Let's Eat!

One of my favorite, unexpected things, about being a Peace Corps volunteer has been becoming a genuinely good cook.

Don't know how I survived this long without a working headlamp. So happy to have one! Thanks gammy.

 Probably from reading about the generally bland Basotho diet before coming here, I kind of thought I would be eating rice and beans feela (only) for the next two years. Thankfully, that has not turned out to be true. It helps that all the volunteers are supplied with a recipe book for ideas when we don’t want to make stew over and over, for example.

So, since I can’t cook for anyone back home yet, here are some recipes I’d highly recommend you try yourself.

And remember that 1) I’m cooking for one, but I usually make enough to have leftovers for a day or two at least 2) I like my food SPICY 3) Almost none of the measurements are exact. Cooking is, as they say, an art. Not a science.


Red Lentil Sauce

I put it on spaghetti, but it would probably also be good on fish or portabella mushrooms.

You need:
1 cup red lentils
1 onion, chopped
3 small tomatoes, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
Water
White vinegar
Salt
Pepper
Dried oregano and basil
Cayenne pepper
Any other spices you dig
White flour
A few spoonfuls or packets of tomato paste

In a small pot, cook lentils in 1 ½ cups of water. This will not take long.
When water is absorbed into lentils, add a few splashes of vinegar, the onion, tomato and pepper. Stir.
Add the tomato paste, some salt and pepper and about 2 cups of water (or less, depends how much sauce you want). Stir and cover.
Once some of the water has been absorbed, add copious amounts of basil and oregano and a few pinches of cayenne pepper. Also, more salt. Stir and cover again.
When you’re thinking, “damn this is taking a long time” add a few small handfuls of the flour, stir and cover. Also taste here and see if you need to add more spices. Stir and cover. Cook until it tastes tomato-y and it looks more like a sauce then like lentils sitting in water. Pour over whatever.

Lentil Potato Stew (This makes a lot. I was cooking for the week.)

You Need:
5 or 6 white potatoes (or sweet potatoes or squash), chopped into smallish pieces
2 cups of green or brown lentils
3-4 tomatoes
2-3carrots
A few huge handfuls of spinach/kale/rape/whatever leafy green you have around, chopped.
3 chili peppers, minced.
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced. (Or, garlic salt )
Salt
Pepper
Spices you dig. I think I put cayenne pepper, thyme, oregano, basil, cumin, curry powder and a garlic rosemary blend.

Put the potatoes, carrots and lentils in a medium-large pot with enough water to cover them. Cook until the lentils are cooked most of the way through.
While those guys are boiling, heat a healthy amount of oil in a large saucepan or a wok. Add the garlic, chili peppers, onions, tomatoes and spices. Stir around a bit and cover.
When the lentils are good, drain most of the water and add a bit of the water and the lentils, potatoes and carrots to the pan. Add the green stuff. Stir around and add more of the spices. Cover and cook until the potatoes are the soft, the green stuff is cooked down, and the tomatoes are shriveled to only a portion of what they used to be. Taste and add more spices as needed. Serve.

Steamed Bread

You Need:
A big ass pot, with water covering the bottom, about an inch (enough so the smaller pot is submerged a bit but still touching the bottom of the bigger one).

A smaller pot or pan, greased

Your favorite bread recipe
Or, you can use the recipe I always use:
3 cups flour (I always use wheat, but bread flour is probably better)
2 tsp of salt
2 tbsp of sugar
1 package of instant dry yeast
1 cup of warm water
*sometimes I add a tablespoon or two of margarine (real butter is like a unicorn here) and sometimes I don’t. It just makes it more, ya know, buttery (better).

Combine all ingredients except the water. If you’re putting the margarine/softened butter in, mash it in with a fork now.
Add the warm water bit by bit while you stir with your other hand. Add enough water so that the dough is manageable and not overly sticky.
Knead it/punch it down for 10 minutes or so. I like to blast Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” for this part.

Place in a greased bowl and let it rise for anywhere from 20-40 minutes, until it’s about double.
Place in the small pot/loaf pan. Put small pot directly into the big pot (don’t forget to add water to the big pot!).

Bake until a knife comes out clean, about 40 minutes.
DEVOUR.

Dumplings
I was feeling adventurous one night and decided to try this recipe from the Peace Corps cookbook. Make sure you use a metal spatula so they don’t fall apart a lil at the end like mine may or may not have.

