Peace Corps South Africa

This is an article I was asked to write about my experience:

When I first came to South Africa as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I really wasn't sure what to expect. In college I studied abroad in Namibia and had spent some time in the hot-spot tourist areas of South Africa, but hadn't really seen the country for what it is. So, returning to the area was an exciting prospect. Through interactions with friends, family, and even total strangers back in the States, people in America seem generally misinformed when it comes to South Africa. Many lump it in with Africa – i.e. the third world, possessing many immediate and devastating problems in need of fixing, hot – while others assume that it is much like back home, or as I've heard it referred to as not "real Africa." Whatever that means…

South Africa is an anomaly. While it has huge cities like Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria, and Durban, it is also full of areas that have no access to water, electricity or proper sanitation. So as a Peace Corps Volunteer, it's sometimes difficult to find one's place in all of this. Some Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) get placed in urban settings, where you could blink and think you were back in America, while others have to walk 10 minutes for water and check their pit toilets for humongous, prehistoric-looking bugs. It's certainly a difficult balance at times finding where you fit. One of the most difficult struggles I've had as a PCV in South Africa is my constant involvement in both worlds. It is possible to go away for the weekend and live like an American, but when you return to your site, it's immediately back to the struggles of village life, which can be a difficult transition and tough to adjust to. Especially hard is when some of the things that come as comforts in the states are available (for me, it's ice cream and cheese), but are rendered totally unaffordable on a PCV wage.

When I moved to my first site, I was living outside the large city of Pietermaritzburg. I was working for a small, struggling NGO dealing with orphans and vulnerable children, which ultimately closed down amid its ineffectiveness. Unfortunately, the organization was overrun with corruption and fighting, and hardly any actual community work was getting done. There, I was 20 minutes from a city about the size of Cleveland, yet I didn't have running water and had very spotty electricity. This meant lots of bucket bathing and reading by candle light. After the organization closed, I moved north to the remote village of Bhekuzulu, nearby the town of Estcourt, in the KwaZulu-Natal province. While the village itself is very rural and some areas have absolutely no access to electricity, my living situation is a bit more stable in its amenities, and water, occasionally, runs through the pipes in my kitchen. Hooray!

I am now working at the Bhekuzulu Self Sufficient Project, a community based NGO that works to prevent and combat HIV/AIDS and treats those infected and affected. Primarily, we run a drop-in center that feeds 150 children meals twice daily, as well as 150 additional children who live in our extended municipality. We also have a soup kitchen, a prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV/AIDS program, a home based care treatment program, and run several income generating activities. I have recently received funding for a daily after school youth program that serves 50 children ages 10-17. We do crafts and art projects that range from simply drawing self portraits to sewing clothing. So far the project has been exciting! The children in our center really do not have access to any extra curricular activities whatsoever, so even the simplest of crafts are a total blast. We started out with 30 kids who were interested, which has quickly ballooned to our present numbers. Over crowding has become a bit of an issue, but it is one problem that we are happy to be dealing with. Other than that, I am working on opening an income generating bakery that will bring employment to local women in our community, as well as inexpensive, nutritious bread to our neighbors. This has been in the works for months, and now the equipment is finally on the way. Lately, there always seems to be something going on (fundraising, planning community events, etc.), a welcome change from my previous assignment and a noticeable contrast with many other volunteers, across all Peace Corps countries, whom have trouble filling up their time. My organization is only four years old and is growing fast.

I have learned a great deal about myself while being here. After arriving in South Africa it took merely days to realize that my personal limits where going to be challenged and my attitude towards what I previously considered unshakably essential or repulsive would be seriously adjusted (examples: my hate of cockroaches, my belief that refrigerators are mandatory appliances, or that daily life is not possible with the absolute lack of privacy anywhere, including in the toilet or in the bath). However, the lifestyle changes are surprisingly the easiest to get over. What has now become most difficult is the daily witness of dire poverty and the total feeling of helplessness, no matter what you are doing, which accompanies it. Being a white girl in rural, Zulu South Africa has its challenges as well. It took people quite some time to get used to me living here. I still get questioned as a curiosity every single day by someone or another in my village or while in town. These questions increase whenever I take a public, 16-20 person khumbi (taxi), which by Peace Corps rules is the only way I am allowed to get around. This is most apparent when I am not on my regular, village kumbi at the times when leave site to visit other volunteers.

Being in the Peace Corps is the hardest thing that I have or probably ever will do. And after the fist year, I can safely say it is also the best thing I have ever done. Being here has given me a new perspective about everything, something that I would not trade for the world – even the unpleasant stuff. I will be finished in April 2010, when I hope to travel overland from Johannesburg to Cairo (for 3-4 months). When I get back to the states I would like to go back to school to study public health, taking the skills that I have learned here and using them to develop better health care for those who cannot afford it in the United States.