Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Christmas South African Style

Christmas here turned out to be pretty similar to home—lots of food, lots of family, lots and lots of food. Just the meat included seafood, prawns, stuffed chicken, pineapple chicken, beef, leg of lamb, tongue. Ya, you read that right. My host mom asked me to carry over a closed container next door to the feast table, I open it and there’s a two-foot long tongue in all its glory innocently licking the pan. I nearly dropped the pan in surprise.

I made all the deserts for the day which included pumpkin fritters, a couple of huge Christmas trifles, and my specialty peach cake. If you’re up for some pure joy in culinary form, here are a couple of the recipes for you. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Fritters
-pumpkin, boiled and mashed (a pre-made can would probably work)
-sugar
-cinnamon (nutmeg might be a nice addition)
-flour
-eggs
-baking powder


1. Attempt to cut the pumpkin. Look cute until someone(my host dad) takes the knife away and cuts it all up for you. To cook pumpkin chunks, heat up pan with butter and oil, when hot put in rinsed/water soaked pumpkin pieces and cook til soft. Mash like there’s no tomorrow.
2. When cool mix in a couple of eggs, a pinch of baking powder, cinnamon, and lots of sugar to taste. Add flour until it’s a thick batter consistency.
3. Heat a pan on medium-low with oil. Drop in a few large spoon fulls at a time and let each side cook until firm. The middle will be soft and it will turn out thicker than a pancake.
4. De-grease with paper towels carefully. When cool dip in cinnamon sugar. 5. Gluttonously eat all of them before anyone else gets the chance to steal them away.

Christmas Trifle
-sponge cake
-sherry
-several jello flavors
-custard
-whipped cream
-fruit

1. Prepare about three flavors(the more colors the better) of jell-o and set in the freezer.
2. In a large serving bowl (glass looks best) layer sponge cake until the bottom is fully covered.
3. Pour sherry on top until the cake is just about soaked on all sides. 4. Put a layer of fruit on top, canned fruit cocktail works well.
5. Take jell-o out of the freezer. It should be thick without being solid having not set yet. Pour in color layers over the fruit.
6. Layer custard then whipped cream, completely covering the pan.
7. Decorate as desired. Cherries on top are the traditional decoration.

I haven’t had measuring cups since coming here so bear with me and make your own judgments. They’re both delicious so enjoy :)

Some Long Awaited Pictures

Here's a view into what my life here looks like :)
Ready? 1, 2, 3 AWWWWW. All the kids got dressed up for the school concert. It was adorable chaos.
I made all the flower face masks and they loved showing them off.
When all of us volunteers got together for the retreat we went hiking in the Drakensberg mountains. This is where they originally wanted to film Lord of the Rings.
Look! We climbed Table Mountain! This is taken from the top after our hike with Cape Town in the background.
For Christmas the 8 year old next door, Tshialidzi, and I made hot pink, fairy dust sprinkled cookies. Things got a little messy along the way.

Friday, December 21, 2012

Dreaming of a White Christmas

It’s a scorching 34°, the sun is shining, summer is just heating up…perfect timing to take out the snowflake-covered Christmas decorations. Wait, what? Snowflakes? Snowmen? Picturesque cottages all nestled in snow and pine trees? With all this heat I doubt even a snow cone would last very long.

All I can say is I feel incredibly sorry for the poor man in a fur-lined Santa suit as I’m sweating in my shorts. He deserves and a raise and an ice cream cone.

When I came halfway around the world I guess I expected things to be a lot more different. Don’t get me wrong, South Africa is incredibly unique and vibrant in its diverse cultures, long history, breath taking landscapes, and mix of languages. But no matter how far away it is, Westernization still plays a huge role in modern culture here. It can be seen in the music on the radio (the same I blasted this summer around CA), the hair extensions that look like smooth European hair, face bleach creams, and, yes, even the visions of Christmas. Pictures of snow and pine trees for the holiday sure didn’t originate here, that’s for sure. Oh, and I still haven’t heard anything about Kwanza.

While as Westerners we may not have planned for our culture to be broadcast around the world that doesn’t change the fact that it’s happening. There are always gains to be had from learning about other cultures, but what about when it is one-sided? We rarely see African movies/music/stories/photos (other than those of hungry children and safari animals). What is lost in the process?

