Some photos and stuff

Small Thoughts 6

A big part of becoming a functioning person in this world is learning to divide things you learn from older people into two categories: bullshit/misconceptions/old wives tales vs. sound advice that you probably should have listened to the first time around.

Anywhere else, I would normally clean my habitat every once in a while, but if I don't sweep my floor here every day, I soon end up ankle deep in dirt, dead bugs, and roof thatch scraps.

"Hope you're having a chill time in Le soot poop."- Chris, in an email. Thanks, bud.

In the Southern Hemisphere, "spring forward" and "fall back" don't work. Unless us southies are supposed to be two hours different from the northies now. I'm confused.

Update: Wikipedia tells me Lesotho doesn't save daylight. Problem solved. 

I've gotten really good at pretending like I understand stuff when I have absolutely no idea what people are saying. I'm golden as long as there are no follow up questions. Then my cover's blown. 

I am teaching prisms in form B. I was using the textbook as an example of a rectangular prism when I realized that the title of the book is also "prism". Hah. Am I the only one who finds this entertaining?

My training group is keeping track of teacher absenteeism or students missing class for kind of dumb reasons. Teachers often will not show up to school for one lame reason or another, or they will go to class late or leave early bc they're socializing or dealing with parents or something else. Yesterday they cancelled the last 2 classes because the athletes had to go to the field to practice for their track meet or something. Then today they almost cancelled the last 3 classes because the kids in the English club had to practice for their debate tournament. This couldn't take place after school like it normally does? There is a lot of non-teaching/learning going on.

There is often a thin line separating genius with delusional, and sometimes it's really hard to decide which camp someone belongs in.

Any day when I don't have to wear real pants is a good day. 

My favorite part of watching movies on my computer is at the end when I can super fast forward it and have the chipmunks sing as the credits fly by. 

Message from Frederico: "pajamas+food³+bed=the theory of happiness"

Just saw a girl wearing a shirt that said "ERHAPS". As in, erhaps you lost a P somewhere. 

Taxi name: "A Question Of Style"

It's cute how old people think that lol means lots of love. 

I haven't stretched in a lil while. My body is like owww what are you doing to me?

Every time I read lord of the rings it's like I zone out amongst all the flowery writing and then five pages later I realize my eyes have been moving along the lines but I haven't actually read anything.

There's a sheep being dismembered outside the staff room.

After the sheep has been fully dismembered, I see a form C boy holding a round and furry white thing, about the size of a little kids-sized soccer ball. The conversation that follows: "What is that?" "The testicle." "What are you doing with it?" "I am making it soft." "For what?" "I am going to cook it. With Imana!" He proceeds to use it to slap another boy who is running by.

Taxi name- "mummy boy"

My ausi has a shirt on that says "talk nupdy to me." Laughing, I told her that that means absolutely nothing; Nupdy is not a word. How do things like this make it into mass production?

18 December 2014: Swearing-in

The last few posts don't have photos because I live in Stone Age Africa and the Internet/uploading situation is as you would expect. Soon I'll try to edit them in. ​

The morning of swearing-in at the training village, I was packing up all the stuff I originally brought plus all the junk I acquired along the way, including the stuff I bought in the malls in Maseru when the PC took us for a shopping trip there. While at one of the malls, Kyle and I were searching all over for a cast iron skillet like the one Lee had found on sale for M300 ($30). They did not have any kind of cast iron skillet, on sale or otherwise. Sad. Anyway. Later that morning, we got a message that the PC bus was at the pink shop ready to pick people up to take them to the soccer field where the ceremony would be. I was still sweaty from working out and in the middle of eating breakfast, so I was just thinking “haha, nope,” and continued to leisurely eat. I knew that we didn’t have to drive to the field- it was walking distance away- and that even if we left now, the ceremony wouldn’t start for another few hours because we’re on Basotho time. After breakfast I took a bath and got dressed in my new seshoeshoe [patterned cloth] skirt and shirt that one of the LCFs had made. She made dresses or skirts or shirts for a bunch of us for quite a reasonable price. On a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being Covered Wagon Pioneer, I felt like I was at an 8 in that outfit. 

Officially a PCV!

I need this flag.

