Site Placement!

Alright, so, it's real and surreal. I now know exactly where I'll be living for the next two years, what I'll be doing and who I'll be working with. I visited last week, and I'm thrilled.

Baithaopi (volunteers) heading out for the week!

Thabo

I'll be living in the north, in the Butha-Buthe region, in a village called Tau liarora/St. Dennis, which is also the name of the primary school I'll be working at. It's a medium sized school, about 250 students (or learners, as they're often called here), but only four real teachers. One student who graduated last year has been volunteer teaching there, and then I'll start for the new year at the end of January. I'll be teaching English and life skills (which is sort of an expansive sex-ed) to grades 4, 5, and 6. So, there's definitely a lack of teachers at the school, and it'll be nuts when I get there as I start to learn what teaching in Lesotho actually looks and feels like. And figuring out how to co-teach will be interesting-it's not a common practice in Lesotho at all, but the Peace Corps really dissuades primary school teachers from teaching on their own because that's not very sustainable. The reality is that many people don't co-teach, but some people do. So I'm hoping my co-workers are receptive at least, though it probably won't end up looking like what I imagine as co-teaching (lesson planning together, sharing all responsibilities etc). I really like them. They're all women and all friendly at least thus far. And I also had a long conversation with one of the teachers at the high school who went with some of her students to a glow camp (Girls empowerment and HIV education stuff) and is starting a girls youth group at the high school, so I'll be working with her on that too. It's cool because it's not my project or anything, I'm just getting involved because I'm interested. So yeah. good things. The only 40 minutes-an hour by taxi from the Butha Buthe camp town, but its definitely still rural.

So yeah. good things. Super excited to be done training and move there on December 18th!
Check it out!

Seen on the walk to school

Children

Written on 11.13.14 at 7:41 PM.

Having an adorable, ridiculous, loving two year old to come home to really makes my day. Today my m’e’ told me that she saw other Baithaopi (volunteers) walking on the road and Kabello ran up yelling “MPHO!!”, even though I wasn’t with them. White people? Must be Mpho. I get it.

            She’s also a testament that developmentally, two year olds everywhere are largely the same, independent of culture. She stubbornly refuses to sit on a blanket or pillow when sitting at the kitchen table, and so is eye-level with the table, which makes eating kind of difficult. But I think she likes getting papa or yogurt or whatever all over her, because afterward she licks food off her hands with a big smile, clearly basking in the experience. I stayed home from training on Monday to recover from having diarreah all weekend, and my M’e brought her in my room to visit. She hopped up on my bed, sat on my stomach and looked me right in the eye, her grin showing bits of the Russian (hot dog) she held in her left hand, her eyes gleaming. A few weeks ago, we were all eating dinner while Kabello cruised around the kitchen floor on her belly, almost like she was swimming, giggling her so-cute-its-almost-cartoonish laugh. Who knows what kind of swimmer she’d be if there was easy access to any body of water here. The word in Sesotho for funny is Qabola (click at the beginning), and I tell her she’s Qabola every single day.

            But like all children here, she’s way independent. Not just in her skill set-feeding herself, carrying her little chair around, speaking (we’re at about the same level of Sesotho, which is great), but in her freedom. Last Saturday morning we were all eating breakfast on the little wall in front of the kitchen, and Kabello spills or pours out her coffee (yes. She drinks coffee) on my M’e. And of course there are many different parenting styles and family situations in the U.S., but no West Mt. Airy parent that I know would react by saying “Oh Kabello, enough. Just go to Ntabisang (the neighbor girl) Bye bye.” And she and Tlu Ke Sang, the 8 year old, went happily.

