America

Written on 1/21/15

One of my favorite things about living in Lesotho is having the opportunity to bash the belief that “American” means “white”. Yes it’s crazy that black people came from Africa and now, hundreds of years later, the only media* that people receive besides hip hop (my host brother Tsepong loves Lil Wayne) are images of rich, white, America*. Which, as we all know, is a teeny percentage of the whole. And, the vast majority of people who join the Peace Corps are white. So, it’s really no surprise that people have this perception, however warped it is.

It can be kind of exhausting to repeatedly have this conversation, but today I was just chillin’ with my friend Khotso, waiting for my phone to charge in his shop, when we began to talk about race (I dream of the day when I’ll be able to have these kinds of conversations in Sesotho). At one point he asked me, “do you have people who look like me in America?”, pulling up his beenie to tug at the locks hidden beneath and pointing at his coffee bean complexion. “Yeah!”, I replied. “In America we have everyone.” “Wow!”, he exclaimed. “I thought if I come to America people would be like wow. Would be surprised”. To make my point simpler, I didn’t go into the inns and outs of American geography and how people in some places might indeed react that way. Instead, I simply replied, “where I’m from, lots of people look like you. In fact, Philadelphia has more black people than white people.”

And then I realized that if he thought all Americans were white, he may not know about the Transatlantic Slave Trade. So I gave him the cliff notes version, ending with, “and that’s why there are black people in America.” After that, the concept seemed to make more sense to him.

Earlier in this conversation, he emphatically said that he could never do what I’m doing, could never leave his home and live somewhere else. That he would miss his mom and his friends and his brothers and sisters too much. So, Khotso will probably never see America. And that’s fine. Many Americans I’ve met could never dream of living in another country for two years. The point is just that his lens of understanding was opened a little bit wider, just as my understanding of Lesotho grows every day. And that, truly, is the most sustainable effect of being a Peace Corps volunteer. The students I teach may or may not speak better English by the time I leave. St. Dennis will largely remain the same for years after I leave. But it is these types of conversations that stick, that make my time here here feel valuable and important to me.

Also, Basotho love America and Americans. I don’t know how many times a day I hear something along the lines of “U tsoa America? (You are from America)! I love you” (or just the I love you, which always throws me off), from complete strangers. So, at least when I talk frankly with people they can learn (although some don’t believe) that America is just as hard as it is wonderful, as oppressive as it is beautiful. That it’s just a place like any other. And yes, that people with a coffee bean complexion and dredlocks live there too.

*Just as Africa receives warped and monochromatic images of America, the U.S. pretty much only receives warped images of Africa splayed with violence, disease and starvation. Darling readers, remember that. And remind your loved ones of that the next time someone anxiously mentions Ebola or what have you.

*Before coming here, I was insistent upon being correct and saying “the United States” as opposed to “America”. But here, America is the U.S. and so that’s what I call it. There’s really no point in correcting people.

Khotso and much love. 

It's the little things

Written on Tuesday 1/13/15 5:00 PM

My life here in Lesotho is largely mundane. I wake up, squat over the basin on the floor to wash the dirty dishes from the night before, fetch water, water my plants and weed a little, sometimes exercise, eat breakfast and then spend the rest of the day reading, journaling, talking with people or cooking. Sometimes I’m very bored and downright restless. Sometimes I'm lonely. But there is always at least one thing that happens every day that puts a smile on my face and makes me say, truthfully, “ke phela hantle” (I am well), when asked. 

Today was one of those restless days. I rose at five after another itchy, sleepless night and took a long run, my sneakers smacking the pavement and keeping time as the sun rose over the green mountains beyond. After bathing and eating and washing dishes and all that it was only 9 or 10:00. So I read for awhile and ate lunch at some point, attempting to eat and read on my porch (where I spend a lot of my time) but the combination of the flies and bees buzzing soon pushed me back inside. I was scheduled to meet the chief of my area for the first time in the afternoon and was waiting around for my IL to pick me up, doing bits and pieces of various things. However, at some point around 2 a woman knocks on my door that my IL must have sent, who I learn is ‘M’e Grasansia. She’s a tall middle-aged woman, wearing a blanket wrapped around her waist, a straw hat, brown Chuck Taylor’s and a youthful smile. She informs me that I am instead going to meet the chief tomorrow morning. “Okay, kea leboha (thank you)”, I say cheerfully. But as soon as she leaves I feel a small deflation in my chest. “Rats”, I think. It’s only two in the afternoon and I have no idea what to do with myself. My attempts at studying Sesotho earlier in the day didn’t last long, and I’m feeling kind of sleepy and lethargic.