A few of us walked together from our houses to the field where there a bunch of tents set up for the dignitaries, for us, for the bo’me, and for any other village people who showed up. We killed time (even though a bunch of us showed up late on purpose, we still had a few hours to waste until it started) by taking photos and eating copious amounts of makoenyas [fried dough balls] and popcorn from the nearby shop. When the ceremony finally started, there were a whole bunch of speeches by a lot of “important” people, including our country director, the US ambassador, the PC Lesotho education director, some ministry officials, etc. The country director’s speech was reminiscent of all the things we had done at training, and she indirectly called me out twice by mentioning the rapping/ukulele performance at thanksgiving and by saying that sometimes a change of fashion was necessary, i.e. chopping all your hair off. Then the mic was handed to Neel who would make a Sesotho speech on behalf of all of us. He scored highest on the LPI, so he would speak for all of us. He strutted up there wearing his red blanket like he owned the place. And he kind of did- his speech was awesome and all the Basotho loved that he did it in Sesotho. They probably think that he’s 100% fluent, but he said that he just wrote a sketchy draft and one of the LCFs helped him make it grammatically correct and sound fancy.  Next, they made us do this weird oath and called us up one by one. Almost everyone had awesome seshoeshoe clothes on- so many cool colors and patterns! 

Seshoeshoe rainbow!

With my boyz Lee and Neel

Yes, this pretty much sums up Jeff’s attitude about life at all times

Orange Crew: Colleen, Chelsea, and Rob. Fun fact: I was supposed to get orange and Colleen was supposed to get blue instead, but our color preferences got written down wrong when we were measured at the same time.

Kyle and me

15 December 2014: LPI / Walking Tree

                I’m laying here in my bed while outside, there is a massive wind/dust storm happening. Plus it just started to rain/maybe hail. I could see a cloud of brown in the distance covering the view of Thaba Sefika in the midground, then my ntate came knocking on my door telling me to close my windows, and suddenly there are bursts of dust all around the outside of the house

                This morning we had the LPI [language proficiency interview- basically to determine your language level] which was very low stress. I just sat in a room with a woman and she asked me some questions and I answered them/BSed them as best as I could. I scored advanced-low, one of only four people in our group who got anywhere in the advanced level. Woo! All the LCFs came in singing and dancing because we had all passed and had scored highly as a group. Honestly, I think I made advanced only because I knew several very specific words and was coincidentally able to use them: the lady asked me how to cook papa, so I was able to use the verb “soka,” which means to stir papa, and the noun “lesokoana” which is a specific stick only used to stir papa. She also asked me to make tortillas and I totally bombed on that question because I had no word for flat, circle, roll out, etc. Oh well. It’s really amazing that in just over two months I have learned so much. Language learning in a classroom removed from the everyday life usage of the language and the culture is so unproductive compared to immersion. My time in Morocco also proved that this is true. 

Me, ‘Me Lineo, and Lee

After the LPI, I went home, halfheartedly cleaned my room, and started to sort of nap while listening to the audiobook of Mandela’s autobiography. I was thinking about how even this small time by myself was weird because I was so used to being around a bunch of people all the time. I better get used to it, though, for when I move to site. On Saturday after coming back from TY for shopping, I met up with everyone at the café/bar where we got superlatives, like in a yearbook or something. Mine was “most likely to be barefoot”—and it was pointed out to me that I was barefoot at the airport during staging. I forgot about that. I just don’t really like shoes. But I was thinking that I ain’t got nothing on Milea.

Playing cards before superlatives

Yesterday, Kyle, Chelsea, Lee, and I went to find the Walking Tree. If you have forgotten (or if I never told you…) this is a tree that we could see on the horizon wayyy off on a ridge. It sticks out because it’s the only tree over there, and it looked gigantic. We named it the Walking Tree because a few other people had gone to find it a few weeks ago and were told that it walks around at night and leaks paraffin like sap or something. After a failed attempt to find it previously, we decided that we should just take a bearing and go straight across the valleys to find it. It really didn’t look that far, but every time we went down into a valley thinking that it was on top of the next hill, it seemed to have moved to the hill after that. After the tree was pulling this illusion on us for about three hours of hiking, we decided that the tree was obviously walking away from us, hence another reason for the name Walking Tree. Tricky little thing. When we finally reached the tree, I asked the tree owner if the tree walked around at night and he just laughed at me. They must have thought it was hilarious that a dumb story that they made up made it to other people who came to the tree to investigate for themselves. Another three/four hours later, after zombie-marching our way back, we finally made it, with the guidance of some village kids, back to our houses, where I promptly collapsed on the floor because I was feeling not so great, having walked with a bad knot in my stomach the entire way back. We had run out of water pretty early on, and after 8 hours of hiking, I downed a whole bottle of water and got ready to make pancakes with the crew.