            Last Sunday, Thabo and Brittany and Jordan took a little walk through the pine forest next to the school where we do our training. It leads to this amazing donga (super deep ravine), with rocks and grassy, sheep covered hills on either side, and it was so nice just to walk in the pines. At some point we were sitting on some rocks, chatting, when this small figure in the distance starts yelling to us “lumela, lebitso le hau o mang”. It takes us awhile to even hear her (though I assumed before she got closer that it was a boy, since they are most often the ones out herding/chillin with the animals while they graze). We start to answer her questions, still yelling, barely able to see her or hear what she’s saying, because she refuses to get closer. Then she just yells “ARE YOU HAPPY???!!!!!! I LOVE YOU!” It was really the best, sitting on these rocks overlooking grassy hills, having a child screaming to inquire about our happiness. We were laughing about the whole situation for a while after that.

And today, as usual, kids were peering in through the windows at our language class. And while we were standing outside, getting ready to walk to the hub for training, they stand and stare. I’d say thirty or more kids just standing in a big group, staring at us, not saying a word.  I get it-we’re new and different. Five weeks may seem like a long time to us, long enough to get used to seeing the Americans. But I guess not. Sometimes I wonder what they are thinking: “Better watch and see what weird thing they do next! They’ve already sat on the stoop in skirts and spoken Sesotho and drunken coffee and eaten so many cookies! What do they look like when they stand up? What do they have in those backpacks? What are they saying? Why do they speak so fast? Why is their skin so white?” (Not every volunteer is white, but everyone in my village is.) I don’t know enough Sesotho yet to carry on a conversation, so the only thing to do is laugh and change locations. One thing is for sure, I’m going to learn as much from these kids as they’ll learn from me, both in and out of the classroom.

Kabello le bohobe

Moments.

HVV Vist

Two weeks ago, we all went to different parts of Lesotho to visit current volunteers and get a sense of what it's like to actually be a Peace Corps volunteer, from the living situation to the teaching to the integrating into the community to the long-ass taxi rides. I visited Laura in Motete and it was so nice to see her hut and eat some amazing food (yes you can eat well) and see her teach. To hear about how scared she was when she first got there and to see her now, about to leave after two years, happy and speaking Sesotho and integrated into her community like a pro. (She just COS'ed).

View from her house, before our hike. 

Ntate Moramong, you are the most dope. 

In front of the beautiful mural she painted for her school. 

Pitso!
Last week we had our Pitso, or community gathering, in order to officially introduce ourselves, in Sesotho, to the chief and community members. And after a lot of waiting, per usual, and our mini speeches (Hello, how are you, I live with the Ntlaba family etc), we danced and sang. There is a big singing culture here.

Ha Ramonyaloe! 

With our beautiful m'e's. 

Best m'e. 

The "traditional village" that we didn't tour because of rain. But that's how all rondavels used to look.

Baithaopi (volunteers).

Ausi Lalleli. 

King Moshoeshoe I house

That horribly beautiful plant from Jumanji also lives in Lesotho. 

The mountain that the traditional hat is modeled after.

Wild horses came out of nowhere. Incredible. 

Ha Ramenyaloe Bo'me singing and dancing.

Thaba Bosiu 

A few weeks ago we hiked up Thaba Bosiu, and it was the closest I've come here to a spiritual experience. This is the place where the first king of Lesotho, King Moshoeshoe lived. It's also the place where the Basotho nation was formed. Its so humbling living in such an ancient place, where some of the first people to walk the earth lived (the San).  Anyway, I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves. 

Pictures got out of order and I don't have the patience to fix it OH WELL. Khotso. 

language

10/24/14 9:00 pm

Language

Sesotho can be hard to speak, but it’s easy to construct. Many sounds I have to repeat a lot in order to say correctly, and certain phrases turn out to be accidental tongue twisters. For example, yesterday I learned how to say I need to wash something: Ke hlaka le hlapa moroho (I need to wash the greens). The hl sound is similar to the “sh” sound, but with more air between the teeth. I realized that it’s impossible to do unless you smile, which was kind of a neat discovery.

Other sounds I just remember as a rule, because they don’t sound the way they are spelled. For example, “tl” makes a “kl” sound, as in “hantle”, which means good. The good thing about it is that unlike English where there is a word for every single part of the sentence, phrases in Sesotho often smush parts together. For example, to say “Do you like to study Sesotho?”, it’s simply “u rata ithuta Sesotho?” I love Sesotho, and I also have the best teacher.

