5/30: Something about having this much free time today seemed so decadent.

5/31: Today was a huge victory in the life of my first born, the AIDS hospice. I was able to talk to several people at the municipality all of whom seemed incredibly encouraging and helpful. Naturally, I didn't even discuss my original intention for being there (the potential for a plot of land) and the chief was MIA from his refrigerator repair shack (which is apparently where he spends most of his time that's not spent doing his chiefly duties) and the doctor in charge of the AIDS ward at the hospital was nowhere to be found but any small step forward is a success in my book. I also hope to snag those elusive men later in the week, little do they know how persistent (obnoxious) of a phone stalker I can be.

6/1: So the chocolate cake I hyped up all week drew attention like that akin to Julia Child. The 'sweets' they sell in the little shop in my village are really Halls cough drops. I tried to explain this to someone and they said, "No, it says right here, it has menthol." On a food related note, one of my many admirers gave me smoked beef flavored chips in honor of my presence at a meeting he was two hours late to. I'm so sad that today was the last English Reading class I'll teach until their winter (yes it's winter here) break is over which I even expressed to them with the vocabulary word 'frustrated' in a sentence. (I am frustrated that school is ending early because of World Cup). Anyway, my positive moment is that I met a totally hip English teacher who I have a date with for next weekend for a girls night in one of the bigger towns, hooray!

6/2: Today I went to the new clinic in my village. (I'm a familiar face at the other one). I waited at dawn for the lone morning taxi and wasn't informed until after I had already gotten there, realized the nurse I wanted to see concerning the hospice is on sick leave for a month, that there wouldn't be another taxi until late afternoon. I then proceeded to climb up and down hills for about an hour with my co worker (who does this every day) with at least a good hour to hour and a half to go to get back to our organization when we were picked up by some friendly man with several mattresses on top of his car with a crumbling interior: definitely my positive moment especially since I could see my co worker starting to have trouble climbing the hills.

6/3: After several confidence boosting conversations in Zulu with my co workers I was discouraged when I noticed in reality they were just spoon feeding me my own paltry vocabulary. On a positive note, I had a wonderful bonding session with one of my co workers in English/Zulu that I deemed successful not only because of the new vocab I was able to use in context but more importantly because I got filled in on her juicy love life haha. I also visited one of my co workers at home who fell and dislocated his knee cap yesterday. He was taken to the clinic where they popped it back into place and gave him some pain meds. Thankfully it was the one day a month where we have a car at the org. He was still clearly in a lot of pain when I came and I didn't want to bother him so I didn't stay long but he just texted me, 'Thanks to come at home you make me strong God bless you.' Never underestimate the power of your presence.

6/4: So I was dragged out of my village kicking in screaming today by two of my best friends in Peace Corps, Leah and Angie. It was so nice to hike around Angie's village, have a few glasses of wine and just relax, not to mention talking in complete sentences in English.

6/5: So I couldn't take the guilt and Tshengie's puppy dog eyes after she begged, literally begged me to come to her dad's birthday party (see positive moment for 5/28). So I backed out on the girls empowerment sleep away camp planning session I was suppose to have with three of my fellow PCVs. Much to the relief of my supervisor who I can now see feels everything is now once again right in the world. Her dad is a pastor in the Zion church which is a traditional Zulu Christian faith where they combine drums and song and dance in worship that lasts all day on Sundays. Ritual and sacrifice are prominent and they have special dress they wear during any ceremony including church but not limited to birthday parties. The party comprised of his family and friends standing up and telling God why they were thankful for him with a good dollop of hymns in between. At the head table were Tshengie's six brothers, lots of bowls of cheetos, her dad and her two moms (polygamy is commonplace here, just look at the President), and Tshengie and I sat on the women's side near the front. I went with two friends from my organization and even though it took us two hours to get there I knew how much it meant to Tshengie to see us make the epic journey. And to top it off since we didn't get lost it only took us an hour and a half to get back!

6/6: After two really long fun days I vegetated all day today mainly carb detoxing. After a steady stream of visitors, I had one teacher who came to ask if I could summarize my talk I gave to her school a few weeks ago over child trafficking so she could review the points with her class. Seeing as though I was warned about that hour long lecture as I was walking up to the stage (under the assumption I was just to introduce myself) it was nice that she at least thought it was somewhat coherent, nice enough in fact to make it as my positive moment.

So I'm extremely excited to report that I continue to move forward with the AIDS hospice idea presented to me by my community. I now have a South African counterpart for this endeavor who's very motivated and has worked in home based care for a decade. After much debate, it was decided that the hospice needed to be in my market town rather than my actual village because of the necessity of the close proximity to the hospital. It has also been decided that though it will continue to be called a hospice it will serve as a 'step down clinic.' This idea was presented to me by a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer who's currently serving in one. This place serves as a half way house for people who are too strong to stay in the hospital (or more likely they need the bed) but too weak to go home. These patients are most likely ones whose CD4 counts just became low enough for ARVs so they are very sick but with proper adherence to medication should bounce right back. Tomorrow I plan on talking to the chief to ask permission to build a hospice and also the municipality to do the same. I also will make the rounds to three step down clinics/hospices in my province next week to get an idea of where to go from here. I'm so fortunate because the Peace Corps Volunteer who I mentioned earlier works at a hospice that was established by Americans so she's been extremely helpful in pointing me in the right direction. Futhi, (also) another PCV's organization is in the planning phase of a step down clinic as well so I just have good luck all around.

