Best Moments of the Past Year

I have not written in a while because I've been on a wonderful vacation with my parents around Southern Africa. So this is a post I've been meaning to do for a while, my favorite moments from the past year, some of the reasons why I have fallen in love with my village and its people.

One of the orphans that lives alone with her 2 younger brothers and very small sister, once came up to my house with some peaches from her fruit tree to give me, very happy to share with me one of the very few things she has.
An especially quiet, lovely afternoon washing clothes in the river with my neighbor women as my dog splashes around in the water.
One night when I was woken up to low, beautiful male singing from a late night ceremony.
When I ran out of propane my good friend and neighbor carried a full tank of propane(about 25 pounds) on her head back to my house.
One afternoon my host sister spent an hour telling me about HIV/AIDS and what I should personally do to stay safe.
My host mom had a party with all of the neighbor women, who all danced with babies strapped to their backs, and my host mom danced with my dog.
When I once told a woman that I liked her shirt and she started to take it off to give it to me.
When I walk home and tell the person I'm walking with that I am tired, they immediately stop walking, point to the grass beside the road and say "then rest."
A baby without pants peed on the floor in the middle of a meeting (you often bring babies to meetings here), the meeting continued without a pause, at the end the mother scooped up the baby and wiped off the floor on her way out.
Being greeted and asked how I am by everyone I pass whenever I leave my house (why ever did this stress me out when I first got here??)

But the best part of the past year is knowing the people of my village love me. And what can I give back to them that is better than that?

50 Chickens! Likhoho li teng!

After months of delay we finally got our layer chickens. The gardens of the community center have also really started to grow. The chickens are going to provide eggs for the orphans and needy of the village, along with vegetables from the gardens.

We wanted to have free-range chickens and demonstrate how you can raise chickens without building an expensive concrete building. We built chicken tractors instead, enclosed chicken runs that are portable. After the chickens have eaten all the grubs and weed seeds on one spot we move the tractor/run to another spot and the previous one is fertilized and ready to be planted.

Although the tractors/runs are pretty simple, it’s taken many, many hours to build six, we still have one to go. We got layer chickens from South Africa. The chickens are a couple of months old and have lived in cages their whole lives. They had never seen sun or had the freedom of running around, and apparently don’t know what to do with it. One mme (woman/mother) from the support group that we work with joked that the chickens were like us Americans here, since after four days they are all still clustered in the shaded ends of the runs, apparently afraid of the sun, rain, and not being in a tight pack.

We paid a neighbor with a covered pick-up truck to drive us to town to pick up the chickens. The chickens arrived four hours late on a huge semi-truck, packed into metal crates more densely than I would have thought possible. There were customers ahead of us that we were getting hundreds of birds and we sat and waited as they grabbed the birds two and five at a time by their feet and flung them into the backs of pick-ups, cages and boxes. It was a real site. When we finally got our fifty chickens and were back in village it was almost dark and we still had a giant hill to climb carrying all fifty disgruntled birds. (There are no drivable roads that go up to the center.) But quickly a group gathered to help us, and the chickens were surprisingly complacent about being carried, I didn’t get scratched at all. We didn’t have time to prepare and put them in the runs, so we put them in our office for the night. We had a real mess to clean up the next day, but with the village support group’s help we managed to get all the runs in place, with the birds inside, fed and watered. I was very encouraged to see how the group took charge of taking care of the birds, taking turns every day to climb the hill to feed and check on the chickens. If only the chickens were as cooperative and would start laying some eggs.

Christmas in Village

I stayed in my village over the holidays this year. I think it would have been hard for me to do last year, to be away from home, family and friends over Christmas. But I don’t feel alone any more, I’m surrounded by my host family and friends, and no longer notice many of the cultural differences that used to separate us. It’s very odd having Christmas in the middle of summer (which is the case in the southern hemisphere). It’s been hot and rainy, with the temperature well into the eighties. It might seem strange to miss snow, but I haven’t seen snow on the ground for more than a couple hours since 2010, the winter before I left the U.S. Christmas carols and other things that make it feel like the holiday-time aren’t very common out here.

The typical Christmas in my village involves weeks of cleaning, moving everything out of the house and cleaning it till it shines. I was told not to bother holding any classes or workshops in December because everyone would be too busy cleaning. For all of December. On the 25th most of the day is spent cooking a special meal, although none of the dishes are the same as what I would usually have for a Christmas (or Hanukkah) meal back in the U.S. It usually consists of rice, carrot slaw, beetroots and chicken. Like most holidays it is celebrated with drinking, which can make towns not as safe over the holidays, but in my village it is fine, though everyone does seem in especially good spirits. How safe I feel despite all of the drinking is a testament to how warmhearted and protective my village and friends are here. Presents aren’t very common, but all the children get a new outfit on Christmas day, which they immediately put on and walk around in groups to show off. I spent the morning handing out donated clothes to the orphans at the community center, very fun. I have to say I have never seen my village or the kids looking so good.

