Site Visits

So, on Tuesday, the Head of Infrastructure, three other new engineers, and I loaded into an MCA truck and started off on four days of site visits. Our goal was to get a more complete picture of the breadth and location of projects that we’re working on. Here is a quick photo montage from the trip.

This is the future site of the Mpilo Reservoir, which will have a 75 million liter capacity. It's going to be supplied from the Metolong Dam, which begins construction next year.


This is the High North Reservoir. It is higher than the future Mpilo Reservoir and will feed the outskirts of Maseru that have started to push up the surrounding plateaus.


This is a spring catchment that supplies Mokhotlong Camp Town. There are intake grates just below were the guys are standing. The two structures are silt boxes. So they bring in water, which is often muddy, and let the silt settle to the bottom before the water is piped down to the water treatment works via gravity.


This is my room at the Mokhotlong Hotel. Yes, that is a sink next to my bed. And, yes, the toilet matched the sink in it's fire engine red color.


This is the Letseng Diamond Mine in Mokhotlong District. It is massive and is one of the most productive diamond mines in the world. That sand pile must be at least 300 meters tall.

This is a typical, if quite large, reservoir that will be built in rural water supply schemes. It's a very simple brick structure with a concrete coated interior.

This is some typical terrain that contractors will have to navigate in order to get materials to rural water supply projects. Sitting in the middle in the back seat was not a pleasure during our treks over these types of "roads."

This is a spring that used to be protected, but was badly built. Contractors will come and dig out around the spring a little better and build a better protecting structure. Then they'll pipe the water just down the hill maybe 6 meters to a water point, which is a small reservoir with taps coming out.

This is a picture taken in the mountains of Thaba Tseka district. The entire Eastern side of Lesotho has terrain like this. It's going to be very challenging for contractors to get to some of the villages, and some of the villages cannot even be accessed with 4x4 trucks.

Below are pictures from Katse dam. It's a 185 meter tall dam that was built in the '90s to supply water to South Africa. The reservoir behind it stretches 45km up the valley. Water is taken to South Africa via a huge tunnel that runs north, but stops first at Muela Dam, which is a hydroelectric dam that produces about 100 megawatts of electricity. Ntate Chalatse, who is the Head of Infrastructure at MCA, did quality control for the Katse dam. The picture doesn't quite give you an idea of the scale of the dam, but the white door near the lower spillway can fit a semi-truck in it. The group shot is from the backside of the dam.



These are parabolic solar cookers. The owner can fit 5 loaves of bread at a time into the black cylinder at the center. She then faces the mirror at the sun and it takes about 40 minutes to bake the bread.


These are just some photos I liked from the trip.

NEW MALL

Sorry for the long delay between posts, the new job has been very busy. We have been running about writing, revising, commenting on and otherwise dealing with all kinds of documents, from Invitations For Bids (IFBs) from rural water supply contractors, to IFBs for large Design-Build contractors, to various levels of consulting engineers for Program Management and Construction Supervision, whilst trying to manage the projects that have already started and plan informational sessions with international and local contractors. It’s all been a bit overwhelming, and challenging, and frustrating, and satisfying. The job is going well.

Life in Maseru is going well. It’s been interesting getting a much different view of the expat community. There are a lot of expats working in Lesotho who are in their mid-20s, and a few of them live just a few doors down. It’s been great to have a few braais (bbq) and just hang out and chat and see what it’s like to be in the development industry and not in PC. It sounds pretty great. The quality of life is quite high, especially because the cost of living is quite low. They get to eat most anything they want, play squash at the sports club and go on quick vacations around Lesotho and South Africa. It sounds appealing.

Also, a new mall (first mall in Lesotho) just opened, and it’s on my way home from work. It’s awesome.

There is a great new supermarket (very small by American standards), but there is French bread, parmesan cheese, refried beans, beef stroganoff, green Thai curry mixes, pork chops labeled as porterhouse steaks (they got me), cilantro, etc, etc. It also has the first ever escalator in all of Lesotho, which will provide hours of weekend entertainment in the coming months. People begin to line up at the escalator, with the lead person pointing their toe out and jabbing and the moving stairs like they were testing the temperature of a bathtub. Then, abruptly and without warning they plant a foot stoutly down on the escalator, which quickly moves away from the rest of their body, and just before they become a wishbone they drag the other foot along for the ride. There are many variations on this general pattern, sometimes with small, frightened children, sometimes large, frightened men. It’s amazing.

The mall has also brought up a few discussions about development. The expats are generally excited because they don’t have to take trips to South Africa for groceries, etc. However, when people make comments like, “Lesotho is really coming along,” or similar such comments, it makes you wonder about metrics of development. We usually think of things like GDP/capita for financial metrics, cases of infant mortality/1000 for maternity health or literacy rate for education. But could the square footage of shopping malls be lumped in there? It feels wrong. It feels too American. Way too consumerist and imposed. On the other hand, one of my friends made the comment, “The only people who think that Pick n Pay (the new grocery store) is not good for Lesotho, has never gone without a supermarket. If you’ve shopped at a supermarket your whole life, you’d never want to live without it.” Which is quite true. Accessibility to good, inexpensive food is a wonderful thing. The mall in general also creates local jobs not only during construction, but also during operation. So let’s just hope that a lot of the money that goes into the mall stays in the country and some people’s lives are improved.

This is kind of a short post, but I’ve learned my lesson in the past trying to keep people entertained with engineering jibber jabber, and now that it’s mixed with program management, it is probably even a little dull for the engineers in the crowd.

I hope everybody had a happy Thanksgiving. Cheers.

1 Year Down

In a week the new Education group will arrive to go through various stages of being overwhelmed, frightened, anxious, homesick, awestruck, under whelmed, bored, frustrated, hung-over and proud. So, I guess it’s time that I write one of those sappy “1 Year Down, 1 to Go” pieces. After all, it has been over a year since I left L.A. for the 22 hour drive to Ellensburg, WA with my beloved Marantz receiver next to me and my more beloved, but too-big-to-sit-next-to-me (is this a proper use of hyphens?) bikes in the back. A year since I last:

- saw the Pacific, after seeing it nearly daily for 6 years
- drank Deschutes Black Butte Porter
- drove a car
- ate real pepperoni pizza
- hugged my family
- had Thai food cooked by a Mexican
- had a lunchtime conversation where modal analysis, sailing and WoW were all topics of discussion within 5 minutes
- requested somebody to google something on an iPhone to settle a dispute
- played bocce ball

Reading that list makes me realize that my time in Lesotho hasn’t been defined by the things I’ve gone without. At least, I hope not. That would be a tragic waste of a year. My time can be much better defined by what I’ve learned since I’ve been here.

