Ga ke rate censorship (I don't like censorship)

(Editor's Note: These posts for the next month might be posted after they are written due to unreliable internet connection. This post is from March 1, 2009)

Hey ya’ll,
So it’s closing in on a month since I’ve been gone. Woo. One month down, 25 to go. Haha. It’s very different and very much exactly what I expected it to be. Does that make any sense?

I know we should be grateful to be able to get to the phones every couple of days and have some access to computers, but still, I feel really disconnected to the outside world. I even feel disconnected to the rest of South Africa outside of our little bubble of Seabe (the village I live in, which means “contributed to someone’s death”) and Marapyane (which is where the college that we have training at is). My family, surprisingly, has a TV and although the news plays every couple of hours and I watch it in Setswana and in English, I still only seem to get a very tiny bit of what’s going on around the country and the world.

I have gotten into a “soapie” called Generations that is on every night. It’s really trashy just like all American soaps. It’s my bonding time with my host sister-in-law. She’s pretty funny and tries to get me to understand all the background to the characters. There’s a chick on it that has the same name as my South African name, “Dineo,” which means gift in Setswana. It’s funny cause Dineo is really dumb, and, of course, married to an old guy who just had a stroke so now she’s sleeping with his son (who’s 30.) But at least she’s pretty. Haha.

Besides trashy SA television, I’ve learned so much about the South African culture. Like I’ve expressed to my Mum and Dad, I’ve learned the hard way about the importance of gender roles in SA when my host father told me to cook him dinner when my host sister was away one weekend. Of course those weren’t his direct words….I think what happened was my host mum called me: “DIIIINNNEEEOOO…..DIIIJJJOOOO!” Then when I came out of my room (5 inches away from where she was yelling) she kept saying, “Dijo, dijo…” and making the eating motion with her hands. Luckily, I pay attention in class and told her I wasn’t hungry, but that didn’t fly so I made food for everyone anyway. After that I’ve been “forced” to cook random things (usually beans and eggs cause that’s all we ever have in the house) a couple of times whenever my host sister-in-law is away.
It’s hard for me to see the clear and definite division between male and female roles because I’m very much not a traditional type of girl. Some of it is my inner rebel telling me that I don’t want to have to do something just because I’m a girl and the other part of me thinks that there should be a choice, which, most of the time, I don’t think there is.
I try very hard to be more obedient and to pick my battles wisely. I know that my family is awesome for letting me stay with them for two months and most of the time they just let me do my own thing so I just take it in stride.

So…speaking of picking my battles…

Good ol’ Uncle Sam is now feeding me and since I technically “work” for him now, there are new rules to my life…and to this blog. Boo. Yes, the Peace Corps is making me CENSOR my blog. Tragic, I know. It’s possible that I could have known this way before I came and been possibly smarter about some choices I made, but...I was much to busy to read the handbook so I just found out at staging. So what does all this mean?

I have to take the Peace Corps logo off my page.
I have to give the url to my country director and my blog is going to be “monitored” for unsatisfactory material.
I have to put a disclaimer at the bottom of my page saying, “The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.” (Hahaha, well….duh.)
I have to be “culturally sensitive” with any content published on my site: “Volunteer-posted material should not embarrass or reflect poorly on the Peace Corps or on the countries where volunteers serve.” So…no bad talking about Kenya or Romania, but apparently, I can trash talk Cuba and Mexico all I want. Interesting.

So what all this means to you, dear reader, is that if you know me, and you read something that sounds unlike me, it’s probably based on these policies that I am now forced to comply with. And I would say that I could tell you in an email how I really feel about something, but apparently, the Patriot Act says that the government, and subsequently the Peace Corps, can monitor those as well. So I’ll just send you a pigeon. Monitor that, America! Ha.

Anyway….on a more serious note…I’m trying my hardest to adjust and it’s definitely a choice everyday to go straight into my room when I get home in the evenings or to socialize with my host family and with the neighbors. I have gotten used to spending the last hour or so of sunlight after I get home just drinking some tea, reading a book, eating a guava I picked from the backyard, and watching the sunset from my host family’s porch. It’s very beautiful and calming.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to some things, but I know that I can definitely learn from the simpleness of the culture around here. It’s slower, calmer, and more genuine in some ways and I definitely think Americans can learn a little about that from South Africa.

Sala Sentle.