The Man, the Myth, the Legend

                             8 year old Fhedzani teachin SOUNS to the 4 year olds at the Cretche (Preschool)

One of the first things my host mom in Pfukoni said, translated through the principal, was, "you teach my son English and I'll teach you Tshivenda." I said, translated by no one because its pretty American, "deal." Well 13 months later, my Tshivenda is shotty and Fhedzani, the son that was talked about, can carry a conversation with anyone reading this post.

A child's mind never ceases to amaze me. I am the only person in Pfukoni that he speaks to in English and that is only a few hours a day (increasingly a lot lately since I purchased a basketball and he is learning to dribble). He watches hours of TV and just remembers it all. It's nutty. He says phrases that I know I never say.

So now that I have another person to speak English with in the village (the count is up to 3), I figured I can't waste this opportunity. So one day, after his school was over, I took him to teach the cretche (preschool) kids their letter sounds. My intention was to use Fhedzani as an observer to see if I am saying the most effective phrases because for some reason I thought I could control 3 and 4 year olds.

After about an hour of teaching, all the kids and I sing our song and I return to where my bags are and eat a meal the cretche gives before heading back home. While we are eating, Fhedzani says, "Sean, tomorrow, why don't you take two kids and I take two kids." I quickly agreed because the idea of an older kid teaching a younger kid willingly should never be passed up.

On our walk back though, I realized his real motive. "Do you like coming to the cretche?" I said. "Yeah, they feed me good food." Food rocks and now I have a little buddy, two times a week to help teach the future leaders of Pfukoni. It is an exciting happening, and I am hoping it leads to more willingness to participate in the classroom. If an 8 year old can do it, surely anyone can?

I saw cave paintings

Yes I did, but first I saw Phiphidi Waterfall with Phil Smoke! Phil came and visited me in Venda back in late June and we embarked on a trip through Venda. After chilling in my village, eating fresh chicken and dried worms, we kicked things off proper with the waterfall and hike through the stream of the fall. It was sweet. Mad rocks to climb and perfect relaxing spots to talk. Two of my other Peace Corps friends, James and Kyle joined too.




Then we went to Lake Fundudzi. Sorry commoners, but you can't look directly at the sacred lake and I forgot to hold a camera while looking through my legs. We actually had a nice hike out to the lake and split a chicken loaf of bread between Phil, 5 other PCVs, and myself.

The next day, we cooked bread in a termite hill. There is a long history I could write about the folks that trekked across South Africa and used cooking methods like this, but maybe another time.




After a good rest and some bread, we went and saw some San cave paintings. Pretty sweet. One was of an elephant that I told everyone I saw but didn't really. They assured me it was there and I agreed. I knew my peanut butter sandwich wouldn't be as good if I kept fighting it.



It must have been the cave paintings, but we felt ambitious and did a second leg of our hike to see another "waterfall." This translated into following a pipe and getting lost. We figured we could just go straight down to the train track. Bad idea. After a few eight foot drops and crawling between rocks, we made it back safely.

Cut short.

Scouts Venda Begins!

Pictured above is the first group of trained Scouters in Venda with Peace Corps Volunteers and Scouts Training Committee.

I Ran a Half Marathon

Being an Education Volunteer in the Peace Corps means you can only leave your village when school is out of session.  This is gravy because you don't have many reasons to leave your village other than catching up with other volunteers or going on an adventure in a foreign country.  So if the majority of the other volunteers are doing something not so cool, your choices are slim.  Yet I found a way to have my cake and eat it too this past break.

My fellow volunteers decided to be good people and raise funds for the KLM Foundation (http://www.klm-foundation.org/) by running in the Longtom (http://www.longtominfo.co.za/).  I joined the club (Thank you for your support, Eddie, Zack, and Robin).  I genuinely enjoy going to the rec and spending the entire day playing basketball, lifting, and swimming, but running 22km for 2 hours seems silly. Friends assured me it would be fun, I made sure I inserted some cool stuff before and after the run to be safe.

The race was on a Saturday, so I headed out of my village early on Wednesday to visit a private school and a fellow volunteer who lives closer to the race site about 4 hours South.  The private school was called LEAP (leapschool.org.za) and their website led me to believe I was going to walk into school that just drills Math and Science into young learners in English in order to raise their scores to get into university.  This they did but so much more. 

