One week.

I survived my first week on my own, at my new volunteer “job,” in a new home. It wasn’t that easy I must admit and not for the reasons that you might initially think. No, I don’t have running water in my house/room. No running water also means I don’t have a toilet and walk outside to my pit latrine (which is missing a door) to use the bathroom. Plus, it’s terribly hot right now (and apparently for most of the year) in Limpopo. The bugs can be a bit overwhelming at times whether it’s a cockroach or the ants or a giant mosquito (or a visiting toad) all swarming and crawling around in unnecessary places. Washing clothes means they are done by hand in buckets (actually washing anything is by hand in buckets – clothes, dishes, me). Lots of buckets and filling and dumping of water.

But this was all quite tolerable compared to the challenge of making connections. It’s really hard to be not only the new person in town who can’t yet speak Sepedi (and of course I am the only white person which causes me to stand out). It’s difficult to not hear what is being said to or about me and I was really frustrated all week with the language barrier. It’s so hard for me to hear words in the context of conversations when everyone is speaking so darn fast (plus all I can really say is hello, my name is Lethabo, and that I slept well). I just hope that what my few friends in the village are telling me is true which is that I will eventually start to hear the language (and they promise to help me learn). I hope I can start to hear it soon or else I really might go crazy. Being left out of one more conversation is far worse than any bucket bath. But, just so you can see, here are a few pictures of my new home.  Ga ke tla bolele Sepedi mara ke ithuta (I don’t speak Sepedi but I will learn).  If it kills me and takes the entire 2 years.

Wherever you go, there you are...welcome to my new home in South Africa!