so, google just spazzed and lost a post i'd just written. that sucks. will write another later

so a couple frustrating/baffling occurences last week:

i saw a primary school kid (not one of mine) drop kick what looked to be an 8 week old puppy. seriously, he picked the terrified little puppy up, dropped it, and kicked it. i yelled at him and he ran off laughing. i will say that one of my girls actually went over, picked the puppy up, and tried to comfort him. this girl, mamello, really likes my puppies, and plays with them when she can. so maybe learning to play with them has helped her to be more sympathetic to dogs. maybe my having the dogs is a good learning experience for the kids, and a lesson on how to treat animals.

also, one of my girls here, who is around 12, got into a fight with another one of my girls, probably about the same age, and bit her in the back. why? i don't know. they are a little old to be doing that kind of thing, though.

i've started my after school study program, so now from 3 until 6 i help kids who have homework with their homework. i eventually want this to be something where all the kids come on time to study or read, even if they don't have homework, but we're taking baby steps. it has been interesting to see who comes, and to see some of the kids brighten up and make an extra effort as soon as someone shows an interest in them. i helped one little boy a couple days in a row and he came up to me on the third day at the beginning of study and gave me a huge hug. it was really sweet.

yesterday a couple of my older girls stayed home from school claiming to have swine flu. i can't believe the house mothers actually let them skip school. these girls were up and walking around like any other kid. i started talking with the house mothers and they explained that they have to be very careful with the children because they have all been through trama. i thought this was interesting, and explained a lot about why the children at the home are so undisciplined. yes, the kids here are all traumatized: they are orphans, many have been rejected by their families, some of our girls were abused before coming here. that doesn't mean that they don't need structure. so i talked with the house mothers about setting up after school study programmes. these don't exist here now. basically the children come home from school whenever they like, play around, and then suddenly realize at about 9 pm that they need to start doing homework. so they go to bed late and are tired the next day. and goodness knows what they do between the end of school and dinner. so now they have to come home after school and study. i'm trying to get at least the primary school students finished with homework before evening devotions and dinner (this is at 6 pm). we'll see how well this works. many ideas here are operative for a few days, and then the authority figures get lazy about enforcing the rules and everything reverts back to how it was. i'm hoping the house mothers will keep working with me on this. i can't watch all 54 kids study at once. i need their help

other than that i'm continuing with my library, with teaching kids to read, and i've been to a couple meetings. and i've met an amazing child. we have a little eleven year old girl here who was living with her aunt and uncle until the authorities found out that she was being molested and took her here. the uncle was taken to jail, which is not always done. many times the man will just get away with these things. anyways, this little girl actually went to court last week, stood up in front of everyone there, and told her story. she's an amazing child. i'm not sure how okay she is. she acts like a normal child, plays, interacts with the other kids here really well, so i hope she's ok emotionally. she's really smart, too. she's comes to me for extra maths work, and sometimes just sits on her own to read. most children here don't. anyways, it came out at court that the aunt knew what was happening to her and didn't do anything, so now this little girl has got to go back to court in a couple weeks to tell everything again. i hope she'll be ok.

oh, and we had an austrian guy here for a couple weeks. he was great with the kids and really handy. i hardly ever saw him because he was always off either playing with the kids or fixing something. he really bonded with our 12 year old here who can neither walk nor talk. the austrian guy actually made the kid a stationary bike to help strengthen his legs (we are trying to get him walking now). it's really sweet.

i've heard a couple great police stories in the past few days that warrant sharing. both are about the mohale's hoek police:

the first happened a while ago, before i came to lesotho. the police had made a big drug bust and had bags full of marajuana to use as evidence at the trial. after the trial though, they had to do something with all of the weed and decided that they should just destroy all the evidence. they piles all of the bags together just outside the police compound and proceeded to burn all of it. bill, my supervisor's husband, was telling me this. he said that the wind was blowing just right that day, so that most of the camptown could smell it and ended up just a wee bit happier and more relaxed that normal. way to go, police.

then yesterday, a police car was driving through the camptown with its siren blaring. unfortunately there are a lot of potholes in the camptown roads. everytime a pot hole was hit, the car would come to a screeching halt, the siren would go off, the driver would go through the pot hole, and then the siren would go back on. just imagine a siren blaring for two seconds, then a pot hole being hit, siren goes off, three seconds or so to get over the pot hole, siren back on. repeat down an entire road. absolutely ridiculous.

so we have thieves at mants'ase. some of the villagers are coming in the night. and what are they stealing, you ask? clothes? no. food? no. chicken poo. we have villagers coming into the orphanage at night to steal chicken poo. and what are they doing with their chicken poo? fertilizer? no. they are feeding it to the cows. there is a small amount of grain in the chicken poo. there are also worms in the chicken poo. no wonder all the cows end up diseased!

hmm. what else is going on in my life? my dogs are growing. some of the kids are becoming less afraid of them. i had a major breakthrough with one of the 6 year olds, moeketsi. he not only comes near the dogs willingly now, he will pet them with a big grin on his face. other than that, i've started tutoring one kid in maths. and i'm doing some intensive english reading practice. i had a 15 year old reading a book made for a 1st grade reading level here. it took a few hours to get through sentences like "some sharks are big", but she did it, and i think she felt a sense of accomplishment. i'm realizing that the kids are never taught the sounds of letters, so many of them will look at a word like "big" and say "table" or something, just as a guess. so i'm going to start going back to the basics with most of the kids, to teach them the sounds of letters and letter combinations.

i will start writing in my blog again. i will, gosh darn it!

so, i got back in to lesotho on thursday. the flight was pretty good, other than a screaming baby sitting near me. the people sitting to my right and left were normal-sized, the food was palatable (for the most part), etc.

i spent friday in maseru, hung out with some of the new volunteers (at least one is a total nerd - hooray!), played on the interwebbies. for with whom i've discussed pride and prejudice and zombies, i watched the trailer for the sequel book sense and sensibility and sea monsters. you know, i'm a little skeptical, and it's written by a different author than p&p&z, but we'll see...

i left for mohale's hoek on saturday. popped by the airport to see off an american girl named dominique. she came to visit mants'ase and liked it so much that she's going back to the states for a month and then returning to work at the orphanage for a year. i think this will be part of her university program. so, there will be another american there, and she seems to have some cool ideas. i'm excited to be working with her.

got back to mohale's hoek. stayed in town at barbara and bill's. they decided, saturday afternoon, that we should take a drive around the maphutseng valley because it's right behind mohale's hoek camp town, it's really pretty, and we can see the last of the snow. unfortunately, the last of the snow makes the mud road slippery. we hit a pretty sketchy patch going down hill. the car slid most of the way down sideways. this is probably not a safe way to drive. but after that, everthing was cool.

my dogs have grown an enormous amount. one of them (my former ewok) is no longer recognizable as his former self. i think he will actually end up being a pretty dog. it looks like maybe he has some spaniel or golden retriever in his history somewhere. the other is starting to form a ridge down his neck. hints of a rodesian ridgeback, perhaps?

i made it back out to the orphanage today, and hit the ground running. i had to catch up with all the kids, then i read the wizard of oz to some children while others were bathing. then i had to unpack, after which i had to sit down and have a chat with a kid who'd stabbed another kid in the butt last night. apparently they'd just been playing. so i got to talk about the dangers of playing with knives to a 15-year old boy.

oh, and we got a new girl at the orphanage, making our numbers now 54, or 4 over capacity. she's 11, and an abuse victim. so i met her, too.

and now i'm about to refresh my physics skills so i can help one of the girls here actually pass science this year. wish me luck.

So, I’m getting really bad with this blog thing. I think it’s been about a month and a half since I last wrote. In that time we’ve elected a new president (hooray), had Thanksgiving (we had stuffing – someone’s mother sent it from the states), and I’ve been to my second Cherryfest, among other things. Cherryfest was, once again, a bunch of boers with mullets, women with crazy make-up, and other such classiness. Seriously, a woman standing in line in front of me to get into the festival had bright purple eyeshadow all the way up to her eyebrows. Does that ever look good? But there was a lot of free samples of alcohol, and I got my hazelnut liqueur and some cherry liqueur, which is exciting. And I found tapenade, which I haven’t had in FOREVER. It was really exciting. Food generally excites me. Well, good food at least. While up north for cherryfest, I stayed at a volunteer’s house, which was cool because I really like her and don’t get to see her too much. Traveling north is a pain, and expensive. Taxi drivers are really annoying. On the way back down I had two taxi conductors fighting over who got to take me in their taxis. My arms were literally being pulled in different directions. But I made it home, so that’s good.

I’ve also been working at mant’sase Children’s home in qhalasi for the past couple months, trying to get their library functional. Mant’sase is an orphanage run by an ngo, and so it actually does get funding for things, and they have a new director who seems really cool, so I’ve got a lot of hope for the library. I have a lot of ideas of what I want to do with it, and I might actually be able to get them done. And there will definitely be someone there to run the library. I might also help with the eccd there. The new director was a teacher at a Montessori school, so she’s really focused on getting the school working well.

Things at my actual site aren’t so successful. People in my village are kinda lazy, and I honestly have no idea why they wanted a volunteer other than as a status symbol, unless they were hoping to get money out of me. This is actually a big problem with volunteers. Organizations apply for volunteers in the hope that 1. they will fix all problems without asking the locals to actually do any work 2. give a bunch of money or 3. will be status symbols to make them look good. It’s kinda reverse racism, and it makes me feel really awkward, “look at us, we have a white person here.” In short, I’m not sure how much work I’m going to be doing in the future with my village. I’m having a meeting with my support group about this hopefully tomorrow, and I’ve talked with peace corps and they might be coming out after the holidays to talk with my village. Basically this all started because I have been trying to hold meetings to get the library in my village functional, to find someone to run the library, and no one is coming to the meetings. On top of that, my support group said they wanted an organization called new start to come out for an hiv education and testing day. So I met with the organization, spent a couple weeks getting things organized, talking with my support group, getting them to make announcements in the village, etc. and after all that no one, not even my support group members who originally said they wanted new start to come, showed up. And I’m getting tired of working when no one else wants to put in the effort. The one exception was the kids in the village. I wanted to put on a play about hiv and aids for the education day, and so my ‘m’e helped me to translate an applicable story into Sesotho and I had my kids act out the play. They got really excited about it, memorized their lines, came to rehearsals, got costumes, and even began to write their own play. And that’s great. So I might try to organize another hiv education day in January (with the help of the ministry of health) for them if nothing else, because they should be able to show off their work.

I spent a few days this past week at a friend’s site helping to paint a map of the world on the wall of a school. I actually got to draw northern Russia onto the wall because no one else would both draw and get up on the slightly sketchy ladder. I’ll just say that Russia now looks a little unique. But, as most kids here can’t even find Lesotho on a map I guess it doesn’t matter too much.

And I had to buy a dress for a wedding I’m going to on the 27th. My host sister invited me to her friend’s wedding. I’m a little nervous about going because apparently the friend is really excited about me coming and keeps asking if I’m really going to show up. I’m worried I’m going to be put on show as the honorary white girl. Hopefully not. And I loathe shopping. To anyone who knows me, that shouldn’t come as a surprise, but shopping for a dress was a wretched experience. I found one that was ok, and only r110 (about $11) but was strapless, and I was really going for something kinda conservative, as I figure I’m going to attract enough attention anyways. And I have a hilarious tan line. So then I had to find a wrap of some sort, and one that would match my slippers, which are silver (and my favorite part of the outfit). I’m sure there will be pictures of this monstrosity. So yeah, I’m going to the wedding for Christmas. It’s actually in south Africa, in qwaqwa (sp?) just north of Lesotho. Wish me luck

ann

Sorry, I haven’t written a blog in about a month, and I really can’t remember a lot of the past month. I fail at life. So, update as far as I can remember:

October ended up being relatively busy. Been teaching still. Finished up with the standard 7 kids and they’ve taken their exit exams for primary school. They’ll find out their results in December I think. So now I’m just teaching a few classes in secondary school. I also am really trying to get the library going in my area. I’d kinda found someone to work the library, but I wasn’t too sure about her, and it turns out that she’s not going to work out, so now I have to find someone else. In the mean time, I’d had a library appreciation day. A couple other volunteers helped me. Basically we went to the library and invited village kids to join us along the way. Then we acted out the three little pigs. I’d made noses and tails out of construction paper, and some fake bricks. I was the wolf. It was cute. Then we went over how to properly remove and replace books on the bookshelves. We turned it into a game. We explained everything (put book back gently, spine out, in the proper place, etc.), asked a couple questions, and then made two teams and had a relay race to see which team could properly replace the books first. Then we made noisemakers out of toilet paper rolls. The kids collected small pebbles which we put into the toilet paper rolls. Then we closed the toilet paper rolls with tape. Then I read a book and every time that they heard the word “cat” they had to shake the noisemakers. Then we went over general rules of the library. Then I read a really simple book to them. While I was reading it I had the other volunteers hide easter eggs which contained different parts of the story. The kids had to find the eggs and then put the story in the correct order.

And then the woman who had been chosen to run the library never showed up to the library. So I decided to have a pitso, a community gathering, to discuss the library and its importance to the education of the children in the village. I called the meeting and held it, and at that time realized that no one seemed to know what a library was. I should have thought of this before, but it just never occurred to me. So on November 28th I’m holding a library education day for the adults in the village, to show them the library and explain to them the importance of a library to their children, to try to convince them that it is important to find someone to work the library, and that it is worth it to pay a small amount of money for access to the library, which will go to the librarian who will hopefully be hired. No one wants to run the library without being paid. And why we could go to the library immediately, as we were holding the pitso, I don’t know. We were maybe 50 yards from the library and I could’ve showed them everything then, but we had to plan another meeting. Maybe this will be a good thing, though. It’ll give me a chance to organize some information on the benefits of a library. We did decide, though, that my support group is going to be the library committee as well. Actually, I had no say in this decision and I’m not exactly sure what that means. Maybe that they will be in charge of finding someone to run the library, and in charge of keeping the library clean? Not sure.