The puppies thought they might get some pancake scraps

10 December 2014: Last week of training / fruit galore / TsehlanyaneNational Park

                There is only a week of training left, and I’m really not so happy about that. For the people, not the actual training. I’ve gotten pretty comfortable in this village and I’ve become really good friends with a lot of the other volunteers. It’s going to be hard not to see all of them every day.

                On the plus side, the zillions of fruit trees at my family’s house are busting open with nectarines, apricots, and peaches. My ‘me gave me a bucket of them a few days ago. They are so juicy and sweet ahhh. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t have tons of fruits and vegetables growing at their houses in the US. Fresh (and free) fruit is awesome. Cooking adventures have included peach cobblers and things because of the abundance. 

                And I almost forgot- last week we took a trip to Tsehlanyane National Park where we were able to hike, swim in the river, and have a great cookout/picnic.

Kyle and Chelsea hiking along the river

Grace chilling in the grass

QuThing 1 and QuThing 2: Colleen and me

Kristin and Catie

Lars helping one of our LCFs jam out

Happy pi day!

3.14.15

Shame I was reminded of this after 9am my time, but there is still time for those to celebrate in America. Don't let me down!

A well-written essay by one of the other PCVs, found in the monthly newsletter

Pretty Fly for a White Guy

By Joe Downes

 During the exile that was Peace Corps Lesotho’s consolidation in Thaba Nchu, I was approached by the Diversity Committee to write an article concerning my experiences as a heterosexual, white male in Southern Africa. Indeed, if it were not for the matrilineal side of the family’s proclivity for the Holy See, I would be the veritable prototype of your standard WASP. Throughout history (at least the last two millennia or so), my demographic has been the most advantaged group in the entire world. We’re the guys who wrote you out of the American constitution, women and minorities (unless in case you were “lucky enough” to be a slave and have counted as 3/5 of a white, land-owning male). We’re the guys who took your land and gave you smallpox-ridden blankets, Native Americans. We’re the guys who put almost the entire world under the transatlantic, colonial yoke, killing or exiling anyone who stood against us.  In short, despite an extremely checkered history of repression, prejudice and unspeakable crimes against our fellow man, we’ve written the history books and reinforced our position at the top of most major industries worldwide. When you think of the American, white male, it’s almost impossible not to think of affluence, power and the freedom to pursue his happiness, even if it comes at the significant expense of others.

 

When viewed through the prism of this historical context, it is easy to see why every single day I am regularly pestered for money, work, candy and help of some kind or another. When people see me, they often see a guy who can afford to buy them a whole case of beer, let alone just one Maluti. Although I do not particularly like sweets, children automatically assume my pockets are literally bursting with candy at any given moment. Indeed, in a country with significant ties to both the Free State Province (and its many disproportionately advantaged, white Afrikaners) and the United States of America (think PEPFAR, USAID… and many disproportionately advantaged white people), I can understand why an assumption might exist that I’ve got employment and funds at my disposal.

 

Accordingly, while I may have to deal with being pestered due to my assumed wealth, I would be lying if I didn’t admit to certain advantages here in Lesotho due to my background. People generally give me respect without any sort of merit and are usually pretty excited to have a large, stupidly grinning lekhooa in their presence. I am usually consulted and my opinions treated with respect. No Ntate has ever tried to make a drunken pass at me, although I have definitely had to endure more than my fair share of drunken monologues in limited English (I’m pretty sure this comes down to my personal character as an overly attentive sucker who can’t say no, however.). Ultimately due to these stereotypes about my Anglo-Saxon heritage, even my hair is valuable as a magical token (muti). And thus, it is the bane of us white, male ex-pats everywhere to receive constant attention, both positive and negative, as targets of pleas, crime and countless appeals.