While I do miss home, especially on Christmas, I am happy that I got to experience the holiday time here. It certainly was less exciting and festive than my previous Christmases have been in the U.S. But just spending the day with my host family and friends here meant so much to them, maybe something is missing in all the Christmas hype back in the U.S. Here it seems to be all about just sitting with each other and sharing the time together, it doesn’t seem to matter that there aren’t all the presents, decorations or festivities. Not a white (or even red and green) Christmas, but a good one all the same.

Community Center Opening & Journal Excerpt

This week we had an opening celebration for the community center. And the following are excerpts from my journal.

The opening was a big success! Even though four organizations that RSVP-ed didn’t show. Kick4life brought four coaches and had great activities, teaching about AIDS and healthy living through sports. Almost everyone got involved in the games and had a really great time. We had about 200 people of all different ages come to the opening. And we didn’t run out of popcorn or fruit, and the drink mix was a surprisingly big hit and seemed to make up for the fact that there wasn’t any meat.

Before the opening I worked an American work schedule, 8 – 5 everyday, organizing the library, painting, and cutting, sealing and building the chicken tractors with the villagers. The design seems pretty simple, who would have thought they would turn out to be so much work? And we only finished one of the seven chicken tractors we have planned.

My home-life is going really well, I’ve had many little fun moments with my host family lately, like jumping rope with my host mom and sister and reading Where’s Waldo with my brother. Those every day little moments add up to so much. Also ausi Lebohang is back [in the village] and I spent a lovely afternoon with her, chatting and eating papa and meroho. She’s back on holiday from University, and is probably one of the few friends here that fully understands me and my American life. It’s great to have her back.

I just finished Daniel Deronda, my 57th book in Peace Corps, I’m not sure I’ll make it to 100 if I always pick such long books. And I’ve started running every morning again, now that both [my dog] Makoenya and I are back to being healthy. Although since it’s really hard to eat wholesomely here, I don’t consider myself as being really that healthy, but running at this altitude must help. And people have gotten used to my running and no longer stare in awe as I run past without an emergency or any particular destination.

The closer it gets for me to leave, less than seven months now, the less eager I am to go home. As different as it is, this has become my home. My life out here might be harder and certainly can be lonelier, but it has more purpose, more meaning, and more hard-earned joy. For some reason since happiness comes easier (at least for me) in the U.S., it seems less meaningful. But no matter where I am I know I can be happy. I’ll probably always miss or be nostalgic about some other time or place, but if I can focus on present joys and little fun moments, I know I can always be happy, not matter where I am.

Kea Kula - Donkey Transport!

I recently got some pretty severe blisters on both feet. And while not a serious injury, the blisters were bad enough that I couldn’t really walk, and was reduced to hobbling around painfully. Through my “injuries” I got to see a side of my village that was really beautiful. Word that I was “sick” (the Sesotho word kula applies for skin injuries as well as normal sicknesses) got around the village remarkably fast, everyone I passed asked how I was doing and if my feet were better or cured. It was heartwarming to have so many people concerned about my well-being. The village support group is a group of women in the village that assists orphans, elderly and sick people in the village, and who I have worked a lot with. Two member of the support group came by my house to check on me and see if there was anything they could do to help. My host mother brought me water so I wouldn’t have to carry buckets from the river. She also helped bandage my feet, while it may seem a bit strange and wasn’t really unnecessary, it was truly nice to feel so cared for. It made me feel like a real part of the community, being included in their system of caring for each other.

Since it’s only a week away from the opening of the community center, I had too much work to take time off for my feet to recover. For the first couple of days I couldn’t really walk, so I asked around to borrow a donkey. Every other family in the village has a donkey or two to carry grain to the local mill. Horses cost too much for me to rent as a Peace Corps volunteer, and if they aren’t trained well can be very difficult to ride. Falling of a donkey on the other hand is more comical than painful. I don’t think the guys I borrowed the donkey from trusted that I could stay on, on my own. And again, while unnecessary, it was very nice for them to escort me in case I should tip over and tumble off my little donkey. Admittedly, it’s not easy to ride without a saddle or reins (you steer a donkey by hitting it on either side of its neck with a stick). I’m teaching beginning English weekly at the community center, so more people try and greet me in English now, and called out to me “donkey transport!” It’s technically correct, but I didn’t really know how to respond, so I usually said something like “yes, I got a nice fat one today.”

After a week and a half, I am better enough that I can shuffle to work without needing a donkey. But the experience has allowed me to see how with such little resources the people of my village take care of each other. There may not be western medicine available to treat all their aliments, but there definitely will be a team of people there to help in any way they can and probably with some local remedy.

Self-Reflections after a Year and a Half

Living in Lesotho, in my village, has really changed me, which was something that seemed very scary when I first signed up. I don’t think I have necessarily become a “better person.” I’ve become very un-politically correct, am no longer horrified by corporeal punishment at the schools, nor am I necessarily a nicer person. If I see a man eagerly coming over to talk to me, my first response is to ignore him, then to be rude to get him to leave me alone. I’ve just had way too many experiences where I am treated like an object that someone wants, or as someone who has money to give away. I’ve also seen too many projects, great ideas not take shape because no one bothered to show up. I’m afraid I’m becoming cynical. And I am ashamed to admit: I have littered. Having said all that, I do truly love the people here, there is a friendliness and openness that I haven’t seen anywhere else. And they have helped change my perspective, for the better, about many things.