There’s no way change what’s happening but we can make it more even—to take the effort to listen to what’s happening around the world, hear their stories, learn from their experiences.

Maybe it’s our turn to return the favor and simply pay attention.

Time in the Wilderness

Nothing quite screams “camp” like a simple cabin put out in the middle of nowhere in the mountains. Add in a group of high schoolers, a bunch of unhealthy food, Bible studies, rocks to climb, baboon warnings, and some firewood and you’re good to go.

A couple of weeks ago I had the chance to help run my church’s high school Confirmation Camp out in the mountains for the weekend. Shane, a pastor-in-training from a nearby town, and I coordinated the whole endeavor and it went of surprisingly well. We even got to see wildlife! I saw plenty of it in the form of sleepy high schoolers at wake up time, but we also caught a glimpse of a huge baboon family while driving on the way out. I’m pretty sure this is the one and only time in my life I’ve had to seriously factor baboons into an event I’m planning. They can be quite the troublemakers and we weren’t sure if they’d be feisty enough to ruin our bonfire plans.

It was humbling though to be part of such an incredible experience for the kids. As city slickers few had spent time (or wanted to) so far away in nature. There were a couple of teens committed to turning their lives around after being in gangs too and to watch them experience swimming in a river for the first time was great. One made it from shore to water in ten seconds flat and began yelling “I’m a fish! I’m a fish!” as soon as he started sinking to the bottom, gleefully smiling all the while.

Beyond all that though, the time away from everyday life was a reminder of how much God speaks through the wilderness. It’s an opportunity to be quiet and simply listen that doesn’t get to happen often in our busy lives. On the final day Shane and I sent them out to the wilderness to pray after the final Bible study.

It’s funny, I spent the whole weekend surrounded by towering mountains, a gorgeous river, and the quiet of star-filled skies. But the most beautiful thing I saw all weekend was watching one of the reforming gang members sitting with his Bible on a nearby rock query and looking up to heaven.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Many Sides to the Story

Happy Thanksgiving!!! Better late than never, right? Sorry, with our volunteer retreat I haven’t had much access to internet recently. Hopefully you all enjoyed your holiday with family and lots of pie! (lots and lots of pie)

For Thanksgiving all of the volunteers and I met up in Pietermaritzburg to make our own turkey dinner and process what we’ve learned so far. But of course, it’s South Africa and not everything’s available that you’d normally expect at the table. We improvised with Brazilian turkeys and butternut squash pie but it all turned out AMAZING.

Even better was the chance to catch up with all the other volunteers. As we’re spread out all over the country each of us has the privilege of witnessing a completely unique side of South Africa. In a country so diverse in its backgrounds, languages, and cultures there’s no end to what can be learned. Between the lot of us we’re learning Afrikaans, Sesotho, Tswana, Xhosa, and Zulu—enough to start our own language school when we get back haha. And that’s not even half of the languages here!

Hearing stories from the rural areas, crèches (preschools), homeless shelters, urban cities, black communities, rich, AIDS home visit nurses, white farmers, after school programs, mosques, poor, coloured neighborhoods, Indian communities, and traditional songs has been an incredible reminder that no story has only one side. It’s too easy to generalize about people and places based on the basic information we hear. But it’s never just as easy as that. The generalizations and labels rob complexities in identity and oftentimes hide the truth beneath the surface.

There’s power in the other sides to the story. It’s a celebration of diversity, of the many ways to be express our humanity through culture. To me, it’s a testament also to how much there is to learn in the world. When we ignore other ways of life we miss out on the beauty and wisdom they have to offer.

Coming into the retreat, I was most excited about getting a chance to relax a bit and eat a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner. But hearing the many other sides to the story that is South Africa from other volunteers proved far more interesting and worthwhile than any amount of pie. )

)

If you’re interested in TED Talks, there’s an especially interesting one from a Nigerian female author title something along the lines of “The Other Story.” It’s definitely worth checking out (along with all the other fantastic TED talks out there).

A Picture’s Worth A Thousand Words

…which is why I write so much—to make up for the lack of pictures. As a photographer, it hurts a little to not be able to share shots of the kids I work with, my host family, and the beautiful city of Cape Town. However, internet is incredibly expensive and I pay by the amount of Megabytes I use. That’s meant no YouTube, no web surfing, no video Skype, and very little Facebook for the past four months. Tragic, really, for a Gen X but not so hard after awhile.