So that’s one project that I have in the works. Another is my trash cans. The project I proposed months ago to paint the trash cans in mohale’s hoek camptown with hiv/aids facts has finally gone through. Kind of. The national aids commission agreed to pay for half the cost, and they never gave me a list of approved phrases. Since I’m going through them I have to use their approved phrases. I’d requested a list three weeks ago because I wanted to check over the phrases and decide for myself which I wanted to have painted. This would ensure that no phrases would be painted which would announce silly things like, “sharing toothbrushes will give you hiv”. This is actually posted in maseru. And yes, it’s probably a good idea not to share a toothbrush, but not because it will give you hiv. For other sanitary reasons. Anyways, I never got the list. I did however get the rest of the funding. This is amazing. I went to a german organization, ded, and talked with a guy that I’ve met around mohale’s hoek. Less than 24 hours later I got the rest of the money. Seriously, it took me five months to hear back from nac and I heard back from ded in less than 24 hours. Sometimes I really love western organization. Problem now is that the money is supposed to go to the guy who’s painting the trash cans, and I have to get rid of the money by the end of the month. I really can’t give him the money though until I give him the job, and I can’t give him the job until I get the approved phrases. And my contact at nac is never in her office and I’m beginning to think that she’s avoiding me on the phone. Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh. Hopefully I’ll get up with her soon.

I’m also trying to start planning an hiv/aids day in my village in december. Actually I’d love to make it a general health day. I want to have some of my older kids put on a play about making good choices. I wouldn’t mind starting a kind of acting club for my kids, actually. Might give them something to do in the afternoons other than have sex. Anyways, there’s a set of comic books created by unicef that are all about this girl living in Africa who’s name is sara. Some of them are about her staying in school, and the importance of educating females, some are about hiv and aids, and others are about making good decisions. I want to have my kids act out one of them in December, and then maybe work on another one for next year. My host sister also apparently has some good songs about making choices, self-confidence, etc., so we could have a choir singing some songs. And I want to get an organization out called new start, which does hiv/aids education and testing. I want to cover not just methods of transmission, but also care for people with hiv or aids. And I would love to get a nurse out for the pre-schoolers just to talk about general health issues like washing hands after using the toilet and before eating, and looking both ways before crossing the street. I was supposed to meet with the support group this past week but they canceled, so hopefully we’ll meet this week, and this will work out.

And I’m working on a couple things for school. One is trying to get help for my students with disabilities. There is nominally a special education department in the ministry of education to help kids with either physical or mental disabilities, but it includes one woman for the entire southern region of Lesotho. So getting up with her is pretty difficult. But the ministry is also supposed to help children by providing them with glasses or hearing aids if they are double orphans, or children with parents who are too poor to help. And I have a couple of students with vision problems who come from very poor families. They sit in the front of class and still can’t see the board, which makes it a little difficult to learn. And I have one student who is mentally challenged. The teachers pass her every year because they don’t know what else to do with her. There is a school for the disabled in butha-buthe, in northern Lesotho, which teaches the students not only a general education but also crafts so that they might be able to earn money for themselves one day. I’m trying to get this girl at my school an interview with the woman from the special education department of the ministry to see if I can get her into the school. Another problem with this is that the girl in a double orphan living with her grandmother who is convinced that the girl is not mentally challenged but that she is the victim of witchcraft. And I really want to help this girl and get her somewhere safe because mentally challenged girls tend to be targets of sexual assault. Even more so than other girls, who are also targets. It’s really sad. Sam, a volunteer near me, actually got into a fight (verbal) with some of her male students over whether kidnapping a girl and forcing her to marry was rape. sigh.

I’m also trying to put together a book of information on job opportunities available to different levels of education. If you pass standard 7 you’re qualified for this job, if you pass your jc’s your qualified for these jobs, cosc, university, etc. I’m also finding information on different further education opportunities: university, teacher’s college, trade school, etc. I’m doing this because very few students seem to have any thought for their futures. I know that a lot of students in the states don’t know when they’re fifteen what they want to do with their lives, but most have at least thought about it. We grow up reading books and dreaming about becoming astronauts or veterinarians or the president or whatever. Few kids here think about that. Few people here seem to be able to plan for the future. I want to get my kids thinking about what their options are, about what they might be interested in doing with their lives, and about what they need to do to get there. Hopefully this will motivate a couple students to work harder in school.

Lastly, I’m going to start working some at an orphanage nearby (kind of). Mantsase is maybe about 25 – 30 km away and is run by sentebale, which incidentally also funds the school for the disabled in butha-buthe. The orphanage just got a new director and I ran into her in town a few weeks ago, talked with her for about 5 minutes, and told her I would be interested in doing some work with her as a seem to have a lot of extra time on my hands. I went out to the orphanage to meet with her yesterday and we talked for a while. I said I would be interested in helping her get the library there functional – organized, decorated, educate the kids on how to use a library. I would be doing this at the same time I would be working with the library at ha thaba bosiu, so I could bounce different ideas between the 2 places. The difference it that the library at mantsase as it seems will be more mine and will be better funded. The library at ha thaba bosiu was developed by the volunteer before me, and so I came in with it already there. I came in in the middle of the project and it’s difficult to continue another person’s project when you don’t have a clear understanding of what was being done before you left. With the library at the orphanage I will have more free reign to decorate it and to organize it as I want. I might also have more funding because the orphanage gets money from foreign organizations, and I might be able to use some of that. Sam and I were talking this morning about the potential for this library if we can get some money for specific projects, and even for some specific books. For example, a Velcro wall. Then we could put up temporary games like sodoku, which could be continually changed. Or weekly projects: post up everything you can find out about volcanoes. There a lot of potential there. I’m meeting with the director, Barbara, again on Monday to discuss when I can come out, how often, etc. I might be working some with the eccd (preschool) there, too, but we’ll see what happens with that.

I think that’s about it as far as work is concerned. I’ve also actually been a bit busy socially, too. I think I’ve had something going on every weekend since early October. First was a quarterly peace corps district meeting. We have those to discuss projects, concerns, etc, and we tend to make them overnight at nicole’s place because she’s got electricity and we can cook good food. The next weekend was nicole’s birthday, so she got a few of her closer friends together to celebrate. Sam and I made a pumpkin pie, and it was awesome. Another volunteer brought a can of whipped cream from maseru, and we went through the entire thing (there were six of us) between the desert that night and the pancakes the next morning. It was great. The next weekend I had my library day, and so sam and Jessica came out to my house to help me. They stayed overnight. I made some pretty great lentil burgers if I do say so myself. I also made pumpkin bread. I had bought a pumpkin for nicole’s pumpkin pie for her birthday, and pumpkin apparently lasts a long time. With that pumpkin we made, over the course of three weeks, pumpkin pie, pumpkin scones (they’re amazing) pumpkin bread, and pumpkin cookies. And we still had a decent amount of pumpkin left over that we sadly had to trash because it was beginning to look a little sketchy. A 7 rand pumpkin goes a long way. Anyways, the next week after library day I had to go into maseru and so I spent the night with sam because she actually lives in mohale’s hoek and so if I stay with her I can take the earliest possible bus into maseru and have more time to work. That’s when we made pumpkin cookies. I actually ended up in maseru over Halloween and so went to a party at the ambassador’s house Friday night.

I was starbuck/cara thrace from battlestar galactica, which by the way I’ve been obsessing over of late. A friend here introduced me to the show, and I watched the entire first season in three days (nights here are a little lonely, and ipods are great). The second season I just finished. It took me 2 days. And I’m really angry about the season finale. Seriously. It was a horrible, disjointed way to end things. And the amount that I’m obsessing over this show is proof that I’m getting loopier the longer that I’m here. But at least I’m not the only one. I’ve found quite a few more bsg fans in country. W00t. one of them is getting season three. It’s currently in the mail. I’m inviting myself over as soon as he gets it. Or at least that’s what I told him. So he’ll probably avoid letting me know when it’s in.

Anywho, tangent over. So, Halloween was cool. I ripped my pants, though. Straight up the inner right thigh. Stupid low-quality pants. I bought them here. Some of it could’ve also been that I didn’t bother trying them on before buying them so they were slightly tight. Stupid weight gain. i got to wear a borrowed sweatshirt around my waist the rest of the night.

And I went to another party the next night, at a volunteer’s house. That was fun, too. Low-key, which is great.

And elections were this past week!!!! So, sam, Nicole, and I planned an all-night vigil at nicole’s place because she’s got electricity and a satellite radio. I made French bread (yes – made, and in a dutch oven not less. I was really proud of myself), hummus, and bruschetta. Nicole made spring rolls and sam made bran bread. These are my two closest neighbors and closest friends here. Sam’s leaving next month. We’ve been hanging out a lot together of late, doing a lot of cooking together at sam’s place. Anyways, we listened to npr and bbc all night, which was probably a little silly as results were going to start coming in until about 1:30 am here. But it was still good. And one of the guys they had talking on npr was pretty funny. The results started rolling in, though, and we got really intense. We were keeping tally, and I was getting really impatient for the results, and really emotional. And then about 5:30 in the morning enough votes had come in : OBAMA WON!!!! Oh my gosh, we were really excited, and we could hear all the cheering over the radio, all the emotion, and obama’s speech, and it was the first time since I’ve been here that I’ve every really wanted to be back in America. There’ve been times where I haven’t wanted to be in Lesotho, and times where I’ve missed my family, but I’ve never really wanted to be back in the states. I really wish that I’d been there, though, to experience what was happening. It was exciting even from here, but there wasn’t the same emotion, the same feel. And I am so proud to be an American right now. It’s been a while. And I’m even proud to be a north Carolinian. It took a day and a half to decide, and there was only a 13,000 vote spread, but WE WENT BLUE!!! This hasn’t happened in my lifetime. And my vote counted! And that feels really good. And I’m really hopeful and really nervous for the future at the same time.

So, I don’t really want to get too much into politics right now, so I’ll move on with my life. And just writing that put me in a much better mood. Helped me get over the season 2 finale of battlestar galactica.

Oh, sam and I have started great alcohol experiments this past month. Nicole doesn’t drink so she didn’t join in. we made sangria a couple weeks ago and had it the night sam and Jessica came to my place for library day. And, even more exciting, we made kahlua. We made it a couple weeks ago, but we had to let it sit a while, and we’ve both been busy, so we planned nov. 7 for kahlua night. What I think is really great is that we found the recipe in the peace corps cookbook. Anyways, it was really sweet. Not too much my thing, and there was a lot left over since it was too sweet to drink much. It was nice to hang out, though. We made dinner with Nicole and Jessica, and then Nicole left since she doesn’t drink, and the rest of use ate brownies and ice cream and drank kahlua. Fun times.

I’m also trying to figure out what’s next in my life, too. I’m thinking of trying to stay abroad if I can – to find a job at an ngo, take my gre’s overseas, and apply for grad school for 2010. so I’ve been updating my resume, looking at options online, and I had a discussion with the head of catholic social services (crs) when I was last in maseru. I’m looking at all options, both moving to another country and staying here. Staying here might be a little more realistic since I have more connections here, but we’ll see what happens. I might not be able to find a job, in which case I’ll be back in the states next may/june. We’ll see.

Hope all is well with everyone

ann

I’ve been really lazy about writing, so I figured I should change that. Lesotho’s independence day is October 4, and the entire week in which October 4th lies is a holiday. So basically I had no school. My mother wanted to come and visit, so she ended up arriving in Bloemfontein September 24th, in the evening, the Wednesday before independence week. I met her in Bloemfontein the next day and we took the car she rented to cape town. I actually drove the entire way, as mom was a little nervous about driving on the opposite side of the road from normal. It’s a good 10-hour drive from bloem to cape town, and it’s a good thing in a way mom wasn’t driving because it gave her a chance to see the landscape of south Africa, which I had already seen a lot of. But driving that long was kind of exhausting. I got to cape town almost comatose. And hungry. We dropped our stuff of at the hotel and went to a tappas restaurant for dinner. I love good food. And this was good. It made me happy. And there was even a flourless chocolate cake with whipped cream for desert. My spirits somewhat boosted, we returned to the hotel, where I discovered the delights of the television, specifically the bbc channel. This probably doesn’t sound too exciting to most, but I don’t get to watch news often, so I enjoyed it. I even enjoy reading us weekly and people magazine these days, I’m so starved for news and western-ishness. That was a really embarrassing admission.

We slept in a little on Friday and when we woke up we headed to the waterfront, which is a posher shopping area of cape town. I was in desperate need of some shopping. Specifically I needed jeans and bras, and socks. Mission successful. I managed to get all three, though the jeans were a bit of a sad purchase. I’ve become attached to my old jeans, with their elephant patches on the butt. Sigh.

Lunch consisted of hagen-daaz ice cream. Best lunch EVAR (with hamster sauce too – sam, another volunteer’s, contribution). Three scoops in a waffle cone. Yes, I felt like a pile of lard afterwards, but in my defence the third scoop was free if I got the other two, so I felt obligated to do so.

After lunch we headed back towards long street, to the green market. Basically, this is an area off long street filled with booths of African arts and crafts for sale. My mother seemed to like it a lot. And I found an ostrich egg painted with…WARTHOGS!!! Oh happy days. Needless to say it was purchased. From there we headed to dinner at a Kurdish restaurant, which was nice. I miss Mediterranean/ middle eastern food.

