Catchup

Today is my birthday. I am 28 and it is August 28th. I have heard this means it is my golden/diamond/crown birthday. Either way, I am happy my friend is making cake. Unless she forgot, then I will go get a meat pie from the gas station.

This morning, I continued my new assignment at Hilmary Learning Centre, one of the private schools in Thohoyandou that costs 40 dollars a month. The month of July was a whirlwind that took me from thinking I was in South Africa for another year in the nice city of Pretoria to doing a bunch of observations in schools throughout the beautiful breadbasket of Venda just before I embark on a month and a half trip throughout Africa in October.

Its been an awesome three weeks. I start the week waking up at 4:30am on a Monday, get to the bus stop area at 5:30am and travel with teachers to the are where the cluster of schools I am going to that week are. Most people that haven't seen the sun yet and are not driving a car would think, "Let's take a nap before teaching for the next 6 hours." Not these teachers. Its music, talking and laughing the whole way.

With blood shot eyes and a throbbing headache, I head to a school to observe 4-5 classrooms. The approach is simple: Every 3 minutes, I mark who the teacher is focusing on, what the teacher is teaching, what the teacher is doing, what the students are doing and the materials used. Principals have been super welcoming of me, students excited to see me and teachers relatively calm. This last point is strange to me. I can still remember sweating bullets in an air conditioned classroom when my Teach For America program manager would come visit my classroom back in Nashville. These South African teachers are acting as if I am not even there.

After school, I walk/taxi to the nearest Peace Corps Volunteer's house where I crash on some makeshift bed of blankets and get pumped to do the same thing the next day.

I've followed this process for a few weeks now and have a few weeks left. I hope to do just under 70 classrooms in all and go to a mix of private, public, secondary and primary schools. I am expecting to see trends in how teachers use their time. So far, I've seen that teachers talk the majority of the time and students work with the new content a small amount of time. To compound this issue, the teacher is not focused on individual or groups of students when students are working on this new content.

I have been taking little notes on the side of the marking sheet while observing. This will also further help the final report but will also provide some memorable quotes. Today at Hilmary, the teacher said, "Who doesn't understand?" A boy who had been playing the entire lesson said, "Teacher I don't understand." Before the teacher could respond, a little girl behind the boy said, "That's because you weren't listening," and in unison her two neighbours said, "Ee," which is, "Yes," in Tshivenda, showing their agreement with his lack of attention. I guess it doesn't matter what country it is, there is always that kid. Haha.

Career Skills Workshop

Awhile back I wrote the article below about a great experience I had with a friend visiting and bumping in with some energetic University of Virginia students who were briefly in Venda:

 

 

"School officially opened the 14 of July and the Office of Community Engagement did not wait for all students to return before getting back to business. In collaboration with some visiting University of Virginia students and United States Peace Corps Volunteers, a group of 10 SAMP students spent 3 days building their career skills such as CV and motivational letter writing, appearance and poise, presenting skills and how to get experience before applying to a job. Participants were in small groups and did 4 sessions a day for a total of 2 hours in the evening.

 

With SAMP’s focus on academic excellence, this was a great chance for participants to refine their skills and build their internal motivation for their course of study at the University of Venda. The presenters came from various backgrounds such as medicine, finance and the social sciences, along with various amounts of experience. After 3 days of presenting, each SAMP participant was a part of their own mock interview. Participants catered their CV and motivational letter to match a particular job description that they were interviewed for by two presenters.

From the results of the mock interviews, it was apparent that the SAMP participants gained a lot from the Career Skills Workshop. All participants were given individual feedback on how they performed. Many participants sent follow-up emails to their interviewees thanking them for their work and informing them that they will continue to improve their skills to make them more hirable at graduation."

I took these pictures:

When people just go and do what they like to do and teach people how to do it, it seems like winning happens.