But there is a bright side! My program director has a link to Flickr account with pictures if you’re interested. Check out the program blog at : www.yagmsa.wordpress.com. The Flickr account link should be on the right hand side if you scroll down a bit.

Enjoy!

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Listening Deeply

Heerlikste Jesus, sterke Wereldheerser, koning op die hemeltroon, lof, dank en ere aan U, o Here, my hart se vreug mi siel se kroon….

You catch that? No? Me either. While I’m in the process of learning Afrikaans, everyday conversation is still way beyond me.

In case you were wondering, that was the first verse of the hymn “Beautiful Savior.” PLU people, I think of you every time we sing it in church! On that note (pun very intended), all of our church services are almost completely in Afrikaans. At first I was a little frustrated with the fact because it meant I had no idea what was going on for a good deal of the service. I have to take cues from everyone around me about when to stand up, sit down, sing, or when something else happens. Having no access to what was going on was tough until I began to listen to the messages behind the words.

Unplanned harmonies ring throughout the crowded chapel as people from all different walks of life come together to create one beautiful song of worship. I may not understand what the words mean but just listening to the sound of so many voices coming together as one speaks volumes about how God can bring people together in peace. The joy on people’s faces as they sing and greet one another speaks more than their words could say.

In some ways the language barrier has been a blessing.—it is forcing me to think with my heart instead of my head for once. Without the easiness of communication through language I have to listen deeply to intent rather than content to understand. Yet in slowing down enough to do so I feel like I am looking at church and life in a way I never have before: in paying attention to the very real joy and peace and community that church is meant to be all about.

Why So Blue?

Here’s a little snippet from my day I can’t help but share:

“Jen! Jen!” Nadine calls while running to the back of the room. Joshua and I pause in the middle of a math problem explanation as she arrives.
“I’m trying to work with Joshua now, what is it?”
She grins mischievously.
“Uzrie’s drinking ink!”
Skeptical, I look over to Uzrie. The guilty smirk says it all.
“Uzrie, come here please.”
He shuffles over, hiding his hands behind his back.
“Uzrie, are you drinking ink?”
He shakes his head, lips tight together.
“Smile for me please.”
Sheepishly, he smiles, revealing a set of beautifully shaded bright blue teeth.
“Look!” he sticks his tongue out proudly, “my tongue’s blue too!”

I’ll personally give you ten bucks if you could see all that and not laugh. I spent the rest of the day breaking out in giggles to myself when he smiled at me with his still-blue teeth. When I was in third grade I distinctly remember the boys daring each other to eat glue. Boys will be boys, no matter where you’re from I guess. Haha. Laughter in dealing with daily mini-disasters is one of my favorite things about working with kids. There are few things laughter can’t fix, even a set of fluorescent blue teeth.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

The Gift of Dependence

Barbed wire around the play grounds, spiked fences in front of every house. The picture of an average street with all its barred windows and barbed wire belies the warm hospitality inside each home. With all of its extremes in wealth, education levels, and privilege, Cape Town isn’t always the safest place to be in. Since coming here I’ve learned a new set of rules for everyday life:

1. Always be home before dark
2. Don’t use your cellphone in public (thieves will mug you for the sim card)
3. While driving, keep all bags at your feet (to prevent people breaking the windows to steal a purse aka a “smash and grab”)
4. Don’t go anywhere alone:

I never realized what a privilege safety was until I could no longer take it for granted. When’s the last time you felt the need to check behind you every few minutes while walking to the mall or had to consider the time of nightfall into your plans? :

Adjustment wasn’t easy. I value my independence so much that being kept inside for safety’s sake was incredibly frustrating. Not being able to go places alone was also a huge blow. I’m the girl who travelled through 7 countries alone and hiked up 12 mountains in a day on my own. Independence is a huge part of what makes me me.

It took about a month before I became comfortable with asking for help. As Americans, we’re taught to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and look out for number one. Asking for help is something we dislike doing. It’s uncomfortable for us to say that we need someone else.