Saturday was spent going to table mountain, the castle, and district 6. we did table mountain first. The view from the top is pretty amazing. I met a couple of guys advertising abseiling off the mountain and got talking with them. I asked if they had tried abseiling in semonkong, in Lesotho, down the side of a waterfall. They said that the abseil off table mountain had been the longest in the world until semonkong took that away. We couldn’t stay at table mountain too long because of the other stuff we wanted to see, so we just walked around for a bit and then headed back down on the cable cars.

the castle was something my mother really wanted to see, I think mostly for the antique furniture, so we went there next. It was basically a museum of furniture, with some art thrown in. I thought some of the antiques were pretty cool. I like old things, especially if I can find out the history behind them.

District 6 is an area of cape town that had house black Africans, jews, and other “undesirables” until it was declared a white only area of cape town. Then all of the families were forced out. This occurred in the late ‘60’s I think, so many of the families kept ties to the area and formed a group to attempt to re-enter the district. When apartheid ended their cases were reviewed and many families were allowed to reclaim their homes. A museum was set up in memory of all of this. It was a pretty interesting museum. It had a bunch of relics like old street signs from the neighborhood, and the center of the first floor was covered with a map where all of the families that had returned to the neighborhood could write their names.

All that took most of the day. The next day, Sunday, we drove down to the cape of good hope. Basically, there is cape town proper, and then south of it is this peninsula with a bunch of small coastal towns that can be visited, and then there’s the cape. So we stopped off at a few places on the way. One was a vineyard, which we got to wander around. We also had a wine-testing. We visited a garden as well, and a couple of small towns. Then to the cape, which is actually a big park. Right inside the park a nasty accident had just happened. Someone drove up to tell a ranger about it as we were buying tickets to go in. a motorcyclist had been hit and it looked pretty bad. We drove past that to cape point, where we walked up the cape to the old lighthouse, and I walked further out towards the new lighthouse. There were whales playing around in the ocean, and the view was amazing. It was also kinda cool to see the meeting of 2 oceans. After that, we went to the cape of good hope and then headed out of the park. On the way out, we saw some baboons. They have funny butts J. Then we headed back up the opposite side of the peninsula to visit simon’s town, where the jackass penguins are. From there we went to dinner at this pretty cool restaurant right on the water. Waves broke onto it. And I finally got some good, fresh seafood. And a bunch of other food to eat. I like to eat. That was an all-day event, so we went back to the hotel.

The next day we left early to return to Lesotho. Another really long trip. Really long. I think we left at about 7:30 in the morning and didn’t arrive home until 11 pm. I really didn’t want to be driving in Lesotho after dark, but oh well. It’s pretty scary driving. There are no street lights, there are pot holes you can’t see, and there was at least one unmarked speed hump that I flew over. And many night drivers in this country don’t understand that you should turn your brights off when encountering another car. But we made it, as did the car. And I slept. The next day I showed my mother around the camp town. The day after that we wandered around my village to see the sights, and walked to the makhaleng river which is the border between Lesotho and south Africa. As this is a border with no post, it’s not legal to actually cross the river, but those rules are ignored by most herd boys looking for places to graze their animals. So while we were sitting by the river we saw a couple herds cross the river. Directly on the other side is a xhosa farmer’s land. You can actually see his house from Lesotho. He put a wire fence up around his land, but the herd boys had cut it to allow their animals to graze. My ‘m’e was saying that the farmer sometimes would just sit in his house with binoculars watching for trespassers to call the police. He had also threatened to shoot the animals and even the herd boys. Illegal crossings are a big problem all around Lesotho because the border isn’t very tight. People will actually cross and steal other people’s animals sometimes. And a few months ago a south africa farmer a few miles south of my village but on the border had enough problems that he crossed over to Lesotho, talked with the chief of the village, and organized a community meeting. At the meeting he stood up, said “now that you are all here I have something to say,” took out a gun, and downed as many people as he could before he was stopped. So the borders are a bit tense.

We also went to the orange river, which is the border between mohale’s hoek and quthing districts. The makhaleng flows into the orange, and then they flow through south Africa to the Indian ocean.

Another day we headed up to the kome caves near maseru. These are houses that were built in caves in the side of a mountain. They were built as hiding places from the cannibals that lived in the area. There used to be a lot of cannibals in the country, before moshoeshoe 1 unified the country. The day after that we went to the mohale dam, the small of 2 large dams that Lesotho and south Africa built together to supply south Africa with water (the other dam is katse). It’s a really pretty area, that would be even prettier after receiving some rain. Getting there involved going up into the mountains in the middle of the country. We took a bunch of winding roads on the edge of the mountains, including one pass name the “god help me” pass. Going to the dam took the entire day.

The next day we had a family dinner with my host family. It was nice. We all cooked together and then sat down at a table together and ate.

My mother got to go to school with me one day, as well, to see me teach and see what a basotho school looks like. That same night we went to have dinner at my host sister’s house. The next day my mother left. I saw her off to the border and spent the night in Lesotho doing some work on the computer. The next day I returned home.

so, my Saturday was spent at another funeral. Really, there have been a lot of deaths of late in my village. This funeral was for my host uncle, my ntate’s brother, whose son is also one of my students. It started later than any funeral I have yet been to, at 1:30 instead of roughly 11 am. So I was sitting around the deceased’s house for a while just hanging out. I got to meet some other cousins of mine who live in jo-burg, which was nice. They all seemed pretty cool and I was invited to visit them in Soweto sometime. My ‘m’e told me that this would be a shorter funeral than most. It was. It was only 1 ½ hours long. It was also the funniest funeral I’ve ever attended, perhaps proving that I have lived in Lesotho too long. First, as I think I have said, funeral’s begin with the family congregating in the house, where the casket is, to view the body. Well, the top was taken off the casket and it turned out that the body had shifted in transit from the funeral home to the house. Someone had to stick their hands in and shift his head to the proper position. I think I was in a morbidly humorous mood and thought this was a little funny. Then a cousin came in to view the body, clapped his hands together and then threw them up in the air shaking them back and forth at the wrists. All I could think was, “jazz hands, jazz hands” and then I had to try not to smile while this poor kid was collapsing onto the ground in grief. Then there was then woman who I later found out habitually arrives at funerals drunk. Whenever anyone started a song (this happens a lot between speakers) she would blare out the lyrics but she couldn’t quite get the vowels out right, so she ended up sounding like a sheep bleating. Ba-a-a-a-a-a-a. and when the preachers got up individually to give sermons (there were three of them) she would periodically shout at the top of her voice, “AMEN!!!” There were others exclaiming, “amen,” but softly. My ‘m’e and I happened to be sitting next to one another and we would turn and look at each other and try not to laugh. Both she and my chief at one point tried to quiet the woman. It did no good. She was hilarious.

A bunch of my students also came to the funeral because it was the father of a student who died. They were part of the choir and sang both at the funeral and the burial. They sounded beautiful.

The rest of my week, excepting Wednesday, was pretty slow. I got to school on Wednesday just before morning assembly and no teachers had yet arrived. Morning assembly was finished and still no teachers. Now, it’s not uncommon for most teachers to not be at school on time, but usually at least one of my male teachers (they seem to be in general more punctual and responsible) to be there. One of my male teachers showed up a few minutes later and told me that one of the students had been stabbed in the chest by a herd boy on the way to school this morning and the other teachers were helping him, calling the police, trying to track down the herd boy (he had run away), etc. turns out that the student thakabanna, is fine, he was stabbed low in the chest and not deeply, so that’s good.

Shortly after this I got a good example of the humor caused by students’ sometimes weak knowledge of English. Fyi: this is perhaps to some, a bit of a risqué story. Sorry, mom. I was writing notes on the board in my biology class while my students copied (I can’t talk while writing notes because the students can’t write and listen at the same time). One of my female students came up to me and said, “Madam I have just started masturbating. Can I go ask _______ [I forgot the other student’s name] for a pad and go to the toilet?” well, I of course processed the word “masturbate” immediately as it was said and was completely shocked until my brain registered the word “pad” and I realized that she meant to say “menstruating.” I didn’t correct her because I didn’t want to embarrass her in front of the class. I did however give her permission while trying my best not to laugh in her face. I turned back to the board to begin writing again and smiled. I told a couple other teachers about this later on because I thought it was funny. One didn’t know what the word “masturbate” meant. The other explained it as, “you know, what lesbians do.” I sighed to myself and mentally shook my head.

I’m heading into maseru tomorrow. I have a peace corps meeting Monday through Wednesday and wanted to get in a few days early so I could use the computers.

That’s pretty much my news for the week: my solar panel was stolen. I came into town on Saturday and when I returned home it was gone. I guess I was somewhat tempting fate because I leave the thing outside, but my family is usually at home and I live I a quiet area of my village, so I figured it’d be ok. My family was really upset over the theft. I let them handle how to deal with it since I don’t understand the legal system here. Sunday morning my ntate went and talked with the chief, to tell her what had happened. The solar panel was stolen sometime between noon and 5:30, when I returned home. My m’e said that she suspected this boy who comes to the house sometimes because he is a friend of the family’s herd boy.

My chief scheduled a meeting with all of the boys who had been around the house that day. She scheduled it for Wednesday, though, which kind of baffled me. This gives the guy over 3 days to dispose of or hide the thing. So, of course the meeting produced nothing. And as far as I can tell it amounted to the boys being questioned:

“Did you take the solar panel?”

“No, madam.”

“Did you see the solar panel?”

“No, madam.”

Completely ineffective. Especially since the kids here are adept at lying. So I have little hope that it will be returned. I did notify my support group, though, and my ntate had let members of other communities know that it was taken. The solar panel is from America, so it’s pretty distinctively different from all of the solar panels you see here. So maybe someone will notice it and get a hold of us.

Just to round things out, I went to the police office in mohale’s hoek this morning to file a report. I’m pretty sure they’re not going to do anything. I sat there for an hour while a guy asked what happened and wrote really slowly a two-page report of what happened. Another guy questioned my as to my name, age, etc. general info. Basically. He asked my nationality. I said American. I noticed that he checked me as being Indian. “no,” I said, “I’m not Indian, I’m American. Check the box that says, “of other nationality.” there is an Indian option on the form because Indians make up probably the second largest minority in the country, behind Chinese. Meanwhile the guy writing the two-page report was occasionally questioning as to the proper spelling of certain words. He was also writing the report in first person, as if her were me: “I left my house Saturday morning. I left the solar panel outside…” hmmm. He finished writing the report and said they were through. I asked if he would like a description of the solar panel, especially since it’s unique looking. He said that no, if they found any solar panels they would take them and then bring me in to identify them. Yeah, I’m not getting my solar panel back.

Funny story from school: apparently some kids in my form a1 class decided to remove and hide the doorknob to the classroom door. One of the teachers finally found it and took the doorknob to the staffroom so the kids couldn’t hide again. Though the doorknob has been removed from the door, the latch is still functional. So if you close the door the latch slips in place, but there’s no knob to turn to release it. So now whenever I go to class I have to remove the doorknob from the staffroom, carry it to class, and insert it in the door so that I can actually get into the class. absolutely ridiculous. I love this country.

Life’s been pretty slow the past couple of weeks. Just been going to school, reading, working on a couple of other small projects. I’ve been converting toilet paper rolls into shakers that can be used by the eccd (preschool) students for games. I’ve made one set for numbers 1 – 10, one set for colors, and will soon be making a set for shapes. Basically I just put some small pebbles into the toilet paper rolls, tape them at both ends, and have the color/number/symbol/whatever written in English and Sesotho. Then ‘m’e matukiso can use the shakers with books from the library or just as a game in her class. Hopefully they’ll come in handy.

I have also recently gained an appreciation for city workers. All those people with the thankless jobs of picking up trash and keeping the city/town/village clean. Yeah, we don’t have those here. All trash gets burned or dumped down the pit latrine (pit latrines can be very handy actually. I’ve become fond of mine). This is all ok. The problem is road kill. It gets cleaned up pretty quickly in the states by some poor person. Here, no one is paid to do those things, so if something gets hit goodness knows how long it will be before it’s picked up. Well, I guess a cow would be pretty quick because it’s worth something and it’s pretty big. Dogs however are smaller and don’t matter. So I had a dog carcass sitting about a quarter mile from my house for a little under 2 weeks before it finally disappeared. And, of course it’s in the middle of the road. Drivers do try to avoid the body, but sometimes run over it anyway. So after about 2 weeks, besides the smell, the site was incredibly gruesome. It was on the route I use to walk my dog, so I had to walk by it every day and it gave me chills. You could tell by the face that the poor thing died in pain. It was just really sad.

And another sad story (sorry): I was talking with my principal on the way to school on Monday. He’d heard on the radio that there was a village in Lesotho in which people were intentionally infecting each other with HIV so that they could receive food aid. I can’t verify this, but I have talked with another volunteer who said it was done in south Africa, so it might be true. Geez.

And I went to another funeral last Saturday. It was for a teacher at st. patrick’s high school near mohale’s hoek camp town, who died of kidney failure. I didn’t know him, but my host sister had gone to st. patrick’s back in the day and he had been her teacher, so she wanted to go but didn’t want to go alone. She’s still trying to get over tsotlo’s death and didn’t know how it would affect her. So I went. Ntate putsoa, the deceased, was catholic, so there was a mass said at the beginning of the funeral. Strangest catholic service I’ve ever been to. Catholic masses are generally pretty formatted, so you can follow where you are in the service even if you don’t know the language. Nope. I could tell when the gospel was read because the priest read it, and communion was pretty obvious, but that’s about it. And most of the congregation went up to communion which surprised me. I wonder if they were really catholic. Anyways, after the mass, which lasted about 1 hour 15 minutes, 19 people stood up to speak about this man. Seriously. All in all the funeral lasted 4 hours and 45 minutes. And of course I’m sitting there not understanding much and the funeral is outside at the school and it’s windy and threatening to rain (it didn’t, thank goodness). Then we had to walk across the street to the graveyard to bury him. There are lots of graveyards in this country, so everyone lives within walking distance of one. So he was buried and then everyone went back to his house to eat, as is customary here. My host sister was totally fine throughout the service, so that was good. I’m glad I could be there for her but durn, that was a long funeral even by basotho standards. Interesting point: because ntate putsoa was a teacher, everyone who had graduated university or college was asked to wear their graduation gowns to the ceremony.

