Here I am again :) and finally some pictures!
I’m not even gonna make excuses this time…I will just try and pick up from where I left off…Er…if I can remember…let me see…about the life here apart from work. By the way work is going very good…it’s not as slow as I thought it would be – not at all. We have weekly deadlines and every week we get new tasks, so it’s not routine and boring at all…it’s great experience for me who usually needs time to prepare things, now I’m having to learn to produce at very short notice e.g. summary of certain required statistics. I’m managing so far!
So I’m living with two other volunteers, South African, and I’m working with mostly South Africans in the project, which is great because I’m learning lots about their culture – or I should say cultures as they are all from different parts of the country and different tribes so it’s really multicultural and representative of the country’s rich culture! So I’m living with the two volunteers in a three bedroom house - we’ve actually moved house because of the lack of security in the house we were staying in. Even though it’s not such a dangerous area here, we still want to be on the safe side as you never know. But I actually liked the other house better - it had more character, especially the backyard was pretty with flowers (including a nice francipani tree that reminded me of st vincent..), fruit trees (mostly peach, but also guava and fig (i think..)– but I didn’t get a chance to try them out as they ripen in January or February – I’ll pay a visit then as it’s not too far). The new house is really new, just finished being built and landscaping still needs to be done so no fruit trees yet…actually no trees! But latrine is much better! As I mentioned before this area lacks water so all houses – no matter how big and fancy – don’t have running water in the house. So even the new house we have moved to has the latrine in the backyard like all other houses. We do have a tap in our yard as we did in the previous house so that’s really great. By now I am used to the bucket ‘showering’ and hand-washing my clothes. I actually quickly got used to the life here, only the language is still a barrier, but many people speak English so I’m spoilt in that I’m not forced to learn the language, but it’s a beautiful language – Sepedi (or Northern Sotho) – and I’m slowly learning. I also quickly got used to the food – lots of pap (a kind of thick porridge of maize meal) and cabbage! The white pap is not new to me, but here they have a brown one which is the first time for me to try it – I prefer the white one though. I’m enjoying new vegetables like butternut and enjoying others which I never ate much like beetroot and spinach. The only thing which is a bit much for me is the canned baked beans – very popular in this area, with a kind of mango chutney called achar and lots of bread…
My daily routine is getting up at 5:30 or 6:00 (it’s not difficult to get up even earlier because it’s already light by 5:00), then ‘shower’ (this always take time since there are three of us and one bathing basin so we have to take turns), breakfast (usually bread, but sometimes I spoil myself with cereal!), then off to work at 7:00 or 7:30 depending on the plan of the day. I travel by public transport – similar to St Vincent, minivans, called taxis here, are abundant and easy to get around with. They also usually blast music – but very different music than St V., they also drive fast, but they are not as lively decorated and not named as the ones in St V. Lunch varies depending on the day’s activities; it can be a warm meal of pap or rice with veggies, or bread with baked beans and achar or bread with avocado (my favourite). End of the day varies again depending on the activities, but usually I’m home by 18:00, but work does not end there –there are always lots of assignments to mark or some report to write. Dinner is usually rice and veggies – but I’m not doing too good on the veggies because I’m not taking the time to buy them :( There are lots of vegetable stalls all over – by the road side, at the taxi ranks (= bus stations) so there’s always a chance to buy veggies. There’s also a chance to buy necessities at the numerous “Tuck Shops” or “General Dealers” in the villages. They are small shops selling bread, some vegetables, drinks etc. But usually we do all our shopping in the nearby shopping center – luckily we have one! If you are at the shopping center, you don’t feel like you are in a rural area, even though it’s just a small outdoor (i.e. not a mall) shopping center with two supermarkets, three banks and some clothes and furniture shops. It is actually a shopping center for neighbouring villages as well so people have to come from some distance to do their banking or weekly shopping. While some have to take a taxi for around 20 minutes, for us we can walk for around 20 minutes to the center, so it’s not bad at all :)
Alright, I hope now you have an idea of how I’m living here. I will hopefully get a chance to send some season’s greeting to you all as the year end is drawing near. I will have a few days off, so I hope to be able to do some sightseeing because I haven’t yet had a chance to and this country is just full of wonders! I hope to have some nice touristic pictures next time…
HUGS!
