Site Arrival

Today I arrived at my site.

Yesterday was the day after Christmas, and I came down with another 24 hour bug, this time with puking and diarrhea. Bugger. Luckily I got over it in time for today’s travels to be as painless as could be hoped for.

The day began with frantic packing by all the Trainees. The goal was to be packed up in the Land Cruisers and on our way by 7:00 am. In an Honest-to-God miracle, four of us, all our stuff, and the driver somehow managed to get on the road by 8:00 am. It was like being in a coal mine during an impending implosion; the roof rack was packed 3 feet high over the entire roof, there were bags on laps and the entire back, every nook and cranny, was filled with our crap. You can take the Americans out of America… etc, etc.

Everybody was feeling pretty good about our feat, and then we stopped at the gas-mart to get gas tanks for our stoves. The entire roof rack was unloaded, then reloaded with four, 19 kg propane tanks added. With the stability of an inverted pendulum, we headed out onto highway.

We dropped off Melody first. It took 4-wheel low to crawl up the road (read rock face, not rocky, much of the road was just one big polished hunk of rock) up to her compound. It is a Catholic Mission, but with the seclusion and oddness of the surrounding pine trees and labyrinth of barbed-wire fences looked more like something out of a bad slasher movie set in the Eastern Cascades. We unloaded her stuff, used her toilet (she is one of four volunteers in my group to have a toilet), and I chased away a spider the size of my palm while everybody waited outside. I quickly informed the group that the spider did indeed jump, shoot venom and fling spider-webbing out of it’s front two legs. This may or may not have helped the general arachnophobia that resides in my fellow trainees.

I thought it was funny.

Next was Meg. She was only about an hour away from Melody in private car and had a cool ronda-mansion (rondaval + mansion = ronda-mansion). Black and white checkered floor, great stamped steel, 70’s era white and aqua cabinets, an wardrobe, she is basically living in a thatched-roof diner.

Mike and I were next to be dropped off. We are both in Ha Sefako, the second to last village on the most northerly route to South Africa. We left Meg’s and headed back down south towards the direction we had come. The right turn we took off the main road immediately became a dirt road and we traveled on that for the next hour and a half. That is to say, we are much more secluded than I had thought.

However, the drive in was gorgeous. The closest thing I can compare it to is a slightly smaller, less sheer rock faced Yosemite valley. Out my front door I look at South Africa and a peak that towers maybe 2500’ above me. The Caledon River (more of a creek right now) is just a couple hundred yards away and is the Northwest border between Lesotho and South Africa. The village is quite small, with a small shop, a secondary school and a primary school.

My supervisor met us along the road and got Mike and I both settled in before taking us to meet the Chief, the police and the owners of the local shop. Unfortunately the trip to the shop (or shopong, how I love cognates) culminated in the purchase of 1 liter of coke, which is why I am still awake writing this. I guess one good thing was that on my return from Mike’s house, two women stopped me, asked for a drink of my coke, and proceeded to polish off the last third of it between them. I think I’ll probably hide stuff in bags from now on unless I’m not interested in consuming it.

So, I’m sitting in my living room, a sizeable 15’ x 15’ room with a single school-sized desk in the middle with two plastic chairs typing by candle light. In the corner are a pair of slightly worn rock-climbing shoes (just my size!) and a pair of Birkenstocks that were left by the last occupant. The two windows are covered in curtains that are made up of old dolphin sheets and a single map of Southern Africa adorns the walls. I am sitting in an orange plastic chair, opposed by another orange plastic chair. The other rooms of the house are a kitchen, bedroom (with a firm mattress, my back is overjoyed) and sizeable storeroom.

I have nothing to store.

Big dreams for the new abode include sizeable chunks for acoustic foam and a giant L-shaped couch for the living room. Realistic dreams are going to have to require some research. The road to South Africa is apparently only passable on foot or with four-wheel drive and a death wish. The other volunteer in the area calls it the ‘Trail of Tears.’ Perhaps some paint, an area rug and some pillows to sit on will be good enough. Who knows what my inner-interior decorator will come up with.

In short, I am extremely excited about this site. I have a couple volunteers who live within 15 minutes (Mike is like 4), the scenery is post-card worthy and my supervisor is super cool.

Cheers all, and thanks for reading. Post a comment. It makes my day!

I will try and post pictures soon, the internet connection in Botha-Bothe is lackluster.

The Current Situation

The last number of posts have been about specific experiences, so today will be a more general post. For the last three weeks I have been at Community Based Training (CBT), which is to say that I have been living with a host family in a village (Ha Mofoka). My family is made up of a ‘M’e (mother), whose first name is Mabokang and surname is Qobo (Cobo, where the C is a click). She takes care of two grandchildren and a great nephew. The two boys are eleven and the granddaughter is 3. She calls them all her kids. The family structures here are blurred and the typical exactness that Americans use to define relatives is not used here.

The first two weeks of CBT were focused around practice teaching. This was essentially our student teaching condensed into two weeks of two, forty minute teaching periods. After practice teaching in the morning we had Sesotho lessons in the afternoon. It was intense, informative, at times discouraging and energizing. This week has been Sesotho in the morning, followed by HIV/AIDs training or cross-cultural training, which has been informative, saddening and motivating. HIV/AIDs is destroying the communities in genocidal ways that are difficult to grasp considering how privately and round-aboutly the cultural approaches and accepts it. And how covertly HIV/AIDs attacks. It is not an obvious disease, but something that you have to almost take on faith.

