8 February 2016: This year’s classes

            It’s the 3^rd week of school, but only my 5^th day of class. I went only 2 days the first week, and 2 days the 2^nd 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.

One of my awesome form Cs Bolelwa

She even wanted to take a photo with sweaty me post-run. 

Review problems before a test

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 3^rd 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 2^nd 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: 

Sunset

Rain and clouds 

My ausi with the doge

Millions of peaches. Peaches for me. 

Millions of peaches. Peaches for free. 

Whoever said crooked toilets don't enhance a beautiful mountain view?

The Bo Bo at a tap

24-27 January 2016: Back to Ha Makoae for school to start

                After leaving Katie’s house, I had just been lying here at my friend’s house all day. I’m wasn’t feeling 100%, but more than that, it was supposed to rain all day, and I didn’t want to travel/hike up my mudslide of a hill in this weather. I’m still kind of snotty from being semi-sick. The next day was the first day of school. I told my principal I’d just go to school in the afternoon after I got to the village. Surprisingly, she said she was doing the same thing. Phew- in the clear. Though from experiencing the first day of school last year, I knew that the first day, they were only going to do registration, books, cleaning, etc. No worries, no stress. 

                That day, I went to town, had a good workout at the hotel, took a shower, and commenced what will now be known as Sugar Day. Here’s the backstory: Jen and I have a running bet until we leave Lesotho, that I’ll get a visible 6 pack and that she’ll lose 20 more pounds and stop smoking for 2 months. Whoever doesn’t make it has to give up their last living allowance (~R2500) to the other person. High stakes, people. Since the end date is pretty far in the future, we have decided to do a mini challenge to get going, that will last for the first quarter of school. I can’t eat any (added) sugar or papa, and she has to drink only 2 beers a week or something. I don’t remember the exact number. Anyway, this would start on the first day of school, so I was taking advantage of my day in town, eating candy, ice cream, yogurt, etc. etc. 

                I wish I could say that I were excited for school to start for reasons other than me being bored out of my mind. I moseyed on down to my village after buying foods and whatnot. I got off at the school with my big backpack and carrying 2 flats of eggs from town. I was legitimately happy to see the students again. The teachers, meh. They were in the staff room working on the timetable (I still think it’s funny that they call it a timetable and not a schedule). They had me down for 27 classes! Beezus! That was way more than any other (actually hired and paid) teacher had. I’m a volunteer for bog’s sake! I’m not supposed to be the pillar holding up the entire school. The next day, I talked with my principal and the other math teacher about me teaching fewer classes, so now I’m down to 20. Up from 18 last year. I’m teaching B math and co-teaching C math, and I also have A and B computer and C life skills. Seeing as that I was legitimately going stir crazy sitting at school last year for hours and hours between classes having nothing to do, I told my principal that I only wanted to teach in the mornings before lunch so I could leave to go do other things in the community and study for the GRE and do other PC stuff. I can tell the other teachers might resent me for this. I can tell because I’ve been here for over a year and I CAN UNDERSTAND YOU WHEN YOU SPEAK SESOTHO RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, OK? But they’d never tell me to my face because this is such a passive aggressive society. But I can still play dumb and pretend nothing’s wrong, right? Cool.

                Explaining my new papa-less life was confusing for the teacher who was dishing up lunch. She was explaining it to another teacher in Sesotho, and I heard the word “diabetes.” No, I corrected. I don’t have diabetes. I’m just tired of papa. Apparently, it’s unfathomable not to eat a starch with a meal. Even when I said I had brought some extra peanuts and hard boiled eggs to eat with the moroho the school served up. I know starches like papa are cheap and filling, so they’re essential for most people, but somehow Basotho habits die hard. 

The Bo Bo emerges from his cave

My little ausi Khahliso

Oldest ausi Palesa posing with my garden

Me and my moroho

My 'me emptying a bucket

Small thoughts 17

Taxis: Queen Latifah, Cheetah (big bus), Crocodile, True Love, Back Home, My Previous Witness, Big Mama, So What...?, Two Bop, Twister, Down Town, Cool Down, Techno, So Glamorous Yet So Naughty, Life Saver, Success, The Big G, Taxi Queen, Greenhouse 

You can't beat coming home from school and watching 10 episodes of Modern Family. What is my life?

Examples of very specific Sesotho words vs. one word that captures almost all senses:

-"Lerala" = noun, traces of feet in the dew, path slightly marked by the feet of people beginning it

-"Seloa" = verb, to be caught by sunrise when traveling 

Vs. 