For Wrappers You Need:
2 cups flour
pinch of salt
¾ cup just boiled water

To Make Wrappers:
Pour the flour on your work table and make a well in the center.
Pour the water continuously while stirring (as best you can-delicate balance between stirring and not burning your fingers here)
Once all the water is poured and stirred, knead the dough to bring it all together.
Knead the ball for two minutes. The dough should be nice and elastic-y.
Tightly seal in a plastic bag. This book says keep it anywhere from 15 minutes to two hours. I did 45 minutes and it ended up being a nice consistency.
Form small balls about 2 in. in diameter and roll them out as thinly as possible using as little flower as possible.

The cookbook gives a recipe for a yellow split pea filling, but I don’t fuck with split peas so I made a spicy lentil, tomato, garlic thing instead. To make this,

You Need:
1 cup of green or brown lentils, cooked
2 small tomatoes, chopped.
2-3 cloves of garlic, diced.
2 onions, chopped
a small chili pepper or 2, diced
Soy sauce
Sugar
Corn Starch
Salt
Vinegar
Whatever spices ya dig, but definitely curry powder and cumin

In a large saucepan, heat oil.
Add onions, chili pepper(s) and some curry powder. Cook until onions are translucent.
Add garlic. Stir.
Add tomatoes and tomatoes. Turn heat to medium low and cover for a few minutes, until lentils are softened and combined a bit with everything else. May need to add a bit of water here.
Make a sauce with the soy sauce, salt, vinegar, sugar and corn starch (optional, only for thickening). Pour the sauce in the lentil mixture. Stir in. Taste and add whatever spices you want. Cover and cook till its all a softened, spicy unit.
When everything’s finished…
Place a scoop of lentil filling in the center of each wrapper and pinch it closed.

Place a bunch of dumplings in a pan with ½ inch of water.
Cover and boil until the water is gone (about 10 minutes but keep an eye on them)
Drizzle about a tablespoon of oil around the dumplings so the bottoms begin to fry.
Transfer them to a plate. (Where the metal spatula is crucial).
Dip in soy sauce and DEVOUR.

…But lets not make this a one-way exchange. Send me your favorite recipes too!

Khotso.

Also...

This is definitely someone's flag

post/pre-rain mist and storm clouds 

wildflowers, seen on a hike I took last weekend 

Really hard to see it, but I almost got to see the cattle-post, which is this lil house the herd boys stay in when they have to herd far away from home. But I tsamae'd (left) when a herd boy expressed his interest in having sex with me. Whoops. 

I did make it to the top of this peak. This is the view of the other side. 

Every Rose Has it's Thorn

This week my friend Thabo (I don’t call him by his American name so there’s no reason for you to) texted me, "Does it ever blow your mind how some days you’ll feel like rock bottom and the next you’re flying in the sky?"

In a word, yes. And that’s what this post is about: how quickly and dramatically my feelings can shift here, sometimes multiple times in a day.

One Saturday night a few weeks ago, my brother knocked on my door. After telling him to come in and asking him how he was, he responded, "I am not fine", and proceeded to tell me that he had just been walking from the grounds (what they call a soccer field here) with his friend when a group of boys had suddenly come out of the shadows and begun insulting them and beating them with sticks. Beating them on their backs, their heads and all over. He didn’t know who they were and didn’t know why they had beaten them, and he was obviously upset. Not crying but close to it, he lifted up his shirt to show me the marks on his skin. Immediately I went over to hug him, and he hugged me back in the way that boys and men who don’t get hugged very much do when they let their guard down.

We often eat dinner and watch movies together on the weekends, and that night I could feel his need for company profoundly. It was after seven already and I hadn’t started cooking, so he just sat at the table and we listened to the radio and I cooked. He wasn’t in a chatty mood and I was content to chop my veggies and sing along to the radio, and it was nice to experience that feeling of comfort in not speaking, and just being, with him. Eventually, the curry was finished and we sat down and watched "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", which is high up on my (long) list of rom-coms and he liked it a lot too. I was still thinking about what had happened to him as he was getting up to leave, and right before he left I said, "I’m sorry that happened to you." "I even forgot about it", he said with a smile and a little shrug, and left.

Last Sunday one of the high school students, the best friend of my runaway host sister, knocked on my door and asked me for help with a debate she had to do for her English class. I agreed to help her, and it was nice to sit outside in the sun and do my washing while I helped her formulate her ideas. Nice to feel useful and nice to have a visitor.