We will head back to the Training Center in Maseru the 24th to celebrate Christmas as a training group. The 27th we head to our respective posts for a site visit. I have been posted in Ha Sefako in Botha-Bothe district, way in the North of Lesotho. We will be there for four days before returning to Maseru. Soon after we will have our language test (I must perform at least at the Intermediate-low level), then swearing in, final training, and then finally head to our posts January 9th or 10th.

School starts January 19th.

I have been placed at Ha Sefako high school. We met with our respective counter-parts today and I learned that Ha Sefako High School is an Anglican funded school. I will live on the school compound in a three room building without running water or electricity. My counter-part said that I will probably be teaching the Form A and B (8th and 9th grades in America) science and maths classes. It will be a challenge to teach at these levels both because the students have limited English experience and the Sesotho language has limited means of communicating science and math concepts. I am going to have to relearn what it was like to learn things like surface area.

Not so easy.

It has been nice to cook for myself again. The last few months in LA was a lot of eating out (Taco Tuesdays at El Torito, Chipotle (how I miss barbacoa burritos), etc). So it has been nice to create food again, especially when so much of it has been fresh and organic (in the sense of a few very basic ingredients). I have been cooking with turmeric and cumin more than I have in the past with the results being some pretty decent pasta sauce and fried rice. Cabbage, onion and carrot is a surprisingly delicious combination and a fair egg-drop soup happened one night despite the lack of celery and chicken or tofu. Perhaps some inventive recipes will result out of the next two years.

All-in-all things are good. The Sesotho language-proficiency test is coming up in a couple weeks and I am a little worried about it, but things will probably be okay. People are great and I’m building some solid relationships. I have been very lucky to be placed almost across the street from another volunteer (Mike), so I will have an English language, American outlet close by, which will help with getting through the inevitable tough times.

Thank you everybody who has written (especially you, Amanda), it is a great pleasure and encouragement to receive letters and correspondence. Many blessings and Merry Christmas all!

The Greats

The Great Biscuit Riot of '08: There was a riot. I wouldn't call it a quiet riot, but it wasn't quite an uprising or coup either. Maybe it was more of a skirmish, or even just mild disorder. Regardless of semantics, it was not business as usual. At the end of each day of practice teaching each student is given 3 biscuits (cookies), or a banana, or what-have-you. We had been directed to give out biscuits at the door as the students were leaving in order to avoid possible bedlam. Well, as the foreshadowing probably indicated, things went awry. There was rain, and lightning, and thunder. Nothing atypical for this students, which is why they were just socializing in the room waiting for biscuits and the rain to subside. A female volunteer decided that giving out the biscuits in class would help calm the restlessness and stop the hunger pangs, as students do not bring lunches. Pandamonium. I started off well enough. Students were eager bug remained in their seats as the three biscuits per were granted. There were extras. Students saw. And understood. Some of the students were large, as they were 18 year olds in the 9th grade (some boys must tend to the herds for a number of years before returning to school). The teacher tried to calm the mob that was forming, students pestering and poking. After some time she relented and asked a student to hand out the rest of the biscuits to those who were behaving well. One of the large students began circling. "SIT DOWN!", unphased he continued to "sneak" his way over to the other side of the room, while his slouched over 6'2" frame, now standing at 5' 7", squeeked and bumped his way over toward the bag of biscuits as he pushed desks and chairs out of the way in the overstuffed classroom. The actions of the unwaivering Frankensteinesque student prompted similar stalking by other students. A pack formed and surrounded the cookies like they were mana. They most assuredly were not (John may argue this point, he rather fancies them). I arrived on the seen just at the end of this, as the teacher was leaving and sounds not that different from haenas were making their way out of the classroom. Someone may have lost a hand.

Moral of the Story: Biscuits are Gold, do not hand them out in class.

Disclaimer: Parts of The Great Biscuit Riot of '08 may or may not be slightly dramatized.


The Great Oil Catastrophe of '08: Ugh. So I had a dinner party on Sunday as part of our celebration that marked our liberation from being totally dependant on our 'M'es. Don't get me wrong, it was great not having to think about what was going to be made for dinner, or having to buy food or any such activity. But, for a bunch of American 20-somethings who take their ability to do what they want when they want how they want, it is a difficult thing to grow accustomed to. So upon our freedom to cook what we wanted we had a dinner party. Seven of us squeezed into my humble abode and I worked on a delightful little red sauce to go with some whole wheat penne, Gwen made bruschetta, Elen apple sauce and Kelly devilled eggs. I borrowed plastic chairs from my 'M'e and people were having a good time speaking in English and being generally loud Americans, when the plastic chair that John was sitting in 'melted.' Now, we have a history of these chairs from the Peace Corps Training Center where the back legs of the chair have the inexplicable tendency to curtsy, leaving the occupent on a smooth yet rapid descent towards the ground. This is called 'melting.' This would have normally been another situation for pointing and friendly ridicule if it had not been for the fact that there was a brand new 1-litre bottle of sunflower oil directly beneath the freshly melted chair. The aptly named Valdezian spill spread everywhere, especially towards my clothes which lined the adjacent wall. Due to our altered state of jubilation, laughter and general vacuum of quick action the slick spread and touched most of my clothes. I decided we needed a binding agent and poured a kilogram of whole wheat flour on the floor. John and I rolled up our pants, freaking out a little bit, while most everybody turned back to their conversations and left John and me to kick around the flour. Surprisingly the flour actually worked well and soaked up most of the oil, creating a pleasant pedicure material. I threw all of my clothes into the giant, red, washing tub and began scrubbing furiously. My host sisters laughed quite hard and told me just to leave it for my 'M'e, because I clearly was not going to get the oil out. This was only mostly true. I had a go at it and after everything, decided that I had to leave one pair of pants out to dry while I would soak the rest overnight.

