Sounds of Village Life

My village has a kind of rhythm and sound that has begun to sound and feel like home. It is made up of cowbells, distant women singing, children shouting and crying, dogs barking, sheep bleating, metal pots clanking and sometimes an unusual birdsong. It might be because my village is on a steep hillside facing a mountain, but all the noises echo off the mountains and blur into a type of music. It’s always changing and makes the village feel alive. At dusk when everything is settling down it seems beautiful and peaceful. About half an hour after dark all the noises stop except for some insects. It is an eerie quiet and makes me miss the village sounds until half an hour before dawn when it all starts back up again, usually children right outside my door shouting my name, then I wish I could turn it back off.

What Makes America Great: education and ice

After living in Lesotho for a couple months I have come to believe that the real difference between developed and developing countries is education. Solely based on the fact that we’ve had American educations, my fellow volunteers and I, after a few weeks of training by Peace Corps, are qualified to teach and lead workshops on business, nutrition, lifeskills, HIV/AIDS, sustainable farming, etc. and serve as mentors and counselors in Lesotho. All we need is some books. Not only do they lack resources, such as good textbooks here, there is also a lack of people who know how to use them as resources. While most of the teachers at my schools are working hard to educate the students, there is just a different attitude towards the education system. Most classes are merely copying things from the board, memorizing without understanding. And teachers often don’t come to class at all, and there are no substitutes. Students either study on their own or go home; it seems to be a weekly occurrence. One day last week only 2 of the 7 teachers where there. Beating students is a normal, everyday occurrence here. Besides being harmful for the students physically and mentally, it creates a horrible learning environment. There are several teachers that seem interested in learning alternatives classroom management techniques, which I’m really excited about, I’m going to lead a workshop on it soon. I’ve started teaching the teachers about lifeskills and HIV/AIDS. Its alarming the misconceptions that even some of the educated people here have about AIDS. Many thought that you couldn’t get AIDS id you were white, or that it is a problem in Lesotho but not in their village.

Education is a way out of poverty. But it’s nearly impossible to learn what you’re not taught. I believe that America has one of the best education systems in the world. Just imagine what these kids could do and would become if they received our educations. The education system is what makes America great. And the abundance of cold drinks. It’s become summer here and it is hot. I’ve started making cool tea, since there is no ice for ice tea. I think America might use more ice than any other country in the world. It might just be frozen water, but it is so good. Warm lemonade just isn’t the same.

Tom

A couple of weeks ago a Peace Corps volunteer was shot and killed in Lesotho. He and another volunteer were walking back to the Peace Corps training center from a close-of-service party at a hotel a few blocks away. They were mugged at gun point and Tom got shot. He died before he reached the hospital. While incidents like this happen in large cities around the world, it is made more tragic by the fact that Tom was a volunteer here to help the country. And Tom was one of the best of us. Few have become so loved and integrated into their communities here. The memorial service held for him here in Lesotho made it evident how loved and important he was to the Peace Corps volunteers and staff. The memorial service was very moving and healing. His friends and those close to him gave speeches and told many stories of Tom's remarkable achievements and some of his more mischievous adventures. It gave those of us that had arrived to Lesotho recently and did not know him well a vivid impression of the man he was and the man, the doctor, husband and father he should have been able to become. The intense emotion shown by those who had been close to him was proof to how fiercely loved he had been and how deeply and painfully he is being missed. His closest friends are home receiving counseling and being with family.

In Peace Corps you're thrown into a new world, where the language, customs and daily way of life are so different from what you've known. You cling to other volunteers. They become your support, your bit of home and sometimes your sanity. We really do become a family. The cruelly pointless and sudden manner of Tom's death blew a hole in our Peace Corps family that I doubt will ever fully heal. We are slowly and painfully returning to our sites and jobs, deemed safe by Peace Corps Washington. Hopefully carrying on helping Lesotho as tom would have. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and loved ones back home.

