Censorship

I've been sitting on this idea for a really long time, but wasn't really quite sure how to put it out in the public domain. And you know what? Who cares! I'm just going to type away and see what happens.

Before I came here, censoring things was not part of my reality. Makes me think of North Korea, China (Chah-nah), and apparently, Ethiopia as well. But me? Come on now. Grew up in Wisconsin, live in Seattle, blah blah blah. Kind of boring. No one cared what I said! Or at least, cared enough to censor me.

Then a funny thing happened. I came to Peace Corps, volunteered under the US Government, and now a whole lotta people care what I have to say. Weird. I knew that I'd have to censor things on this blog like where I lived, how I viewed politics, some negative personal opinions, etc etc. (And yes, I realize that I haven't done the best job. Oops.) But now there's a whole new dimension of censorship.

I wrote a post once about a highly visible public figure in SA politics. I had a lot of opinions in there. My dad read it, and strongly urged me to remove it from my blog. He explained that if things went bad here during the election, and in light of the xenophobic violence that has been happening, that my post may make me a target. You know...I had never thought of that. I mean, who cared what I had to say? But he was right. I'm not living in the US anymore. I can't take relative safety and security for granted anymore. (Bring it on...I'm so ready to get that back in my life!) So I deleted the post, and will never publicly write anything about the way I feel about politics here. It's just not appropriate, or safe.

Then came the censoring for the sake of myself and my other PCV friends. Our new CD has been rumored to closely follow (or have someone else closely follow) our blogs to find out if we are following all the rules, and to see if we are writing anything about vacations for which we may or may not have submitted appropriate and accurate leave forms. So, for the sake of all my friends, as I'm not sure who was or was not following the rules at any given point, I've pulled all my vacation pictures and stories because I don't want to get anyone busted. So there's more censorship.

Then, I had to put in a censor/filter on other things I write about. I have a whooooooooooooooooole lot of opinions about how things are going here. What kind of state this country is in, the value of Peace Corps within this country, the quality and competency of Peace Corps staff and volunteers, what kinds of things actually happen to me and my friends here, and I am never going to write anything about any of those topics. Although, those are the topics that I talk and think about the most.

Basically, I feel like even though I think critically about a lot of different things here, I can never write about them. And I bet a lot of other volunteers are doing the same thing. So if you read these blogs to gain a better understanding of what it is like to be a PCV in South Africa, I wonder how accurate a picture you are actually getting. Again, food for thought.