http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/27/opinion/aurigemma-marines-peace-corps/index.html
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Monday, May 23, 2016
What not to say to a Lesotho PCV
http://wanderlustkrizzo.blogspot.co.za/2016/05/hows-africa.html
Written by my friend Katie. Check it out!
Sunday, May 8, 2016
Small thoughts 19
Taxis: Let It Go, No Please Call
Whenever a kid thinks something is awesome, they say it's "so wow." Example: "'Me Senate [that's me], your hair looks so wow!"
Tidbits learned while hanging out with the form Cs: if you touch a dog's tail, it will steal eggs and eat them. Also if you feed a dog a scorpion, it will become very aggressive and dangerous. I believe it. I mean, I've eaten a scorpion (fun story), and I grossed out so much, some might have misconstrued it as aggression and danger.
I am now under the apprenticeship of one of my students who is attempting to teach me how to whistle like a herdboy. If I learn anything besides how to stop spitting all over the place, I'll let y'all know.
I was talking to my students at break about the difference between accents when saying the word "computer," That Basotho say it like "computah" and Americans say it like "cumpuder". Then one girl goes, "My grandmother says it like 'compuuuutah.' She even named her dog Computer!" Wow, ok then. It seems we've got a tech savvy granny on our hands.
Self defense class #1 = success. Soon these girls will be ready to kick some major rapist butt.
Class is put on hold for a form A girl who is crying and shaking and can't speak because someone in her village siced a tokolosi (little Basotho demon) on her. Brb.
Apparently there were women in the caves far away calling to her.
After a little further investigation, another volunteer Colleen said that one of her girls was once "possessed by a demon" and started screaming at the top of her lungs at assembly.
The perfect lazy Sunday. I never changed out of the clothes I slept in, and the farthest I walked was to my latrine and back.
I've been in Lesotho for a year and a half. What is life?
Not only are baby donkeys insanely fuzzy, but they run in circles and jump and kick and roll around just out of (what I want to believe is) sheer joy for life. Every time I see one, I melt a little.
I was helping some neighbor girls with their grade 6 English homework this morning. The teacher wanted them to practice putting verbs in front of adverbs. One of the exercises was "Senate ________ slowly. Lerato ________ fastly." Yes, it was the teacher who has the students copy down "fastly." Come on, people. Get it together.
Today in form B, it was supposed to be a computer period, but the electricity credits ran out at school. So instead, we played games outside. The first game we played was red light green light. But it took an unexpectedly long time to get started because I had to explain the colors of a "traffic robot" to kids who had mostly never seen one- that red meant stop and green meant go. It took a minute, but after they got the hang of it, they loved the game.
My dog's food is advertised as "chicken flavour." Out of curiosity, I ate a piece. Nope, I'd classify it more as "cardboard flavour."
Yesterday, I announced to the Form Bs that they would have a quiz the next day, as they do about every other Friday. They replied, no, we are going to a soccer tournament in [some
nearby village], so there is no class tomorrow. AS PER USUAL no one told me about this. I asked another teacher about it, and he said we may have morning classes, but it wasn't confirmed. The cell signal has been out for a few days, so there was no way for him to let me know later, and I had to leave school after lunch. Foolishly, I assumed that there would be morning classes, forgetting that in Lesotho, when given the choice between having class and canceling it, 99% of the time it's cancelled. This morning, I woke up around 6, got dressed, etc. and headed out like a good little worker bee. On my way, some boys, my students, called down to me from a house higher on the hill. "'Me Senate, where are you going?" "To school." "There is no school today." Of course. I'm not even mad about it, as I might have been last year. Just gotta roll with the Basotho punches. Now I can go back to bed.
I just got interviewed for the census! I'm gonna be counted toward Lesotho's population, I guess. Some of the questions were weird, like "Are your parents still alive?" Yes. "Have you ever been pregnant?" No. And "What is your main source of heating?" Do blankets count? Pretty cool, nonetheless.
Overheard on whatsapp: fun with Sesotho
Here's a fun one: u tsoele ntjeng. It literally translates as you're out of dogs but means "dressed to kill/ looks really good"
And cue gasp. Overheard on Whatsapp:
"During an epic long meeting all in Sesotho my principal gets a phone call. When he hangs up he asks me the meaning of intimacy. I say it depends on the context. Come to find out, a male teacher at St. Bonafice school in Maputsoe was being "intimate" (let's call it what it is, was raping) a 17 y/o student. When he found out she was pregnant he killed her. He dumped her body in the sewer or pit latrine. I feel like puking."
