18 January 2016: I feel you, Vogon.

                A note for the reader: I'm working on long and involved (read: lots of photos) posts about my trips to Madagascar and to Durban. Stand by for those. Chew on this post while you wait.

                A second note for the reader:  I think this post is especially relevant and more well -thought-out than a lot of the other blathering scribbles I post on here, so it’s probably worth reading.

                Here it is going on 3 days where the cell network has been down in my village, so I’ve been doing a lot of reading and audiobook listening. This lack of cell coverage is quite a good thing, actually, because instead of wasting time/data on random listicles I found on Facebook or slightly less banal tidbits of life found on Reddit, I’m chugging through some quality literature. For example, this morning after going for a dog-accompanied run, I walked to the shop to buy some papa flour to make food for said dog. I took the long way there and back so that I could listen to Me Talk Pretty One Day* on my iPod. I came home, and after playing a thrilling round of that ubiquitous game “Tan Line or Dirt Line?”—and deciding to wash off what was conclusively a dirt line— I settled down with Douglass Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on my Kindle.

I stumbled across a few paragraphs in chapter 7 that made me pause. Ford, after he and Arthur have stowed themselves away on a ship somewhere in outer space, encounters a Vogon guard who’s bellowing at them at the top of his lungs (or whatever bellowing mechanisms Vogons have). Perhaps in order to stop the shouting and change the subject from the duo’s illegally hitching on this ship, Ford asks the Vogon if he enjoys his job. “Well, the hours are good….” replies the Vogon, “but now you come to mention it, most of the actual minutes are pretty lousy.” Ford asks, “But if it’s mostly lousy,…then why do you do it? What is it? The girls? The leather? The machismo? Or do you just find that coming to terms with the mindless tedium of it all presents an interesting challenge?” The Vogon stutters around for an answer and can only come up with the suggestion that the alternative (not doing this job) would be much worse. Sadly, it’s at this moment, when they’re about to flesh out the struggles of being a bellowing ship guard that the Vogon snaps back to what he’s actually supposed to be doing and throws Ford and Arthur into the air lock.

I found myself immediately identifying with the Vogon, especially in these weeks off school when I’m just trying to amuse myself and fill the non-internetted time with things that aren’t naps. I pictured someone asking me the same question Ford asked the Vogon. Do you enjoy your job? Do you enjoy being a Peace Corps Volunteer? Sure, I say. Why not? If asked to actually think about it, though, if it’s giving me a “full, satisfying life,” I hesitate to say yes or no. The “hours,” or years in my case, are pretty good overall. Bonding with my host sisters, going travelling with my friends, watching my dog grow and learn to trust me, seeing the progress my students have made, those are all great. Come to think of it, these are all long-term things, things that take time to build up. But when I think of the “minutes,” I find myself also thinking that they are, in fact “pretty lousy”. The instances when time moves so slowly that I can actually count time in minutes, recognizing each one from the next, are lousy indeed. Time flies when you’ve having fun, but when you’re not, you remember those (and only those) lousy minutes. Those times when I’m bored out of my mind sitting in an otherwise empty staff room waiting for my next class, trying to get my students to stop goofing around and actually listen to me, sitting in my house for another straight weekend without seeing my fellow PCVs, missing friends or family from back home, those minutes suck.**

So why do it? For “The girls? The leather? The machismo?” or in my case, “The traveling? The RPCV perks? The local fame?” Sure, to some extent that’s great and all, but like Ford suggested, a lot of the satisfaction I get out of all of this is from the personal challenges it presents. “Coming to terms with the mindless tedium of it all” is definitely my most interesting (and unexpected) challenge of all. I do get lonely. I do get bored. I can constantly feel my brain turning to mush. One day, I spent a good 15 minutes contemplating the swirling wonderland that is my fingerprints, and I could probably draw the inside of my thatched roof from memory from simply staring at it for so long. Not only just coming to terms with it, but going further and actually pushing myself to overcome this mindless tedium (by seeking out new experiences and pushing the boundaries of my comfort zone), will be one of the things I’ll be most proud of, self-improvement wise, once I leave Peace Corps.

And for me, like the bumbling Vogon who doesn’t know exactly why he’s doing this job, the alternative is worse only because my alternative is unknown. A lot of the reason I’m here is to try to have some time (and boy, do I have time) to think about what I should pursue once I leave. If the alternative is losing my mind in a dank cubicle instead of losing my mind in this beautiful and singular corner of the world, then yeah, the alternative is much worse.

So thank you, Ford and the Vogon, for helping me recognize a universal (literally…) situation. I guess we could all do with a swift reminder not to focus on the minutes, those little, negative experiences, and that it’s the hours that really count. Overcoming, or even just coming to terms with, the mindless tedium takes both time and constant vigilance.*** If I’ve done nothing else with these two years, at least I’ll know that I will have tackled some of the most interesting and unique challenges that can be presented to anyone. And even if I get back to the U.S. and someone is not interested to hear beyond a 30 second elevator summary of what I “did in Africa,” at least I’ll take comfort in knowing that I might meet another Vogon-type who knows exactly where I’m coming from.