In a country ravaged with high crime rates, post-Apartheid tensions, and one of the world's highest HIV rate, LEAP approaches it's mandated Life Orientation course in a way that I have only seen at high functioning summer camps or religious groups.  LEAP has an Life Orientation teacher that spends time teaching the currciculum of sexual health, physical health, good decisions, etc. but the main focus of the class is a daily, one hour community meeting (students go to school 2 hours longer than mandated and have a half day of Saturday school).  Here the teacher steps back and the students talk about issues facing them and provide support to one another in a safe environment. 

Talking with these students, I could see the benefits of this environment.  Yes, they were more proficient in Math, Science, and English than students in my village, but their ability to converse, work together, and face adversity rivaled that of high performing students in the States.  It reminded me of how important emotional balance through positive conversation is to success in the classroom.

After talking with cool kids all day, a debrief between volunteers, and a good nights rest we prepared for our journey to the race.  We arose early, headed out, and arrived in Sabie, Mpumulanga on Friday during the mid afternoon after getting trapped in a crazy rainstorm.  The planning committee for the race found a solid backpackers (hostel) for us to stay at, gave us our race information, and we headed to bed early for the race.  At 5am, we needed to be at the bus stop to head up the Sabie mountains to the point of the half marathon starting line.

At the top of the hill there was an absurd amount of people jumping up and down, huddling together, rubbing their arms, and doing whatever to keep warm in this foggy, cold environment.  They assembled us to the starting line.  We were still huddled when this massive gun fired a shot and the mob of half motivated half marathoners started trotting down the hill to the city 22km away.

We trotted a bit, stretched a bit, toileted a bit, and talked a lot.  They gave us Bar One bars, Powerade, and jelly beans.  Racing is cool!  I finished in 2 hours 2 minutes, got a massage, ate some voers, and cheered in the 56km runners.  Yay!

After a night of hanging out and recovering, I headed to Johannesburg to visit schools and see the city a bit.  I traveled by taxi and met a guy on the bus that was heading my way.  We got off the taxi early and walked to a connecting taxi to avoid having to pay a large amount from going into the city.

The plan for the remainder of the trip was to CouchSurf with someone for 2 days and another for 2 more days and then head back to Venda.  Well I got into the town where my first CouchSurf host lived just to find out they forgot to tell me they worked until 11pm.  After dark in Johannesburg isn't a great idea.  I called a few friends and wound up taking the high speed Gautrain to a different part of town, getting picked up, and staying with my Peace Corps friend Mardy who was staying with a family to celebrate Passover.  I went from relying on public transit and sleeping on couches to having a private driver and sleeping in my own bed.  Only in South Africa. 

This worked out in more than just a comfort way.  I got to spend time with a much different South African family that I interact with daily in Ha-Lambani my village.  I learned a ton about crime and why every house looks like a castle with electric fences guarded by fully automatic armed guards.  I also picked up a partner in crime.

We checked out another LEAP school, this time in one of Johannesburg's most impoverished neighborhoods, Alexandria.  Same awesomeness as Jane Furse, but the school was mostly led by former students.  Got to love efforts to stop brain drain!  The following days visit to Sci Bono Science Museum was what stole the cake on the week.

I heard about Sci Bono through an email correspondence with someone from USAid.  They recommended it because of the awesome opportunities it provided to low income students in the area.  Before we arrived, they had a whole day mapped out for us visiting each different department and learning about the whole operation. 

Now in the States, I always thought Science centers were lame.  I just never got into them.  Now that I have taught for a few years, I see how fun they can be.  Sci Bono was fun in all the familiar ways of cool exhibits that challenge the five senses, explore technology, and give students a hands on experience with science.  Yet Sci Bono went a few extra miles that I had not heard of before. 

At Sci Bono, they had a computer research center, a chemical lab, a Department of Education school improvement team, and a whole building dedicated to career counseling.  The research center and lab were filled with high school students participating in a competitive holiday science camp.  We had conversations with the school improvement team on their teacher coaching program and weeklong immersion program to get teachers up to speed on skills.  In the career counseling building, we talked about how the science center promotes trade schools for students that aren't benefiting from the college preparatory route and were given a stack of materials on careers to fill our community library (In the works.  Want to help me raise $330 for books to fill a library?  Give at https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=674-072)

I ended my visit playing with all the exhibits then having lunch with 3 of the employees all of different ethnic backgrounds - one Venda, one Zulu, and one Setswana.  It was wild sitting there talking about South African history with 3 very different experiences.  We talked about the positives and negatives of the homelands, how the townships work today, and funny memories.  I have been trying to learn as much as possible on South African history, but to sit down with guys that have lived and are it, was icing on an already sweet day.  Plus I had ostrich for the first time.  Delicious.

