Top Photos

I have the opportunity to get some photos uploaded on blog for first time since arrival. They span from my first homestay until present. Have a great day!

Phalhane Family (Homestay during PST)

Corrabo (sitting on lap), Mpho(me), Coco Pauline,

and Baba Temple

Corrabo upclose. The tear is from being tired, not crying.

Radebe Family: (row 1) Busiswe, Ntokozo, Dumisani (row 2) Mama Katherine, Baba Alfred, Dumi

My homemade wall art

and another...

Ntokozo and Busi

Bucket Bath, sink to wash dishes, washing machine, and more...

My New South African Lifestyle

SA has brought many new experiences. Among those have been changes in my daily routines and habits. I have kept an ongoing list in my journal and wanted to share to give a better sense of what some of these changes have been. Here you go...

1. Making fire to boil bath water
2. Bucket Baths
3. Washing & rinsing cloths by hand
4. An all-in-one bucket to wash dishes, body, and clothes (not to mention a few other functional things I won’t mention here)
5. Eating cow intestines
6. Eating cow brain
7. Eating worms
8. Using my feet as my only mode of transportation (other than taxis for trips to town to get food)
9. Using books and writing as my main form of entertainment
10. Redefining how to conserve water (one cup of H20 goes along way for this PCV)
11. Fetching water from the tap
12. Pit latrine (enough said)
13. Conserving toilet paper
14. Coffee, tea, coffee, tea, and more coffee….ahh is this heaven
15. Winning the battle against the cockroaches!
16. Cooking over fire
17. Sketching
18. Playing harmonica
19. Speaking IsiNdebele
…and the list continues everyday…

Although the list may be deceiving, I am truly loving every minute my new South African lifestyle and all the adventures it has brought thus far!

Destination Mountainview: My New Home

The time is starting to really pick up now that I am at my permanent site. I am finding my transition to my new home to be quite smooth and effortless. My new family consists of my mother and father, Katherine and Alfred (their Christian names), 13 year old brother, Dumisani, 11 year old sister, Ntokozo, and 9 year old sister, Busisiwe, or Busi for short. My family gave me a new South African name, Dumi. Dumi is short for Dumisani, meaning “praise.” They wanted to shorten it to Dumi because I am now their first born. So I go by Dumi and or Mpho, my former South African name given to me by my first host family, meaning “gift.” Both of my parents are educators at the middle school level. My father also serves as pastor at the family’s church. They are wonderful to me and have helped immensely with the transition.

My home or room is a 15ftx15ft dwelling. It is quaint and I am in the process of doing some homemade decorating to make it my own. My actual family lives in a house that is separate from my room, which has been nice for me to have my own space as well as sharing the common space. Like many rural villages, my home has electricity; however there are many brown outs, as the electricity in SA isn’t regulated. I have to fetch water from an outdoor tap and store it in a 5 gallon bucket in my room. Purposes of the bucket include, bathing water, cooking water, brushing teeth, mopping floor, and just about everything else.

I have truly embraced the everyday routines taken for granted in the states, such as, taking a bucket bath, hand washing my clothes, fetching water from a tap, using an outdoor pit latrine. Many of these routines have become therapeutic for me in SA. For example, when I am doing my “washing” on Sundays, it is a time of to reflect and relax. It is somewhat like painting, thoughtless. Unlike other PCVs who are using their family’s washing machines or dreading washing their clothes or taking a bucket bath, I have enjoyed the new lifestyle.

I am currently working with one school grades R (kindergarten)-9th grade. It is a combined primary and middle school. There are 1,300 learners making us the highest enrolled school in our circuit of 21 schools. The school has grown so much that there is a new school being built for 7-9th grades. The new school is set to open sometime next year. When this opens I will also be working with the middle school. I am anxiously awaiting its opening and excited about being involved in the process of a new school. I hope to get some photos uploaded to my picasa web albums for viewing, as I am having problems uploading them on my blog. Apologies.

I have a bit more connection to internet so I hope to post updates more frequently. I wanted to thank everyone who has sent me letters/packages again. They have been wonderful support and provided uplifting moments.

My New Address

The following is my new address for the next two years. You can now send directly to this address and I will recieve it at my post office near my village. Make the most of your day!

Adam Karsten
c/o Kgantsho Primary School
P.O. Box 20217
KwaMhlanga 1022
Mpumalanga, South Africa

Same information applies for sending as I stated below with my old address. Ngiyathokoza! (Thanks)

Lotjhani...its been sometime now...

Lotjhani (hello in my new mother tongue IsiNdebele). It is nice to be able to update my blog for everyone who has been asking. It is overwhelming to try and capture all of my experience in just one blog or letter for that matter. So I am going to take the same approach I have with Meredith and blog according to chunks of information and experiences so I can capture more detail and not generalize.
I have officially began my new life as a PCV, Peace Corps Volunteer. After being sworn in as a PCV last Friday, by the US Ambassador to SA, I moved in with my new host family in my new village for the next two years. The last 8 weeks have been spent studying/learning language and culture. I successfully passed my oral Ndebele exam, scoring a higher mark than I expected. I also have grown very close to my homestay family during PST. They welcomed me with open arms and I am fortunate to say I have a new family residing in SA. Needless to say it was very hard for me to say goodbye as I departed for my new site. Fortunately, I am close enough to them that I can catch a taxi to visit them in the future.
This week is well underway and I have some planning to complete tonight. I wanted to get on to give a brief update and to let you all know that things are going well. I hope to open a post office box this week and will update my new address for you all if you choose to send letters. P.S. For those of you who have already sent letters or packages, thanks a million they truly have been a blessing and kept me upbeat and motivated. Love you all.