While I grew up with this mindset, I never knew on what I was missing out on in the beauty of saying I can’t make it on my own. But in being forced to ask for help I was given incredible opportunities to connect with people here in ways that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. In asking for car rides we are given a unique chance to talk deeper than just in passing. When friends walk with me to get groceries they share their stories of their pasts and memories of the neighborhoods we walk though. Carpooling to school every morning has introduced me to my next door neighbor’s family and made me an adopted member from seeing them so often. :
:
Dependence is a gift I never thought I’d value. In all reality, it was a Lesson I Never Wanted to Learn. Now, I treasure the relationships and conversations that dependence on my community has created. Through dependence, I’m learning how to truly live out Ubuntu, the South African philosophy of “I am because we are.”

Saturday, November 3, 2012

The Best Part Of Waking Up

No, it’s not Folgers in your cup. How about a two inch cockroach on your hand instead? That’ll wake you up faster than any cup of joe.

Rewind back to this morning. It’s before 7am and for those that have witnessed me at wake-up time, I’m about as cheerful and delightful as a momma bear on rampage. After shutting off the obnoxious alarm I reach down to my backpack to move it out of the way before getting out of bed. Something touches my hand and I sleepily lift it up to eye level to try and open my eyes big enough to see what it is. The cockroach hitchhiking a ride is as big as my finger and raises its antennae at me in a happy hello.

Needless to say, I scream. I flail. The cockroach gets a free ticket for a flight across the room. I run out to the kitchen and retell everything in high pitch to Elsa who can’t understand my English. She looks at me for a moment with concern, head cocked to the side, and gives me a hug, patting my back and saying “I love you.” Not exactly a fitting response but it made my morning better.

Love has no language.

Friday, October 26, 2012

Love Notes, Story Time, and the Power of Words

Nothing can quite make you feel worthwhile like a colorful card with atrocious grammar from a nine year old.

The classroom is chaos, like usual before break time, and Nadine sneaks over to my table at the back of the room, pigtails swinging down her back. She brings out her hand from behind her to show a bright blue card, handing it to me while looking up with a shy grin. Across the top is scrawled “Well come to Cape Town!” and there’s a blonde princess demurely grinning in front of some palm trees.

“Aw, Nadine is this for me?” I ask, getting an overdose of warm fuzzies from head to toe. She nods and gives me a hug before rushing off again to head out for break. After telling her how good of an artist she was my first day at school there’s been a constant stream of new pictures and cards from her each week. With each new drawing she looks up at me with proud eyes while receiving praise for her latest work.

I’ve been volunteering a few days each week at a local elementary school for the past month or so and have been loving (almost) every moment of it. Ms Tziavasi’s 3rd grade class has an overwhelming 38 kids and there is rarely a moment of quiet and order at any point in the day. Many come from rough backgrounds such as druggie parents, neglect, no food at home, or live in an area of high gang violence. They are a mix of coloured, Indian, black, and Muslim. But the labels mean nothing, they’re just a bunch of loud, normal kids.

Each day after lunch the kids gather on the mat in front and I read out loud from a chapter book called “Cool!” The kids have gotten really into it and argue together about whether the lead character will ever come out of his coma. My favorite part of the day though is when I call them back one by one to read to me. Their faces light up when they hear their names called and all too often they crowd around asking “when is it my turn?!” or ask to stay in during lunch to read. More than anything I use the time to encourage them as much as possible. They absolutely love the individual attention and usually come away glowing, proudly displaying a smiley sticker.

It seems like such a simple thing, telling each of them “good job!” or admiring how well they’re doing. But the impact of encouragement is something I’m learning to admire. I once heard the quote “people most often become what they’re told.” Tell someone they’re worthless enough times, soon enough they’ll believe it. Tell a kid they’re smart and special, they start having more confidence. Working at the school I’m constantly blown away by how much words of encouragement and small acts of love really make a difference in how people see themselves. I’m so incredibly grateful for my background with loving, encouraging parents because now I’m starting to realize how much that is a privilege and sadly not always the norm for kids. While I come home each day from school feeling pretty exhausted, it’s all worth it getting to spend time with such incredible kids. It’s funny, they’re the students but sometimes it feels like I’m learning more from them than they are from me.

Friday, October 12, 2012

"Are You Lucky Here?"

It’s just past four and the outline of Table Mountain can be seen just outside the sunny window. Elsa and I are standing next to each other at the counter, waiting for the kettle to boil for the ritual afternoon tea. She asks about my parents and if I miss them, inquires about if I’ll be around for Christmas. The Afrikaans/English/charades conversation continues in its own funny, heartfelt way with laughter filling in the silences. Pausing, Elsa looks at me with all sincerity and asks, “Are you lucky here?” I can tell she means “are you happy here?” but the language barrier brings a new side to the question.

