this is africa

Training is over. I am now living in my own three room house in a tiny village about an hour away from Pretoria. An hour away really makes the difference. I use a pit toilet and have to keep buckets of water stored just incase they turn off the tap water. BUT I love it. Now that I have all of my stuff in my new place it is starting to feel like home. I looove my new host family. They are awesome and really nice. For my first few days at site they have really made me feel welcomed. Its weird because in some ways this place feels sooo much like guam. My house feels like an older relative's house that I would visit during parties. I still need to purchase a hot plate and a mini fridge and then my place will be set. When I went grocery shopping for the first time I was exhausted and bought a random assortment of food including beans, tuna, rice, flour, peanutbutter, sugar, bread and oatmeal. My family asked what I was going to bake with the flour and I said I didn't know...it just seemed like something I should have. Next time I'm bringing a list. There have been some spiders but not to big, I don't know if I rather have more little ones or fewer giant ones. I have two cans od raid though so I just chase them around spraying. I decided to commit to going to church on a regular basis. It is a roman catholic church and its only an hour long, I don't ever go to church but hey what else better do I have to do on a sunday. Also the singing is soooo beautiful and it doesn't start till 11! Free bird just came on my itunes and how appropriate. Well just wanted to tell the internet that I'm happy, healthy and having fun. The next three months I will figure out what I'll be doing here.

Sorry for the stream of thoughts...typing on a blackberry isn't the best...

PS never ever ever ever take advantage of running water. How I miss flush toilets, sinks and showers...

spiders and my irrational fear of killing bugs

So, growing up on guam I am very familiar with big ass spiders. The biggest one I've seen has probably been about the size of a dinner plate. Me and spiders that hang out on webs are cool. Me and the spiders that run quickly everywhere when they hear noise, not so much. Once at ruby tuesdays after lunch we were in my dad's awesome astro van that doubles as a work van and a good size spider decided to come out of hiding. Because we were a bunch of girls who knew how fast the spider moved we were a little freaked out and chased it right by the pedals never to be seen again. Needless to say it was an interesting drive home as I stomped my feet as I drove hoping to scare it so it wouldn't come out.

Now in south africa I expected bugs, I expected spiders but why do they love living in my room. So far I have seen 5 spiders in my home. Four in my room and one in the dining room, I haven't seen one as big as a plate here yet but larger than my palm has visited. I have made a habit of tapping my furniture in my room to either keep the spiders in hiding or scare them out. Luckily before I crawled into bed tonight I tapped my head board and a small friend came out. He was only the size of maybe 2 quarters next to each other but these spiders look evil. The way their two front legs lay look like fangs and they creepily run across any surface. I hate squishing bugs, the guts and just having to get close enough to smack them just isn't my thing, but I'm going to be living here for two years and I didn't really need raid at the head of my bed right before I went to sleep. I stood on my bed gathered my courage and killed the jerk. I talked to my host parents grandson who is 25 and visits every so often and apparently he has never seen a spider in this house...just my luck

greetings via my blackberry

Warning! I am writing this using my blackberry so excuse any misspellings and funkiness that goes on with this post.

So, it has been a little over a month in SA and we find out our sites this upcoming friday! I will be in either the northwest or northern cape province. SA has been pretty awesome so far, my friend kelsey has called it "posh" core because most everyone has a phone, a lot of blackberrys that have data plans, people have wireless modems or tether their phone to their computer to get online, we live close to a pretty good mall and have had a bunch of field trips into big cities. Everyones situation is a little different I have a flush toilet and bathtub in my house, so I'm pretty lucky. Others take bucket baths and have to use pit toilets.

Last note: handwashing towels is stupid, I'm going to start drying off with a wash cloth so I don't have to wash my big towels again!

Sorry this ended abrubtly but my hands hurt from typing on a phone

On my way

I absolutely suck at packing....so of course I am still packing the morning before I leave.  I get to the airport to drop my bags off and but of course my one bag is overweight...so my dad and is tearing through my bag trying to find things to take out and just mail to me.  We finally make the airlines regulation but I realize I'm 10 pounds over what the Peace Corps said...so I guess I'll be ditching some toiletries in DC tonight and trying to rework the disaster my dad created as he tried to help me make the luggage weight.  How I will be able to make the weight requirement, I have no idea...and here I thought I didn't pack much.


the stress of traveling as unprepared me.

final countdown

The dates are set, I leave July 5th from SF to Washington D.C.  July 6th I have "staging" where my head will be crammed with lots of info.  Next day I am off to South Africa for three months of training and then two years in whatever community they put me in.  Still isn't real, but I am getting excited as the days pass.  I guess I need to really start packing and buying everything I have been putting off, like a new laptop or netbook.   My old little powerbook is dying so I can't take that with me, problem is now that I have waited so long I am probably just going to have to buy whatever they have at Best Buy...me and my procrastination.  Ramble, ramble, ramble...

I'll be in SF tomorrow getting a Yellow Fever shot and taking care of some random business sooo anyone in SF who follows this...anyone?  Let me know if you want to meet up?

 

oh photoshop how I've missed you...

If you didn't know I'm moving

September 2010 I began my application to join the Peace Corps, and now I am preparing for two years in South Africa.  I am going to be a resource specialists in the school system there, from what I learned during my final interview, it sounds like I'll be teaching people how to use computers.   For all my friends in SF, I will be leaving the city at the end of May.  I'll be traveling in Southern California for the month of June and then July 5th I head out to staging and then to South Africa.  Sadly, I won't be visiting Guam before I leave, but let me know if you want to hang out if I am going to be in your area. 

This is the beginning of my adventure.