1. X-mas/ New Years:
I actually got to talk to a lot of you during x-mas and new years since I spent most of that time staying at the Ambassador's residence taking care of their puppy/house sitting. Originally there were just going to be a few of us for X-mas dinner but a number of volunteers' plans fell through so I made dinner for about 8 of us. It was really nice. I made a ton of food; including a leg of lamb which I was very proud of and a delicious Peace Cobbler which was a definite hit. Sorry there aren't more pictures but my battery was dead and I forgot the charger. New Years was nice and simple; it was just me and one other volunteer at the Ambassador's. We played board games and drinking games and made Jello shot jigglers in x-mas shapes. That was cool.
Note: Sorry; was gonna load pics from x-mas but they're too big...will do it when I'm not paying for internet :-); oh, and same for Egypt Pics
2. Supervisor Insanity:
After the Holidays I headed back to site to find that my supervisor had lost her mind. She was always a generally nice person but never very personable. Not like the other nurses who'd invite me over and try to get to know me. I just assumed that she was someone who liked to keep to herself; but the day after the inauguration I learned that this was not the case.
She'd offered to let me share her refrigerator at the clinic which I accepted. She's very weird about locking the fridge. I'm not sure who she thinks is going to steal her food but; yeah... anyhoo she had two keys. She gave me one and kept the other. The morning after the inauguration she sent me a txt message saying that she'd lost her key and would I bring her mine. At the time, I was in Maseru and sent her a message back letting her know where I was and that I would bring her the key as soon as I got back to the clinic. When I returned to the clinic and asked where she was, I was told she was busy with patients so I said I'd come back later.
Now; hindsight being 20/20 I could have just left the key with one of the other nurses but I didn't think of it. I had every intention of going back. I went to my house and promptly fell asleep. At about 4:30 I hear a knock at my door and it's one of the men from the clinic telling me that my supervisor wants to see me. I assume she wants her key back. I go to her door and immediately she starts yelling at me. Telling me that I've “disrespected” her by not returning her key when she asked for it. I won't go into it all but she yells at me to the point that I'm in tears and demands that I take my things out of her fridge. She tells me that she doesn't care if I'm sorry; nor does she care what I do with my food; when I point out to her that I don't have anywhere else to put it and that it will go bad.
I then leave her house in tears planning to take my food out of the fridge. One of the other nurses sees me and calls me into her house. I explain what happened and she goes to the Supervisor trying and smooth things over or at least figure out what really is wrong with this woman. That only makes the situation worse. My Supervisor storms into the other nurses house demanding her key and refuses to discuss it any further. The other nurses have no idea what to do. So, at this point I don't have my food and no way to get it. The next day, one of the nurses tells me that she talked to my Supervisor and convinced her to let me use the fridge until my food was gone. It all just gets worse from there. She began to treat me like a red-headed step child as my Mother might say. None of the project ideas that I present to her are approved. She began only speaking to me in Sesotho because apparently after being here for 8 months I should be able to speak to the language fluently. Peace Corps came out to talk to her but things never got better. Last week I made the final decision with my APCD (Assistant Peace Corps Country Director) to stop working at the clinic; at least until the new Supervisor starts in June.
The whole experience has been a bit of a nightmare. I feel like I was being a bit naïve thinking this woman was nice initially. I've always considered myself a pretty good judge of character but she just kinda came out of nowhere. I keep telling myself I need to focus on the good things happening at my site. Other things are going really well. My Library is coming along slowly but surely. I have a youth group that's also doing really well; I have a study group helping some of the High School students with English and I've started to work with World Vision. I'd really like to continue with my work and ideas for the clinic and it sucks that this woman is preventing me from doing that but I'm trying to be positive.
3. Egypt:
After Peace Corps met with my evil Supervisor I was happy that my Egypt trip was just around the corner. It was definitely a world wind Adventure. I met the other folks at the Jo'burg airport and we took the red eye to Cairo. We arrived at about 5am and thought we would have some time to sleep a bit; but nope. We got our VISA's, headed for the hotel and went straight into the touring after discussing some additions to the tour. We pretty much saw everything you'd want to see in Egypt; swam in the Red Sea, ate some amazing food and had a great time. It was a little bitter sweet for me to see all my friends from Kenya only to say good-bye to them such a short time later; especially since they're all leaving Peace Corps Botswana in a few months time. But it was great to see them all.
Everyone keeps asking me what my favorite part of the trip was and I guess I'll have to go with seeing the Pyramids and riding the camels. I think I kept trying to convince myself that I wasn't dreaming the entire time. Here are a couple of pictures from the trip. I've posted the rest of them on flickr : Maya's Egypt Pics and here are some pics from one of my other travel companions: Shannon's Pics Enjoy!
4. Back to Lesotho:
Since I've been back from Egypt I've tried to get back to the grind of things. And like I've said before things are going okay. I do find myself staying in my little house more often than I should these days. It's hard when you don't have something that you're suppose to do every single day for a few hours. I need to push myself a bit more to get things done. I've made a list of all the stuff I wanna do and am trying to get back into my running/pilates routine again. I did go to Bloemfontein last weekend to try and be more social with the other volunteers. I had a good time watching movies and eating good food and I did get to know a few volunteers a bit better; so that was nice. Unfortunately, being in South Africa is a little like going back in time 60 years back home for me. I know there's still racism back in the States but it's a completely different story when you have to deal with it directly. I guess I've been a little naïve in that respect as well.
Well; that's all for now. And I always say I'll try to write more often but now since I finally got the internet to work on my computer; it's a bit more likely. Hope everyone else is doing well back home. I miss you all!!
-Maya :-)
3 comments:
I love these mash-up posts!
1. Aw, Christmas dinner sounded yummy. Where do you shop? Are there outdoor markets or supermarkets?
2. That sucks about the supervisor situation.
3. Egypt pics were awesome. I didn't know you kids went swimmin'. Is it really easier to float in the Dead Sea?
4. That sucks about Bloemfontain. Sociologically, I'm curious how racism there compares/contrasts the US, like the deep south, since their precursors were so different.
Miss you too. You still haven't received my letter? Dude, I'll just email it to you, if you want.
1. Yes t'was yumminess. We shop at this place called Shoprite; for the most part. It's just a regular Grocery Store. Nothing too exciting there.
2. Swimming in the Red Sea was very very very very salty and I was too busy trying to keep my eyes from burning from the salt water; to notice about the floating part. But I don't recall having to try much like I do in a swimming pool; so probably.
4. Yeah I thought you might be interested in the sociological aspects of SA compared to America. I'll try to inlcude some more stuff about that in my blog for ya. I'll try to wait around a couple more weeks for your letter and then let you know if I want u to just email it to me. It'll come. It just takes 20 years sometimes. When did you send it?
I think I sent the letter at the end of January. It was kind of thick so they had to weigh it this time. Normally, they put a 90 cent stamp on and call it a day.
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