Lesotho Infinity And Beyond: 22 October 2014: HVV [Host Volunteer Visit]

Now, citizens of the internet, I shall tell you the tale of HVV [Host Volunteer Visit- in which the trainees visit current volunteers to get a glimpse of what their future may hold]. Most people went one trainee to one volunteer, but I got buddied up with Jeff to go visit Gloria in ButhaButhe [northern most district]. Thank the stars that she met us in the training village or I would have been quite lost. We met up with a bunch of other volunteers in the ButhaButhecamptown [a camptown is pretty much the only town in the district, and all but two camptowns are named after their district], did some food shopping, then went on our way to our separate sites. On Saturday morning, we decided to go for a small hike to the caves. We went down, up, and alongside mountains to find them. When we were walking, we saw some girls getting water from the only tap in the area that wasn’t completely dry (the north has water issues sometimes). They were just wearing flip flops on the steep path, carrying water buckets and laundry basins on their heads. Maybe one day I will be skilled and flat-headed enough to carry a 20 liter water bucket on my head. At the cave, we encountered a tiny, lost lamb who was overjoyed to see humans. It followed us around for a bit until we found its herdboy, and we gladly handed it over to him.

The boy warned us not to go to the highest mountain because there was initiation school [a traditional school where boys stay in the mountains from a few weeks to a few months and get circumcised and otherwise learn how to be men, whatever that means] up there. When we got back from HVV another trainee said how the house next to where he was visiting was being used as the initiation school’s central hub in that village. He said that they put up a huge wall, and that he could hear chanting and speeches in the morning before they left for the mountain, their faces painted black. Gloria says that she thinks they just smoke weed and fight each other up there for a few weeks, then come back initiated as a Basotho man. They try to keep it pretty secretive though. She said that if we saw them or stumbled into their camp that they would kill the women (me and Gloria) and either beat up or initiate Jeff.

Back to the climbing, Jeff sped up the mountain on this rock incline, and I, jello-legged as I scrambled to the top, was exhausted at the summit. I said that my legs were hurting and he said that no, I was misinterpreting the feeling of my legs having a romance with the mountain as pain. My legs were so in love with the mountain that I had to sit and rest. He wanted to go to the next little peak, and he said that he would climb it, come back, and meet me here again in ten minutes max. An hour and a half later, he still hadn’t returned. I had watched him become smaller and smaller on the side of the mountain until I couldn’t track him anymore, so I had no idea where he was. I texted Gloria, who was not about the climbing life and stayed at the base. She told me that we should probably head back, especially since we hadn’t even eaten breakfast yet, and joked that if Jeff gets initiated, he can handle himself. I found a piece of trash up there, pulled a sharpie out of my backpack, and write in big letters instructions to go back to Gloria’s house. I put it under some rocks and hoped that he would get the message (miraculously, he somehow found it and brought the trash note back to me later). He appeared at Gloria’s door about two hours later with two bo’me who had led him back. Apparently, he went back from the mountain to the village some weird way that forced him to basically descend a sheer rock face, which he admitted that he almost legitimately died on. We promptly wolfed down a fantastic breakfast of banana bread French toast (drool) and bacon.

The next day, we went to Gloria’s school where we witnessed her teaching form A and B math classes. I helped her lead an activity outside where the students put rocks on the soccer field as the x and y axes and stood on the grid, plotting themselves as points. It was really creative on Gloria’s part, and the kids were getting really into it. I definitely want to incorporate interactive activities into my teaching like that. All three of us sat in on a horribly boring business class where the teacher was basically reading straight out of the book, making the students memorize definitions as she repeated them over and over. When one kid couldn’t regurgitate the definition of “cash book,” she looked like she really wanted to hit him (corporal punishment is a common form of punishment for kids if they misbehave or get an answer wrong, and as PCVs we are supposed to encourage the teachers not to do this), but Gloria said that she didn’t hit him because we three were in the room. I heard also that teachers can take out their general feelings of anger with corporal punishment even if the kid wasn’t so bad, but just to release their own tension. It’s sad that some teachers have to hit kids to maintain their respect and authority, whereas I feel like in other places respect is earned through showing leadership and knowledge. And besides, psychological studies have shown that rewards work much better as incentives than punishments anyway. I’m sure I’ll talk more about corporal punishment in another blog post, so stay tuned.

That afternoon, all the ButhaButhe volunteers and their trainee visitors decided to get together at Keegan’s huge rondaval just outside of the camptown for a night of hanging out and, more importantly, tacos.That morning, we headed back to the training village, and a ‘me said that the girls missed me because I wasn’t there to play skippy with. Apparently, I have developed somewhat of a (good) reputation for playing with the kids, doing handstands, and generally being friendly, which is great to hear.

I think after HVV, we are finally getting to see the bigger picture of living here long-term. The people in the training group are also getting closer: people are eager to start entertainment committees for things like Halloween and birthdays, people are going on group runs to the nearest mountain, Thaba Sefika [thaba means mountain], and I have arranged for a group of girls to chop their hair off. Another plus is that I am more optimistic about the food now that I have bonded with my ‘me of our mutual like for spicy food. Today my rice and beans actually had some flavor, hallelujah.