A family full of Gifts

I've been in Lesotho for ninety days! At first moving to village after a pampered week at the lodge was tough. But adjusting to a new way of life I guess is never easy. I'm happy to be back in a village again, and couldn't have a more beautiful site. But no one in my village speaks english! I'm able to get across all my needs, but I need to learn a lot more Sesotho before I can have a meaningful conversation with any of my neighbors. I thought I had learned a lot of Sesotho in the two weeks that I've been here, but yesterday I realized I'm just getting more fluent in hand gestures.

I absolutely love my host mom, she's very understanding and helpful, and always smiling. She makes me smile even when I have no idea what she's saying. I think she's going to be one of my best friends out here. I like my host brother and sister too, but they don't understand personal space. In Lesotho mothers get renamed after their oldest son or sometimes daughter. So my host mom's name is 'me mampho, my host brother's name is Impho and mine is Limpho. All diffrerent variations on the word gift, we are a family full of gifts. My host sister's name is Matsiliso, and I have no idea what that means.

I'm slowling adapting to village life and its slow pace. I spent an entire day watchign a roof get rebuilt with some bo-'me. It was really interesting. Their traditional houses are so much better insulated and sustainable than the modern concrete ones, I realy hope they don't lose hat knowledge and tradition. I alos spent one day walkign to the shop and back and then mending some clothes. I've already started to dress like a Mosotho, flannel shirts with skirts. My host mom told me it looks very nice, I think I'll bring it back to the states. They often wear blankets and towels over pants, instead of skirts, and are always tryign to get me to put on my towel, but I haven't gone that far yet. I've also been having fun building things for my little hut, and making it feel like home.

I'm excited for next week when I actually start working! I've never been very good at not havign anything to do. Next week I start working at three of the closest schools, two are still an hours walk away. I'll be teaching lifeskills four times a week, leading a teachers workshope once a week (so they'll be able to teach lifeskills themselves once I've left) and an environment club twice a week. The club is supposed to teach environmental conservation and sustainable farming, its also so I can manage the tree and garden projects sponsored by the lodge at the schools. I hope to lead a monthly workshop for the lodge employees and their families also. I'll be doing consulting and workshops in my village too, but I need a translator to help me talk with the village chief before I can set that up. I'm excited to be busy, and hopefully productive.

I've been able to visit the closest volunteer about once a week (and speak english!) which has been amazing. Peace Corps purposefully places volunteers close to eachother for support, and I got really lucky with the married couple I'm close to. I can only come to the lodge every 14 days and have internet access, ad that is a little less than how long it takes to get mail here. I now have a PO Box (the address is posted on facebook), so pelase write me letters! They're so precious out here. I want to end with a happy picture - how I spend most mornings, sitting on my family's stoop reading in the sun and looking out at the mountains covered in peach blossoms (hopefully my brother won't come and sit right next to me, watching me read and ruining my happy little picture).

T'sehlanyane: frozen waterfalls and fermented porridge

Leaving Mokhethoaneng was much sadder than I had anticipated, I've gotten really close to my host sisters. We had a village feast to celebrate our completing training and leaving the village that's been our homes for the past ten weeks. My host sisters never showed up, so I ran around trying to find them. Turns out they went to church instead. I would have liked to say goodbye, but it made it much easier to leave. After the feast we all attended a two day workshop with our counterparts to help establish our relationships and prepare work plans, etc. My counterpart never showed up, so the workshop was especially boring. I had already met my supervisor and was really impressed with him and his dedication to the lodge and helping the surrounding villages. However he was on vacation. Peace Corps had to drive me to my site, they were worried about me, but this is Lesotho, people just don't show up, so I wasn't too worried. I had already seen my site and knew I was going to be fine.