5/23: So I went to the funeral of my supervisor's brother's girlfriend. My supervisor, Tshengie, said that her brother's girlfriend was pregnant and always complaining that she was in pain. All the women in her family reassured her that pain is part of pregnancy but her pain increased once she gave birth and she died when her baby was a month old. Her brother lives in Johannesburg and of course was devastated but as is South Africa's culture he didn't go to the funeral because Zulus believe if the loved one of the deceased goes to the funeral the ancestors will want him/her to be with his loved one so he will die as well.

So I was exhausted after a long, emotional day when two teenage girls arrived on my front stoop. One of them was inquiring about help with an essay in her English class. I asked her friend if she had the same homework and she said she dropped out last year in ninth grade because she had a child. The girl that was asking for help was clearly behind and looked several years older than 10th grade. It's common practice in South Africa to hold kids back year after year so there are seniors who are maybe 23 or 24. Anyway, this lesson turned into several hours of a discussion concerning basic sentence structure and the past sentence and the best part is that I think the light bulb turned on which made my day.

5/24: I was able to keep Zindle occupied all afternoon while my go go was sick with a really bad case of the flu. Of course cooking over an open fire in an enclosed space didn't help matters but she gave me a quarter of a loaf of bread in gratitude. She even promised the bugs hadn't gotten to that part yet.

5/25: Today we had a staff meeting where it was discussed that the woman whose job it is to clean was not in fact cleaning the supervisor's office. It turned ugly and everybody sort of ended up ganging up on her. Naturally she started crying and I spent several hours just sitting there with her in silence. When I came back my supervisor asked me if I was ready to work and I told her what she told me on Sunday to thank me for my presence at the funeral, "Here in South Africa you're a friend first." After an emotional start to the day, I left early to teach my first English Reading class at the local middle school. I absolutely loved it. The kids were so excited to learn and despite the fact that there were four children to a textbook I felt like they truly learned something and I can't wait to go back next week.

5/26: Today I slept over at a co worker's house. Because her husband's a teacher she definitely has one of the nicest houses in the township. Unfortunately even her relative affluence didn't prevent her oldest child from dying after an especially muddy storm caused her to slip and fall into the pit toilet where she subsequently drowned. Which might be part of the reason why, after teaching every day, her husband goes to our market town to sell bananas till dark which she calls their 'income generating project' (which is a term I've been using for a project I want to start at my organzation) to give his family a better life. All of this income generating has enabled them to purchase a TV of which I hadn't seen in months and I proceeded to watch several hours of music videos which made me lust after speed boats and mixed drinks...I am ashamed to admit the lack of sarcasm noted here.

5/27: Today I was unfortunately voted as Secretary for the Child Protection Forum in my village. The sole requirement for this position is to take detailed notes (in Zulu of course) of the multiple hour long meetings. Naturally I thought they were kidding but soon realized I was the only one laughing. Needless to say I whipped out the flashcards today in an effort to be able to convey even the most rudimentary of minutes.

5/28: Today I went to a planning meeting for a series of child trafficking events during World Cup and also went to another planning meeting for Fun Friday English classes, okay the title is a work in progress but the classes range from an English discussion class where we'll talk about the hot topics in the news, a job related class my counterpart likes to call the 'how to talk to white people class' where they'll learn how to write a CV and have interview practice. There will also be a class for kids where we'll have board games and activities where I'll hopefully trick them into thinking they're not actually learning at all but just playing. Finally, I'll have a Reading Circle where the youngest kids will get read to in English. I've been so wrapped up in HIV work and child trafficking I'm excited to do something lighter.

So I've been so busy lately I didn't realize I double booked myself for next Saturday. I planned to meet up with three other Peace Corps Volunteers to plan a girls empowerment sleep away camp and also to go to my supervisor's dad's birthday party. After coordinating with the other PCVs' schedules weeks ago I knew I couldn't change our rendez vous now. So with my head hung in shame I mumbled something resembling an apology to my supervisor. She proceeded to say, "I hate you because of what you've done." She was laughing...I think. She went on to say, "I'm borrowing a camera with a movie and you won't be in my movie?! No, Tshengie (she frequently talks about herself in the third person) is sad." I told her that I was going to cry if she really hated me (we have this system where I usually talk to her in Zulu and she talks to me in English) and even though she was laughing she went ahead and said, "Yeah okay Lindelwa but Lindelwa, I hate you because you're not in my movie, why?" I then told her again that I made a mistake. I then started groveling for forgiveness and rambling on about going to every other family member's birthday, wedding or funeral until April 2012. I went on, claiming I would accept previously declined lobola (bride price) offers proposed by her family members or friends and promised endless amounts of chocolate cake as reparation for my broken promise but I then realized I broke the pact during my monologue and was blubbering on and on in English. She stood patiently and said, "Lindelwa, I love you but did you forget I hate you?" "No, I didn't forget Tshengie." "Okay because I have pains when you aren't with Tshengie." "I have pains too Tshengie." I love that woman.

5/29: So in an effort to create the American-ized delicasy of pizza I spent the better part of today waiting for the pizza dough to rise, chopping tomatoes, nursing the high maintenance sauce and finally attempting to melt the cheese while praying the crust doesn't burn in my toaster oven. The hours upon hours of toil was more than worth my slice of home. I even played an NPR podcast while I ate to give myself the impression I was surrounded by Americans.