1. Peace Corps is neither a development organization nor is it an aid organization. So, anybody reading this, I want to be very clear, Peace Corps is a goodwill organization. You are expected to come here and mentor a few people and make friends with a few more. You are expected to learn about yourself and learn about your host country and share that back at home. But don’t expect to join the Peace Corps and effect substantial and perceivable change. Don’t misunderstand me. I’ve met a lot of people in Lesotho who have said that PCVs have affected their lives in a substantial way, and I have no doubt that those PCVs have no idea. So, if you are the type of person who needs to see change happening, like I do, then Peace Corps may not be right for you. Be honest and open about your personality before you get on the plane.

2. Development is not unlike modern warfare. You are attempting to build infrastructure and capacity of the locals while enabling the local population to redefine themselves within the context of a globalizing world. It sounds a lot like Iraq and Afghanistan. And, like those places, if you don’t employ the local villagers in public works then they will a) vandalize or otherwise sabotage the project during construction b) not use the works and/or c) not maintain the works once completed. So it takes millions and millions, or billions and billions, of dollars in investment to try to build an infrastructure in countries where the local population can barely produce enough people with the appropriate technical skills to sustain the infrastructure. However, unlike war, nobody is going to argue that clean water and good sanitation are immoral. But it goes to show that destruction is much easier than creation.

3. There are many evil things that are unjustly forgiven, or taboo, because they are put under the title of Culture. My short list includes 1) multiple concurrent partners 2) beating children 3) negligent teachers 4) politics as a business. Each one destroys one’s ability to become a strong, whole and contributing human being and citizen.

4. The reality of HIV/AIDs is far more horrific than any number, statistic or anecdote can communicate.

5. It is impossible to teach somebody who is unmotivated to learn. And this is the crux of development. Socioeconomic differences can be terrible because they motivate people to lie, cheat and steal to get ahead. But if people don’t think it’s possible, and is thus umotivated, to get ahead, they won’t go anywhere.

6. There are people who will shame you with their unrelenting drive to better their lives, be creative, strive for healthy, productive lives of their family and enjoy the company of others. Utter determination can overcome big parts of a shitty lot in life. A little support, interest, and encouragement can help overcome the rest of it.

7. A school kid with books is a much better indication of development than a Minister in a new Mercedes-Benz.

8. I am an unflinchingly critical and demanding person.

9. The support of family and friends is not something to be taken for granted. I’ve doubted a lot of things since I’ve been here. Why did I come? Am I making any difference at all? Is it possible to make this place better? Do I want to stay? These are all questions I’ve asked, but I never, ever, wondered if people at home cared. There is a remarkable sense of security I feel because regardless of how demoralized I sound on the phone, in an email, or on my blog, my family and friends are always there to lend an ear.

10. 2/3 + 1/2 = 3/5 (there’s undoubtedly a metaphor there, somewhere, for something)

So that’s my One Year List. I think it fairly accurately expresses my feelings at the one year mark. It hasn’t been easy, and I miss you all dearly. Cheers.

Home Tours

Hey all, I finally have the bandwidth to post some low quality videos. I have one from my old house in Ha Sefako and one from my new house in Maseru. Enjoy.

First Full Week and a New House

Hey All

Sorry for the big gap between substantive blog reports; it’s been busy around here.

First of all, let me get some business items out of the way.

1. Until I get my own PO Box (it’s $20 a year, but you have to apply for it) I’ll be using the Peace Corps PO Box in Maseru. I updated the address in the sidebar.

2. I generally have un-interrupted cell phone service. I also have internet access, but I have to pay per MB for internet service, which means video Skyping is free for you, but will probably cost me $0.50/minute. Just voice Skyping will be cheaper, so just send me a text and I’ll let you know if I’m free. 6pm to 10pm my time is best, which is noon to 4pm on the East Coast.

3. If you send music please don’t send music you got from iTunes because they don’t work without the password. If you send a CD with MP3s it works great. Don’t bother with the plastic cases because they break in the mail and scratch the CDs. CDs are resilient in envelopes by themselves.

Ok, on to more interesting things.

Last night was my first night in my new house. I got the keys Thursday, but didn’t have sheets or food or any of those necessities. It’s a pretty big 3 bedroom 2 ½ bath with spacious yards, lots of steel on the windows and razor wire on the cinder block fence. It’s in need of some fresh paint and some yard work, but it’s safe and in a quiet neighborhood so I’m pretty excited about it. The only furniture in the house is a bed, so I’m sitting on my old bathing tub to write this. I’m hoping to mooch some furniture from the Embassy or from other expats, but I’m new to town and don’t really know any. It might be a while before I have a chair.

My first full week at work was good. I’m still trying to piece together what exactly I’ll be doing for MCA, but some of it is coming into place. MCA is an “entity” that was setup by the Government of Lesotho to manage all of the projects that are part of the MCC Compact. I am part of the Infrastructure program, which entails water infrastructure and health infrastructure development. Water infrastructure development has a number of components, but it looks like I’ll be working primarily with the rural portion of it. We will be funding the construction of 250 village water supplies and 10,000 pit latrines (the government will be funding up to another 20,000). The rural water supply and sanitation project is supposed to affect 125,000 people, which is over 5% of the population of Lesotho.

Now, the design of the system will be done by district engineers or consulting engineers, while a consultant company out of Ottawa (Canada that is) will be doing the project management portion of the work. They will be working directly with the Department of Rural Water Supply (Lesotho government) who will be doing designs and the contractors who will be building. So, MCA is not doing design work or lower level project management, we are there to do the high level program management. We are the customer. I will be involved in helping to decide high level program management, including designing contracts, reviewing reports, doing some site visits to check on project status and hopefully doing some design reviews.

I’m not sure if that really clarifies anything, but feel free to ask questions if you’ve got any. I’ll let you know more as I figure it out myself.

In other news, to reiterate, we received a Self-Help Grant from the US Embassy to put in a solar power system for Sefako High School. The ceremony is November 4th, so I’ll know more about how that will workout when it happens. It will be about 650W of solar panels, a 2kW pure-sine wave inverter, batteries and regulators. It should be enough to have consistent and reliable energy for the printers and 2 laptops in the office, and 2 desktop computers in the library as well as lighting for the staff room, office and library. It’s about $6000 worth of equipment and I’ll get to head up to help them install the system and get it going.

I also just submitted a Peace Corps Partnership Grant to help get science equipment for Sefako High School. Liz Fay has started raising funds with her high school, and hopefully by February or March we’ll get to put in a big order to get chemicals, microscopes and other equipment. A volunteer will be replacing me at the high school in January, so they will be heavily involved in getting the lab setup. If you’re interested in helping support the science lab, please let me know and we can talk about how you can help.

I think that’s it for now. I hope all is well at home. Things are good here. Cheers.

Oh, and I'll get some pictures up of the new house this week.

SOLAR POWER!!!

Hey Everybody, I just got a very exciting email. Some of you will remember that I helped Sefako High School write a Self-Help Grant with the US Embassy to get a solar power system for the high school. I just got notice the school was awarded the grant. I want to thank a group of people at NGC who helped do some sizing and design work for a system for the school. It paid off!