Needless to say, the pants I left out are ruined. My 'M'e generously agreed to scrub my clothes again and was able to save many of them. But, 3 shirts and a pair of khakis were lost in the ecological disaster that was, The Great Oil Catastrophe of '08.

So all-in-all things are going well. Practice teaching has been difficult as the language gap has made teaching more difficult. The younger kids have neither a solid grasp of English or fundamental exposure to scientific vocabulary or concepts. Trying to do both simultaneously while just trying to get a grasp on basic teaching skills is a somewhat daunting task. I think things will be okay though. When I have a class that I can spend enough time with to learn my accent and for me to get accustomed to what their needs and background are I think things will smooth out.

First Week at Village

So I've been at village for the last week and a lot has happened. I'm just going to give you a few snapshots.

Village Day: On Saturday the 29th we arrived in the village of Ha Mofoka to start Community Based Training. The village is about an hour outside of Maseru and during our drive up to the meeting place the truck ahead of us, which held all of our bags, got stuck in a large bog that had been created by the recent heavy rain. Soon a large crowd of children surrounded the truck, the numbers of which were swollen due to the fact that the truck had repeatedly flagged its arrival with heavy honking, and the truck slithered back and forth in the mud as it tried to rock its way out. After a lot of anxious shouts from the bus holding all of the trainees, the truck finally got freed and it was our bus' turn. We got through without event.

We arrived at our destination, a horseshoe of white plastic chairs that faced a line of bo-'M'e (women) and a throng of villagers that grew with the incoming crowd from the mud lake we had just forded, a la Oregon Trail. All of the trainees who were staying in Ha Mofoka exited the vehicle and began unloading our stuff out of the truck. We milled around about while one of the trainers figured out what was going on. We eventually sat in the white chairs facing the crowd. The trainer gave a speech in Sesotho, the wife of the village chief gave a reply and the trainer spoke a little more. A second trainer translated as the trainees sat smiling, whelmed and content.

Soon we found ourselves being paired up with the bo-'M'e. It all happened very fast and I soon found myself on the other side of the white chairs, surrounded by many village children and trying to figure out what my 'M'e had just said my new Sesotho name was, and if she had mentioned what here name was. All I knew was that there was a click in some part of the name, and was plotting as to whether or not I could communicate some fabricated physical ailment that would explain my inability to master this essential sound of the language. I decided I should just take a few pictures instead.

After packing all of my stuff into a truck and being escorted across the road, I found myself in a lovely dusty green room, with widely spaced, dark stained, rough hewn 2 x 6 stringers with a corragated tin roof. There were large windows on opposing walls, a twin bed across from the door and a lace cloth on the table at the center of the room. Diagonal from the door stood an old wood fired, green enamel stove with a twin-gas burner stove on top. On the wall across from the bed was a table for preparing food and storing pots and pans.

My 'M'e helped me organize my stuff then left me to rest and settle in the rest of my stuff.

First Day of Teaching: So Tuesday was my first day of practice teaching. Students are on summer break, but many have been showing up at St. Joseph's school in Koro Koro in order to get some biscuits in exchange for watching the Americans attempt to teach. The first day was not encouraging. My Form E maths class (equivalent to seniors in high school in America) slowly filed in over the 30 minute class and stared at me blankely as I tried to introduce Algebra and do a little review. I got zero response, and they seemed genuinely disinterested in me. My Form B science class was even worse. Their English is new, and their mathematical background is not thorough. These kids had just finished their 7th or 8th grade year and could not divide 100 by 5, they struggled with my English, and their vocabulary does not extend into the scientific realm. All in all it was eye opening for what I am going to be facing for the next two years, and also what I need to think about in order to help Lesotho's students pass their external exams (high school exit exam). It was rough, but I was reassured by the current volunteers who observed us that it was a fairly typical response by shy students who needed to get to know us and our accents.

The second day was much better, and I finally saw some engagement and response when I tossed out some candies to the winners of a mental math game. I think teaching will be okay.