Through the open door to my bedroom I can see the note one of the third graders wrote for me this afternoon sitting on the nightstand. I’d listened to her read and helped her understand some of the words, all the while encouraging her to keep up the incredible work. A little later she slipped a note to me with a shy grin. Written in what I could tell was her neatest handwriting it said:


“You only liveing once
Dear Jen thanks for help my teacher I no you come from America or South Amrica.
Rene Williams
I love you very much like a sweet and a lollypop.”

Commence acute attack of the warm fuzzies.


It’s been a month now in Cape Town with ups and downs, too many cups of tea (or maybe not enough), meeting more people than names I can remember, being adopted by my host family, Afrikaans lessons while playing cards with Elsa, and volunteering at both the church and local underprivileged elementary school. But the most important things to happen so far were the small moments connecting with people whose culture and language are a world away from my own. Accepting love isn’t always easy for me but here I feel completely surrounded by it. Every step of the way God has shown that He’s taking care of me, even miles and miles and miles away from home.

Am I lucky here? Lucky, happy, loved, full of hope, and blessed to serve.

I smile to Elsa with all my heart, “Yes, more that I can say.”

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

How to Cure Hiccups, South African Style

Every culture seems to have it’s own “magic solution” to hiccups. My grandma told me if you held your breath and dramatically touched your pointer fingers together juuust right they’d automatically go away. As an elementary schooler I remember leaning upside down against a wall with a friend as we tried to turn our heads to look at each other to see if the hiccups had gone. No dice.
Some South African methods:
1. stick a match in your hair, close to your forehead so you look quite like a unicorn
2. put paper on your forehead. This works especially well if it is toilet paper, wet it (they didn’t say with what) if that fails to work.
Today I had an obnoxiously loud bout of hiccups. Anna looks over at me while driving us home from work/volunteering at the elementary school and just laughs.
“You know, you should try putting paper on your forehead.”
Blank stare.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, no, no! That’s how South Africans do it.”
…tentatively I reach down and put the cute picture one of the students drew for me on my forehead, skepticism running high.
Hiccups, instantly gone.

Call me crazy, but I’m a believer. (though juries still out if this newfound belief will ever lead to sticking wet toilet paper on my forehead)

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Mina's Story

Apartheid, legalized racism to the extreme, tore apart South Africa for decades and only recently ended in 1994. The stories that survivors have to tell are powerful examples of the strength of the human spirit and fight for justice.
While drinking tea together after dinner my host mom Mina shared this story with me about her friend Anne:
*note: this is paraphrased as close as possible to her exact words

“Anne was always the most outspoken of us. She was gentle and kind and loving but she could not stand for injustice. As a teacher she would talk against [Apartheid] in her classrooms and was outspoken at school meetings. I was in the marches but she was a leader. They went after the leaders.
Anne lived alone; they came in the middle of the night. It was ten days after she was in my wedding, 1985. They took her to prison and put her in a tiny cell to break her spirit. Anna and I would sew short messages on paper into the hems of t-shirts and send them to her. She knew to find them; they helped to keep her strong. We were never allowed to see her so instead we asked a Swedish pastor serving at the prison where her cell was and would stand outside and shout to her from the street side. When police came by to ask what we were doing we pretended that we were waiting for a komvi (van) to come.
While she was there I found out that I was pregnant and wanted to tell her. I stood at the street and shouted the message to her, tears running down my face. Anna was beside me, telling me not to let the police see my tears and yelled encouragements to Anne to not let them break her spirit. We asked the Swedish pastor what we could do to help and he encouraged us to keep fighting, marching, and signing petitions.
They had no official charges against her and Anne was released after six months. She returned home in the middle of the night and we immediately drove the 2 hours to go see her and celebrate. Anne was so skinny it looked unhealthy. But they hadn’t crushed her spirit.”

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

A Long Overdue Life Update

Hello everyone!

I think it’s just about time for a life update. Sorry it’s taken so long, I’ve been putting it off until things have officially come together. Nothing is still fully set but by now I have my bearings much more than when I arrived super tired, sick, and full of anticipation 3 weeks ago. The delay in part has to do with the switch in placement from Kimberley to Cape Town but is also quite to do with South African Time. As one person put it: if you expect to do more than one thing in a day you’re in too much of a hurry.