I think most of us that come here in Peace Corps do it just as much for personal adventure as to altruistically help a community. I hope I have helped (and will continue to help) my community, but it is nothing compared with what I’ve gotten from being a part of them. And that is the biggest change I’ve seen in myself – seeing the “reality” of how people live here and what really matters, it’s the people. Not the work, education or accomplishments, but the relationships you have with people and a real community that supports and entertains each other.

Peace Corps has given me a lot of time for self-reflection, I know myself better than I had ever hoped, or even really wanted to. I have a self-reproach/guilt that drives me, that I was only ever faintly aware of before. I have had such a happy, golden childhood and life, I’ve faced so little hardship and pain that it doesn’t really seem fair. I don’t feel like I’ve done anything to deserve the amazing family and friends that I was born into and the advantages I grew up with. While I am, in general, very happy, I have a subconscious drive to atone or make myself worthy of it all, which has unwittingly motivated me in so many of my decisions. Joining Peace Corps is one of the most obvious ones, but it hasn’t assuaged the guilt, in fact it has made me think that I am even luckier than I did before. I’ve struggled some while being here, it certainly hasn’t always been “golden”, but if anything it has motivated me more. I don’t think I can go back to what I was doing a couple of years ago.

I still have 8 more months left.

Stories from ntate moholo

I have been recording the stories of a few of the oldest people in my village. It has been fascinating, especially the stories of one ntate moholo, who could not remember his age. He vividly recalled political fights, where he and other men of the village had to hide in the surrounding mountains. There were times when he was afraid to sleep. When he returned to the village, the women has stories of being threatened and forced to drink twenty liters of water as punishment. He said this went on for a whole year, though he can’t recall which year or even how old he was. The fighting ended when Basotho soldiers came to protect them and ended the political fights. Maybe he was 60, but no his wife was alive, maybe he was 30. He estimated that he’s in his 90s now (but claimed to be born in 1988…)
He talked about woven baskets, clay pots and animal skins that his family used to make and use, that have almost all disappeared now. Replaced by plastic buckets and cotton t-shirts.

He talked about times of fighting and peace. Although we are currently in a time of peace, he preferred some of the old times. Now he doesn’t have cows for plowing fields. He still has fields but no one helps him hoe them by hand. In those good times he live4d in Nqobelle, on the steep mountains beyond my village. The chief came and moved them, the dozen families that lived in that small village because it was land designated only for cattle. He remembered being forced to move as a very sad time, and spoke about it with a husky voice. They had to leave their houses and build new ones, gathering all the thatch grasses, trees and mud for them. He remembers his old village as where life was good and noy hard. The cattle could graze next to the house. Now when the river is full he can no longer get to the mountains to graze his cattle (maybe he meant his relatives cattle).

Part of the reason I am doing these interviews is to see how life has changed with the recent developments in my village. He said getting electricity did not change his life, he doesn’t like it, he doesn’t have money to pay for it, and he likes candles better anyway. He didn’t think the village had grown, he claimed it used to have more people, a lot have died. He thought the mill in the next village over was an improvement. Women used to grind maize on a large stone, using a smaller stone, and would take the whole morning. And if you wanted to have a celebration you would invite many bo-‘me (women) over to grind all of the maize meal, laid out on cow skins. He remembered mornings when his mother would grind maize meal then make papa. He would roll five balls of papa and take them with him out in the mountains to look after the cattle for the day with the other herd boys. None of them went to school.

They wore animal skins when he was young. The men wore cow skins and the women wore sheep skins. And shoes were made from the skin on face of the cow. He demonstrated how he wore the animal skins—wrapped around his middle and covering his upper thighs. Though he had nostalgia for the old traditional skin clothes, I noticed that he didn’t have any. He wore an old sweater and pants, and shoes with holes in the toes.

When I asked him about the new paved road, he told me about a time before there was even a dirt road. The people had to walk to Ha Khabo, 17km away to get to a dirt road that eventually led to town. People in the village would wake up at 2am to start the walk, or ride on a donkey if they could borrow one. If you couldn’t get to town and back in a day, you would stay in the thatched cattle posts overnight (normally built and used by herd boys). Having a donkey meant you were rich in the village. Even though the paved road now makes the trip to town only take an hour and a half, he rarely takes it. It costs money and there are small shops in the village now.

I was surprised by a lot of what he said, development did not seem to have touched his life as much as I had thought. He still lived in a couple of mud-thatched rondovels with his one remaining son. The modern concrete houses and electric radios sprouting up around him were bought by the younger families. He is one of the last of his generation, and in this rapidly developing village, it seems that some of the history, the stories and traditions may go with him.