Pictures

Hey all, I finally go around to posting an album of pictures. It's in Facebook, but you can access it even if you don't have Facebook by copying and pasting the following link into your web browser:

www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2139233&id=10802728&l=5bcf08d77f

1/2 way there

Sorry for the long interruption in blog posts. I haven’t been on my usual schedule.

On Tuesday afternoon the Peace Corps picked me up in Ha Sefako and moved me and all my stuff to Maseru. I’ve been living at the Peace Corps training center since then, waiting for the lease for my new house to be signed and for new burglar bars to be installed. Best case scenario I’ll be moving in early next week, but more likely it will be late next week.

More importantly, I started my new job on Wednesday. My job description is still being defined, but it looks like it’s going to be high level project management. Millennium Challenge Account – Lesotho (MCA-L) has a few big water infrastructure projects that are supposed to be completed by September, 2013. One of them is the Metalong Dam Project, which will provide bulk water for residential and industrial purposes to the greater Maseru area and larger outlying towns. There is also a lot of pipe network extension and rehabilitation in peri-urban areas. And it looks like I will be involved primarily on the rural water supply project. Goals are to complete 250 village water supply systems and build 10,000 Ventilated, Improved Pit Latrines (VIPs). Additional donor and government assistance could boost the total number of VIPs to 30,000. The rural water project is supposed to affect 125,000 people.

MCA-L will be working with government paid District Engineers for designs and has hired consultants out of Canada to monitor the drawings and manage the contractors. My job will be to do some of MCA’s reviews of project design files and interface with the consultants on projects. It’s a little outside of my comfort zone, which means I’ll get to learn a lot.

That’s the quick version of what’s going on now. It’s 180 degrees from what I was doing in Ha Sefako, and it’s been fun to look at engineering drawings and meet the multi-national team that I’ll be working with. There’s a lot of work to go around, so I’ll be quite busy. When I get moved into my new place I’ll post some pictures and give a more colorful description of what’s going on here.

Hope all is well with everybody at home.

Cheers.

Job Change

A few of you have heard by now, but I'm going to be moving to Maseru to do some engineering work. Teaching was not good for me. Luckily as I was asking the Peace Corps for something different, the Millennium Challenge Corporation in Lesotho was looking an engineer to help with their Water Infrastructure Development program. So, next week sometime I'll be moving to Maseru to begin doing some engineering and project management work on a tight-scheduled, six year, $162 million project that will provide better urban water supply and rural sanitation and water supply to Basotho and their textile industries.

The move to Maseru will not only be great because I'll be able to learn a lot and use my schooling, but I'll also have the resources to do some work on secondary projects that weren't possible in Ha Sefako. I have a permanent magnet, DC motor that I'm hoping to turn into a wind turbine, I did some surveying for a Masotho man who is trying to pump water over a hill to irrigate his tree nursery and fill the fish pond he made, and I need to design a small footbridge that I got a small grant for a few weeks ago.

Also, I'll have consistent phone and internet, which means you all will get to keep track of me and I'll get to keep track of you. I am beyond excited to say the least. Students were not too happy with me last week when I told them I'd be leaving, but I'll be back up to Ha Sefako to help out with the various projects I'm involved in and hopefully we'll be able to get some of the motivated students into Maseru to get them familiar with their capital and vocational and educational opportunities available to them.

Um, that's all for now. Pleas give me a call if you can. I have a 3G modem now, so I can skype and such (read, free).

Dancing at the Chief's

Pictures above (Not sure of the order): Boys and girls at the district cultural fair. They danced and sang and did well. My firepit looking back on the mountain and peach blossoms. Kemelo working on bookends. Some other Form As working on bookends. The class posing for a picture after watching Planet Earth.

Thursday Mike and I were finishing up some bookend for the library when Ntate Mokhosi dropped by to see what we were doing. We told them and he was happy to see that the library was getting organized and such. He is a language teacher and takes students into the library fairly often. Mike said that he’d heard a lot of drums and singing the previous couple of nights and asked Ntate Mokhosi if he knew what was going on. Mokhosi said he didn’t, but he was going up to the chief’s place and said that he’d ask.
Later that night Mike and I were boiling some lentils for lentil burgers when Mokhosi dropped by and said that if we went up to the chief’s they would sing and dance for us. So, we put on our coats and trudged up the hill to the chief’s place.
We knocked at the kitchen door and entered into the room with 13 people huddled around the wood fired cooking stove. Greetings were exchanged and we said that we were told to come up to see some dancing and singing. Some talking in Sesotho ensued and one of the ladies stood up and left the kitchen. She returned a few minutes later dressed in a red sweater and red skirt and she put on a string of triangular shakers around each ankle. Then the drum started along with singing, clapping and the woman in red danced. Hard. Everybody in the candle lit, wood stove warmed room was smiling and singing and clapping.
This continued for at least 45 minutes with different women in the family jumping up for different songs and dances. Eventually the woman in red indicated that she was exhausted and she was dripping sweat. Mike and I said our thank yous and headed back to make our lentil burgers. It was probably the most warm and cultural experience that I’ve had in Lesotho so far.

Planet Earth

Hey Y’all,

Sorry about the recent length between posts, but I haven’t been in town as frequently as usual. And now I neglected to bring the post I wrote with the pictures, so here’s a hasty redo.

Two weeks ago I carried a battery, inverter, laptop, micro projector and speakers into our hall. I set it all up facing a white wall and finished covering up the windows with cardboard curtains to block the light. Then, I marched across the lawn to one of my science classes and gave them the sign to follow me. They walked into the dark room with a large, red 3M logo on a blue background projected on the wall and began speaking in a dull roar. They dragged desks and chair over to create an ad hoc amphitheatre and whispered away. A few of them stayed standing and watched an gesticulated as I moved my finger around the scroll pad getting Planet Earth setup.

Then the Emperor Penguins came on the screen and chirped through the speakers. Bedlam. Chaos and a cacophony of laughter and screams erupted behind me. I stepped to the side and watched as all 30 students stayed glued to the screen for 40 minutes. Certainly it was on the cusp of their attention spans, but they made it. It was a phenomenal experience and helped me get out of the depressing mood I’d been in.

Teaching here is the most wholly taxing thing I’ve ever done. Trying to communicate to students how important condoms are in a country where 1 in 4 people has HIV, while students are asking if it’s okay to cut a hole in the end of a condom, is not an easy thing. And I don’t know how to restrict my vocabulary to the 200 English words they recognize, because those definitions are invariably inaccurate. Close, but not quite there.

So, Planet Earth is not only hugely fascinating and eye opening for the students, but therapeutic and encouraging for me. Thank you Ma and Pa for Planet Earth, and thank you NGC Crew for the projector and speakers. They are phenomenal and a boon to all who experience them.