More than a Game

 

Mamelodi basketball court before Day 1 with Vuks (middle), Coach (left) and me (right)

 

(Article originally written for the Peace Corps South Africa newsletter)

 

Last September, Basketball without Borders (http://www.nba.com/bwb/) came to Johannesburg. I learned about this a few weeks after the fact when I moved from my village of Ha-Lambani to my third year extension at the University of Venda in my shopping town, Thohoyandou. I was Google’ing the Cleveland Cavaliers superstar, Kyrie Irving, and his service work in Johannesburg came up. I remember finding it a bit ironic that the team I had started to practice with at the university never mentioned Baksetball without Borders and didn’t seem to have any of the neat shirts that I saw on the BwB website.

 

But what else is new?

 

The villages and towns we serve in are visibly different than the big cities of Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and even the smaller cities nearby such as Polokwane and Nelspruit. We hear about amazing things happening, meet well travelled people when passing through these areas and feel like we are moving between two worlds (http://poshcorps.com/) whenever we travel for more than 5 hours from our sites.  Yet, in the land of the fruit, Venda, far from Egoli (one of many nicknames for Johannesburg), I have struck gold.

 

After a hard day’s work of meeting with mentors, addressing first year university student issues, observing mentor meetings and doing random community work, I got to blow off steam in one of the most beautiful way possible – basketball. Somewhere between 12-20 students, guys and girls, wait for the sun to go down, around 5pm, to play basketball on the University of Venda’s 9ft and 9.5ft basketball hoops. They are led by a student coach, Konex, and are as unique as the University of Venda itself.

 

As most of us have grown to realize, black South African sport is dominated by soccer but this is changing, even in Venda. The Minister of Sport is attempting stringent quotas on all sports, with a clear focus on historically white sports like cricket and rugby. As for basketball, no quota is needed. Though this area does not have Basketball without Borders, it does have a strong Zimbabwean influence. Basketball is a part of Zimbabwean culture, especially within the urban population. The University of Venda team alone is at least half Zimbabwean.

 

This does not happen anywhere else in South Africa. In cities, South Africans are learning basketball from ex-pats or South Africans who have travelled. Here in Venda, students are sharing the knowledge of the game with their neighbours and learning as they go.

 

Once a year, they get to put their knowledge to the test.

 

Being so remote, we at the University of Venda don’t get exposure to much of the outside world and we certainly don’t get to play against anyone besides ourselves. Yet through initiatives of our player coach and team lobbying, the Univen basketball team convinces the university to sponsor us to play in Mamelodi once a year to play with some of South Africa’s finest.

 

The Mamelodi tournament happened this past Easter weekend. After a few months of adding to the drills that the Zimbabwean players grew up doing, I proved my worth and was asked to join. 8 hours after our planned departure date, a boys and girls team packed into a mini bus and headed south. Over three days, we played teams described as, “they play on TV.” The road was rough. Each team lost their first two games by more points than I have years. Our second and third games weren’t much better. For myself, it was becoming increasingly frustrating. I knew that we played much better at Univen but were caught off guard by the atmosphere. Yet, the team never spent more than 5 minutes being upset. Eventually, Mateta or TP, guy players, would stand up and lead some song that I had no clue but everyone else would join in and joke with.

 

Game 3 for the girls will be a memory that will last with me until I am bald and with Alzheimer.

 

They were playing one of the top teams in the country. The Cameo (as the Univen team is known outside of Venda) girls points leader, Pertina, who was injured for the first two games, decided to toughen up and play. Her presence turned the girls into a possessed team. The game started off with a flurry of shots, balls stolen and shouting. All the Cameo guys joined in. They sang songs, did dances and pushups for every big basket. A fairly mild Mamelodi crowd did not know what this Limpopo bomb was that just hit them.

 

The fuse had been lit within Cameo.

 

After the girls’ victory, the boys took their 0-3 record to the court as if they were undefeated. From the start, it was clear all the jitters of being on a big stage were gone. The Cameo boys took it straight to the opposition. By half time, they were up by 10. Following some big 3 pointers, the game ended with a huge alley-oop to the team’s youngest player and a slam dunk that even brought the professionals in the crowd to their feet.

 

The Cameo girls in the stand, just like the Cameo boys, were with the team each step. They jokingly did pushups, chanted “hapana, ahuna” during free throws and clapped emphatically. All those in attendance joined in the joy. The intensity of the competition was enhanced by the intensity of the crowd and it was clear there was a love for the great sport of basketball.