After we were done, the conversation turned to Polo, my 15-year-old host sister who ran away almost as soon as I got here and had just returned for a day only to run away again. I said something about how I was worried about her and hoped she wasn’t having sex with lots of people, mentioning something offhand about the high rate of HIV/AIDS here. Selinda responded, just as casually, by saying "Polo has it. She has the HIV". All of a sudden and all at once, my heart dropped, my stomach lurched and I felt like I was going to cry. I didn’t, but I continued to feel this sense of hopelessness as she told me how Polo had been running away since she was 12, how she never listened when her friends told her to be careful and stay here and how she was probably not taking her ARV’s. But there was nothing to do in that moment except finish my washing and wave goodbye when she said she had to leave.

Last week my school gave a welcome lunch for me complete with chicken (meat!) and Tassenberg (Classy Tassy), the cheap dry red wine of choice for volunteers and Basotho alike.

Go head 'm'e

 It was really sweet of them, and they even gave me another Seshoeshoe.

Well, not wearing this at home

Naturally, the meal was supposed to start around 12 and actually started around 2, so we were all famished and sat around chatting and having a merry time for a while after we were done eating. All of a sudden, the mood was broken when a student came running up to the entrance of the office, crying so hysterically that she fell to her knees, saying that another student had beat her when she was walking home ("beat" doesn’t just mean an ass-whooping here. It’s the catch-all English word for physical violence). In the moment, the teachers just comforted her and told her to go home and they would deal with it tomorrow. And the next day when both girls were called to the office to sort it out, the other teachers brought up the history of terrible abuse that the girl who had done the beating had, saying, "we know why you ran away. We know you were hurt. We know that’s why you came to this school", and questioned to each other why she would beat another person. And in my head I was just thinking about how you can never assume that what seems obvious to you is obvious to everyone. The teachers didn’t bring her history of abuse in front of a roomful of people because they are insensitive people, but because a) there is hardly any value placed on privacy here and b) very little knowledge of the relationship between how one’s experiences affect what they do e.g. people who are hit are more likely to hit others.

And a few days ago, I was exhausted after a long day typical of what my long days are like here: The grade 5’s had been extremely rowdy during an activity and I was forced to stop the activity and give them boring sentence writing work after trying a multitude of things to get them to pay attention. The grade 4 boys were even harder to engage than usual, and I was feeling the absence of the grade 6 teacher (she left at the end of last week for a job with the ministry of education). I also got the lowdown from the other teachers about how my school principal didn’t prepare for that loss at all (they knew it was coming) or for the quickly approaching maternity leave that the grade 7 teacher would be on. There are no substitutes in the works and certainly no one permanent, I and began to realize that she’s not a very good principal at all. So I was feeling down about all of that and thinking about how much she is failing the grade 7 students, some of whom are already in their late teens, who will take crucial, future-deciding exams at the end of the year, and the grade 6 students, who will next year, by not preparing for these eventualities earlier. And then about all of the ways that the larger school system fails them (sound familiar, America?). So I decided to play some music out of my phone on my walk back, and just like that, 6 pre-teen girls were dancing and walking in step to the Backstreet Boys right along with me. And I was laughing and smiling right along with them.

Also, I sprained my ankle (again) on Sunday. On the down side, my ankle is sprained and I’m off aerobic activity for a bit. But on the upside, I ate a melted iced guava (like a popsicle in a pouch) every day last week, which I was using as an ice pack. (I know it’s hard for all you East-Coasters reading this to imagine a popsicle being an enjoyable thing right now, but it’s real treat in this other side of the world heat I’m experiencing.)

More often than not, I can’t control these things. I can’t make Polo stop running away or take her ARV’s. I can’t reverse the bad decisions that my principal made in the past. I can’t make Basotho value privacy more (nor would I want to). And, try as I might to be less clutzy, that particular trait of mine seems to be a pretty permanent one.

I’m still a generally happy person, but on any given day I am genuinely and sometimes extremely angry, saddened, frustrated, bewildered or what have you. What I’m learning how to do is to both let myself feel whatever emotion I need to, figure out what I need to do to make myself feel better and then move on. I always ask myself what I can do to make whatever it is better in the future. Sometimes it’s foreseeably nothing-if her best friends couldn’t help Polo change her behavior I highly doubt I can. Most of the time it’s just doing the best I can at my tiny piece of a very big puzzle. I’m not equipped to and nor do I want to be the class teacher for grade 6 or 7, but I can be a good English and life skills teacher. I can be a knowledgeable and supportive resource when and if the kiddos need one.