WTF, Lesotho! Get it together!!!
Shaving? What are this?
My training group has lost so many people that someone changed our Whatsapp group icon to the Survivor logo. Outwit, outplay, outlast indeed.
This afternoon some form B boys got a dead rat scooped up on a stick and were scaring the daylights out of girls sitting around eating lunch outside. Then one of the always-up-to-no-good form C girls got it by the tail, carried it across the yard, and put it in a corn poof snack bag. Knowing her, she was planning to save it to give to someone to freak them out.
I was walking with a little abuti at my heels when he goes, "'Si Senate, u motsoeu hobaneng?" Sis Senate, why are you white?
Oh my god, Karen. You can't just ask people why they're white.
I was just greeted with, "Good morning this afternoon!" Gotta cover all your bases, I guess.
A strategically arranged heap of grass is keeping me perfectly safe and dry in a storm. Way to go, thatch.
Wednesday, May 4, 2016
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
Sunday, May 1, 2016
22 January 2016: Katse Dam
With about a week left until school starts, Lea and I decided to go to Katse Dam (the biggest wall dam in Africa, supplying some jillion kilowatts of electricity to Lesotho and South Africa and, with the help of a series of tunnels and reservoirs, supplies Gauteng province in South Africa with most of its water). I’ve been to 8 out of 10 districts so far, and going to Katse would tackle another one- Thaba Tseka, the central district. This just leaves desolate Mokhotlong to finish out the 10. On Tuesday, I headed down my muddy hill to the road. I thought Bo was too distracted to follow me, so I didn’t chain him up as I usually do when I leave, but about halfway down I saw him running after me. Back up the hill to chain him up. I ran down again and squished onto the taxi and made it to Quthing. Seeing that the taxi to Mohale’s Hoek was completely empty, I decided to walk down the road to get a hitch. I got 2 different ones to Mohale’s Hoek. The first was with a super cheery guy who dropped me off at Askop (the junction to go to the Tele bridge border gate) where he was working as an engineer working on the road to the border. Then a bit later, I got another ride with a man who asked me how much it is to Mohale’s Hoek (as in, how much do taxis charge), as if I’d pay for a hitch. Psh. I told him I didn’t have money, and he was like ugh whatever, get in. Then he got mad at me for “knocking down his door” which I later realized meant slamming his door shut too hard. Calm down, dude. Your car will be fine. If you didn’t want a rando in your car, why’d you stop for me? A silent ride followed, and I made it to Mohale’s Hoek soon enough.
The next morning, Lea and I got a hitch up to Mafeteng, then another to the Masianokeng junction with this family in a big van where the mom ran an after-school study group for orphans and made sure they got fed. PCVs and other foreign volunteers are fine and all, but it’s women like this one, generous with a heart of gold, that will actually make any kind of difference in this country. The most significant change has to come intrinsically with people who genuinely want to help their fellow citizens.
From that junction, we got two different back-of-a pickup hitches to Nazareth, then a sedan picked us up and took us all the way to Cassie’s village, Marakabei, where we’d be staying for the night. Her dog, Maluti, is so cute, rolling and flopping over in the hopes that you’ll scratch its belly. The afternoon was spent sitting on the floor sending absurdly silly voice messages back and forth to friends, and we couldn’t stop laughing for hours. We woke up to some of Cassie’s awesome pancakes, and soon got a hitch to Thaba Tseka camptown with this super nice guy who was telling me all about the herd boy life. He was talking about how they trade diamonds that they find for AK47s, and how they’re all big and muscular because they eat milk and meat all the time from stealing and eating other herdboys’ sheep. He also talked about how this guy Matekane, the richest man in Lesotho, came from around where we were driving, and he made his fortune building roads and doing other construction. Now he has founded Maluti Sky, the fancy new Basotho airline, and he “never travels on the ground anymore.” Hitches provide some of the most interesting conversations.
The guy went into town with us and we bought him a coke to thank him for the ride. He even took us back to the junction that goes to Katse. After a while of waiting and many rejections, we finally got on a big, flatbed truck going all the way to Katse. Direct flight! We sat in the back on top of hay bales, then when those were delivered along the way, we sat on the 50kg papa sacks. It was drizzling almost the whole time and it got pretty cold as we climbed in elevation. When they’d stop to unload something, we’d yell out to greet the people, and one guy along the way, when he learned we knew Sesotho, was smiling, jokingly saying, “Ach. You people!” It took about 2.5 hours to get to Katse because of all the delivery stops, but finally the load of cokes, cinderblocks, and gas tanks made it to town, along with us, wet and wind-battered. But that was definitely one of the more fun truck hitches I’ve gotten.
