Lesotho Oddities

There are certain signs and oddities that remind me I’m in Lesotho, and make America seem like a distant dream-like world. Here are just a few:

-Towels are actually very nice skirts to wear around the village,

-Calamine lotion is used as a face-mask and sunblock in one.

-It takes over an hour to get a plate in the “fast food” hut.

-Why carry a small Tupperware container when you can carry it on your head? Suitcases too.

-A woman wearing gum boots is laughable, but fuzzy toe socks with flip-flops is very nice.

-KFC is fine dining, people will do almost anything for a piece of that special recipe chicken.

-A mouse, donkey, chicken intestine – if it’s meat my family will roast it up and eat it.

-MSG is a delicious spice, sprinkled on the top of any dish.

-Previous homework is actually free toilet paper, math seems to be the most popular in my family.

-Dogs are used for protection and definitely are not your best friend. Cows perhaps.

While these things may appear strange and often comical to me, I am sure that there is a much longer list the Basotho in my village could write about me. And yet, regardless of my oddities or accidental faux-pas, I am constantly greeted, accepted and loved by these remarkably friendly people.

My Household Survey

It’s taken 40-some hours and over eight weeks, but I have now finished surveying all 210 households in my village. In the survey I go door to door, visiting and talking with every family in the village. I ask twenty questions – about what animals they have, if they have a bank account, what fuels they use, what their problems are, etc., etc. I’m doing Peace Corps as part of my master’s research in international development planning, and hopefully writing a draft of my thesis while I’m here. Then after my two years in Lesotho, going back to Cornell to finish my masters.

I can be a pretty shy person, and probably would not have taken the initiative to go door to door and talk with all the families in my village if it hadn’t been necessary for my research. But it was probably the best, most eye-opening thing I’ve done in Peace Corps. I talked with widowed HIV positive mothers, with women who were abused by drunken husbands, with a polygamous man whose wives lived right next to each other, and with many excited children yelling “good morn” no matter what time of the day it was. I have certainly learned all the names for animals in Sesotho really well. I have yet to compile the data, but some basic trends I noticed are:
Both the poorest and richest households said they were unsatisfied with their lives. The poorest because of lack of food or sicknesses, and the richest because there was always something more they wanted – a bigger house, a tv, a car, etc. It was those in the middle that claimed to be the happiest, especially those who were more religious.
Basically everyone in my village cooks and heats with wood fires, wood from the endangered cheche trees that grow around the park.
The only time men were recorded as contributing to getting the wood was when I talked with a man and a woman was not present (which I don’t think is a coincidence).
Families that stated that they felt unsafe tended to be ones where there wasn’t a man in the household.
And the only people who confided in me that they were HIV positive were older women, almost all widows. The statistics say that the actual rate of HIV positive people in my village is closer to 24%, I’m not sure whether people do not know their status or just didn’t feel comfortable telling me. But there are definitely a lot more HIV positive people in my village than I have recorded. The number of orphans and widows provide proof.
One of the saddest moments was when I was talking with a family with a little girl around 4 years old who had legions on her face, a sign of full-blown AIDS, and I wondered if her mother even knew. There were some sad moments, many rather boring ones, and some really fun ones that involved dancing, singing or food (or if I got really lucky, all three!).

My survey was intended to see what the cultural and social impacts are from getting electricity. I predict that it will negatively affect the social ties that are so important in my village. This also means that I’m going to be doing another survey a year from now, after we get our electricity officially turned on. I learned so much more, less quantifiable aspects of people’s lives which I didn’t anticipate when I started out eight weeks ago. It has definitely been one of my best experiences in Lesotho.

My Project(s)

I’ve had some people ask about the projects that I’m working on here in Lesotho. It’s a bit difficult to explain since I'm involved in many things, so I’ve attached below the summary I submitted to Peace Corps about the work that I’d done by February. It has changed a bit, but hopefully this makes things a bit more clear.

I am working to incorporate the benefits of Maliba Lodge into the larger community. I, with another PCV, linked GRO local artisans to the lodge, where they are now selling their jewelry very successfully. I also helped establish an internship program with local schools and the local agricultural training center, where the ag students get valuable experience working on projects and small ag businesses, while the schools get ag experts to help them with their projects. I helped set up 5 agricultural projects at local schools, funded by Maliba Community Trust. The projects combine small business and environmental teachings into the schools' gardens. I also teach lifeskills at 4 local schools, one to two times a week each. Lifeskills cover topics of health, HIV/AIDS and gender issues. I also lead bi-weekly teacher workshops on lifeskills, classroom management, lesson planning, etc. I am currently working on an application for the Maliba Community Trust, so that the schools and the broader local community can apply for aid, get what they request and need, and make maintenance of previous donations part of the process. Hopefully the recipients will take more ownership in what they receive and maintain it. I am also about to begin research for my master’s thesis, conducting door-to-door household surveys.

Living on a dollar a day

For the past month I have been living on a dollar a day, which is below the international poverty line. A friend and I decided we wanted to see what it was like to live like most of the world who live in poverty, or as close to it as we can get. I calculated the cost of all the food, candles, propane, everything, even soap. The first week was by far the hardest—I craved sweet things, and was hungry all the time. I noticed a trend with my mood according to if I was hungry or full. When I was hungry it was hard to think about other things. As part of our experiment, Adam and I agreed that we could not ask for free food. But I never turned down any food that someone offered me! It didn’t matter what it was or if I was hungry, if someone offered food, I ate it. I lived almost entirely on lesheleshele (sorghum porridge) and roasted maize for the first week. After twelve days Adam dropped out, he said it making him really tired and not able to concentrate at work. His quitting made me less motivated, but I stuck with it. Although I no longer counted transport costs if it was for work purposes, I didn’t want it to affect my work. I also took two days off for Peace Corps get-togethers.

