SA entry3: Running Water

You never really think about things that you have either ALWAYS had or NEVER had. For example: Running water.
While living in South Africa I knew there would be some challenges. Explaining vegetarianism to people who eat whatever they can, not knowing where their next meal will come from, for example. Also, trying to explain why I don't want to go to church with my host families. One thing that I knew about ahead of time, but didn't expect to be a big deal, was running water.

Of course I was prepared for using a pit toilet, taking a bucket bath and filtering my drinking water ahead of time. Its the little things though, things you don't think about until you have to.

These things include something as simple as dropping a raw egg on the floor. No big deal right? Not if you don't have a faucet to rinse the rag, rewipe the floor, rinse again, wipe again etc. You instead just rub raw egg into the floor over and over. The rag becomes disgustinly slimy and the egg doesn't seem to go anywhere. You can try to rinse the rag in a bowl of sitting water, but it doesn't help much.

Another thing that developed countries wouldn't think twice about is dying your hair. My friend Sherry and I decided to help each other dye our hair one night. Good thing their were two of us there! First Sherry dyed my hair. Using henna. Which apparently is a mud like substance??? Or else it was just old, not really sure on that one. Anyway, she helped me cake the mud into my hair, while it was sitting I started dying her hair. No problem there. When it's time to rinse, there's a problem. Normally you would just jump in the shower and wait until the water starts running clear. OOps, guess we forgot about that part. I held my head over a bucket and Sherry poured water over my head. The water was extrememly muddy and brown and my hair was still caked with the stuff. I don't know how long it took, how many cups of water we had to dump on one side of my head, turn my head, dump more water, turn my head, dump more water, turn my head, dump more water, you get the point. We had to take the bucket outside several times to dump it, get more water from the 3 gallon jugs sitting outside. It just felt so wasteful compared to the bucket baths we had gotten used to taking. Then we still had to rinse the dye out of Sherry's hair too!!! Eish.

But the day I decided to write this blog was the day that I cut my finger while slicing a tomato. Unfortunately I cut a small chunk from my finger and created a gushing wound. This wound did not want to stop bleeding with pressure. I was making quite the mess and just wanted to run my finger under some cold water. Not an option in rural villages. I had a bowl on the floor which I usually used to wash my dishes in. At the moment the bowl was empty, so I put some unfiltered, salty water into the bowl and stuck my finger in it. The bowl immediately filled with red and the salty water went into my wound. I pulled my finger out and it was still bleeding! I put it back in, and waited. When I pulled my hand out, my whole hand was stained red and I was still bleeding. Finally I just put a banaid over the cut and waited for it to clot. It finally did.

How much easier all of these experinces would have been had I just had some running water. But there are people who spend their entire lives without running water. So how do they cope? Do they know that things might be easier WITH running water, or would it confuse them as to how to deal with certain situations that they are used to?

