Living in Lesotho: November 2015

I wrote this piece for the writing exchange, a group of us who write anything we want on a chosen topic and submit each month. The prompt was: write about your experience in Lesotho as a peace corps volunteer.

My name is Grace, and I’m a Peace Corps volunteer.

I live in a round thatched roof house without running water or electricity. Every morning I gaze at the intricacies of my roofing for at least two minutes before getting out of bed, and (most) every evening I use two medium sized blue plastic basins to wash the dishes that have accumulated throughout the day.

I could tell you about what I teach or what kinds of projects I’m working on or how far I need to walk to pump my water, but none of those things really describe how strange it can be to sit back and observe my position as if I were one of the people in my village.

I, and we, are in the unique position of complaining about things, often deep-rooted cultural things, about a place that we came to live in by choice. It really doesn’t make sense, how easy it is to whine about the things that we consider annoying or weird or stupid. No one forced us to come here. It’s helpful to sit back and try to observe myself through an outsider’s lens.

I have many personalities here.

I am Grace Harman, the Peace Corps Volunteer. I get up early in the mornings to teach the ridiculous intricacies of the present perfect tense and how to correctly use a condom to middle-schoolers. I go to bed early, soon after I finish eating dinner, so that I can get up and be fresh-faced and do it again. Sometimes I get to stay in hotels with other Americans for days at a time and use a hot shower and flushing toilets and be fed copious amounts of meat at every meal, during which we revel in the opportunity to speak in much faster, more slang-ridden English than we get to use in our villages.

I am also Madame Mpho Khalane, the American who teaches English and Life Skills at St. Denis Primary School. The one who has you get up and do weird things with your body while saying words, in an effort to help you understand new concepts. The white one. The fat one, you say. The one who talked to you about vaginas openly for the first time and whom you make laugh when you insist on saying the word at random intervals during unrelated English lessons.

I am also ausi Mpho, the American. The white one. The one who loudly sings along to Beyoncé while doing her washing on Sundays while the rest of us slowly walk to church in our seshoeshoe and large hats. The one who makes you giggle when she greets you loudly in Sesotho, and gives you a strange look when you stare at her pumping water, even though you just stopped to look because you didn’t know white people could do such things.

--------

And so I’ll text my friend about how annoying it is to be stared at like that, even now, when I’ve lived in my village for nine months now, and I think people should be used to me by now. I’m not the first volunteer to live here, shouldn’t the circus have left by now? Can it really be that I’m still so fascinating?

Yes, it can.

Last week I walked to school with one of the third grade girls, whom I don’t teach, and she stared up at me for the entire fifteen-minute walk. “What does she see?” I wondered, as I pretended not to notice. “What is she thinking? What does she think I’m going to do?”

It helps to remind myself of how strange it is, objectively, to be an American living in a rural village in Lesotho for two years. No matter how many thousands of people have done the same thing all around the world, or how normal it seems when we’re all together or when talking to certain circles of people at home. It’s still a weird role to play. When I’m in my village, I’m self-conscious of my actions in a way that feels second nature now. I know I’m always being observed, and I’ve learned to take part in it.

The only thing to do is

Let go.

Relax.

Exhale.

Smile.

And laugh.