Logistics of Life
Well as I’ve got some time on my hands, I thought I would answer some of the questions I’ve gotten about the logistics of life in GaMaja.
I have been here in GaMaja for 11 days now and spent all last week drawing a huge (3’x4’) map of the village. GaMaja is about 30km south on R37 from Polokwane, then about 10km east off R37. Apparently you can see the Chuene reservoir on Google Earth (at the corner of R37 and the GaMaja road). My house is about 10km east, just by a red and white cell tower. The big house is pink and we have a huge round water container just in front of my little white house. Let me know if you can find it on Google Earth!
Anyway, GaMaja is long and narrow, sitting along the north side of the mountains that run east/west right here. The next big town to the south is Lebowakgomo, which means “North Cow”! I can’t tell how many people live (nor does anyone seem to know) but I live in the Mosate region of GaMaja, which is where the chief lives. I have my own little house in the yard of a wonderful woman named Mma Pheladi. Pheladi is a fantastic older woman, who has worked as a primary school teacher and for the government developing curriculum. She and her husband, Serogole, have five grown up (very well educated) children and eight grandchildren. My house, like most in rural SA, has electricity but no running water. Our water comes from a tap just outside the yard. But because the tap is not always on, we also have a large metal container (not the one you might see from Google Earth) which sits right by my house. I have a pit latrine for a toilet and do all of my bathing in my room in a large basin (2’x18’’x1’) with about 2.5” of water. [There is a bit of strategy to this. Start at the top and work your way down. When it comes time for your lower half, go a head and stand in the basin. Surprisingly effective!] I also do all of my cooking in my room. I have a two burner electric hot plate, two basins (to wash dishes/be the sink) and an electric hot water kettle. I use the frig in the big house, and, because our furniture has yet to be delivered, store everything else in boxes. (Luckily I have a bed from Pheladi and a table I wrestled away from the school). All the trash gets burned, and we’ve got about 10 cows in a pen (or kraal) in the front yard.
One of the most amazing things to me is that all of the cows and goats in the village leaving their kraals every day at dawn, go out into the bush to feed and return back to their kraals at sundown. All with no human help! It’s amazing. ( FYI: the cows come home at about 6pm, hahaha!) We have one cow with a new calf, which tried to run me down while I carried in water the other day! Luckily I made it to my porch, but then she walked around behind my house and stood right at my window! I think we’ve come to an understanding now, I give her my food scraps and she doesn’t stare menacingly into my house. A few other people have cattle (a sign of wealth), but mostly people have chickens and goats. By the way in case you didn’t know, roosters crow all day long, starting at about 4am! Not cool.
The scenery here looks a lot like NM or AZ. It’s very dry, with big cacti and thorny trees. But the purple Jacaranda trees have just bloomed (as its spring now) and I have heard that it gets very green when the rains come.
I have been assigned to two schools with in about a km hike from my house. The lower primary school, grades K-4, has about 200 learners and nine teachers. The higher primary school, grades 5-7, has about 120 learners and four teachers. The actual buildings are made like everything else in town (including my house) of cement bricks, which are plastered and painted, with sealed cement floors and tin roofs. The classrooms have between 30 and 50 learners per class (low for SA), and not much, if anything, on the walls. Both schools have several very old computers that no one knows how to use.
For the next three months I am doing community integration work that PC has assigned, but I think that I will end up teaching teachers how to use computers, helping develop/improve the school gardens (which feed learners during the day), organizing/improving/creating school libraries and helping teachers update their teaching and classroom management skills. I think I will definitely be busy once all these projects get started!
GaMaja is hosting a girls’ initiation school this week for the first time in ten years! From my house I can see the tents they have set up and can hear them singing and drumming. Its purpose is to teach girls about becoming women. (Boys initiation school is held every winter and is followed by circumcision.) But I have been repeatedly warned that part of the things this week with include women painted white, called Kleklekle, who run around the village and beat people with sticks if they are in the streets. So I am suppose to stay in my yard or have an escort through the village for the next few days. I am not sure what the cultural significance is of the Kleklekle but I don’t want to get beat up, so I think I will stay out of their way!
I have been getting a chance to do some yoga everyday, but am running out of sequences/ideas. So if you wanted to pass on any good sequences you know about, or cut outs from yoga magazines- that would be awesome! Also, I would love any new-to-me music or audio books you might have lying around! Cheers!
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