I’m learning to ride the waves. Waves which are more frequent because they are rooted in deep differences in culture and outlook on the world, in a teeny country with the second highest rate of HIV/AIDS in the entire world.

But, tomorrow is always a new day, wherever in the world we are.

Welcome lunch=lace tablecloth

Teachers! (minus grade 7 teach)

Cat brought in to kill a rat. But only slept. All week.

Look, I write letters!

Everyone!

 

White guuurrrlll

A friend of mine recently sent me a letter, which contained, among other news and queries, this question: "so, so far, thoughts on being a white girl abroad?"

Obviously, one’s experience of being a "white girl abroad" depends a whole lot on the specific country and some on the specific white girl.

So, to answer this question in a drawn out and analytical way, this white girls'

experience living in Lesotho is, in a word, complex.

Much of my experience can be summed up by this interaction:

-Me, doing anything at all outside without a hat or an umbrella to shield myself from the suns rays (many Basotho use both at once).

-Any Masotho I come across, usually a woman: "Ausi, where is your hat?! Where is your umbrella?"

-Me, smiling: "I love the sun!"

-Masotho: "Eh! Ausi! Do you want to be black like me?!

And here’s where my answer changes depending on my mood, the day and who I’m talking to:

Sometimes I’m scientific:

"I will never look like you, just like you will never look like me. It’s impossible."

Sometimes I’m cheeky:

"Hell yeah I do!"

Sometimes I’m political:

"Black is beautiful! Don’t believe the lies you’ve been told girl."

And sometimes I just smile and keep walking.

Oftentimes, it’s really nice. I often get favored for the (much roomier) front seat of taxis and the like; things that make the going just a little bit easier. Ya know, white privilege.

 Sometimes I feel like a monkey in a circus. I was doing my weekly grocery shopping in town the other day, and I passed a group of twenty something dudes. Before I even greeted them, one guy literally said, "Speak. Talk." Like I was a machine that one only has to command to make work. Bewildered but indifferent, I just greeted him in Sesotho like normal and kept walking, hearing him talking to my back in Sesotho but not giving enough of a fuck to keep talking to him.

I was buying wine the other day, and this guy comes up to the counter where I’m standing and starts talking to me, as they do, about how he wants to marry me. What I’ve found is that sometimes I just have to be really rude because your basic social cues or even a direct "I’m not interested" that usually work fine in the U.S. often do nothing to deter the bo-ntate (men) here. So he kept talking about how in love with me he was and eventually I literally said, "ugh just go away, stop talking to me." And he ambled his drunk self over to a chair to stare at me from afar instead of from 5 inches from my face, beer soaked breath getting all up in my nostrils. I do what I gotta do.

All the attention, while somewhat different in quality depending on who it’s coming from (e.g. man, woman, or child, young or old) comes from colonialism. Although Lesotho was actually never formally colonized, white missionaries were let in in exchange for protection from the British government (who later sold them out anyway) against the Dutch. And lets not forget that Lesotho is inside South Africa, where apartheid was only abolished 21 years ago. These things seep over. These stains run deep.

So, white means speaking English and money and power. If it’s a man who’s ogling me then the post-colonial internalized racism is mixed with a large dose of patriarchy. Woman means sex and marriage, so put all of those together and most people see me as a one-way ticket out of poverty to the land of the free. So, I get it. I’m under no illusions that all the attention has anything to do with me, specifically, as an individual human being. It’s exhausting, sometimes extremely so, but like so many things here (and everywhere), I find that the best way to approach it is with a sense of humor:

"You want to marry me? Are you sure about that?"

"(laughing) You’re not in love with me! You don’t even know me."

"You want to go to America? Alright, save 20,000 Maloti and check back with me in 2 years" (walks away)

And these interactions only happen outside of my village. In St. Denis, I’m definitely white but I’m no longer special. And life goes on.

Khotso

Boundaries

Living here is a constant process of figuring out what my boundaries are, because things that are rarely questioned at home are constantly questioned or pushed against here.