We jumped down and walked in the direction of the lodge, which was through a security gate and at the end of what was basically Suburbia: a nice little neighborhood with matching houses and sidewalks and street lights. Weird. Apparently it houses dam workers, as well as 4 white girls we happened to see as we walked through it. It turns out they were Americans too. We went up to talk to them as they were walking up to their house, and we were not even finished exchanging pleasantries when Lea blurts out, “Hey, random question, but can we stay with you guys tonight?” They were kind of taken aback, not sure how to react, and just said “Uh…let us call our supervisor and we’ll get back to you.” By the way PCVs crash at each other’s houses all the time, even if you’ve never really met the person, I guess he assumed they’d let us right in. We had planned on camping at the old Katse info center, but it was still raining and it was quite a walk away, so staying here would actually be ideal. From the way they reacted, we assumed that they’d just gotten to Lesotho, but we learned that they’d been here the same length of time as we had. They worked for some Baptist mission something or other.
Lea and I went to the lodge where we planned to eat dinner. We sat inside, reading and watching the rain, until the dining room opened We were the only ones in the whole restaurant. We both ordered trout almandine, because they catch fresh trout from the dam, but the “trout” was huge and pink, obviously salmon. It was still really good, especially after our long day of truck riding. We finished eating and went back to the girls’ house to see if they had “talked to their supervisor” as they told us they would. They said crashing was a no-go (as we assumed), but they gave me some American candy out of one of FOUR ENORMOUS PLASTIC BINS of sugar and snacks. Man, these Baptists really know how to send a care package. They seem very sheltered compared to PCVs, and thought it was really cool (as do we) that PCVs live in rural villages and that we’ve done a bunch of cool stuff and traveled around. We walked about 2 miles to the Katse Dam information center, where we were told there was free camping. We reached the new info center, which was a huge, beautiful building. We kind of assumed this was it, so we started to set up (minus the tent, which Lea forgot, but we had borrowed Cassie’s tarp). Soon, a security guard walked up and told us that the old info center was farther down the road. Back on our feet, back in the rain. We set out our sleeping bags under a tree there where we hoped we wouldn’t get too wet. From there in the dark, we could see the dam wall with its bright lights outlining the top.
In the morning, we could actually see the thing in the light. It was enormous! Definitely worth a quick visit, but soon enough we were packed up and ready to go back. We waited forever for a hitch out, then finally got one in a small semi that took us to the junction to go back to Thaba Tseka. After about an hour of walking in a drizzle, we were elated to have flagged down a pickup carrying food to town. We sat in the back among many bags of various food items and, guess what, got rained on again as we rode to town. We got a lunch of super greasy makoenyas and Russians, then walked down the road where we got in a truck that was going all the way to Maseru. We stopped briefly in Marakabei again to meet Cassie on the side of the road to return her tarp and to give her some produce we’d gotten in town for her. Then we hauled it all the way back to Masianokeng. From there, we were so happy to get a hitch inside a car for once. It was with a rich guy who had traveled to China and wants to do the Roof of Africa motorcycle race next year. He can do all this because he works for a diamond mine in Mokhotlong. That explains it. In the downpour, he drove to Morija to pay for his daughter’s school fees. Coincidentally, this was a new PCV Ryan’s school, and we happened to find him walking into the school building and talked for him for a bit. The driver went along his way and stopped to pick up several other people. At one point, the back seat was completely full, complete with a little girl standing and a little boy sitting on my lap.
That guy dropped us off just past Mafeteng, and we soon waved down a car. We opened the door and started in on the required pleasantries, but the driver was just like, “Get in! Hurry! Just get in!” so we obliged, and he sped off. This guy’s name was Jese and he wore a bright purple button down shirt and small glasses. He was absolutely racing to Mount Moorosi to drop his friend off at work on time. I almost thought about going all the way to Mount Moorosi with him, as it’s the last stop before my village, but it would be too late to catch a taxi to my village by the time we got there. This dude was hilarious, making us laugh so hard. Turns out he knows Melinda (a new PCV near Mount Moorosi).