On Sunday morning someone came by my family’s home to tell my family that a relative had died. He was the father of one of my students who I think is a cousin or something. The father died of T.B. the oldest son is arriving tomorrow and they will determine the date of the funeral then. I went to see the family on Monday and got to speak with my student’s (his name is kopano) mother. I don’t think she lives with the family anymore, but had come back for her husband’s death. She was blind. And kopano had gone to school. He had gone to the funeral home in the morning and then went to school. I guess he figured he had nothing else to do. I hope he’s ok. There’ve just been a lot of deaths in the past month.

And I’m getting over a nasty cold now. I’ve actually been laid up in bed the past couple days with a sore throat, runny nose, cough, all that good stuff. I’m still a little stuff but feeling a thousand times better than I was.

On a happier note, one of my students likes writing plays, and has written me a play about hiv/aids and making good choices. It’s in Sesotho, but my host sister lerato wants to help me so we’re getting together hopefully next week to translate it, review it, make sure all info is accurate, etc. I wanted to put on the show in October, over independence week when the kids are out of school, but I don’t think there’s time and so this might wait until after final exams in December. I’m pretty excited about it, though. I want to have a whole day of hiv/aids stuff. So there’s the play, and lerato has suggested getting a choir together to sing, which is great, and then I want to get some organizations in who can teach about hiv and do testing. But I think it’s going to be kind of a big project, so we’ll see how it works out. I have to find a venue and notify the chief, get permission and all that. But it’ll give me something to work on and look forward to.

Speaking of looking forward to things, my mother is coming in less than a month! I’m really excited. I don’t think I’ve ever been away from my family this long before, and it’ll be nice to see her. We’re going to spend a few days in cape town, and then she’s going to come back and stay in Lesotho with me for about a week. My host family here is actually really excited as well. It’s cute.

This just in: We in peace corps get paid quarterly, so we’re supposed to be getting paid now. Everyone was talking about how they had been paid, but my account was still basically empty so I called peace corps. They told me they dropped my account because I was going to be leaving next month. I told them no, I expected to be here a while yet. But there is a girl leaving in a couple weeks whose name is really similar to mine and apparently the administration confused the two of us and dropped me instead of her. Lovely. This isn’t actually the first time we’ve been confused. Last year during training people kept trying to give me her mail. I’d get all excited because I thought someone had written me, but no, the letters were for her. And medical has almost pulled her file for me before. And now I don’t have money. This is supposed to be rectified by the end of the day, though. Here’s hoping. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrgh.

Hope all is well back home. Crazy to think, I’m one year down and one to go! This time next year I’ll probably be home!

this was a pretty slow week. on tuesday my host sisters took 'm'e matukiso to see a doctor, which was good. she had been complaining of chest and neck pains for a few days, which had me pretty worried. they tried to go to bloemfontein but the doctor wouldn't see them without an appointment so they ended up in ladybrand. ladybrand is a town just across the maseru border, with some decent doctors. anyways, they didn't get back until dusk. 'm'e matukiso has diabetes and it turned out that the stress of tsotlo's death and funeral had caused both her blood sugar and blood pressure to rise pretty dramatically. so the doctor have her meds and told her to come back in a month to see how she is doing. i'm just so glad that she went, because that could've been pretty dangerous, obviously.

other than that, i had a pretty normal week. went to school. the sister-in-law of one of my teachers died of hiv a few weeks ago, and it is customary for the co-workers to visit before the funeral. the funeral was scheduled for saturday. i went to school on wednesday and my teachers got in the hour long discussion about what day to visit. they had planned on thursday, but wanted to change it to wednesday (that day) because they had not expected the weather to be so cold and they weren't properly dressed. that was seriously and argument. it wasn't even that cold. a little windy maybe. but then someone brought up that they hadn't planned on going wednesday, and was anyone going to the actualy funeral on saturday who could stay behind to close the school. of course, no one wanted to stay behind to close the school, so the decision was finally reached to close school early so all teachers could go. then there was another hour long discussion concerning how close of a relative had to die to warrant a visit from the co-workers. this debate finally ended at about 1:45, and we had another 45 minute walk by basotho walking pace to the tarred road, where we had to wait a while for a taxi.

while waiting, one of my teachers pipes up and asks me if sex change operations are performed in the states. i answered in the affirmative, wondering where this question originated. found out there had been an article in the paper about a man having a baby. of course, this was a man who had been a woman before having a sex change, but i'm not sure that the article properly explained that (i haven't actually seen this article) so there were a lot of curious basotho. i've talked with a few other volunteers who've had to field fun questions of this variety.

the bus finally came and we went to the teacher's house to offer our condolences, pray, etc. then i went home.

on thursday i went into town in yet another failed attempt to meet with the national aids commission about a project i'm working on. i had actually contacted the woman, and she said she'd be in town, but when i got to town and called her she was like, "oh, sorry i thought you meant maseru." aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh. seriously, all i need from this woman are some forms i have to fill out, and i don't understand why she can't just give them to someone else in the office to give to me, if she is going to be in maseru. apparently this doesn't work. and i asked her if she could just leave them with peace corps headquarters in maseru, as nac headquarters is only maybe a quarter mile away, but i guess that was too much work, too. so i have to try to get up with her again later this week.

anyways, frustrated by my thwarted efforts to fill out forms, i went to the hotel in town where pcv's have a small office room and did some work on the computer for a while. i ran into another volunteer and we grabbed lunch. while there, we ran into ntate majara, who works for peace corps. turns out he was in town because one of the new volunteers in the area had quite, so he had to get her to take her back to maseru. we told him to bring her back by if she wanted, so that we could say goodbye to her. so ntate majara came back a while later with kate. she said she had to leave because of some family troubles, which is rough. it's sad when people leave, and she seemed really cool and was going to be a pretty close neighbor. sigh.

saturday night the mohale's hoek district decided to have a welcome party/meeting for the new volunteer in the country, lorian. she's the only new volunteer in the hoek, now that kate's left. we had tacos for dinner and just hung out and chatted. we were at a volunteer's, nicole's site. she lives near town, has electricity and running water, and has a large house (we're talking multiple rooms here, people), which is nice for gatherings. she also happens to live on a catholic church organization's site, because she works for the organization. and, the catholic church happened to be holding an annual meeting of paritioners from all over lesotho while we were there. now, formal church dress includes a skirt and a shirt with a matching cape and hat. the color depends on which church you're from. so there were hundreds of bo m'e outside singing and blowing whistles. another volunteer, jessica, cut my hair outside, which created a bit of entertainment for the women. we also watched sweeny todd on her computer later that night. weird movie. the next morning we had pancakes for breakfast! yum. i love food.

from there i had to come into maseru because my hand is still not ok. there had been a rash/legion there for a month, so peace corps had made an appointment for me to see a dermatologist in bloemfontein early monday. i came into maseru intending to drop my stuff off at the peace corps house and then go into the office to work. didn't happen. i spent sunday afternoon patching another hole in my jeans (i now have matching elephant patches on either side of my inner thigh) and obsessively watching the first season of heroes on dvd. i'd never seen the show, and i think i like it because it reminds me of x-men.

anywho, i went to the doctor monday, and he said that he thought my problem was a photoallergic reaction to the sun, probably combined with the doxycycline (an antimalarial) i'd been on while in namibia, gave me some medicine, and sent me on my way. the joys of being white.

oh, i did still manage to post pics on flickr. all my vacation pictures are now up and organized in a set, along with a couple pictures i've taken since. enjoy

ann

So, school started back this week. School starts every morning with assembly, and my secondary school principal apparently foiled a plot to attack the school on Monday. Most of the students had done poorly on their exams, and he had heard about a plot to stone the teachers, and had told the police about it. So he told the students that he knew about it, and that they shouldn’t try anything, etc. this is not that uncommon, actually. Whenever the students in this country are upset their thoughts seem to turn towards violence. A couple volunteers a year probably end up having to leave their schools while some kind of attack dies down. As it turns out, most of the time the students are not angry with the volunteers and so avoid attacking them. That’s good, I guess.

So, yeah, most of the students didn’t do well on their exams. I got to give a round of speeches to my classes on responsibility, studying, seeking help, etc. I hate doing that: I feel so patronizing. And I think that part of the reason that I am not the greatest teacher for this country is that I expect the students to be responsible and to be motivated enough to study and seek help on their own. That’s just not how it works. Most of them are lazy and never study. They wouldn’t last a day in an American school, even if they could keep up with the language.

So I gave speeches, and at least one student listened. She came up to me and asked if she could come by my house to discuss her exam. So I will be meeting with her tomorrow, provided that she decides to show up.

Oh, and I think I mentioned that one of my students had crossed the river and entered south Africa illegally, looking for work. She apparently made it all the way to cape town, which is pretty impressive. I’m wondering how long she’ll be able to last before someone finds out that she doesn’t have a passport. I keep hoping she’ll come back and continue school. I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

So, beyond that, school was pretty normal. The students were unusually quiet and attentive. Maybe the speech worked. Or maybe they were thinking about their exams. Or maybe it was because it was the first week back, and they’ll start being little hellions again soon. We also got two new teachers at the school: one is going to help with history and English grammar, the other with business, if I remember correctly.

So, I’m only teaching Monday through Wednesday, like last term. So on Thursday I took the dog for a walk and then returned home to see if there was anything I could do to help with tsotlo’s funeral, which was to be held on Saturday. While bathing, I started to hear cow and sheep noises outside. I had been forewarned that the animals were to be slaughtered on Thursday for the meal on Saturday. Yep, that they were. I walked outside in time to see I knife being driven into the back of the cows neck, right where it meets the head. A few minutes later, and we had a skinned carcass. A group of men did the killing, and then gutted the thing. A couple minutes later a group of women wheel-barrowed a bloody mess of intestines past me. They were going to clean them so that they could be cooked on Friday. The women get the intestines and the liver of the animal, while the men get the head, hooves, and lungs. I took my dog out for a walk later and saw the animals’ heads chillin’ on the wood pile. The only reason I noticed was that the dog got really excited and was trying to pull the leash in that direction. I actually felt really sorry for the dog the past few days; because of all the people around and the dead animal bits and other food, I had to keep her tied up between Thursday and Sunday. She wasn’t happy.

As it turned out, there wasn’t too much for me to do on thurday. On Friday I walked the dog again, and then was put to work. I washed dishes and peeled goodness knows how many summer squash and potatoes for the feast the next day. The bo ‘m’e cooked the intestines that day, and I braved myself up to trying them. They were really salty, presumably because the women had heavily salted them. What really got me was the slippery texture. I managed two pieces as politely as I could and stopped there. Later I was given some other part of the cow. I have no idea what it was, but it had layers and was really gross. I gave that to another woman to eat. There were a lot of people around the house all day, helping with chopping, cooking, cleaning, etc. Also in the course of the day I noticed people going in and out of my house. My family had been storing stuff like living room furniture in my house to make room for all the visitors, but these were people I didn’t know, and all my life including money, phone, camera, etc. are in my house. Turns out that one of my sisters had directed more things to be stored in my house. These things included my family’s gas-powered refrigerator (which was never turned on), buckets, a garbage bag full of something, and a large trash can. The dog seemed really interested in the garbage bag and the trash can. They mystery of the trash can was soon explained. A couple women entered my house and opened it up to reveal bloody cut up cow pieces. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. So, of course, the cow meat had to be clean of the blood, and what better place to do so than in my house? Yep, a couple hours later, my floor and table were covered in blood. Now, I’d been ok with everything up to this point, but the blood strewn all over my house was making me a little nervous. The women finished up a little after dark, and I mentioned something to my sister, asking whether I could clean up because the mess was bothering me. I felt really bad about this because there were bigger issues at stake; her brother’s funeral was the next day. She was really nice about it, though, and the cleaned meat was moved to the rondavel to be marinated. I started to clean up, but then she came in and insisted on doing this. I tried to tell her that I was happy to do so because I knew she had so much else to do, but she wouldn’t let me.

My brother tefo had brought a generator out to the house, and wired all the rooms temporarily, including mine, so that we could have lighting in the form of lightbulbs. And tsotlo’s body was brought from the funeral home to the house and placed on some chairs in the living room until the funeral the next day. I think most funerals include an all-night vigil with much crying and wailing, but my family did not want to do that as it tends to attract drunken men. Instead they held a three hour prayer session which was supposed to last from 7 to 10. which meant that it started around 8:30 and ended around 11:30. it took place in the living room in front of tsotlo’s coffin. Basically, people could come and would take turns saying prayers or making short speeches. In between this, someone in the room would start a song and everyone else would follow in. there was a little silent crying I think, and that was about it. After the prayer session, everyone was served a small meal. I helped to serve and then sat with ‘m’e matukiso for a while. Her family had all come, and I had gotten to meet her sisters through the course of the day. They had stayed with her all day. So I talked with them for a while, and then went to sleep around 2 am. My sisters stayed up preparing for the feast the next day. This is normal, for the family to stay up the night before the funeral. I think my ‘m’e slept some, though, which was good.

