Yet another Grade R Graduation...

Another year, another graduation ceremony and a farewell with the Grade 7.

Here DK, gets photos of all the Kindergarten class at my school.

Friday they will allll graduate from what they call "Grade R" here for Kindergarten.


Soooo cute!
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Voting?

I'm slightly confused....I thought I just sent this in.

Do I sent it again?


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Special Olympics Fun :)

Here we, Peace Corps volunteers, are with Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutombo originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DCR used to be Zaire). He makes me look like a midget, for he stands at 7'2" (2 feet taller than me)!

Dikembe was present for all of the SOSA Unity Cup action and working closely with the Youth Summit portion of the games where youth across southern Africa gathered to talk about stopping discrimination based on mental capabilities and stop the use of the word "disabilities" and learn to use "differences" instead.

Did you know.... (courtesy of Wikipedia):

"Mutombo attended Georgetown University on a USAID scholarship, and his original intention was to become a doctor; however, the Georgetown Hoyas basketball coach John Thompson recruited him to play basketball. He spoke almost no English when he arrived at Georgetown and studied in the ESL program.

Like many other Washington-area college students, he served as a summer intern, once for the Congress of the United States and once for the World Bank. In 1991 he graduated with bachelor's degrees in linguistics and diplomacy.

And....

Dikembe is commonly referred to as one of the greatest shot blockers and defensive players of all time, winning the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award four times.

Also, he is a member of the Luba ethnic group and speaks English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Tshiluba, Swahili, Lingala and two other Central African varieties (that's 9 languages)."

That day the pic was taken I spent the entire morning popping champagne bottles and making mimosas haha. OOoh the life here is hard!


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Race, A Social Construction

I just finished watching Crash.

My favorite line in that is the scene where there are these two guys in a car and one them just smirks and laughs, then the other one who's driving says: "what?"

Other dude: "People, man."

Why are we all so different, when did you realize who you were or who you were supposed be based off how you look on the outside?

Being on the Peace Corps Diversity Committee and now am the new chairperson, we constantly are talking about identity.

And it has me thinking a lot about who I am and how I came to have the sort of lens through which I see the world. As does working with my Grade 2 class, how was I taught as a child to think or learn about the world? And really once again I think it all goes back to my adoption.

Constantly the black sheep in the family (based solely on skin color), surrounded by "white" people my entire upbringing...and never giving a second thought about it, never really noticing or feeling that I wasn't supposed to be there. Yet, somehow intrinsically knowing that I had to be okay with standing out looking different since this was my family and you can't change who your family is since they will always be part of you.

I remember the day when I realized I couldn't call myself "white" and that I could associate myself with the "bubble" that my mother and father would have filled it. When you're a child you don't see color, you just see who your classmates are as individuals and don't judge them or predetermine how they should be based on their outside coating.

I think I'm come to an interesting point in my life where I don't feel like a "poser" or a "wannabe" because I want to identify myself as Latina and I want to make it clear that I am a bilingual Spanish speaker, hot spicy foods, and yes I can dance salsa circles around you and identify with J.Lo. Since now I have that REAL Latina family that I am part of ....but not all of them dance like J.Lo or even know how to dance salsa. All these expectations that at one point in my life I was at one point trying to live up to, I have now become and realized it doesn't matter. Yes, of course I am super glad I can speak Spanish...though with a Castellano Spanish accent from Madrid. All these Latino things that at one point I thought I to fulfill have become there own, and that is me.

I am all these things plus am addicted to NPR (This American Life is the bomb dot com) and the New York Times, love yoga, run marathons, love dog breeds that eat too much (beagles and corgis preferably) and live for the world of public health non-profit. And have recently been introduced to the addictive world of chess.

None of these things listed above are what I would call stereotypically "Latino."

You get older and grow into who you really are and it's a fantastic type of calm. I have to worry about it anymore since I am who I am and that's fabulous :)

But then still the world continues to judge you by the cultural environment you come from and the color of your skin, when to you that is no longer an issue. You just begin to wonder when will all these stop? When will the children in my rural South African village stop calling my "Lekgoa" (white person in English)? When I'm back in the U.S.?

I'm going to stop there but this picture I took as I was filling out my Annual Volunteer Survey, since it once again felt like how it was when I went to fill out the US Census. I just choose other, since really I am not 100% of any of those.

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Rainbow Nation

Today we did picture of a rainbow going over the country outlined as if it were the South African flag.

