South Africa

I think it was Benjamin Franklin who said that you could either live life, or write about it. Although my goal in life is pretty much to do both, I have to admit that it’s a lot harder to sit down and write when your days are already packed, which is a very long way to apologize for not having written in so long. However, December was pretty action-packed full of traveling, and January wasn’t much better, despite my resolutions to just chill in my last six months of service. So, we’re going to have to rewind all the way back to the end of November, when I got seriously burned out.

In retrospect, it had to happen sometime, and it’s not surprising that after just over two years living in a small African village, one maxes out. Fortunately, at the end of October, one of my good friends from my group (who is now doing Peace Corps Response teaching at a nursing college in Lesotho) had asked me if I wanted to go on a week-long vacation with her, her boyfriend, and her family in South Africa, which of course, I did.

Now, Joce has not been featured very prominently in this blog for a very simple reason. For our entire service we lived half a country away from each other, which made adventuring together rather difficult. However, one of the nice things about Peace Corps is every few months we have a training and get to reunite with all the members of our group, and during these trainings, Joce and I were always roommates.

We have a joke that our rooms kept getting upgraded, because our trainings got nicer and nicer as time went on. We started with just beds and electricity, moved up to beds, electricity and a bathroom, and from there to a beachside resort. We’ve pretty much decided that next time we reunite, it will have to be at the Ritz.

So, at the beginning of December, I got on a plane to Cape Town to meet up with Joce, and two other recently-finished PCVs. A word on plane flights after one has been living in a small village for a while: awesome. You have your own seat, people come by and offer you food and drinks, and there is a distinct absence of chickens or goats. Yes, maybe there is a baby crying, but when isn’t there a baby crying? I almost cried when the stewardess offered me a choice of different juice boxes (juice boxes are one of my treats when I go to the city).

The amazement did not stop when I landed in Cape Town. Elevators, escalators, sandwich shops, everything had me gaping. Fortunately, I was with four other Peace Corps Volunteers who had also just finished up two years of service, so we were all in pretty much the same boat. I’m not sure what Joce’s parents must have thought, we kept freaking out about the wrong things. While they were busy admiring the beautiful views, or historical sights, we were marveling at such wonders as multi-story buildings, highways (plural!) and chain restaurants. (Ohmigod it’s a Starbucks! When’s the last time you saw a Starbucks?!)

It was also cool to be around PCV’s from other countries just to compare experiences. Our group included three PCV’s from Malawi, one from Mozambique, and one from Guyana. Now, I like to think Malawi is pretty hard core, but talking to Tim and Charlotte was a sobering reminder that other places are, too. Since Mozambique is so huge, Charlotte had no other volunteers near her, and basically had to fly to get anywhere substantial. In comparison. in Malawi you can pretty much cruise up and down the country in one day. Not that you’d want to, but the fact remains, you could. Tim, the Guyana volunteer, had to get to his site by boat. And then there was something about crocodiles, anacondas and piranas. Whatever.

Our company split after Cape Town when Joce, Tim, Joce’s family and I all headed off to a beachside town where Joce’s family had taken a condo for a week. This meant that for a week I was living in a place with electricity, running water, and a great view of the ocean. The first day I put my clothes in the washing machine, sat myself down in front of it, and just watched them go round and round for a few hours.

The vacation itself was pretty low key. We would pretty much get up, relax for a few hours, then go on a hike. In the evenings we each took turns taking a night to cook. In other words, pretty perfect. My night to cook, I teamed up with Joce’s dad, and we did sort of a Tex-Mex-South Africa mix, cooking up ostrich quesedillas. The whole thing was pretty much ideal. At the end of the week, I got on a bus (double-decker, with a bathroom, and air conditioning, and they serve you coffee or tea) and headed back to Cape Town, then back home. While I had been gone, Malawi had gotten some rains, and the green was a nice welcoming site to fly back to.

I basked in the new rainy-season beauty for about a week before flying off to Italy to join the parents for Christmas. It’s strange, Italy didn’t bowl me over the same way South Africa did in terms of marveling at all the modernities. Of course, this could be because I had just been to South Africa the week before, but I actually think what it is is that it’s just really easy to switch over. Italy and America are just very clearly worlds apart from Malawi. So much so that its like entering a parallel universe, and you can’t marvel because there’s nothing to marvel at. It’s rather like not thinking things in a dream are strange. Of course they’re strange, you’re dreaming. Yet South Africa is still very clearly Africa, so everything there that could be straight out of the western world just seems incredible.

For whatever reason, though, I kept the marveling in Italy to a minimum. There was a slight issue of me completely freaking out when Mom and Dad took me to a breakfast buffet on the first day, but considering they had more types of fruit and meat laid out on one table than are available in the whole of Malawi, I find this justified.

The food situation in Italy was pretty much always spectacular. Despite the one hitch that they don’t seem to understand that bread by itself is not actually a food and one must cover it with either olive oil or butter, the eating scene there is pretty spectacular. Despite it being off-season, I managed to eat a passable number of blueberries and raspberry’s (one restaurant even somehow managing to scrounge some up on my request though they were not anywhere on the menu) and I had buffalo mozzarella in some form almost every day. Of course, this turned out to be near fatal as a few of my friends almost killed me when, on arriving back in Malawi to the suggestion we all go out to pizza, I stated that I was actually kind of sick of it.

Christmas was another nice perk to Italy. I think I’ve stated before that it’s just impossible to feel Christmassy in Malawi. Italy gets you a bit closer, and the parents were doing their best to aid in the season, bringing over a miniature tree complete with tiny lights, ornaments, and Christmas angel. We watched Christmas Specials on Christmas Eve (three of them. in a row.) and got blessed by the Pope Christmas Day. Still, even with the cold and the trees and the creches it wasn’t quite Christmas. All of which has led me to the conclusion that for me, Christmas will always be irrevocably tied up with home.

The final notable thing about Italy is, of course, the art. I mean one practically trips over great art there. Unfortunately Dad, Mom and I all take different approaches to art. Although I think all of us appreciate the genius of great works, and the amazing history encapsulated in the evolution of painting over the years, Dad and I tend to be a little more sacrilegious. So while Mom is, as the guidebook tells one too, admiring the landmark decision to have baby Jesus appear more human by playfully grabbing for Mary’s mantle, Dad and I are whispering to each other, “Does is look like baby Jesus is trying to strangle Mary to you?” (Seriously, pre-renaissance inability to draw babies makes for some really odd Madonna and Child scenes).

I came back to Malawi feeling pretty refreshed, and not longing too much for the cares and comforts of my December world. I guess the biggest difference is just that I feel able to appreciate Malawi again. Good times, bad times, throughout everything I’ve always been able to appreciate the interesting time I’m having here, and the different experiences I’m being exposed to.

But starting at about the beginning of November, I just lost that. There was a moment in church when the choir started singing a song, and for some reason at every chorus, a different member of the choir would hold up a stuffed elephant. Normally, something like that would have really grabbed my attention and made me marvel and think, but at that moment, it seemed passé. Then, a couple of weeks ago I went to an engagement party of two people in my village, and they were both led in completely veiled, then unveiled halfway through the ceremony and showered with money. The whole thing was just one cultural moment after another, and I loved every minute of it. Which makes it really good to be back.