Thursday, September 30, 2010

Got Water?

Well, today marks weeks 6 without water in our section of the village. Surprisingly I've been coping quite well but I think that it's due to the fact that about once a week Terrence has come with the Project's pickup and fetched us water. Also, I've been doing my laundry every other week at the Atkinson's(cannot tell you how wonderful they are!). I've actually made several calls to the Regional Manager to make sure something is being done about it. He said that they started repair work about a week and a half ago(on what?), but no one seems to believe him, so we'll see.

There have been a couple times that I've had to take the wheelbarrow and a couple 30 litre jugs down about 7 blocks to the nearest pipe with water. But I can't complain because the first time Dyondzani and Zanele and I took turns pushing the water up the hill back home and the other three times Rhandzu insisted on pushing it most of the way back(he laughed hysterically the first time he saw me push. I guess my wheel-barrow-pushing-stance wasn't correct). I got several "have you ever seen a wheelbarrow before?" and "we want to watch you push it" from family and friends. lol I had to assure them that I wasn't a stranger to manual labor and tried to explain how I had worked as a painter for a couple years. Anyways, I'm excited for the water to come back on and pray that it will be in the next week before Ian and Dawn and the girls come visit.

Last week Themby brought home her daughter's newborn. Siyabonga is a beautiful baby boy, he was only about 5 1/2 lbs(TINY!!!)and has the most hair I've seen on any baby. His mom is in the middle of her finals in her last semester in College and so she had to stay to complete them. Because Themby is a school teacher, kokwani is the one that ends up taking care of all the babies during the day (a 2 year old, a 1 year old and now a newborn). The other day I walked in to find her sitting on a kitchen chair with Lulama strapped to her back in true Shangaan fashion while feeding Siyabonga. She's super Gogo! Gogo's really seem to be the glue of society here.

A couple weeks ago I made my way over to a cultural festival that was being held in my village. Because i had just come home from Nelspurit and tried to make it there before it finished, I was alone. It was a little intimidating walking through such a large crowd of mostly very drunk men (one of which decided to grab my butt. And who in return got a thorough scolding). But I made it to the front and got to watch some amazing Shangaani dances performed by the men of several of the surrounding villages.

I've been working on a few different ideas for projects. A library, animal cruelty awareness, HIV/AIDS Campaigns in town and I just handed in a funding application to start and Internet cafe. There is so much to do and I hope some of the ideas will come to fruition and make a difference in the community.

This last weekend I hosted 15 PCV's at my house to celebrate Matt and Wendy's Birthdays and the arrival of the newest PCV's in Bushbuckridge. It was crazy hosting that many people out of my tiny room but it worked and it was a blast! We had and American BBQ (with pickles and all). I think I'm still catching up on my sleep:)

Hope everyone is well. I would love to hear from you all!

2 comments:

  1. Wow.. sounds like you have some great projects. I just turned in a PCPP for a Learning Centre I am developing. I am hoping to use it to buy 2 computers, a ton of educational software, a DVD player, and storage for all the art materials I now have. It's definitely going to be THE project of my service here.

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  2. Tia, thanks again for hosting the b-day party. We enjoyed it and getting to see you again and meeting everyone in the Bushbuck hood.

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