A video made by fellow PCVs that highlights the power of song and dance to bring happiness!
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Friday, February 19, 2016
The crisis of Lesotho's "Green Drought"
Text copied from theguardian.com
For 14-year-old Hopolang Staka, Lesotho’s worst drought in more than four decades means fewer meals, a daily two-hour trek for water and an education postponed.
At the family’s small holding in Mafeteng, 70km south of the capital Maseru, Hopolang, an Aids orphan, supplements the 350 maloti (£15) monthly child support grant from the government with income from herding neighbours’ cattle. He dropped out of school last year because his street hawking brothers couldn’t afford the fees.
A second year of inadequate rains has dried up water sources across the small mountain kingdom, killed livestock and may leave as many as one in three Basotho requiring food aid until next year, according to local UN officials. Lesotho officials say a recent downpour greened Lesotho’s valleys, camouflaging a crisis that’s increasing malnutrition and disease.
“It’s what they call the ‘green drought’,” says Phole Mpobole, assistant administrative officer of Ha Raliemere district in Mafeteng. “The green grass is deceptive, the water table is down. There is nothing in those fields, not even vegetables.”
Three UN agencies – Unicef, the World Food Programme and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – are responding to the El Niño-induced drought which has also scorched South Africa, Zimbabwe and Malawi, forcing them to declare food emergencies.
Lesotho’s prime minister, Pakalitha Mosisili, last week appealed for $28m (£19.5m) to help feed people, provide water and protect livestock in a country where 80% of the population relies on farming. His government has already set aside $10m. Haretsebe Mahosi, the Disaster Management Authority (DMA) chief executive, says the disease burden is rising along with hunger, estimating 650,000 people need food aid now, with the number expected to rise.
“We don’t have to wait for people to die,” says Tesfaye Shiferaw, the Unicef representative in Lesotho. “We are working under a declared emergency. It is the duty for all of us to respond.” Unicef is appealing for $3m to augment supplies including nutritional supplements for children and water purification tablets.
A Lesotho government drought assessment shows up to 56% of communities are using unprotected water sources; all 10 districts reported disease outbreaks, an increase in gender and sexual violence, a drop in the national herd and increasing food prices because of scarcity and demand.
On a hill a few kilometres east of Hopolang’s home, 74-year-old Marentseng Tjamela says she hasn’t seen a worse drought in her life. On her 550 maloti pension, Tjamela is struggling to feed five orphan grandchildren. She begs and borrows from neighbours after failing to get state child support because of inadequate documents. When four of her five cattle died from a lack of water and disease, she ate them with neighbours.
“Lebitla la khomo ke molomo (the grave of a cow is the mouth),” she says. “There is nothing to give my grandchildren,” she says through an interpreter, adding that on most days they survive on one meal.
The drought will stretch government resources at a time when state revenues have been hit (pdf) by lower commodity prices, reduced earnings from the Southern African Customs Union and declining remittances from South Africa-based workers.
South Africa, which surrounds Lesotho, is itself in danger of slipping into a recession as companies and farmers are retrenching thousands of workers, including Basotho. Unicef says Lesotho already spends the equivalent of 9% of its GDP on social services, one of the highest rates in the world.
In the countryside, social workers say conflict and malnutrition are on the rise, with many people surviving on two meals a day, consisting of porridge and the traditional pap meal of thickened maize meal and vegetables. For many children, their only proper meal is at school, where the WFP is feeding 250,000 children countrywide.
Mary Njoroge, the WFP’s country director, says people are adopting negative coping mechanisms such as eating less, reducing the number of meals per day, buying food on credit, eating one type of food, selling assets, eating seed crop and theft.
“I have never seen anything like it,” says Mabvisa Mabusa, a sub-chief in Mafeteng. “There is a lot of crime; men against men, village against village. People are stealing even during the day. There is a lot of uneasiness in the community.”
At Mafeteng hospital, Matsola Ntlale, the hospital manager, says malnutrition cases are increasing. This year, she has also seen more than 100 anthrax cases. Officials says anthrax cases are on the rise because poor grazing fields are causing cattle to feed on the soil, which sometimes has the disease.
“We haven’t seen any direct deaths from the drought yet but malnutrition cases are rising,” she says. “We have also had some HIV and Aids patients who have stopped taking their medicines saying the drugs make them sick when they don’t eat properly.”
Because of water shortages, large parts of the country are now solely reliant on water trucks, the DMA’s Mahosi said. Most of the money the government is seeking will be used to buy water tankers, medicine, food and other logistics.
He says the government is warily watching accelerating food prices because of the 26% drop in the value of the rand against the major foreign currencies in the past year. Lesotho imports most of its food from South Africa.
“The situation is very tight and we are expecting it to get worse,” Mahosi said. “We want the donors to respond yesterday.”
