Pap is Pap

It's always comforting when your current surroundings remind you of something pleasant and/or familiar from the past. Take for example pap. In the Kingdom of Swaziland, it is the staple of their meals. What they call "pap" here is maize, that is prepared in various ways. It can be made into a sour porridge called ingcwangcwa, a soft porridge that just tastes like gruel, or a hard porridge which tastes like a corn dough. Pap (밥) is also the staple of meals in Korean society. What they call "pap" there is rice, and it is eaten at all 3 meals.

Just little familiarities like that make me smile. There aren't many other similarities in the way of life between here and other places I've lived.

Not having running water is a big one. I'm slowly adjusting to bucket baths, but am still considering chopping my hair off so I wouldn't have to deal with so much of it. Having to boil and filter any water I come into contact with before drinking it has also taken some getting used to, but not as bad as I imagined at first. Red dust is all over the place, and I scrub my feet every night, leaving the water red after. Surprisingly, I've gotten used to it all quite quickly.

Having to wear a skirt every day is also something I've never been forced to do before. It also is another thing that bothers me a lot less than i thought it would. Ive never worn skirts much in the past, but I'm usually ok with it. I thought we'd all look like a gypsy caravan in our thrown together getups, but some girls make it look so cute in the "Swazi female volunteer style". Cute enough to make me want to start a volunteer fashion blog to keep track of all the nice outfits.

My sleep cycle is way off, too. Asleep usually by 8pm, up my 4:30am.

Despite all that, I'm definitely getting into the groove of life here. Tons of cute kids around my homestead to play with, geckos crawling around my walls (self sufficient pets, I say), learning siSwati, a beautiful vista to take in, and 40 awesome people to take it in with. I've been told by the previous groups that it's a miracle none of us have dropped out yet at 17 days. In previous years, at least one person has ET'd (early termination) by this point. I think that's awesome, and I hope w e all make it through training (the first 9 weeks) and integration (the following 3 months). Some days I feel like Maria singing "the hills are alive with the sound of music".

Lastly, a few extra details on my homestead. I live in a very large family right beside a river. There are great grandparents to great grand kids. 2 of the first generation Gama, 1 of their 5 kids lives there, 10ish of their grand kids, and 2 great grand kids. I've so far identified 3 other homesteads that have Gamas living in them around us.

I have my own little two-room on the homestead. The house is a spare house for old furniture they don't use anymore, so it's pretty full. I have a living room and bedroom. There's electricity but no running water.

Taylor is my closet neighbor, and when I'm not chilling with my family, I'm hanging out with her's.

Welcome to Swaziland

Just checking in so that everyone knows I arrived safely. Loving Swaziland so far. The country is beautiful. Nights are hoodie weather and days are tshirt weather (it's winter here). The people (volunteers, staff, and Swazi people) have all been great so far.

The training center is definitely luxurious by Swazi standards. Lauren and I are sharing a room. There's nice, soft beds. We have hot showers AND heating for nights. We move into villages on Monday, but I'm looking forward to the transition.

Here's a short rundown of how we got here:
Tuesday (June 26) began with mom giving me a ride to Center City (Philadelphia) at 9am. I spent the morning chilling with volunteers and meeting people as they've arrived from the airport. At 2pm, we started staging, and went straight to 7pm. There was a lot of info, and a lot of get-to-know-you stuff for the volunteers. At 7:30, they assigned 6 group leaders and I was one of them.

I went with a few others down to South Street for my last pizza fries at Steaks On South. The others got cheese steak. I was in bed at 10:30pm and back outta bed at 2am. By two, we had to be packed and ready to go. 2:30am, we were on the bus, and off to JFK airport and arrived around 4:30am. All along the way, us group leaders were counting the others to make sure everyone was there because no staff took the flight with us. Check-in didn't start until 7am, so we were just chatting, playing games, and sleeping in front of the South African Airlines check-in counter.

The flight was at 11:15am and took 15 1/2 hours. We arrived Thursday (June 28) morning and were met by local staff and a couple current volunteers. The only stops on the bus ride were lunch at Steers (the South African McDonalds) and the South African-Swazi border. We arrived at 6pm with enough time to check-in, eat dinner, and pass out.

The past two days have just been non-stop health info, country info, and language instruction. We're all exhausted, but enthusiastic! More to come later.

One week left!

I can't believe that a week from right now, I'll be sitting at JFK airport, waiting to depart to Johannesburg airport. That is the first stop in our journey.

So a little update... here's what's going down next week. Next Tuesday morning (the 26th), mom's driving me down to Center City, because staging is in PHILLY! A day of orienting, vaccinations, etc. Then prolly followed by a night of stuffing our faces full of American food (I got S.O.S's pizza fries on the brain) and some sight seeing maybe.

At 2:30am Wednesday (27th), we're off for JFK airport. We'll arrive at JFK around 4:30am. The plane is at 11:15am. We arrive the morning of the 28th in Johannesburg. They'll give us a chance to change into something a little nicer from plane clothes. Then a 4-5 hour bus ride to Mbabane, the capital of Swaziland. So yeah.... about 2 days in transit for that.

At this point, I'm pretty much all packed except for some stuff I'm waiting on from Amazon. I made the stupid mistake of sending it to Normal instead of Philly, so now I had to rebuy everything. They said the easiest thing to do would be to rebuy it, and have the roomies reject the packages in Normal. When Amazon gets those back from there, they would refund me. Also, I'm going to pick up some prescriptions sunglasses today I ordered cause I decided not to wear contacts in Swaziland.

I made some new business cards made up for myself for networking.

And lastly, here's my temporary address for the first 9 weeks while we're in training. Send me stuff!!!!

Danni Shtraus

Peace Corps Swaziland
Box 2797
Mbabane H100
Swaziland
AFRICA

"Go slow! You're not in New York, anymore!"

"Go slow." Something that was called to me often during my week long stay on the beach paradise in Caye Caulker, Belize. It was the perfect beginning to my winter break Central America trip, because I'm not the kind of person who's good at going slow. I like walking fast, and I'm always in a hurry to get somewhere, never really taking in my surroundings and enjoying the moment. Learning to go allowed me to stay a few extra days in a town I liked.

And then I came back from winter break this semester, and back into the thick of things. Everything moves so fast. It feels like time has absolutely FLOWN since August when I first became a grad student, and am now just waiting to finish up classes and start my Peace Corps in just three months!

It's funny that here in Normal everyone else moves so fast that my friends here think I actually walk pretty slow, talk pretty slow, move pretty slow. But I've been taking it all the wrong way. As if these qualities I've been striving for the past couple years I've now become embarrassed of. While I used to practice talking slower and clearer, and moving slower and more calm, these are things I've once again come to take for granted in the United States.

Well it's not the way for me. In Swaziland, I'm sure things will be a lot slower, and so I wanna start here and now. Focus on stressing less about school, which after the exam this morning, and paper I've turned in this afternoon, I've officially hit the halfway mark. Just a little bit left to go, and it's really not that important in the scope of what's ahead. The next exciting chapter in my life, a new continent to conquer. I just need to concentrate and get it out of the way, and then back to "going slow" for me. =)

Sawubona! (hello)

It's official! I got SWAZILAND!!! Now... time to work on my siSwati. =D

The invitation arrived on Thursday when I was in Chicago, and Greg texted me to tell me it arrived at the house. I told him not to open it, but then Buj went to look at it and said that you can see the invitation without even opening it, and it said Swaziland... So yeah, no surprise for me....

The roommate wall of Peace Corps invitation packaging for Buj, Greg, and me.