5/16: Okay so today brought all sorts of fun little activities for me. So en route back from the water spout with a bucket on my head I was stopped by a group of kids playing soccer and was begged to join. I was one of about four(my three sisters being the other three) kids in my area growing up who were not on a soccer team. Though the fact that I was playing with a bunch of first graders meant I was almost at their level. I then went to church which had an All African theme and everyone was in their traditional garb. There was so much energy and singing and dancing and I wish I had enough Internet juice to show you, oh well. I then asked a 12 year old girl to be my Zulu tutor. She wakes up at 4:00am to go to school an hour and a half away so she's motivated to learn English and she's young enough to be patient with my embarrassingly small Zulu vocabulary.

5/17: I went to the primary school with the local volunteer security. I assumed I was there as the silent supporter of something or other but was told maybe two minutes before we walked into the all school assembly that I was going to give a talk on child sex trafficking and oh yeah, "could you do it in Zulu?" "How long?" I ask, "Oh, only an hour." Needless to say I begged for a translator. I later had several women praise the growth of my rear which spurred a discussion on my other body parts that have recently become more fleshy. I'm of course in complete denial of this and one of the women tells me flatly, "well it's because you eat too much." I do feel as though I'm in a perpetual state of carb coma. Luckily, my go go just got a spicket installed in our yard and I was able to do about five minutes of physical labor covering up the underground pipe before I retired to complete my transformation into 'a real South African woman' which is a nice way of saying they're going to have to roll me out of here in two years.

5/18: I was able to catch up on a huge back log of emails but I still haven't managed to do the IRC (library) committee application...

5/19: I filled my hut with the smells of rural central Illinois where my dad's family is from while I baked dozens and dozens of Snickerdoodles. This was in fact one of the best decisions I've made in a long time which is why I ate about half in one sitting and had an embarrassingly long conversation with myself, out loud mind you, about the necessity of bringing the remainder to my organization the next day. I grudgingly decided to bring most...okay about half where they were grossly underappreciated for being too sweet. I'm sorry but you are literally shoveling four heaping spoonfuls of sugar into your rather small cup of tea while you're saying that, so much in fact that there is now debatably more sugar in your tea than anything else. So please save your judgment for your fellow health nuts.

5/20: Today was a completely unproductive day where I maintained a state of low level confusion, complete with furrowed brow and feigned interest, the entire day. But I was greeted with an over enthusiastic Zindle and a go go whose every appliance has now conspired against her. We mourned this tragedy with tea of course and had wonderful conversation in my wonderful hut where luckily all of my appliances seem to like me.

5/21: So today was our school uniform distribution event. Despite the fact that we didn't actually distribute any uniforms and neither the children nor any of their family members were present it was a total blast and I would consider the event a huge success. The children who were receiving the uniforms were at school because we had it in the middle of the day on a school day and somehow the families were assumed to be invited (I know, I know why I continue to make blanket assumptions is beyond me) but never were. Instead, we had plently of local officials and members of the community unrelated to the event come and show their support. There was singing and dancing and lots of speeches and a whole lot of attention drawn to the fact that I wore a headscarf (in respect to the formality of the event). There are a few things I would improve for next time haha but it was a great day regardless. As an aside, the home based carers will give out the uniforms during their regularly scheduled home visits so it's not like the whole idea of the donation was scrapped just the physical exchange during the event was deemed unnecessary.

5/22: I attempted to make traditional Zulu steamed water bread by sort of winging it. Well needless to say an hour after it was suppose to rise it was still hard as a hockey puck. So I showed my go go and begged for some guidance. She burst out laughing, I'm talking she busted a gut, literally doubled over she was laughing so hard. She then proceeded to show passersby my sorry attempt at Zulu domesticity. I'm pretty sure making jeqe can be done by young girls in their sleep, standing on their heads, using only their left hand, before they know their right from left. It was just one of the now too numerable to count humbling moments for me here. But I did get a wonderful jeqe lesson after the parade of my failure was all said and done and if the lesson wasn't worth my embarrassment seeing my go go that happy definitely was.

5/9:So I was a little frustrated today because as soon as I finished washing every piece of clothing I owned (and ready to vegetate) my go go locks her house and drops Zindle off at mine. She has her Zion church outfit on so I know she's going to be awhile. I think she saw the panic on my face so she said Zindle could go to the neighbor's if I need to leave. Well...Zindle didn't want to go to the neighbor's and go go was gone ALL day. I'm talking 10-6. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't doing anything noteworthy but I also wasn't interested in feeding and entertaining a four year old's every whim. Well, just as I was starting to care less about whether or not Zindle wanted to go to the neighbor's and more about my sanity my go go came back to grab some things. This was about mid-afternoon and both Zindle and I had already eaten lunch but she gave me this heaping plate of food in gratitude for the day's work. Knowing that they eat potatoes and phutu (a crumbly corn meal) every day of the week I was taken aback by the grandeur of her offering. This gesture snapped me back to reality and it made me remember that Zulus truly do believe that it takes a village to raise a child and that my go go would do the same for me any day of the week.