New Address for Pre-Service Training

Disregard the address below, actually I changed it if you already wrote it down. This will be my updated address for the first couple of months in South Africa. All the other rules apply as below. I hope to hear from as many as possible! love, adam

Adam Karsten, PCT
PO Box 9536
Pretoria 0001
South Africa

Staging: Washington D.C. July 12-14th

I just received my staging packet, which provides me with my leave date for D.C. and SA. I will be flying out of Cedar Rapids Saturday morning and arriving in DC midday. Saturday and Sunday will be spent getting to know the 40+ other volunteers and going over some PC orientation. As well as, finalizing some paperwork and finances. Looking forward to the last few weeks at home and seeing everyone!

Peace Corps South Africa

I have officially accepted my invitation to South Africa and will be departing July 15th. My primary placement is essentially the same as my previous Uganda one, with a community development aspect. I look forward to get going again and go through all the previous steps I went through at the beginning of the year, with the exception of the broken ankle. I hope you all are doing well and I get the chance to see/talk before I depart mid July.





My address in South Africa from July to mid September will be as follows. Feel free to send as many letters as you like. I will definately appreciate it and will respond to all!


Adam Karsten , PCT
PO Box 9536
Pretoria 0001
South Africa


Tips: Write "Airmail" on the envelope to quicken delivery. You can also write "Religious Materials, Educational Materials, or Feminine Products" to cut down on delayed travel.

Recovery

Surgery went well on Monday. Dr. Overton said my recovery should be quick since I am a "strapping young man," those were his words believe it or not. You can see the xrays below and the break in the fibula is very apparent. The procedure included rotating the broken bone back into place and pulled together with a screw. A metal plate was then placed along the side of the fibula for stability during the recovery. All the hardware will stay in my ankle so I won't have to have a follow-up to take it out. As for now, a soft cast will be on until the 26th, then Overton will take the staples out and I will be in a full cast for another four weeks. I am glad to be on the road to recovery and looking forward to walking again without crutches. (I am sure mom is as well, she probably feels like she is taking care of a son again!)

An Unsuspected Turn of Events...

This past weekend I had a turn of events that has put my journey into the Peace Corps. Some family and friends came to Williamsburg to go out bowling and I think everyone had a good time with each other. On the walk home I went to step on what appeared to be snow on a sidewalk. It turned out that there was ice under the snow and the first step I took on the snow I went down. I ended up breaking my fibula and tibia, with some ligament damage, most likely torn. The tibia and ligament will heal on their own, however, the fibula broke completely through and rotated. I will be having surgery next Monday and looking at 6 weeks in cast and on crutches. As for the Peace Corps, I was telling mom that I can handle the physical pain from the ankle but the emotional side has been what has been the hardest. Its been an emotional rollercoaster saying good byes and preparing myself to get going and now it has changed. So moral of the story, watch your step this winter it could be life changing. Needless to say I will be around for the next couple of months, on crutches, carless, and homeless. So if any of you would like to get together for a coffee or other social events, let me know!

Pre-Service Training

Upon arrival in Uganda, I will be participating in 3 months of Pre-Service Training. There will be 57 other new Peace Corps Volunteers taking part in PST. The training itself is primarily experiential based. I will be learning technical, cross-cultural, language, personal health, and safety training components. Each part of the training will ensure I have the essential skills to send me on my way for the remainder of my 24 month placement in Uganda. I am looking forward to the PST to get to know the other Volunteers as well as the skills I will need for my primary project. In addition to PST, I will be staying with a host family. I will be living with my host family for the duration of the PST. This will be a great time to practice my language aquisition and become a part of the culture.

The program I will be working under is Teacher Training and Community Development. My primary project, or job, while in Uganda will be a Primary School Teacher Trainer. I will be working with a native counterpart in a coordinating center. My counterpart and I will be working to provide school improvement plans, staff development, professional development, strengthening home-school-community connections, and working with school administrators to improve leadership skills and ability to suppor their teachers. Almost all edcuation volunteers work to train youth, teachers, and communities in life skills that will help them lead more productive, positive, and disease free lives.

Outside of my primary project I will creating my own secondary project, which will be a personal project of my own. Although my ideas may change when I arrive in my permanent village I have a couple of ideas that I have been thinking about, including developing an intramurals group for youth or a youth group focusing on service learning. The secondary projects are unique to each volunteer because each is different to their liking.

My 1st Blog Post!

As many of you know, I am joining the Peace Corps and will be departing for Uganda in a little over two weeks (Feb. 10th for staging in Philadephia and Feb. 12th for Uganda). Many friends and family members have asked how I will keep in touch and if I would have a blog page to keep everyone up to date on my experience and adventures. After doing some research on "blogging," which is foreign to me, I came up with this page. It will be an easy way to keep in touch and hopefully hear back from all of you as well. I am still getting use to the ins and outs of the page but feel free to come back and see the updates as they come. I look forward to getting started on the journey as a Peace Corps Volunteer, but will miss all the things I am leaving behind. More blogs to come!