my life, currently

this weekend i went to visit my host's family. it was for a cleansing. basically the point of a cleansing is to clear out the air, sadness, and kind of rejuvenate the house after someone has passed away. my host's brother passed away last month, pretty unexpectedly, so i went to meet her family and lend some support. i was out of town when he passed, so i was unable to go to the funeral service.

it was great to meet the family. it was full of those moments where i thought: "i never imagined i would ever be doing something like this". this happens to me quite often, however, this weekend i was overwhelmed with these occurrences. For instance, i spent my friday night huddled with four other girls on a mattress in the back of a (covered) pick up truck (bakkie) under numerous blankets to keep warm. as i was laying there on the mattress, i thought: this is a really strange way for me, a 23 year old, city-dwelling woman, to be spending her friday night (no bar hopping for me!)

when i jumped into the back i looked up at the stars--something i definitely do not do enough here (because i generally do not go outside at night). they were the brightest i had ever seen stars be. it's interesting coming from a city background and seeing things like this--it's really hard to imagine. the stars in rural america (i swear) do not come close to the ones here. we may not have street lights in my village, but the stars kind of serve as them. wonderful.

after a strange night of sharing a bed with a late sixties/early seventies grandmother (she was wonderful) in a room where the overhead light didn't turn off (??) i woke up to about 7 children screaming at the top of their lungs. also my 17 year old host sister continually came into the room and flipped the covers off my head and playfully asked me: why aren't you up? So, naturally, I figured that it must be 9 or something, and i was a little embarrassed for sleeping in so late. however when i looked over to the other side of the bed my gogo (grandmother) was still sleeping. i then looked at my phone--it was 6am. hmmmm. usually my family sleeps in until about 9 on weekends. apparently everyone was just so excited to be around each other that they had all gotten up extra early. when i finally got up around 730am (beating my gogo by about an hour) every single person i encountered asked me why i was up so early...hmmmm....

the rest of the day I spent reading, holding little babies, and helping cook (jikqe—zulu bread and other traditional food). We ended up leaving around 9pm. I was pretty content. I had spent the day holding babies, having old gogos grabbing and kissing me (on the face/lips/hands) and had met my family’s extended family. My favorite part of the day was when I was holding this 7 month old and I thought—hey, I have been in south africa as long as you! Haha. Not really, I have been here for 8 months now.

this weekend was full of moments that I have to try and hold on to and remember when I’m feeling terrible and I want to get the hell out of here. when I talked to my parents this weekend i promised them that i would try and do this more. i will definitely try.

world news

my obsession with world news is pretty out of control (in part because of homesickness as well as insane boredom). however the way I think about world conflict has generally changed. for instance, when there is a major world event (i.e. Russia invading Georgia) i immeadiately worry about the peace corps volunteers who are there. don't worry, they are safe. so far since being here i have worried about volunteers in china, thailand, georgia, and jamaica. today i checked out blogs about peace corps volunteers in georgia and saw that they are being removed and being sent back to america (or other countries to serve). i can’t imagine how hard it would be to be uprooted from the community that you have built so quickly (usually when you are evacuated by the peace corps you are given little to no notice and are not allowed to return to your homes to say goodbye to your friends and families or even get the rest of your stuff!). that totally sucks.
How I spend my free time

In this week’s installment of “how I spend my free time”


I am now am an excellent (amateur) baker. See proof below.

This is a great development considering that my boss just told me that she wants me to be in charge of the bakery!!!!!! (notice the exclamation points—I am very very excited). I will get to go to the bakery training as well as run the managing of the bakery. the plan is that I will run it and then transfer the skills slowly over time to ensure that it is running smoothly! hooray! Thank goodness I helped run angie’s bakery at the west side market with lizzie and judy when I was 14. putting those skills to work!



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