Vacation in Full

Inside the beehive hut in Swaziland


Melody hunting some impalabok for breakfast


Wildlife viewing over an egg scramble


Warthog butt


A candle mason at Swazi Candles


His handiwork


Outside the beehive hut


Hippo Lake in the background



Reading on the 7 hour bus ride to Tofu


Mozambique sky


Mozambique trees


Mozambique water


Mozambique door


Our villa on the beach


Water taxi to Katembe Island


Fishing boats after the catch


After lunch pose on Katembe Island in Maputo Harbor


I’m posting this vacation epic in full. Please don’t feel compelled to read it. It’s too long, but it’s my journal for the journey, and I figure Google is a safer place to keep it than my hard drive (my external just failed, so I’m going to be a little more cautious now).

I went on holiday. It was awesome. We caught a ride to Qwa Qwa, the border town nearest me, with my principal and caught the first taxi to Johannesburg. It left reasonably quickly and we got to Joburg in about three and a half hours. From there we transferred to a taxi to go to Nelspruit. The taxi took a little longer to fill up, but was a larger minibus and much more comfortable. Surprisingly we left before the taxi was completely full, so Mel and I had the entire back seat to stretch out and try to get comfortable for the 5 hour ride to Nelspruit. We both started going a little stir crazy about 3 hours into the ride, then we got a flat tire. They got it changed out in about 20 minutes and we were on our way again.

We were both tired when we got to Nelspruit and it was dark so we took a 4+1 (private taxi) to the backpackers. A man in a camouflage jump suite of pastel greens walked into the office ahead of us, and we followed him in. He sat down at the desk and looked at us. We looked at him, then at each other, then at him.

“We have a reservation for a double,” I say.
He says something in Zulu to Mel. She tilts her head a little to the right to amplify her quizzical look. “I speak English.” He speaks in Zulu for a much longer time. Mel just shrugs her shoulders at him.
“Do you have a double?” I ask again.

“Yes. Follow.”
We followed. The backpackers was cool. There were gazebos and bbq pits and a pool and ferns and palms. We certainly were not in Lesotho anymore. At one point he turne his camouflage jump-suited body around to point and grunt at a step down in the path. A few moments later he found a spherical lamp that wasn’t working and in a fit of maintenance inspiration began pounding on it with his palm and yelling at it. He must not have hit it properly because it didn’t turn on. We moved on.

He opened the building that our room was in, which appeared to be an old house that had been converted into a mixed backpacker building. He showed us what must have been the master bedroom. “You sleep here.” Okay. Then we shut the door and he opened the door to another room. “Or you sleep here.” Umm… Then he opened another room’s door, “Or you sleep here.” Mel and I looked at each other. We were too tired to figure out if this guy was just entertaining himself at our expense or if somebody had actually left him in charge of a large hostel. “We’ll just take the first one.” A nod from Mr. Camo confirmed the deal and we made our way back to the office to pay.

We put down our stuff and headed off in search of food. To our surprise and unmitigated joy we found a Chinese restaurant. Orange Chicken, rice, Shrimp Fried Rice and a bottle of their cheapest wine. It was a delicious meal and the first Chinese food either of us had had in 8 months. We slept well that night.

The next morning we walked back to the taxi rank and caught a taxi to Mbabane in Swaziland. Maybe caught isn’t the right word because it might lead you to believe that it left quickly. In actuality we found it easily then waited for 2 and a half hours for it to fill up. The trip to Mbabane was about 4 hours and fairly painless.

The Swaziland border was no problem and from the border post to Mbabane is only about 20km. Pulling into Mbabane is like pulling into an amphitheatre through the stage with the taxi rank taking up the orchestra and floor level. Surrounding three quarters of the rank are restaurants, shops, markets, a couple malls and a lot of people. Now, let’s not be ridiculous, this is Swaziland, not Newport Beach. The bars don’t have plasma TVs and waitresses in stilettos; they sell beer by the quart and are patronized by 98% male clientele. Regardless of the quality of the establishment, it was very cool to be in a city center that felt like a city center. We were both hungry so we found a restaurant and I got nachos (they would not have been picked to represent Plato’s Form of the Nacho, but they were good). Then we went to Super Spar, which had all kinds of food that we never get to buy in grocery stores in Lesotho, so we bought it and caught a taxi to Mlilwane.

The taxi dropped us off at a sign for Mlilwane that said, “Mlilwane 3.5 km.” We had originally planned on driving, so I hadn’t looked at the directions to the wildlife sanctuary with walking in mind. Our bags weren’t overwhelming, but we did have a couple day’s worth of food and 10 days worth of luggage. So, we started walking in hopes of catching a lift. Luckily one came within a few hundred meters and it took us within a half kilometer of the park entrance. We hoofed it the rest of the way past a well groomed primary school and a small fundraising effort consisting of 6 ceramic, presumably child-made, piggy banks for sale.

The woman at the reception desk didn’t look overly thrilled to see us even though we were pretty thrilled to be at our destination after traveling all day. “We have a reservation for a double for tonight.” Said I.

“Do you have your papers?”
The email confirmation I made online didn’t say anything about printing anything off as far as I could recall. “Nope. I made the reservation online.” She was not happy.
“Do you know which camp you’re staying at? Sundzella or the Rest Camp?”
“No. I didn’t even know there were different camps. I booked a double online.” All kinds of eye rolling and leaking of air ensued. “Okay, maybe it’s in our reservation book.” She opened a folder that had all of the reservations in it, and sure enough, there I was. “Okay, well it’s another 3 km to the rest camp.”

There were no cars at the office and it was getting dark and we were tired. “Is there a shuttle?” I regretted saying it as soon as I said it. “No.”

We bid the lady ado after paying an additional entrance fee and walked out to the gate. Walking towards us was a park ranger looking fellow and he asked us where we were going. We told him the rest camp and he looked at our baggage. “Do you mind a 20 minute walk?” Twenty minutes for 3.5 km seemed like a pretty aggressive pace considering our current state. “Nevermind. Let’s just wait and get you a lift.” So, we waited near the sign that informed us that catapults were not allowed in Swaziland (sieging the castle was out of the question) and watched an ostrich walk past us. Then an Afrikaner pulled up in a big crane truck. Peculiar I thought. He didn’t look like a patron of a Swazi wildlife sanctuary in that rig, but, he gave us a lift so I didn’t question it. Turns out he was living at the park for a few months while he installed three cell phone towers in the area.

We reached the rest camp after dusk, tired and hungry. We checked in with some of the same difficulty that we’d had at the reception desk and got the short tour of the grounds. They showed us the kitchen that was available to us (we planned to cook for ourselves to save some cash) and found that there were no utensils, pans or cookware whatsoever. We had to give a 400 rand deposit (about $45) to borrow stuff from the kitchen. It was peculiar. But then we made it to our “double”, which turned out to be a “beehive hut.” See above pictures. It was very cool.