5/10: I let a new person at my organization's belittling and condescending behavior affect my mood all last week. My revelation that the cause of this behavior could be traced back to him feeling threatened by me didn't make the idea of him being a permanent fixture at my organization any easier. It was only when I realized that I too felt that he was stealing my thunder and therefore threatened by him that I was able to swallow my pride and talk to him about it. In an interesting twist of events we now seem to have bonded quite well.

5/11: So my positive moment would be seeing Matseke my Assistant Peace Corps Director (boss) today. He's really charasmatic so it's always fun to be around him but more than that I was able to reflect back on my Peace Corps experience up to this point and realized how content I am here. As an aside, a woman in my organization today seemed unimpressed with the braid in my hair. So during a meeting she proceeded to take the aforementioned braid out and soon realized she needed something to tame the situation back there. She hurries back with a brush used to polish shoes. My hesitation soon wanes when I realize the harm that could have been done to the straw like knot in the back of my head was done a long time ago.

5/12: So I realize my positive moments have been cheesy and lame lately. Will try to work on that. So today I was once again grounded back to reality by home visits. I've created this exhaustive list of possible projects for my organization and community, most if not all of which were mentioned by someone here, and I can't find a legitimate explanation to cross anything off. The problem is exascerbated by the fact that I can't seem to even focus on the prevention or the effects of HIV. And because I'm an American and a very orgranized one at that, one who appreciates, delights really, in the idea of planning out her next two years to the t, is really finding this whole personal indecision quite frustrating. Will keep you posted on my progress.

5/13: Since an AIDS hospice seems to be a reoccuring request by the members of my community and something that I would love to help with, I've decided to move forward into exploring this possibility further. Ironically, the person who gave me so much trouble last week I asked to be my counterpart in this project today. After we both realized that we were stepping on each other's toes because we were stepping on each other's egos we both backed off and actually make a great team. The very early pieces of this puzzle are starting to come together. I also talked to Matseke about this idea and his encouragement gave me more confidence in its plausibility.

5/14: Easy. Lady Ga Ga. Coca Cola. Lots of inappropriate dance moves in my hut in celebration of the acquisition of said sugar water and sugary pop music.

5/15: A girl came over today looking for help with her homework. As mentioned earlier, I have a loyal posse of 7-9 year olds but it was nice to talk with someone a little older (I'm talking maybe 13 or 14) and I would love the opportunity to tutor so she's coming by tomorrow for some more help, yay!

So one of my beloved friends has brought to my attention the fact that my daily positive moments don't seem too positive. After I personally did a quick re-read to assess the situation I would have to agree. Frankly, some of them are down right depressing. But I feel like I need to do some serious damage control because this couldn't be farther from the truth. In an attempt to be clever, I ended up concerning those who care about me, no need to worry, these futile efforts at sarcasm and wit will come to an end this instant.

In all honesty I've never been happier. I wake up every day knowing this is exactly where I should be. Knowing that my supervisor named me Lindelwa translated as 'the one we've been waiting for' is ironic because this is what I've been waiting for as well. I feel like happiness is seeping out of my bones but I think that doesn't always show in my positive moments because 1: somebody who's constantly in a state of pure joy can get a little annoying and the posts would get redundant 2: as stated earlier, my painfully weak attempt at humor would sometimes force me to choose an anecdote that maybe was a little less than sunshine and rainbows.

Also, because of my unreliable Internet I will most likely have to post at least a few days at a time. Consider yourselves warned.

5/2: I had a wonderful conversation with my mom today. I felt like she was in the room with me and it just filled my cup up to hear her voice.

5/3: I popped popcorn and threw some Crystal Light packets together for a fun snack for my go go and Zindle and they absolutely adored it. We talked all afternoon then my go go fed me their dinner of potatoes and bread. Meaning of course that both of them ate less so I could have some. I respect and am humbled by the Zulu's culture of 'if you have enough food for one you have enough for two' but I couldn't help but feel a little guilty.

5/4: I didn't have a journal entry for today and nothing sticks out to me, sorry.

5/5: So I had a long night last night with my fever waxing and waning and me never quite being able to get warm or cold enough, always in this temperature pergatory of misery. I literally had dreams of water I was so dehydrated. I had none so I grudgingly carried a bucket of water on my already pounding head at dawn after I shamelessly asked my go go if I could borrow some (she didn't have any either). My positive moment is the joy of ibprofen and how much better I feel now, not 100% but a million times better than before.

5/6: I was walking out of my gate and I see Zindle, the four year old I live with, running towards me. I asked her if she wanted to get water with me and she was jumping up and down. We laughed the whole way there. She then proceeded to read the same Economist as she does every other day with the aid of a flashlight of course.

5/7: Today I went on home visits with one of our home based carers. Even though I am surrounded by poverty and I see orphans in tattered clothes come to the organization every day for food, I feel like today is the first day I've seen true suffering. We went to house after house caring for people whose bodies are wasted from AIDS or coughing up blood with TB. People whose kids are watching them die and who have no food to eat. Every day I wake up motivated for change but today I realize the weight of their expectations. My positive moment is that I'm more than up for the challenge.

5/8: I feel fortunate enough to say I have several circles of friends here and the most loyal group be far would be about half a dozen 7-9 year olds who I could very easily call my shadows. Well I just might, so me and my six shadows played cards and looked at Elle magazine for several hours this afternoon and it was incredibly relaxing.

