there. So instead of swimming, we stood on the pier watching the surfers. The sites we saw in Durban were Ushaka Marine World and the Moses Mabhida World Cup Stadium, and my favorite—Gateway Mall! I felt like I had died and gone to heaven. You could have left me in that mall for the entire week and I would be completely happy. Apparently some things never change no matter what continent you are on.

    

After a week in SA, I took Jason back to Swaziland with me for week. As far as the animals are concerned, they couldn’t have been more cooperative. When we got to the boarder we saw a monkey, some zebras, and a family of warthogs crossing the road. This set the mood for a fun week in the kingdom. To sum up the week in SD, we went to Hlane Royal Game Reserve and saw hippos and rhinos; then we stayed at Magadzavane lodge were we had a family of monkeys outside our window in the morning as well as a highly venomous scorpion on our bedroom floor. Then on the drive to my village, we saw a family of giraffes on the side of the road. As Swazi culture permits, we ate meat nearly every night. I swear Jason is going to go back to the states thinking we have braai’s every day—I blame my sisi Lulu who spoiled us this week.  I also took Jason to the cultural village where he got to see the traditional dancing, clothes, and houses that are still practiced throughout the country [except in my utopia of a village].

               

On Saturday my community was celebrating Earth Hour were we turned off the lights between 8:30-9:30. It was fun for him to see an activity take place in my village. Wednesday and Thursday I brought Jason to the school where he could see me teach and meet my students. I couldn’t help but laugh at everyone’s reaction; they couldn’t believe he was a black American and that he spoke English. Of course alllll the girls loved him and the boys wanted to add him on FB. Since he has left they still ask about him. He surely made an impression. 

Overall it was a good week and I am glad I got a feel of home for a little bit. It was just what I needed now that I am a third of the way through.

Remi

Say hello to my new roommate- Remi! 

This little darling was spotted roaming the streets in my neighborhood. Unlike most cats in the area, this one did not run away when I tried to pet it. Instead, this little love bug curled right up to me and was selling herself for attention. Naturally what happened next was that I put her in my purse and took her home. [Obviously she was starving for affection]. This little kitty is the cutest thing ever, but don’t let her purr fool you. The moment I take my eyes off her, I find this little teacup of a kitten smacking the crap of a praying mantis or stealing the chicken off my plate. Oh Remi.

Planning, Planning, and More Planning

I realize it has been some time since I last posted a blog, so I knew needed to take a break from running with the lions here and let you know I am still alive. My first few months here I sat back and monitored the situation in my community and figured out what needed to be done. Now that I have taken the training wheels off, I have been moving at a full speed trying to get programs up and running. Last week I went to a workshop with my Swazi counterpart, and they (Peace Corps) trained us on how exactly to start a project to make sure it is sustainable—this was very helpful for my counterpart and I am glad they were able see how Peace Corps works; I feel like it brought both of us up to the same page.

So right now I am busy teaching life skills to the grade 10 classes. We talk about self-esteem, self-awareness, decision making, goal setting, gender equality and human rights, healthy lifestyles and career choices. The kids are great to teach and it is very rewarding hearing them share their story and seeing them develop into their own skin. I can’t speak for the other teachers in my school, but the atmosphere in my classes is different from anything they have had before. One of the tools I use in my class is a “Question Box”. I have a box set up on my desk in the library where my kids can anonymously submit questions they may be too afraid to ask in my class. Most of the questions I get are about being popular, wanting to have boyfriends/girlfriends, and how to get long hair like mine. I’m still scratching my head trying to find answers to these.  The school year is still new, so it is hard to generalize what the focus will be, but so far I have realized that one of the topics that’s needs a lot of attention is gender equality and understanding and appreciating their culture. In one of my classes we discussed gender roles. My entire class told me that women cannot run the family because they are too weak and too emotional. They said that women must stay at home while the men work. I kept digging into this topic saying “so women can’t do this… and women can’t do that?”, they all replied with a yes, thinking that it was the answer I was looking for. I flipped the script on them and shared how I was in fact raised by a single mom and how she worked to support me, and how I also have been independent and supported myself for the past few years.  Their gasps of bafflement indicated they knew they had thought wrong and their answers slowly started to change. What I take away from this, is that these kids are so use to just saying what is expected and never really question or think is this right or still the case of today? I come from a different type of culture with different things are seemed as acceptable. I am not trying to get these kids to see the world from the way I want them to see it; but rather I want them to learn to think for themselves and learn to challenge things taught to them, don’t just accept something said to you because society says too.