Pumped up by his energy, Lea and I bounded into the hotel to meet Katie. We decided we’d stay at her house for the night. While waiting for her village taxi to fill up, we pigged out on papatas (like English muffins), fried fish, and chocolate. We got going and I was sitting next to some guy lamenting Lesotho’s expensiveness keeping the cycle of poverty alive here. We got to Katie’s stop and trudged through the mud in the dark, half lost. We finally made it and I entertained myself by playing with her cat named Mokopu (meaning pumpkin in Sesotho).
Truck life
4 March: ETing, Independence
I’m going to condense 7 pages of writing from my notebook into a few sentences. If you want to know more details, email me and I’ll tell you more about what happened. Long story short, after a series of snafus, Lea, Kristin, and I decided to Early Terminate (ET) our service, meaning that we are no longer affiliated with Peace Corps. Lea is still in the US, just having been medically cleared, so he isn’t coming back except for a vacation he planned a long time ago with his mom to Cape Town and to his village. Kristin is going home to the US after visiting her PC friend in Malawi. I have decided that even though I’m not with Peace Corps anymore, I’m going to do what’s called Field Termination and not go back to the US. I will continue to volunteer independently in the same capacity that I have since I arrived a year and a half ago. My principal is supporting me in this decision. I felt that I could not just abandon all the commitments I had made to my community: being there for all my students as the only teacher who students actually like (they’ve said this to my face) and inspiring and motivating them, specifically for my form C girls to teach them assertiveness and self-defense skills; continuing to go see the kids at the orphanage to play with them and help teach them English; love and be loved by my host siblings and my ‘me; watch my dog continue to grow and be my buddy; and more. I’ve also made commitments to my fellow PCVs to help write a Lesotho travel guide and to help make a pamphlet for alternatives to corporal punishment to be distributed to many schools. In short, I just can’t leave what I’ve made as my home and pick up and leave so many things hanging. So I’ll just do it on my own terms now, although without the financial/medical/security support of the PC. But I’ve carefully worked out the logistics, and I’ll be perfectly fine. Jill says this might very well be a blessing in disguise, and I do think so because PC’s policies no longer line up with my goals and with what I hope to accomplish in my time left here.
15 February 2016: Random happenings
Well…what ‘s going on in my life? Now the power’s out and the cell network is down, so after I did a cool yoga video and my computer died, I read Marathon Man by candlelight as it poured outside. This past Friday at school, it was only me and the other math teacher. I was about ready to kill all the other teachers. Last Friday it was the same thing- most teachers gone on Friday for the weekend. It’s so not fair to the students. I asked them about it and they hate it too. This and the fact that the teachers are planning to leave next week on Thursday to go somewhere like a retreat as a reward to the teachers whose classes did well on the JC (form C exit exam) last year. But all the teachers are going because everyone needs “motivation.” Whatever. I refuse to go along and seem to support this absenteeism as they pat themselves on the back for whatever they think they accomplished. Plus I need at least one weekend to myself and to relax. Honestly I’d be miserable on a trip with them. It’d be super awkward at least. No thanks.
This past weekend, I went to Quthing to use the internet to do TAP scholarship stuff, post videos, post a blog, and research vacations. Hanna and Melinda, the new Qu-things, also happened to be there in town too, our entire tiny district sitting in this tiny back office of the hotel that is our new VRC (volunteer resource center).
Outside, I can hear my ‘me trying to make Bo sit (she thinks it’s hilarious that I taught my dog to sit), with no success, it sounds like.
Anyway, I stayed a night at that hotel in town, which was a mistake because there were fleas and mosquitoes biting me all night, plus the bar right behind my falling-apart room was blasting music all night long. In the morning, I bought a big 7kg bag of dog food at the machina shop for about M75, but it was an ordeal to haul it back up to my house.
What else…since Lea is still in the US for at least another few days, I have moved my friendly energies toward Jen. I’m helping her with this murder mystery party she’s planning. I’m super pumped about that; it’s gonna be fun. She and I were also reading Harry Potter 7 at the same time. I just finished it last night, staying up way past my normal sleep time, reading it on my kindle. It’s so intense! Plot twists! Snape! Everyone’s dying left and right! Ah, so good.
On Friday, I went running between classes, and I lost the dog partway through. I was looking for it all over after school, but then I found it at my house when I got home from school. What a smart little nugget. It knows its way around the whole village now. It’s so independent and low maintenance. No lost dog signs would ever be needed around here, as Basotho dogs are quite self-sufficient.
10 February 2016: Sick
16 months down. Not bad.
