What a Week!

Many of the problems that I have had living at site for the past six and a half months, seemed to happen again within the past week and a half. I got bed bugs again, but much worse, my legs look like I got come kind of pox. They should be easy enough to get rid of once it stops raining for long enough that I can take all my bedding outside. About a month after getting to site I had stuff go missing from my house, mainly cash and cookies, but I had a long talk in Sesotho about it with my host mother and it seemed like it had gotten resolved. But last week stuff started going missing again, fruit and cookies and my radio had been turned on. Nothing major (and I no longer keep cash in my room) but it still is a terrible feeling that someone is coming into my room and going through my things. And my host mother under the impression that we will soon be getting electricity (I’m very skeptical that it’ll be anytime soon) dug up a large part of my garden to put the electric pole. Hours and hours of work and all my little onion and carrot seedlings were destroyed. She seemed to think this was a necessary sacrifice for electricity, and was surprised that I was not excited at the prospect. All these issues are something that I am perfectly capable of dealing with, but when they come all at once it’s overwhelming. I did have a couple really good moments when I received Christmas packages from home along with a couple unexpected letters! And the upside to this difficult week is that I will soon be on vacation on the beaches of Durban for new years!

My Adventures in a Hospital in Lesotho

I’ve been surprisingly lucky that I’ve gone six months in rural Africa without so much as a cold. But a couple of weeks ago I caught a stomach virus that was going around the peace corps volunteers. I started throwing up and couldn’t stop. It was after dark, so there wasn’t any more transportation to the nearest town or hospital. I called the lodge and they came and picked me up and drove me to the hospital, but not before I had thrown up eleven times in two hours. I’ve had food poisoning and the stomach flu before, but this seemed worse. I am so lucky that I have a host organization like Maliba Lodge that was so easy to contact and helpful in getting me to the hospital. The hospital was in the camptown closest to my village, Butha-Buthe. Even though it was after hours nurses were there and they gave me a charcoal drink and a shot to stop the stomach pains (though there was no alcohol swab or bandaid with the shot). I felt a lot better almost instantly, but was too weak to leave. Throughout the night I kept asking for water, and the nurses told me there was none. Finally they turned on the tap to show me that it was dry and there was no running water. So I had no water (I did have an IV though) until another volunteer came and visited me the next day and brought me some. I also needed to go to the bathroom after 2 IVs , but they were all closed because of the lack of running water. I asked the nurse what I should do, I stayed for over 16 hours and really had to pee, she said she did not know. I eventually got a bed pan. I have to admit the lack of water was not the hospitals fault, but the idea that a hospital could lose their running water and nothing would be done about it for days shocked me. Besides that, it was actually pretty nice, there weren’t many people there at all (hospitals are expensive to stay in overnight) and the food was much better than what I’ve had in American hospitals. I probably got more attention than I would have in a hospital at home too. But I almost was made to stay for another night when the accounts office closed at 3pm. The staff wanted to keep me another night (and pay for it) because I could not settle my bill while the accounts office was closed. With the help of Lauren, the volunteer visiting me, we convinced them that I could leave a deposit and settle the account with Peace Corps the next day. While I never would want to go to the hospital here again, I was pleasantly surprised with my experience there, and I left a little weak, but cured.

Settling in: salads and a radio

I’ve now been in Lesotho for almost six months, and in my village for three and a half. It’s taken a while, but I finally feel at home. My work has developed, so that I have two tasks to do everyday. Being busy and productive has made a big difference on how content I feel. On an average day I’m woken up by my host family calling to each other and getting ready as early as 6am, but I don’t get up till 7. I then spend a little time cleaning and then an hour or two working in the garden. Usually I get dirty enough that I have to take a bucket bath. But since it’s hot it is a lot more pleasant than it was in the winter. I then read a bit and review my lesson plan for then day before walking for an hour or so to school. I teach lifeskills for one period and then meet with the agriculture group. Lately we’ve been planting, but before that we spent most meetings planning, writing needs assessments, and developing a seasonal calendar. I believe I am making a difference in my lifeskills classes, most of the kids had a very limited knowledge of HIV/AIDS. But in the agriculture clubs, I can actually see the difference, and see the plants grow, it has been very rewarding.

As I settle into a routine with work I’ve also become much better at filling my free time. Without electricity, tv and computers I used to spend a lot of time just sitting and looking at the mountains, which was pleasant but pretty boring. Now I’ve taken up knitting and have started a garden, which has been a lot of fun. I’m trying to grow greens that you can’t get in Lesotho, they don’t have uncooked salads here. I can’t wait to have a nice green salad! One of my favorite parts about my village are the children, they come and visit me almost everyday, I have gotten some colored pencils and now they sit outside my door and color, much nicer than just standing there and staring at me. And the rains have started, so everything is green. The peaches on the peach trees have started to ripen. And a waterfall that wasn’t there in the winter, started up a couple of weeks ago. I woke up to the sound of new waterfalls and a very full river, at first I thought my fan was one, then I realized I have no fan, and no electricity to run a fan. And it’s gotten hot here, my house is on a hillside and gets a nice breeze, but the walk to the schools is very sweaty. The weather here in summer is very dramatic, it hails on a weekly basis and I have twice seen lightening strike a nearby mountain and set it on fire.