And, I kid you not, readers, the cell service came back on just as I’m finishing this up. I swear, this is not just a literary trick to bring everything full circle. You should know that I promptly put my phone back on airplane mode because I can immediately notice my addict-like compulsions to answer new Whatsapp messages. Must. Not. Be. Distracted. Ding. Ding. Ding. Now that I have internet access again, it’s not like I’m not gonna stop reading dumb internet posts or constantly messaging my friends, but, given these golden nuggets of literature I’ve recently discovered,  I might think twice and pick up my Kindle instead.

*Another quite relevant quotation of the day came from this audiobook, in which David Sedaris talks about his life recently after he moved to France. Just substitute “New York” for “South Africa” and “entire month” with “entire year” and boom, it’s me. He says, “Back in New York, I took advantage of my status as a native speaker. I ran my mouth to shop clerks and I listened in on conversations, realizing I’d gone an entire month without anyone hearing anyone complain that they were stressed out.”

** I recently finished the book  Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, in which the author goes into almost painful detail about how, for example, the loss of $50 is a much more intense feeling than winning $100. In other words, the absolute value of the pain of even a small negative experience is greater than the value of the joy of a positive experience. This is to say that the negative instances in your life, however small or infrequent, tend to color your perception of your life much more than even large or frequent positive experiences. How sad. You remember the one time you struggled to communicate something in Sesotho to your village shopkeeper, but forget the dozens of other successful conversations you had with many people that same week.

***RIP Alan Rickman. Yes, I know it was Moody who said this, but it reminds me of HP, which reminds me of Snape’s death. Sniff.

Pen pals wanted

I think it would be really cool to match up some of my students here with pen pals in the US. They're in 9th grade, about 30 of them. Ideally, they would write (or type, to practice their computer skills) and receive letters for English practice and cultural exchange. If you are a teacher or know of a teacher who is interested in setting up Basotho pen pals for your students, please email me: julie7sushi@gmail.com

Hope to hear back from some people! Thanks!

Misconceptions about "Real Life," by a fellow PCV

A very well-written post by my friend Cassie. Well worth a read.

https://souladventurespc.wordpress.com/2016/01/12/the-real-life/

Small thoughts 15

Taxis (so many because I went to new places including SA these past few weeks): Hezbollah, Free Style, Pink Lady, Captain, Passions, Jumbo, God Is Good, War Bus, Come Again, Iron Lady, Home Boy, Simplex, Alpha, Mini Skirt, Skeem Sam, Twin Lions, Dream Again No. 2, Brothers Of Peace, Submarine, Deep Thunder, Avocado, Let Them Dance, Q Ball, Step Up, Two For Joy, Slow Poison, Slow Jam, Playboy, Mysterio, Drifter, Sensation, Slim Shady, Bootylicious, Da Boyz, Seventh Heaven, Boss, Cash Money, Bone Thug, Titty Boy, Sexy Eyes, Express, Street Kid, Leave Me Alone, Cha Cha Style, Midnight, A Question Of Style, Naughty Boy, Spitfire 

Another day in the life: my 'me and her father show up at my door and they say something about the dog. A few people have said that there is an issue with the dog's mouth, but I've just kind of ignored it because it looks normal to me. Ntate Moholo [grandfather] asked me for a knife, so I give him my pearing knife. He has my 'me and me hold the dog down by its feet and he's kind of holding it in between his feet/legs. He pries open the dog's mouth and proceeds to carve into the roof of its mouth with the knife. Blood is splattering, the dog is whining and squirming, not a pretty sight. Then after some more cuts, he lets the dog go, and it slinks into the back of its little house. I still don't know exactly what he was trying to dig out. Poor little Bo Bo. 

Started off a lazy Thursday with a delivery of fresh apricots to my door, followed by a nice hike up the mountain with my ausi. Can't beat it. 

Overheard on Whatsapp

"Is there a better feeling in the world than when a Mosotho is intently staring at you so long that they walk smack into a pole? I really don't think so."

Ah the versatility of a washtub. I use it to collect rain water under my host family's roof, wash clothes, put clean clothes in from the line before I put them away, wash large quantities of potatoes (that only happened once), put it up on a chair and wash my hair in it, once used as a puppy bed, and oh yeah, occasionally use it for its original purpose and bathe in it. 

One of my biggest time sucks/distractions now is just staring at my world map and planning fantasy trips. Like where did half an hour just go? I'll tell you: figuring out a good route to hit all the South American countries in one stretch. Start from French Guinea and swoop around and down.

