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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