So I had been told that the funeral would start at 9 the next morning. It started at 11:30 and last maybe 2 ½ to 3 hours. It began with the coffin being moved to the middle of the living room and the top of the coffin being opened to that tsotlo’s face could be seen. Then the close family walked in a circle around the coffin. Some people sang. This was so that they could see him one more time. It probably afforded some closure to people. ‘m’e broke down when she went up to the coffin, and had to be supported back to her seat by her sisters. My ntate brought her some water, and she stayed inside for the funeral. Only one other woman broke down that day, but I’m not sure who she was. After all the close family had gotten to look at him, the top to the coffin was replaced and the body was moved outside, to where the funeral was held. Tefo had set up speakers so that everyone could hear. There were people standing everywhere, both in the yard and in the path outside the yard, and in the field across from the yard as well. It began with what I presume was kind of like a eulogy. Everything that I have mentioned thus far and everything that will be said was said in Sesotho, of course, so I was only catching snatches of what was being said. Basically certain people had been invited beforehand by the family to give a short talk about tsotlo, their relationship to him, etc. after they had all finished (this was the first hour, or maybe a bit more), three preachers took turns giving sermons. When they were done a collection was taken, for the family I presume but am not sure. Then the coffin was opened again so that anyone else who wanted to could say goodbye. A long line was formed, of people passing by. I saw a couple of my students, and my primary school principal, and I was happy they had come.

After everyone had gotten a chance to view the body, the coffin was closed and placed on the back of a truck. My ‘m’e came out of the house and got into a car and my ntate got into the back of the truck, and they proceeded to the graveyard, followed by most of the rest of the crowd on foot. The graveyard isn’t far, just on the other side of the hill. Tefo went with them. My sisters and some other women stayed behind to set up for the feast. Basically, everyone who has come to the funeral returns after the burial to eat and chat. This is why all the cooking had taken place the day and the night before. Our meal included samp, rice, potatoes with beans and tomato (3 types of carbohydrates, w00t), a kind of tomato gravy for the rice, summer squash, beetroot, and meat. I helped set up the tables with food and plates, and for the next few hours helped to wash dishes, boil water, collect plates, serve food and drink, etc. I was moving around for most of the afternoon, and didn’t stop until shortly before dusk. All my sisters, and close relatives and friends, were doing the same. Eventually everyone left and things began to die down. So I went into my house and relaxed, read for a little while, and slept.

The next day (Sunday – yesterday) I woke up, passed my table, and got a whiff of something that reminded my the garbage bag that had been brought in on Friday was still around. And starting to produce a funk. I mentioned this to my sister, lerato, who explained that it contained sheep’s heads and hooves for the men, and removed it from my house. So sheep head had been sitting in my house, un-refrigerated, for 2 days. Yum. It was cooked later on Sunday. I spent yesterday cooped up in my house. I needed some solitude. I finished reading Oliver Twist, read The Alchemist, and started in on Absalom, Absalom! One of the two tents set up at my house was removed. I think the other one will be removed today. I was also given a decent amount of leftovers. These will also be given to the people who help clean up over the next couple days. Which is good, because there’s a decent amount of food left, including a 20 L bucket of samp.

So that’s a funeral in Lesotho.

Hope all is well

So, I guess some people know by now, but for those who don’t, this week has been pretty rough. I left maseru last Wednesday, july 23, and returned to ha thaba bosiu in the late afternoon/early evening. I arrived just as my oldest host brother, tefo was driving into the family compound. He stepped out of the car followed by a woman whom I’d never met, and who I later found out was my oldest host sister, tukiso, who lives in maseru. She was shaking and crying, and generally looked very ill. My host brother, just nodded to me and kept on walking. I figured I’d give them a couple minutes to settle and then go to make sure everything was ok, so I went into my house, put my bags down, and then headed out to my pit latrine. I ran into a relative, ‘m’e mapekola, who had lived behind my old house, and I asked her if everything was ok. She said no and mumbled a couple things, and then didn’t say any more. I went to my pit latrine and then went back in my house and began to unpack, unsure what to do next. A couple minutes later I saw my youngest host sister, lerato, walk by, and I went out to ask her if everything was ok. She said no, and then said that I should go and talk with tefo.

I walked to the front of my family’s house, and tefo was standing outside. I asked him what was going on, and he said that my youngest host brother, tsotlo, had hanged himself the day before, on Tuesday afternoon. I stared at him in shock for a couple seconds and my eyes began to tear up, and I asked him if I could go inside to see ‘m’e. he said “yes” so I entered the house, and my ‘m’e was lying on a mattress on the living room floor, covered in blankets, with family and friends sitting in chairs all around her. I had found some of the living room furniture in my house when I got home, and I suppose that it had been removed to make room for my ‘m’e’s bed, and for visitors. She looked at me and just began crying. And I began crying, and went up to her and rubbed her shoulder for a minute or two, and then offered my condolences and asked if there was anything I could do. She had really liked the chai tea that my mother had sent from the states, so I went and made her some, and just left all of the tea that my mother had sent in the house so that she could have more whenever she wanted.

I stayed with my ‘m’e, and family and friends for a little while, and then left and completely broke down. I texted my sister, leslie, and she quickly called my back and listened to me cry and calmed me down, and then we just got to chat for a little while, which was really comforting to me. After that, I went in my house to think for a while, and then fell asleep.

I woke up on Thursday, took the dog for a run, and came back to a lot of activity around the house. Both family members and friends had come to help clean up the yard, fetch water, and generally do all the small things that needed to be done to get the house ready for all the visitors and for the funeral. I bathed and went to see what I could do to help. I was put on dish-washing duty. There didn’t seem to be too much I could do after that, so I went into mohale’s hoek to drop some forms off for my school principal, and to talk with another peace corps volunteer there, who is a friend.

Over the next few days, I began to piece together all that had happened. I knew that tsotlo had failed out of university, but lerato mentioned that he had been unhappy for some time (probably depressed), and had not really cared about school. She said that she, and her brother and parents had tried to talk with him, but he had not been able to say what was wrong. Unfortunately, psychology is not considered important to most people here. Few basotho seem to be interested in mental disorders and states of mind. For example, I told my principal that tsotlo had hanged himself. His response: “he was a coward.” Another volunteer’s host sister failed her school exams and her host mother was furious. The volunteer said that perhaps she had difficulty concentrating because her brother had died the week before. Her host mother said that was no excuse. The herdboy for my family actually found tsotlo. They shared a rondavel, and that rondavel was where he hanged himself. The herdboy then went and found my ntate but wouldn’t tell him what had happened. I can’t even imagine what he was going through. My ‘m’e had to be hospitalized for the night. I know that she is a diabetic, and maybe the shock of everything had caused some problems. But she had just come home Wednesday, the same day I got home.

One thing that I am thankful for is that, through all of this, I’ve gotten to know my family better, and I’ve become closer to them. Lerato and tefo’s wife, ‘m’e matreasure, have been staying out at the house, along with tukiso, and so I’ve been able to talk a lot with them, and help them with some things at home. A couple days ago we sat out for hours cleaning small pebbles out of the sorghum my family had harvested in june. We have more to do still. I’ve also been sitting out a couple hours every morning knitting. I had started a scarf, and am trying to finish it soon. I want to give it to my ‘m’e. anyways, my ntate comes and sits outside in the sun with me in the mornings. It’s warmer there than in the house. And I enjoy just sitting with him and talking some. I also got to watch a Kaiser chiefs v. Manchester united football match on Saturday. Lerato and tefo invited me to lerato’s house, along with a couple friends, to watch. It was nice to see a soccer game, and to discuss it with tefo. And I discovered a few things: tevez has a bad dribble, needs a haircut, and looks like a vampire; rooney looks ridiculous with his facial hair; cleverly makes me feel really old; and Campbell tries really hard, but doesn’t have the skill to follow through. His goal was caused by a bad touch from a team mate. The match was the final of a tournament in south Africa, and after man u. won the announcer got giggs and rooney confused. Giggs came up to talk with him for a little while, and he kept calling him rooney. It was kinda funny.

Last night, I got to sit with my family for a while before going to bed, and I started talking with them about the meaning of names in Sesotho. I found out that “tefo” means payment, or replacement. It turns out that my ‘m’e had had another son who’d died in infancy, and tefo was kind of a replacement for that.

So, tsotlo’s funeral is august 9th. I think lerato will be staying at least until then, and ‘m’e matreasure will maybe stay the entire month. ‘m’e matukiso is still sleeping on the mattress in the living room. Apparently that’s tradition, and she has to sleep and stay there until the funeral. I’m sure the house will be busy with preparations next week. Hopefully I’ll be able to help with something. Maybe I can peel carrots for the meal after the funeral. We’ll see. Anyways, I think my family is devastated, but they are doing better than last week. Hopefully they are beginning to slowly heal. Keep them in your thoughts.

so, i've been in maseru since saturday, which means good food, bed whose springs don't dig into my hips, electricity, internet, and running showers. except not always.

one of my missions for this week was to finish my lesson plans for my biology class for the rest of the year. their textbook is horrible and inaccurate, so i usually try to make lesson plans using the vast awesomeness of the interwebbies. then i can use pictures, too. a diagram of the ear is much more attractive and comprehensible than my chalk scratchings on the board. that being said, i've been coming into the peace corps office at about 7 every morning and working until about noon, with some interuptions. i finished, which is good. and added some things to the syllabus. seriously, i'm supposed to teach about plant nutrition, but the only thing listed on the syllabus is photosynthesis. pah. nothing mentioned about gaining nutrients from the soil, water uptake, etc. i'm always hesitant to add more to the syllabus, though, because my principal has told me that i have taught my form b student things they wouldn't have to learn for another couple years. he was happy about it, but it amazed me because i feel like i'm simplifying a lot of things as much as i can. still, i don't want to go in to too much detail and just confuse my students. humph!

that was about all i did on sunday, besides buying FOOD! which always makes me happy. we did have about 16 people staying in the peace corps' t house (transit house) that night, so the place was a complete mess, and a couple people and i ended up cleaning up after some others. it happens. and the reason that there were 16 people there was that there were 5 people who were COSing (finishing peace corps) and were leaving the next day to go on trips or return home. i'm sure they had oodles of other things on their minds. i didn't really get to know too many people from the group that's leaving now because none of them live near me, but it's still really weird to see them leave. i'm probably never going to see them again. and it makes me consider where i am in my service, and what i remember of them a year ago, when they were at the same part in their service that i am now. and in one year, that will be me.

so, the five of them got up and left the next morning, and i came into the office to continue working on lessons, and to begin my mid-service medical check-up. basically this is kind of a typical doctor's check-up to make sure you're healthy, so i got blood pressure taken, i was weighed, and actually that was about it. the only thing out of the ordinary from a doctor's check-up in the states was that i got a tb test (i'm negative - w00t).

i went back to the t house to discover that some men were working on the pipes at the end of the street and that our water was cut. it was supposed to come on that night (monday night) but only worked for a half hour and then cut off again. it didn't return until mid-afternoon tuesday. so there were 12 to 16 people living in one house with no way to bathe, wash dishes, wash clothes, or flush the toilet. here's where a pit latrine would've come in really handy. it was disgusting.

it turns out a volunteer who is COSing on friday had season 2 of the american version of the office. i'd never seen any episodes before, but now have. i liked it. it's less painful than the british version. i like the british version, but can only watch a couple episodes at a time because the boss makes me cringe so badly so often. i also watched the devil wears prada and the last king of scotland last night. very different movies. but i'd never seen either of them before, and though they're now a couple years old, it still makes me feel like i'm not totally out of touch.

yesterday morning (tuesday) i came in and finished my lesson plans and then got to go to the dentist's. normal check-up. no tooth problems. and then at the end of the appointment, i got a lesson on how to properly brush my teeth and floss. this was kinda funny to me, as i still have vague memories of learning these things courtesy of cartoon toothbrushes and toothpaste sometime around kindergarten, but i nodded my head and said ok. by the way, you should use circular motions, 10 circles per tooth, when brushing, except on the front teeth when you switch to vertical movements. just fyi.

oh, the new group is about to swear in. they just got their site placements, and three are coming to mohale's hoek! i'm really excited. i'm not sure where all of them are going to be living, but it'll be exciting to meet new people. there are no volunteers leaving mohale's hoek now, either, so i don't have to say goodbye to any people that were neighbors, which is nice.

so, i'm leaving maseru in a little while to return home to ha thaba bosiu. i'm hopefully not going to be back until mid-september. sorry i forgot to bring my namibia pics, but one of the girls in the group has set up a flickr account so you can check out her pictures if you want: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jopis/

i just posted 10 blogs, besides this one. i was going to put pics from namibia on flickr, but unfortunately brought the wrong memory card from my site. so they won't be up for a few months. sorry about that. hope all is well with everyone.

ann

i woke up the morning after arriving home and went outside to find my 'm'e just arriving back from somewhere. she walked up to me and gave me a big hug. she always brightens my day. she makes it a lot easier to return to lesotho after vacations. anyways, we talked for about a half hour on what had been going on in my absence and what plans i had for the next month or so. we are going to hopefully have a library appreciation day soon, and then an hiv/aids testing and education day in a couple of months. unfortunately, not all was pleasant news. on of my standard 6 students, who is about 13 or 14, is pregnant. the father is one of my standard 7 students. a secondary student who lives near me, and who i like a lot, came by and told me that all but 3 of my 120-something form a students had failed their june exams. most of the form b students failed, too, i later found out. my principal blamed a couple of the teachers at my school who are very lax, lazy, and just not good. basically, there is a problem with a couple of the teachers not coming to class half the time, or insulting the students. and he doesn't want to fire them because he is thinking about what will happen to their families if they are fired. which is nice, it's good that he's concerned for their welfare. all the same, he's either damaging the teachers' families or damaging the over 200 students currently at the school. apparently the school board wants to fire them. we'll see what happens with that.