Ahh another flat tire on the dirt road from my village to town. Why am I not surprised?

Just outside of Maseru, I see a bouncy castle in someone's yard. I wonder how much it is to order one to my village.

South Africa has THREE capital cities: Pretoria, Cape Town, and Bloemfontein. Who knew?!

I was wandering around the training village and I found what I believed to be a crop circle-type pattern in the grass. A circle with a dot in the middle and lines coming out of either side. Later realized it could have been the middle of a soccer field? Nah. I've started making my foil hat. 

I stumbled upon what I can imagine is an amphitheater. On second thought, maybe it was just a quarry or some stones holding up the walls of the little canyon to prevent erosion. I immediately thought it could be used for Shakespeare in the park or something. But in Lesotho it would be more like Moshoeshoe in the donga. 

Overheard on Whatsapp

"I'm on a taxi with a female driver playing country. Am I dreaming?"

Monna ea mona o mona = the jealous man is here. Sesotho is a tonal language, people.

For the next two weeks, I'm officially the only one PCV my district. Though I don't think it actually counts because I won't be in my district, as I'll be on vacation. I have officially declared myself DIQTATOR of QUTHING!

"You have the perfect 90s grunge hair." -Riley

"You're never really alone if you don't want to be."

Even though I have never seen a snake in this country, Basotho are irrationally afraid of snakes. They are scared to go swimming in rivers and whatnot because they are told as small children that gigantic snakes live at the bottom and will suck you under and drown you. As such, they never learn to swim, and then when they get into deep water, like fall into reservoirs  or try to cross rivers, they drown anyway because they don't know how to swim. Trying to prevent drowning causes drowning. 

"Best friend" in Sesotho translates to "cow's head friend" 

Last time I took a big taxi in SA, they played pop music. Today, they're playing gospel at a deafening level, the bass shaking my bones. Why? It's Sunday.

Even the little slum towns in SA, filled with houses made of corrugated metal, have electrical lines going through them. Get it together, Lesotho. 

I've been so deprived of good food. I know this because in the meal on my flight to Madagascar, I was elated to find little chunks of cheese in the pasta, then I discovered the little chocolate bar. So happy. 

Update: just got ice in my juice. Fancy.

People in Madagascar call Americans Bekintana, literally many stars, because of the  American flag. 

The only two words I learned in Malagasy are salama (hello) and mafana (it's hot). The only words necessary. 

I just spent a good chunk of time mesmerized by my family's pig's one day old piglets. They're so wiggly. Piggly wiggly. 

Dog: the original pre-wash cycle for dishes

It seems PC has a mole among its ranks.

Last night at 2am, I woke up to the sounds of scratching on metal. I got my light and found that a scorpion had just happened to fall (from the thatch, I assume) into an open tin can. I promptly took the can and dumped the creeper outside. Ugh. 

Slightly drunk guy in our 4+1- "I work in South Africa. I've returned for the holidays to see my child. Not my wife. I don't like my wife, only my child." Aw that's sad. 

I go to sleep at 4am (for New Years) and my body STILL wakes me up at 6. Cool. 

On Paris being an unfriendly city: "Paris can't be bothered to woo you because she knows you are already impressed by her beauty." Well that explains a lot. 

Durban is a city perpetually stuck in the past, architecturally. The fancy buildings are all Art Deco, and the apartment complexes haven't moved on from the 80s. 

Summer number crunch: If we're estimated to COS on 16 Dec, we have 343 days remaining, a bit less than half of them (180) being school days. We've been here for 456 days. Total is close enough to 800 days. 

I just wanna go surfing every day. Is that so much to ask? Or at least touch the ocean again. Please?

6 December 2015 Resource Volunteering at the training village

                This week, I’ve been a resource volunteer for the trainees. I had to trek it all the way up to TY (combined, maybe 7 hours of taxis, not including waiting), the town just north of Maseru, nearby which is the training village. I’m staying with a super nice family with a baby who is just ecstatic about life all the time. In the mornings, I go to one of the high schools they’re borrowing for practice teaching. The kids are all out of school, but they convince the kids to stay for about 2 more weeks (convince, meaning give them lunch) so that the trainees can practice and experiment on these kids in preparation for teaching at their permanent sites. I have to basically sit through someone’s lesson and evaluate them on this and that criteria. Some of them are experienced teachers and I’m actually learning a lot watching them. Others need help steering through the rough sea that is teaching Basotho teenagers. Overall, they were not too shabby, and I’m confident that they’ll turn out to be at least adequate teachers with practice. One of the trainees has a bunch of friendship string, so during a few of the lessons I watched, when I wasn’t doodling all over the evaluation sheet, I was tying endless knots making a bracelet. This same trainee got into an argument with one of the ministry of education women who was also there observing. They were arguing over the format of the lesson plan. The woman was saying that the exact format is super important and that you need to plan out exactly which problems you’ll use and how to explain them and how much time each thing is going to take. The trainee was saying that he can come up with stuff on the fly (he can. I watched him.) and that you have to be a little flexible in the classroom because things aren’t going to go exactly as you plan, and that having the exact ministry criteria in your lesson plan isn’t so important. I’m with the trainee. My group had the same argument with the same lady. I “checked” their lesson plans, but in my opinion, the lesson plan’s format (or even if you make one…I haven’t made a full lesson plan since maybe February) doesn’t matter, as long as you can conduct a coherent and engaging lesson. 

