Sakhatsi(time) is definitely flying by faster than a sidududu(motorcycle) on the highway. Although it has been less than a month from when we left, it definitely feels like it was an entire lifetime ago that we were in the US.
We met with some doctors from the Baylor clinic today and had another 8 hour training day. We are in classes 6 days a week, and we had our first day off last Sunday. We have been told be some of the current volunteers that pre-service training is far harder than actually being a Peace Corps volunteer. I don’t think the training is difficult, but time in between classes is cherished by all.

We are all in relatively good spirits, we did have the first trainee leave on Sunday, so there was a small rain cloud over training earlier this week. With the discovery of emafatties(fat cakes) the world is new again! Imagine something that tastes like beer-batered onion rings on the outside, and a cross between donuts and pizza dough on the inside. Super deep fried and super bad for you. One of the trainees’ Make(mom.. pronounced Mah-gay) makes them every day to fatten her up since she is too skinny. The trainee then sell the extras for 1 Rand.

Speaking of money… South African Rand is also widely used here. When I was looking online before I got here, I found that it was NOT in use here. The Rand and the Swazi Emalengani are exactly the same value, to make trade much easier between here and SA. The value of the Rand to the dollar is closing on 8 to 1, so purchasing power here on some goods is exceptional. I can buy a 2 pound avocado for about $.50 US. And that is a SMALL avocado. One of the prizes for last weeks cook-off was easily a 3 or 4 pound beast of an avocado.

The food is generally pretty good, and there is a lot of MSG. We have a lengthy prep time for all food, since any veggies that are raw must soak in bleach water for 15 minutes. Our drinking water must be boiled for no less than 3 minutes, filtered, and then have bleach added. The shortcut to bleaching is leave your water out for 6 sun-filled hours in a clear container and let the sun’s UV rays kill everything. We still have to filter and bleach, but it is a small time saver.

Right now as I write this post, I’m sitting in our rondeval(round house) in the village of Embasheni. It likely doesn’t show up on Google Earth. The town I will post this at is Piggs Peak on the northmost border with SA. That *might* show up on Google Earth, as it has a 2 story office building, a post office, a park, and 2 grocery stores. The internet cafe isn’t great as I alluded to a few weeks ago, but I will take what I can get. We won’t be able to activate our phones for a few more weeks due to policy, so until then it is a 15 Rand ride into town on a khumbi. The khumbis are vans that operate somewhere between a bus and a taxi. They are privately owned and operated, don’t follow a schedule, stop where they want to, drive as fast as they want to, but they follow a designated route. Beware of marriage proposals and drunks in the khumbi. Everyone but the driver today had a beer in hand.

Neither Krista or myself have been as good about journaling as we intended, but we also thought we wouldn’t be placed together for the first few weeks. We have been together the whole time, and are even in the same language class together. I enjoy not being separated at night, but we are trying to not be around each other all the time during classes, so we are able to establish identities away from being each others spouse. Speaking of spouses there are 4 married couples in the group, and we are the youngest. It’s a great group of people, the average age is 27 or so. I haven’t been around this many brilliant minds in one place before, and that is a real treat. I thought for sure that I had already met all the people in the world that think like I do, so it is nice to be around great people.

The roosters are starting their late night carousing now, which means it is time for me to go to sleep. Bye!

Will write more soon… Thandiwe says hi!

Send letters or postcards!

Brian Deyo, PCV   (or Krista Clark, PCV)
U.S. Peace Corps
P.O.Box 2797
Mbabane, H100
SWAZILAND

Just kidding.  I just had the last hot shower I may have for a long time.  Same to the running water, electricity in my room, and flat-screen TV.  Good way to pamper us before we get to see what the real Peace Corps experience is like.

Internet access so far is highly limited and expensive, clocking around $9 per hour or $15 per 250MB.  I’m certain this won’t be the last you hear of us, it just might be a few weeks before anything else gets put up here.

Thanks to everyone who helped make our goodbyes so pleasant!  We will miss you and write often!

Please Please Please contact me either through this blog, email “brian[at]briandeyo.us” or please call the Tucson Police about case 1006220819.  This laptop was to be my lifeline back to this country while overseas.  There is a reward for the return.

The laptop was taken along with a SolarGorilla solar panel, an external PowerGorilla battery , an external Toshiba 320GB black & white hard drive, several MicroSD cards, and other small belongings.   A reward will be offered for ANYTHING returned.

Please contact me if you have found this laptop!!!!!