 

… Oh but that I was a true ex-pat! My Lord, would I revel in a salary exceeding $200 a month and the ability to own a car! I would make it rain sweets as I cruised the main drag of Hlotse with the reverberating praises of my greatness echoing into the Leribe sky. But alas, I am a mere volunteer: the lowest of the low in the ex-pat community. I have no money, I neither like nor keep candy on my person, and, as of writing this, I don’t even have a host organization (although I’m plenty busy) in which to employ others. I spend most nights watching brackish water drip from multiple places in my room, wishing someone would buy me a beer.

 

Thus, it is my personal mission to proselytize this simple fact to Basotho: While we should always respect the diversity and individual backgrounds of others, at the end of the day we are all members of the same human tribe. There is nothing special about white people. Human beings are human beings and we all deserve the same treatment. While I respect the diversity and the unique viewpoints of others, I honestly feel like racial or gender based distinctions are superficial and erroneous. Like you, Ntate, I need a job. Like you, I thoroughly enjoy house music, papa ka nama and other common human pleasures. And like you, I could sure as hell use a beer right now if you’d buy me one. There also seems to be some sort of belief that I am (as a white, heterosexual male) automatically a smoker and have cigarettes. While I do partake in the rare cigarette, this is not true and I take it as a simple sign that Basotho think I’m just really, really cool.

 

In all seriousness, however, I think us white, heterosexual male volunteers have a serious responsibility to communicate to Basotho that we are all not privileged and do not condone a past culture (of privilege and power) with which we are so often associated. Yes, some may think that for a white, male volunteer to say thusly is naïve, unrealistic and somewhat disrespectful towards others. However, I would venture that assuming all white males ignorantly enjoy and condone these inherent advantages is a small form of prejudice unto itself.  I think it’s absolutely deplorable what my ancestors have done to secure advantageous circumstances and position. Ultimately, at the end of the day, I think it is the duty of those in my demographic to transmit this simple message: While respecting our differences regarding ethnicity and culture (and possibly sex), we are all simple humans at our core and should not be judged by basic stereotypes. Whatever privilege or plea you extend toward me can be extended to my colleagues who are non-white and/or women, because, despite whatever superficial differences might exist, we all should be treated the same.

 

Perhaps it would be easier to convey that message with sincerity if some members of our society (most notably the law enforcement community) actually reflected this ideal in the practice of their actions. Nonetheless, I resolutely believe this ideal of equality exists and is a cornerstone of American culture, even if it doesn’t always show through in the actions of some Americans. In accordance with Peace Corps’ commitment to teaching host-country nationals about the positive aspects of American culture, we need to stress this important belief and prominently feature it during our service here.

 

Now… how about that Maluti, Ntate?

Small thoughts 5

The PC says that the trend is for guys to lose weight and girls to gain weight. I'm definitely losing weight, mostly muscle. Boo. I don't really understand how it's possible to gain weight here, unless you're bingeing on papa or something, which is impossible because blech. Maybe if you just eat peanut butter and fried makoenyas all day you could gain weight...

Taxi name: "ambitious." As in, it's ambitious that you try to pack 22 people into this 15 seater van. 

Unlike during training, when I get back to the U.S. I'm gonna have to try to remember that it's not normal for like four people to share something like a spoon or a cup at the same time. 

I'm watching Orange Is The New Black and the inmates are complaining about having to pee in a bucket bc of no plumbing for one night. Story of my life: even though I don't like to use it, I do have a pee bucket standing by. Prison is supposed to be awful, but that looks like pretty sweet digs from where I'm sitting.

Apparently Maseru is the 6th most dangerous city in the world and #1 in Africa in terms

of homicides? That's actually hilarious.

Text from Colleen:

"The sound waves of this ramped up bass of this famu are penetrating to my bladder and making me have to pee even more."

Dear Small Clothes Gods,

Why are my socks disintegrating?

Love,

The Sush

My gymnastics callousey hands are almost turning into baby soft hands for once in my entire life. Noooo

It's weird not finding long hairs that I have shedded all over everything I own. Now I just occasionally find little ones. 

My hair is getting kind of mulletey at the back. Good thing I'm in a place where no one knows that you're supposed to make fun of people with mullets. So I have deftly avoided any Billy Ray Cyrus-related teasing.

I highly recommend any fashion experiments in rural Africa. You look weird anyway, so any further weirdness isn't going to register. 

