Ganyesa: Stories from South African Peace Corps

In July 2007 John and Christine Campbell boarded an airplane headed for South Africa to perform 26 months of voluntary service with the U.S. Peace Corps. After about two months of Peace Corps training in South African history, social and health affairs, and the Setswana language, they found themselves living in the Northwest Province of South Africa, a high desert area resembling the Mojave Desert of our native Southern California.

The Peace Corps had allowed them to choose the continent of Africa for service. They chose it out of some vague notion that the culture would be interesting and very different from anything we had experienced before. South African culture they supposed would have different music, food and customs than anything they knew.

What actually happened during their service in the Northwest Province village of Ganyesa bore no resemblance at all to what was expected. They knew they might live in more primitive physical circumstances, and indeed lived in a small tin roof hut with no running water. That turned out to be the least of the problems.

They discovered that even with a smattering of the Setswana language, usually talking with people that had pretty good English language skills, they had very little understanding of people’s everyday goals and activities. People simply didn’t act in a way that was expected. The only way to explain what happened is to tell you the stories of everyday activities. These stories are what follow.