                In the afternoons, the trainees had Sesotho classes, a few of which I sat in on and learned a bunch of stuff I had either not learned in the first place or just forgot. Then there was a bunch of free time. One afternoon, I cut one of the trainees Heather’s hair. I was just gonna straight up buzz it, but whoever’s clippers she borrowed were absolute crap and didn’t cut anything, so I just had at it with scissors and made a nicely styled short haircut. PC Barber status is holding strong. 

                Another volunteer stayed with me in the same house for part of the time, and after several days of being insanely itchy and spotty, we wondered, did we have mosquitoes? Bed bugs? Chicken pox? Nope, we did some googling and determined that the beds were crawling with fleas. I had little red bites all over me that were crazily itchy. So annoying. Good thing the trainees had their med kits and I was able to borrow some anti-itch cream.

                The best part of the week was when the resource volunteers and trainees and a bunch of staff members went to Tsehlanyane national park in the district of Butha Buthe in the north. They thought the resource volunteers might not be able to go due to space issues (there are 36 trainees, a huge group) in the vehicles, but we all exactly fit. After a few hours driving north, we arrived in the beautiful park. This being my third time there, I was all too familiar with the hike up to the waterfalls/swimming holes, so I led the charge with a gaggle of trainees behind me. We had only three hours to get there and back, so we speed hiked up the trail. After a few steep-ish climbs at our speedy pace, we were all sucking wind by the end of it, but it was worth it because we arrived at the “3 cascades,” as they call it. It’s a series of 3 waterfalls on top of each other. Due to the drought, they were not more than a trickle. Not so impressive. I led the group to the slip and slide, aka a rock slide ending in one of the deeper swimming holes. We slipped, we slid, we splashed, and we swam. So refreshing. After a little sun-drying, we got dressed again and speed hiked back to where the staff had set up the braai. It was significantly faster going back, as it was all downhill. We were all so hungry by this point that we were practically running down the slopes. We got to the braai and stuffed ourselves with so much meat. I don’t know what it is about meat, but when you get it only rarely, it just feels so much more substantial than other foods when you do get it. 

                As the sun was setting, the PC crew rolled out and drove back south to TY. I got dropped off in Hlotse, the camp town of Leribe district, to stay with one of the Norwegian girls working at the Hlotse Red Cross. My plan was to leave out of that border gate in the morning to make it to Johannesburg. It would be a huge waste of time for me to try to go home, so I do what PCVs do best and crashed with a friend. Leonard was also staying there that night, so he and Ida (the Norwegian) picked me up next to the big mosque just outside of town. I had no idea there were a significant number of Muslims in Lesotho, but apparently there are. The Norwegian volunteers really live the posh life. Their house is huge, with a modern kitchen, electricity, running water (not now- there’s a drought). They have many rules, as do PCVs, but they’re different. For example, they’re not allowed to take public transportation for safety reasons, so they have their own car. And when they stay at a hotel, they’re not allowed to stay on the ground floor or above the 4^th floor. Anyway, Leonard, Ida, and I made a super legit lasagna for dinner with lots of cheese and a side of garlic toast. That day was filled with so much good food.

                Stay tuned in the next entry for what happens next in my quest to escape the country for vacation. 

Recent photos 

Exam time

Bo is watching out for cheaters

A drawing on the board before the exam started. "No! My heart hurts because the kids in school refuse to read [study]"

The trucks in my village, here to work on the road

Taking my work on the road, grading tests (notice the red pen in my hat) while taking a taxi

Who has two thumbs and can save you money on your electric bill? This anthropomorphic fluorescent lightbulb, apparently.

Spotted: Super Masotho, keeping taxis safe from crime

The apricots in my nkhono's (grandmother's) trees are ripe!

Get off the garden, dog.