Umm, then I went back to Venda. 

Want to visit Sean?!

UPDATE: Charlie, my big brother, is coming from July 15-29, I am pretty sure those are the dates. I deleted the old dates because that is for the 2012 school year. If you want to visit, let me know.

Civil Society

I first remember hearing the term civil society when I was in my Economics of sub-Saharan Africa class, senior year at OSU.  I didn't like how the word sounded.  Made me think of white table cloths and British accents.  Both things are not on the top of my supercool list.  Yesterday, I satdown with the Director of Scouts in the Limpopo Province. We were talking about expanding Scouting in my area over a nice coldrink (pop).  As we talked, the importance of civil society really struck at home.

I have been in contact with this guy, Andrew Tanner, since December 2011.  He came to one of our Peace Corps trainings and talked about starting Scouts in our villages.  I started organizing Peace Corps Volunteers, getting adult volunteers in my village, and wrote a grant.  I kept Andrew up-to-date on all of this and was excited to be working with someone who wanted to improve his country even living over 5 hours away, in a much different environment. 

Then I found out that he was doing all his Scout work as a volunteer.  I was shocked.  How could someone motivate adults to want to start a local troop, train those adults, check in on those adults, and find new ways to expand.  Where have I seen this before?  Oh yeah, in Berea, Strongsville, and Parma, Ohio. 

My whole life I have been surrounded by volunteers.  People that worked hard to "put food on the table" from 8-5 and then spent their 5-9 improving the lives of those around them because they knew it was in their best interest too.  People that knew if they didn't do, then maybe nobody would.  People that saw a need and provided a service they best they could.

I think of the great Scout leaders I had in my Mom, Dad, Mrs. Astorino, Mr. Matej, Mr. Anthony, Mr. Bowen, Mr. Ivcic.  I think of my coaches in Mr. Astorino, Mr. Bentz, Mr. Heitz, Coach Hubbler, Coach Skoczen, Coach Ryan, Coach Kirk, Coach Z.  These were people that wanted happiness and knew the only to it was through imoproving the lives of the people around them.  What better way is there to improve the lives of the people around you then through teaching a skill to a child? 

Think about it.  You teach a skill to a child, you make parents happy.  You teach a skill to a child and they're not only happy but they can teach it to someone else, use that skill to create something new, and have another weapon to take on this world.

Maybe you'll teach a silly accent or dinner etiquette, but civil society always has room to grow.  It's a good thing.  It's a needed thing.  So have fun.  Do something great.

(super brief and not previewed.  please forgive mistakes)

Building a Church

My hands feel like they have been dunked in cement and my wrists are just swiveling back and forth to type but it's one of those "good burns."  Since arriving in Pfukoni, I have been spending my Sundays at Gunda Church of Christ.  At home in the States, I choose to regularly attend Mass at whatever is the nearest Catholic Church.  Since the nearest Catholic Church to Pfukoni is a day's trip away and there is no transport on Sunday, I have happily chosen to attend Church of Christ because my host family goes there, it is low key, and I get to work on my Tshivenda.  My Tshivenda is not at the point where I can understand the sermons, but I follow along with the Bible verses in my host sister's Tshivenda Bible and my brother's English Bible (sorry Charlie) to get the main idea.  Oh and they sing songs which helps me learn words that are never used but are often the name of people.

So why did you start off saying your hands hurt, Sean?  Mulovha, ndo dobela mathombo na shelani wela.  Yesterday, I loaded stones and poured them in a hole.  Vhathu vha kereke vha khou fhata kereke na ndi khou thusa.  The people of the church are building a church and I am helping.  

I've been exercising a bit and consider myself fit but Venda women put me to shame.  It was myself, two over 50 women, and a lady in her 30s.  We filled 3 gallon buckets with stones, walked down the hill, and then put them in the base of the church to make the ground level because the church is being built on the side of a hill.  I lugged my bucket with my two arms while the women did a power lift taking the bucket from the ground to their head.  We did this for about 2 hours and I was dead.  I went home, bathed, and grabbed some grub.  They went home, carried some firewood, cooked dinner, and cleaned up.  Pretty boss, no?

It was awesome just helping.  I kept thinking how there is always something to do.  I could spend my day reading, tutoring, playing, helping, etc.  It is just a matter how far I am willing to put myself out there.  The further I step out, the more tired I am, the heavier I sleep, the bigger the smile in the morning.  Kha ri wane mishumo.  Let's find work.