The classes I teach are so fun, but I don’t spend much time planning them. I already have the materials and the kids are required to come, so not much effort is needed on my part. The area where I really put on my running shoes is the clubs at school. With the help of the English H.O.D., I am starting up an English Club. Right now we have 125 members; that’s half of the school! Some of the programs we will do are Debate Team, Drama, Creative Writing, Book Club, Tutoring, and School Newspaper. Since this is the first time ever for this, we are spending this first term planning. It has been work trying to create activities for each group within the club. It seems like everything will go well though. Fortunately my administration is great and whatever I need, the Head Teacher is always happy to help. The second club I work with is, Junior Achievement (J.A.). I could honestly dedicate my whole service to this club because the amount of work it involves. JA is a young entrepreneurs club funded by the USAID. We spend 15 weeks coming up with a business plan, a product, production, marketing, and eventually we compete with 49 other schools in the country to see who has the best presentation over all. The past two years, my school has won the national completion and when to compete in Ghana and Kenya where they took home First Place for Africa! As great as that is, I am now the facilitator and definitely feel the pressure to live up to the reputation. It is lots of work, but this is what I wanted to do initially in the Peace Corps, teach business.

Along with JA, I will also be teaching business classes to all members of the community on how to be employable. I want to help people learn how to write a resume, hold a successful interview, find opportunities in networking, and focus on financial literacy. During the workshop I attended with my counterpart, we looked at the needs of the community…. Unemployment is a factor, but really it is the person’s capability to get and hold a job where we want to focus. I want to teach people how to market themselves and present their self in a professional manner. All too often, people in my community spend their time drinking their time and money away simply because they have nothing else to do. This is just one peg in the cycle of why HIV is still prevalent here. I want to give people a sense of value and self-worth so they will not slum to bad habits that turn into unhealthy lifestyles.  This project is still in the beginning phases, so again, lots of planning and leg work is being done to get this going.

The final club I find myself busy with is the Girls Empowerment Club. I am not the only stakeholder in this club, so it requires a lot of patience to make sure no one is left behind. This club works hand and hand with an NGO that deals with gender-based violence, so in order to get funding and fulfill certain requirements we have to do things by the book. This is a lot different than just some grassroots club that many other volunteers have started in their community. But I have high hopes that we’ll running soon soon.

I still have a lot more projects in the bag I want to pull out….. 2 years is not enough time.

5,6,7,8

Back in high school I was nothing but dance. Almost every day of the week I was in class for at least 3 hours after school. Since those high school days, I continued dancing throughout college, but slowly over the last two years I have taken a break from the dancing world… until now!! Lately I've found myself spending those extra hours a day making up choreography in my house—it naturally happens anyways whenever I have a large empty space. That's the thing about Peace Corps; you're left alone with nothing but your mind and creativity. I've been downloading numerous youtube videos of different choreographers and have exceeded my limit on my ipod (external hard-drive anyone?). I even had my mom send me my tap shoes from the states—I feel sorry for my neighbors having to hear my loud beats late at night. It's like my passion has been revived, and I love it.
So here is how I have tied dance into my work here; it has literally taken over my list of priorities [in a good way]. For starters I am now teaching dance twice a week at the private school in my community during their sports period. The kids range from grades 1-7. With the ones at the junior schools I just teach basic grooves, steps, and how to work with an eight count, nothing too hard. Then at the senior school I focus more on choreography and teach them dance combinations. I love it that the teachers are just as thrilled to have someone teach dance as I am to do it. It makes a world of difference when you have their support and enthusiasm. My second project I do is managing a hip-hop crew from my high school. I have 3 boys who are extremely talented at popping, locking, and this Swazi/African style called kwaito. I let them use my house for practice, or find other places for them to use. I get and arrange their music and teach them some new moves; I also try and plug them in any event I can think of. There are a couple events coming up in the next month that I am orchestrating which will feature these boys—one is a HIV community campaign, the other will be them going to an orphanage to perform and teach for the OVCs.
My last place where I have been able to feature dance is with a former ballroom dancer who lives in my community and teaches aerobics. We have a plan set up where I'll start teaching tap dance, and to get a new dance group started in the community. This guy works with the Swaziland Dance Association (it sounds like a big name, but it's not that huge), and he has already told them about me. Apparently there is a dance competition coming up soon soon, so I will be able to get plugged into the dancing community within this country.

Bear with me as I try and get some videos posted of my kids dancing. These kids are super talented and make me a little jealous; it's so impressive to see how naturally rhythmic they are. But like I always say, "This is Africa". t.i.a.