Donkey Day: So I was teaching my abuti (brother, also boy) Bohlokua how to play frisbee, when a neighbor boy rolled up on his donkey. I got very excited and asked if I could ride the beast, at which point my abuti looked at me, smiled, and communicted, quite effectively, "really?" I adamently nodded that I did, indeed, want to mount the dirty donkey and go for a ride. The neighbor boy consented, gracefully dismounted by pushing himself off the back of the donkey and held it while I deftly and gingerly got on the sagging back of the mangy donkey. I was very excited and visualized myself galloping around the village, bareback, and waving to the bo-'M'e and bo-Ntate, and them proudly responding with encouraging and accepting waves. This was my avenue for moderate celebrity status in the community. The boy grabbed the donkey's mohawk, turned it to face down a long, straight path, surely I was going to reach top speed down this path. I did my best to stablize myself while trying not to touch any of the rough, patchy fur that was motled with unknown substances, probably feces. The boy began pulling hard at the donkey's mohawk, trying to get the donkey to move.

The jackass didn't budge.

I dismounted. Today when we got on the bus to go to the school, I told everybody that I had ridden a donkey. They were jealous. But less so when they found out the jackass wouldn't budge. Still, I got on a donkey.

Village life is good. It is heavily dictated by daylight as the night is black and dogs roam about. It is unfortunate that we cannot be out at night, as the nights are spectacular with stars and thunderstorms, sometimes in the distance and sometimes rolling right over the homestead here, pouring buckets of rain and lighting up the night.

We will be in village for another three weeks, and begin cooking for ourselves tomorrow. All the trainees are very excited to be self-sufficient and productive adults again. Also to be able to cook for themselves again. I will assuredly adopt the Bosotho breads and cabbage, but will probably eat more raw vegetables and fruits.

Well, that's all for now. I will be getting a cell phone by the end of the month, so everybody should start getting phone cards now, so there isn't a run on them at the end of the month.

Site Visit

Monday through Wednesday I went on a site visit to get a better idea of what my day to day will be like as a volunteer. Ellen, Ro and I were traveling to Thaba Tseka with Rebecca and Victoria, two volunteers who live there. Thaba Tseka is the camp town (district capitol) within the district of the same name. We got to the bus ranks about an hour before the bus was slated to leave, and were repeatedly solicited to buy anything from newspapers, prepared food, knick-knacks to bread. Rebecca got some delicious flat bread that was passed around.

Leaving the bus ranks took about 20 minutes, moving a few feet at a time while people walked about in front of the bus and we squeezed through very narrow canals of the market streets. Finally we were freed and the sprawling city of concrete block homes, street side vendors and honking taxies and the landscape quickly changed to the plowed fields of the lowlands and foothills. Uniformed students were walking along the road on their way to exams. The transition to the mountains came quickly, then progressed slowed as the bus crawled up the ridge. Once on the top of the first pass the scenery opened up to reveal the expanses of mountain ridges that ran like dulled, serrated knife edges. The mountains looked tired, beaten down by erosion and time. There wasn’t the jaggedness or Goliaths of the Cascades, but instead a greener, but similarly bald, amplified version of the Santa Monica Mountains, stacked on ridge behind the other as far as you could see.

When the terrain allowed and water existed, a small village would pop up with its terraced fields and herd boys, in the traditional goulashes, diaper like garment, and wool blanket pinned around his shoulders, standing watch near small flocks of sheep or herds of cows. Eventually we made it to the Katse dam, which was just visible from the road and finally to the one and only pit stop about 3 hours into the trip. The bus pulled up next to some women selling various fare, including one old woman who had a large Tupperware bowl full of various goat parts. She would intermittently pull back the plastic bag that covered the bowl, pick up a fork and prod the goat’s decapitated head a bit, then covered the bowl again. The next hour of the trip was on the portion of the road that was unpaved, but wasn’t so bad because the bus was one of the new ones and had a fairly plush ride.

Finally we made it to Thaba Tseka, which sits on a mountainside above a river gorge. Trees are scarce and the wind can really whip across the bald landscape. We made our way down to Victoria’s rondeval. All of her stuff was strewn around the yard. Her family had apparently cleaned and bug bombed her rondeval because she had had bugs. We helped move stuff back in the left her and Ro to finish putting stuff away while Ellen, Rebecca and I went up to Rebecca’s rondeval to drop our stuff off. We took a small tour of the town, then went and talked to another PCV, Sam, who works in Thaba Tseka also.

That night everybody convened back at Rebecca’s to make burritos. Sam made tortillas while Rebecca sauted some veggies, made some rice and grated cheese that had been brought with us from Maseru. The burritos were delicious, and we were later treated to a light show. Stars were laid out like a tapestry above us and along the far ridge it looked like an Olympic Shock and Awe campaign was being waged. The clouds above the ridge lit up as lightening struck incessantly for a few hours. It was amazing.

Tuesday Ellen and I went with Rebecca to visit her school, a 45 minute walk away, through some fields and across a grass runway that appeared to end on a cliff. We got there about 10 minutes before she expected to have to invigilate (proctor) a test, to find out that the test time had been moved up an hour and nobody had told her. Apparently she is rarely informed of schedule changes like this. She went to invigilate and Ellen and I did our best to solve the maths test that she was going to have to mark later. We scored about an 85 on it I think. Uh oh, I’m going to have to go do some review on high school maths.

We went to meet some of Rebeccas students outside, only to find out that some of them were collecting rocks. When asked why, they said because somebody told them to. Others were digging holes in preparation for planting trees. Well, there was only one shovel, so one student was digging holes while the others watched.