-"Utloa" = verb, to hear, to feel, to taste, to understand, to obey 

Hello, my name is Julie, and I'm addicted to Peri-Peri sauce. 

Life skills question- "who is the director of the Internet?"

I have created (and am the sole participant of) Casual Friday. I taught C math first thing, then changed into leggings, went running, and plan to stay in these clothes, barefoot, for the rest of the day including when I teach B math right before lunch. I can get away with this because my principal is never here on Fridays, and even if she were, she probably wouldn't care. 

Waiting for the taxi to go to Quthing town this morning, I am asked by a guy to please buy him a new charger to replace his dead one. I'm like uhhh sure...and he shoves his phone and 100 Maluti in my hands as the taxi approaches. I don't even know this guy, but in the spirit of the village, I'm gonna do my best. 

Things I hear outside my hotel room: some little boys yelling, "English lady! Come out! We are the FBI!" Really annoying, but I'm kinda impresses that little Basotho kids know what the FBI is. 

At a little restaurant place, I asked for a Russian (kielbasa sausage) and some bread. 5 rand or 10 rand of bread? they asked. 5, I said. The piece they gave me was almost as big as my head. I'm scared to see what 10 rand would have gotten me. 

On my walk up my hill from the road, I'm carrying my huge backpack filled with, in addition to clothes, a computer, and some food, with a 7kg bag of dog food. Then I get hit with a sudden, yet short burst of sideways, stinging rain followed by hail. I don't think my walk home could have been much more difficult. 

It's officially peach season! That and the fact that my Swiss chard is finally growing means that I don't have to go all the way to town for produce. 

Conspiracy theory: what if PC chooses these few months to do site visits because they're secretly a peach appreciation club and they just want to have an excuse to go all over the country and taste all the different peaches? 

Peach Corps.

On a very rainy day: "They normally call this weather BMW. Baby making weather. 🎶It's BMW tiiiiime!" -one of my teachers

The bo'me always flatter me and say that I speak Sesotho well. In reality, I have the vocabulary of a baby. But it's sweet nonetheless.  

Erosion is a big problem here in Lesotho. Every time it rains, the paths change, the river beds change, and a good chunk of land mass is literally washed away into South Africa. 

I finally got "peach belly" and got sick from eating so many peaches. Last year I was warned, but it never came. It came today.

I got bored teaching in form C, so I made the kids write with their left hand when they came to the board. Instant entertainment for everyone. 

"Don't count all your makoenyas [fried dough balls] before they hatch." -Jen

Jen, on Whatsapp:

I just had a dream that Danny mcbride (actor) came to hang out with us in Lesotho and you had a pet penguin. I think this means things are gonna start looking up

Me, in response:

I had a dream that I was hugging Lea and Kristin and we were all in a heap watching TV or something. Then we were on vaca and went to Woolworth foods where they had double cream yogurt. Then we went to some high school (on the island we were touring/vacationing) where Ariana Grande was a junior and she got the award for most community service hours. As she skipped off in a pink dress, the principal (Hilary Clinton) was yelling through a megaphone, "Can I get some commission on those hours!?"

Who you?

Inspired by a comedy bit- Why do you introduce yourself in person as "I am," but on the phone as, "This is" ? Imagine coming up to someone at a party and being like, "Hi, this is Julie. Who is this?"

And at the door, you ask, "Who is it?"

English is weird. 

Secondary projects: making faces at babies 

I'm starting my own NGO. It's called Peach Corpse. 

Sunday morning garden maintenance: my Swiss chard is covered in aphids (gross), so I looked in my handy gardening book for a natural pesticide. Such options include chili, garlic and onion, marigolds, tobacco, wood ash, flour, and something called compost tea. But I'm going with the aloe method. I got my serrated knife and cut a leaf off of a giant aloe plant. I'm now supposed to chop/crush it up into a 5:1 dilution and spray it on my plants. Let's see if I have any luck! Aphids, you're going down. 

Colleen, on Whatsapp;

Strange Basotho tradition I learned today: if a twin dies there cannot be a funeral until the second twin "dies." The living twin wears the clothes that the dead one will be buried in, gets in the coffin and goes down into the ground before the dead one is buried. All because twins are considered to be one person. The twin who dies first is buried without a funeral or any praying, singing, eating, crying at 2/3am. Even fraternal twins

Martha adds,

My counterpart said that if it's a boy and girl twin and the boy goes to initiation school the girl must meet him when they are coming down the mountain and participate in all the village ceremonies with the boys and put the red paint stuff on her face and wear the blanket. But this can all be avoided if they are officially separated by the elders by touching either side of a cow while the elders say some special words and then slaughter the cow (this is apparently frowned upon but allowable).

