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It has finally come to an end. I\u2019ve said my goodbyes. I\u2019ve packed my things. I\u2019ve left Tshamahansi. My time as a Peace Corps Volunteer came to an end on Friday, 19 October 2007.<\/p>\n
After the completion of a HIV Testing Drive in the village of Tshamahansi, I felt as if I\u2019d done what I needed (and wanted) to do in South Africa. The Department of Health was so impressed by the results of the testing drives that it is planning on holding some more HIV-testing campaigns in different parts of the district, using ours as a model. I gave them some advice, but unfortunately I won\u2019t be around to help them with the new campaigns. It\u2019s better, though \u2013 they need to be able to do it on their own and I think they will be able to. I\u2019m delighted to hear that my departure does not signal the end of efforts in Tshamahansi. I came to South Africa hoping to instill sustainable change in the schools. Instead, I instilled sustainable change in the village. I couldn\u2019t be happier.<\/p>\n
Starting on 6 September, my group of Peace Corps Volunteers \u2013 those of us who had arrived in country together on 18 August 2005 -were allowed to COS (Close-of-Service) and leave South Africa. While most of my friends were departing for other destinations to move on to the next step in their lives, I instead returned to Tshamahansi and stay in the village during the month of Ramadan. Ramadan was easier this year than in the past, and I was fortunate enough to spend some time in Mokopane (my local town) with a Muslim family of Indians, the Bhikhoos, who were so welcoming and treated me like a member of the family. I was able to spend time going to the Mosque, breaking the fast with them, and doing taraweeh<\/i> prayers at night.<\/p>\n
Eventually, on 13 October 2007, exactly two years to the date of my swearing-in, I left Tshamahansi and Mokopane. Leaving the village itself was not very difficult, but there were definitely some people in the village that I am incredibly sad to be leaving behind. First is the committee I had worked with, for over a year, who had been so dedicated and worked so tirelessly, and who I saw as the truest testament to my Peace Corps Service. Second, and more important, was the family that I became a part of. The Baloyi family has been my family since March 2006, and I will miss them terribly. They opened up their home to me. They treated me as an adult and they gave me just the perfect combination of support and independence. Some host families might give a volunteer enough support but not enough independence. Others might give enough independence but not enough support. I was fortunate enough to receive just the right amount of both. <\/p>\n
Whenever I returned home from a weekend or week away, my host mother Esther would receive me with a smile and \u201cHa amukela!\u201d<\/i> (we welcome you) or \u201cWelcome home!\u201d And whenever I left, she would say, \u201cMi famba kahle\u201d<\/i> (Go well) or \u201cHave a nice journey.\u201d So when Esther walked me to the combie as I was leaving for the last time, and Esther said \u201cfamba kahle\u201d<\/i>, I realized that I wouldn\u2019t get to hear \u201cha amukela\u201d<\/i> again, or for a long time at least, and it saddened me. My entire host family \u2013 my parents Ben and Esther Baloyi, my brothers James, Dennis, and Tumisho Baloyi, my sisters Susan Baloyi and Patience Ngobeni, and our housekeeper \u201cAuntie Christine\u201d \u2013 I will miss them all. Indeed, they are what I will miss most about Tshamahansi. <\/p>\n
Now I am about to leave not only Tshamahansi, but the country of South Africa. For over two years this has been my home. As with any home, my feelings about it are conflicted. I simultaneously love it and will miss it, but I am also extremely frustrated by it and can not wait to leave. I feel these things at the same time. My thoughts about South Africa are so complex, and so conflicted, that I can\u2019t really express them. <\/p>\n
But I will say this: there is so much potential here. I\u2019ve mentioned before that the youth I\u2019ve come across offer the best hope I\u2019ve seen for this country. But, as I\u2019ve also mentioned before, it\u2019s a fragile hope. What happened to the youth of 1976? It\u2019s what I\u2019ve noticed over and over and over again during my two years here. With the first inklings of power, things change.<\/p>\n
Coming from a background of such poverty, people tasting some sort of power or authority for the first time wildly grasp at it. They indulge with their newfound money, having spent their lives in poverty and finally breaking free. But here is where the problems start. Caught between two worlds \u2013 traditional culture and society on one hand and \u201cmodern\/Western\u201d society on the other \u2013 people choose to embrace the worst aspects of both. They hold on to some archaic cultural practices and opinions, but disregard others. <\/p>\n