Rondaval invasion! Space Invaders made of squares of construction paper 

Colleen rocking the new buzz, cut by yours truly

On the road back from Tsehlanyane 

Trainees in the bus

and our good old driver, Ntate Fingers

Tsehlanyane Prom 2015

26 November 2015: End of school/Workshop/Friendsgiving

Oh man I have so much stuff to talk about since I haven’t written in a lil while. Well, here goes. I guess I’ll start with school stuff. It was the final stretch, just a few weeks until the school year was over, so it was time to start prepping final exams. I planned to write two tests each for form A and B. This follows the format of the JC (Junior Certificate- exit exams that students take at form C). Paper 1 is more short-answer questions, and Paper 2 is more application, with fewer long-answer questions. My plan (and the same thing I did for June mid-terms) was to make one multiple choice test for Paper 1 and do some longer questions for Paper 2. I was all finished writing both Paper 1s and outlining Paper 2s when the other math teacher came up to me one day and asked me what topics I had and hadn’t covered from the syllabus, because the Lesotho Math and Science Teacher’s Association in Quthing district was going to make a common exam for the Form Bs. This is not uncommon, for teachers to use common exams for a cluster of schools or for a whole district even. I think it’s mostly because teachers are lazy to write their own exams. But I was immediately against the idea; I had skipped several of the more pointless topics of the syllabus and had gone farther into the syllabus for other topics, as well as doing important real-life teaching like trying to work with them on checking to see if their answers made sense, not to mention working hard on dissecting word problems, helping them understand the English before they could even start on the math. A common exam with many topics I didn’t cover would spell certain failure for most of them. So the other teacher was like ok, you don’t have to use it I guess. Especially since I was already in the middle of making and printing the exams I wrote.

In the midst of all this, having probably eaten one of those rotten eggs I flung all over the village fields, my dog fell horribly sick and wouldn’t eat. I took it to the vet here in the village, and he fed it three tablespoons of cooking oil in the hopes of breaking up whatever crud was in the stomach and forcing it out, either direction. I bought some lesheleshele (soft porridge) mix and peanut butter in the hopes that Bo might want to eat that, but it was a no go. I had to leave for about a week to go to help PC staff as a resource volunteer in the new training group’s workshop, so I gave the food to my ausi and asked her to try to get the dog to eat anything, hoping it would still be alive by the time I returned.

Being fed up with school and tests and students who are as restless as me for school to be over, I was so happy to leave to go to the workshop. Normally, during training, resource volunteers go to the training village where the new group is doing their thang. I lucked out in that I got to help out at a workshop that was held at the Mohale’s Hoek hotel, a place I regularly hang out anyway. I would not be forced to take bucket baths and eat Basotho food for a week like a normal resource volunteer. Instead, I had access to a pool, showers, a (crappy) gym, internet, pizza, and my usual group of friends in that town. I was about to experience Posh Corps life, if only for a week. This was the Supervisor/Introductory Liaison (a sort of counterpart who is supposed to show the new PCV around the village and help get them integrated) workshop where the trainees would meet their principals and counterparts for the first time, having been informed of their new sites just a few days earlier.

During their sessions, I was able to chip in about my experiences, like my role as a volunteer (math/life skills/computer teacher, writing a grant for my school, helping out at the orphanage, hanging out with village people), highlighting cross-cultural points (Basotho communicate indirectly/passive aggressively), pointing out good expectations the volunteers and principals made for each other (make sure you communicate with your volunteer very clearly and make sure that they know what’s going on in advance, not one minute beforehand or not at all), what I did during the first three months at site (tried not to go crazy with people constantly coming to my door, explored the natural features of the village, determined what organizations and businesses were in the village or nearby, set my boundaries, and established somewhat of a schedule with my school), during the security session talked about any situations I’ve experienced (being put on “standfast” status during the election and about how the group before me had to be evacuated during the attempted coup), and talking about the corporal punishment situation at my school (I’ll make this a post in itself later).

Other than the sessions, I was able to hang out with my peeps by the pool, actually jump in the pool (it looked like a green lake, but we swam anyway), work out every morning with actual weights, get to talk to the baby trainees and give them essential life advice, eating soooo much meat from the hotel meals, work on my grant, and ruin a board game (Ticket to Ride) by getting way too excited and slamming my fist on the table, sending all the pieces flying…oops.

Alas, it was time to get back to school after the workshop was over. Sad day. But the good thing was that my dog was alive and kicking! On top of that, my family had helped get the dog used to hanging around the house and not running all over the village, so now it doesn’t have to be chained up anymore. Woo! Anyway, my school was in the middle of final exams, and I was scheduled to give my exams the day after I got back. I gave the paper 1s that next day. Then my principal and the math teacher called me into the office and basically went back on what they said about me being able to write my own exams. They made me basically modify the common exam to replace non-covered questions with other topics I had taught. It was so much work to (literally) cut and paste questions on top of each other, photocopy the pages, and print them in like half a day. Agh. If they only told me that it was not ok to write my own exams a few weeks ago when they originally agreed to it, this would not be an issue. Whatever. I’m over it. I just feel really bad for the students because I had told them exactly what the exam would cover and the format of the questions, and here I was betraying my word and giving them a suuuuper long and much different test. I want my students to succeed, but sometimes I feel like the other teachers just want to go by what’s been done for zillions of years, even if it makes the students’ grades, not to mention confidence, plummet to the ground. During the exams, the form As and Bs were mixed up in two different classrooms in the hopes that they wouldn’t be close enough to another one in their grade to cheat. I sat in one of the classrooms invigilating (proctoring) the exam while Bo followed my every move, walking around with me while I passed out the exams, and lying at my feet as I sat there and made sure the students didn’t cheat. He got so lazy, though, and he was just lying sprawled out in the doorway in a patch of sunlight. The students carefully stepped over him as they exited the classroom.

