MS. IN-BETWEEN

This post, as are many of them, is mainly a journal for my own record-keeping, so readers will likely find it a bit boring or maybe repetitive.

As I know I have indicated in previous blogs, my life as a Peace Corps (Response) Volunteer this time around is so totally different that when I was a regular volunteer in Morocco 6 years ago (and that of the PCVs here in SA).  In many ways, much easier and nicer, in many other ways, much more difficult and unpleasant.

It is great to have hot showers and flush toilets, a wide variety of things to buy in very modern stores, the ability to go to movies and a church.

The one thing that I am showing you here is the thing I DO have a bit in common with most South African PCVs is the way clothes are laundered.  They use a big plastic tub and generally have a clothes line in their host family's yard.  I have my kitchen sink and a little clothes rack I bought.   Initially, I hired my landlady's "helper" two days a month to do my laundry (since housecleaning was for the same cost, she also did that, kind of).  But that entailed using my landlady's washing machine and clothes line, and just didn't work out too  great.  And, I wasn't keen on the cost.  It was cheap by U. S. standards but not by PC stipend.  There are no laundromats in this area, so to take it to a laundry entailed getting hired transport, so came to terms that hand wash was the way to go.  It's a very long process, as you can see...one sheet at a time, a few articles of clothing, etc.  But, here I wear the same outfit at least 3 times (at home clothes even more).  Since I really do have a lot of time on my hands, it's really quite workable.  And inexpensive!

My washing "machine"

My clothes dryer

But what is a bit bothersome is that I really don't fit in the world of the people that live in this neighborhood...which is upper middle class, I'd say.  Most of them work, have one-two cars, and domestics who live on site or come daily or a few times a week to clean house, cook, care for the children, walk the dogs, do the gardening, etc.  During the week when I am walking in the area, I see a few (white) residents walking their dogs or strollers, but the majority of those outside the walls (as most homes are walled) are the domestics.

Financially, my PC stipend is far beyond their compensation, I am sure, but much below that of the neighborhood.  Because of my working during the week and the walls, there really has been no way for me to meet anyone so it is not at all like the village sense of community.  The only person who has asked me to dinner has been my counterpart, Tshidi, who drove an hour in from Soweto (which area I believe I was not to ever go to) to fetch me, cooked for me, then brought me back home.  If I were in a village, I probably would have more invitations than I would want!

I also am in no-woman's land with the Peace Corps.  I am a Volunteer with them, but for the most part am outside their radar...and I can understand that and the reason why, but it doesn't change the fact that I have very little connection/networking there either.

So it's been a time of isolation for me, but as with all life experiences, another learning time from which I have derived benefits.