I still haven’t been to school for more than two days in a row. Today, I’m taking a sick day because of my stomach. Yesterday, I ate some weird things, so it could have been anything. My trusty pee bucket has seen a little vomit this morning. You’re welcome for that image, readers. But this is real life. Back to bed it is.
Turns out I’m not the only one with digestive issues. Yesterday I noticed white, flat, inch-long worms in my dog’s poop and squirming around. I went to the agricultural guy and told him, and he was like “…the dog looks fine” as if having tape worms was completely normal and acceptable. But I was like, “No, it’s not fine. It has worms.” And he was kind of like “ok, fine,” and gave the dog a shot. “Ea sukulisa,” he pointed out. It is causing difficulties. Yep.
And now for a segment I'd like to call "The Village People." As much as I would have liked to teach them all how to sing "YMCA," I think it would have been completely lost on them...
So yeah. I was just wandering around asking people (or in most cases, people asking me) for a photo.
2 little farts, messing around
8 February 2016: This year’s classes
It’s the 3rd week of school, but only my 5th day of class. I went only 2 days the first week, and 2 days the 2nd week. The teachers switched up the schedule again. Mondays, I go from 7am to lunch at 1pm with only one period off. I have every class on Monday: Math with form C during their morning study period, then another class with them first period. Then one class free, double B math, break, A computer, B computer, and C life skills. I’m exhausted. Let’s run through the classes, shall we?
C math- starting at 7:00 during their “study period” at 7:00 before classes actually start. Today I just ran through some hard problems the other math teacher had given them
First period C math- I gave them some review problems doing stuff with negative numbers. It’s rough because I didn’t get through everything with the form Bs last year and the form C repeaters aren’t really used to me yet. It’ll work out, though.
Free period- I decided what I would teach for B math and quickly made some anatomical diagrams of reproductive systems for life skills.
Double B math- I put them in groups today. There are 40+ of them, so I thought groups would help with classroom management. I also gave them index cards on which I give them points for various things. They’re working out really well so far and are encouraging lots of participation. We’ll see if that continues. The first half of the class was sorting out the groups, making group names, and figuring out where each group would sit. The second half was introducing significant figures.
A computer- I wasted a bunch of time by having the ones who knew they paid for computer write their names in a list. They’re still such bug-eyed, scared little mice, way too obedient for their own good. It’ll fade soon enough. Then I reviewed the parts of a computer on the board again. With 20 minutes left, I took the ones on the list and just made them turn the computer on, practice using the mouse, open Word, and type their names. It’s gonna be hard at first with them, just like it was with last year’s form As, but patience now will pay off later.
B computer- Today they practiced typing with this typing game program. They were all very focused today. Easy.
C life skills- we decided together what topics they wanted to learn the week before, and I decided that whatever we learned, the first thing they would need to know was basic anatomy. Today, using the diagrams I had sketched up, we went through the female reproductive system. They had lots of really good questions, too. I think it’s gonna be a really good class this year.
In other news, today I handed out some of the TAP [PC’s tuition assistance program to help smart but poor kids pay for secondary school] scholarships from last year. A few days ago, I also went to the orphanage to talk to Jill about my secondary project idea- an assertiveness/self-defense kind of club. She thought it was a good idea. I think I’m gonna guinea pig my life skills girls first, then if that goes well I’ll have them help and be peer educators for other students or for other community members or whoever. I also agreed with Jill to come to the orphanage and tutor some primary kids twice a week with English or math or whatever they needed. With these things in the works, I finally feel like I’m doing something with my life here.
5 February 2016: The Lea fiasco
After the workshop, the next day four of us hung around Maseru for our mid-service medical appointments. They drove Rob, Jordan, Riley and me to Dr. Peerbhai, an Indian dentist near the PC office. He was super fast. He cleaned our teeth with a drill, polished them, bam boom done in ten minutes. Then I had my medical appointment with Dr. Olga and Dr. Carolyn, a temp doctor from DC. We discussed my year in health, which basically consisted of me saying that sometimes my foot still hurts from when I screwed it up when I fell hiking many moons ago. Then, not wanting to stay any longer in Maseru, I promptly zipped off to Mohale’s Hoek. Little did I know that I would be soon zipping right back to Maseru. Stay tuned, loyal readers.
I made it to the Mohale’s Hoek hotel where I found Aline, who told me that Jen had taken Lea to the hospital next door. And here is the story of how Lea lost his marbles. This is an account taken from several people’s perspectives, including Lea’s quite unreliable one, as you’ll soon see why.
