Site Placement News and Minor Miracles

Hey everyone!
It's been a crazy couple of weeks since I last emailed. I can't tell you what a miracle it was that my email actually went out to you guys! I spent one hour consecutively trying to get my blog to work, Yahoo to work, and typing out my email, and nothing was working. Yahoo wouldn't send anything, and as time was running out, I clicked "Send" for the 15th time and got a "This page cannot be displayed" response, and then the screen went blank. So, it was only two days ago when I got some letters that I realized that my email was indeed sent. Yay for minor miracles!

So thanks for all the responses. I'll try to answer as many questions here and if there's time, then I'll send some personal responses. You have no idea how happy I am to hear from you, in either email and letter form. You guys make my day!!!

First things first. Just so you know, I am indeed using toilet paper. I consider it to be just this side of a necessity, and Peace Corps provides it to us, and when I run out, I buy some more. My family has started using it now because it's softer than their version; they basically use scrap paper for themselves. In our pit toilet, they have old magazines that they use (although it does provide reading material for me when I need it, and I can tell you that Tyra Banks is more popular than Angelina Jolie in South Africa, just in case you were wondering).

Second: my emotional status. I am doing well, and things keep getting better and better, with the occasional bump in the road. We finally found out the basic information about our site placement yesterday, and there are now 50 of us at the internet cafe writing frantically back home. I was lucky to get here first and bought an hour and a half of time, which seems like a total luxury!

So, what is my site placement, you ask??? Well, unfortunately, all the finger crossing that you guys did didn't help. Maybe it doesn't travel across the ocean very well. However, I think I have an awesome site, very close to Kruger National Park in Mpumalanga (not Limpopo). I'll be living in a small two-room house in a small village named Shatale, and the nearest "big" city is Bushbuckridge. It used to be a part of Limpopo Province, so a lot of maps of Mpumalanga don't include it, but if you want to read some tourist propaganda that will make you want to visit me, here you go: www.sa-venues.com/mpumalanga.htm. This is both a touristy and poor area, so if you are scared of creepy-crawlies, there are nice hotels, and if you want to get off the beaten path and experience how the majority of Africans live (I promise I'll provide toilet paper! However, no promises of showers yet), you can do that, too.

I think my MSW kind of worked against me from getting the placement that I wanted because my site is a child welfare organization that (I guess) needed someone with my qualifications to help train social work students. It's tough to know exactly how Peace Corps works, and a lot of people got assignments that they are struggling with. And some are happy as clams, so it all depends. I was disappointed at first, but there is a lot of potential for me to work with youth and help the next generations of social workers and South Africans. Change is happening so rapidly here, and the youth and children provide the best opportunity to make changes for the better, so I'm excited to help with that. Hopefully, I'll be able to help with NGOs or other organizations on the side.

Next week we'll be traveling to our site, so I'll have a lot more news after that. Again, I don't know my next internet cafe excursion. Maybe there will be internet at my site! After September 20th, I should have a cell phone, which hopefully will mean internet access on demand (but very slow). Then I can also receive phone calls (check into Skype. You can call my cell phone from your computer) and other fun things.

In the meantime, keep me in your thoughts, emails and letters are appreciated, and I'll be in touch soon!