Life update: Mina and Mesheck, members of my host church, have graciously invited me into their home to live for my first month here. Along with Mina’s elderly mother and her caretaker, Elsa, we are constantly laughing, cooking, talking, and drinking tea together. Mina had two sons and is so excited to finally have a daughter that she told my parents she’s not giving me back. Elsa, who speaks only Afrikaans plus a smidgen of English, and I play cards together regularly and she teaches me Afrikaans as we play. We’re becoming friends despite the language barrier and she showed me yesterday that she had set a picture of me as the backdrop to her phone. Love has no language :)

While volunteer placements have been coming together I’ve been helping out at church and will be re-starting the youth group with Shane, a guy my age from a nearby town that is also at the church for a year. It’s completely dead now so we have a challenge in front of us but I’m excited for it. I’ve also spent some time at a local elementary school that’s unfortunately in a rough neighborhood. My next door neighbor is a teacher there and the kids are incredible. When I visited the kids’ jaws dropped after I pointed how far away I was from on the globe. But the opportunity I’m SUPER EXCITED about is a chance to volunteer at a Red Cross as a kid cuddler. Some kids there have families that can’t visit often so they ask volunteers to come in to show them lots of love on a regular basis. Am I excited? YES YES YES. Hopefully I can work that out!

Life is a constant adventure and I never know what will happen the next day. I’m learning to take each day as it comes and savor it for the beautiful moments that come along unexpectedly and make it all worthwhile.

Now that I’ve finally gotten internet sorted out(after hearing the sales rep tell me buying internet online was “a bit dodgy, man” I took matters into my own hands and now have limited but reliable access) I’ll be posting here more regularly. So many stories to tell!

Love from South Africa,
Jen

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Mastering Afrikaans

This year I’m living in an Afrikaans-speaking community and thus have decided to attempt to learn the language. To help with this process, I talk as often as possible with the caretaker for my host grandma that lives with us. Elsa speaks only Afrikaans with a dab of English and so we play a game I like to call stare-at-each-other-blankly-until-resorting-to-charades.

A dialogue from this morning:
Elsa: Goeie more! (Good morning!)
Jen: Goeie more!
Elsa:Hoe gaan dit? (How are you?)
Jen: Goed, dankie. Ek es lief vir jou! (Good, thank you. I love you!)
Elsa: blank stare

You know, I think things are coming along quite nicely.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

The Many Faces of South Africa

It’s not often a stranger leans over to show you a topless picture of themself and relatives on their cell phone.

Meet Bongi. 27, recently married, career woman, grew up in Zulu culture, big hair, and even bigger laugh. We’ve been sitting next to each other on the 10 hour bus ride from Pietermaritzburg to Bloemfontein and chatted for quite a bit now to while away the endless hours of dry countryside. Quite the dramatic, she soon begins to spill out her marriage problems to me—all of them. Stuck in my seat I can do nothing but listen as she tells me all about the exorbitant amounts she spent on gifts for her relatives, the goat they had slaughtered for the ceremony, the unhappiness she feels at being trapped in a lovely marriage, and the conflict between her feminist ideas of freedom and independence clashing with the traditional values of her culture.



“Look!” she says, pointing out the different faces in the picture and naming each one. The women’s skirts are a riot of color even in the mini screen shot while I can just make out the dead rabbit one woman is holding by its feet at the end of the row.

Having no experience with marriage, Zulu or otherwise, I smile and nod as she spills out secrets I feel I shouldn’t be hearing. “What do I do? I’m trapped,” she laments and looks at me like I should have a magic answer to solve it all. Looking at the professionally dressed woman next to me, it’s so incredible to me that behind it all are traditional roots that combat the modern ideas that city culture has taught her. Caught between expectations of past and present, there are no easy answers to be had. Eventually a movie comes on the Greyhound TV screens and she kindly shares a set of headphones with me. Leaning in close to make the cord reach, I smile to think what a strange pair we make at the back of the bus laughing together at Ice Age 3 as the miles roll past.



Happy Cultural Heritage Day!

Bongi is just one example of the many, many faces of modern South Africa. From Zulu to Afrikaans, Tswana to Indian, there’s no end to the cultural heritages mixed here. Today is the official day to celebrate it all and so there are plenty of opportunities to wear their traditional clothes. Even I’m going to, apparently.