We walked back over to Rebeccas and I wasn’t feeling well so I took a nap, while Ro, Ellen and Victoria went on an adventure hike to the next town over in order to get a signature for something or the other. When I woke up I helped mark Rebeccas exams, on which the average score was optimistically somewhere in the 40’s.

The trip back was uneventful, but long due to the old, tired bus we had. The training center was very exciting as everybody trickled in from their various site visits and the story telling began. I wasn’t feeling too hot, so I went to bed early. Thursday I had a temperature of 102, which subsided slowly as the day wore on. Unfortunately I was stuck at the training center while everybody else went to the Ambassador’s house to enjoy a Thanksgiving meal. I’m feeling better, and will hopefully be back to 100% before Saturday, as we are heading out to do our Community Based Training, which means we will be living in a village doing practice teaching and continuing our training. I won’t have internet access during that time, but will hopefully get to send emails and such on the weekends.

I will be getting a cell phone after Christmas and will send out more details when that’s available. I hope everybody is well at home.

The 4+1 Odyssey

Lumela (dumela)(Hello),

So we're getting into a rhythm here in Maseru. Training continues to be extremely busy, breakfast is at 7, we have 2 2-hour sessions in the morning, 2 1.5-hour sessions in the afternoon and usually another hour-long session in the evening. Everybody is usually exhausted after that.

Our language lesson yesterday was on using public transportation here. It concluded with a trip to the Shoprite (the big grocery store here that is comparable to a mini-Super WalMart (in that it isn't just groceries), taxi ranks and markets. We walked from our training center across the bridge to get to Kingsway, which is the major thorofare through town. Mild pandemoneum took place as a 4+1 was hailed (4 people plus 1 driver, quite clever), which resulted in 6-8 other 4+1's careening directly towards us. They pulled up headfirst into the curb while we tried to figure out who was going in what car. Kaitlen and I got into a 4+1 with 'M'e Malineo at which point 'M'e Malineo (the teacher) very quickly told the driver that were students and that we need to practice our Sesotho (I assume, I obviously couldn't understand what was going on). We backed out, then pulled forward, then backed out, then pulled forward, eventually releasing ourselves from the grip of the surrounding 4+1's and coninued along our way down Kingsway. The 4+1 driver, not to waste space, proceded to stop at every taxi stop, honk and yell at the standersby, then begin to move again without looking forward. I had frequent visions of pedestrian slayings.

I made a feable attempt to tell the driver where we wanted to get out, ask how much it would cost, and eventually ask the name of the lady who somehow shimmied her 240 lb frame next to Kaitlen and me in the back of a sub-compact 4+1. She said her name was Florence.

Finally we got out of the 4+1 and the driver proceeded to scurry about, petitioning the other drivers for change. Once I had my 2 rand of change (20 cents), I turned around to discover the huge market behind me. It was exactly what you would envision an African market to be, many stalls lined up with all kinds of wares and foods being sold. 'M'e Malineo took great care to hold my hand as we crossed the street and was even more vigilant for my safety after one lady bumped into me with her truck, yelling "Sorry Ntate" (sorry Mr.). We were taken to see the Shoprite (there is another one a 5 minute walk from the Peace Corps Training Center), the taxi ranks (VW bus type of rigs that travel all over Lesotho), the Sprinter ranks (bigger taxis), the local 4+1 ranks and finally, and most gloriously, a Kentucky Fried Chicken. It wasn't nearly as out of place as I thought it'd be.

The return trip was exceedingly entertaining as I sat with 'M'e Malineo in the back of the taxi (this is the VW Bus type) while Kaitlen was a couple rows ahead. 'M'e Malineo began to prompt the driver, as well as helper boy in the back who solicited other riders while standing halfway outside of the vehicle, to ask her questions in Sesotho. He asked some basic questions, which Kaitlen nailed, then proceeded to speak much more quickly. Kaitlen responded with an indignent, "I don't know anything else!". He turned and asked me the same question, 'M'e Malineo whispered the question much more slowly and Americanized in my ear, and I blurted out a reply with a large smile on my face and unfounded confidence in my language abilities.

Today we had the pleasure of having the US Ambassador come to our training site to address us. He is a cool guy, and I was amazed at the breadth of aid and the scope of the programs that the US is partnering with Lesotho on. We will be heading over to his residence next Thursday to relax and have a Thanksgiving dinner, it should be a good time.

Other than that, things are going well. There was an improvised dance party in the kitchen last night with strobing headlights and various dance moves that I haven't seen performed by sober WASPs in a long time. Photo and video documentation should have been banned. It was not. The fallout will echo throughout our service here, no doubt.

I am still very impressed by the quality of training and especially the quality of the trainers. We have a good time and cover a lot of good material.

That's all for now.

Sala Hantle

Final Landing

So yesterday we made it to Maseru.

The first 5 hours of the day were deja vu as we loaded up the shuttles to go to the airport, checked in, and flew all the way to Lesotho. The only difference from the day before was that I got a chocolate muffin on the flight instead of the Laffy Taffy Banana flavored muffin of the day before. Thank God. Luckily, this flight ended with a landing at the virtually deserted Maseru Airport, which had one building, one hangar (presumably empty) and no other planes at all. We landed, turned around on the runway and went back to the taxi way.

Everybody deboarded amid cheers from the Peace Corps staff waiting on the balcony of the airport and everybody returned waves and took many pictures. There was crying.