I'm listening to some traffic cops give a talk to my students, and one of them (from what I understand) is asking them to please not throw trash out the window of cars. Thank god someone in this country realizes how awful a habit this is. 

I got a ride with a dude in a covered pickup delivering eggs. In front are 3 people, in back are a zillion eggs. I start to tell them that they can move along since there's obviously no room for me. But they insist. They put me in the front and the guy previously sitting there is hanging off the back, standing on the bumper and grabbing onto the top, until they unload enough eggs to fit him back there among the remaining eggs. People are awesome and life is weird when you reject the taxi life. 

Jen's teachers, ladies and gents:

Best lazy excuse yet..."we drank on Friday, we need to go home early today" it was Monday. 

I'm teaching about negative numbers in form B using a number line. The students can remember that you go from low to high numbers by following the same direction you read- left to right. It occurred to me, in places with Semitic languages where they read right to left, do their number lines also go low to high going right to left?

This morning, two different teachers came in to my math class first period (15 minutes into it, may I add) and claimed that this period was their class. I've been teaching first period math on Fridays every week since about the 2nd or 3rd week of school. This proves that not only do they both have old time tables, but that they haven't been here on any Friday since this schedule was finalized. Ach. Incompetence at its finest. 

When I'm not sure how to address kids I come across

Because sometimes it's hard to distinguish between genders!

http://www.humanstumbling.com/post/140028999035/close-enough

15 January 2016: Meetup with the duQlings

Earlier this week, I escaped my village to meet up with Hanna and Melinda, the new PCVs in Quthing district, whom I refer to fondly as the duQlings. After a few days in Quthing town, I can see myself not having to be dependent on Mohale’s Hoek for pizza, friends, and wifi. In the morning, I took the taxi all the way up to Upper Moyeni where my first stop was the bank. I signed up for text alerts for my bank account [update: this never happened] and asked to get a PIN for online banking. They took my phone number and passport scan and said they’d get back to me when their machine that prints PINs is working again [update: this never happened either]. My next stop was the post office where I bought stamps for postcards. My third stop was at the Orange River Lodge to inquire about pizzas. Confirmed: the rumors are true- they do make pizzas there. Then I traipsed down the switchback road to drop my stuff at the hotel in Lower Moyeni where our relatively new VRC (volunteer resource center) is. I settled into a small couch, logged on to the wifi, and tinkered around with my 2 grants on PC’s grant website.

Then Hanna, and shortly Melinda, showed up, joining me on the couches for some good old fashioned human (maybe “American human” is a better description) contact, which they admitted was lacking in their villages. Ahhh I remembered first moving to site a year ago and how awfully boring it all was.

We soon 4+1ed it to the Orange River Lodge to get some long-awaited pizzas. We were met by an unusually stylish and energetic guy at the front desk with flawless English, who was quite excited to chat with us. There was some kind of agriculture conference at the hotel, so it was packed with people. Without fail, as we sat in the lobby waiting for our pizzas to be ready, every person who passed by at least said hi to us. In the US, would you go out of your way to have a conversation with three random strangers? Nope. But in Lesotho, when you see three white girls sitting there, apparently you do just that. After a long wait, we finally got our glorious pizzas, packed with more cheese and meat than I’d seen in quite a long time. After we ate, super stuffed, we headed back down to Lower Moyeni and did some grocery shopping, then got into Hanna’s taxi to her village, about 45 minutes from town. Her taxi driver was super cool, and we asked him where to find “Quthing, my natural habitat” shirts that we had seen several people wearing around town. On his way down the main road, he pulled off next to a tin shack, yelled some stuff out the window, then turned back to us saying that they’d have the shirts for us tomorrow. Ask and you shall receive!

On the way to Hanna’s, there was a drunk old man who was saying ridiculous things. At one point, when the sliding door wouldn’t open, he said (in English), very matter of factly, “we are going to die.” No we won’t, I thought. This van is packed with at least 12 bottles of soda and several huge, 300-count bags of what looked like old, stale biscuits. If we couldn’t climb out the sunroof, we could survive off this food for at least a few days before having to cannibalize other passengers. We arrived at Hanna’s house and we ate our leftover pizza as Melinda told us about her year living in New Zealand and her multiple trips to Nepal and Mount Everest base camp with her wilderness-rescue uncle.  Hanna, it turns out, has lived in Sweden almost her whole life (with one American parent and one Swedish parent), which was also very interesting to hear about. Hanna’s puppy Leli (short for lelinyane, which means any kind of baby animal) was super cute, tiny, hyper, and spoiled. We had fun playing with her as she squirmed around. The next morning, Melinda and I headed back to town. After getting some soft serve and hot makoenyas (fried bread balls), we taxied to Mount Moorosi. There, we parted ways as she got on a taxi to her village and I got on a taxi to mine.