The next day was our touristy day in Swaziland. Breakfast consisted of some eggs, yogurt and leftovers while watching impala, warthogs and eland graze under the trees just outside the huge plate glass windows in the kitchen. The decision was made to visit Ngangwane Glass, Swazi Candles and a big outdoor craft market. Ngangwane Glass is a very cool glassblower facility that also has a chocolatier and other Swazi craft stores. Unfortunately the glassblowers were not active when we were there, but the history behind the place is that it was started by Swedes who came and trained the Swazis in the art of glassblowing. All of the glass is recycled, and bought off of locals who collect it from neighborhoods (they basically pick up trash and get paid for it). It is a fantastic business practice and they made some intricate and astonishingly complicated glassware. Unfortunately it was a bit expensive for my budget and I would have broken it anyway.

The next stop was the craft market. It was a market maybe half of a kilometer long with 80 to 100 booths. Within visiting 5 booths you had seen the entirety of the merchandise available and were borderline accosted by the sellers in each booth. It was stressful because I’m not used to a bardering system and I had no clue at all what prices should be. I ended up getting a 3’x4’ painting and paid about $25 for it. I’m not sure how/if I got fleeced, but it’s in my kitchen now an I dig it.

Lastly we stopped at Swazi Candles. Swazi Candles it outrageously awesome. It is all handmade candles in various shapes, hippos, elephants, standard candles, etc, etc. The colors are vibrant and cool. The pictures will do more justice than my words can. When we walked in we went over to watch the artisans shaping the candles. They put the wax into a large low-temperature oven and wait for it to be uniformly pliable. Then they take the piece out for a while and shape it. One of the artisans pulled out a piece of the wax and handed it to me so that I could see what they were working with. It was warm and about the consistency of a waxy play-dough. I shaped mine into a Van Goghesque elephant and handed it back to him. “I think I better practice.” He smiled.

Day three in Swaziland was a relax and chill out day. We took at two hour hike through the wildlife sanctuary and saw zebras, warthogs, impala, ostriches, eland, wildebeest, and lots of birds. There are hippo and crocodiles there, but we went on the hike during mid morning which apparently is not the ideal spotting times for those creatures. It was nice to relax and not travel for a day after being on public transportation for three days straight. The rest of the stay was uneventful, although that evening I did accidentally rinse soap off into a pot full of pasta that a French group was running cold water through to keep it from going past al dente. Oops.

Anyway, the next morning we got up bright and early and hitched our way back to the main road. Well, we didn’t so much as hitch as much as allow one of the game park rangers tell a nice Dutch couple that he wouldn’t let them through the gate unless they gave us a ride to the road. Either way, we got to the road and caught a taxi to town, where we were told to go to the KFC (popular everywhere in Southern Africa apparently) to get the taxi to Maputo, Mozambique. We wandered around for a while, asked a lady in a bank for directions and finally found the taxi. We paid our fare, exchanged some Swazi money for Mozbucks (I can’t recall the name of the Swazi money or the spelling of the Mozambiquean currency). If the rest of our long distance taxi rides were any indication, it was going to be a long wait. So, off to KFC we went to get some ice cream and chicken strips, which we ate while watching the Black Eyes Peas sing “Boom Boom Pow” in hi-def on KFCs plasma TV. Figure that one out.

When we climbed onto the taxi an old, crazy-looking man, let’s call him Old Man River, and now OMR because Old Man River is too long, said, “Loyola Marymount, like in Los Angeles?” OMR had my attention. LMU is still a regional school, so for somebody to recognize it outside of California is nice. But OMR was in a taxi going from a Swazi KFC to Maputo, Mozambique. What are the chances? We started talking and it turned out that he was from LA and knew about LMU before all the crazy developing that has gone on in that area in the last 25 years. We were just chatting, but fairly engaged because I was excited to talk to somebody from Los Angeles, when the taxi driver leaned his head in the taxi and said, “What’s the problem you two?” OMR tilted his bushy beard to the side and said, “Um… we’re just talking. No problem here.” The taxi driver looked utterly confused, but pulled his head back out the window and continued to count his money.

It was clear that OMR was eccentric from the beginning. His beard and hair were disheveled, unkempt and unibomber-long. Then I asked him, “Why are you going to Maputo?” He proceeded to drop this bomb on me: He was traveling around the world informing governments about the secret ruling that the international criminal court (later identified as The Hague) had made convicting Mr. GW Bush of various crimes against humanity. OMG. OMR claimed to have been a major plaintiff in a lawsuit that went before the US Supreme Court and later The Hague, both of which found Mr. Bush guilty, along with a grip of large corporations and such. Forgive me for lacking other specifics, this encounter happened about a month ago and you tend to selectively erase such things.

Regardless, as skeptical as I was about all this litigation stuff, I was 100% convinced that this guy was going to help this 4 hour taxi ride a bit more bearable. I was correct. He regaled me with stories of when he taught 3rd graders that had 3 hour long attention spans because of mutual respect, hiring various migrant workers in the central valley and being gored through the scrotum by a beloved goat, who he later sold to the aforementioned migrant workers. Mel was not amused by the guy, so she read a couple books. But I loved it.

We got through the border no problem and dropped down a mountain range on the Mozambique side of the border. Once we got to the bottom, the landscape totally changed. The soil became very sandy and palms suddenly where the tree de jour. Houses were no longer constructed of stones with thatched roves, but were woven palm fronds. They were also much smaller, indicative of the milder climate and being able to be outdoors for more of the year. I just stared for the next hour or so on our way into Maputo. Everything was different. It somehow felt more African than Lesotho, South Africa or Swaziland. The colors were more vibrant, the poverty, well, just different. It had much more of a Caribbean feel I guess, but everything just seemed more vivid. More real, more intense. Also, everything was in Portuguese.

The taxi made about three stops for the locals before pulling into one of the city’s taxi ranks. There were five of us left in the taxi. Mel, OMR, two Dutch backpackers and me. Immediately a guy wanted to drive us to the hostel for what seemed like an exorbitant rate. USD to the Mozbuck is 1 to 25, so 600 Mozbucks was not a ton, but it sure sounded like a lot. He continued to pester me.

“I just got here. Can you please give me a minute to figure out where I am.”
“Okay. But where are you going? I will take you. Fatima’s? I know it.”
“Where is it?”
“It’s not far, I will take you there.”
“If it’s not far, then we can walk. Where is it?”
“Oh, I’m not sure where exactly.”
“If you don’t know where it is, how are you going to take us there?” Oops.
“Ah, fine my friend.” And he proceeded to give us instructions to the hostel.

OMR have no idea where he was staying or where he was going, and the Dutch couple hadn’t changed any money and didn’t have a local sim card, so they were pretty much stuck following Mel and me wherever we went. OMR took off with his rolley bag down the street, so we took off after him. The Dutch had big backpacks and were a little flustered by taking off into a city they knew nothing about with Americans whose names they didn’t even know. We stuck together regardless. After a couple blocks though, it became clear that OMR wasn’t really interested in strength in numbers as he, his enormous grey beard and his rolley luggage got lost in a Maputo side street. Then there were four. We continued in the direction the taxi driver had pointed, then stopped to ask some boys selling cell phone airtime for directions. They gave us some more broken directions and we went off in that direction, past a big, famous cathedral and a government building. As we crossed the street they ran up and offered to walk us to the hostel.