"I'm a California girl. Shat man". Best. 

What always fascinates me is how much languages represent the cultures they come from. One of the things that was brought up in a cross-cultural session last week was about how Basotho greet people by their titles to show respect while Americans don’t usually differentiate as a way to show respect. It’s common for women to say “don’t call me ma’am, I’m not an old lady!” But here, people are always ‘M’e (mother, literally), N’tate (father), abuti (brother) or ausi (sister) after the greeting. It’s very rude to not greet someone as you pass, and so learning the greetings are the first step to learning the culture.

Language also varies depending on who you are. Because I’m white, most people who see me for the first time greet me with “hello” instead of “lumela”, until I respond in Sesotho, which invariably draws a hearty laugh and/or a smile. Today yet another of my m’e’s sibling and their kids came by to see me (it’s all sort of confusing right now who is related to who and how because it’s such a communal culture-the first three nights I was here I thought I had 4 host sisters as opposed to two because the same three older girls were in my kitchen when I came for dinner. Turns out two of them are neighbors. My m’e’ is a grandmother and is raising my two ausi’s). Anyway, I met another host brother, who is ten and very playful, and he started speaking to me in English until my ‘M’e (bless her) admonished him to speak Sesotho to me! Then I hung out with him and my older host sister, who is eight, in my room. We listened to Frank Ocean and they colored. Then my abuti was like “do you have photos on your computer?” Turns out he speaks amazing English and goes to a really good school in Maseru where they have computers, the likes of which I probably will not see in my time here. Chalkboards and paper and creativity is what I’ll be working with.

Host sibs. Showing off coloring book art. 

weirdos. love. 

Anyway, it is 10:00 here, which is literally the latest I’ve stayed up in my 2+ weeks here, so it is definitely bedtime. Tonight I won’t forget my earplugs, and the bat that’s stuck in my roof won’t keep me awake. Khotso.

And so it begins...

And so it begins 10/10/14 9:00 PM

“Oh I can do that”, I offer, as I see my m’e (mother) bend to sweep the stoop in front of my door upon leaving the latrine this morning. “No, you go wash”, she commands with a slight smile. The Basotho value cleanliness above host daughters who may or may not know how to sweep the right way being sort of helpful. So I respond with “Hantle” (okay), as I laugh and obediently go into my room to retrieve my soap.

To begin, Lesotho is an astonishingly beautiful place.

Twister cloud. 

Add caption

Dry fields of Ha Ramonyaloe, the village I'm in during training. 

I realized yesterday that what with the mass of dirt that covers my body by the end of the day, it makes much more sense to bathe at night than in the morning. When I went outside to dump my wash basin out and brush my teeth, I was transfixed by the huge white moon sneaking in and out of the clouds, only slightly lighting up the courtyard and the hills that lay beyond. Mornings, my m’e knocks on my door sometime between 5:55 and 6 am and calls “Mpho”, which is the Basotho name she gave me that means gift. “M’e” I respond, and roll out of bed, stretch, and bring my pee bucket out to empty it into the latrine. It is early and therefore cool and not very windy, so there is a calm and a freshness to the air that I so enjoy. Mountains and cliffs dot the horizon, and it looks like all I would need to do to get there is walk a few feet down the rolling hills of red rocks and sand, until I realize they are much farther than they appear. The sun is bright, and the dogs look well rested and therefore not as scary as they appear in the night what with their barks and territorial growls/fights. One of my ausi (sisters) walks shyly by me, rubbing her eyes, responding when I greet here but never talking to me first. I am still new, and this is the first American that has ever lived with her or in her village.

naptime.

