Masters of the Universe

It hasn't been very long since my last post, but a lot has happened and all of it is pretty awesome.

Before all of that, thanks to everyone who shared their advice and examples of student newspapers. Moshaweng News is coming along. Our first issue is coming out in June (fingers crossed).

Over the weekend was another Peace Corps party, this time in celebration of Cinco de Mayo, which commemorates the victory of General Zaragota Seguin over the French at the Battle of Pueblos (Ruan, please correct me). Anyway, I visited a real butchery for the first time in preparation for the celebratory braai. My friend J and I each bought beef fillets that turned out to be the most delicious food items ever. The meat was absolutely incredible! I kind of see where the Afrikaaner obsession with meat is coming from now. Of course, a big thanks is due to K, who actually cooked the meat. Another K, an RPCV who married a South African and lives in the area, also provided a variety of biltong and lamb kebabs from her farm which was thoughtful, sweet and, naturally, delicious. Several other volunteers also made food to share, including multiple tubs of guacamole and even Mexican cornbread (my contribution was my host mother's oven and pans). The best part of the night was seeing volunteers who traveled all the way from sites outside the Northern Cape. It's rare that I see people other than my immediate neighbors. Hopefully we will find another reason to gather soon.

The party was well-deserved because the end of last week was spent re-building the computer lab at Moshaweng High School. The operative word there is "build". My friend Justin, who has been traveling all over the province for a month helping other volunteers with their computer labs, trekked to Lopeng to help me with mine. The school had a bunch of computers, but they had been so poorly treated many were non-functional. Justin and I quite literally took them apart and re-built them. I spent the better part of two days on my hands and knees with a screwdriver pulling out hard drives, cloning them, dusting out the computers and putting the hard drives back in. It was exhausting and frustrating. We had power issues, missing mice and keyboards, really the whole experience proved the existence of Murphy's Law, but after several days the computer lab at Moshaweng is complete and functioning beautifully. The server Justin built (again, literally) is magical. I can shut down all the computers, all 33 of them, with 1 click! Forget Scholes and Hillibrand, I am a Master of the Universe. I can't wait to start teaching in the lab this week.