Clearly, I haven't exactly been embracing the idea of a blog just yet. It's very existence continues to slip my mind BUT the ever so brilliant sister of mine thought I should post the positive moments I have each day, of which I've already been sharing with a few people, to the world. So from now on you will get a daily post of my high for the day but here's the month's back log. I wrote some things in parentheses for clarification but all in all these were my thoughts the day of unedited.

4/5: Today I have two small things. I went for a long walk with the four year old I live with and it was really nice to get some fresh air. (I'm awaiting approval on my morning run by my supervisor who's been at a training all last week so in the meantime I have a very intimidating preschooler as my escort).

Anyway, to be honest today was kind of an emotional day for me. I tried to step back and assess exactly why that was and I couldn't really pinpoint a specific thing. I imagine it has something to do with being stripped from everything I've always known and plopped in a foreign land with little to no legitimate support system. With that said, I was walking back from buying air time (for my cell phone) from the lovely go go (grandmother in Zulu) next door who happens to be bff's with my go go and after holding back tears all day I just couldn't stop the flood gates any longer. So when I got back home I saw there was a woman in my go go's kitchen so I went inside (it hadn't yet gotten to the no breathing snot bubble kind of cry) and she was so excited to see me. She then used up an embarrassing amount of air time to let her daughter speak to a real live American. After she left, my go go decided it was far too late for me to start cooking (it was 6:45) so she insisted I eat something with her. And I just felt really loved. So I left with warm fuzzies all over the place.

4/6: I feel SO much better today which leads me to my positive moment: I really had a rough couple of days with absolutely no perspective on the bigger picture so when I woke up today feeling worlds better (who knows why) I thought, "hey, maybe I really can do this." I then had visions of Destiny's Child's Survivor music video and I thought I could definitely be the fourth (or fifth depending on the year) member of the group crawling out of the ocean in tattered army fatigues. Anyway, to top it off I saw Melinka (a Peace Corps Volunteer just finishing her 2 year service) in my shopping town and she's a wonderful cheerleader.

4/7: After some awkward miscommunication with my supervisor yesterday I had a really productive day today and asked about half of the staff members four appreciative inquiry questions in Zulu. And my supervisor is INCREDIBLY motivated and a really hard worker which got my wheels spinning in over drive, hooray! Oh and I baked an absolutely amazing chocolate cake.

So in an effort of full disclosure, my supervisor proceeded to show me all of the organization's files, most of which had a handful of monthly entries for at least three years time. Meanwhile, as she's digging around for the next barely used, incredibly dusty binder to impress me with, she's shoving stacks and stacks of paperwork back down into the drawers and doing full body slams to try to close them again. Speaking of, one of those lovely file cabinets is soon to be my obligatory wardrobe which she seemingly missed the memo on, how very innovative.

She was away at a training all last week and needless to say, when the cat's away the mice will play. We literally worked for maybe four hours a day, all of which comprised of vegetating in front of the television and drinking absurd amounts of tea. Anyway, apparently one of my co workers must have discussed my (our) lack of production last week and my concerned supervisor insisted I give her a detailed weekly work plan from now on. Outside, the rest of the employees were drinking tea and watching The Bold and the Beautiful.

So after a series of miscomunications with my supervisor yesterday, she opened up about feeling overwhelmed that not only is there (clearly) not a person she trusts to put in charge in her absence but she's pulling far more than her fair share of the work load to the point where it's hard to tell what anybody but her really does there (okay that last part is a personal opinion). She's an incredibly motivated, hard working woman that has tried to delegate time and again and when she goes to follow up, things never seem to get done.

I really enjoy the people I work with, they might be complacent bordering on apathetic, but they're good people that care, so there's definitely hope. Okay this is now getting embarrasing, I'm going to just end here with the closing thought insisting that I really do love my site, I swear.

4/8: I'm sorry I'm so exhausted and my laptop is being so painfully slow I'm ready to chuck it out the window. So my positive moment is more positive fallout from my appreciative inquiry questions. It seems that the staff at my organization are almost begging to be led, they just have no direction right now, but they want to work. They've come up with a lot of incredibily feasible ideas without any prodding from yours truly yay! Two separate employees hoped to oneday see a HIV/TB hospice center. I was thinking about that so much today I literally gave myself a headache haha. Oh and I almost forgot, a woman with her three kids stopped by and after we talked for a while she said she's HIV+ and I could tell she's really involved in the community, I think she'll be a great asset.

4/9: I love this system especially when I can't quite remember why I left everyone I love to live with a bunch of strangers who can barely speak my language and don't understand my culture. Anyway, so my positive moment would definitely have to be seeing my go go's face when her son walked through the gate today. So he usually comes home once a year for Easter but he didn't this year because a few days before the holidays his taxi got hijacked in Johannesburg and they also stole his money and cell phone. He called a relative in my village (my go go also doesn't have a cell phone) to relay the message to my go go that he has absolutely no money and basically is depressed. She sent him her pension check (basically South Africa's version of Social Security) to come home. She said, "I'm so poor, no food, no TV, no radio, but my son has come home, I don't need money." She just warmed my heart when I saw how she was just gushing over him.

4/10: Just when I was feeling a little down (I have too much time to think) the pastor from one of the churches knocked on my door and took me to a musical practice. He speaks amazing English and we had a really great conversation on the way there (we drove in a real car!) about teenage pregnancy, the taboo of HIV, unemployment etc. It was nice to have a stimulating conversation that involved some critical thinking skills haha.