 

After the 20+ point win, it hit me that Univen doesn’t need the NBA or Basketball without Borders. Sure, having the best from around the world would definitely develop the sport in South Africa. But 3 days of the NBA? No big loss, Joburg can have it. Cameo may have not been the most prepared for the tournament, but the spirit and team commitment is something I would never trade for nor is it something that is easily achieved.

Cameo on our way back to Venda

 

Lesotho

Soooooo fun.

Right after I moved to my new assignment, I headed south to visit a friend in Warrenton, Northern Cape. We were beginning our trip to Lesotho.

Our plan was to get to the country's capital, Maseru, and then go from volunteer to volunteer and see the country. Lesotho has a strong Peace Corps presence, but, even though they are covered on all sides by South Africa, volunteers in South Africa have little knowledge of these wonderful Americans.

I creeped on some Lesotho volunteers and eventually got a list of emails and volunteer locations. I emailed folks and draw up a rough route. The first day we arrived in Lesotho, it was dark and our backpackers was far out of town. This fact and our exhaustion from traveling (traveling is always another story) already put a wrench in our plans. We couldn't get in touch with a our first volunteer, but fortunately the lady who gave us a new SIM card for our phone knew where the local Peace Corps office was.

We got to the office, eerily similar to our own office in South Africa, and before we knew it, we had found a volunteer who was willing to take us under his wing.

I wrote this over 6 months ago and never finished.

Basically, our plan never happened. We ended up going with this dude that took us under his wing and he passed us to one volunteer who passed us to another who then passed us to another. Then we found a Spanish guy who took us back into South Africa. But one thing led to another and we met up with friends who were really nice and eventually gave us a ride to Pretoria. We can talk more about this another time.

Here is a picture of the Lesotho that I remember:

A picture I did not take

Why this? One day my friend, Josh, and I were leaving a Peace Corps Volunteer's house at 4am and it was so cold, we used our sleeping bags to wrap ourselves. We looked like herd boys that chase the cows through the mountains and couldn't help but crack up for hours because the 4:30 bus never came. This picture kind of looks like the view we had when the sun came up around 6.

Yeah, sweet trip. I want to travel by Peace Corps Volunteer more often. We are great people.

I also learned to love grilled (braai) meat. The last guys we stayed with were connoisseurs in the local meat scene.

Didn't take this picture either

Amakhosi4Life

On the left, the cool team. On the right, the lame team

On 15 March, 2014, I finally did it. I went to the Soweto Derby. During my first two months in the country, I was placed in a small, densely populated village called Makapanstad. Everywhere I walked, I saw yards decorated with Pirates signs, bars painted with the Chiefs logo and jerseys all the time. At first, I thought it was Halloween but later found out this was for the two big soccer teams in the local South African soccer league, the PSL (Premier Soccer League), and the rivalry between the two sides is legendary.

From what I gathered, the Orlando Pirates were the original team of Johannesburg, the business capital of South Africa. Later on, someone from the Kaizer Chiefs went to the great country of the USA, got inspired and came back to start a new Johannesburg team, the Kaizer Chiefs. For a long time, these teams were aggressive towards each other. Opposing teams would get into fights, families would disown each other, etc etc, think Browns/Steelers, Ohio State/Michigan. 

I grew up not liking soccer. I played soccer for two years as a youth. The first year I hid in the car and the second year I hid in the backfield, giving the goalie a long day. Needless to say, I wasn't pumped to jump on the bandwagon that the majority of the world is on. I left my position at my host mom, who makes delicious food, was a Chiefs fan and so I was by default. It was a new country and I had to keep my priorities in line.

The first two months passed rapidly. I learned Tshivenda, not the language of Makapanstad. I ate pap, the food of all South Africa. And, most importantly, I watched soccer. This was a confusing experience. I didn't even know the rules. The names were impossible to learn. You try and say Siphiwe Tshabalala or Itumeleng Khune. Yeah, didn't think so.