            One situation that inevitably leads to this struggle is running. I’m a solo runner, through and through. I run for mental peace as well as physical activity, and on the days that I run I wake up at 4:30 in the morning, while it’s still dark out, to avoid interacting with people as well as the scorch of the daylight sun. The reason for this is that daily greetings with passerby that I don’t know are a bit exhausting anyway, full of lavish and therefore empty compliments about my looks, what I’m wearing, my whiteness, whatever. And the few times that I have run later in the day, people (women, men, kids, whoever) inevitably insist on jogging beside me and asking questions about where I’m from and what I’m doing here and telling me they love me. This is the norm here, for me, and it’s all fine and dandy when I’m walking. But when I run I’m just trying to focus on my breath and on clearing my thoughts, not trying to waste oxygen on repetitive, meaningless conversation just so someone I’ll probably never see again can tell so-and-so that they saw the white girl running and whatever else.

            But, even at this early hour, when the only people I see are a few bo-me (women) and bo-ntate (men) walking to the fields and kids walking to school, I’ve still had a few men insist on running with me. The first time this happened, I rolled my eyes a bit but was good-natured because I understand: Basotho are communal people. They hardly do anything alone besides shit and undress. So it makes sense, from this man’s perspective, that I would like some company for my morning exercise. In this instance, I didn’t mind so much, and it was actually nice having a companion when he took my not-at-all subtle signals and stopped talking.

            The second time this happened though, I blurted out “I don’t like to talk when I run Ntate” the moment the man asked me where I was coming from. That shut him up, and again it was nice to have a quiet companion to brave these hills with. But, two things happened during my morning run the following week that are making me rethink this particular boundary, or at least think that I should be more good-natured about it.

            The first was when I saw four students who attend St. Denis High School (my school’s sister school) walking to school just as I was turning around to head home. Of course they started yelling my name: “’M’e Mpho! We are coming with you!” “NOO!!!!!”, I yelled, having already turned around and thus running with my back to them. Not easily deterred, I began to hear the sound of shiny black shoes hitting the pavement, knowing they would catch up to me soon. “Good Morning ‘M’e!”, they greeted me cheerfully. “Lumela. Ha ke batla ho bua ha kea mata (Hello. I don’t like to talk while I’m running), I replied.  “We are getting tired”, they replied a minute later. “So, stop.” I said. “Okay, stop, stop”, the apparent leader of the pack commanded the others just as I began to run down another hill. “Goodbye, ‘M’e!” They cheerfully said in unison, to which I responded with a wave only. The second thing was passing the bo-ntate mentioned earlier, running together, as I was nearing the end of my route! And these were two out of the million times where life has forced me to recognize that it is not, actually, all about me. Before it felt like those men just appeared and started running next to me as an excuse to talk, when in actuality they were running for probably the same reasons as me but definitely not as an excuse to talk to me. And I realized that it would serve me well to be more good-natured about potential running partners. I could have greeted those kids in a friendlier way, especially because I had a feeling from the get-go that they would poop out soon.

            I’m running for me, yes. But I’m also running in Lesotho. And that means more than a fantastic view of the sunrise peeking through green mountains above and dodging cow shit from the day before on the ground below. Sometimes it means saying more to people than the cursory greetings than I would prefer. So for now I’m still turning down running partner offers from people I know (teachers at the high school), but I’m choosing to adjust my attitude about this particular boundary. I’ll run happier for it, in the end.

            The boundaries that I have no qualms about not adjusting are those relating to men. It’s a normal occurrence for men I pass to tell me they love me, say how beautiful I am and ask for my number immediately upon seeing me. It’s exhausting, but it’s harmless. And I have experience with this particular sort of white-minority-celebrity-status-thing (thanks, Ghana!). So I’m good-natured about it, usually responding with a chuckle and a “but you don’t know me”, and continuing on my way. But last Sunday this boundary was crossed in a way I’ve never experienced before.

            I met this guy named Rakomane a few times. He lives in Konkotia, the little town that’s a half an hour walk down the main road from my village, and the interactions were pretty standard (see above). But the second time, when I ran into him while doing some grocery shopping in Konkotia, he was more persistent in the conversation as he accompanied me for part of the walk home. He told me he knew Mike, the volunteer I replaced, and that they were “actual friends”. He asked me if he could visit me, and suggested the upcoming Sunday.  “I’m not comfortable with that now, mohlomong haeba ke u bona ka konkotia hape bua le uena haholo (maybe if I see you at Konkotia and talk to you a lot), I responded. And I definitely didn’t give him my phone number. So when he stopped walking with me, it seemed that he got the point.

