With All Your Power

Cuteness abides on Inkanyiso's Interhouse Sports Day!
Nkosi and friend worked it at the bean bag toss!!!

I recently have found myself wanting to write all of the time but having absolutely no idea what to say or where to begin. Things are changing in Vryheid. The weather is really cooling down and now it requires a sweatshirt, pants, thermal sleeping bag, heater, and an occasional hat for comfortable sleeping. While that might sound absurd, please remember there is no central heating or insulation in my little room at all. In fact, I put a towel on the floor in the crack of the door at night to keep the drafts and snakes from coming in. Snakes, you say? What? Yes, snakes. Yesterday Buyisiwe, the housekeeper for the kids here at Inkululeko, was walking to the garden around the back of the house and she saw a big old snake that was fat and not too long but was brown with diamonds. At first I did not believe her, so I put on my boots and went around back to check it out myself and sure enough in the sand pit there were lines of snake movement. Humans make footprints in sand and snakes obviously do not, so their tracks look a bit different. Unlike the first snake that I encountered in South Africa and consequently killed in the kitchen after throwing holy water on it, I do not think I am going to try to get anywhere close to this snake based on its description. No snakes for me, thanks. However, I am carrying a rock around the yard just in case the snake decides it is time to tango because he/she probably does not know about my legendary reputation as a snake killer. I think its best that way though.

Speaking of killing animals, we might have to slaughter a goat my school. Are we out of food and are now eating the innocent local animals? No. Do we hate goats here in Vryheid? Nope. Are people getting goats mixed up with pigs during this raging swine flu pandemic? (Please catch the sarcasm there) No. Why would we need to slaughter a goat at school then? Let me tell you. Recently three of our teachers have injured one of their feet during separate instances and in different ways. The first teacher broke her foot when she fell in a bucket of washing powder. The second teacher sprained it while sleeping. And the third teacher was hit by a car in town. “There is only one way that this could all happen in such a short period of time” says Mrs. Zulu (translated by me). “Yini? (What?), I exclaim! “ The ancestors are angry with us here at school”, Mrs. Zulu shouts! “But I don’t have any ancestors here”, I respond. “Not yours Nqobile (my Zulu name), the ancestors of the school”, she tells me. Yes folks, there are ancestors of the school. I was not aware of this fact until yesterday. Apparently, the four teachers that have died since 2002 at our school are the ancestors of the school. The staff believes that we have done something to upset them and now we must make it right by slaughtering a goat on the premises. When and how this is going to happen, I do not know, but I have a feeling it will be soon, so look out for pictures folks…this will be upload worthy.

It is so odd to think that slaughtering a goat at school and living in a yard with a possibly poisonous snake seems ordinary. There have been so many times when I have been so frustrated and just pushed to the limit of absolutely all that I know and felt like I could ever do. I told myself if I ever came in contact with a snake indoors I would leave. That happened and I am still here. I said that if my computer died I would leave because it makes working so much more difficult without it. That happened. I am still here. I told myself that I would definitely leave if any of the babies at the home died. That happened. I am here. I told myself that if more than one kid that I work with dies at school I will leave. That happened yesterday. I am still here with no plans to leave. Somewhere along the line I let go the notion that any little thing could be too much and that it would be time to go back to a life that had challenges but was not overwhelming back in the States. But then I realized something. Even if I left South Africa today, life would never be the same back in America. Though most things and people that I am used to back in the States may have remained relatively the same, I am not. Previously believing that if hardships happened I could escape back to my more comfortable life and forget about the issues 9,000 miles away was an absolute farce. I am not sure what made me think that by leaving the overwhelming pain that sometimes comes with living and working with kids in a third world environment it would just go away. So I am staying. I am finishing my 27 months here because I have experienced absolute tragedy and immense pain in the loss of children that I work with and care about, but I have experienced far more joy and light than could ever be overshadowed by such loss. Working here has so many challenges and so many more rewards. The wholeness of being in the good times is indescribable and the numbness in the bad times is unspeakable. I am going to be forever changed by this experience in more ways than I even realize. I am going to be stronger and more confident. I feel that if I can live through this, I can live through and prosper in almost any situation. I also will be connected with the world around me and daily remind myself that I have a responsibility to give back a little bit of what amazing things have been given to me. I was looking at pictures that I brought from the States yesterday and I was so very thankful. I have experienced such richness and happiness in friendships and relationships with my family. I am so blessed to have so many pictures to fill up and overflow that album of amazing times with even more amazing people in my life. Not everyone gets so many opportunities to become close to so many fantastic high-quality people. I am blessed. I know it and I am thankful for it. Obviously I wish that everyone had the family and friends that I do and I hope that family feuds and broken friendships do not stop me or anyone I know from experiencing the real wholeness that comes with being able to be connected. Today I have a heavy heart because of the loss of yet another beautiful child at our school to AIDS but I know that this too shall pass and that tomorrow I will remember to be thankful.

If any potential Peace Corps applicants are reading this like I used to read blogs about the Peace Corps before I came here, please know that this is no walk in the park. If you end up working in South Africa, small African children with dirty hands and beautiful smiles will run up to you on the streets and want to talk to you and touch you and you will learn to love this. You might live in a mud house in a rural area with no running water or electricity or you might have a situation like mine where you live with both of those amenities only minutes away from town center. You might think that you will be changing the world in a foreseeable way. I cannot tell you that those things won’t happen or that they will. What I can say is that you will be challenged in so many ways that you could never imagine before moving here. Not having running water or electricity are not the major challenges you will face. They are also not something you should develop a fetish over. Please do not come here believing any one group of people is bad and oppressive and that all of the others are innocent victims of a society plagued by its history. If you deem people bad or good before you even meet them, then you have limited yourself greatly and I am sorry for you. Please, just keep an open mind about the whole experience and be ready to being very fulfilled or completely disappointed or both simultaneously. This is no attempt to rant about South Africa or the Peace Corps because I love this place and my job, however, the heartwarming stories you may read about having no electricity and watching the stars every night after sitting around a bowl of food with your host family are not the only stories that volunteers have, they are just the ones that they think others want to hear. I am attempting to change the way that I write any correspondence about my experience here. If this sounds negative or aggressive, that is not the intention. I am just really attempting to be more honest because life here is such a paradox.

P.S. Ma, tell Roger that the Flaming Lips CD is on the way. Also, tell him that it changed my life (without exaggeration). Dad, go ahead and laugh, but yes, that CD is LIFE CHANGING even more so than when Ikea changed my life. Wait until you come to South Africa…you and Sue will experience the life changingness of the Flaming Lips for hours and hours on the road. Aren’t you excited? Love you family! Also, check out the pics I uploaded. Sorry it has taken literally a year. Just a few.

“If you could take all the love without giving any back, would you do it?

And so we cannot know ourselves or what we’d really do

With all your power, with all your power, with all your power, what would you do?”

- Flaming Lips (thanks to Kim and Jared)