Summer Break

    While everyone on the East Cost was getting pounded with snow, I have spent the last 2 months sweating my butt off. I tried not to complain about the heat in Swaziland, but good gosh is it hot! We've been experiencing temperatures between 38-40⁰C (over 100). Nevertheless, schools have been on summer break for the past month and a half—classes resume on the 22^nd to start the new year. Since I live in a company town, everyone pretty much leaves town when the mill shuts down and schools close except for a handful of kids. The rest of the village retreats back to their homesteads for the break; it also means that the rest of the PCVs will be seeing new people at their site for the next few weeks. Like I have mentioned before in previous blog posts, the people who live in my town are the same kids that live in the rural areas where 99% of the PCVs work.

    Even though I could have spent the last month and a half doing nothing, I preferred to stay busy. The last 5 weeks I have been running a summer reading camp at the National Library which was open to all the kids in my community. The idea to start this camp sprang upon me when I watched my kid Solomon, who is 11yrs old in grade 2, read a book. We were sitting in the library back and November, and I was baffled by how low his reading level was. The Primary school which he attends and I work at is an English medium school- thereby the children have to understand and speak English to attend. The problem is, the kids don't really get a chance to expound on their English; instructions, tests and all other formal information is given in English, but everything else is in SiSwati. If no one is working with them, they don't learn. They just pass by barely understanding and grow up speaking broken English. Realizing that Solomon is not the only child struggling with reading, I decided to jump start my literacy programs and I conjured up this idea of a reading club to engage the children in my community who would not be going home over the holidays.

    I based my idea from a summer reading program I was once in as a child. Each week the kids draw a category to read from (i.e. sports, nature, travel, fiction etc…). Once they have completed the book, they must be able to tell me what the book was about. For each completed book, they will get a star. Kids can read as many books as they would like. I had one girl read 15 books each week!! At the end of the program I added up all the stars, and the person who read the most books got a prize! Next week at a school assembly I will be awarding all the participants with a certificate in front of all their peers! The kids didn't just get to read books alone, on Mondays I had story time when all the kids gathered around and listen to me read a book. Through this program, the kids were able to practice their reading skills, their oral skills from relaying the book to me, and their listening skills by hearing me read to them. Collectively the kids read 211 books within 5 weeks!!!! I am so impressed by their participation! Two things that I loved best were that through this program they were being awarded, encouraged, and given individual attention. Due to classroom structure in the school system here, kids don't get that style of positive reinforcement and acknowledgment very often. I had a huge chart with their names written big. I loved how each week they were proud of the little stars they got. The second thing I loved was watching the kids help each other. Without knowing, I was watching the two grade 3 boys help this little grade 1 boy read a book. They were feeding him the words and helping him get through the entire book. When it came time for the little boy to relay the book to me, the two boys stood behind him and were cheering him on. When he finished they both clapped for him and the little boy had the biggest smile on his face! At that moment my heart melted!

    The camp was completely voluntary and I had 25 kids sign up and participate! Each week the library was full of kids. I felt a little bad for the staff because there were books everywhere and out of place, but I was happy to see that the library actually looked like it was being used. I even had kids come to my house at 7AM to tell me when they couldn't make it that day. One little guy in the program, now in grade 7, came up to me and told me he had an idea of an HIV prevention event he wants to do this school year. This gets me excited to see the young people start coming to me with ideas and energy…. This is the whole reason I am here! Also had another young guy come to me asking for help with computer class next school year. So there is hope, (not that I ever doubted) for kids actually seeing me as a resource to help them, not just someone to hand out candy.

    Now it is the eve before the first day of school and I feel like I am a kid all over again! I am organizing all my school supplies, labeling my folders, and resource books. I am anticipating meeting everyone again and most of all I have to find the perfect 'first day of school outfit' (some things never change). This school year I will no longer be observing, but actually in the classroom teaching my life skills and getting the Girls Empowerment Club up and running, among the other ka-zillion things on my list to do. I have a lot of work cut out in front of me, but I feel ready.

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Before I end this post, I want to list the top 10 favorite things that happened over break, some that I didn't have time to elaborate on…
1. A successful Kids Summer Reading Program
2. Having a pool party for my 25th birthday
3.Spending a week with my best friend Olivia
4. Skinny-dipping in the Indian Ocean
5. Mozambique
6. Uninterrupted alone time
7. Being able to read 4 books
8. Attending a traditional wedding
9. Skyping with the family on Christmas day
10. Unexpectedly meeting some of the most amazing people when I needed it the most