4/11: My positive moment was really how busy I was, the day went by very quickly but I was also able to take an hour or so to read which was a perfect combo

4/12: I met Leah and Angie for lunch which was impeccably timed because the bugs that took a short reprieve are back in full force and I literally thought I was going to go crazy yesterday. I did another bug bomb so that should keep them at bay until Victor (Peace Corps's Medical Doctor) sends some supposed miracle chemical in a few weeks. Another high would definitely be that I surprised my go go with a cake and taped balloons everywhere for her birthday which was on March 25th. She forgot it was her birthday which is why her party was delayed as well. She started crying (and I'm not talking one tear trickling down the cheek) saying she's going to die when I leave...the high part was her excitement over the surprise not her co-dependency issues...

4/13: So my water source is actually quite a hike away and isn't always on (more like is NEVER on when I'm completely and totally out of water) so needless to say I can't remember the last time I bathed, no I'm not kidding. My positive moment is that my go go paid her 28 year old son to get her water with me and as he's manuevering the wheelbarrow through the obstacle course back home my lone bucket falls and all but the last two inches of water splashes everywhere. And like some groveling beggar I insist on my host brother tipping the wheelbarrow, that has two other full buckets in it, for the water that is now brown with dirt with sticks floating at the top. That gave me about another two inches. My positive moment is that I used my trusty Brita to filter out the grossness and gave myself a bath, hooray! Hey, beggars can't be choosers haha. As an aside, last night as I'm washing my face I literally cut myself from a stick in my water so much that I have a lovely little scrape which matches nicely with my soon to be infected wound from broken glass on my toe haha. I actually had an incredibly productive day today, mainly I think, because I flew solo. I went to meet the ward counselor (literally for the third time) (somewhat like a mayor) then hit up the municipality and the clinic where they were also doing an immunization drive which I proceeded to invite myself to.

4/14: I came back to my organization after a community meeting that was somewhat of a bust to several people with their heads down and one who made a bed out of chairs to get extra comfy. So after an amazing start with my supervisor it seems as though we're having some pretty serious miscommunication issues as of late. I called her last night about what time the meeting was and she just said she would pick me up, when I asked if it was in the morning or afternoon she answered with, "I don't know." So of course the two men that said they were coming to install my burglar bars on three other specific occassions randomly show up ready to work and literally five minutes later my supervisor yells for me from the path saying we're late we have to go. I now have two extremely underemployed guys in their 20s alone in my room, ironically to put up burglar bars. I'm yelling back some vague concerns, little did I know my supervisor and posse have kept walking. I run to catch up to them to explain my fears, I mean I wouldn't leave if people were doing work in my home in the States, let alone in a country where it's necessary to have your home look like a jail cell. She seemed nonplussed so we went on. She then asks me why I'm carrying flip chart paper which is exactly what I was afraid of. The whole point of me introducing myself to the ward counselor yesterday for the third time, and the reason I'm going to this meeting today is to do community maps and periwise grids (for a community needs assessment I'm compiling). I remind her, she looks at me like I have three heads. I start to feel a headache forming.

Last week I tried to ask her for a ballpark estimate for how many people would come to this meeting so I could bring enough supplies, 20? 6000? She had no idea. Well there was about 250-300, a little too many for a community mapping activity. I want to go back to bed but of course I'm placed on display at the head table. After several hours pass she asks if I still have to do my thing I brought, I explain that it would be nice, so she grudgingly gets up to translate. I end up puttng four sheets of flip chart paper on the walls asking, "What do you want in Nondweni (my village) that you don't already have" which I apparently butchered in Zulu but whatever. People wrote a lot of interesting things that I wouldn't have thought of but the messy part was attempting a vote. The ward counselor dismissed everyone so out of 300 about 20 stayed for my vote. After I explained that I was going to read through the list once and then you get two votes when I read through it a second time (with a translator) nobody understood. I proceeded to explain it several more times. My supervisor has since given up on translation and the ward counselor seems to be paraphrasing at best. Out of maybe 40 options the ward counselor picks four of her personal favorites for people to kinda sorta vote on. In explaining to the ward counselor what I meant in asking what the community wants that they don't have already I used the example of a hospice. In asking people at my organization two separate people said an AIDS hospice so I thought that would be a decent example. She then uses this example for the crowd, it is now, shockingly, on the list several times and has been voted #1 out of the randomly selected options (a mall is #2). It sort of goes downhill from there. When I get back home the guys are still there and they want me to test the door. Closing the door involves slamming it multiple times as hard as I can into the door frame, at this point I have this strange sensation of feeling both steam coming out of my ears and tears welling up in my eyes simultaneously. My go go then randomly says that 'we're hungry.' Apparently, none of the five people present at the moment have eaten all day. She then asks me what I've eaten. It was incredibly awkward. There was clearly a moment where it was time for me to get them food. I played dumb. I don't want to encourage this 'ask and you shall receive' environment. But I still felt horribly guilty. Very near tears at this point I call Chuck (another Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV)) to iron out logistics for this weekend. And that's my positive moment. For whatever reason that half hour completely changed my mood. Mental note: daily Possin phone call.