This is Mmaserame :) with hers.

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Acceptable forms of Corporal Punishment?

You know, this one doesn't seem so bad. The teacher is not hitting the child and then they learn how it feels to hurt and build some muscles.

Hmmm...still on the fence.


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Morning run :)

So I sort of promised some friends that I'd run the Soweto Marathon in a few weeks with them. I'll debating it given I haven't trained at all...

But, this morning I decided to go on a long excruciatingly painful run just to see if I had it in me. I probably ran only 8 to 10 miles (the sandy roads always throw me off my normal tar road pacing). I finished and felt greaaat, a little dehydrated but really good like I could run another 10 miles no problem, so should be ready if I do decide to run the marathon in 3 weeks.

But we'll see...it's a qualifier for the Two Oceans Marathhon which is the biggest pusher to get me to run.


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Nutrition Week kick-off!

We are kicking off Nutrition Week at our school :)

All the dramas, songs, poems, posters, newsletters, organization and hard work...have paid off! Here the program director of the nutrition programme speaks, tell us we're doing a great job!

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Birthday Love Like ...WOOoah!

Starting from about 11 PM on the 10th (the day before my bday) the phone started buzzing off the hook...I have the best friend and family (or at least the most connected friends and family) in the world. Through the day yesterday I started to receive phone calls, emails, Gchats, Whatsapp messages, FB messages and posts, YouTube videos, text messages from across the globe from over 8 different countries (US, Canada, Perú, España, Switzerland, South Africa, La República Dominicana, Brazil...shoo the list goes on).

By midday all the 2nd graders had sung me happy birthday in English and Setswana. I received hugs and blessings from students and staff. After working on a drama I wrote with the kids about nutrition for this large school programme I helped organized for some officials from the Northern Cape Department of Education, I left to visit Naomi. Naomi, my life skills counterpart, has been out of school following a surgery for over a month and she has my same birthday. I went with my friends Masego and DK, and we sat talking for hours about the school projects I was working on and gossip from school.

Soon it was dark and after a HHHHUUUGE slice of Bar One cake, I got a lift home through the dark in time to catch watching Generations (a South African soapie) with my host family. My host mother Thenjiwe was waiting for me with a tiny little vase filled with a few roses from the house garden.

After Generations, I signed onto Skype and talked with some friends back home who wanted to wish me happy birthday.

Even as I jumped into bed, my phone buzzed throughout the night.

What you realize after a day like this though at time you may feel very alone at site far away from your friends and family, yet despite the distance people still reach out to you to make you feel special. You my friends and family have been there for me, some more than others, but it gets me through the day and makes me smile. I couldn't feel luckier in this moment and more connected to some of you on the other side of the world. Thank you for being there and taking the moment to reach out to me :)

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School Programme

So yet again I've been put in charge of something which I'll be curious to see how it turn out...a School Nutrition Programme. I saw told that we needed to make posters and songs and dramas for the kids to perform for this people when they come from the State.

Everything is completely vague and obscure to what the real motive is. I looked at the sheet that had been faxed to the principal and it just looked like the role out of maybe a new way to present material to the kids. Yet some how from this they got that we need to put on a performance or as they say "programme." So I've drawn posters, made up scripts for the kids to do about good eating, written a newsletter for the event and then today I made an actual "programme" sheet. I showed this to the other teacher I've been working with and then told actually we're supposed to make that, "the district will come and tell us." Not very clear but ok....

Will be curious to see how Friday goes.



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Coooool time

When you're sitting in a hot taxi for several hours, sometimes the most relieving thing you can do for yourself, besides find the nearest cold shower, is reach out the taxi window with your hand and say: "1 Cool Time!" (This is of course while you wait for your Kombi taxi to fill at the taxi rank).

This was a life saver for me the other day as I sat heating up, my legs soaked in sweat and pasted to my seat, as I waited for the taxi to fill. I have a tendency to faint and when I've been dehydrated or lack of food or sugar I'm more vulnerable. So reached out the window and ask for Cool Time and bite open the plastic covering and that thing was gone in just minutes. I instantly felt out of the red zone and sat back as the taxi finally filled and rolled out of the rank onto the road and I listened to the John Legend that played on the radio. A cool breeze began to flow through my open window and it just felt soooo fabulous to feel comfortable in 100-degree Weather.

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Racing Feet

Contemplating running Comrades ultramarathon with a 56-miles course...

Just love this picture I took of my kids at the start of their cross-country meet.

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