He had stayed the night before at our friend Katie’s house and walked back Monday morning. It takes about 3 hours to walk to town. It was really hot and he said his water tasted weird, so he kept spitting it out instead of drinking it.
He got to town, ate a chicken basket, and went to the hotel to work out/shower
“30 seconds into a 1 minute Insanity workout,” as he told Aline, he started feeling really weird, super tired, disoriented, etc. so he laid down in the gym.
This not being his normal, energetic, exercising self, the hotel staff saw him and became concerned, so they got Jen from the VRC and told her to bring him to the hospital next door.
Jen had a hard time getting him to go to the hospital because he was very confused. He thought she was trying to get him to come to the hotel bar. He was even having trouble putting on his shirt, then when he did get it on, he forgot they were going somewhere and took it off again. So it took a while to get him physically moved next door.
They made it to the hospital, but Lea didn’t understand why they were there. By this time, Jen called Dr. Olga, and she was on her way. Lea thought somehow that they were coming for Jen and he didn’t want to wait around. He kept saying that he needed to get a taxi and get home before dark (it was only like 3pm by this time, well before dark in the summer). They had gotten him into a room and he had an IV in his hand. He became a little bit aggressive, ripped the IV out, and pushed Jen and the doctor aside. Dripping blood all over his shorts and feet, he walked out of the hospital.
It was about this time that I showed up at the hospital, after texting Jen trying to figure out where they were. I met Jen in the outside courtyard area and asked her where Lea was. She said that he just left- went into town trying to get home.
Dr. Olga and the driver arrived and said they found him stuck in between some barbed wire in a fence. He was later bragging that he almost made it to Aline’s house, then he would have made it to the main road to go home.
They put him back in a room I the hospital, “this creepy 3rd world hospital,” as Jen called it. Jen and I were waiting in the PC car to go back to Maseru, as Dr. Olga asked us to accompany Lea and we were more than willing to do that to help him out. We got tired of waiting and wandered back into the hospital as Dr. Olga and the Mohale’s Hoek doctor are taking his blood and urine samples. He didn’t know why they’ve trapped him there in the hospital. He thought the blood drawing was some more PC vaccinations or something. He was saying really disjointed things, telling the doctor that, don’t worry, you’ll make it to Madagascar one day. He thought we were still at the workshop, asking what time they were serving lunch and what sessions we had today. I was so confused as to what was happening, I checked him out for a concussion and a stroke- no go. Jen saw the doctor give him an anti-psychotic pill at one point, I guess to make sure he didn’t try to escape again.
Dr. Olga, the PC driver, Jen, Lea, and I all got in the car. Lea was sitting in the middle back seat with Jen and me on either side I guess so he wouldn’t try to jump out of the car or anything, which he never did. He was very calm on the ride, just confused why we were going to Maseru. Jen and I wrote down a bunch of the crazy stuff he said:
Lea's crazy ramblings
-Oh you're talking about me? I thought you were talking about breakfast cereal.
-I was just about to text you, hey just got a hitch with peace corps but you're sitting right here.
-All our clothes are gonna last longer than all our friends' clothes
-(talking about getting wisdom teeth out) I cheated so much on the molar thing. The next day I was eating sandwiches. It's a party trick. Show it off to your friends.
-What sessions do we have today?
-I don't understand how they can feed barn fed salmon by 10 kgs. It's chicken.
-(making weird noises with his tongue, which he said felt strange.)That's my rattlesnake noise
-Oh gush
-All these trees are gonna die (pointing at trees on a hill)
-(I asked him to count back from 100. He counted, skipped numbers, couldn't go past 76 before forgetting what he was counting)
-(Called Jen Dad)
-(talking about whatsapp pictures) All these new kids have weird acorn symbols. Blue acorns. Purple acorns.
-(as he is putting his phone on airplane mode, his eyesight getting blurry) Oh it's a bunch of airplanes. I thought it was a butterfly. It's 5 airplanes.
-They were flirting all over the damn table. You'd think they were belly dancers. Like being locked in a basement with no food or water.
-(knowing that I don't have a sister) Your sister told me to ask for a specific doctor. I don't know who would know. Someone would know. Hell if you give me the tires I'll blow them up for you.
-How many days until March 6? I don't know, how much money did you spend, Jules?
-I'm actually made of salmons
-(as he is asking Dr. Olga about his travel days) Dr Olga doesn't know about travel. Don't ask her. -Me
No, she's asking about sand worms from Dune.