By the second week I was getting jealous of my host family’s food. A definite change from before, I did not really like papa, which is the staple food. Papa is bland, has almost no flavor and no nutritional value. But my perception of food changed, taste and nutrition no longer were my main concerns, but how filling and cheap a food was, and papa is both. I started eating the same foods, cooked the same way, as basically everyone in my village. By the end of the month, I thought that I could keep doing this, no problem, if I wasn’t worried about nutrition and getting so little protein (and could include chocolate!).

In the end I averaged how much I spent per day, and I came in under a dollar, just 84 cents a day. Though I don’t pretend that I truly know what it is like to live on the poverty line, I was just testing myself, I still had the option to stop and it was only a month. But afterwards I did find myself really missing the traditional foods, the papa and meroho (chopped and cooked cabbage), foods I didn’t really like before. Eating together with my neighbors, and sharing their food, creates a kind of closeness or bond that’s hard to describe. But I feel much closer to my host family and neighbors, sharing food with them and understanding their lives a little better.

SAFARI !

I recently got back from a Tanzanian safari with my parents. My parents very rarely travel outside of North America, so coming to Africa was a big leap. The trip was also a big deal for me , although for other reasons. It meant going on an airplane – I cannot really express how huge the contrast is between my rural village and an airport –everything is so well built, so seamless, so busy, so clean, so removed from the dirt beneath it, it was a bit overwhelming.

The goal of most of the people in our safari group was to see “the big five” or as many African animals as possible. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I was just as thrilled with the all-you-can-eat buffets and hot showers. But we did see more animals that I had ever expected. And we met some really wonderful people in our group. We went to Lake Manyara, the Serengetti and Ngorongoro Crater, and saw elephants crossing the road right behind us, cheetahs eating a zebra, a lion even brushed up against our jeep. And we saw the great migration—wildebeests and zebras stretching as far as you can see (with binoculars), the vastness was incredible. But I think my favorite “siting” or moment was when a flock of wild lovebirds flew over our jeep on the way to Ngorongoro Crater. I’d only seen lovebirds in pet store cages before, and thought of them as purely domestic. To see them flying freely in the wild, the flashes of green, yellow and red was breathtaking.

It did bother me a bit that we were able to get so close to all the animals because of their familiarity and comfort around people (or at least our jeeps). We were in some of the largest protected parks in Africa , but people were everywhere is seemed. Is there no where left where we haven’t made an impact? While it did bother me, it did not stop me from being as enthusiastic as anyone else in out jeep to see the next yet unseen animal.

We finished out vacation with a trip to Zanzibar. I love the old, winding streets of Stonetown, the capital city. It had beautiful Arabic architecture and a tropical, beachy feel. I went snorkeling and was fish I had only seen in aquariums. And had an incredible meal at a spics farm, with all local tropical fruits and fish (although my mom thinks she might have gotten a parasite from the water there…). Zanzibar felt magical. It also seemed much better off than Lesotho, the lodge close by me also felt magical when I stayed there with my parents, but it’s much harder to find places like that in Lesotho. The tourism industry is tiny compared to Zanzibar’s. Although the people of Lesotho, to me, seem much friendlier, or at least they have much better teeth and smile more. The trip was truly amazing, it helped re-energize me, and it was it was long enough that I was really ready to my site and my life here.

My Impoverished Village isn’t so Poor

I have recently begun to see my village in a new light. Going on vacation, spending time with people who’ve never lived in a developing country (basically me nine months ago), made me realize how much Lesotho has changed me. I think Peace Corps changes everyone. Scott one of my friends back home, told me before I left that I could come back a different person, and the idea terrified me. Living in completely new place, with my surroundings changing drastically was not nearly as scary a thought as myself changing. But with one-third of my service done, I think it’s been very good for me. I’m not afraid of many things that I used to be, like spiders and poverty. I’m much more patient and stronger. Sometimes I worry that I’m becoming hard-hearted. People here live off the land and have very hard lives. They’ve become accustom to seeing people all around them die from AIDS. I have to let my students out early on Fridays because it’s funeral day. When I get upset with witnessing something cruel or tragic, it’s a comfort to know that I haven’t become numb to it.

Hauling water up a hill and walking up to seven miles a day aren’t easy, but the physical hardships are minor compared to the mental ones, adjusting to life in an entirely different culture and language. As with any culture there are inspiring and frustrating aspects. And often I get caught up on the frustrating ones. Like my lack of privacy, even when I’m at home. A friend recently visited me and commented on how much everyone smiles here. I had stopped noticing. Almost everyone I meet smiles and greets me, and I had stopped noticing how wonderful it is. When I first got here, I was happy that the Basotho are such a clean people. Lately I had become annoyed that I’m expected to keep everything so clean, while nothing remains clean for long. I just can’t bring myself to mop the floor every day. I happily did when I first arrived, I guess I’ve just become dirtier, like the Peace Corps stereotype.

Being in Lesotho has given me a new perspective. Many of the people here are happier than the average person back in the states. While they still often want material things that are beyond their reach, the culture is mostly based on community ties and socializing. When my parents visited in February, our car got stuck in the mud. Neighbors in that village, who I had never met before, took off their shoes, rolled up their pants and helped dig us out. (They don’t have toeing services in rural Lesotho – just neighbors). And when my roof needed rethatching before the rains started, a neighbor climbed on my roof and sewed new thatch on it for me. This social capital that makes up village life here, seems more valuable than any material capital we have back in the US. In a much more independently minded and materialistic America, I think we’ve lost something. It makes me nervous about going back home in a year and a half. I can now see why most volunteers have a hard time readjusting when they return home. That and I can’t seem to keep my shoes on in public places anymore.