I'm staying at the Lodge for a couple of days while they finish my house and latrine. I'm getting a brand new latrine! The lodge and park are absolutely beautiful, I can't believe I'm going to live here, it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Staying at the lodge has been like an amazing vacation that I don't really feel like I deserve. Taking a hot shower and using a flush toilet made me feel like I was in a spa, I didn't appreciate showers enough before. I also get food from a gourmet kitchen. I spend most of my time in the kitchen chatting with staff. I can eat anything out of the fridge I want, it might be the best food I have ever eaten. I also went on a hike though the park yesterday, walking through the mountains was so serene and beautiful. Even though it's the dry season there were still waterfalls. Some parts were frozen though since its still winter and this is a colder part of the country. Hanging around the hotel has been amazing, but it feels very weird. After being in a village and part of a community it doesn't feel right to be in a luxury hotel that has everything, especially when the closest villages (where I will be living) have almost nothing. But I'm trying to appreciate all the amenities while I can. The best part of the lodge is the unlimited internet. I will come and check in with the lodge every ten days after I move to my real site, so I'll get regular internet!

I visited my site and host family earlier today. My little hut sits on a steep hill overlooking the mountains in the park and a river valley. It looks like something out of Jurassic Park. My hut is next to my host family's house, and has a thatched roof with no electricity or running water. I am supposed to have a water tap close to my house, but somehow that's gotten overlooked. The water comes from a river about a kilometer away. You literally dip a bucket in a river to get water. There are several very steep hills to get back up to my house from the river, so I'm going to try to pay some neighbor to get my water for me. My host family is great, I think I got really lucky. My host mother is one of the nicest people I've met in Lesotho. I have two host sisters, still no brothers. The older one was away, but the younger one was there, named Matsiliso. She's 12 and carried four buckets of water on her head up the hills to the house while I was there. The older daughter is named Impho, which is the singular version of my name, very confusing. My family doesn't speak English, so I had to really rely on my Sesotho for the first time. I'm much better than I thought and was able to get across all my points, although the grammar was probably all wrong. I had some trouble understanding them, they speak so fast. I can tell that I'm going to get very close to my new host family and probably never want to leave.

When I visited my new village, it was very similar to when I arrived in Mokhethoaneng. I was surrounded by kids, who followed me everywhere and wanted to play cards. I have played so so many hours of crazy-eights at my last home, that I decided just to watch. The girls all wanted to sit in my lap and play with my hair. I don't think they've ever touched a white person's hair before. One little boy kept calling me Lehooa, which means white person, and I kept correcting him telling him to call me by my name, but I think I'm always going to be Lehooa to him. Its hard to tell the girls from the boys here. They all have to shave their heads for school, and you can't always tell by their clothes. Girls often wear pants and boys often wear girls clothes. One little boy today had a groovy angels sequin shirt on. My host mother and neighbor were asking me what foods I like, and they brought me out a huge bowl of lesheleshele that I had said I liked. But this wasn't the sweet sorghum porridge that I was used to, it was the fermented, sour leshelshele. It tasted like barbecue sauce with vinegar in porridge, it was so gross. I tried to drink the whole bowl but couldn't and told them I was too full. I tried not to make faces while I was drinking it, but I think they could tell I didn't find it as limonate (delicious) as I said it was. I hungout and chatted for a couple of hours, talking about my family back home and if I had a husband or boyfriend, they seemed very skeptical when I said no. Everyone has a boyfriend, sometimes multiple ones. They were surprised that I didn't have children either, I am old, I should have a couple by now. After talking for a while, I walked back to the lodge, it took over an hour and was pretty steep. Peace Corps said they are going to either provide me with a horse or a bike since I'm not that close to the Lodge or the schools that I'll also be working with. I'm pushing for the horse. I have an unbelievable site, I can't have imagine anything more beautiful or that fits with my background and interests better, and I'm really excited to move into my hut and be part of a community again.

T'sehlanyane National Park here I come!

