Yesterday, I found out my permanent site placement. I'm going to be placed in the village of Wartburg about an hour north of Pietermaritzburg in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. I'll be working with an organization who helps various groups of people in area villages become more empowered in self-sufficent through income generating projects and the like. I will find out much more about the organization and what I'll be doing when I visit there next week for a week-long orientation to the community and organization. I'm very excited about my placement! It sounds like it will be the kind of work I was really hoping to do here in South Africa.
Also, today I was finally able to upload some pictures to the Internet. They're just a small sample of pictures I've taken, but hopefully you enjoy them.
That's all for now. I hope to able to post more some time when I get back from visiting my site.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Halfway to becoming a volunteer
Hello all,
Today we had the luxury of coming to town to use the Internet for the first time in one month. It's been great to catch up on the emails and U.S. news and sports that I've missed in the last month.
However, training is going great. I'm learning Zulu and will likely be placed in the Kwazulu-Natal Province, which is located along the coast and near the Drakensberg Mountains. Needless to say, it is supposed to be a gorgeous area, but still has lots of problems with poverty and HIV-AIDS. I'll find out my specific placement (town, organization, etc.) in two weeks. Then, I'll visit the the site to meet the supervisor and the people I'll be working with for two years. I'm really looking forward to it!
So far, I'm doing alright learning Zulu. The three click sounds in the language are not as difficult to master as I first thought they might be. However, I still have a lot to learn and need much practice speaking and hearing Zulu to be ready for my language test at the end of training.
I've posted a few new pictures to my photo albums. You can access them by clicking on My Photos on the left. I didn't have time to post many, but I tried to post a few of the best ones I have so far.....Just kidding, the pictures are taking too long to post. I hope I can post them later.
Today we had the luxury of coming to town to use the Internet for the first time in one month. It's been great to catch up on the emails and U.S. news and sports that I've missed in the last month.
However, training is going great. I'm learning Zulu and will likely be placed in the Kwazulu-Natal Province, which is located along the coast and near the Drakensberg Mountains. Needless to say, it is supposed to be a gorgeous area, but still has lots of problems with poverty and HIV-AIDS. I'll find out my specific placement (town, organization, etc.) in two weeks. Then, I'll visit the the site to meet the supervisor and the people I'll be working with for two years. I'm really looking forward to it!
So far, I'm doing alright learning Zulu. The three click sounds in the language are not as difficult to master as I first thought they might be. However, I still have a lot to learn and need much practice speaking and hearing Zulu to be ready for my language test at the end of training.
I've posted a few new pictures to my photo albums. You can access them by clicking on My Photos on the left. I didn't have time to post many, but I tried to post a few of the best ones I have so far.....Just kidding, the pictures are taking too long to post. I hope I can post them later.
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