After a good crying session this afternoon (nothing emotional, just onions) my host mom announced I would be going to a cultural night and she would be dressing me up in traditional African wear. I’m excited! She just came in, looks like it’s go time ☺

Friday, September 14, 2012

I’m Going to Cape Town!!! Aka How I Found Myself Doing the Electric Slide in Swaziland

Moments of clarity like to hit when we least expect them. For me, it was dancing the Electric Slide in the rain at night in Swaziland, 16 hours into an 18 hour Crazy (yes, capital C crazy) road trip.
Let’s rewind a bit.

It’s the first week of September. My palms are sweaty as I wait for my 1 on 1 with Tessa, our program coordinator, to hear more about details on what I’ll be doing/where I’ll be volunteering this year. The church door opens and Tessa’s smiling a bit to reassuringly for my comfort.
“So, do I get to do program management like was in the letter?” I blurt out before we’re even seated.
Her smile gets even bigger as we sit. This can’t be good. She pauses for a moment. “Housing fell through in Kimberley, what do you think about Cape Town?”
Silence. Processing. Everything I thought I’d be doing, out the window.
Twenty seconds later, with all sincerity, “Yes! Sounds great!”
During the beautiful “it’s okay to mourn for lost dreams” speech that subsequently followed my mind sped through the few things I knew about the city. Ocean. Mountains. Big city. Tons of cultural minglings. Baboons. So what comes out of my mouth, ending her eloquence entirely?
“There are baboons in Cape Town!”

So yes, folks, I’m now in Cape Town! Sister city of San Francisco, penguins on the beach…you read that right. And the dean I’ll be working with seems great! Tomorrow we’ll get a chance to talk about housing and volunteer options, one thing on the list is work at a reconciliation center. Stoked. I’ll also get a chance to update more frequently now that I’ll finally be settled (and no longer living out of a suitcase!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) All of this falling together on such short notice and fitting perfectly is totally God working. Already I feel like I belong here and am fitting into the community.

What does this all have to do with the Electric Slide? A simple matter of learning to say “yes.” In the waiting time for Cape Town logistics to come together I was sent with Katie, another volunteer, to Swaziland on the second craziest road trip of my life to attend the Young Adult League biannual conference. It was more than we had bargained for, to say the least. Eighteen hours each direction, eleven women yelling at each other in Tswana the whole way, a stop at a town named Bethlehem where I bought a ham & cheese sandwich from a cashier in a devil outfit, tons of Christmas decorations in Bethlehem with none of them religious (please appreciate the irony in both of these), a conference that lasted from 7am to 2am with no breaks. 16 hours into the journey there and I was tired, still hadn’t heard the final confirmation on Cape Town, and was incredibly grumpy. Life wasn’t turning out like I had planned and honestly I would have rather been settled anywhere than on the road and living out of a suitcase again for another weekend. Stop at wrong hotel #3 looked dismal as ever and I chose to stay in the van instead of stand outside in the rain with everyone else. The music turned on, the same African slow jams we’d been listening to for hours, and, against all odds, people started dancing. Sitting grumpily in the car by myself it hit me that saying “yes” to opportunities was entirely my decision. Whether I enjoyed the bumps in the road or stewed in my own pit of impatience was all up to me. So what did I do?
I said “yes,” got out of my comfort zone, and started dancing in the rain.

*Zulu marriage counselor story next…I figured moving to Cape Town was slightly more important

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Hello from Bloemfontein!

HOLD THE PHONE, STOP THE CLOCKS….

I SAW A WILD GIRAFFE!!!!!!!!!!!!! 7 OF THEM!!!!!

I AM SO HAPPY!!!!
(they’re my favorite animal if you can’t tell)

Hello from Bloemfontein!!

Orientation is finally over!! Yay! It’s been a long ten days of hanging out in Pietermaritzburg learning, listening, and chatting about South Africa and preparing us for our journeys this year. To jar us out of our comfort zones our country program coordinator Tessa took us to lunch at an English tea garden just before touring a prison that held hundreds of black political prisoners during Apartheid. The huge disparity in condition was a shock to see so blatantly side by side, not to mention hearing the history surrounding the place where Nelson Mandela and even Gandhi (ya, you read that right. He started out as a lawyer in S.A.) were imprisoned for some time. What was perhaps more disturbing was that in the tea garden restaurant it was impossible to see the poor neighborhood just outside the door, makes me wonder how much we do that in the US in allowing ourselves to be blind in our own comfort bubbles.