            But, he did not. I was having a nice Sunday, sitting on the floor and absorbed in making a teaching aid for life skills

It's a way of visualizing the things (high self-esteem, good role models etc) that can protect us from making poor choices (e.g. not wearing a condom with someone who hasn't been tested and possibly protracting HIV)

CLEARLY I spent a lot of time on this

 listening to the mixture of love ballads and old-school hip hop (e.g. my two faves) that always plays on my favorite radio station on Sundays, the banana pancakes I made for my brother and I that morning happily digesting. And then I heard a knock on the door, and since I was expecting a visit from my counterpart ‘M’e Thekane, I just said “Kena” (come in). And there was Rakomane, greeting me happily, taking off his hat, looking around my hut, small beads of sweat pouring down his neck onto his white and blue button up. I was shocked to see him and shocked at his audacity to show up at my house like that. But my mama’s raised a strong woman, and I had no question about what my response should be when he said “yeah, I thought I would visit you today since you’re at school during the week.” I stood up and retorted, “I didn’t say you could visit me. You need to leave now.” And he did, after which I shut the door firmly behind him, sitting back on the floor and grunting in disgust to myself.

            I really like my teenage host brother Tsepong. He speaks great English and he asks me for advice on girls and we talk about love and all kinds of stuff. He also asks to use my computer and external hard drive (movies!) on a fairly regular basis, and I’ve only said no a few times. He was super close with the volunteer I replaced, and I trust him. But I began to think I should tighten up that boundary when he knocked on my door the other night to ask if Khotso (whom he had given my computer to charge) had returned my computer. Khotso had not returned it, and it was getting dark. I was pissed. If you’re reading this and you know me, you know that it’s damn near impossible for me to hide how I feel, but all I did was sigh and say, “okay, you need to get in touch with Khotso and make sure he has it.” He didn’t have Khotso’s cell number but he returned a few minutes later and, in typical Basotho fashion, informed me that he had seen a man who was walking towards Khotso’s house who would stop in, give him Tsepong’s cell phone number and tell him to call. “Okay”, I replied, and exhaled for approximately 30 seconds. And exhaled again when Tsepong returned a bit later to say that the man had not seen Khotso. There was nothing to be done before going to bed and I didn’t feel like explaining why I was angry (because he definitely did not understand why), so I just told him that he needed to get my computer tomorrow and went to bed. The following day when he did return the computer, I explained that I felt like he was taking advantage of my generosity and being careless with my things. “No, I just didn’t know you don’t leave it at Khotso’s” (I sit outside in the sun and listen to the reggae and South African house that he inevitably has blasting and chat with Khotso or his sister, and I don’t usually leave it). And THEN he said, “can I have those videos of you dancing?” “You were looking through my computer dude?!”, I reply. “Yeah!”, he says, chuckling. “That’s not okay, man. You can’t just look through my shit.” Sighing, he replies, “so I can only watch the movies on the hard drive?” “YES!” I say, and turn to go in the house, rolling my eyes, giving in to the fact that he wasn’t going to understand it or take responsibility that day. So, as teenagers tend to do, he pissed me off and didn’t take responsibility for his actions. I’m not mad at him anymore, but I’m not letting him use my computer nearly as freely for now. And life goes on.

Cultural integration ya’ll. It’s a complex and many layered process.

Khotso (Peace). I hope you’re living, learning and loving (happy late Valentines Day!), wherever you are.

I'm now teaching life skills to 5, 6 and 7 instead of 4,5 and 6 (the 7's need it and understand the concepts WAY MORE) and I'm only with grade 4 after lunch on monday now (praise Jesus) but this is basically my schedule. 

Homemade soup stock! Getting quite crafty these days. 

First Two Weeks at School!

To start with, the good news:
I feel incredibly lucky to have the co-workers I have. There are only six of them and we’re all women; already there’s an easy camaraderie between us. They’re also good teachers overall, and I get the feeling that they really like what they do. My co-teachers in grades four, five and six are also very open to co-teaching (not very common in Lesotho) and are open to constructive criticism, which I’ve gathered from two weeks of observing. You see, I haven’t actually begun fully teaching yet. I’ve been observing and figuring out time-tables and doing some marking and trying my hardest to remember the student’s names.