Even though there is a grand whopping total of 3 PCVs in the entire district (compare this with Mohale’s Hoek, which has at least 13), I think it’s a great little group. Here’s hoping for more fun meet-ups to come!

9 January 2016: Unexpected Moments / Dog Update

                It’s often the chance encounters in the day that make them worthwhile. In the past 2 days, I’ve had 3 such moments.

1)      I was walking back from the shop when I saw an oldish man on a horse next to a man and a woman spreading something out on grain sacs to, I assume, dry in the sun. I decided to wander over, mostly to see what was drying. In Sesotho: “You want some sorghum?” the woman asked. “No, I’m just looking,” I replied. I looked up at the man on the horse, “Lumela, ntate” (Hello, father). He greeted me back, repeating, “Lumela, ntate.” Ignoring the fact that I was again called a man (but at the same time wondering why people are STILL mistaking me- it’s not that hard, people), I continued to talk to the sorghum-spreading  ‘me. The sorghum-spreading man interrupted and corrected the horse man, “No, this is ausi (sister) Senate,” and proceeded to tell him all about me- I live in the village across the valley, I teach at the secondary school, etc. It made me proud that this dude is so eager to defend my identity and this just proves how integrated I’ve become here.

2   2)    I walked up the water tap hill to sit under its luscious tree to read a French book about a herd boy that my friend Jen got from the Morija museum. Then, this woman I’ve never met came up to me, greeted me, and was surprised that I knew Sesotho (as is always the case with people I’m just meeting). Turns out, she’s related to my host family, lives in SA, and is just visiting her family and her childhood home. She took a photo of me, her newly-found relative, hugged me (strange for a Mosotho- they’re not usually huggers), and after we exchanged complaints about the insane heat, she went about her way. Never even met me, but once she knew I was “related,” she immediately treated me as such.

3    3) Today my oldest ausi Palesa was taking a day off from her summer job of cutting wood for some reason or another, and I taught her how to play 2 card games- war and speed. She actually beat me at speed a few times after she got the hang of it. Then she came back after cooking papa and asked for my tennis ball. She showed me how to play this game called “chicha” where you bounce the tennis ball under and between your legs while chanting this song. Even my ‘me joined in to play. Even though I really didn’t know what I was doing, it was really fun, and there were laughs all around as time after time I messed up the sequence of bounces or didn’t catch the ball after a bounce. Eventually I was just embracing the fact that I was hopeless at it and just improvised the whole thing. She says I should practice more. Yes ma’am.

Dog update: The Bo Bo got so big that I had to cut the dog house door bigger so that it didn’t have to crouch down so far to get inside. It even walked with me to the shop yesterday without a leash. I think it can get around the village on its own now, so I don’t have to bother keeping it within a 3 foot radius from me with a leash. Though it does like to follow me everywhere- even trying to come into the latrine with me. Nope, sorry dog. You can pee wherever you want. This is my own space. Then it started playing fetch (sort of) with an old animal jaw bone yesterday, and was even chasing the tennis ball when Palesa or I let it bounce away. What started as a low-maintenance dog has become an even lower-maintenance dog and even likes to play dog games. Woo! And PC would be proud, as I am creating a non-spoiled, “sustainable” pet. They love that word, sustainable. As a true Basotho dog, my dog eats papa, eggs, and leftovers. Because I don’t plan to take it back with me after I’m done here, I think its transition to either a new volunteer or to my host family will be quite smooth.

*New mailing address*

Don't send stuff to the PC office anymore. Please send it to:

Julie Fisher

Quthing Secondary School

PO Box 254

Mount Moorosi 750

Lesotho

Southern Africa (optional)

If you're feeling inspired, just know I still love letters! Send me one and I'll send you a cool postcard from Madagascar!

To keep y'all occupied

while I work on some recent posts and an important announcement, here's a photo of a space invader and my Texas flag. After all, it is Texas Independence Day. Is it appropriate to go outside and yell "REMEMBER THE ALAMOOOO!" ?