They looked more bored than malicious, and one of the boys seemed like he wanted to practice his English more than anything. We walked and chatted for a few blocks before Elaine (the female Dutcher) asked, “Is it far?” I had forgotten that they had 45 pound bags on their backs and we had been going at a pretty good clip for 12-15 blocks. The boys conferred and said, “About 10 minutes.” Elaine looked pretty dejected at this response, and although it didn’t seem like a long way to me, I recalled that the guidebook said that the hostel offered free pickup. I handed one of the boys some Mozbucks to buy airtime and asked them to use their phone to call the backpackers.

That conversation was neither clear in terms of reception or language, but they seemed to say that they would send a car to the corner we were on, which was something like Huge Chavez Blvd and Vladamir Putin Avenue. Mozambique is apparently socialist. We waited 20 minutes before calling the backpackers again and finding that their car was actually broken, so we could get a cab or walk. 10 minutes didn’t sound bad, so we decided to walk. The boys continued with us and after a block, Elained asked, “So it’s close?” She had clearly had some issues with things being lost in translation before. “It’s three blocks” one of the boys said. 8 blocks later Elaine asked, “Are we near to it?” “It’s about 10 minutes away” was the reply.

Elaine was not amused, but we decided to give it 3-4 more blocks then call a cab if we didn’t get there. This time the boy happened to be correct and we finally made our way through the gate into the backpackers. Crisis averted. We all enjoyed a cold beverage, then when Mel and I found out that our double had an extra set of bunkbeds, it was the last double, and Elaine and Reiner didn’t really want to sleep in the dorm, we offered to share the room. They were happy at that turn of events and seemed to finally relax a bit after a stressful and long walk to the backpackers.

This retelling is getting entirely too long, so I am just going to hit the major points from the rest of the trip.
1. The 5:30am bus to Tofu the next morning arrived at 6:30 and left at 7. The ride was 8 hours long and cramped, but made a few stops to get fresh bread and fruit from roadside venders.
2. Tofu was beautiful, with squeaky sand, blue water, fresh seafood and produce and the cheapest ($3/bottle) and most delicious rum I’ve ever had. We had calamari steaks, spicy prawn pizza, barracuda steaks, BBQ sandwiches, prawns with Portuguese rice, fresh pineapple, 2M beer, Italiano pizza, seafood curry, fresh banquettes and a bottle of phenomenal Portuguese black olives. Food quality and diversity where not overlooked.
3. We took a Sea Safari with a local dive shop and got to briefly snorkel with an adolescent Whale Shark. They called it a small one. It was by far the largest animal I’ve been next to in the wild. Very cool.
4. We hung out with Elaine and Reiner a couple more times and had some great conversations and meals. They were a lot of fun.
5. The trip back to Maputo was long again, and we had 5-6 hours in Maputo before our overnight bus left for Pretoria. We decided to take the water taxis over to an island in Maputo Harbor for lunch. Maputo harbor was not clean. The water taxis were more like bumper boats when docking, acting like a fat lady trying to squeeze into a seat that is too small for her. They just rammed the dock, then the boat in front of it, then the dock, then the boat, then the dock, you get the idea. The restaurant on the island was not close to the dock, but we eventually got a lift. The restaurant was empty except for us. Mel’s seafood pasta appeared to be the unsorted contents of a dragnet, a veritable catalog of crustaceans and mollusks. It wasn’t quite palatable while looking at the brown, foamy waterway in front of us.

6. We made our way back to the backpackers then to the office for the bus company. We somehow booked our tickets for the previous night. So I had to go run and pull out more money to buy new tickets. Luckily they had room on the bus still. The overnight bus was amazing. It was a real bus, and I watched some lousy Beonce movie and slept for a while.

7. We got into Pretoria at 5 am. Stayed warm in the bus line office. Found a backpackers nearby the station at 7 am and slept for a while. Then we explored Pretoria a bit, found a big mall, watched a movie, ate McDonalds and went to bed early.

8. The taxi rank was nearby the backpackers and we put our bags on at 8:30 am. The taxi didn’t leave until 12:30, at which point it stopped at KFC so that two girls who the driver apparently thought were cute could get some chicken. Nobody was amused. The border gate at Qwa Qwa closed at 4 pm and we were 5 hours way. No luck.

9. We got out of the taxi somewhere near Bethlehem and caught a ride there. The next day we found a solar panel for Mel, I got a used DC Permanent Magnet motor for experimenting with wind/animal powered battery charging stations and we made it back to Ha Sefako at about 5 pm. It was really nice to be home.

So, that was vacation. It was good, and necessary, but it also made the first week of school tough. I was not in a very good mood by the end of it. But, that’s a story for another post. These 7 pages are good enough for now. Cheers all!

Holiday Part 1

Hey, just got back from vacation. I got tired of writing, so this is just the first installment. Both pictures are from Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary.

I went on holiday. It was awesome. We caught a ride to Qwa Qwa, the border town nearest me, with my principal and caught the first taxi to Johannesburg. It left reasonably quickly and we got to Joburg in about three and a half hours. From there we transferred to a taxi to go to Nelspruit. The taxi took a little longer to fill up, but was a larger minibus and much more comfortable. Surprisingly we left before the taxi was completely full, so Mel and I had the entire back seat to stretch out and try to get comfortable for the 5 hour ride to Nelspruit. We both started going a little stir crazy about 3 hours into the ride, then we got a flat tire. They got it changed out in about 20 minutes and we were on our way again.

We were both tired when we got to Nelspruit and it was dark so we took a 4+1 (private taxi) to the backpackers. A man in a camouflage jump suite of pastel greens walked into the office ahead of us, and we followed him in. He sat down at the desk and looked at us. We looked at him, then at each other, then at him.

“We have a reservation for a double,” I say.
He says something in Zulu to Mel. She tilts her head a little to the right to amplify her quizzical look. “I speak English.” He speaks in Zulu for a much longer time. Mel just shrugs her shoulders at him.
“Do you have a double?” I ask again.

“Yes. Follow.”
We followed. The backpackers was cool. There were gazebos and bbq pits and a pool and ferns and palms. We certainly were not in Lesotho anymore. At one point he turne his camouflage jump-suited body around to point and grunt at a step down in the path. A few moments later he found a spherical lamp that wasn’t working and in a fit of maintenance inspiration began pounding on it with his palm and yelling at it. He must not have hit it properly because it didn’t turn on. We moved on.

He opened the building that our room was in, which appeared to be an old house that had been converted into a mixed backpacker building. He showed us what must have been the master bedroom. “You sleep here.” Okay. Then we shut the door and he opened the door to another room. “Or you sleep here.” Umm… Then he opened another room’s door, “Or you sleep here.” Mel and I looked at each other. We were too tired to figure out if this guy was just entertaining himself at our expense or if somebody had actually left him in charge of a large hostel. “We’ll just take the first one.” A nod from Mr. Camo confirmed the deal and we made our way back to the office to pay.

