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.