After giving my last exam, it was time for me to leave my village for the third weekend in a row to celebrate early Thanksgiving with my friends in Mohale’s Hoek, my camptown away from camptown. We called it Friendsgiving. There were about 10 of us that got together at Aline’s house. Aline just moved smack in the middle of town, so her location is super convenient. The food was awesome: carrots, cabbage, mashed potatoes with LOTS of (real!) butter, pan-fried chicken, homemade bread with garlic spread, guacamole with Doritos, and butternut squash cake. Nommmmm. The next day, the ones who didn’t go home yet hung out at the hotel to swim and I led an impromptu Sandal Camp workout session in the grass. Afterward, we got some meat at the braai place, then we attempted another round of Ticket to Ride when suddenly the game just stopped dead in its tracks. Nameless PVC #1 realized that she didn’t have her passport. She could see it in her mind right there on the table in her house. She and Nameless PCV #2 (she requested that her alias be Princess Consuela Banana Hammock) were planning to go to Bloemfontein the next day to go shopping and see the new Hunger Games movie. No passport = no Bloem. She sat there, eyes wide, thinking of what to do. It was Sunday, and on Sundays no taxis run to her village for some reason. She decided the only thing to do was to walk the three hours back to her village to get it. Lee decided to go with her so she wouldn’t be alone walking in the dark. It was 6pm at this point, so if they didn’t catch a hitch, they wouldn’t make it back to town until midnight. Not ideal, but there was no other choice. I stayed the night at Aline’s house that night, and in the morning I was informed that they made it back ok, but that Nameless #1 had been throwing up all night, so she wouldn’t make it to Bloemfontein after all. What a sucky situation.

After last week having to wait 3 (count em 3) hours for a taxi to leave from the Mohale’s Hoek  taxi rank to Quthing, I decided that the rank is for suckers. I caught a small taxi to the edge of town with the intention of getting a passing taxi or a hitch. I easily got a very new and comfy taxi within five minutes. Score. On the taxi, I graded the rest of my tests that I hadn’t finished. In town, I bought 2 more big buckets to store water in. Apparently, there is a big drought coming up, so I thought I should get some more buckets to prepare for when there is no water. The week earlier, I had put my bathtub under my host family’s roof during a long rain storm, so I had collected a good amount of water. I got home, gave my ‘me the sewing machine part I ran all over town to find, dumped the water in my new buckets, and just crashed. I hadn’t really slept the night before, so I was exhausted.

Right now, it’s actual Thanksgiving. I’m not doing anything in particular for it. I’m just celebrating the fact that school closed yesterday and that I actually survived! Wow, I can’t believe I actually taught for an entire year. One down, one to go. This morning, out of boredom, I decided to climb the mountain behind my house with my newly-turned-16-year-old ausi, which was super fun. The lower part of the hill is a pine forest, and we absolutely flew down that hill on the way back. The piles pine needles on the steep slope made running down the only option, and we were both laughing the entire way down. Woo!

Some photos as of late:

School choir singing and dancing at the Form C farewell party

Traditional dancing

One of the parents holding a teacher's baby nugget

Litolobonya- traditional dance

Form Cs about to eat

The coolest boys in school 

Kids lining up outside the kitchen for lunch

Little neighbor girls "cooking"

Haha that one with the whistle always cracks me up

Playing with dolls

Around the doll box

Barbie with match box purse

Homemade doll

My 'me getting her hair did

View from mid-way up the mountain behind my house

Hike!

My ausi and me on the hike

Spiral aloes on the mountain

16 Nov 2015: Trying to explain my feeling so antsy, I looked up these 2 things on Wikipedia.

Here is what I found:

-          Cabin fever is an idiomatic term for a claustrophobic reaction that takes place when a person or group is isolated and/or shut in a small space, with nothing to do for an extended period. Cabin fever describes the extreme irritability and restlessness a person may feel in these situations.^[1]

-          A person may experience cabin fever in a situation such as being in a simple country vacation cottage. When experiencing cabin fever, a person may tend to sleep, have distrust of anyone they are with, and an urge to go outside even in the rain, snow, dark or hail. The phrase is also used humorously to indicate simple boredom from being home alone.