Then I was in Venda, where the fruit flows. I came right at the time of mangoes. I watched those babies grow, I sat under the tree and ate double digits, I put the rotten ones in wheelbarrows and dumped them in the community pile. I taught English to kids that thought I sounded like a kazoo. I didn't think much about soccer.

Sure, I was dragged in like always to watch a game. I again cheered for the Kaizer Chiefs because, you guessed it, my new host mom did. I usually sneaked out at halftime, claiming to be tired but really just went and watched an episode of an old TV issue I would have never watched in the States. I noticed the younger and older boys playing soccer daily but had flashbacks to my tear-filled youth and found my interest in watching soccer even less.

But slowly and surely, South Africa and soccer started to win me over. It probably started with my host mom bringing out a post-dinner snack of corn at halftime, and magically I wasn't tired. It helped when I visited Johannesburg, my friends, the Beddy's, drover my friends and I around and talked about the magic of the 2010 World Cup. And yes, one of the younger boys convinced me to play soccer a bit. I still hung back and played defense, but my years in organized sport, helped me to hold my own a bit more and lessen the burden of the goalie.

I started to learn names. Khune, Tshabalala, Parker, Mathoho, Dladla and Baloyi came regular names. I began to get a little competitive when someone would X their arms and say, "Ama bucca bucca," a common Orlando Pirates fan. After a few visits to town, I caved and bought a R30 ($3) jersey. I started talking competitively with my Peace Corps friend Josh and language instructor Dakalani, who are Pirates fan. And the urge to attend a Soweto Derby grew and grew.

That was early 2012. It took me two years, and a new group of Peace Corps Volunteers to organize a push to go to the Soweto Derby.

Part of the gang that made it happen

I try to avoid using Peace Corps lingo in my blog because it just confuses us and would scare a non-Peace Corps person away, but it will help here for chronology. I am a part of Peace Corps 24, which means I am the 24th group to be in South Africa. The newest group is Peace Corps 28, they came two years after me. I went to the 28's training to teach about reading comprehension, writing, listening, speaking and give some basic support. They were fine with that, but one of the first things the white guy with the white jersey on said to me was, "We need to go to the Soweto Derby." After that, the rest is history.

In February, two hours after the tickets went on sale, we purchased 13 tickets at R80 ($8) for lower bowl, pick your seats. Darren, the white guy with the white jersey, talked to some taxi drivers who were his friend and he reserved a taxi to pick us up in Pretoria, the safe city, to take us to Soccer City (FNB) Stadium in Johannesburg, the dangerous city, per Peace Corps policy.

As the magical day 15 March approached, tickets sold out. We were so happy that we bought in advance and so excited to be a part of a sellout, 90,000 crowd. We took the bus to Pretoria, visited the city the night before and the next morning got ready for gameday. 

The 13 tickets were four 24s, four 28s, an American researcher and four South Africans. It was a star studded crew. The South Africans had all been to a Derby before and were more or less our safety blankets for the event. They picked us up in Pretoria, took us to the best shop to get refreshments and fuel for the day and found their way around road blocks to get us close to the stadium.

Sea of kombis (taxis vans)

We were amazed at the ease it took to get into the stadium, and when we arrived, we were shocked at the sea of kombis (taxi vans) that presented itself. As I wrote earlier, in 2012 I went to the biggest rugby match which was the South African Springboks versus the New Zealand All Blacks. There were a lot of people there but nothing like what this sea of kombis presented.

We immediately set up camp and started socializing. Being a white person at a soccer game in South Africa is a site. Being 9 white people, with obnoxious American accents is a spectacle. Historically, soccer is a black sport in South Africa. Children in village, cities and everywhere play soccer. White sports are referred to as rugby and cricket. This whole sports by race thing is changing and there are awesome examples of breaking the barrier on both sides that I could and should spend another blog post on, but it still is largely separated.

Being a spectacle, we all went cross eyed from so many pictures. We strained our ears over loud house music to learn a few chants, and we joined in spontaneous pre-game dances. Keeping true to our American ways, we also decided it was a good idea to take the initiative and share our culture. We saw a large garbage heap that had a slab of concrete that we decided would make a great table for some pre-game activities. So four of us climbed this heap, grabbed the slab and plopped it on our cooler. This led to a lot of friend making, competitive natures coming out and cross culture sharing.