Right now that deep breath seems inaccessible at times, and I am relieved when I relax enough to enjoy myself.  I’m thankful for all the time I have been able to spend with people, and I’m glad that I get to spend more of it.  With a little less than 96 hours to go, time is short and I’m taking as many deep breaths as possible. 

The experience really is akin to riding a roller coaster.    On May 11th the roller coaster left the platform, and it has been slowly inching its way up a hill so steep that we can only glimpse what lay on the other side.  With butterflies in the stomach and a health dose of nervous anticipation we are about to crest that hill.  Hands in the air screaming WHEEEE!!!! all the way down.

Say goodbye to my Cisco VPN client, and say hello to BitLocker.  Say goodbye to Exchange and say hello to Windows Live Mail.  I haven’t been a user of information technology in close to a decade.  All my adventures in advanced IT has gotten my this far, so I can’t discount my appreciation much.  I am thankful for a new page turning in my life.  There really is as much stress working on huge projects with deadlines as portrayed on TV and in the movies.  I am suddenly free of the mantle of IT administrator, and I am no longer expected to develop technical solutions to technical problems.  I am free to mount an offense to suffering in the world and try desperately to do my part in making the world a better place.

It’s an exciting time for myself, and I’m sure for Krista as well.  Thanks for everyone for being so supportive and patient over the last several years.  I feel relieved and loved for having so many incredibly positive and encouraging people in my life.  Thanks!!

With that in mind I have set out looking for the easiest way to distribute information, updates, photos, and notes online with the least amount of effort.  It’s difficult to want to type and maintain multiple social networks, when I know that the point of technology is to enable more efficient processes.  With that in mind I have set about a slightly complicated yet hopefully worthwhile attempt to maintain as much useful content as possible in one single upload.  If I have an internet connection once a month, it would be nice to have to write one post that reaches all my friends, and not have to write something for every network. 

This all starts with the blog at www.briandeyo.us.  I can use Windows Live Writer to compose blog entries offline, and will be able to post them when I am able to.  Once I post them to the main blog they should also update MySpace, Live Spaces and Facebook.  The biggest issue with this is any comments that are made on one network will not transfer over, so comments will still be disparate.  The easiest way around that is to ask all of you to check the website for updates and photos.  When I post something on the site it should update my status and write on my wall that I have posted something new.  It should be a link that you can follow to see the complete post. 

Sounds great in theory, but I’ll wait to see what happens after I publish this.  I haven’t fully tested this wonderful mass-publishing yet, so the results will be unpredictable for a few days.  In the meantime I will say that I am completely without a phone, check email a few times a day, but otherwise I’m very hard to get a hold of suddenly.  Additionally I’m starting to understand how debilitating it is in modern society to have the option of constant contact revoked.  Please look for me on Skype and check the site for any news or pictures that are worth seeing.  I will be more vigilant in my communications through this medium as long as an internet connection exists.

Camping was great at Thomas Woods this weekend.  We played lots of games, ate lots of bacon and used 4 or 5 cans of bug spray just to get a fighting chance.

Now that we are back, it is off to the races.  We are wrapping up a bunch of loose ends, including changing my Skype info, updating this page a bit, exchanging my hat, last minute online ordering, cleaning, and eating everything in the cupboards.

If I were to use 140 characters would that be enough to satisfy my urge to communicate and experience technology?

I guess if my speech recognition can post to Twitter which updates my Wordpress which then updates my facebook and through a plug-in then updates the HTML on my blog and that gets backed up to after a my server just in time for me to realize that I have better things to do then be on a computer all day.  Was that 140 characters?

I wrote this entire post using Microsoft speech recognition that is included with their latest OS.  What to me

took me 10 minutes to complete using speech recognition would have taken the 20 microseconds to type.  So there is a small learning curve for the computer, but reasonable considering what is happening.  It is incredible! 

You too can speak to your computer just like Star Trek if you have lots of free time.  Believe me technology has come a long way from the days of Windows 3.  1.  It used to have a long way to go but if this is proof is starting to be realistic.

Do yourself a favor And spend 2 hours in the next few days or weeks and set up speech recognition on your computer by going to the following tutorial

click start menu, type “start speech recognition” and press enter.  And follow the wizard.

OK for you should give it 3 hours and it takes a longer than 10 minutes to complete your first post, but the thrill of it recognizing your voice so incredibly well it is worth it.  Thank you Microsoft for showing us why touchscreen technology is only a single part of the  future!!