I wash up and dress and am sitting at the breakfast table by 6:30 or 6:45 at the very latest. My m’e rushed me the first day, saying that I needed to move much faster, even though it was only 6:30 then and I needed to be at school (a five minute walk) at 8. I don’t question her though. She’s just looking out. Training has been and will be very busy. We’ve done two Sesotho classes in the morning so far, and my teacher, M’e Madineo, is wonderful and energetic. Besides that, we’ve done various training sessions on the education system in Lesotho, Peace Corps expectations and policies, and things we should know as teachers. We’ve gotten some shots (rabies shot on Saturday!) and talked to many Peace Corps Lesotho staff and current volunteers casually and formally about us, what we expect out of our service and any concerns we may have. Everyone is really kind and warm, laughing loudly but never cruelly when we make mistakes in Sesotho or just when we speak it at all.

I really want to get good at Sesotho. Before coming here I expected that just by virtue of being here I would be fluent by the time my service ended, but after talking to some current volunteers I realized that that is not the case. After PST (pre-service training), I will need to really study and actively learn if I want to know more than the basics (greetings, shopping, names for food etc). And even though I may never use it again, I want to be able to communicate with people here as deeply as possible. Tonight after dinner my host mom taught me the names for all the major body parts while I wrote them in my small notebook that I carry around. My favorite one is “dibuno” which means butt.

It’s a very windy night here, and between the long days and the paraffin lamp, I go to bed between 9:15 and 9:30. So, the 6 am wake-up knock isn’t so bad at all.

I’m loving Lesotho.

Khotso. (Peace).

My yard at dusk. 

Off I go!

It is 8:28 AM on the morning of October 6th. My incredible boyfriend and I just parted ways. In four hours or so, I will meet the other volunteers who I will be spending all my time with for the next three or so months. I just had a huge breakfast of pancakes and sausage and eggs because I probably won't be seeing the likes of that kind of breakfast food for a long long while. I'm already dressed in a "cool elementary school teacher" outfit for staging later on today. So now all I have to do is wait.
Thinking back on how this (very long) process has been for me and the myriad of places I imagined being placed in, I never thought Lesotho. Not even once. I fully expected to be in a Central or South American village speaking Spanish, or sweating it out over in West Africa. I imagined tropical islands surrounded by the bluest water and learning French in Algeria or Morocco. I worried about being placed in what I envision as the arctic Eastern Europe. But none of those places surfaced as a reality. Instead I'm flying to a teeny mountainous country surrounded by South Africa, where people speak Sesotho and wear blankets in the winter and ride horses in the highlands. I am continually amazed and impressed with the way life surprises us, always reminding me of how little control I actually have over the outcomes.
When I got my invitation to serve as a Primary English teacher in Lesotho, I read through all the descriptions about the job, the country and what the reality of living in Lesotho would be like very carefully. Winters would be frigid and summers hot, without indoor heating or ventilation to temper the reality of the outdoors. The people would be very poor and would be affected either directly or indirectly with HIV and AIDS. It would be mountainous. Cows are sacred. Honestly, my first inclination was to decline. Ask for a different location and wait a few months longer. Avoid living in a country with winter at all cost. But, almost immediately, these feelings were followed by an overwhelming and very present need to accept. The whole reason I chose to do the Peace Corps was to grow. To have the experience of living in another country for an extended period of time and to open myself up to all the personal growth that comes with new and challenging situations. So in the end, I saw my invitation as a divine offer to do exactly what I set out to do, winter and all.
I've gone through the mill of emotions over these last two years regarding this (insane) process. I've been sad, ecstatic, nervous, doubtful, relieved and overjoyed. But as I sit in my cozy living room writing this, all I feel is ready. Ready for the change, ready to move, ready to start a new job and meet new people and live in a new place and learn a new language. I'll miss everyone here in Philly and beyond dearly-I'm so incredibly blessed to have the support system and family tree that I do.
But it's time. Time to do what I've been talking about and angst-ing about for too long. It's time to go to Lesotho.

My next post will be from the Mountain Kingdom, in at least a month if not more, cuz I'm gonna be insanely busy for the next few months.

Peace and be well.