Now we’ve all left for our own corners of the country to volunteer. In a wonderful and strange turn of events, I’m temporarily staying in Bloemfontein for the week with my friend Katie because….I’m going to Swaziland this weekend. Nbd, it’s not another country or anything. It’s the church’s national youth gathering for Southern Africa and my church supervisor decided to send me along. From what I’ve been told it will be a bunch of singing and dancing and worship music, with quite a bit of it in Zulu. I’m excited!

Life is still very much in transition but will hopefully be settling soon once I get to my volunteer site. Once there, hopefully I can get more blog posts out and spend some more time with it.

Have a beautiful day! Thanks for tuning in!

Preview for next post: “Jen’s run-in as a Zulu marriage counselor”. True story.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Learning to be a Servant

Hello from South Africa!!! It’s been a week and a half since leaving home and so far I’ve spent the time in two states, three countries, three continents, three hemispheres and four airplanes. Needless to say, life has been a little crazy.

All 57 of us in the Young Adults in Global Missions (YAGM) program met in Chicago for a week of orientation and preparation for the year ahead. While at first feeling like a week wasted in waiting to leave, it was a necessary time to reflect, refocus, and prepare. It was a great time to be reminded over and again that this is God’s work, not our own and that we are giving this time to be servants around the world.

The distinction was also made between what it means to serve and to be a servant: a verb vs. a state of being. We reflected collectively quite a bit about what it means to embody the selfless attitudes of servants who give without receiving personal benefit. They help in any situation and don’t give a thought to whether or not a task is below their level. As a group of mostly college graduates it feels natural to seek opportunities that make use of our education level while this may not necessarily be the case in where we are volunteering. The ELCA’s (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America) motto of “God’s work, our hands” was thought provoking to me in these moments. As Christians we are God’s hearts and hands in the world to love as much as we can while here. In this year of living in South Africa one of my biggest hopes is that I can learn to be a servant that loves with an open heart.

While we had lots of time to listen, discuss and refocus, there was still down time as well. We got to go on a scavenger hunt through downtown Chicago to find a cool African restaurant one night and another day we had completely free to explore the city. Of course, I managed to find a park with live Swing music so I taught about fifteen other volunteers how to dance on the sidelines and dragged them onto the dance floor with me soon after.

Now, I’m in South Africa!!!! (finally) after over 40 hours of travel time and a 9 hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany. My South Africa crew and I spent the time in the city walking around the cobblestones and eating frankfurters on a floating barge in the river. It made a fantastic break to the eighteen hours of flying before and after. Thank you to everyone that was praying for me while travelling, one of my bags with half my clothing got lost in one city, causing us to almost miss the next flight, and then magically turned up on the baggage carousel in the next city.

For now, it’s another ten days of in-country orientation and then off to the cities we’ll be staying in for the next year!

Hope all is well at home!

Love from South Africa,
Jen

Monday, July 2, 2012

Ready, Set, Go!

Welcome to the blog! I will be updating regularly throughout my year in South Africa with stories, pictures, and nuggets of wisdom learned along the way. Thanks for joining on the journey!

 The countdown's begun with six weeks left in the states which translates to lots of fundraising and lots of shots. So far, tetanus has proved easiest followed by hepatitis A. Hepatitis B on the other hand, talk about dead arm. Hopefully I pulled it off a little more suavely than this kid:
Next comes some liquid Typhoid pills for a week and daily malaria pills before/during/after I leave. Add in a suitcase and I'm ready to go! Bring it on viruses, I'm ready for you.

 Fundraising is also in full swing with letters going out this week and my spaghetti dinner July 14th. Believe me, I'm fully aware of the irony in hosting a spaghetti dinner for a South Africa fundraiser dinner. Tune in a year from now and then I'll cook you a traditional dinner (aka from the right continent at least). To those of you joining in from the link in my letter, welcome! I hope you'll enjoy this blog and tune in for updates on what God is doing in my life and around the world.

August 15th is the ship out date. First will be a week in Chicago for orientation and then I'm off! So far, it's unreal. But I'm still incredibly excited and know that the next year will be one of immense change. 

The journey is only beginning. Thanks for tuning in and catch ya later!