4/15: So I thought for sure my positive moment would be having an ice cream sundae complete with chunks of artificial brownie with Leah in the sauna entitled KFC BUT immediately following that lovely moment I came home to find a goat+chicken sacrifice about to begin in the hopes that the ancestors could help my host brother 'get a better life.' It started two nights ago with a ceremony involving several family members and my go go's bff. They burnt ash in a piece of clay and my host brother was breathing it in, candles were it, prayers were said. Yesterday more people were there and both sacrifices were performed as was the prayer, ash, candle ritual. I felt awkward hovering so me and the four year old hung out in the next room but I still peered out of the corner of my eye.

4/16: After inviting myself to my clinic's immunization campaign I felt somewhat productive marking the fingers of the children getting vaccinated. Clearly taking a marker to someone's fingernail isn't rocket science, my four year old could do it with her eyes closed, but it was still fun to be there. I've also recently become interested in public health and would love to continue to get plugged into the clinic. As an aside, when I got home today I walked in when they were serving last night's sacrifice. I am 100% sure I ate goat intestines with poop still inside. We also dipped bread into the goat's blood which was in its own separate bowl...like a side dish. The chicken meat still had hairs. Needless to say I'm not going to make it through the night. It's been fun.

4/17: Chuck and Michelle (PCVs) came to visit this past weekend and it was a blast. Saturday, Trudell, Leah, Angie, (more PCVs) Chuck, Michelle and I had a goodbye lunch for Milenka who's leaving tomorrow (she extended a month). It was really nice to pick her brain about Peace Corps stuff and even though she didn't say anything I hadn't heard before or could have deduced it was just nice to have a lot of things affirmed. Chuck and Michelle then came back to my place where we talked, drank and gorged ourselves till late in the night.

4/18: I of course was bummed when they left but that was short lived due to the hours I spent relaxing, listening to BBC and journaling. It was a perfect lazy Sunday afternoon.

4/19: Today was Milenka's going away party at her drop in center (for orphans and vulnerable children). There was so much singing, so many tears, my heart was full for her. It reminded me why I joined Peace Corps and it made me proud to say I was a PCV.

4/20: So today was a difficult day. I woke up to find out my next door neighbor died of TB the night before. His mother is my go go's best friend and my go go was literally in hysterics when we went to the house this morning. I walked in to the family wailing unabashedly in this empty hut with tea and bread. My initial reaction was that of uncomfort because clearly I was invading their privacy. I then realized the idea that mourning, especially heartwrenching sobs, should be done alone is very much a Western value.

I then went to work to discover my organization wants to do an awareness campaign, their first in years, for a week from today and they want it to cover drugs, teen pregnancy and HIV/AIDS. I was able to narrow the scope to one topic but they held firm on next week because of the holiday and the need to spend the money before the fiscal year is over. They came to me with a very, emphasis on very, rough idea of what they wanted to do and we were able to get a lot of the dots connected which was nice.

I then went on my first home visits and these were focused on OVCs (orphans and vulnerable children) with special needs. I've worked in a group home with adults with special needs and I've also worked one on one doing respite care for kids with special needs so this topic is close to my heart. I was so frustrated to hear that there is only one school for children with special needs and the waiting list has hundreds of children on it and that the high high high majority never go to school. The member of the team that has seen it also said it's a poor excuse for a school.

So my positive moment today is that I felt very needed.

4/22: So my orgaization told me Tuesday that they wanted to have an awareness campaign for teen pregnancy, HIV/AIDS and drugs all in a week's time. They came to me with a proposal for a donation in poorly written English that was let's say a little vague in the planning department SO I got to work. I was able to get them to focus on one topic, teen pregnancy, which I'm pretty sure hovers at about 100% (okay that might not be entirely accurate but I would have to search to find a 19 year old without a child here). But they wouldn't budge on the week deadline which was frustrating because this week I had/will have a community meeting, two sets of donors to impress, one of which is flying from the Netherlands, more work at the clinic on their immunization campaign and endless requests from people for this or that. This might not seem too overwhelming but the community meeting today, for example, took an hour climbing lush rolling hills each way to introduce myself to 25 people in the middle of a field. The walk was actually really relaxing and very Sound of Music-esque haha but needless to say everything takes a lot longer here.

With that said, my positive moment today was the realization of how happy I am here. I just started re-reading Eat Pray Love this afternoon and was so relaxed even though I was so physically exhausted. Don't get me wrong I was perfectly content at home but I just love it here. And it's kind of exciting to know that Peace Corps volunteers always talk about this being the most difficult time in their service. If it can only go up from here, I can't really imagine what the next two years will be like. I know it's not going to be all sunshine and rainbows but I know this is where I should be and today I really felt that. Sorry that was kind of a vage positive moment but my runner up moment would definitely be introducing myself to the preschool literally in the middle of nowhere and feeling like a superstar. I later realized they've just never seen a white person up close but it was still fun to see the looks on their faces.

4/23: So my positive moment was finding out the funding came through for our awareness campaign. Yes it's in four days and I was definitely starting to panic. Monday and Tuesday are both holidays here so today was literally the last day.

My first few weeks here I was getting pretty frustrated at what I perceived as a sort of abismal work ethic but then I look closer and realize people like Busi are always the first to get there and the last to go and not only does she walk an hour and a half each way through the hills to get there but she's a volunteer! And that's just one example. Of course there are still the people that sit there and watch soap operas all day but I now choose to consciously ignore that and focus on people like Busi.