i also found out that yes, my 'm'e did send my sheets to get washed by one of my students. this student used almost an entire 2 kg box of laundry detergent and half a bottle of bleach (this made me cringe) to clean my sheets. or so she claimed. sounded a bit fishy to me. seriously, maybe my dog had gotten my sheets a little muddy, but using 2 kg of soap is a little extravagant. i presume that she used a lot of my soap for herself. this is a little frustrating because she and her sister are double orphans who had asked for money. i started giving them my laundry to do a few months ago as a way for them to earn money because they need it. but i don't like being used. so i'm trying to sort out whether i want to keep trying to get them to do laundry or not.

so that was sunday. on monday, i walked into town to try to talk with the national aids commission (nac) about my proposal to put hiv/aids education phrases on the trash cans in mohale's hoek. i have a verbal consent, but am waiting for written consent. i can't start without the written consent. so basically nothing had changed in the three-plus weeks that i had been on vacation and out of town. the woman told me to return wednesday. maybe she would've heard something by then. i also started writing all of the blogs that've just been posted. it took a few hours over a couple days to complete them. i talked with a member of my support group, ntate none, who had said that the group would be gardening on tuesday. so on tuesday i headed out to garden.

i think the support group just gets me to garden for comic relief. i am not a gardener. i can't hoe a whole correctly apparently. but i did get better over the four hours spent in the garden. this is a new garden, the fourth my support group has, and we were planting peas to grow for the orphans and aids patients in the village. the how i was using was not made of finished wood, so after a couple hours i stopped to remove a splinter. i also noticed i had a blister. my support group thought this was hilarious. silly city girl with her soft hands! yeah, yeah. so, i took a break and asked the bo 'm'e if they knew any gardening songs. they sang one and then asked me to sing. d'oh! i guess i dug that hole myself, though. i couldn't think of any gardening songs, so i sang "old mcdonald". they didn't understand the lyrics, but laughed heartily when i got to the part where i snorted like a pig (the first animal mcdonald had on this particular farm was a pig). then i explained the lyrics, and that it was a childrens' song, and went on to sing a couple more verses. soon after this, ntate none returned (no idea where he'd gone). i know he returned because he ran in yelling "viva volunteers! no surrender! the spirit of no surrender!" this was actually stated in english. except the "viva" of course. this was one thing i was not expecting to hear in lesotho, and it made me burst out laughing. i have no idea where this came from or where he'd heard it in lesotho, but the fact that the phrase had made it to a small village in the middle of a very poor, small, little-known southern african country not known for revolutions was pretty surprising. ntate none said it a couple more times throughout the day, and i chuckled to myself every time.

so tuesday went and wednesday came, and i was back in town to talk with nac. except the woman never showed up. i finished writing most of the blogs about my trip and returned home. the big news wednesday evening was that my cat has apparently been sneaking off at night to visit a male cat up the hill. maybe there will be kittens for me sometime this spring/summer. nice.

thursday was the king's birthday, and my family had invited me to a celebration at the racetrack in mohale's hoek. this is where all celebrations occur. one of my host sisters is head of the criminally insane ward of the prison in mohale's hoek and was going to be participating in the ceremony. basically the prison guards and police officers did a bunch of marching together. my family was really proud of lerato (my host sister). she was one of the people closest to the front of the line, which meant she was in a position of authority. it was really nice to go and watch, just to feel like i was a part of my host family, and that i could join in with their happiness. it was also good to see lerato again. i like her a lot. she's a couple years older than me and is very nice and also very studious. she's actually trying to apply to study psychology in the uk so that she can further her career in the prisons. hopefully that will be successful.

also at this celebration, some of the prisoners were able to perform some traditional dances. it was really nice i thought, to be able to involve the prisoners, to make them feel like a part of the community.

all that finished a little after noon, so we grabbed some free food at the celebration and headed home. on friday i thought that i was going to be gardening again, but no one showed up, so i figured i walk into town again to try the woman at nac. the couple times i'd been into town earlier i had worn my ipod so as to avoid having to listen to people yelling at me. i didn't have it this time, and didn't want to go home, so i started walking. well, first a taxi conductor grabbed me to try to force me into his taxi. this isn't incredibly uncommon, but it's still really annoying and i wanted to punch him. i restrained myself and continued to walk, but also had to deal with a bunch of "good afternoon. give me money"'s from kids on the road. i braved all of this and made it into town. no luck with nac. i ran into a couple volunteers, though, and talked with them for a while and then headed home.

i got home at about 4:15, and my burglar bars on my house decided to rebel against me. i couldn't unlock them. my key wouldn't turn. i couldn't get it. my 'm'e couldn't get it. my ntate, my 'm'e's son, our neighbor, and a more skilled community member couldn't get the lock to work. so, at about 5:15 i decided alternate action would have to be taken. i called peace corps. unfortunately it was late on a friday afternoon, so they wouldn't be able to come until saturday, so i had to find another place to sleep. thankfully another volunteer, nicole, lives near me. but all of my money was locked in my house and nicole lived 6 miles away. this was too far to walk in the 45 minutes before dark. so i borrowed money from my 'm'e and showed up on nicole's doorstep at 6, locked out of my house. on the plus side, my mail had come and while i might not be able to enter my house, i had received my driver's license from the states (i'd had to renew it).

so i stayed at nicole's and got to talk with her for a while, which was nice. i like her. and then i left early the next morning to head home, as i was told that someone would be coming at about 10 am to fix my door. no one showed up until 3 pm. at that time i was hungry (food locked inside my house), thirsty (water locked inside my house), and hot (i had been sitting outside for a while). so basically i was a little cranky. but everything worked out, the lock was broken and replaced in about 20 minutes, and i had a free ride into maseru, which is where i am now.

just another typical week in lesotho.

So, we got up early to go and see the dunes at sunrise. Apparently the dude working the gate at sossuvlei had a bit of a different idea of what “sunrise” meant than the rest of us. He held us, and all the other cars coming to the gate, at the entrance until I think around 7. this was at least an hour after the sun had started to peek over the horizon. George, Alfred, and the rest of us were getting a little peeved. I told george we should give the guard a lick ‘n’ learn. Eventually, we made it in. after a quick bathroom break, george sped (oh, and how) down the road towards dune 45. at one point clare mentioned that we should look at the facial expressions of all the people in the cars we were passing. There was a lot of dismay. But we got to the dunes, and the light was still good.

They are stunning. I’m not sure why there’s so much iron in the sand, but there is, and they are RED. George explained to us that the sand originally was blown from the Kalahari, and ended up in western Namibia. Still not sure why all the iron, but it’s pretty. Especially when the early morning light hits and half of the dunes are still in the dark.

We stopped at dune 45, which is supposed to be the most photogenic dune. Whatever. We got to walk up the dune, which was difficult. Sand is so tricky, it shifts! I imagine if you ran up that a few times a day, you’d be in pretty good shape. At the top we were able to soak in the view. Desert, as far as the eye (or at least my myopic eye) could see. I think it was Andrew and Stephen who had decided to bring the rugby ball with them, and then we decided to play rugby down the side of the dune. Alfred ran down the dune (and it was pretty steep). This was right after he said we shouldn’t do it because we could hurt ourselves. He looked like a springbok prancing down the dune because he had to lift his legs so high to clear the sand. Then the ball was kicked down to him. This was repeated a couple times until we reached the bottom of the dune. Mike got some good photos of Stephen kicking the ball. After this, we got to empty our shoes of sand as best we could. I still have some sossuvlei in my shoes and socks. The socks will get washed in the washing machine when I go to maseru. So, we reached the bottom of the dune and breakfast was ready. George had even cooked bacon and eggs. Heck, I’d been happy with granola and the occasional nutells.

After lunch the rugby and soccer balls were brought back out, and I was feeling a little frisky after the hike up the dune (we hadn’t done too much in the way of exercise the rest of the trip) so I was happy running around kicking and chasing balls.

When we were all packed up and ready to go, we headed further into the desert. We got out of the car and walked a short distance, to the top of a small dune. The other side was very steep. I pranced my way down it slowly. George and Alfred wrestled their way down it. It was kinda cool to see them bonding. They’d just met the first day of our trip, and they’d seemingly gotten to be good friends. They almost rammed into the back of my legs near the bottom of the dune. When we reached the bottom, we turned around to watch both Johanna and Barbara sliding down the dunes on their rear ends. This made a distinctive pattern in the dune, and was also highly amusing. At the bottom, Barbara had another funny quote: “I think it’s time to take my pants off.” I turned to Andrew, who was standing next to me, and asked, “do you think she means American pants or british pants?” we soon found out. She went behind a bush and removed the long underwear she had been wearing. I guess she was getting warm.

So, we continued on our walk, headed towards big daddy, the largest dune in the world. Those that wanted could hike up it, those that didn’t could wait in the deadvlei. I hiked up it, along with Alfred, clare, Stephen (who was feeling well enough to run some of the distance, crazy boy), kyla, and mike. That was a tough walk. I was thankfully behind Alfred, whose footsteps made little ledges into which I could place my feet to make the climb easier. Basically the sand was slightly more packed there. I got to the top, started singing “oh, we’re half way there/o-oh, livin’ on a prayer…” and then took in the view. To one side, far off in the distance, you could see what Alfred told me was the third highest mountain in Namibia. To another side, just dunes. To a third side were some dunes and some mountains. And behind us when we were looking at the third highest mountain in Namibia was the deadvlei. This area has apparently been featured in a few commercials and was in that Jennifer lopez movie, the cell. It is both beautiful and a little unnerving. It is a piece of land that dried out into cracked soil, and on which trees that have been dead for 500 years still stand. These trees can still support some weight, and have lasted because they are far enough into the middle of nothing that no parasites can reach them to destroy them. They kind of look like the living dead, tree-style. It is a very unique site.

Anyways, I left you at the top of a dune. We still had to get down the dune, and into the deadvlei. I tried to go down surfer-style, but this proved slow and ineffective, so in the end I just ran, slowly, down the dune. Stephen sped by me at one point, thoroughly enjoying himself. At the bottom, we had another shoe-emptying party, leaving little piles of sand on the deadvlei. Then we got to walk across and actually touch trees that have been dead hundreds of years. Someone might’ve gone up and hugged a tree. I don’t remember. After crossing the deadvlei, we took a landrover back to our bus. The driver apparently liked to speed as quickly as possible over the bumpy ruts in the sand. Fun ride. This is also when clare decided to dub Alfred “alfredo of nothing.” Back at the bus, and a quick lunch later, we were back on the road heading for sesriem canyon. It was an anticlimactic canyon, especially for anyone who’d seen the grand canyon. It was just so small, and there really wasn’t too much there to see. We did get a flat tire, though, and got to watch Alfred and george fix it.

Then, back to agama for our last night of the safari. This is also when I discovered that I shouldn’t had more water to drink that day, as I was starting to get a migraine. It cleared up though, and after a couple very sorry rounds of pool I went to bed.

The next morning was to be our last camp breakfast. Sigh. Then, on the road headed for Windhoek. At a gas station, we obtained another heat magazine, this one outlining the evolution of “brange” or “brangelina” or whatever their being called these days. There was also a picture of prince harry looking at a cow’s rear. Prince harry was a bit of a joke for us along the trip because one of his charity organizations, sentebale, funds mant’sase orphanage in qhalasi, by kyla’s house. Kyla actually got to meet him last October or November. She said she liked his bodyguards. Anyways, he apparently likes rugby, so the boys kept making jokes about how she should subtly suggest a game of rugby now that she knew how to play and the “accidentally” trip and fall on him. After this there should be tea and crumpets, emphasis on crumpets. Apparently this is british slang for an attractive girl. Harry is coming back to Lesotho soon. More updates as they become available.

Without much further ado, we arrived in Windhoek. All the british/Dominican republic people were leaving on an 8 pm flight the next day (Thursday), and kyla and I were going to be in Windhoek until 5:30 Friday, so george booked us at joe’s beerhouse for dinner. Sadly, Barbara opted out, as she had an early flight to Uganda the next day. So we said our goodbyes outside the cardboard box and headed in to clean up for dinner.

I really liked the cardboard box. One of the receptionists in particular was hilarious. She happened to be on staff when kyla and I entered, so it was good to see her again. We said “hey” and then headed for the showers.

Dinner that night was nice. Joe’s is known for it’s game, although I question our waitresses ability to correctly label different slabs of meat. I got a dish that included a large chunk of ostrich beside a large chunk of springbok beside a large chunk of oryk. Look ma, I’m eating meat! There was also some vegetables and potato thingies involved. And a flaming shot glass of some vile liquor. All the while a warthog head was staring down at me from the wall. It was good to see everyone one last time. Except it turned out that it wasn’t one last time. Everyone was going shopping before the flight the next day, so we decided to meet for lunch. I didn’t need to go shopping so I went for a run and then headed for zoo park on the corner of fidel castro st. and independence ave. to listen to music and wait. So we got to meet up once again, and then go shopping for a little while after lunch. Kyla bought a necklace charm of Africa that she had been wanting since she got to Africa. She had just been waiting for the perfect one. So that was exciting for her. And then, they left. I’m kinda jealous of them, actually. They all live relatively close to one another, so it’s easier for them to keep in touch. Hopefully I’ll still be able to stay in contact with them, though. It just makes it that much harder to return to Lesotho. Every vacation I’ve been on I’ve not wanted to return. That’s part of going on vacation I suppose, and of course you have to realize that the vacation wouldn’t stay wonderful forever, and that you wouldn’t appreciate as much if it did continue forever. Still, there are those fleeting, childish thoughts, “what if I just refuse to return?” all volunteers go through these phases, and I’m now at my year-in dip where I’m thinking “I’m here for a whole ‘nother year? Really?” and that seems enormous. I’m sure it will fly by, though. I’m measuring time left by chunks until vacation time. 1-1/2 months ‘til reconnect, then 1 week until independence week, etc. my ‘m’e did a lot to help me feel better, but that’s a story for the next blog.