Customs was a breeze, but when I got to the baggage claim neither of my checked bags were there. The previous night in Joburg I had only retrieved one of my checked bags from the airport, and was told that the other would be awaiting me at the check-in in the morning. In the morning I was told it had already been loaded on the plane. Three other PC trainees were also missing bags so we went to talk to the airline spokesman, in a backroom, who asked me for descriptions of my bags and gave me printouts stating such. Other trainees were told that their baggage would be on a later flight. As we were about to jump in the awaiting van I was told that one of my bags had come in the previous day and were in holding. It was, but was about 20 pounds lighter than when I had checked it at JFK. They stole almost $900 worth of stuff including three pairs of shoes, my headlamp, my thermarest, etc. Bugger. The other trainees whose bags had been in storage had similar experiences, and it was pretty clear that it happened in Joburg. Bugger.

So that was a bummer way to be introduced to the country. Luckily, the country is beautiful and reminds me much of the American West and Southwest, especially Utah. Maseru is small and going through a lot of development along the lines of Rosarito, similar types of haphazard sidewalk construction, trash around and the mixture of new development against older impoverished areas. Much of the city was constructed after the early 90's political unrest when much of the city was burned.

We arrived at the training center which a cool old compound that was abandoned by the Dutch when apartheid ended. There was a very warm greeting including dancing and singing by the language and cultural facilitators. We got our rooms, had a snack and most of the rest of the day is a blur. I do know that I got a rabies shot, had a lesson in greetings in Sesotho, got a quick walk around of downtown (a quick 7 minute walk from the training facility) and a brief overview of what the next eight weeks will be like.

Crazy.

That's what the next eight weeks will be like. We are scheduled from 8 in the morning until 8 or 8:30 in the evening. In two weeks we go to community based training where we will live with a host family and almost immediately begin practice teaching. Two weeks later we stop practice teaching and begin other training which is so varied and numerous I forget what it even entails. During all of this time we are expected to take a very purposeful and thorough attack on the language to prepare for the language test.

Today is our free day and it has been nice to get a break. The food has been amazing, the trainers are competent, the health care is second only to the President of the United States and the weather has been gorgeous. I'm loving the culture, the people, the newness and the challenges ahead. Despite the theft of my stuff I'm in high hopes as is everybody around me.

On a mail note, I've heard there are fixed rate packages through USPS, and that DHL is dangerous because they like to open your packages at the airport here. Much love, and I'll write as soon as I can. That may not be for a week or so though.

Travel Delays

We’re back in the hotel in Johannesburg.

The bus ride from Philly went swimmingly and we got to the airport so early that we had to wait for an hour and a half in order for the ticket counter to even open. Everybody got their bags checked and through security without incident and onto the plane. The first eight hours of the trip were quite easy, I had some red wine and salmon for dinner then watched WALL-E, The Incredible Hulk and some other movie that must have been forgettable, because I don’t remember what it was.

We landed in Dakar, Senegal to refuel and exchange some passengers, so I decided to finally strike up a bit of a conversation with the man I was sitting next to. It turns out he is a New Jerseyian by way of Massachusets, South Africa and originally Zimbabwe. He was headed back to visit his parents in Zimbabwe then go travel around South Africa. My questioning of life in South Africa was tolerated very well, with only mild eye rolling and the final remark of, “South Africa is basically the same as the US. You can get any food you want, and there are some bad parts of every city.” That satisfied me well enough and we had cordial conversation until about 30 minutes after we took off when I went into a deep, bear-like slumber.

I awoke to breakfast and just an hour left to Johannesburg. After landing we went and got our passports stamped, found our shuttle and got checked into the Southern Sun Hotel. Everybody was dually impressed with the hotel and we were treated to a welcome glass of red wine in the lobby. I took a shower and went and sat outside to what felt very much like a cool fall evening in Los Angeles, 60 degrees, orange clouds in the diminishing sunlight and the roar of cars on the adjacent thoroughfare.

This morning we had a 3:30 am wakeup call to get to the airport by 4:30 to catch the 6:25 regional plane to Maseru (ma SEru). All of the checking in went without incident, but at the terminal gate one guy had lost some component of his ticket that prevented him from getting on. After a lot of back-and-forth he eventually sprinted back out to the ticket counter, bought a new ticket, and got back to the gate just before we were about to leave him to catch the next flight.

We took the little 22 seat puddle jumper all the way around Maseru then headed back to Johannesburg because the airport was at Maseru was covered in clouds and the plane was not capable of an Instrument Flight Rules landing for one reason or another. This bit of news was sad considering we were 10 miles from our final destination when we turned back. After much waiting in the airport we were told that the flight was cancelled for the day because of deteriorating weather at the Maseru airport. So we went and picked up our luggage and headed back to the hotel. Long day of sitting.

So those are the adventures so far. The delays and such today were made much easier because a representative from South Africa Airlines kept us up-to-date, gave us some sandwiches and arranged for all of our tickets and such tomorrow, and the staff at the hotel has been extremely accommodating and helpful. Group moral on the whole is high with just a few glimpses of frustration and tiredness.

Tomorrow we will try another flight, and if the weather is still uncooperative then apparently a bus will be chartered. So here's to hoping we make it through.