-          Stir crazy is a phrase that dates to 1908 according to the Oxford English Dictionary^[1] and the online Etymology Dictionary. Used among inmates in prison, it referred to a prisoner who became mentally unbalanced because of prolonged incarceration. The term "stir crazy" is based upon the slang stir (1851) to mean prison.^{[citation needed]} It is now used to refer to anyone who becomes restless or anxious from feeling trapped and even somewhat claustrophobic in an environment, perceived to be more static and unengaging than can any longer continue to hold interest, meaning, and value to and for them.

-          "Stir crazy" could be classified as a more specific form of boredom, but combined with elevated and often increasing levels of anxiety, frustration, agitation, fidgeting, manic depressive type mood swings, and accessory episodes of acting out violently or otherwise antisocially on those feelings, the longer the unengaging non-stimulating environment is persisted in.

Diagnosis confirmed.

Small thoughts 14

Taxis: Eagle, Techno, Beg For Mercy, Born Again, My Twins, Lady Blue, Bad Boy (the entire back windshield was printed with a photo of a little boy flipping the bird)

My principal just gave the teachers a document from a law firm telling principals that the ministry of education was supposed to give money to schools for a textbook rental program, but they put that money in some other illegal account. It's gone and now they can't account for that money. And something about the ministry threatening principals and holding them responsible for the missing funds. Yay corruption.

In the US, I feel like people are very conscious of their ring tones. In most cases, it's not even cool to have one at all, as putting your phone on vibrate is sufficient for both tactile and audible alerts that your phone is ringing. And if you have a tacky, 1990s brick phone-inspired, digital beep boop song as your ringtone, forget about it. But here, anything goes. House, gospel, beep boop, birds chirping, babies crying, what have you. As loud as you can make it. 

Garlic salt: a game changer. 

It's amazing how good I feel in the morning, then by the time I'm at school, it just sucks the life right out of me. I'm having some version of senioritis. Teacheritis?

I can't sleep. I'm up trying to figure out how to fit in all the vacations I want to do. Solution? I may or may not ever come back to the US...

I just went outside and burned some maggotey eggs. Mmmmmm. I'm gonna go throw up now. 

So I'm walking home, and as I get out of the school grounds, this little girl's face erupts with wonder and confusion as she practically screams, "Lekhooa oa tsamaea le ntja!!" [The white person is walking with a dog!!] Yup. Basically. 

I got my first ever double yolk egg today. It's gonna be a good day. 

I'm convinced that the same mechanism that is inside a squeaky toy is also in the throat of all donkeys. 

Cabin Fever: this is real life, people. Actually, look up "stir crazy" on Wikipedia. Literally exactly how I feel. I'm not quite on par with Jack Nicholson in The Shining, but I did go out last night and toss/smash a whole flat of (in my defense for not wasting food, mostly rotten) eggs in a random field. It did make me feel much better. 

"The things you own end up owning you."

Fight Club sums up how good I feel owning very little here in PC.

Fun fact: 15% of Google searches have never been searched before. That seems surprisingly high to me.

Fire drill (escape out my window) -I leisurely cleared off the window sill, put the curtain aside, unlocked the burglar bars, drug a chair over, climbed up, and jumped out in a minute and a half. Bonus: no one even saw me, so I didn't have to explain to anyone why I was jumping out my window. Score. 

PC: where the boredom drives me to examine the swirling wonderland that is my fingerprints for a good 15 minutes.

Overheard on Whatsapp

"That's what xmas is all about: frikin burritos all day long."

Overheard in real life

"Im in such a weird mood. I don't know what to do. I'm gonna model outfits. That always calms me down."

"I wish I could just fart myself to sleep."

Overheard at the workshop

"Lovers don't look each other in the eye because we want them to guess our feelings."

I was walking past the gym at the hotel during a break from the PC workshop I'm helping with. As a business casual event, I'm wearing a summer dress and sweater. Lee comes out of the gym, saying, "at first I thought it was you, but then I thought no, can't be, it's wearing a dress." It? Thanks. 

Taxi drivers have this whole set of hand signals that they use with other taxis and side-of-the-road passengers. It's fascinating. 

There've been all these crazy dust storms around because it's so dry, but they're being squished out with a little rain. Rather be a bit wet than perpetually finding dirt in my ears. 

"There has never been a sadness that can't be cured with breakfast food." - Ron Swanson, Parks and Recreation 

I just sustained a gruesome thumb war scratch. Who knew this innocent game could be so lethal?

My dog is at the point where it won't wander all over the village- it'll stay in the general vicinity of my house. I don't feel compelled to chain it up anymore. Freedom!

