So it's been almost 2 months since I updated, so I figured that I would get an entry together so everyone knows what's been going on with me here in South Africa.
The last part of November and the first part of December were super busy times for me and my schools. Besides preparing to close for the summer (remember, the seasons are reversed here), they have been submitting their marks to the Department of Education and have been trying to figure out miscellaneous hiring situations at both of my schools. Then, at the beginning of December, I went to my In-Service Training (IST) for Peace Corps with all of the other Volunteers from my cohort. At IST, we received additional training and collaboratively processed our individual findings of our schools and communities. We also handed in our Phase II Portfolios, which served as our Community Needs Assessments based off of predetermined investigatory schedules. In my Portfolio, I included over a hundred pictures, so it's definitely worth taking a look at! To see and read, just click the link under the below picture and you will be redirected to megaupload.com to download the document:
After IST, we were finally released from our aptly named "lockdown" time period… which means that everyone in my cohort went to different parts of South Africa to enjoy holiday leave. Personally, vacation was much needed. If you were to compare my service in Peace Corps to a series of breathes, this December has been the first true exhalation, my first deep breathe. I feel like I've been getting more and more intensely involved within my communities and the South African culture since I've been here, which has felt like a ceaseless and escalating episode of hyperventilation. This breath of fresh air was just what my body and mind needed. And what more pleasant a way to spend the holidays than backpacking, right? So I decided to go backpacking along the Wild Coast and in the Drakensberg Mountains.
The first of my trips was alone the Wild Coast, which started in Port St. Johns and ended in Coffee bay (both are in the Eastern Cape Province). I went with 4 other Peace Corps Volunteers: Em, Buddy, Tim and Liz. It was a guided backpacking trip and we ventured inland every night to stay in the villages with a traditional Xhosa family along the coastline. At our homesteads, the host families cooked and served us food and provided lodging (just a mattress on the floor of a rondavel). We also had hot showers every night (not exactly a remote backpacking trip but just as AWESOME haha)!! I had never done a coastline backpacking trip so it was a new and interesting type of hike for me to participate in. Below are some pictures of my trip:
The second trip was a little more of a traditional, Chad-type backpacking trip. I went with a crew of 5 other Peace Corps Volunteers (a younger group) to tackle the Drakensberg Mountains. The crew consisted of Andrew, Katie, Christian, Zach, Megan and myself. There were several appeals of this hike. We used map & compass/GPS to navigate the mountains, there was a continually changing and dramatic difference in elevation throughout the days, we were literally in the middle of nowhere set solely against the mountains, we chilled in Lesotho for a majority of the hike, we finished the backpacking trip off by summating the tallest mountain in Africa south of Kilimanjaro (Thaba Ntlenyana), AND we spent New Years at Sani Top Chalet, which is home to the highest pub in Africa. Needless to say, it was pretty much an epic trip and a much needed break from the previous 6-months of arduous service. Here are some pictures of our trip (enjoy!!):
And now I am finally settled back into my site and I am contemplating work. School starts on Monday for the educators and on Wednesday for the learners so I'm getting mentally prepared to start working all over again! And, with the break propelling me forward, I am extremely excited to see all of the educators and learners for the new year! I am hopefully going to be working with the School Management Teams to organize their offices and revise policies in order to more effectively govern the schools. Additionally, I am going to start working with educators to improve classroom management practices and starting to integrate technology into the regular functioning of my schools. There is certainly much to do, but I am more than pumped to get started! It's going to be a great new year for sure!
Salani kahle.
Mvelo Sigubudu
Stay well.
Chad Wolver