We put down our stuff and headed off in search of food. To our surprise and unmitigated joy we found a Chinese restaurant. Orange Chicken, rice, Shrimp Fried Rice and a bottle of their cheapest wine. It was a delicious meal and the first Chinese food either of us had had in 8 months. We slept well that night.

The next morning we walked back to the taxi rank and caught a taxi to Mbabane in Swaziland. Maybe caught isn’t the right word because it might lead you to believe that it left quickly. In actuality we found it easily then waited for 2 and a half hours for it to fill up. The trip to Mbabane was about 4 hours and fairly painless.

More will follow soon. School starts Monday, which is scary. Um, that's it for now.

This week

It’s my birthday on Sunday. Call me. Seriously. I’ll have phone reception from Friday through Saturday, and maybe even on Sunday (big maybe). So give me a ring when you get a chance. I’ll keep my phone on.

I don’t think I have the stamina to write another Phil the Rat Killer post this week, so I’m just going to write quick anecdotes of the pictures I posted this week.

One of the pictures I should have posted last week. It is the whole crew from the rat hunting expedition except for Lechesa, who took the picture, which itself deserves a note. He seemed a little scared that the camera was going to steel his soul, except in reverse. Or, more accurately, that if he held down the shutter too long the whole thing was going to explode in his face. He would line the photo up on the screen then, quite gingerly, press down the shutter until something, anything, happened. Then, while steadily holding the camera with his left hand, would expediently and anxiously remove his right hand from anywhere near the camera while keeping his eyes glued to the screen, like he was watching his life flash before him on the screen. I’m going to have to sit him down and have a talk about what exactly is going on in that little camera.

Those of you that keep up with my blog (God bless you, every one), have read some references to keyhole gardens. I’m not sure if I ever adequately explained what exactly a keyhole garden is. It is a small, raised garden roughly 2 meters in diameter with a walkway into the center. The idea is that it is a small, very fertile and productive garden that you don’t have to bend over to water or weed or plant. It is a lot of work at first to minimize effort later. A little delayed gratification if you will. We are hoping to spread the idea to get a few more students self sufficient as far as food goes. About 6 or 7 students expressed interested in it, including one girl, George Pullane. She came to look at my completed garden a few weeks ago and said that hers was only shin high. I was still impressed, because I didn’t expect any students to actually complete one on their own. So, I thought I’d stop by her house on my way back from tutoring to give her some encouragement and maybe some help. When I arrived at her house I found a completed keyhole garden. I was very impressed and told her as much. I’m picking up some carrot, spinach and beetroot seeds this weekend for her.

The two great hunters, Sello and Lechesa stopped by my house the other night on their way back from another safari. “What did you guys kill this time?” “Ah, we got a wild cat sir.” I looked at the dead animal in the beginning stages of rigor mortis (I’m going with phonetics, spell check can’t even help me I’m so far off) and said, “You mean feral?” Quizzical looks, then very slowly, “Wwwiiiilllldddd cccaaatttt, sir.” “Oh, a wild cat.” Sello’s prized hunting dog had apparently nabbed this unlucky fellow just across the Caledon River in a little nighttime excursion. Sello is the one in the left in the picture. He said that he got that sweatshirt from someone in Waukesha. Go figure. I had to show him where Wisconsin was on the map though.

After tutoring Kemelo on Monday I made my long promised trip to visit his home in Pamong. I cold wind was blowing, which is not foreshadowing, just a description of the walk. Saballa, which is a 45 minute walk from me, and also a 45 minute walk from his house, lies between two small rivers at the base of a small peak. We headed down the road, then down a long hill, crossed the river, then headed up a hill. His house is actually on the Saballa side of the river, but the geography is too steep and rough to traverse the mountain to his house. So, we followed the road up a while then cut off to the left along a well worn trail. About a kilometer upriver we crossed again and climbed a very steep patch of trail up to his house. Kemelo is a double orphan and his current caretaker (I use that term loosely, from what I gather he farms his own plot of land is fairly self-sufficient) is his grandmother, who is a healthy 77 years old. She quickly told me, well, told Kemelo in Sesotho, that she was born in 1932. She was utterly gracious and very happy to have me there. Then Kemelo’s aunt came over and invited me over for some tea and warm sorghum porridge (requires copious amounts of sugar, but is a lot like cream of wheat). I gladly accepted as I was a little hungry from the walk. She got out her china and set out a full platter for my cup of tea then brought in the bowl of porridge. As I was drinking and eating she brought over a picture of Kemelo’s mom when she was in primary school. A girl at Sefako Primary is probably wearing that uniform now… Anyway, some more family stopped by and I did my best to communicate how great a student Kemelo is and that they should be very proud of him. They were excited to hear that and continued to ingratiate themselves. I ended up leaving with six ears of corn and adamant protests that I return soon to visit. I sent them a banana bread with Kemelo the next day and his current assignment is a family history interview with his grandma, which might be more for me than for him.

On my way back from Kemelo’s I stopped by Teboho’s place. Teboho his Eric’s host father who lives near Saballa. Teboho is one of the most ambitious and industrious people I’ve ever met. He has a fish pond, a forestry operation with two private forests and a sapling farm that he uses to grow saplings for the Ministry of Agriculture, cows, chickens and other unknown ventures. In fact, he tried to make his own wind turbine using an alternator, but doesn’t have the technical background to make that work. Anyway, after he expressed the need to get water from one side of the mountain to the other, and I told him that unfortunately physics says that he’s going to get a pump, but that he can use wind or his cows to turn it, he gave me a bag of beans. As is typical, the beans are of different varietals and have rocks intermixed in them. The Basotho utilize the wind by just pouring the beans out of a bucket onto a plastic tarp to help get rid of the bean casings and other debris, but the rocks make it through with the beans. So, I’ve been sorting beans and rocks for a couple nights.

Whew, that was longer than I expected. Things are good and warm during the day and still exceptionally chilly at night. This may be my last post for a while because Melody and I are heading up to Swaziland and Mozambique on vacation next week.

We just have two and a half months left to collect books for the African Library Project so that we can get some more books in my school’s library. So, if you’re interested in helping out, let me know so that I can get you in touch with the right person. Cheers all, and don’t forget to call me for my birthday!!!

Phil "The Rat Killer" Youngren

I awoke this morning to a beautiful day. The storm had passed, and although there wasn’t any smog here for it to have pushed out, in its wake were a clear blue sky and the sun. You big, radiant, welcome ball of burning gas, oh, how I love thee. On my usual morning venture to the latrine I noticed that the ground was frozen solid, as is often the case when the lack of clouds allows it to irradiate its heat to the cold, black, night sky. This welcome change of weather got me motivated.