And also organizing books for our new library! Thanks to a donation from Australia.

Here they are

Books are so exciting. 

 So, I’m learning a lot from the other teachers and gaging what kinds of practices I think should shift a bit. But even when I had a conversation that I was a little nervous about with the grade 6 teacher about why I don’t think it’s the best practice, as far as long-term English comprehension goes, to translate every English word into Sesotho, she was super open to the idea of doing things new and actually thanked me for my presence. It also helped when she saw me do an exhaustive break down of how to correctly use the word “put” the next day (“You cannot just put a book. You must put it in a place”) and saw that with a lot of repetition and checking to make sure that they understand numerous times, they can learn without using much Sesotho. The teachers are also excited and interested about me teaching life skills (self-esteem, identity, sex ed. etc.), which officially is supposed to be taught to every student grade 4 in above but often doesn’t happen. In general, I feel very supported and liked by them.
Also, my class sizes are very manageable, ranging from 20 to 35 students. Some of the other volunteers have classes in the 70-90 student range, and I’m very grateful for my situation. Not just because it makes for easier classroom management and an easier learning environment, but also it means that it will take me weeks instead of months to remember all of their names!
The other good news is that I genuinely enjoy teaching.  I know that it is possible to make the process of helping these kids understand English fun, and nearly every day they make me laugh. I gave a small writing assessment to each class I’ll be teaching just to see where they are and one of the fourth grade papers (where the assignment was to write down their favorite food, its’ color and why they like it) said, “I like KFC. It is brown. I like it because it KFC.”
My time with those crazy kids at GJC and with the ESL students at NSC certainly prepared me for the vast reserves of patience that are required when day after day the majority of the students respond with “yes madam” to the question “do you understand” (when they definitely don’t) and to questions that are not yes or no. It’s all about repetition and figuring out exactly how to reframe a concept in a different way in the moment. It’s a process for sure, but the Peace Corps is nothing if not process oriented.
Okay, the bad. These students’ understanding of English is extremely limited. Most of the students in grade six can’t form a simple present tense sentence, let alone grades 4 and 5. In terms of true understanding, I don’t think most of them really understand much beyond simple commands and requests. There are quite a few students with undiagnosed but definitely present learning disabilities, and there is hardly any support for disabilities in the country, let alone at my school. This explains why there are 16 year olds in grade six. There are also a whole lot of students who are single and double parent orphans, whose parents died of HIV/AIDS. I haven’t yet seen kids getting beat at school, but I probably will.
But, the Peace Corps and the volunteers who came to training did a good job of breaking down the big, structural reasons for these things. Providing the “why”, so to speak. Officially, beginning in Grade 4, teachers are supposed to teach in English only. This is obviously a jarring policy for a student that is used to hearing primarily Sesotho in their life both in and out of school. So, to help bridge the gap of understanding, English teachers teach in Sesotho. This makes the process of understanding shorter and easier for both the students and the teachers, but the problem is that students must have a solid understanding of English to pass the exam to get into high school (Thanks, British colonialism!). And if they don’t pass the first time, which close to fifty percent of students don’t, they repeat and repeat or drop out entirely, particularly the boys. So I understand why the situation is as it is. My job is to work with the other teachers to create a culture of learning that facilitates genuine understanding of English.

So yeah, that’s the deal. I’m pushing boulders for sure for the next two years, but as with any similar job, the only way to go about it is the small, day-to-day tasks. It helps that I’m a process-oriented person by nature, so I don’t get caught up in thinking about all of these gigantic issues. I’m just here, right now. Two years is short in the span of a lifetime but it’s long enough to see progress (or not), and that’s why I’m here. My only job is to work with my co-teachers to figure out how to be the best teachers we can be. Oh, and to show them the importance of high self-esteem and safe sex. That’s it.

I’m kind of surprised at myself that I’m not more freaked out about what I’m up against, but I’m not. I’m just excited about the process.

On Monday, I’ll start really teaching. Wish me luck!

Khotso and much love.

Also...

check out this dope cow jaw bone I found. 

This is my host brother Tsepong, borrowing a donkey to carry his load. 

Liperekisi! (Peaches!) Ripe for the picking, at my school. I eat like 7 a day. 

This is the path from my village down to the main road. 

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.