Life as a Trainee

I am writing this entry on August 7 and will post it when I get to a fast enough Internet café.

We arrived in Johannesburg in the evening of July 27th after a long 17 hour flight. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of Dakar on our one hour layover there but we arrived at dawn and there was fog so I didn’t see anything.. We were met at the Johannesburg airport by the Peace Corps Country Director and hustled off into 2 busses. We then drove off to a former teacher training center about 3 hours away. On arrival at the center we were greeted by the language trainers and staff ululating and dancing, our first clue we might not be in Palos Verdes. We were assigned rooms, Susan and I shared a rondoval (a South African round one room building with a conical roof) further confirming we have definitely left California. After stowing our bags in the rondoval, we had a dinner of chicken and pap (the South African staple – corn meal porridge, like grits). On leaving the meal we found the language trainers by the brae (barbeque pit) singing South African songs and spirituals in an amazing four part harmony.

The next morning we awoke to the African sunrise, the red of daybreak highlighting the silhouette of the rocky hills and plane trees. On the half mile ride to the area where our classes are held we spotted wildebeests. The class area had monkeys roaming the grounds and baboons in the rocks on the hill above the dining area. The Peace Corps really did provide a great introduction to South Africa.

We spent a week at the rondovals. The rondovals provide a first step in breaking us into South African life. The rondovals have hot showers and flush toilets that work most of the time. We received the first two series of immunizations, had classes in South African history of the last 100 years, some cultural sensitivity training and some health and security classes. We had “survival language” training to learn greetings and important phrases, e.g. “Where is the bathroom?” in four of South Africa’s languages. Emotional highpoints of the week included a stirring speech by the Minister of Education for the Province of Mpumalanga, describing the recent history of the area and the struggles of education following apartheid. Our politicians could take lessons in rhetoric from him. One night while standing about after dinner and after watching a video about Soweto the trainers taught us songs sung during the struggle against apartheid. This week was the last time all 80 Peace Corps Trainees (PCTs) would be together until swearing in as PC Volunteers (PCVs) in September. At the end of the week NGO PCTs and Education PCTs went to different villages for training.

Skipping forward in time – I am now writing this on August 19th. We have been able to get to the local internet café but it is so slow, I don’t even want to try to upload to blogspot there.

The training site is in a village a couple of hours out of Pretoria near the town of Dennilton. The village is fairly large with a population of about 1000 I would guess. The town is predominantly Ndebele speakers but that is closely related to the Zulu Susan and I are learning. We are living with a woman and her 19 year old son. She has 3 other unmarried sons who work in Pretoria but live here most weekends. We have a large bedroom separated from the main house. Our bedroom and the house are nicely furnished. We have electricity. The light works; the wall socket is a little dodgy but good enough to keep the laptop charged. Our bedroom has ceramic tile floors and a comfy bed. The family has a refrigerator, electric range and satellite TV. We’re not really roughing it.

The past three weeks have been a blur of stimuli. The first weekend we were here boys of the village came down the mountain from there initiation. In Ndebele tradition, teen age boys go into the mountains and are circumcised. They then spend two months in the mountain learning Ndebele lore. The initiation rituals only occur every four or five years so the return of the initiates provides quite a spectacle for the village. The boys (now men officially) march down from the hillside into town in Ndebele dress, beads, headdress, spear and shields (and occasionally Nike running shoes). These new men chant and sing in a fierce manner as they double-time through the towns streets. The activity then moves to the homes of the initiates. Each of the parents have created a small enclosure for the boys at their home since they are not supposed to talk to anyone for this two day long celebration, they may however do a lot of singing, chanting and dancing. After the boys are situated it’s time to slaughter the cow. The Ndebele like meat. Killing and dismantling the cow make for a big if somewhat gory party. The party continues throughout the night—the village resounds with drums and chants all night long. The next day brings the feast. At the feast the men sit on chairs on one side of the yard, elder women in traditional headdress and carrying wooden wands sit on the other side, younger women sit behind on the ground. A lengthy gift presentation ensues, with each gift and gift giver honored. Blessings are bestowed upon the initiates. Much “European” beer and traditional sorghum homebrew are consumed by the men. The rest of the day and the night are again filled with chants, drums and dancing.

The second weekend here we had a traditional Ndebele wedding down the street a couple of houses. Traditional weddings are three days long. On Friday we were walking home from training when the bride came home. Our street is a narrow one lane dirt road with numerous potholes. The bride arrives in a convoy of four cars. The arrival is spectacular; five minutes of demolition derby. The four cars go back and forth over a half block stretch, spinning at each end, dust flying everywhere. After the neighborhood is fully aware of the arrival, the bride makes here entrance. She is wrapped in two blankets; the inner blanket is a brightly colored Ndebele robe barely visible only at her ankles. The outer blanket is secured with dozens of safety pins and covers her from head to toe. The bride cannot be seen until the wedding. Since her head is totally covered she cannot see and walks guided by another woman. The walk from the car to the house proceeds at a snail pace since the bride cannot see. There are four cows festively tied with ropes at street side, presumably part of the lobola (bride price). Another cow moans miserably in the front yard – she is to be guest of honor at Sundays feast.