One of the first things to go is the wonderful African practice of ubuntu<\/i>. Ubuntu<\/i> means that we are all the same, that I cannot succeed if we all do not succeed. It\u2019s a wonderful equalizer, where everyone is supposed to look out for each other. In two years, I have very rarely seen ubuntu<\/i> of any kind coming from people with authority \u2013 municipal workers, teachers, nurses, local officials, administrators. When ubuntu<\/i> and the other positive aspects of traditional culture are lost, what takes their place are aspects of Western culture. But the aspects which are chosen \u2013 materialism, greed, selfishness, a constant desire for more \u2013 are harmful, especially when they are not coupled with the more positive Western values of responsibility and accountability. What I\u2019ve seen is the worst of two cultures come together, while the best of these cultures is lost.<\/p>\n
In the large \u201cWesternized\u201d cities and in the rural \u201ctraditional\u201d villages, things look more positive. I\u2019ve found some of the nicest, most genuine people I\u2019ve ever met in remote rural villages like Gonani and Jakkalskuil. Likewise, in the cities there are plenty of hard-working, responsible people. It\u2019s in the in-between places\u2014the small towns, the \u201clocations\u201d, places like Tshamahansi and Mokopane, that things don\u2019t look so great. There\u2019s a reason that there\u2019s such a lack of service delivery in underdeveloped areas of the country and that is because the people in power, the teachers and nurses and administrators, have yet to find a good balance between cultures. There are always exceptions \u2013 and I\u2019ve met quite a few \u2013 but this is the pattern I\u2019ve seen. And unfortunately, that lack of ubuntu<\/i>, the lack of responsibility, has been seen more commonly in the very peaks of government recently. Thabo Mbeki, Jacob Zuma, the list goes on. <\/p>\n
Part of me worries that things are going to get worse before they get better, and the most cynical parts of my psyche expect South Africa to turn into Zimbabwe in a few years. Zimbabwe was also very successful for its first 10 years and Mugabe used to be the darling of the Western community, an eloquent anti-apartheid speaker, a reconciler, a liberation hero. Will we see the same mismanagement in South Africa, the same deterioration? Is that why Mbeki is so silent on the Zimbabwe crisis?<\/p>\n
In all honesty, I don\u2019t think it will get that bad. Rural schools are churning out undereducated, subservient kids, and they will continue to. But the same selfish teachers and administrators who don\u2019t care about rural children\u2019s education are sending their own children to private schools, and so these children will grow up with a real opportunity to be successful and make a change. Slowly but surely, there will be more previously disadvantaged children doing wonderful things with their lives.<\/p>\n
In his book \u201cCry, The Beloved Country,\u201d South African author Alan Paton writes:<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause the white man has power, we too want power, he said. But when a black man gets power, when he gets money, he is a great man if he is not corrupted\u2026 Some of us think when we have power, we shall revenge ourselves on the white man who has had power, and because our desire is corrupt, we are corrupted, and the power has no heart in it\u2026 I see only one hope for our country, and that is when white men and black men, desiring neither power nor money, but desiring only the good of their country, come together to work for it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Alan Paton was writing about apartheid at the time, but the sentiments echoed in his work are a mirror of my own sentiments. Things, it seems, have not changed all that much. <\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always believed that South Africans have enormous potential, and I have seen them rise up to the occasion when needed. This is especially true of those determined youth from my committee, for who I see great things. But as Nelson Mandela has said, South Africans are not yet free. They have freedom, but their psychological and cultural chains are still binding them. Only when teachers and nurses and administrators and local officials truly live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others will this country truly be free. Mandela thought it might take years or generations to recover from South Africa\u2019s horrors. I think generations hits closer to the mark.<\/p>\n
Where will South Africa go from here? I can\u2019t say. In much the same way that I can\u2019t say where America will go from here. Now, I won\u2019t be here to witness South Africa\u2019s changes but I will be watching from afar, curious as to what happens next and truly, for the sake of the many wonderful South Africans who have enriched my life, hoping for the best.<\/p>\n
Omar Ahmed is a former US Peace Corps volunteer, having recently served in Tshamahansi, South Africa. An extended version of this post and a chronology of Omar\u2019s experiences can be found at his blog, Omar in Africa<\/i> (http:\/\/omarinafrica.blogspot.com).<\/i><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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