-As long as the penicillin is in a small enough quality. Then you should have a cheat day. Hm I kinda got lost in a labyrinth of thought. Something about dinosaurs.
-Deliverance? The movie? -Lea.
What movie did you see? -Dr O.
Butch Cassidy and the sundance kid. -Lea
-How many clothes are in your bag? -Dr O.
In Mohale's Hoek? Well there's you, me, Colleen, Mary Beth. -Lea
Obviously his brain was upside down for the time being.
So I had come back to Maseru within just a few hours of leaving it. Lea went into the medical office and did some more tests or something, while Jen and I went into the VRC to pick out some books for him to read while he stayed at Willie’s Hospital in Maseru. But he came in and put the books back because he couldn’t read them anyway. Whatever was happening to his brain made his eyesight too blurry to read.
Then Jen and I rode to a guesthouse called Haven of Peace, which should have been renamed Haven of Fleas. There was a little, sweet old lady who prayed with us in our room (I was trying my hardest not to burst out laughing), and strangely the bathroom was through a door built into the closet. The next day, Jen and I went to get Chinese food and brought Lea some non-sucky food to take a bread from the hospital food. He seemed totally normal by that time, and he just said he was feeling a little light headed.
They got his bloodwork back, and since he had a slightly high white blood cell count (even though he had said multiple times he felt a sore throat coming on), they thought he must have an infection, and since it was in his blood and not his urine, it must have been a brain/spine infection. They ruled out drugs and drinking too much (they had suspected this, as they know how many PCVs like to drink, but Lea is definitely not one of those types), and later for some reason even ruled out the #1 suspect that Katie (wilderness medical certified) suspected: heat exhaustion. I still think that’s what it was.
PC finally decided to send him to the US for a psychological evaluation and other brain testing. It’s just so ridiculous because in an American situation, they would have talked to us, our friends who had been hanging out with him before and during his craziness, and tried to decipher what may have triggered such a weird episode. And they blatantly ignored the fact that he was completely back to normal the next day, with nothing even remotely similar happening to him ever in his life. I’m still gonna say it’s heat exhaustion, because all the signs point to it. His brain was simply overheated and made him delirious and basically lose his short term memory.
Man, what a weird day. Strangest thing that’s happened in a very long time. What I think is gonna happen is that they’re gonna send him home, run a few tests, and send him right back because there’s nothing lasting.
The first thing he does after going back is promptly send me this photo after he has dyed his beard blue. And he is trying to convince these people he's not crazy? You do you, brother.
29 January 2016: First week of school, off to Mid-Service
Yes, Dear Reader, I realize this post is many moons late. My mother would probably chalk this up to laziness, while I might say it's a slight case of apathy. No matter the excuse, here are some more words and photos for you to ponder about. Just pretend you're time traveling. It's fun, isn't it?
Yesterday, I “taught” form A computer, in which I just went up and drew the parts of a computer on the board. I did this because the computers were not set up yet (the mess of extension cords and labrynths of cords back there would make a rat dizzy) and I didn’t have a list of who had paid for computer classes yet. The students pay about M300 per year to take computer, which pays for the electricity and, supposedly, repairs done to the computers. Those computers are probably well over 10 years old and only half of them are functioning. They were donated by some South African foundation a few years ago. I have yet to see any of the broken ones being repaired… Anyway, not one student in that class had ever used a computer before except the ones repeating form A who I taught last year. This drawing a computer on the board and explaining the different parts took only 20 minutes of a 40 minute class. So for the rest of the time, I went around and asked everyone’s name, village, and their favorite food. Then after 4 people in a row said “papa” as their favorite food (I forgot they eat papa at least twice a day and they don’t really know much else, and they like it because it’s very filling. Bad question), I decided to change the question to favorite color. Or “ favourite colour” as I wrote it on the board.
After computer, I booked it back home to pack up, since I would be riding with my principal to town “after lunch,” she told me. I had to go to my PC mid-service conference and she had to do something or other in Maseru. At home, I finished packing up and making some papa for the Bo dog. I chained it up so it wouldn’t follow me back to school, where I would be leaving from to go to Quthing town. But when I was crossing the 2nd stream on the way to school, I heard the jingle of a collar. My ‘me must have let it loose, thinking I was well out of range for following. I was surprised that the dog knew the way all the way down there on its own, and I’m kind of flattered that it just wants to be with me all the time, but I really just needed it to stay at my house. I let the dog follow me back to school, as I had to hustle to get back to teach B and C math.
