Derek will be working with a section of World Vision and I will be with an organization across the street called Philakahle Wellness Center. It is not necessarily a wellness center per se, but they do many things within the community to support wellness such as: 1) building home gardens for families that lack basic nutrition as a result of HIV or TB; 2) life skills courses and afterschool groups for vulnerable children in the villages and 3) tracking down and encouraging patients who have been reported to Philakahle by the referral network because they have defaulted on their HIV or TB treatment. It is a growing organization and I am excited to discover where best I will fit. While at site visit I was able to go out into the field with all three programs and it was great. World Vision is much more established as I am sure many of you know. Derek might be working with the agriculture project, but there are many other areas he will also fit nicely so we must wait and see what develops.
So, we spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday learning about our organizations. Then for the weekend we went camping and hiking with the volunteer Derek is replacing at WV (Heather) and Jamie and Justin who were PCVs 2 years ago in this area. When their service ended both were offered jobs at local NGO’s. Don’t freak out Janine and Becky! That does not mean we will do the same! Although we really like them and I was excited to hear their stories and to know that it would be possible to find jobs internationally shortly after finishing. The area here is so amazing. We can’t wait to have visitors. We never thought that we would be in the mountains so soon again.
Our new home was not finished when we visited but we got to see it. It is a small two room home in the nearest village: Woodford. It is a nice size, has electricity, running water right outside the door, a nice lawn, an orange tree, a perfect place for a garden and a clean pit latrine. It will be just perfect for us, we hope. Our organizations also showed us a back up option should we be unhappy living in the village. This other one was a three bedroom western style flat with a complete kitchen and fully functioning bathroom. We choose the former and some of you might be thinking we are insane. Well, we might be, but let me explain our reasoning:
1) As it is now, white people live in the towns and only black people live in the villages. This is one of the problems left over from apartheid because the amenities and service provision in the villages are never as good as they are in towns or cities. We know we will not be able to change the country or even our area, but maybe us white people living in the village and doing all the things that that entails will begin to change the thinking of a few people.
2) Derek’s supervisor owns the apartment complex in town, which could lead to blurry lines.
3) Living in a modern flat would not really afford us the opportunity to experience the life led by most South Africans. If we end up doing development work internationally later in life, there will be plenty of time for us to live comfortable lives on the periphery of the developing world.
4) We were afraid that Jenna and Trey would disown us if they found out we joined the Peace Corps only to live in an apartment bigger than what we had in Denver.
Above is a picture of Derek and Bonga (his counterpart), Mlekeleli (my supervisor) and me, and some pictures of our hiking. Those are views from the top and that picture of the rock in the distance is what we climbed up!!!
