Journal Excerpt from Sept. 1

[An excerpt from my journal for these past couple weeks]

Well I’ve been super busy, with 2-4 things to do every day for these past couple weeks. Today I had a meeting about the community center in the morning (and building a seed bed) and two lifeskills classes at different schools this afternoon.

The community center is really coming along. We’ve dug beds for 10 plots, 19 out of the 30 orphans showed up last Saturday and worked so hard, digging the stiff, weedy soil. It just looks like mounds of dirt, but I’m proud of the kids. I wonder what motivates them. It’s nice to think they’re invested in this project, growing food. We’re planning on planting the seeds this Saturday. The cabbage seeds are already in the seed bed. Regular watering is going to be a challenge. And we’ll see it the schedule to fix up the building this week actually holds. Next week we’re getting the gardening tools. It will be nice not having to borrow and carry them around (my shoulders are soar from carrying all those spades yesterday).

It’s warming up, I can sleep in normal pajamas and a single sleeping bag again. The peach trees are blossoming. It’s nice, still cool and the muddy rains haven’t started yet, I’m not looking forward to that.

A ‘mme [woman] that is somehow related to my family is staying here for a month with her tiny newborn baby. [It’s a Basotho custom for a woman to go home to her mother’s house for a month to give birth and recover.] It’s a nice custom. And he is so cute and tiny, and hardly ever cries.

I’ve been so busy, my garden has been on hold, but hopefully I’ll finish the last of the stick fence this weekend and plant the seeds next weekend (it’s reconnect and all-vol next week!). I’ll be staying at Lauren’s on Sunday night, and we’re going to watch a movie, make mimosas and shepard’s pie, yum!

Life is really good. I feel settled, at home. It’ll be so weird leaving. These chapters of my life seem so disconnected, they don’t blend together like normal life changes. Coming here (and leaving) is such a drastic, abrupt change. My life here is so completely, utterly different. Different in every way I can think of, from how I brush my teeth and get a drink of water to how I get from place to place and what I consider a work. I really wish I didn’t have to choose one or the other, here or there.

Makoenya [my dog] is lying beside me, stretching from her nap on the rug, it’s already too hot out in the sun. And at least she’s away from that pig. They fight all the time, usually over food, and then sleep cuddled up together on my doormat outside (giving Makoenya his fleas, I pulled six off her today), It’s so strange to raise a pig as part of your household for six months and then eat it. We have so much distance from our food in the US, although they certainly don’t cuddle with it before they eat it. Other volunteers refer to my village area as the Lesotho version of the American Appalachia. We eat pet cats (and mice) out here, skin them and then wear cat-fur hats. For some reason I’m proud of it, that we’re considered real earthy people. Though I don’t think I myself am integrated enough to eat the pet cat (but I’m looking forward to that pig). But I like to think of myself as part of a community that really knows what it means to get by, to survive.

Village Children

The children are the best part of my life in the village. Even though many of them have very little, they have such a joy of life. Their toys are similar to what my grandparents played with: rolling tires with sticks, jacks (but with rocks), hopscotch, and ball. No tv, no board games and definitely no video or computer games. They often have to make their own toys, making little animals out of clay and playing house with old tin cans and milk containers. And yet they seem happier than many American children. I think part of it is because almost everyone here has the same things, the same handmade toys and clothes filled with holes. They don’t see all the many, many other toys, games and clothes that they don’t have, the ones that American children are constantly exposed to, designed to make them always want more. I myself feel this dissatisfaction in the US that I don’t feel here. It doesn’t matter if I have burn holes in my skirt (I sit too close to the fire in winter) or if I wear the same thing every day. There is a sense of wanting more here, but it seems more wistful dreaming and easily pushed out of mind. And there is even less of it in the children. You might want a tv, but you know you’re never going to get one, so why waste time pining for one?

Adults and children alike spend all day outside, chatting, doing laundry in the river, cooking on the outside fires, gardening, etc. People really only go inside at night and when it’s raining. And it’s the same with the children, playing all day outside. The kids here have a freedom to roam, to go anywhere. Parents usually don’t know where their kids are, but there isn’t much worry, they’ll come if you shout their names loud enough. I think this freedom, along with how much tougher life is here, make the children mature very fast. I don’t think there is a single whiny child in my village (certainly not the case with me growing up). A very common sight is to see a two year old baby tottling around alone without any pants on, holding a knife yelling the new word he’s learned “thipa!” (knife) (Boys especially don’t seem to wear pants regularly until at least five.)

Life is also hard for children. Boys are expected to spend all day herding animals in the mountains, often being expected to sacrifice going to school for it. And girls do so many chores, it seems endless. My host sister is 12, she takes care of me, helping me with laundry, washing my floor and getting water from the river. She does at least half the chores in her own house as well, after spending all day at school. One day I saw her playing with a doll and was shocked. She seems like a care-taker to me, it seemed so strange to see her acting like the young girl she actually is. But she also gets more joy out of a free apple or game of hopscotch than I think any American 12 year old could.

Children in the village can be the most frustrating part as well. A year later, they still like to come to my door and stare at me through the bars, all day long if I’d let them. They also are still constantly asking me for sweets or money. After a year of not giving out ANY candy or money, you’d think they’d give up hope, nope. The kids here have a hope for the future that they often sadly lose at the end of primary school when they see what their future most likely will really be. It’s a hard life here, but the children's continuous laughs and shouts give the village a contagious, joyous energy.