Anyways, to anyone who was on the trip and who is reading this now, thanks for the wonderful time. Hope you are all well.

ann

So, kyla and I left Windhoek on Friday, june 11, at 5:30. this was once again a 2 part bus ride: to upington, and the to bloem. It was uneventful. No hyperactive kids this time. Customs was colder and made me dread what Lesotho would be like, but we made it through without having our bags checked, so that’s good. We did get a seat at the very front of the double-decker bus, which was nice. The poor girl across the aisle kept having the electric panel above her fall on her head. But she said it didn’t hurt and wasn’t that heavy, so I guess that’s nice. We barely had a stopover at upington before the next but came to take us to bloem. It was the same driver we’d had before. Once again, uneventful. I finished the fourth part of Stephen king’s dark tower series. I’ve been sucked in to it. We got back to bloem an hour ahead of time. I thought this was really exciting, as it insured that I could make it all the way back to site, not just to maseru. We got to the taxi rank to discover that prices had risen r10, but that was ok. I hopped the bus and waited maybe about 45 minutes for departure. The bus left, drove about 10 minutes to a shopping center, and stopped. Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Oh, so it turns out that taxi wasn’t actually going to van rooi, it was just taking us to another taxi that was. Ok. I switched taxis with my luggage and we were off. It takes about an hour to get to van rooi from bloem, and I noticed as we approached the border that it was getting kind of dark out. It was at this time that I realized that I’d forgotten south Africa is an hour ahead of bloem. D’oh! I crossed the border into Lesotho at dusk and turned on my phone, intending to beg housing from another volunteer living in mafeteng. Apparently my phone had gotten turned on sometime in the previous almost 3 weeks of travel, and the battery was dead. It lasted just long enough for me to get a response from the person I’d texted: “I’m in maseru. Try these other 2 people living near mafeteng.” And then it died. So, mafeteng is not somewhere to be stranded at night. It’s thug-ville. Some volunteers have been held up there. I apprehensively asked my taxi driver if there would be a taxi to mohale’s hoek that night. He responded “yes” and I breathed a sigh of relief.

We got to mafeteng and I switched taxis. Eventually the taxi to the hoek filled up. More than filled actually, by about 5 people. The guy next to me had his hand on my left thigh. He’d actually seemed nice enough at first. We chatted for a minute or 2. then comes the inevitable, “where are you from?” he guessed denmark, which surprised me. That’s not one of the better known countries to most basotho. I told him that no, I was from the states, and of course he responds by telling me that he would love to visit the states sometime. I count down, 3…2…1…and then “do you have a boyfriend?” I say I do, and he asks if the guy is black or white. I tell him that is none of his business, put on my head phones, and crank up the music. But does this deter him? No. he keeps trying to talk to me. Now, this is not an uncommon form of harassment for a female peace corps volunteer, but i’ve been on a bus for over 24 hours, I’m tired physically, I’m tired of being hit on, and on top of everything else, he’s interrupting my bon jovi. Is nothing sacred?! He ended by asking for my phone number so that he could make sure I got home safely. Many basotho men are a bit thick headed. I told him I’d be fine.

I got back to mohale’s hoek only to find that the 4 + 1 drivers were going to charge me r30 to get to my house. It usually costs r3.50. I knew it was late, but r30 is an exorbitant fee for traveling 10 km. that’s how much it costs to get to maseru. So I trudled the block to the police station, thinking that if this didn’t work I’d go and sleep in the back room of the maluti hotel, the kind of closet given to the peace corps volunteers where I am now writing this blog.

I entered the police station and explained the situation. I was returning home, forgot about the time change, r30 is too expensive to pay to get home. I was asked to sit down and a couple minutes later the policeman said, “ok, let’s go.” He apparently had gotten permission from his superior to take me home. I guess I played the lekhooa (white person)/damsel in distress card to positive effect. Or he was just really bored. It looked like a slow night. I hoped in the truck with him. A minute later another officer opened the passenger side door and got in, so I was now sandwiched between two officers. Apparently it takes not one but two male police officers to escort the white girl home. The other passenger kept up a running conversation, too, and loudly. He had taken a narcotics course in Namibia, and another police course in Botswana, and he was really scared the first time he flew in a plane. They were very nice, though, and drove me all the way to my front door. They actually started to yell to wake up my ‘m’e and ntate, but I tried to quiet them as best I could, explaining that I had a key. And my dog came out to greet me. Her entire body was wagging. Nice to have someone great me so excitedly upon my arrival home. I opened my door and walked into my house to discover I had no sheets and not blankets. Curses! I assumed my ‘m’e had taken them to get washed. She’s really thoughtful like that. I was also too tired to be very concerned. I just busted my sleeping bag back out of my backpack, curled up, and passed out.

Sadly, we saw no cheetah in etosha. I think they’re very hard to spot (get it, spot? Cheetahs have spots, and they’re hard to spot – I am hilarious), but I was hoping. I guess that just means I’ll have to plan another trip…

So, upon leaving etosha we headed south. After an hour and a bit, we came to a town where we could grab some goods for the road, and buy cake and coffee at an apparently well-known café. Maybe it was well-known, but its service left something to be desired. I gave up on getting my coffee after about 20 minutes of waiting. I also think pastries and sweets in general in southern Africa aren’t as good as they are in the states. Probably because they aren’t as sweet. Possibly because they aren’t as fatty. Ah, well. Onward we went.

Our next stop was the petrified forest. Actually, it was just a place with some random pieces of wood that had apparently floated down a river thousands of years ago and then petrified. I need to read up again on the chemistry behind this process. Another thing to do when I have the time and am near the internet for a while. So, when I return to the states in a year. This was my least favorite part of the trip. I didn’t think it was too impressive. From the petrified forest we headed to a place spelled twefylfontein, or something similar. To us it sounded like “trifle fountain” so we were hoping for some good treats. We got rock carvings. Some of them were cool, and there was some symbolism in them that was interesting, and it was pretty neat that they can last as long as they can, but all in all, I didn’t think this part of the trip was too great either. I’m much more of an animal and nature person than a rock carvings person, I guess.

We were going to see the organ pipes, which are a set of rocks that looked like organ pipes next. We never got there.

I guess I could digress here to describe the landscape. Thus far we had been in a reedy, watery delta, savannah-like grasslands, and now we were approaching large hills and mountains. The rock carvings were all on hills. And there were rocks all over the hills. For anyone who has read the hobbit, I think there was a description of the far side of the mountains that it looked as if giants had been having rock wars and throwing rocks at each other. Tolkein could’ve gotten his idea from the “trifle fountain” area. While the carvings weren’t too impressive, I loved the landscape.

So, we never made it to the organ pipes because a desert elephant had been spotted, so we went to check it out. We actually got pretty close, too, before it flared its ears out.

This is a sign that the elephant is unhappy. An unhappy elephant is one that you do not want to be around.

We retreated a little ways and watched it eat. My camera died.

Eventually we were told we had to leave because it was getting dark and we had to set up camp. As it turned out, Alfred and george had already been to the site and set it up for us. We just had to get out our mattresses and luggage. This turned into a mattress fight involving everyone but Stephen (who was feeling better, but not yet well) and mike (who just wasn’t there). I think kyla started the fight, and then there was an unspoken agreement to pounce on mike when he came to get his mattress. Plan: executed. Unfortunately he could run a bit faster with no mattress than we could run with our mattresses so the mission was not entirely successful.

While waiting for dinner we went down to the bar so that mike could quench his passion for a gin and tonic (and hey, who was I to say “no” to one as well?) and there was even a fire near the bar by which we could sit! Hooray! So we hung out for a while, then went back to camp and had dinner, then hung out some more. And then I decided that it was a lovely night, lovely enough in fact to sleep outside. I had never slept outside before, but figured there could be a first time for everything. And we were farther away from animals than we’d been on the entire trip. So I dragged my mattress and sleeping bag from my tent, set it by the fire, watched the stars for a bit, and fell asleep. I awoke early the next morning (I was usually one of the first up, along with kyla – maybe it’s a peace corps thing) to mike getting out of his tent. He said he’d heard noises and started getting worried, thinking about me outside, and thinking that the noises were hyenas. They were chickens. I figured one of the guides would have told me if it was completely unsafe to sleep outside.

After waking up and eating, we packed our bags and left for swakopmund, and for civilization.

That day, I’m pretty sure, was the day of the lick ‘n’ learns. It was also the day of stinkiness.

So first, the lick ‘n’ learns. We stopped in a small town to buy some more supplies, and in a shop mike came across lollipops called lick ‘n’ learns, with either street signs or letters from the alphabet on them. They came in strings of maybe five or so, and he bought a couple and would occasionally pass them around or hand a street sign to george (who was driving) when he thought it appropriate. This became a joke for the rest of the trip. Also, when he got back into the bus with them, Stephen mentioned “there must be some really smart kids out there with really bad teeth.” After laughing, I realized that he must be feeling better if he was able to make a joke. So the lollipops also marked stephen’s recovery, and return to the world.

Then, we went to visit the largest seal colony in the world. What you aren’t told is how completely wretched these animals smell. Sure they look cute, but you don’t want to be around them for more than five minutes. And the ocean around the colony was completely discolored by seal defecation. No wonder they smell. So I took a couple photos and returned to the less pungent bus. After a while, when everyone was back on, we drove down into swakopmund, which is a city on the ocean. This means fresh fish! We got there early afternoon, grabbed lunch, and then I and quite a few other people took a nap. Mike went sky diving. I was a little jealous. Some day I will have to do this, too. Johanna went on a plane ride over the desert. They both really enjoyed what they did, so that’s good.

We went to a proper restaurant for dinner. And yes, I finally had fish, fresh, and of an un-canned variety. And it was good. Stephen tried to eat, but ended up not being hungry. And so I watched as Alfred, who was sitting across the table from me, devoured an entire pizza, stephen’s dinner, and then desert. The man is amazing. Meanwhile george was completely exhausted by the drive, and the past week and a half of work, and he was falling asleep over his massive plate of meat. Eventually he got a to go bag and went and slept in the bus.

I ordered desert, to share with someone. I was actually excited about this because desert is something I don’t get much of in Lesotho, especially sundaes. You can find ice cream bars in maseru, but that’s not the same. So we ordered a banana split. It came – with no bananas. “sorry, we’re out” the waitress explained as she walked away. So really the banana well, … split. Only in Africa. It was nice to go out to a proper restaurant, though. I even put some make-up on and did the whole girl thing. I felt like myself again for the first time in a year. This feeling was even stronger a couple days later, when we as a group went out in Windhoek.

That night we slept in beds, which was nice, but I actually hadn’t minded the tents. The mattress on the floor of my tent was more comfortable than my bed at ha thaba bosiu. It has no springs to dig into my hips as I sleep. The next morning, we got up and left for the last part of the trip, sossuvlei, the dunes. We drove for a lot of the day, and saw some beautiful hill and mountain landscapes along the way. We stopped a couple times to take photos. We also stopped at the tropic of Capricorn for another photo-op. we made it to our last campsite, agama, late afternoon. It was a nice, quiet site. The showers and toilets were very close to use, and the ceiling only partially complete, so we actually could look through the poles of the ceiling at the stars as we showered and used the toilet. Can you add romanticism to using the bathroom?

There was a bar up at the lodge, as well as a pool table and…PUPPIES! Clare was very excited over the puppies. Actually, I think the male was an adult, and was an American Staffordshire terrier. He had an Afrikaans name I couldn’t pronounce. The female, sadie, was a puppy, and I think was an English Staffordshire terrier (is that right?). she was really cute. So, we sat at the bar, had a couple gin and tonics, and played with the puppies until dinner. After dinner, we sat at the bar, drank a couple beers, and played pool. There was a group of students from emory university in Georgia there, too. Southern accents abounded. After a while we headed back down to camp, and I lay out on the ground to watch the stars. I saw at least two, maybe three shooting stars. Perfect.

Then, to bed, and the next day on to…

Etosha is a very large wildlife preserve. I can’t remember its dimensions and unfortunately I am writing this blog from mohale’s hoek, where there is no internet, but if I remember when I’m in maseru I’ll look up the size on the interwebbies. Don’t count on it. Inside of etosha are numerous roads leading to watering holes, marshy areas, etc. there are also three campsites protected from wildlife by fencing. I have also forgotten the names of these campsites. But we stayed in the first campsite for two nights, then skipped over the middle campsite and stayed in the third and largest campsite for the last night in the park. I liked our first campsite best, as it was a bit less crowded and more peaceful. We were also much closer to the bathrooms, and therefore showers, in the first site.

While the fencing keeps out most large and harmful beasties, not all wildlife is prevented from entering the campsites. The first things we (or, at least I) saw upon entering the camp, whatever it’s name was, were WARTHOGS!!! So, we got to get out of the bus and check them out while george was checking us in. they are sooooo cute, in a ridiculous, ugly sort of way. They crack me up, anyways. I’m not sure that anyone else understands my love (sigh) but I guess that’s just the way of the world. After george checked us in, we headed out for our campsite and set up tents. Then we bummed around with the soccer ball, then the rugby ball, then both. That night, we met some other fuzzy neighbors of our campsite – jackals. These particular ones had black fur down their backs, while the rest of them were brown. I later discovered you could buy their coats at a store on independence ave. in Windhoek. I wonder how much of a market there is for jackal fur? Anyways, these animals are so acclimated to people that they will come within a couple of feet of you, albeit cautiously, in the hopes of getting food. I think kids see them as similar to dogs and feed them. This is another good reason to make sure your tent is securely zipped at night. No one wants to wake up in the morning to a jackals snuggling and looking for food.