Staging

I made it to Philadelphia last night around 5:30 and got to the hotel around 7:00. My packing was not nearly as light as I thought. Each bag was 50 lbs. and I had to reshuffle stuff from bag to bag to get it figured out. The flight was fairly eventless aside from the two characters who sat next to me. They seemed to be a couple of men going on business travel. For the first 40 minutes one gentleman lectured the other on management architecture and hierarchy, and when the other gentleman got excited about something he started thrashing back and forth, which I repeatedly mistook for moderate turbulence. When I got into the Philly airport, I got my checked baggage and lugged it over to the ground transportation desk where the ladies behind the desk were perpetually entertained by the “stupid travelers” who didn’t know what to do, because the ladies didn’t explain what the method was for catching a shuttle. Finally I got to the hotel, last in the shuttle, which ended up being cool because the shuttle driver was Ethiopian and has been in the country for 10 years. He was more surprised than anybody I’ve talked to yet that it snows in Lesotho.

This afternoon we had registration and got to meet everybody. There are 19 of us going to Lesotho: About 5 in Maths/Science Education, 7 in ESL and 7 in Teacher Training. The group is quite outgoing and seems to have an easy laugh. Training was quite quick and went over a brief intro to the Peace Corps, some skits illustrating Peace Corps Policy, did an exercise with the group leaving for Kenya that went into some cultural integration dynamics then went over logistics for the trip to Lesotho.

The itinerary is:
Wednesday - 9:00 am get on bus and go to JFK
- 5:20 pm Depart for Johannesburg via Dakar, Senegal.
Thursday - 5:30 pm Arrive Johannesburg and go to Hotel
Friday - 6:15 am catch flight to Maseru, Lesotho

That’s all for now, I’m going to go meet up with everybody in the lobby to go get some dinner.

Goodbyes

My plane departs for Philadelphia at 8:50 tomorrow morning and I’m staying with Scott, one of my college roommates. I’ll be in Philadelphia until Wednesday morning when we’ll take a bus to JFK to catch an evening flight to Johannesburg. From there we’ll take a morning flight on Friday to Maseru, the capital of Lesotho.

I think the significance of saying goodbye to my family today will hit me tomorrow. The buildup and anticipation of finally getting onto the plane for Philly seems to have numbed me a little more than usual. Transitions of the last couple weeks have felt much more like a sense of continuation than the piece-wise function (that one is for the nerds) that it might be for those around me. My mom just experienced me coming home from Los Angeles, where I’ve lived for the last 6 years (which she reminds me has been a quarter of my life lived too far away from her), for a week before leaving to Africa for over two years. And although she is extremely supportive of me, and has been through the entire Peace Corps process, it is all much more disconnected and abrupt for her. Comparatively, I have been packing up stuff for the last 4 months and during that time have said goodbye to two roommates, moved twice, said goodbye to a good friend who left LA before I did, and transitioned out of a great community at the job I’ve had for the last two and a half years. I have been preparing to leave for quite a while now, and I’m in a period of constantly looking forward to the next couple days. So the last four months of preparation coupled with excitement left me somewhat unemotional (yeah, yeah, big surprise) during goodbyes, while my family was not. I think the 5 hour flight tomorrow will allow me time to think about the significance of two years away after saying goodbye to my family and friends.

Peace Corps Letter to Friends/Family

Letter for Family & Friends
Julie Appelhagen Seana Lammers
Lesotho Desk Officer /Ext 2331 Lesotho Desk Assistant/Ext 2332

Our phone number is 1-800-424-8580 or locally, 202-692-2331/2332.

Dear Families and Friends,

Greetings from the Lesotho desk at the Peace Corps in Washington, D.C.! It is with great pleasure that we welcome you to the Peace Corps circle of friendship. We receive many questions from family members and friends about life in Lesotho over the course of the Volunteers’ two years of service, so we would like to offer you advice and assistance in advance.

1. Irregular Communication. (Please see #3 for the mailing address to Peace Corps' office in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho) Mail in Lesotho is fairly reliable. Volunteers find they generally receive mail and packages from the United States two to four weeks after it has been sent. The same is true in sending mail from Lesotho. Of course, there are exceptional cases in which a letter or a package might arrive within a shorter period or be substantially delayed. Some mail may simply not arrive. We suggest that in your first letters you ask the Volunteer to give an estimate of how long it takes for him/her to receive your letters, and then try to establish a predictable pattern of how often you will write to each other. Also, try numbering your letters so that the Volunteer knows if he/she has missed one.

Being a Peace Corps Volunteer is a rewarding experience; however, there will also be times that Volunteers will feel frustrated and they may write home telling of their "war" stories. Letters might describe recent illnesses, frustration with work, lack of resources, information, and infrastructure, etc. While the subject matter may be good reading material, it can often be misinterpreted on the home front. Volunteers have a support network in-country which includes other Peace Corps Volunteers, counterparts and community members at their site, as well as Peace Corps Lesotho staff. The Peace Corps’ highest priority is maintaining the good health and safety of every Volunteer. Peace Corps Lesotho maintains a medical unit with two full-time medical officers, who care for the Volunteers’ primary health care needs. Additional medical services, such as testing and basic treatments, are available in Lesotho and just over the border in South Africa. If the Volunteer is seriously ill, they will be transported to South Africa or to the United States.

