It's been awhile...

SO I haven't written here for awhile....

here are some updates:

For Thanksgiving I attended a PCV weekend which included a wonderful thanksgiving spread, as well as tropical temperatures, geckos on every wall in sight, satellite television, and a swimming pool. My friend becky described it well: Peace Corps Thanksgiving.

At the beginning of December I had a conference in Durban with my fellow PCVs who arrived in January with me along with the counterparts we each brought along. I brought Nozipho, as she is the one I am always writing grants with and she is doing her BA in social work part time at UNISA. The training was very beneficial for our counterparts (Noz told me this many times) and pretty good for PCVs. Overall, these trainings are really just a great excuse to see every PCV in my group (especially the ones I don't see when I go on vacation). We get to do "normal" things, like go outside at night, see movies, eat out at delicious restaurants, and drink alcohol (i do not do this at site whatsoever). We also had a group discussion about how hard it is being in the peace corps and all the different stuff people go through while they are here. it's nice to hear examples that prove that what you are going through is not a therese-only phenomenon. what i liked the most about this group conversation was mapping out my mood while being in the pc. it is about like this. (the point of me sharing with you is to emphasize the roller coaster-like nature of peace corps life.)

Aaaaaanyways. Now I am back from Durban. This week we had our orphans and vulnerable children christmas party. about 180 kids from our drop in center and 5 halfway houses came to a park in Estcourt (we arranged transport) and listened to life skills presentations and ate food and danced for hours and hours. it was pretty great and it was especially fun to fool around with my coworkers (example: large icing fight, coworkers dancing so hard and singing so loudly in the taxi on the way to the park that it shook and caused every single person we passed to stare). I totally felt like just another BSSP employee (instead of some crazy white girl who is tagging along...). I have gotten to be good friends with most of my coworkers, and really close with some who i can see staying in touch with for the rest of my life. this is a great feeling. it has been really difficult for me to integrate into my village and just be friends with random neighbors (many PCVs in ZA find this to be true), but the friendships i have made at work have really made up for it.

Back to the party. I would say that all of the kids had an amazing time. (see example of one of our first graders below, Simpiwe, who, from her behaviour at the party, seemed to have the greatest time of her entire life)There was a bit of a catastrophe when someone walked off with (i.e. stole) 50 gifts for the OVCs--meaning that no one was going to get any gifts (what kind of asshole steals from orphans???). However, after panicing for a couple of minutes i was able to use my rich american connections and get my family at home to replace them (who knew that $73 would buy 50 great gifts?). Thank goodness. I am happy that this could happen--although i think that this may have blown my cover as a poor volunteer (i really do not have any extra money of my own). whatever, i will blend back in soon enough.

It is interesting how such short moments of happiness and contentment are such a big deal to me here. Recently, i have finally started to be myself around my coworkers, and they seem to actually get (most of) my humour and enjoy my company. two of my best friends at work, Thandeka and Zodwa, are coming over to my house for a birthday lunch tomorrow (our birthdays are tomorrow, sunday, and next friday, respectively) so that should be fun. never before have i been so thankful for friendship and positive moments. this may sound lame, but i try to save them up for periods of profound depression where all i want to do is quit and move back to my room in cleveland...whenever i have a awesome moment (especially "zulu/ south african cultural moments") i always really wish that certain people from home could come and witness them for themselves. what i can say, is that while the pc can totally stink sometimes, some stuff makes it all worth it.

Above: Some of my lovely coworkers at the picnic. Left to right: 1st Row: Bonakele, Mbali, Sthembile (me), Lindiwe, Mama Mpembe, Nozipho, Thulisiwe. 2nd Row: Zandile, Zodwa, and Thandeka. Everyone in this picture except Bonakele, Mbali, Nozipho (my host sister), and Zandile work on my club with me. While I may have some problems with some of my coworkers (as many of you have heard about)--all these ones are awesome and this group includes my 5 closest friends.

New Center
From reading this blog you should all know by now that my center is getting a new location in the new year. We are getting a professional building (i.e. built with concrete and not mud) sometime in mid 2009, but until then we are going with mud buildings and a park home that has been generously donated by the AIDS Foundation of South Africa. I thought that since in America we don't really have buildings made out of mud it would be interesting for you to see it's construction...

New site:

One of the 3 buildings being put up as i type:


Inside of above building:

My center officially closes today for the Christmas holidays. Next Wednesday I am off to Durban to get Jeff at the airport and then meet up with friends on the following couple of days. In the three weeks thereafter I will be in St. Lucia (basically where PCV Thanksgiving was), Durban, and Mozambique.

This will be my first christmas and birthday away from home (pretty strange...) but i am actually looking forward to it. It is really weird to think that christmas is coming up while the weather is 100 degrees almost daily. i will be celebrating christmas and new years on some amazing beaches instead of stuck in the snow of the midwest. hooray!

it has been very hard for me to continually transition from rural village to big city in the last month, and i have been pretty messed up by it in some ways. however, this vacation and a visit from one of my dearest friends should do the trick.

Merry Christmas to everyone!