Ikhayami [My Home]

So this is long overdue, but I do need to share with everyone what my life is like over here.

I feel as if I have the best of both worlds-- I get to work in tow

nships where help is needed the most, but I live in

the city. I live in Pietermaritzburg [affectionately called 'Martizburg by many whites/Indians and umGungundlovu by many

blacks], which is the capital city of the province of KwaZulu Natal, which is eastern South Africa. Unfortunately

, being in the capital city does not mean this is the exciting place to be-- all the fun stuff happens next to the coast in Durban. It is kind of like how Sacramento is the capital of California, but why go there when you can go to San Francisco/Los Angeles/San Diego? But either way it is a city, so I am not out in the rural parts and instead just a hop, skip, and a

jump away from the grocery store. With my few minutes of daylight left after work, I usually quickly walk to the city center and look at the shops, the library, etc. I usually do not have enough time to actually browse in the library [but I got a library card! Yay!] or look through the shops because I get off of work at 4pm and everything closes at 5pm

... and it takes a little while to walk down there. But I do it anyway because once it gets dark I am inside by myself, watching The Oprah Winfrey Show.

I live in the back house of Thandanani

Children's Foundation. It is where they used to have therapeutic weekend retreats for orphans, but South Africa is also experiencing an economic downtur

n so this is one of the many programs they have had to let go with their limited budget. It is bitter-sweet, considering that I now have a place to live. I have my own room and I use the bunkbeds as a closet/dresser. I put two chairs together and covered it with a towel to make a bedside table for my books [I read every night with a dorky headlight on before I go to bed], and used clips to hang a mirror to the metal bars of of one of my windows-- I felt like McGiver [or

whatever his name was]. My bed has a mattress made out of soft foam, and after the first night of sleeping it I have made a large, permanent dent in the middle from my body weight and it

swallows me up every night, haha. I have a

little lounge area with a television [I get 4 channels- SABC1, SABC2, SABC3, and ETV]! The bummer is that I have to go outside to get to the bathroom and the kitchen, which are two separate rooms that have locked doors to the outside. And because I don't like going outside when it is late at night [it is cold and I am always afraid someone will be out there], I think this will eventually lead to either a bladder infection or extreme dehydration because there is no accessible water in my room [the first weekend here I didn't have water at all, so this is an upgrade].

The conditions of the bathroom and kitchen aren't great, but considering what I could have had, it is pretty nice. There are 3 showers in the bathroom [remember, it was for retreats], but only one works. The light in the bathroom is small and over the toilet, so I am always showering in the dark... but I have [scalding] hot water! Always a plus. The kitchen has a refrigerator and a to

aster oven with a stove top, a washing machine that doesn't work and a hot water kettle. There is also a small arrangement of enormous pots, ranging from size large to size gargantuan. The lights for the bathroom and the kitchen are both on the wall inside the bathroom, which is one of the many odd things this building has. But, I have plenty of beds, so if any of you want to come visit [hint, hint] I have a place for you to stay!

There are 5 separate keys needed to function in this building. Two for the room door [metal

screen-type thing, actual door], one for the bathroom, and then two for the

kitchen. Then there is the key for the outside gate, two keys to get into the office, one for my actual office room. In total, I carry around 9 keys on a daily basis, 3 of them being skeleton keys. Also, behind all of these keys, barb wire, metal gates over the windows, bright spotlights and an alar

m system [that I don't know how to activate]... you would think that I felt safe at night living by myself. But it is easy to jump over the front gate and I am sure someone could snatch me up while I am on the way to the bathroom or break in through the window and still kill me. Yes, I am paranoid and freeze at the sound of every leaf blowing and all the noises from the street. I am a scaredy cat and I will admit it! I am told I live in a pretty decently safe place-- but then why all the precautions?! Yes, I think perhaps the warnings of women constantly getting raped and the existence of the barb wire around me might be enough make me a little scared.

I wake up to the sound of these crazy huge, loud crow-sounding birds that live in a tree next to my window and roosters who have no idea when the sun is actually coming up. I also sleep to the sounds of chants, cries, drum, singing, and animal slaughtering on weekends because of my sangoma next door neighbor. There are few mosquitos [not hot enough yet], but the ants have come in full force and I have nightmares about them. And that's my life in a nutshell.