The Peace Corps training program for NGO Capacity Builders (us) is very interesting. We have a couple of hours of Zulu, three or four times a week and three or four hours learning about South African culture every week. Four or five hours each day is spent learning about HIV/AIDS and NGO operations.

As part of the culture study we visited a sangoma (traditional healer). Traditional healers play a large role in much of South Africa. The sangoma deals in herbal medicines (muthi) and the spirit world. We walked to the home of one of the village sangomas. She lived in a compound of 4 or 5 buildings. Her “office” was a rondoval decorated with ceremonial cloths, drums, wands and jars and jars of muthi). For the small sum the Peace Corps paid for the “consult” the sangoma showed us her “bones”, the collection of shells, rocks, bones, dice, dominoes and whatever, that the sangoma uses to diagnose her patients. Actually “throwing” the bones and performing the diagnoses would cost more. The sangoma spent almost an hour talking with us. She described her activities and said there were illnesses she treated and others that she referred to either other sangomas or to clinics and Western medicine. She understood the symptoms of AIDS and said those patients were sent to the clinic.

The second major component of our pre-service training (PST in Peace Corp-speak) is target language speech. Our target language is Zulu. Zulu has a number of challenges for the learner. The language wraps a subject pronoun , object pronoun, the occasional preposition, verb and some nice sounding connective tissue into one exceedingly long word. There are 8 (or perhaps 17 depending on how you count) noun classes which behave somewhat like the three genders do in French or German that is they all have declension rules and provide class specific connectors needed to construct the aforementioned megawords. The third challenge is that the language makes much more use of the muscles in the tongue than English. There are 3 basic clicks, “c”, “q” and “x”, which vary in tongue placement at the start of the click, “c” tongue tipis closest to the teeth, “x” the tip is furthest back. Basic vowel sounds(including clicks) can be enhance by “h” (aspirated) or “n” (nasal). So there exists combinations like nhl a nasal aspirated “l” which sound is something like trying to spray spit out of the side of your mouth while having a cold. My new mother christened me Nhlanhle and Susan, Nonhlanhle which roughly translates as “Lucky”(male) and “Lucky”(female), Our pronunciation while introducing ourselves using our Zulu names invariably brought forth gales of laughter. Fortunately when our new elder brother returned home he decided that husband and wife sharing the Nhlanhle moniker was inappropriate (its usually shared by twins) so I now have a name I can say without making people laugh, Sipho (pronounced see-poe) meaning “gift”. Susan still provides comic relief for our language class when Nonhlanhle introduces herself.

Jumping forward in time again, I am writing this on August 27. I hope to get this uploaded soon.. We were at an Internet café today that had a reasonable dial-up connection, and I brought a thumb-drive with this file and a file with Susan’s blog update. Unfortunately I had forgotten my userid at blogger.com so Susan’s was updated but not mine.

This week marked our one month anniversary with the Peace Corp – half way through PST. More importantly we received our site assignments on Friday. Until now we have had no idea of what we would do or where we would live. The past week has been one of increasing tension as the release of site assignments drew near. Friday morning when we arrived at the training facility we found we were locked out, with Leah , the APCD (PC speak forAssistant Peace Corps Country Director – my boss), inside making final preparations. We waited outside for 30 minutes in the rain nervously trading rumors. Finally, Leah steps outside and says “It’s my day to be mean” and gives instructions on how the assignments will be announced. The announcements are to be made with drama. Inside the training room, each chair has a small package with a trainee’s name attached. Leah passes around homemade cookies and a box with small pieces of paper. We each take one piece of paper on it is a number. People get there assignments in the order given by the small piece of paper (Susan and I were number 28 – an eternity of waiting). The front of the room is a map of South Africa with green cards taped on. One at a time people go to the front of the room, open their package which contains a fortune cookie. Two papers are inside the fortune cookie, one is the regular fortune, the second is a number. After reading their fortune, the number inside is announced, it corresponds to a green card. Leah cuts the green card- unveiling the trainee’s photo and the name and location of the assignment. Trainee excitement and applause follow.

Our assignment is at a hospital in the mountains in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN, spoken Kay-Zed-En). It is a former TB sanitarium, but is now a hospital serving the region and is run by a Christian organization. The area is isolated but is said to be beautiful. There is a game preserve nearby, that has rhinos, wildebeests, crocodiles, alligators, lots of birds, lots of varieties of antelopes. The nearest town of note is Vryheid (pronounced fry-height). We haven’t gotten much detail on our jobs or accommodations. Next week we get to meet our new supervisors and then visit the site. Susan will be working with hospital administration, and I will be helping with their home care program.