But then, I remember a piece of advice I was given before I left from a lovely RPCV I used to live next door to: “Whenever you feel down or sad or whatever, just take a walk. Whatever it is, just take a walk. You’ll see something or talk to someone or laugh at something and you’ll feel better.” So I did. I walked up the hill and saw a family sitting outside one of the huts on the grassy embankment on my right side, took a deep breath and walked up to meet them.

Community integration is a funny thing. It’s a slow process, and it’s pretty much completely the job of the volunteer rather than the community, obviously, to put ourselves out there and meet people. This a little daunting at first, because I’ve never before spur of the moment gone up to a new neighbors yard with whom I had never spoken to before and sat down with them for over an hour, shooting the shit. But here, that’s how you make friends. And I’m very much wanting friends in my community right now. So I went up to them, asked if I could sit down, and plopped down on the grass. It was a good opportunity to practice my Sesotho anyway, so I learned all of their names and all of the children’s names that were situated around the two women, rolling around, chewing on grass and staring at me. I made friends with the women, the teenage son and the little ones (peek-a-boo is a brilliant game) AND I saw the baby, Rethabile, poop on herself twice, the second time getting on her mother’s foot. No big deal though- each time afterward her mother just stood up, shoveled the poop up and situated her baby at her breast to get fed. As far as I’m concerned, if there’s poop and breastfeeding involved, it’s a successful social interaction.

Then I continued walking for a bit and sat on a rock and just thought for half an hour about nothing in particular, the pre-rain wind brushing past my face as fast as the flies buzzed around my head. “When was the last time I just sat down somewhere and thought?”, I asked myself. Without my phone or a book or a journal or even a camera, just my thoughts? Maybe never. I’m really into it.

So, this day was a much-needed reminder of the fact that we all have the power to change a situation, or at the very least how we feel. I could have sat inside and felt sorry for myself until dinnertime, but I didn’t. It doesn’t take much to change a day around. All it takes is a short walk, a rock, a bodily function or two and some peek-a-boo.

Khotso.

Also......

Here are some changes:

Cat Stevens is in Lesotho, above my stove. 

Had a lot of time on my hands recently, so my wrist became a rainbow. And yes, those are all bug bites.

And, things seen in the past few weeks:

Sunset through my window

This gorgeous (newly) 25 year old. Check out her blog https://mackenzierotherham.wordpress.com/ to see how we celebrated her birthday. 

"was this stream here before?"

The heaven that is Maliba Lodge. 

I guess the shortcut from Konkotia (the town half an hour walk from me) to Ha Khabo (further down the road) has a name. 

Seen on said shortcut. Must inspect in the future. 

'M'e Thekane, my beautiful IL, on the walk back from meeting the area chief, which did eventually happen. 

Cactus trees, they bloom. 

To whoever used this condom, I'm glad you're being safe. Even if you have to hike up into the mountains to get it on. 

Elections are right around the corner. Here's the ABC, the ruling party, gettin' hype. 

And that's one ugly duck, seen in Brittany's yard. 

 P.S. After a failed attempt at getting a full bucket of water into my house (I got it up the cliff and then I dropped it all over my porch while taking it off my head. Very disappointing), I have now successfully carried a full bucket on my head up the cliff and into my house. Quite pleased. 

This is Tau Liarora (St. Dennis). This is where I live.

So there isn't much new to report, since I'm not doing much of anything yet. So here are some photos from recent explorations.

I took an evening walk my second week at site, sat on a rock and journaled. Then this happened:

And last week, I woke up at five and took at two hour hike up a mountain. I had been planning to run, but didn't feel like it. So I chose a direction and a mountain and just started walking, still in dreamland for the first half hour or so. It was glorious. 

playing peek-a-boo with the sun. 

View from the top. This is one side of my village. 

There are cacti a plenty here. 

These clouds do amazing things on a regular basis. 

And these don't even begin to capture the beauty that is this country. For those thinking of or planning on visiting me, this time of year is in the best and the most beautiful. It's the prime of planting season, the rains are here at night and it's sunny and beautiful during the day. 

I'll post again when I'm doing something productive (teaching). 

Much love and Khotso (peace). 

Recent occurrences that illustrate my life in Lesotho OR, Things that Don’t Happen at Home

Written on 12/31/14

The other day I wanted to use the Internet. I can’t check my email on my phone, so I went into town with two goals: To read and send emails and to update my blog. However, as I thought might happen, this turned out to be more difficult planned.