SA entry2: Spring is in the air

It's actually been slightly chilly here the last couple of days. It has been raining at night and windy during the day. Today the clouds all happen to be gray, seeming to promise another evening of rain.
On my way to school today, a dog crossed the road in front of us with a small pup struggling to keep up. I vocalized my thoughts on how cute that was while the others in the car laughed. They admire my affection for animals here, but they don't share it with me.
While walking home from school, I came across several baby chicks, 6 piglets and 1 calf, stopping to say hello to each of them.
So as you can see, it must be spring because there are so many babies running around now. The point of this blog today is to talk about one of these newborns in particular. I wish it was my newborn nephew in America that I was going to tell you about, but as I haven't met him yet, I don't have much to say.
No, this "baby" is the small scorpion I found in my room this morning while getting ready to leave for school. I'm calling it a baby because it was small, whether or not it was truly a baby, I can't say. I'm just trying to stick with the theme of spring here. Now, for those of us who know anything about scorpions, or for those who have been fortunate enough to see the newest Indiana Jones movie know that, "when it comes to scorpions, the bigger the better kid!"
Back to this "baby" or SMALL scorpion in my room! Lucky for me, I have recently become an expert on the less inticing creatures of South Africa. You see, there are some Australians that work with one of my schools. They come once a year and stay for a week. They bring all kinds of fun things for the teachers and students to use and make their educational practices better. When the Aussies showed up 2 weeks ago, they were surprised to find an American Peace Corps volunteer working at "their school". However, they were very excited to now have a contact here that they can keep in touch with and find out information about what the schools biggest needs and challenges are. So to commemorate this happy occasion of our union, they offered to take me out for the day. They understood that I don't make much money and the Australian dollar is doing quite well right now, so they said they would pay for all of my expenses on this excursion. I happily accepted and we made arrangements to leave the next day after school. They didn't tell me what we would be doing or I may not have gone...
We ended up at a reptile park. Having seen both Aracnophobia and Anaconda, I wasn't excited. But never the less, these were my new best friends and I couldn't complain.
We were introduced to Chris who was immediately dubbed "The Crocodile Hunter of South Africa". A nice young man born in Joburg who is living his life's dream working with the scariest of creatures.
Chris decided to start with the "less scary" creatures as he called them, which included spiders and scorpions. He confirmed that Indy was correct in saying the bigger the better. He showed us a massive scorpion and even gave us lucky souls a chance to hold the blessed creature!
"Don't worry", he said, "if it stings you, it's only about 1/5 the pain of a beesting". Lovely! This thing might actually sting us! But it came down to peer pressure and my new friends talked me into holding it. Chris pointed out to us the large pincers. He said because this scorpion has strong pincers, it doesnt need poison to sting it's prey, it can just grab it and eat. So this one was of no threat to us. Now this isn't ALWAYS the case as he showed us another fairly large beast that was poisonous, however, you could see that it's pincers were much smaller.
Back to the one in my room. The actual body was quite small. Bigger than your average spider but small compared to the scorpion I had held 2 weeks earlier. So I decided I wanted a closer look to assess this situation. I took a photo that will come later. The tail (or stinger if you will) was the same size as the body if not bigger. That's where they keep the poison! The pincers or claws, were microscopic.
Oh God, I'm about to die!!!
Now he (or she, I didnt get THAT close) was just sitting next to my shoe. It wasn't moving and it's tail was hanging to one side. I thought it might possibly be dead, so I grabbed my small hand broom and dust pan to sweep it up and throw it outside (karmic law wouldn't let me kill it, so I was hoping that it truly was already dead).
OOOps, it wasn't dead, it ran under my bed.
I went outside to tell my host family about this life or death situation that had presented itself. "Um, there's like a scorpion in my room, and I'm not going back in there until it's gone. Thanks."
My host sister, being the brave soul that she is, grabbed the broom. Unfortunately I had to go back in with her. I never knew scorpions could climb walls! I looked under the bed and didn't see it. Luckily she was even more of an expert in this matter than I was. She told me to move the bed and there he (she) was in the corner starting to climb. She wacked it with the broom and swept it out. Half of me felt bad that she had to kill it, but I got over it when she said, "oh, that's the one with the strongest poison!" and walked off to finish her laundry.

SA entry1: Chicken Licken

I was extremely excited when I was nominated to go to a country which is vegetarian friendly. I had heard rumors about developing countries and their diets. I was asked how I would handle a situation if goat meat was put on a table in front of me. I was told it would be rude to turn down something which was the only thing these people could offer. It would be a possibility that the animal would be slaughtered in my honor. Would I be okay with that? Would I be okay if I was, so to speak, the reason for a being to lose its life???
NO, absolutely not! Thank God for South Africa.
Now just because I say this country is vegetarian friendly, that doesnt mean that this is the best place for animal lovers. It could possibly be one of the worst.
Donkeys pulling a cart in the hot, hot sun. Dogs so scared of humans you can't get within 5 ft of them. If you do find a dog willing to come close to you, you will most likely find that the dog is a breeding ground for ticks, fleas and lice.
At every celebration here, you will find animals have been slaughtered in honor of something or other. There is also the famous braai which is South African barbeque at it's finest. Most families have chickens at the home. These chickens are not there to provide the family with eggs, but with meat.
Now I have been very lucky here. Whenever I explain my dietary preferences the locals are extremely accepting and somewhat understanding. There is always the question of "why" and the follow up of "what do you eat if you don't eat meat?" but once I explain that I eat everything except meat (and fish IS meat, just in case you're wondering)they leave me alone and let me eat in peace.
Last week I was invited to partake in school lunch with my counterparts. I thought this would be a great bonding opportunity. Now, I have meals all the time with people around me eating meat. It's never been a problem. This particular day however, was different.
Some spinach was prepared especially for me to eat with pap (a staple here made from cornmeal) and everyone else was enjoying their pap with chicken. Now I know I should be happy that NOTHING goes to waste here, because if you are going to kill something, I feel you should use every last part of it.
That's exactly what they do.
While I was enjoying my spinach and pap, I looked at some of the other plates around me and felt my spinach starting to come back up. There on the table was every part of the chicken scattered among the plates. One woman was slurping up an intestine while another nibbled on a foot. When you can actually see the animal on a plate it's quite upsetting.
It's really, truly great that everything can be used and enjoyed, but I have to say, I am so happy to be vegetarian and I am happy that they understand my being vegetarian, because if I wasn't, I know they would be giving me all of those yummy delicacies to try!
Namaste