George,

It’s over 6 months now since I became a Peace Corps Volunteer in South Africa. I arrived in Johannesburg on July 21. Here are some notes on what’s happening in my adventure so far.

My first 2 months, in training, were spent in an interesting little village called Motswedi. It has two or three small grocery stores, a bank, a petrol station, and a post office. I lived with a pleasant black lady named Agnes and her toddler grandson, in a sturdy mortar-over-brick house with electricity and piped-in cold water (although they both often shut down for long periods of time, and we would fetch water from a nearby outdoor faucet and cook in the back yard on a wood fire).

The food was good, although different; the staple is a sort of corn meal mush called “pap” which is served with vegetables and, sometimes, chicken or beef. I got used to taking baths and doing laundry in a washtub, and using the outhouse. The village occupants couldn’t have been nicer; they all knew who I was, greeted me, helped my find my way home, carried my satchel. The kids would run out and hug me and ask me to play with them. There were about 90 Volunteers scattered throughout the village, usually one to a house, and we caused a lot of amusement in the neighborhood (and probably improved its economy briefly). It took me a while to get used to the total absence of paved streets and sidewalks (all they had was beaten earth, and no particular street pattern) but after a while I didn’t get lost quite as often.

In September I finished training and was placed in a town called Swartruggens with an extremely nice Indian family—husband, wife, and two kids. This house has indoor plumbing and it was nice to be able to take a shower again. And my hostess’ Indian cooking is marvelous. I’ll be here for the next 2 years. I’m enjoying getting to know my new “relatives” and feel very much at home with them.

My assignment was, at the beginning, in the primary school system. I first started working with two schools. One is in a settled neighborhood (next to a mosque) and has about 300 students, grades K through 9; they are mostly black, from local homes, with a scattering of Pakistanis and Afrikaaners. The faculty includes black and Afrikaan teachers. Everyone speaks at least some English; the students start using it in kindergarten, although they generally speak their home languages when talking with each other. The kids are generally well behaved, although they were a little lively the afternoon I was put in charge of the 28 third graders. It was rather like herding cats. But we got on pretty well once I managed to get them all to sit down and pay attention. That took a while. They did a lot of coloring that day, which kept them reasonably busy and quiet. I was rather glad when the bell finally rang. Along with my other work there, the principal wants me to help him build and stock a small science laboratory. That will be fun.

My second school is somewhat different: the students are mostly the children of itinerant or displaced farm workers, many of them recent arrivals to this area, and there are over 1100 of them, in grades 1 through 7. As with my other school, they are all well mannered and very polite. The often stand up when I enter the classroom, and there’s a little South African “hello” song they sang to me a few times. They don’t start learning English until the third grade so a lot of teaching time goes into that, regardless of what the announced subject (math, arts, economics, whatever) is. They and the faculty are all black; I’m the only white person there. I have sat in on a lot of classes (and taught one, for about 5 minutes) but it took me a while to find my feet there because it’s so big. I made the Natural Science teacher some acid-base indicator paper, which bolstered my credibility a lot. I began to make friends and feel comfortable in both schools, and developed a few ideas about projects to do in each one.

Then, in late November, my work situation changed. One day my Peace Corps supervisor appeared and took me to the APO (that’s Area Planning Office) where they plan and supervise the curricula of all the schools around here. She introduced me to a science supervisor there and we had a long talk. That lady decided that since I was a PhD scientist, I would enjoy visiting the Madikwe Resource Center, about an hour’s drive from there, where there is (among other things) a brand new chemistry laboratory, intended for doing hands-on workshops with the science teachers. Someone drove me over, and I was impressed. It’s small, but very well equipped and stocked.

Well! Surprise! A few days later, after several consultations, I found myself actually assigned to work at the APO. I am now helping to plan the science curricula—with emphasis on the high school chemistry courses—and I’ve started visiting all 16 of the associated high schools and planning on-site chemistry workshops with the science teachers. All this is keeping me very busy. I will also do lab workshops at the Resource Center. The APO has given me a pleasant office, and I may be assigned one at the Resource Center as well in case I want to spend time there planning and practicing the laboratory stuff.