At the first Internet café I went to (right next to the KFC) the woman didn’t know the Wifi password, saying that only her boss knew it. She suggested I use the Ethernet cord, but that didn’t fit into my tiny, beautiful macbook air, which I wanted to use because it had photos and pre-written blog posts on it. “Fine”, I thought. I’ll just go to another one. So I went to the Econet one, which has many different locations across Lesotho and is usually reliable. But they didn’t have Internet. So I walked down an alley looking for another cafe that the woman in the Econet shop told me about, got sidetracked by the possibility of buying gumboots (what they call rainboots here), but didn’t, and then asked three or four more people where this cafe was and finally came across it in a tiny unlit room in a building next to the public toilets. And they didn’t have Internet either. By this time I’m sweating through my clothes and hungry but still determined. So I go to the only other one I know about, predicting that they won’t be connected to the internet either but crossing my fingers that they will. This one is near the taxi rank, in another small, unlit room behind a ma-china shop (shop owned by a Chinese person) called Malome. And of course, they didn’t have Internet either. So I go back to the first one, resolved to not let this entire day be a waste. The owner, a tall Indian woman with glasses and a green sari (who knows the wifi password) has returned, and she tries many times to put it into my computer. But, for whatever reason it doesn’t work. So, I give a small sigh, suck down a lemon Fanta and chat with her for a few minutes while I wait for an open computer. She compliments me over and over on my Sesotho; the way people talk, you would think I was fluent. All it takes is a few phrases spoken very fast and they’re like WOAH. FINALLY, I get on the internet and proceed to spend an hour perusing facebook.

That same day, as I’m walking quickly from the fourth internet café back up the street to original one, dodging traffic and wiping sweat from my neck, a very thin light skinned guy who looks about my age, wearing a blue short sleeve button up and an all knowing smile starts walking beside me and talking to me. I don’t mind, but I’m a woman on a mission so I talk but don’t slow my pace. He asks me the usual questions-where I’m from, what I’m doing in Lesotho, when I arrived in Lesotho etc. He’s asking me everything in English and I’m answering in Sesotho, which surprises and amuses him. In his words, “I’m very familiar with white people, and most of them don’t speak Sesotho. You are the best one.” I laugh amiably and he continues walking with me until I reach the internet café, saying that “it’s very dangerous out here” (which is not true and makes me laugh). Later, he pops up again as I’m walking to catch the taxi home and, of course, asks me for 5 rand. “Ha ke na chalete” (I don’t have money), I say, and he smiles and keeps walking me to my taxi line and then, suddenly, disappears into the crowd. I wonder where Abuti Michael will show up next.

And today, coming back from a successful shopping trip in Butha Buthe, my taxi (which, keep in mind, is a small van) takes a detour that ends at the hospital. I figure someone asked the driver to go there, and I didn’t hear or understand, so I expect whoever asked him to get off and we’ll turn around and be on our merry way. Instead, a woman does get out, but she gets out to help get her sick person (husband, uncle, I don’t know), who is being wheeled over to the taxi on a stretcher. At first glance, I thought this man was dead-Extremely skinny, eyes closed and not moving at all. I thought, “Jesus, I’m about to ride home with a dead person”. As I kept craning my neck around from my seat in the front to observe, I realized he wasn’t dead, but he was extremely weak and sick. His person and a few other people lifted his bony, blanket wrapped body into the first row, pushed him over next to the window, opened the window a bit, and then got back into the taxi. He moaned quietly a few times, and was drooling on and off probably the whole way home. And I realized, this was his ride home from the hospital.

After everyone is back in, the driver, smiling merrily, turns up the famu (the traditional music here-jubilant accordion with people yelling/talking over it) and drives the regular route as usual. And by the end of the trip, I’m not really shocked anymore. It’s just another day in the mountain kingdom.

I’ve been trying to get the whole carrying-water-on-my-head thing down. It’s definitely hard, but it’s a lot easier than sloshing a bucket up the mountain, getting bruises the size of my fist from the bucket banging into my hip, having to stop constantly to switch arms. Plus, girls half my age and size do it with no problems. However, since I wasn’t raised to carry things on my head from a young age like the girls here, I don’t have the neck muscles developed or correct posture developed. But if I train, so to speak, I’ll be able to do it soon enough.

The problem, of course, is that my ‘M’e keeps doing it for me. The other day I brought two buckets down to the tap to fill, planning to fill each one half way and knowing I would have to come back for the second after carrying the first one. And wouldn’t ya know that as I start walking back down the mountain towards the tap, feeling proud of myself that I carried the first bucket half full with little trouble, I see my ‘M’e carrying the second one up (now completely full) towards the house, slowly but surely. I didn’t see her leave to get it, and I can’t very well argue with her to put it down so I can pour half of it out and walk back with a half-full bucket on my head. Not only would that be ridiculous and rude, but she’s at least 60 and already almost completely up the mountain. So I smile and thank her profusely, because I now fully appreciate how heavy those things are and the work that daily life requires here. Also, even though I do want to be able to do it, it kind of sucks. So I’m maintaining my goal to be able to do one full bucket before winter comes, but I’m also appreciative of the unsolicited help that I will inevitably get along the way.