The contrast between developed and undeveloped areas of the world that I mentioned in my last entry is actually a regular challenge working in South Africa. Parts of the country are quite developed, as you may know, while the rural, predominately black areas where we are working are nearly the same as they were during apartheid -- with the exception of the recent addition of electricity. Running water, in most villages, is still a distant hope.
This morning I was waiting for the beat-up public minibus taxi on the dirt road outside my house in Tshifudi and a funeral procession passed by on its way to the cemetery. Instead of limos and sedans, this procession was mostly made up of pick up trucks with loads of people dressed in tattered clothing crammed into the beds. (an interesting aside: I was trying to be somber as the group passed, but many of the people shouted out my name, grinning and waving to me as they went by.)
Now, just a few hours later, I am sitting in an air conditioned Internet cafe in the former Akrikaner town of Makhado (formerly Louis Trichardt). Next to me is a 7-year-old white boy playing a violent video game where characters shoot each other with AK47s in realistic looking street battles. (He just told me it is called "GTA San Andreas.") He and three of his friends are playing each other, occasionally taking swigs from bottles of Coke.
In my village, kids still play with homemade push vehicles they make out of wire and rusty tin cans. Coke is a big treat. If I buy one at the little Spaza shop, several children will ask me for sips before I make it home.
There are a handful of fortunate people in my village who have cars and maybe computers -- my family is one of them. They have an older but still workable computer, satellite TV and a refrigerator that is often stocked with cold drink (soda). But some of the extended family members live in thatched roof rondavels and cook over an open fire. They don't have cars.
So I can be in my house where my host brother is watching MTVs "Pimp My Ride" and walk outside to where few people have rides. I can walk down the street with a barefoot youngster who's heading to a dilapidated rondavel home where she will make her own dinner alone because her mom spends most of her day working as a domestic in Johannesburg and pass her classmate who plays in the garden of her family's modern brick house with air conditioners in all of the windows.
And daily I am confronted by the question: which way of life is best? Is westernizing rural Africa its salvation or its downfall? The answer is never clear.

I've been back in Venda since Jan. 2, but it's taken me a while to find my equilibrium.
Going home was more difficult than I imagined. There was the culture shock of readjusting to a world where even the poorest kids have shoes, but it was intensified by traveling to a very materialistic society during the most materialistic time of year.
It hit me the moment I walked off the plane into JFK. The jolly voice of Burl Ives was blaring from loudspeakers in contrast to the general crabbiness of people waiting in huge lines for their planes or for difficult-to-find transport out of the airport. This was Day One of the NYC transit strike and I had a 10-hour layover in the midst of it all.
Once I finally made it to Ohio, I was overwhelmed by all the glittering holiday lights on homes in my sister's neighborhood. Even though my village in Venda has electricity, they use it sparingly -- for the (unfortunately ubiquitous) TV and maybe one overhead light at night. There are no streetlights, which makes it possible for me to see all the glory of the sky in the southern hemisphere.
In the states I was also was stunned by the amount of Christmas presents everywhere -- new ones for me as well as my family members nearly every day. I was happy that so many people thought of me, but all this stuff was so overwhelming. I felt the same overwhelm when I was moving my belongings to a storage unit before I left. Why do I have so much stuff? After 5 months without it, I know for sure that I don't need even half of it.
I'm not saying that Africa is better than the US. There is materialism worldwide, I am certain. In fact as I sit here in this Internet cafe, the Venda girl next to me is showing me her gaudy pink-gem bellybutton ring and complaining that it is painful.(!)
Really, the hardest part of being back home was returning to a world my father inhabited just before I left. Now his absence, especially during family gatherings, is so obvious. He would have focused on the spiritual aspect of the holiday. All my life, when we asked him what he wanted for Christmas, he would always respond: "peace, love and joy." I miss him so much.