If for some reason your communication pattern is broken and you do not hear from your family member, you may want to contact the Lesotho desk or the Office of Special Services (OSS) at Peace Corps Headquarters, Washington, D.C. at 1-800-424-8580, extension 1470. Also, in the case of an emergency at home (death in the family, sudden illness, etc.), please do not hesitate to call OSS immediately, so that a message can be sent to the Volunteer. Use the above number during regular business hours (9:00 am to 5:00 pm Eastern time, Monday through Friday). After hours, or during weekends, the Peace Corps Duty Officer may be reached at (202) 638-2574. Tell the operator your name, telephone number, and the nature of the emergency, and the Duty Officer will call you back.

2. Telephone Calls. Telephone lines in Lesotho are not very reliable. During the pre-service training, opportunities for the trainees to call the United States will be limited. Volunteers may or may not have residential phones; however, some Volunteers choose to buy cell phones, use public phones, or find that a neighbor or the organization they work with has a phone they are able to use to make and receive calls on. They will be able to inform you of telephone numbers where you might reach them once they arrive at their permanent sites.

The Lesotho Desk maintains regular contact with the Peace Corps office in Maseru through phone calls and e-mail. However, these communications are reserved for business only and cannot be used to relay personal messages. All communication between family members and the Volunteer should be done via international mail, personal phone calls, or e-mail. Volunteers may have access to e-mail at internet cafes on a weekly or monthly basis, depending on their location.

3. Sending packages. Parents and Volunteers like to send and receive care packages through the mail. Unfortunately, sending packages can be a frustrating experience for all involved due to occasional thefts and customs taxes. You may want to try to send inexpensive items through the mail, but there is no guarantee that these items will arrive. Even though many Volunteers choose to get local post office boxes, you may also use the following address to send letters and/or packages:

Name of Volunteer, PCV
U. S. Peace Corps
P.O. Box 554
Maseru, 100
LESOTHO

It is recommended that packages be sent in padded envelopes if possible, as boxes tend to be taxed more frequently. For lightweight but important items (e.g. airline tickets), DHL (an express mail service) does operate in Maseru. If you choose to send items through DHL, you must address the package to the Country Director, c/o U. S. Peace Corps, 6 Bowker Road, Maseru, Lesotho (the phone number for the Peace Corps office in Lesotho is 266-22-313-871, as DHL will need this information). If you send the item to the Country Director, no liability can be assumed. For more information about DHL, please call their toll free number, 1-800-CALL-DHL, or visit their web site at www.dhl.com . Other courier services may operate in Maseru - DHL is only one possibility.



We hope this information is helpful to you during the time your family member or friend is serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Lesotho. We understand how frustrating it is to communicate with your family member overseas and we appreciate your using this information as a guideline. Please feel free to contact us at the Lesotho desk in Washington, D.C. if you have any further questions. Our phone number is 1-800-424-8580, ext. 2331/2332, or locally, 202-692-2331/2332.


Yours sincerely,

Julie Appelhagen and Seana Lammers

2 Weeks Out

Two and a half weeks until we report for staging.

One week left of work.

Wowzers.

Leaving for Africa is quickly becoming more real. Partly because in the last few days I’ve found the blogs of a couple current Maths/Science Education PCVs who have given specific accounts of what to expect (classes with up to 60 students, near-total lack of math education, teachers who often don’t show up for school, a steady decline in students enrolled as a function of grade level, and low expectations of students). There is clearly a huge need for teachers as well as teacher education, for development of curriculum and investment in students, teachers and parents. I want to respond with energy, focus and patience, but some of my initial responses were dread and foreboding.

How do you make a difference in a school of 600 kids where perhaps a third of them are orphans? It should have been more obvious during all the lead up to actually going overseas, but I think I am just now realizing how little of energy in Lesotho will actually be spent teaching the quadratic formula, or, more hopefully, projectile motion. But, at this point, it’s all unbounded conjecture, and it reminds me too much of an over-confident, uninformed, eight year old version of myself, ridiculously expounding nonsense, to continue. So I’ll stop.

5 Weeks Out

Five weeks from tomorrow I’ll be at staging for my Peace Corps service in Lesotho. I’m sure my feelings of excitement, anxiety and sometimes, usually when I’m about to fall asleep, trepidation, are normal. Right? No doubt my constant packing list revisions are typical. After all, it’s the only thing I have control over right now. All of my Peace Corps paperwork is in, there are so many things I’d like to finish at work that I’m resigned to the fact that it won’t all get done, and my To-Do list in LA will be closed out soon enough.

In less than four weeks I’ll be leaving Los Angeles after being a resident for over six years. I’ve come to view my relationship with LA like a medium-length arranged marriage. I was excited and nervous to move, but after moving did not like what I saw. After a while I grew to tolerate it, later found aspects of it I loved, but finally realized it just is not going to work. But Los Angeles is a lifestyle, and it’s a lifestyle that’s kind of fun right now.

So here I am, four weeks from moving from my home of the last six years and five weeks from moving from my country, trying to balance preparing for living overseas for two years and leaving LA with a sense of closure and completeness. We’ll see how it goes…