Some of the Challenges of Adjustment

I was writing a letter to a friend, and these are some of the challenges I tried to describe...I thought it might be interesting.

Peace Corps has been difficult for many reasons. I think the hardest thing by far is that we aren’t allowed to express our thoughts concerning anything political here. Even in this email to you, there are things I can’t talk about politically. Not having that freedom of speech is a real challenge here. I understand that we would not be able to perform our duties here effectively if we were able to speak our mind, but it is really difficult to take the fifth sometimes.

Also, the pace of life and change here is very slow compared to America. Or maybe not slow, just different. We have like a week or so where we are too busy to do anything, and then there could be an entire month where everything you schedule falls through. Generally our priorities don’t always match up with theirs. For instance, right now the World Cup is happening in South Africa. Soccer here is more important than football in the states, so planning anything right now would be futile. Even meeting with teachers has proven difficult. There are stores that just aren’t open, presumably because the owner went to South Africa for the World Cup. Its intense, but problematic for development work.

Until a few months ago, it was general culture shock that was also a big challenge. Not understanding most of what people say, and then still not knowing certain rules until you do the wrong thing has been a challenge. I think just now I am in this phase where I not only miss things in the States, but relishing things that are here which I know I will miss when I get back. One example is bread. I really miss nice wheat bread. The wheat bread here isn’t ground as finely as in America, so you get these random bits of husk that just have a weird texture. They also don’t make those really nice flavors like honey wheat, and rye, and the one with the sunflower seeds in it. I miss those, and I think about them more than I should. However, what they do have here is fresh, HOT bread in pretty much any grocery store. Our host family has a market, and they get bread delivered every day, and sometimes it is still hot. That is wonderful. There is nothing like bread so hot it might burn a hole through the plastic. Anyway, I know I will miss that, so I am relishing it now.

June Updates

Well, in a week we will have been in Swaziland one year! We are actually planning a little get together for all the volunteers- CHRISTMAS IN JUNE!!!! Since June 25 is exactly one year since we entered Swaziland, it is six months from the actual Christmas, and a pay day, and it will be cold (unlike the real Christmas was), we thought a little party would be appropriate. Lets see, that is the fun stuff we have planned…now about work.

We just finished a workshop with our rural health motivators, who are women selected in the community to do home visits and teach health and hygiene. These women have been working since the eighties, and they have yet to receive any in-service training, so we worked with World Vision, another Non-Governmental Organization in the area, to provide them with some lessons. They learned about Child and Patient Rights, the Child Growth and Immunization card, Home Based care, HIV/AIDS and TB (signs/symptoms, transmission, drug identification, and how to protect themselves) and PMTCT (prevention of mother to child transmission). It was a lot of information. We met with them again a few weeks ago and have started to introduce solar disinfection, since gas is very difficult to get here, and we are backed up to a nature reserve, making firewood collection difficult. They were so happy to hear of a use for old bottles! We are now starting to work with the primary school teachers to answer their HIV questions and give them resources so they can better explain HIV to the children. With Swaziland Government paying for free grade one education, the schools have been very busy trying to accommodate all these new students. It has been a bit of a challenge getting all the teachers at each school together, but once the dialogue starts, we hope to really help clear up any issues/misconceptions. We are also hoping to do the book project again- this time with the primary schools.

Another project I worked on with two other volunteers that was finished up in April (I left for Cape Town, and they had to finish up the tough work without me, sorry guys!) is the Welcome Video for the new group coming the end of June. If you would like to hear about Swaziland and a bit about what Peace Corps is like here, you can find these videos on www.youtube.com Just search for Peace Corps Swaziland. There should be about 24 or so videos up on different topics ranging from what a homestead is to teaching at a school. I hope these videos will be interesting to you.

Well that is an update if I have ever seen one. Sorry we don’t update more often…rumor in our community has it that we might be getting electricity soon, which would make it much easier to update, so maybe then you will see more, but I won’t make any promises!