I learned why old people here ask white people for candy. Normally you'd think its only the kids who want candy, but no. I've been asked for candy by random old people too. It's because when the Christian missionaries were here, they'd give candy to the people who went to church. Bribing religion with sugar! It's been long enough that the old people still probably remember that, and associate white people with candy. People expect my pockets to be overflowing with candy at all times. No. Go away. 

Dilemma: not all my students turn in their homework, which is problematic, but if they all did it would take me twice as long to grade it.

I just took a piece of crumpled paper from a girl who asked to leave bc I thought she was passing notes with it or something. Turns out it was blank and I realized she was probably planning on using it as toilet paper. Whoops.

I finished my garden and 2 different people gave me food today. Life is good. 

If there were a national peach eating contest, I would be a strong contender.

Ugh Lesotho is about to explode with a new election and all the rest of the world cares about is some damn dress whose color no one can agree on. Priorities? No? Ok.

Inspired by my diet being at least half peaches these days, I am announcing the candidature of Sushi for Prime Minister of Lesotho. As a write-in for tomorrow's election, of course. Platform: solve national hunger (for one month out of the year, starting in at least 2 years until the tree can get big) by giving everyone a peach pit to plant. My party is called APC: all peach congress. I'll just make the army and police put their battling aside and come together to make a nice peach pie, and then they'll share it with some ice cream. World peace. 

I have just been informed that this is exactly what Johnny Appleseed did to try to solve hunger. Julie Peachpit doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

Jambo Juice: Africa's premium frozen smoothies. 

Several of my dreams have included having to frantically drive a car whose brakes barely work. Hmm.

The #1 song on the day I was born was "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" by Bryan Adams. 

New idea: while the rest of the country is distracted by election madness, the 2 southern districts of Lesotho, Quthing and Qacha's Nek, should secede and create their own country: the Qonfederacy. We will leave a thin border to the south with Lesotho so that we will be a minuscule country inside a tiny country inside another country. We will even have our own qurrency and our own quisine. Maybe even our own lanquage- only clicks.

I don't have to pee all day until suddenly there is a big downpour, THEN I feel the call of the latrine. Which is outside. In the rain. Gahh.

'Thabane was in high spirits when he voted. “My opponents will never praise me, and I am not going to praise them myself — that’s politics," he said. "You don’t praise your enemy in politics, you pull him down and you pull off his pants so women can laugh at him, so tighten your belt if you are in politics. Here in politics, we do unto others as they do unto us.” ' What a poet. 

I'm looking at these kids' faces while I give the PC-issued pre test (they will take the same test at the end and see how much they learned.) and some of them are looking at me like "wtf am I supposed to do with this? How could you?"

I planted my garden five days ago and now I have baby sprouts emerging from the dirt! Wooo!

I ran on the road with the students after school today because they are training for some district competition soon. The other teacher foolishly said that I should be the pacesetter, but most of the students, especially the tall boys, zoomed ahead. I am so pooped! Most of them were running in their school uniform (skirts or pants and button down shirts) and their stiff leather school shoes, too. And some of them were grabbing peaches off the trees along the way and eating them as they ran.

They just announced Mosisili as the new prime minister and every woman is yelling. Even the little girls are yelling in emulation of their mothers. People here are obviously very happy. The happy, yet somehow eerie ululations are reverberating through the hills. 

My village is going cray (screaming, barking, dancing, whistles, famu) and my ausi just asked me to go run with her tomorrow morning at 5. Guess I won't be getting much sleep.

This is the second time I've woken up to realize that before I went to bed I had closed a dragonfly inside my laptop.

A chicken was sitting on the ground outside against my front door. I tried to shoo it away so I could close my burglar bars, but instead of being skittish like normal chickens, it very forcefully just pushed its way into my house through the barely open door. I quickly put my boots on and succeeded, against its strange determination to stay inside my house, to scoot it across the floor and out the door. Dumb bird.

Though there may now be a bug net hanging in front

of my Texas flag, it's still Texas Independence Day. The day when Texas told Mexico to shove it. Or something like that. 

Lots of data + bored

= lots of posted vines (for those unaware, they are 6 second looping videos) on my facebook page. Go check em out. I was in a very sing-ey mood this morning if you couldn't tell.