4/24: So I went to fetch water this morning through the obstacle course of prairie grass, crawling under people's make shift fencing and don't even get me started on the random divets that always send my poor buckets flying (I'm such a spectacle when I get water kids stand outside to watch) and I hear a group of girls calling my name. Meanwhile, me, my two buckets, my wheelbarrow and my four year old shadow have all made it successfully to the water pump so I hesitate because there's no turning back now and if/when my motivation wanes it's going to make trekking back with approx. 192387 lbs of water that much less enjoyable BUT I just couldn't pass it up. So it was early in the morning, pretty foggy and definitely cold and there was a group of girls almost all of whom I knew, just hanging out in the middle of a clearing with blankets wrapped around them. The older ones, around my age, were sitting and singing while the younger ones were dancing. So I hung out and they taught me some moves but I realized I was going to be late meeting up with Angie, Trudell and Leah in town but then I just knew that this moment was more important than that so I stayed a while.

4/25: So it's 8:00pm and I'm exhausted so this is going to be short...I think I've been in carb coma all day and my body is just begging to be put out of its misery. Anyway, today I went to the funeral of my next door neighbor who died from TB which was literally an all day affair. My positive moment was that since he was a part of a traditional dance troupe I got to watch song and dance after beautiful song and dance around his coffin all the while hearing his friends and fellow dancers yell out with anguish in their eyes, fists raised, 'we love you!' with such humble longing and heartache I couldn't help but look away. I realize once again (I've forgotten since Tuesday) that the idea of feigning strength in public, mourning in private is solely a Western ideal. To refocus on being positive, I hope the novelty of this culture's singing and dancing never wears off for me.

4/26: So my positive moment today is literally the moment I started feeling a little down (more like a little less than on cloud 9...I've been almost obnoxiously happy these days) nine kids walked into my hut ready to play cards so they kept me occupied enough to fill the void which I filled with carbs once they left, problem solved! : )

4/27: So today's big positive moment was the awareness campaign. It was so funny, when we were ironing out the agenda I was suggesting fun ice breakers or games to break up the education sessions like musical chairs or the human knot etc. instead we had traditional dancers, songs and prayers...clearly I still sometimes forget I'm not in America anymore haha. For one week's worth of planning, almost 200 teens learned about the myths of condoms (of which there are plenty in South Africa) how to put one on, goals for the future, we had a q & a and some positive role models told their stories. Of course it wasn't perfect, we had about 1/10th the amount of food we needed and we had to turn away way too many hungry kids after not serving lunch till 4:00 but I really think they learned a lot and it was so much fun and the dancing was beautiful.

4/28: After running around like a crazy person yesterday from dawn till dusk I woke up this morning feeling surprisingly refreshed. I think my positive moment would be leaving work early and playing around with Zindle the four year old orphan I live with, I call her my shadow, she's adorable.

So after five months of training in two separate countries I was officially installed as a Volunteer with the United States Peace Corps on March 25!!! So a 4x4 drove through waist high prairie to drop me and my 187 bags at my hut's door step in rural Kwa-Zulu Natal...and then it drove away. After the customary Peace Corps Volunteer moment of panic passed I felt a new wave hit as I realized my hut was completely infested with bugs. I'm talking two separate species of mystery bug coming from the cracks in the walls and the potholes in the floors respectively. For whatever reason I tried to will them out for about a week until I called Peace Corps's Safety and Security Advisor, no I'm not kidding. We discussed the issue at length and devised a plan of action, phase 1 and 2 of which are already completed. Okay, so I feel it necessary to delve a little deeper into my bug hell. They were EVERYWHERE, it was definitely one of those 'I can't remember my life before my house was infested with bugs, all of my possessions will be black with bugs forever and ever the end.' But today I'm tentatively optimistic that my bug genocide is complete. I'll keep you posted.

The other day I attempted to wash my comforter in a bucket about 10x too small and put 10x more soap than necessary which made my poor grandmother use up far too much of her stored water to de-suds the thing, after about an hour, with both of us soaked and neither of us left with any water to bathe with we both looked at each other and laughed until we cried.

Last Sunday I came late and left church early and was there for four and a half hours. Since the church service is held in a hut 'across the street' meaning walking aways through the prairie, weaving amongst the cows, I could hear them finishing up around the six and a half hour mark. I don't know how a person can sing and dance for that long. I mean they went right through lunch and were approaching dinner when I left! One of the women beat a drum and everyone sang and danced and one of the two ministers would pray then someone would start another song and the cycle would continue. It was absolutely wonderful. There was a shrine made of ash in the form of a rectangle with two candles in the middle and some braided string which at one point was cut and tied to two women's various body parts. These two women, individually, knelt in the middle of the hut at one point while the two ministers and a few of the women shuffled at what looked like a pace as fast as they could. They also have a very specific dress with the women wearing a jungle green dress with a large white collar and perhaps a white overcoat with a white or jungle green head covering and a royal blue dress for funerals, one of which, as an aside, I went to today which was a six hour ceremony as well. The men wear what in my opinion resembles a dress, complete with cuffs and empire waist with pants underneath some of whom carry a thin walking stick which doesn't seem to correlate with their age so I'm not sure the symbolism behind that just yet. Regardless, it was humbling for me to be welcomed so warmly to such an intimate gathering of people worshipping a God so vulnerably and without reservation.