I'm Moving to Mafikeng!

Yay! So I found out my site placement! I'm going to live in Mafikeng in the NorthWest Province, about 2 hours away from Johannesburg (Joburg) and maybe 3 hours from Pretoria, the capital. The organization I will be working for is the South African Men's Action Group.


My tentative job description is this (as I'm sure more will follow!):

• Financial and office management training.
• Mobilizing the community in fighting men's human rights.
• Assisting in developing gender-based violence programmes focusing on male youth and adult men.
• Outreach programs on the role of men in the fight against HIV/AIDS, religion and culture.

I'm incredibly excited! It sounds exciting, interesting and challenging! Tomorrow we go to a Supervisor's Workshop in Rustenburg, NorthWest and I'll find out more then.

I'll also meet my Mafikeng host family this week. I've been told by my Peace Corps supervisor that I have a one-room building on the family's compound with .... (drumroll) ... a flush toilet! : ) I will also have electricity. For safety's sake, volunteers in South Africa are placed, in general, with host families, but in a separate house.

People have told me that Mafikeng is a decent-sized town with like three malls. Crazy, huh? That will be nice to have access to things in the town where I'll be living and working. In case you're interested, here is a link to the city of Mafikeng w/ more information. It's also close to Sun City, which is like the Vegas of South Africa. I'm pretty excited about the travel potentials!

Oh, and for fun, here's a list of ....

Things That Continue to Surprise Me When They Shouldn't:

• That no matter how many times I add curry to the rice and chicken I make, it doesn't make it restaurant-quality Indian food : (
• That the sheer will of me not wanting to get bitten by mosquitos will not actually make them stop.
• That when my host mother tries to call me by my real name, she calls me Kayzen... Close, but not so much.

Haha, so that's all for now : )

Peace,

Casey