• Godfrey Mutizwa travelled with Unicef
Saturday, February 13, 2016
Thursday, February 11, 2016
"Hey Form Cs, wanna play with my hair?"
They certainly delivered. There are more braids on the other side too.
No shortage of entertainment with the Form Cs. Now excuse me for the next hour as I attempt to unbraid this hilarity.
I showed the other math teacher and he was like, "Wow. Those kids are crazy."
Monday, February 8, 2016
What happens to the losing team's championship gear?
It's true! I see these kinds of shirts, hats, etc. all the time in Lesotho.
http://m.mentalfloss.com/article.php?id=29884&utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Partner&utm_campaign=dailydot
Thursday, February 4, 2016
Small Thoughts 16
Taxis: 2 Pac, The Luxury Saloon, All Eyes On Me, Why Not, Tears of Joy, Jupiter, Beauty Butter, Keep It Up, White Horse, Young Stars, Passions, Let's Do It, Two Boo, Deep and Silent, Mercury (front) Planet (back), First Come First Served, My Dreams, Baby Boy, Platinum, It's Me Again, Peace & Love, London Beat
5 months later and my dog finally plays fetch! With a groty old sheep jaw bone, but still.
"Shout out to the people wondering what the opposite of in is."
Blocked out the sun from my windows with towels, lying on my concrete floor in my underwear, because it's too hot to do anything else.
I just got back to my site from vacation a few days ago. Since for almost 3 weeks I hadn't slept alone in a room (I'd been camping in a tent, sharing rooms, sharing beds, being on adjacent couches), the past few nights in the middle of the night I'd half wake up absolutely convinced that there was someone next to me or on the floor or something. Like I got a little cold but didn't reach for the blanket because I thought some person sharing my bed was using it. Or I was sleeping practically naked because it was so hot, but I woke up and put more clothes on because I thought other people were there. It's so weird being disoriented at night.
I just realized- as of mid-December (one year after swearing in), I have officially earned my
R. That is, even if I go home early, I will have earned RPCV (returned peace corps volunteer) status. Yeyuh.
I ate a pack of peanuts and raisins with chopsticks. It took a while, but honestly I've got nothin but time.
The three-week-old piglets my family's pig just had are sprinting all over the yard. The cutest.
@!$& yeah! Not my tap, but one within a ten minute walk, has gushing water! Yaaass! It's a bit far to haul a 20 liter bucket back, but I filled my backpack up with bottles and was able to get 8 or 9 liters. So happy. But now I have little excuse not to bathe and/or wash my clothes more often. Oh well.
Update: it's raining (and hailing) for once! The world is my tap.
I can't sit outside for five minutes without a herd of little girls coming up to me. Today their unwavering interest centered around playing with (aka petting) my hair.
I just used about 2 liters of water to bathe, then wash my underwear, then mop my floor. Come at me, drought.
I've been eating very little the last few days mostly because after Durban, none of the food I have or can buy here appeals to me.
Xhosa lesson with the neighbor kids. For once I'm learning a bit of the language spoken by just a few people in my village, but is the dominant language in the way southwest of Lesotho and in one part of South Africa. Fun fact: Mandela's native language was isiXhosa.
I'm suffering from post vacation partum syndrome.
Listening to a podcast about cheese and dying inside. Now I NEED a pizza.
Lea, in response to the lack to cheese in this country, "Lesotho is a cheese wasteland. A cheese desert. A chesert, if you will."
Overheard on Whatsapp:
"My Sesotho name is Palesa Masiu. It seems like such a cult name 'hello, I'm sister flower night'"
"Living in Lesotho has truly confirmed the myth that all white people look alike."
I'm not such a fan of beets, I mean they're alright, but other than onions, they were the only produce option at my village shop when I went last week. I bought a bag of them and recently realized they're about to go bad. Since then, I've been eating beets on beets on beets. My hands probably lead one to suspect I've been murdering people for fun.
For some beet-related humor, watch this 911 beet emergency skit from the show Portlandia: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw2WsXIgO6A
Once again, my abuti has managed to bust himself up and is crying. Every day. Phepi, Thabo [sorry, Thabo].
One little neighbor nugget asks me constantly, "Hakir 'si Senate, u ausi oa rona?" Right, sis Senate, you're our sister? "Ehlile," I respond. Of course.
New (accidentally discovered) strategy for getting people to open taxi windows: let out a little smelly fart. Muahaha.
No longer weird: shaking hands with someone and holding on to their hand for the whole conversation.
I give my family a pot full of papa when I leave town so they can feed my dog. My 'me gave it back to me when I got back to the village and didn't believe that I knew how to wash pots because it's not always impeccably spotless when I give it to them. She had me wash it in front of her and (in Sesotho) she was like, "Oh, you DO know how to wash!" And I said, "Yeah, sometimes I'm just lazy." Then she jokingly goes, "I'll tell your mom that you are lazy." But I replied quite seriously with "Don't tell her. She already knows."