While I still have my frustrating moments, I’m very happy here and feel settled. Two years still sounds like a long time, but not as frighteningly long as it did before. One of my frustrating moments happened two weeks ago when was trying to handle two six-week old puppies in my purse on a bus. They were being a handful and a woman who I’d never seen before came up to me and told me to give her my puppy. I said no, not unless she gave me one of her cattle. She was quiet for a while after that, then saw that I had two puppies, and said that I needed to give her one since I had two. My patience in Lesotho has been surprisingly good, a lot better than at home, I think it’s because I get so much sleep. But I ran out of patience at that moment and just ignored her. It’s a cultural difference, here you don’t say “please can you lend me,” you say “I’m asking for” or “give me,” I’m still getting used to it. I think politeness is a cultural subtlety that is very difficult to grasp. I probably have been impolite myself without realizing it.

Last week I got a radio! Its screen might not work and it only gets a few stations, but it has been wonderful. I spent a very pleasant evening last week sitting watching the sunset behind the mountains with my host sister listening to old American r&b.

Rewards and Frustrations of Teaching

I’ve been teaching and working at the schools for six weeks now, walking up to seven miles a day while rotating between the schools. Teaching has been going very well, but at first it was overwhelming. The first class I taught had over 120 students in it, the principal wanted grades 4 through 7 to attend the first class. I had not prepared for that many students and had to improvise my lesson. I talked to the principal after class and we agreed that I would just teach lifeskills to 6th and 7th grades, still close to 50 students, but much more manageable. The kids are very receptive and ask a lot of questions. The younger students have trouble with English, but luckily at the two primary schools at least one teacher attends my class and is able to translate (while at the same time learning how to teach lifeskills themselves). At the secondary school the teachers are much less involved, but the students are more advanced and have been really great. Lifeskills covers the topics of HIV/AIDS, self-empowerment, gender, reproductive health, etc. I often sound like a cliché after school special, overly simplifying everything so that the students can understand. One of my classes was on self-esteem, for the next week kids in my village would come up to me and say “I love myself!” I’m not sure if they understood, but it was nice to hear. I think the most progress I’ve made is with the anonymous question box. In it students admit to not understanding a concept from class or ask questions about AIDS. Some of the questions are really tough and heartbreaking. I got one this week where a girl said when she told her boyfriend/husband that she was HIV positive he beat her and asked what she should do. I feel like I am helping these kids, but there is a big difference between teaching them to know what they should do and actually having them do it.

I’ve had mixed results with my teachers’ workshops. Probably the most frustrating week I’ve had so far was after leading two teacher workshops where only half the teachers showed up (even though they were all on school grounds) and only one out of three or five paid any attention. These teachers are in the best position to help the students and it was upsetting to feel like they just didn’t care. But I had one amazing teachers’ workshop where all but one of the teachers showed up, not only did they pay attention they actually took notes and asked questions. This was at the school where the teachers seem to care the most, but ironically also beat the most. While I was explaining the lifeskills no-beating, positive reinforcement strategies the teachers asked if it would work in all of their classes as well. They are going to try not beating and using the lifeskills classroom management techniques. It might take a while to actually work, but it was really exciting to be a part of such a positive change.

The Buildings of Maliba Burn

It looks like it’s snowing again at Maliba Lodge, but its in the 80s F. Three are constant flurries of ash falling from a huge wildfire that burned on and off for the past week. It’s depressing to look at the mountains that were green and covered with trees are now charred and in some places still smoldering. It’s the end of the dry season, so a small fire quickly caught and spread until entire mountains were on fire. I was not at the lodge for the first couple of days, when the fires were the worst. The staff, with many people helping from my village, fought the fires without sleeping or resting for three days. It burned down three staff houses and got alarmingly close to the lodge. In some places the thatch roof caught fire, but was quickly put out. Some of the patios of the guest houses burned. It was very lucky that the lodge didn’t burn down. They say that the fires are out now, but there are still many spots on the mountains where smoke is still rising, a week after the fires first started. IT burned most of Maliba’s land and a lot of Tsehlanyane national park. It even spread to the mountain beside my village. I was told that the fire was too hard to reach up in the mountain to fight. I was scared and ready to evacuate, but none of the villagers seemed worried though.

The first news I had of the fire was when I was getting back from a grocery trip to the closest town. My host sister came running up to me and said “the buildings of Maliba burn!” I looked in the direction of Maliba Lodge, over 5km away and blocked by several mountains, but I could still see huge clouds of smoke and large flames on one of the further mountains. It was shocking and really sad. In some places the only green things left are the firebreaks that the fire easily leapt over. And in a national park where some of the plants are only found in these mountains, it is especially depressing. But nobody was hurt, and it could have been much, much worse. What we need is some rain, to finally and completely put the fire out, and to help start things regrowing and to turn the mountains green again.

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.