Like all good things, the party had to come to an end, and we had to go watch soccer.

The massive crowd trying to cram in Soccer City Stadium

For some reason, all 90,000 people decided to get into the stadium at the same time. It was awesome. I swear I didn't touch the ground for 50 feet because the pressure of the two large men on either side of me lifted me up and carried me for a bit. Meanwhile, I pulled out the envelope of 13 tickets and dispensed them, basically saying, "Hope to see you inside at some point."

When we got into the stadium, it was truly packed, but we found our way to the tenth row from the field.

Full house without Bob Saget, sadly

We got there, and I quickly realized soccer was being played, so my friend and I found the largest gathering of Chiefs fans and continued singing. This singing, dancing and jollyness lasted the whole game. From what people say, it was actually a poor game to watch. All I know is that the Chiefs scored and won 1-0.

Amakhosi4Life!

SAMP

Samp is a common dish in South Africa. Corn kernels are smashed up to remove the outer skin, then it is boiled and served with side dishes like beans or chakalaka. So why is it the name of the first year program we started at the University of Venda? Not sure. I think it is because I liked the idea of having something with a local flavor (flavour would be more appropriate). Or maybe it was because I find samp delicious. Either way, the fun name has kept us focused on the mission throughout these first few months and the university is responding.

Delicious samp and beans

Let's first rewind. When I came to the University of Venda in September 2013, I was planning on working with a research grant that focused on a cluster of high schools. The work would be on improving school practices in order to increase the pass rate for the national test, the MATRIC. I am doing that, sort of, but a conversation with my supervisor led us to wanting to improve the culture on the campus.

Being in a rural setting and rapidly growing, the University of Venda (Univen) is still working on improving its on-campus lifestyle. Residency space, student involvement and programming are a big issue. Many students that come to the university face the same problems as they do in the States, yet there is not a lot of anchor programs at Univen to entertain and mold students as there are in our lovely institutes Stateside.

We felt the best place to start was with the incoming 2014 first year students. My time at Ohio State started off with a first year program through the Diversity Services Office called PASS (Program for the Advising in Scholarship and Service). This program was a  way to let me connect me with a group of people under the guidance of the university's mission. Writing it like that seems way lame now, but at the time, it was comforting to have a group of people that were just there for support.

Throughout my first year at Ohio State, I had meetings with PASS and was able to drop in at my advisor's office any time. I actually went to this advisor more often than my major advisor because there was a more personal feel to this group.

I wanted to bring that vibe to Univen. I envisioned a grassroots approach. Getting older students working with first year students to do a program called the President's Award where they would do sports, personal skills and community service. Then my supervisor told me to write a research grant. I complied.

Student Academic and Mentoring Program (SAMP) is what was born out of this research proposal. It was a lot of typing. We kept the original idea but added an element of staff member support. Decided on having 60 first year students broken into 6 groups of 10 with one upperclassman and one staff member as mentors. They would meet two times a week for an hour doing sports and book clubs, eventually adding an element of community service when the group was well formed.

Recruiting mentors was shockingly easy. In a matter of a week, I came across six solid upperclassmen who were interested in helping, and I smooth talked 6 staff mentors into giving their time. We had an informational meeting, then I went to the Land of the Free for a month. You have read about how great that was in a prior post.

I arrived back in South Africa after the first year, fat and revitalized for 10 months of work. From January to February, we created a handbook, held a mentor training, recruited first year students, signed a bunch of forms and made this fun logo:

SAMP's logo that will one day, hopefully, be changed

We received over 150 applications for 60 spots. At first, we planned on going to different orientations, but, due to strikes and department delays, these events were postponed. Not wanting to start off on the wrong foot and keeping true to my American roots, the SAMP Mentors and I pushed forward, keeping our predetermined deadlines and took to the ground for recruiting. We went to the residence halls, cafeteria and other social hot spots. Applications were coming in but not fast enough. We started recruiting with pens and hard surfaces to allow interested students fill out the application then and there. 