Wow my oldest ausi just pulled the meanest prank and told me that she would be going to the high school in town instead of the village school she went to last year/the school I teach at. I got really sad, then she was like JUST KIDDING, I'M LYING. Little brat.
Something you, dear reader, should implement immediately: like Gretchen in Mean Girls, I'm trying to make "thatch" happen. This stems from the fact that thatch roof houses are IMMENSELY superior to tin roof houses at temperature control, eg not being ovens in the summer and ice boxes in the winter. So any place you would use "great" or "awesome," use "thatch" instead.
This shirt is so thatch.
When I played piano, I used to play one particular bang-out-the-chords song all the time, which would cause the side of my right pinky to be repeatedly slammed against the keys. Sometimes I would need to kind of pop the last knuckle sideways so the finger would fully straighten out afterward. I just now had to do that side pop again for some reason. My fingers remind me that they still want to play.
Opening my email app every few minutes looking for something new when I know no one is sending me emails is analogous to opening the fridge every few minutes looking for something new when you know no one has gone grocery shopping. You're not too badly disappointed, but you're still bored.
How much popcorn can I eat in one day? Nonexistent challenge accepted.
I'm innocently reading Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in my house when I hear some loud Sesotho music outside. I go out and look up the hill to my nkhono's house (where last week she was blasting Beyoncé on her huge stereo which I found both awesome and hilarious), but no, the sound wasn't coming from there. After a bit more scanning, I realize the music is coming from the soccer field TWO VALLEYS AWAY. It's loud and clear in my yard, so it must be blasting at a zillion decibels way over there (in true Basotho fashion). There's a line of dots swaying in unison across the field, which I gather must be people dancing. Idk what the heck they're doing over there, and perhaps earlier in my service I may have gone to investigate, eager at the opportunity to have a "cultural experience". Now I just close my window, jadedly knowing that it's not worth it, pop in my headphones, and try to get back to my Kindle.
I was in my house writing or doing something requiring concentration when I heard the sounds of tiny voices and banging metal. I went outside to tell these three nuggets to stop playing on my burglar bars. After I do this, one of them, a boy maybe 4 or 5 years old, I kid you not, ignores my request and simply says, "U tsoa kae?" Where are you coming from? Umm, are you kidding me? I've been in my house for several hours with the music on- you know I was in there. Normally this is the Basotho's favorite question to ask me while I'm walking around, but you literally just watched me open the door and step outside. I don't get it. I confirmed, "Ke tsoa kae?" Where am I coming from? And he nodded. I just rolled my eyes and went back inside. From whence I came.
The prolonged squeal of a baby pig is strangely reminiscent of an especially high-pitch circular saw.
The Bo Bo follows me absolutely everywhere now. He used to have to be carried down this one hill at the start of our trek to school because he just refused to go, but now he'll bound along behind me, no leash required. I even went on a run this morning and a few minutes in, was surprised to hear the jingling of a collar behind me. He happily ran with me the entire way.
It's been raining this past week which means my water tap is flowing. That also means sticking my entire head under the faucet after a run. Aahhh.
There is one advantage of being thin in a country that admires fatness. There were two women on the side of the road, but the taxi could only fit one more person who could squish into one of the rows. He took the skinny woman and said something along the lines of the fat one wouldn't fit.
For life skills, I made the form Cs write questions for the jar. Some were serious ("what is masturbation?") but others included such gems as, "who stole my pen last week?" "what did you eat on Monday?" and in all caps, "WHAT IS YOU MOTHER??"
In these hot days of summer, the bo'me in the taxi rank go around with buckets of water and a cup. They'll give you a (communal) cup full of water for one Rand.
No longer weird: When people talk about someone (or me) being a woman (probably in the context that they want to marry me off to their cousin), they'll bring the fingers of one hand together and touch their (or my) chest on each side, indicating boobs.
For most Basotho, it's unfathomable that I would eat a meal without some kind of carb accompaniment. Insanity.
My dog is now learning how to lift its leg to pee. This means stopping at every bush and tuft of tall grass and letting a few drops out. Sometimes it's just the leg lift and no pee at all, just to tell the plant who's boss.
Some bontate always have to have something in their mouths, whether it's a toothpick, a piece of grass/straw, or a match.
15 months in and I've got 15cm of hair. So many people are suddenly commenting on how long it's gotten. I can almost do a shampoo commercial hair flip.
"Development aid from wealthy nations is more self-serving than beneficial to the poor in Lesotho."
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/lesotho-development-aid-n_b_9146098.html
I only half agree with this article (for example, bashing things like roads which the country desperately needs for local money-making industries like tourism), but it's kind of an interesting look into the ineffectiveness of development aid here.
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