It's been (quite) a year!

Reflecting back on twelve months in South Africa.

First day at training.

Has it really been that long?

Indeed, at last check, sometime in the past week or so we hit the one-year mark since our group of Peace Corps trainees arrived in South Africa — for me it was my first ever touch-down anywhere near the southern or eastern reaches of this vast continent. As a friend so sagely indicated recently, “Time isn’t slowing down, for sure.” And indeed I have found that this seems to be more and more the case as I get older. So it shouldn’t be hard to believe that it’s already been an year since our arrival and that we are nearing the halfway point of this tour with the Peace Corps (which is actually 27 months factoring in the initial training period).

The early days.

These days much seems to be made of regularly documenting one’s perceived performance and or emotional condition — whether it be with roses and thorns or smiley faces and frowns or some other metric. Although I’m generally not one to engage in that form of self-assessment, I thought that — upon the first anniversary of entering this latest chapter in my life — it might be interesting to look back and recount some of the highlights and lower points. Perhaps at some point in the future I’ll be glad that I did. I hope that you find it interesting and not overly personal or esoteric; if nothing else, it may provide a clearer insight into the types of situations and challenges that Peace Corps volunteers here, and I would argue far beyond, face as they navigate their journeys.

Highs & Lows

Let’s get the downers out of the way first:

• Headaches, fatigue and the creep of irritability as pre-service training dragged on and on.

• The first day in my village (35-plus degrees C): arriving groggy, hot and dehydrated; then proceeding to lose my mobile phone within a few hours — what a start!

• The end of my second week of teaching — staggering home with my head in my hands and wondering how in the world I was going to do this for two years.

  

  An especially rousing session.

And now on to the highlights, of which there have been a number:

• Getting off of the plane in Johannesburg to a warm welcome, tasty meal and a comfortable hotel room (with a single to boot) after 15 hours in the air.

• My home-stay during training: wonderful family, hearty meals, soccer matches on the big-screen, and endless hills to explore.

  

• The initial visit to my village and school (while still a trainee) to a spirited and heart-felt welcome of singing, dancing, and speeches — I have to admit to getting a little choked up at the time.

• Putting it all behind: celebrating the end of training on the front terrace — amid friends, music, revelry and relief.

• My first glimpse of such avian marvels as the violet-backed starling (at training), malachite kingfisher (Pretoria) and the lilac-breasted roller (right here in my village).

• A weekend get-away in Bela-Bela with fellow volunteers — comfortable lodging, a plunge pool, restaurant meals and a good bit of commiserating.

• Celebrating Ma’s 80th birthday in a leafy park in Pretoria after braaiing (cooking out) with the guys alongside a busy thoroughfare.

• Hosting my first visitors from abroad with a backyard braai for them, my host family and a few neighbors.

• Watching a hippo wallow and elephants spar in sublime late-day light during a visit to a nearby game reserve.

  

• Attending the interscholastic Read and Speech Festival (grades 1 through 3) and getting to interact with learners outside of the classroom, while seeing six reach the podium and move on to the next round. Of those, four were in the spelling competition — the only English language category. March on little goats!

• Watching our troupe of aspiring actors give an unexpectedly commanding performance before the school in Act II of ‘The Struggle is my Life’ about Nelson Mandela. So solid, they had me punching the fresh morning air.

  

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And what of that other (beloved) country?

Of course, having this much perspective — both in time and space — presents an uncommon and perhaps useful opportunity to look back at my relationship to my own homeland. What have I sacrificed and or gained if anything in taking this new, albeit finite, path on life’s journey? What do I miss and not miss and how has my thinking on certain things changed, if at all (though I won’t go too far into that last question here)?

Things I don’t miss…

• traffic

• credit card bills

• co-pays and deductibles for medical services

• mud season

• oppressive humidity

• being chased inside on a summer evening by ravenous two-winged insects

• twenty-five cloudy days per month — okay, granted: that doesn’t occur regularly, but it does happen and many of you know just what I mean

• mowing the lawn

• television (but, to be honest, I wasn’t much of a user to begin with)

• never ending election campaigns and the steady drone of political vitriol

• one-upsmanship and the social imperative to get ahead

• over-the-top consumerism — as far as I have found, no place does it ‘better’

Things I don’t miss, but I’d take if you offered…

• indoor plumbing (and a hot water heater if you’d be so kind as to toss one in as well)

• a washing machine (you can keep the dryer: it’s certainly not needed in this climate)

• some semblance of a waste management and recycling system

• pizza and real ice cream (make it Stewart’s Philly vanilla please)

  

  Reminiscences of home.

Things I miss…

• a car — mostly on errand days (yes, I recognize the irony here)

• a steady supply of power

• a private, or at least quiet, work space — at this point a cubicle would do

• regular and ample doses of anonymity

• short check-out lines at the grocery store

• hiking the misty, rolling ridge-tops of the Appalachians

• pedaling the back roads of New England

• fall colors

• variable and complex weather systems: okay, I realize that I’m not going to garner much sympathy here, but — after four months of nearly uninterrupted clear, calm days — I’m about ready for a good ole nor’easter

• snow

• the song of the wood thrush…and the winter wren for that matter

• home-grown (human) music, notably the nightly jazz hour on NEPR

• cracking that wishbone and raising a toast on Thanksgiving, preferably in front of a wood fire

• memory foam

• bread (that I can advisedly eat) — I will no longer take for granted this once seemingly ubiquitous source of ready calories

• beer

But, mostly…

• You all!

  -Come visit — time is running out — at least if you want a host with a spartan accommodation, no transportation, and limited local language skills.

  

  Lookin’ out my back door.

Thanks to Sheridan Mentch for contributing photos for this piece.