I’m still working with my two schools, just not as much. They both want libraries, which I can keep working on, and there is that science building for me to get funded, built and stocked. I feel very much at home in the schools now; the small one, in particular, has gotten very home-like and they all say they miss me when I’m not there. I often encounter students, from both schools, when I walk into town. They know me, even though I don’t always recognize them. A lot of people in the town know and greet me too. Yesterday on my way to town I had to stop and talk with some of my new friends three or four times. South Africans are remarkably friendly and cheerful.

I had a fine Thanksgiving with eight other Volunteers; we gathered at a sort of summer camp where one of them works, and everybody cooked something (I did a turkey, if you can believe it) and we got all caught up with each other and shared experiences and in general had a great time.

At Christmas, my host family took me to Durban with them. They have a lot of relatives there, many of whom I met. They were all very hospitable and pleasant. I got to see the ocean, and a big South African city, and in general had a nice break. I even found an indoor rock wall to climb. My town put up modest Christmas decorations, and one of them played a Christmas record, but the season was very low key altogether. No snow here; the seasons are reversed (it got really cold in July) and it gets close to 90 degrees most days.

My language progress is slow but I’m learning it bit by bit. It still cracks everyone up when I try to speak Setswana with them but they’re helpful with vocabulary and patient with my mispronunciations, and they’re pleased that I’m trying to learn. One of my new friends is giving me a useful new phrase to learn every day. Last Monday’s was “Go monate go na fa” which means “it’s nice to be here”. I’ve used that one a lot recently.

I've made one trip so far to a nearby game preserve and saw a lot of rhinos and giraffes wandering around. We're going over there again on Saturday hoping to see some elephants as well. Maybe even a lion.

There are a lot of interesting differences between South Africa and Virginia. They’re (mostly) adding spice to my life. Here are a few of them:

When someone says “thank you”, you don’t say “you’re welcome”. You say “pleasure”.

Eating with your fingers is perfectly acceptable almost everywhere, although there are always forks available. Anyone who doesn’t put milk OR sugar in her coffee is considered very peculiar. (But they let me do it, shaking their heads in disbelief.)

South Africans shake hands with each other in a somewhat complicated way. I think it must be the forerunner of that slap-and-grab stuff that everybody is doing these days. Additionally, to show respect you put your left hand on your right forearm while you’re doing the handshake.

Many of the black women I meet have really fabulous hairdos. All sorts and sizes of braids, puffs, patterns, shapes, tight curls. It’s wonderful. The black men in TV shows have some interesting hair patterns too, but I haven’t seen any in real life yet.

People still curtsy here! When I was making the rounds of the classrooms at my Kgetleng school, several of the younger women teachers gave me a little bob. I hadn’t seen anyone curtsy in years.

They drive on the left. I expected this, but what I didn’t know is that pedestrians have essentially no rights. If there’s a car turning into the intersection, you’d better be out of the way. I don’t think they would deliberately hit anyone, but they expect you to move for them. It’s a little disconcerting.

They don’t give you plastic bags in the grocery shop (nor in a lot of the other shops) unless you ask for one and pay about 25 cents extra. A wonderful idea and I wish the U.S. would take it up.

A great many places have those funny-looking energy-saver light bulbs. A lot more than I’ve seen at home. Another good idea.

Cell phones: almost everybody over the age of 10 has one. It’s perfectly acceptable to stop what you’re doing, even in a meeting, and hold a conversation; sometimes you go out in the hall to talk. And those phones will do all sorts of things that I never knew a phone can do. Very useful gadgets. I read the NY Times and the Washington Post on mine, along with my email, and take an occasional picture. I wish I could figure out how to send the pictures home! Occasionally, when you have visitors, there will be five or six phones lying on the coffee table. When one of them rings it’s funny to watch everyone checking to see whose it is.

So that’s the Peace Corps Adventure so far. I hope you enjoy it.

Ginger Greene (Electronic mail, February 19, 2008)