I just had a dream where I was in Paris and wanted to go to the Pompidou museum, but when I arrived at the super futuristic looking metro station, I got on the conveyor belt where you had to buy your microchip-infused paper metro ticket, but when I got to the ticket lady, I couldn't remember French, only Sesotho. Sigh. 

Today I learned that they base a student's passing or failing of the subject for the entire year solely on the final exam. No wonder they all fail so hard!

I'm now at the point where when I see someone driving on the right side of the road in a movie, I get disoriented for a second, thinking they're on the wrong side. 

Ok government, so let me get this straight: your online system got hacked and I may be at risk of identity theft (including my fingerprints) because of my PC application info that was on there. Your solution is to have me register for some (possibly a scam?) identity protection program by putting my full name, address, phone, and social security number ONLINE?? Because if your website

gets hacked once, after that it's obviously invincible. AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO SEES THE PROBLEM WITH THIS?

If it takes more time to write down on your to-do list than to actually do it, do it now. 

Check out this awesome video about life in Lesotho

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=-BrhwW2sIec

Made by some of my fellow PCVs!

Small thoughts 13

Taxis: Submarine, Easy Does It, Argument, Paradise, God Bless Me, Sorry Guys, Green Pepper, Leja Ntja [dog eater]

How did I spend my Sunday, you ask? Oh, mostly chasing the pig around trying to get it to stop attempting to eat my dog's food. Maddening. 

How does the moon cut his hair? Eclipse it! 

Yeah I got up at 3am to watch the lunar eclipse and experimented photographing it and the stars for like an hour. But then the darn thing set behind a mountain. It was still really cool, though, all glowey red. 

It happened. I was standing squished in the aisle of a big taxi and the guy sitting next to me threw up. In a bag, thankfully, but ugh.

The business teacher was checking students' notebooks with them when a bunch of them started crowding around her desk, and she was trying to make them kind of line up, saying, "One at a time. One fool at a time!"

A bunch of packaged foods here advertise that they are "tartrazine free!" What the heck is tartrazine, an why should I be so afraid to ingest it?

Update: tartrazine is yellow dye #5, which a handful of people in the world may be sensitive to.

As I did when I was bored with life in France, I'm starting new little personal challenges. This time it's training myself to sleep on my back on the floor. 

One of the teachers brought his laptop to school today and it's covered in Hannah Montana stickers. Classic Lesotho.

I find myself completing my 12th sudoku puzzle today, this after listening to two complete audiobooks. What am I doing with my life?

Drinking straight out of the tap: the original #nofilter

"I'll be 12 on October 11th" - Happy perpetual 12th birthday, Parent Trap twins. 

Ponytail I'm coming for youuuuuu! So close!

One of the saddest moments of the day is in the morning before I leave for school and I realize I have to put on pants. Sigh. 

I just heard someone refer to college as an eternal struggle to make it to the weekend. I'd like to expand this statement to include not just college, but my entire life.

Form C boy, to some girls- "when you eat drink-o-pop [powdered drink mix], you will be kissable."

A small group of 4 PCVs was walking back to the hotel from the city center doing some grocery shopping when a random 'me gets OUT OF HER CAR and calls across the street to us, asking if she can take a picture with us. We say no. "Why?" she yells back. Um, because we're not zoo animals; we're just white. 

Making a salad, feeling so posh. 

I recently saw an article headline about American reading habits. Who reads the most? they asked in the tag line. I didn't click on the link because I already knew: PCVs. 

Aahh I just straight up got electrocuted while rewiring the socket to fit a different kind of lightbulb. Lesson: unplug first.

Hair status: I can now get tangles. What are this?

It's getting to the point were in class, my students are asking me questions in Sesotho and I respond in a mixture of SesEnglish. 

PC: where your socks are perpetually crunchy. 

I'm about to start form B math class when kids start rushing to the window then out the door. I peer out and it turns out the fence (a tangled stack of logs and branches) to the garden is on fire. Kids run to the tap and fill up buckets and basins to put it out. This left the lesson with like 10 minutes of me unsuccessfully trying to teach the riled up students about algebraically solving for variables. Another swell day at Quthing Secondary. 

Both male teachers just swaggered into the staff room, both with bucket hats on their heads and sticks in their hands. "Eta, eta, eta," they greet us in Sesotho slang. When did I forget to sign up for the cool kids club?

Another teacher to me- "O motle, joaloka o hlapile ka lebese." = "You're beautiful, like you've bathed in milk."

My nkhono (grandmother) keeps telling me that she will give me eggs. This has been going on since I moved to site. Even though I told her I buy eggs in town, every time I see her, she is insistent. Today, my ausi told me to go to our nkhono's house because she wanted to give us some motoho (sour porridge), and while I was there, she was explaining how she had some eggs but some dogs crawled under the fence and ate them (which I found mildly amusing). I wonder how much longer she will keep reassuring me that she can give me these mystery eggs.