I made breakfast, used my new drill (retail therapy?) to put up some hooks for my pans, and I did my laundry that had begun to smell fetid despite the cold weather. As I was reaching the climax of my laundry high, which happens when you have just 2 shirts left to rinse the soap out of, signaling the end of near frostbite conditions in your hands from cold pump water, Sello came up and sat down. Sello is one of the first students I met in Ha Sefako and is one of my favorite. He is 24 years old and will sit for his Form E exit exam in October. He had his two dogs with him. “Sello, are these your dogs.” “Yes, Sir.” “They look hungry.” Most dogs in Lesotho look hungry. Because they’re hungry. “The dogs run, Sir.” “Run for what?” “They hunt the ibex. I am coming from hunting, Sir.” Sello had a piece of rusted all-thread with an old faux-leather dog collar as a grip and one end beaten into a rough point. “Um, Sello, when was the last time you got an ibex?” I don’t have much of a hunting history, but from what I’ve seen on South Park, you usually need a rifle or assault rifle to hunt deer like creatures. I didn’t think his heavy piece of steel was going to do much when his dogs scared off some ibexs (ibexi?). Sello pointed to the less emaciated of the two dogs, “this one got one just here in the forest.” He then pointed to the 2 acre tree farm that the school has for growing firewood.

Naturally I was surprised. “I want to go. When will you go hunting again?” Sello laughed and showed his cartoonishly large, endearing smile and said, “next Saturday. I will come get you.” Awesome. I’m really gunning for some beginners luck. Anyway, we continued to chat about this and that and I went to hang my laundry on the line. Then I asked him what he was up to for the day. “I’m going to hunt rats.” “You mean rabbits?” Sello’s English isn’t fantastic, but pretty good. “No, rats. R-A-T-S. Rats.” “I want to go.” Again, the Sello laugh and smile. “Okay, I will come to get you at about 2” Again, Awesome. I had made a banana “bread” (what a misnomer that is with a cup of sugar in it) before laundry and cut half of it off and plated it. Then we headed up to Sello’s to see his 2 year old son that I had been bothering Sello to meet and also to say hello to his wife.

Needless to say his son is adorable and his wife is very funny. I know you’re all just going to skip down to the rat hunting anyway, so I’ll just get on with that.

I met up with Sello and Lechesa at about 2 as they were preparing their spears. They had each felled some saplings that were about 2 and a half meters long and trimmed off the branches, cut off the tips and pounded 8 inch pieces of steel fencing wire (3/16th inch diameter) into the ends. The spear tips were sharpened by first flattening them by mashing the end with a 5 lb sledge then grinding them with stones. I was to use Sello’s previously mentioned all-thread spear, which Lechesa laughed at because it is blunt and heavy. Not the preferred characteristics of a rat spear. We collected a few more boys and headed down to the fields.

The maize fields here are separated by boundaries of grass about 2 meters wide, and those was our hunting grounds. The six of us split into two groups. Sello took me under his wing, as the other group wasn’t real interested in the newbie blundering around while valuable rats ran past. The other group headed down the grass row about 30 meters and sat down and rummaged around in the grass for a minute. Sello said something to the other boy in our threesome and they started to sing, then they started to walk down the grass row doing the traditional Basotho man dance. It’s not an easy thing to describe, but here it goes. The right hand holds the spear towards the bottom with the upper arm parallel to the ground and elbow slightly bent so that the spear waves above the warrior. The back is straightened as though over compensating for a fear of Quazi Moto Syndrom while the knees are a little more than slightly bent. Locomotion is achieved by a kind of bouncy, but robot like, walk on the warrior’s toes. That description definitely didn’t nail it, but let’s move on with that picture in your mind. So we begin walking towards the other group, let’s call them Group 2, singing and stomping through the grass in an attempt to herd the rats towards them.

Recall, Group 2 is sitting down with their spears pointed directly down the rat runs that zig-zag through the grass. As we close in on Group 2 the anticipation is killing me. I’m expecting a massive skewering of rats. We’re 7 meters away, then 6, then 5, then 4, then 3, then… everybody just gives up and walks to the next patch of grass. Bugger. Two more mini-hunts go this same way before, as we’re just closing in on Group 2, one of the boys slings his spear down a rat run and yells, “TEO!” I don’t think ‘teo’ means anything, but sure enough he had a rat on his spear. Let’s be straight about this, it is not a NYC sewer rat. This is a Lesothan field rat. It doesn’t get pepperoni pizzas and bagels to eat, he gets plain field corn. He is small. Like pet mouse small. Everybody is pretty exited though and we move on to the next patch of grass.

40 minutes and 2 rat skewerings later I have been relieved of my spear and given a 2 foot long stick to just try whacking the rats with. What the Basotho boys don’t understand is that I have had training at this very thing. Never did I realize that all those games of Whack-A-Mole were training for rat hunting in Africa. But, there I was. Group 2 came singing, trampling down the grass and all the sudden I see little Fievel bolting down his run. WHACK! It really is just like the game, except no tickets come out. I raised both arms in victory. They laughed. “I’m not going to touch it.” Quizical looks. “Will you carry it for me?” I ask a small boy who isn’t allowed to carry a spear. He shrugs his shoulders and puts Fievel in his pocket.

We hunt a bit longer with no more success and decide to call it a day because the sun is close to dropping behind the mountains. On our way back up the hill towards home Sello asks, “Do you eat rats in America?” “Umm… no.” “Why?” “Um… have you ever heard of the bubonic plague?” “Buubonk… what?” “Hepa virus?” “Sir?” “Well, uh, rats in America carry diseases. Also, there isn’t much meat.” “Oh, yes, if you get maybe 5 or 10 rats you get some meat.”

As we rounded the corner to my door and Sello and Lechesa threw their spears into the ground and began to talk in Sesotho. “Sir, do you want 1 rat or 2?” “Well, I don’t know how to cook it, so why don’t you take my rat to your son.” More Sesotho, and I thought that bullet was dodged. “Lechesa and I will teach you how to cook it here.” Crap. Sello began to skin the rat, which surprisingly just consisted of him pulling the skin off, breaking the feet, head, and tail off and breaking the sternum to expose the vital organs. I warmed up some oil in the ole frying pan, added some salt and pepper and sautéed Fievel until he was golden brown. As I was cooking Fievel, Lechesa began to look nervous. I said as much, and Sello laughed and said that Lechesa thought that eating rats was for little kids. “Oh, rat hunting and eating is for little boys.” “Yes, Sir.” That made more sense.

When Fievel was done, we cut him in half and I chose the meaty looking hindquarters. Well, meaty might not by the right adjective. I mean, there was meat. And I ate it. But it was kind of like trying to get the meat off of the end part of the wing of a chicken. You can do it, but you burn more calories trying to eat it than you actually ingest.

So, there it is. I ate rat. It was okay, but if anybody ever tells you it tastes like chicken, they’re a liar.


In other, less interesting, but maybe more significant news, I finished my keyhole garden. I think it looks pretty good for my first building experience with stone. Next week I’m going to start visiting students’ homes who said they were starting to build gardens of their own. Hopefully I’ll have more pictures of gardens to post, and a few months they’ll have all kinds of delicious vegetables and herbs in them. Be well, y’all.