The process was quite a spectacle. Once the applications were in, the mentors learned how to do a selection process. We marked students based on diversity matters and then each mentor gave a score on the quality of written responses. In a country riddled with nepotism and who knows who processes, this was an awesome exercise on removing biases. 

SAMP Welcome Event - the first 1st group event

After we made our selections via scores and not knowing who wrote what, some of the mentors were upset that their friends or particular students they recruited did not get accepted. Our Welcome Event evaporated this anger into excitement. With all 60 students present, guest speakers, groups being announced and food, it was a blast. New SAMP members learned about the upcoming campout, who their mentor was and got to spend time getting to know each other. The general tone was an appreciation of what could be and that these 60 students would be the leaders of Univen.

Then we went camping.

For Americans, camping or going to a camp is something that many experience from an early age and grow to find it boring in time. For over 90% of the 67 people who attended the SAMP camp, this was their first experience in an organized camp. Our friends at Magoebaskloof Adventures delivered.

The Royal Stars and Ultimate climbing the wall at the obstacle course

On Saturday, we boarded the bus and my Grandpa hat came on. We made no stops. If you had to pee, you held it. I think I lost friend status there but it set the tone for following directions from the beginning. We got to the camp and did a 30 minute rapid fire of songs, goofy partner activities and some energizers, and the no potty break blues was quickly forgotten. We moved into a rotational nature hike, obstacle course and challenge course. Students were on time and in high spirits. There were bumps, bruises and sweat, but no tears. 

It has been a long time since I did a challenge course where there wasn't someone rolling their eyes. The amount of excitement of walking across tires or carrying someone through a "spider web" was uber rewarding. It was amazing to watch these first year students work together, fall down and try to reflect on their experiences. This brief, 28 hour camp was meant to just allow the students to have fun with each other and get to know each other, yet it accomplished so much more.

I was nervous for the evening because none of the students had slept in tents before, but after dinner, I could see everyone was so tired that tents would not be an issue. We concluded the night with what was supposed to be skits but turned into a talent show. This event was probably the crown jewel of the camp, though at first, I thought it was going to be brief and boring.

The groups were given some time to educate the other groups through skits. It was dark outside, which added to the secrecy of the preparations. The night began with a funny skit on the first year experience and how goofy lecturers appear to first year students. The skits quickly turned a bit sober with dramas on relationships, HIV and academic failure. It was very awkward for me, but everyone else seemed comfortable, so I tried to hide my sunburned skin from appearing redder from blushing. The issues these students face are very unique to South Africa, and though I found it a bizarre topic to consume most of a fun-filled evening, the students seemed to find solice in it.

After all groups were finished, I was relieved and was looking forward to sleep when the program director from Magoebaskloof asked does anyone want to share a talent. At first, folks were timid but then a few brave individuals stood up and got in line. What followed was a mixture of poetry, cover songs and dancing that were not only enjoyable to watch but also encouraging for SAMP. 

It was evident that these students felt comfortable enough to showcase their talents in front of 60 people they had only met once before. In the coming year, these groups will be meeting on a weekly basis. Reflecting on their week, asking each other for help, playing together, learning together and serving the community together. By bonding early, they have taken a step in the right direction. Now it is up to me, the mentors and my supervisor to keep the structure formation on task.

Hopefully there are more pictures like this -

The parting picture from SAMP Camp at Magoebaskloof

Rather than like this -

                                                

Old picture from a hike where I became quite ill

designmantic.com

I am not tech, art or savvy in general. When I was coming up with an idea for the first year program at the University of Venda, I was trying to create a logo for the program. DesignMantic.com made this process easier. I was able to write the program acronym and insert a picture that will hopefully be a noticeable brand on campus.

Want to hear the idea?

The program is called SAMP - Student Academic and Mentoring Program. The reason SAMP is fun is because it is the name of a staple food in the region. Hopefully not only will samp the food nourish students but SAMP the program will also.

Thanks Design Mantic for providing the logo. I will put the logo on the blog soon.