We found out our site assignments, where we will be going for the next two years last Friday. For the first time in Peace Corps Lesotho, we got to write essays stating our preferences on which sites we'd like to receive, which was really nice. I had a hard time deciding which sites to put as my top choices, there were so many that had a great job, or were in a great site, but looking for a site that has potential for my master's research really limited my choices. I ended up getting one of my top choices, the Maliba lodge ecotourism site! I am so excited, the site and job sound amazing. I get to work with youth, the local villages and on environmental conservation. I will be coordinating between local schools and villages to incorporate them into the benefits of lodge and tourism. I'll be working with schools on vegetable and fruit tree planting, to sell as produce to the lodge, and with the local communities to sell their crafts in the lodge gift store. I big part of my job will be promoting environmental conservation since it's in the T'sehlanyane National Park, spreading awareness on conservation management in the local schools and communities. I'll probably teach environmental conservation in the schools, which I think will be a lot of fun. I've missed teaching this past year. And I have so many different tasks/jobs that if one is going slowly or not working out there are a lot of other things I can work on. And there is definitely research potential, ecotourism and connecting the benefits of tourism to local communities (which will basically be what my job is) is really big in international development planning right now.
I'm going to live in a traditional round mud hut without running water or electricity! I'm going to get a real rural Africa Peace Corps experience. And the village by the lodge that I'll be living in is in a national forest in the mountains, it's supposed to be really beautiful. (And is one of the nicest places to stay in Lesotho if anyone wants to come to visit!) And the lodge where I will work has internet, so I can stay in touch mush better! I'll only be a 45 minute taxi ride away from two volunteers (a married couple) in our group that are really great, it'll be nice being that close to some other Americans. I can't wait to move in, I am definitely ready to be done with training. I like classes back home, but its hard to be in class from 8:30-4 everyday again like in high school. I like Sesotho class, I'm learning a lot but there is so much about the language that I still need to learn. Training is only another 2 weeks, then we spend a week in the training center before moving to site. So in mid-August I'll move to T'sehlanyane National Park!

Sunrises and home baked Bread

The last couple of weeks have been really good. I've started focusing on the things here that I love rather than what or who I miss from home, and I've found that I've stopped missing a lot of material things. Not having electricity or running water was definitely a difficult adjustment at first, but now I find it kind of satisfying having to do everything by hand. Though I wouldn't kind skipping laundry. I also am really enjoying cooking things from scratch, I've gotten really good at baking bread. And knowing exactly where all my food has come from is a great change. I've almost become a vegetarian, meat is just so hard to get and keep. My room is as cold as a refrigerator (I can make jello by leaving it out in my room!) but I don't trust storing meat there. But eating meat only once every two weeks isn't that big a switch for me, I like eggs and milk better anyways.

My favorite time of day is now at sunrise. I used to hate getting up early, but without electricity my life revolves around the sun and daylight a lot more. Sunsets mean that I have to hurry up and get home to lock myself in my room for the rest of the night. But sunrises are beautiful, everything is so calm and the animals are all starting to wake up. I love hearing the cowbells at sunrise and sunset as they go to and from grazing fields. I'm not as big a fan of the roosters, they not only crow at sunrise but all day and usually in the middle of the night.

Probably the scariest thing that has happened to me so far was when I saw this giant insect with pinchers. I showed my eight-year old sister and she told me to kills it, I was wearing slippers so I told her to kill it, but when we looked back it had disappeared. It turns out it was a scorpion and we have no idea where it went. Now I always shake out my shoes before putting them on. At least I don't have rats like some of the other volunteers. (And dad, there are no poisonous snakes in Lesotho). I feel very safe here, although my host family has made me afraid to go out after dark, but they also believe that there are invisible men that hide in corners of houses (it's why traditional houses are round). The only thing to be scared of is the dogs they use for protection, at night they get really aggressive, one volunteer has already gotten bitten. I've definitely gotten a bit tougher skinned since I first got here. Last week my host father was butchering one of our pigs that he had just killed, next to me as I was doing laundry and I wasn't grossed out at all, I was only worried about getting bits of pig in my clean laundry. And it turned out to be the best pork I've ever tasted.