Lo and behold, we didn’t even get ready to go until 4pm. “After lunch” my foot. Normally, I would have been pretty peeved that my plans had been so rudely changed, but I’ve just learned to let it go. TIA, after all. We’re on Lesotho time. I just used my waiting time to read AN ENTIRE BOOK. That’s how long I waited. The book was The Giver, a book I apparently should have read when I was a little kid. But, I wasn’t much of a reader then, so I’m catching up now. I just love dystopian society novels like this one, but sometimes I feel like they hit a little too close to home and to what I can see the near future to be. Scary stuff.
I had asked my principal if we could pick up Lea on the way to Maseru, but she said no because apparently “the police would give her trouble” for taking so many people and not having a public transit license. Then WHAT IS THE POINT OF HAVING A BIG VAN THEN, HUH? I pretended to believe her, but that was an immense load of bull honkey right there. I don’t know if this was another bout of Basotho passive aggressiveness, but I’m really not a fan. Not wanting to deal with her anymore, much less stay at her house, which is what I would have had to do, I decided to get off when we got to Quthing town and I found a taxi to Mohale’s Hoek on the road. I got there, took a quick shower at the hotel, and crashed with a PCV friend who lives a 5 minute walk from the hotel.
In the morning, I waited for Lee to get his butt up out of bed and be my hitch buddy. He met me at the braai place (the best tested hitch spot) and we almost immediately found a ride with an electrical worker who estimated our monthly salary at M10,000. Hah. I wish. In Mafeteng, we got a ride with 2 guys, the driver silent and the passenger a lawyer with flawless English. He worked on violent and criminal cases, and said that he went to law school in Lesotho because it was better than the law schools in South Africa. Shocker there. We talked about the Lesotho-becoming-part-of-South-Africa debate, and then about ridiculous politicians who basically compete to out-corrupt each other.
After arguing incessantly with a 4+1 driver to take us to the hotel where this mid-service conference would be held, we finally arrived. At the hotel, it was weird to see the people who live in the north who I never see. People have definitely made friendships based on location. I repped my district as the only Quthing resident by wearing my new “Quthing: my natural habitat” tshirt. The staff especially liked it.
The sessions were mostly BS required-by-DC stuff, and brought back bad memories of days like this at training. Other than the useless stuff, we talked about rewarding and funny things that had happened to us, then made a poster about successes, things learned, and things we want to do before COS [close of service].
Here are some notes I took. These were my own as well as others’ answers to various questions and other sessions and just talking to other people:
How has your perspective changed since you arrived in Lesotho?
-More desensitized
-The new plan is having no plan- if your schedule suddenly changes, don’t get butthurt. Just bring your kindle and wait for stuff to start happening.
-Choose your battles
-Realize your power of being a role model
-More open, more trusting
-Understanding the reasons behind things
-Expectations drastically reduced and/or eliminated althogether
Sprouting beans
-Soak 12+ hours in water and baking soda
-Drain, put in cloth for 3 days
-Rinse 1-2x/day = sprouts
-Cook with baking soda
Challenges
-Language barrier
-Basotho have no motivation
-Cultural differences
-Corporal punishment
-Communication with PC office because of lack of resources
-Extracurricular activities clashing with school
-Teachers not attending lessons
Lessons learned
-Patience
-Greetings are imperative
-Perseverance and resilience
-Include community in decisions
-Integration is key
HIV
-Lesotho is #2 in the world (according to who you ask) with around 24% infected
-Perpetuated by systemic failures- people don’t report rape, poverty leads to transactional sex
-Adolescent girls are at the greatest risk
-1000 new infections per day worldwide
Most rewarding experiences
-Hiking
-Solid poops
-What staff does things right
-Passing 100 books read
-Learning new things due to boredom
Funniest things
-When Lea’s chair exploded at phase 3
-Hitching and having weird conversations with random people
-Sesotho mixups
-Taxi names
-When I ran into the sliding glass door in Durban [I think Jen’s still laughing about that…]
My successes
-Solid relationship with family and students
-Dog still alive and kicking
-Traveling a lot
-Ponytail!
What I’ve learned
-How to be bolder and take more risks
-Just accept things sometimes. TIA.
My wishes for the remaining time
-Community projects like a girls’ group
-Work more with the orphanage
-GRE
-More excellent vacations
-Continue to write
-Finish classroom project
-Not go so stir crazy in my village
-Win the bet against Jen
Some relatively random photos for your viewing pleasure:
Millions of peaches. Peaches for free.
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