Much more eerie than the jackals were the other night noises. We were right beside the fence separating the camp from the wildlife, and there was a lion right on the other side of the fence. I had never heard a lion call before (except in movies, and well that’s just not the same) and it is awe-inspiring and incredibly powerful. That, combined with the knowledge that this powerful, sharp-toothed and clawed beast is maybe only a couple hundred yards away, is enough to give you the chills. Kyla kept trying to convince herself that it was a zebra. Unfortunately, I’m not that good with words and therefore cannot fully describe the feeling of sitting in the dark around a fire listening to what ended up being a couple lions calling back and forth, and sounding almost as if they are surrounding the camp. Surreal to be sure, amongst other emotions.

And with that, we went to bed.

We woke up early the next morning, skipped breakfast, and headed out to hunt more wildlife. I thought about elmer fudd a couple times both in the delta and in etosha except, instead of “we’re hunting wabbits”, “we’re hunting ewephants,” or zebra, or whatever. Anyways, we had to get up early because most of the game is out and about drinking and eating in the morning and then in the evening. They take siestas during the heat of the day. We wandered around to different watering holes and across a marshy area. Unfortunately, now is about when I started to forget to record everything that I was seeing. I do remember watching a duck with her young in the marsh. The ducklings kept trying to come out of the tall grass and the mother would swim to them and scold them back into hiding. We also returned to the watering hole we had visited the day before, in time to watch a couple giraffes fighting. I had never considered giraffe wars before. They didn’t really strike me as animals that did much fighting. Ya learn something new every day.

Giraffes fight with their necks. Basically, these two were exchanging hits which included one banging its neck against the others, and the other giraffe returning the bow. This went on for a little while, until a mediator showed up to stop it. George said that giraffes can actually kill each other this way. They hit the other animals next hard enough to burst some blood vessels, and that’s that. Wow. I had never thought about how strong a giraffe neck must be before.

We went to another watering hole full of a variety of animals: zebra, giraffe, elephants, springbok, kudu, eland (if I remember correctly – this is questionable), some birds, and a single warthog looking adorably lost amongst the crowd. And just as at bars, which are social scenes as well as scenes of fights, watering holes are crowded enough for some tempers to rise. There was one particularly feisty zebra at this hole that kept picking fights with the other zebra. We stayed for a while and watched as the animals slowly started to drift away. We saw quite a few springbok leap off into the brush. Then we headed back to camp. Oh, somewhere in this time we also saw a female lion hunting for food. I think we scared her game away, so she probably wasn’t too pleased with us.

At camp we saw another semi-domesticated wild beast: mongooses, who will always remind me of riki tiki tavi. They were scrounging in trash cans near an abandoned camp site, looking for food I presume. There were lots of them, too. They were amusing to watch for a while. They move so quickly! But then lunch called, and I have my priorities down, so I ate. We had a few hours to rest after that, until late afternoon when we would head out again. Most of the group wanted to head to the pool. I hadn’t brought a bathing suit with me, and besides that I figured the water would be freezing cold (it was winter after all, and the nights were pretty cold), so I declined going into the water but walked with the group to the pool, intending to quietly read while all the insane people jumped into uber cold h2o.

Plan foiled!

Maybe about 15 minutes or so after arriving at the pool I was dumped in, clothes and all. And clare, being the kind person she is, had even borrowed my camera to photograph this. Pictures on flickr for anyone interested. The last picture of me in the pool is the one right before I started hyperventilating from the cold. I was dragged very ungracefully, but thankfully very quickly, from the water and place in the sunniest part of the pool area available. I’ve had one other experience with cold water, and that was in Arizona when I went to visit my aunt and uncle with my family. I was maybe about 10 at the time. I turned blue. Cold water is NOT my friend. But the sun was warm, and I recuperated quickly enough to pass the rugby ball around the pool for a while. Lesson: do NOT throw ann into cold bodies of water. We left at about 3:30 to get ready for the next game drive, and I decided to take a quick, very HOT shower to warm myself before getting back on the bus. I was still shaking when we set out on the drive. I think it was more that my nerves were on end than that I was still cold, though.

On this drive, we saw many of the same animals that we had already seen. The really memorable part of it was near the end. We were driving down the road and suddenly there was a lion walking right next to the bus. Mind you, this was also right at sunset. Very picturesque. I got an ok picture of him (this was a full-maned male), and if you zoom in you can see how golden his eyes are.

Unfortunately kyla started to feel bad about this time. She gamely kept trying to watch the lion, but ended up with her head in a plastic bag a lot. We followed the lion for a while. At one point he crossed the road and stared right at us. I think he was getting peeved. Eventually, we had to leave, as the sun was setting and we had to get to camp. There was another car right behind us, though, and then a ministry car pulled up as we left. George wasn’t sure, but he said that he thought the first car might have been trying to do some poaching. So I guess these things happen even in massive, touristy game parks like etosha.

We got back to camp to find a massive bus parked by our site, and oodles of tents of annoying, young tourists surrounding ours. This put a damper on our evening and the next morning. Seriously, someone from our group passed by them on the way to the toilet and heard them making fart jokes. Glad I wasn’t part of the group. And also, I can’t imagine being in a group that large to do a safari. Eight was a good number. Large enough so that it’s not awkward (george said he’d been a guide on a safari with just one person – talk about awkward) but not so big as to create friction amongst people and scare off the game.

Kyla headed straight for the bathroom and then bed. I went to the bar and bought her some boiled water and then for the most part left her alone. I figure most people don’t want to be bothered when their ill. She thinks she just had maybe a small stomach flu or something, and after spending the night throwing up and spending a lot of the next day sleeping, she was ok again.

Other than annoying tourists and illnesses, the night passed pretty uneventfully. I couldn’t get to sleep and so stayed up reading for a while after everyone else had gone to bed. A jackal came within a foot of me before darting away.

I, and I think most of the rest of us, were rudely awakened at 4 in the morning by the very loud sounds of the large group of young tourists packing up to leave. Seriously, they seemed to have no consideration for the fact that others were trying to sleep still. They were laughing and joking as they took down their tents. I felt like punching someone. I rolled out of my tent, figuring I’d be unable to sleep and went to the bathroom, where there was a group of young adult girls. I asked if they were from the large tour group outside. When they answered in the affirmative, I tried to give them the evil eye, but it might have gotten lost within my bleary-eyed expression. It was lost on them, anyways.

Well, eventually my group got going, packed up, and headed for the next campsite we were to visit in etosha. We did some more game driving on the way, and didn’t make it to the other camp until around lunch time. Kyla spent the time sprawled out on the back seat attempting to sleep, and recovering. Meanwhile, Stephen was falling ill. He’d started feeling bad a little after kyla, and had some of the same symptoms, so they might have gotten the same thing. He was much sicker, though. He turned white and looked catatonic. We started thinking that maybe he’d contracted malaria, so after we got to camp and got lunch, george and Alfred took him and mike (his brother) and hour drive to see the doctor. I took a nap.

This camp was much larger than the first, and there were many more people. I didn’t like it as much. But we were even closer to the fence than we had been at the last camp and could watch elephants and zebra heading for the watering hole that was right beside the camp. There was also a large weaver bird nest near the camp, and more squirrels.

After I woke up, I went to visit the watering hole that was located next to the camp. The watering hole is apparently very popular and often visited. When I went, there were a bunch of elephants hanging out, drinking, tossing dirt on their heads (to cool off?), etc. I tried to photograph a baby elephant at exactly the wrong time, when he was turning and starting to use the bathroom. Dang it! I got some good photos too, though, and got a couple photos of giraffes’ reflections in the water.

So, dusk was approaching, and then night, and george still hadn’t returned with the others. And he’d taken the wood and food with him. So, enterprising individuals that we are, we decided to take care of things ourselves. Some people walked to the store to buy wood and biscuits. I walked to the campsite next to us and asked for a match. I got a bic lighter, but figured that would do. Then I walked back and gave the lighter to kyla, who is aces at starting a fire. Her father insisted she learn this as a child. Thankfully, some of our fire-starters had been left, and she soon had a nice fire going. I returned the lighter to its owner.

We also had snacks. Yum. Maybe about 15 minutes or so late, george returned, and we found out that Stephen didn’t have malaria, but some nasty form of the flu. He went to bed and we made dinner. After dinner, we headed back down to the watering hole, now lit by floodlights (ain’t technology grand). Clare and Andrew had been there in time to see a rhino come to the watering hole, walk up to the fence, do a couple circles in place, and plot down for a nap. When we got there it was snoring. Clare likened it to a big dog. Several more rhinos came and went while we sat out, both black and white rhinos. We then left for a little while to go to the bar and get bottled water, returned to watch the rhinos, and then went to bed.

Oh, somewhere around this time I found an 80’s buddy! So I got to share my ipod and dance in my car seat to 80’s music with mike. And when Stephen was feeling better, he wanted to listen to the top gun songs and to new kids on the block. Life was good.

So, the next morning we got up, said goodbye to etosha, and moved on to…

So, I view this trip as 3 main parts, with smaller sight-seeing in between: the delta, etosha, and the sossuvlei. The first in-between I will call interlude 1.

After leaving tiger island, we returned to guma to spend one more night by the delta before heading on to etosha. We got back to guma pretty early, so we all had time to do some laundry, take showers (in the light, even!), and hang out for a while. I found a quiet, out-of-the way area by the delta where I could think. Mike ended up joining me there, and we talked for a while and then went for a walk around the campsite. We found the horse stables (they do delta pony-trekking, I think) where the older/pregnant/nursing horses who aren’t fit to ride are kept. There was one mare with a young foal, a colt if I remember correctly. I enjoyed walking through the stables. It’s been a while since I have been in a horse stable, been able to smell the smell, etc. there are horses in Lesotho, of course, but not in proper stables, and most of them aren’t trained to be particularly friendly (like most of the animals here).

We got back just in time for a game of touch rugby. I think it started off as a 4 vs 3 game, and then george and Alfred joined, making it 5 vs 4. Barbara opted not to play. Over the two weeks of this trip I got to practice throwing and kicking the rugby ball a decent amount. I did get at least a little better, especially at kicking, and I thought it was a pretty fun game. I learned a little about the rules, too, like different ways of putting the ball back in play. Anyways, if alfred’s eccentricities had not become apparent during the mud fight on tiger island, the definitely did during rugby. He takes rugby very seriously. He also prefers to kick the rugby ball, rather than throw it. My most vivid memories of this game are Alfred yelling “just kick it!” to his team-mates so that he could run forward to get the ball and score. It was amusing. My other vivid memory of this game is me tackling someone. Now, this was supposed to be a touch rugby game, but anyone who knows me knows that I am not the most graceful individual in the world. So, towards the end of the game, mike and I were both running for the rugby ball, which was loose and heading towards mike’s goal (I was playing defense). I tried to kick the ball away (this is legal, I’m pretty sure) but instead tripped mike and ended up going down as well. We landed in a pile of prickly grass and poor mike, who already had splinters in his feet, got splinters in his hand. I was also picking splinters out of my hand for the next couple days, but I guess I deserved it. The game ended soon after, and I went to take another shower (2 in one day!) because I was covered in dirt (I had fallen a couple times during the day). By then it was after dark, so I took another shower in the dark, washing my clothes as best I could. Unfortunately I had played in my jeans, and also unfortunately I discovered by the light of the next day that I had managed to rip them in an inopportune place. Drat. Anywho, that night we sat by the fire and chatted, drank beers, etc.

The next day, we headed out of the delta, out of Botswana, and back to… Namibia! We crossed the border right at a national park, so we got to drive through the park on the way to etosha. We saw quite a bit of wildlife, including sable, roan antelope, kudu, wildebeest, impala, zebra, tree squirrels, monkeys, and several types of birds. We also saw more hippos, and on the land. I had been hoping to see hippos on land. Actually I really wanted to see one trotting along, as I’ve heard they’re extremely graceful given there bulk. Unfortunately, they hippos we saw were far away and lying down. Clare and Andrew, wise british folk that they are, had thought to bring binoculars, so we were able to see the hippos through those. They looked like big gray boulders whose edges had been smoothed down. It was cool to see them on land, though, to see most of their bodies instead of just a nose or a head above water. They are amazing creatures.

We drove on and spent the night in rundu, though I can’t remember the name of the camp. We got there around dusk and everyone but I went for a boat ride on the water. I stayed to sew my pants back together. One of the boys had brought a sewing kit with him, thank goodness. I did get to watch/hear the end of the boat ride. They missed their turn to get back to camp, and I think the engine died and they got suck in the reeds. Alfred, the crazy one, decided to jump in to try to pull the boat back to camp. This didn’t work, but a crocodile did swim past him. From what I heard he got out of the water pretty quickly. The only other memorable part to the evening was that I got to try kudu meat, and I actually liked it! I have discovered a liking for game meat (more later). I think there was also a rather intense discussion about gender equality, but perhaps it is best not to expound upon that now. Eventually we went to bed. I think it was relatively early, too, since a large group of germans had taken all the space by the fire.

Next day we woke up, had breakfast, and were on the road. I think we had lunch by the road. I think it was at this lunch, by the side of the road, that we were accosted by children. It may have been another time, but I’m going to tell the story now anyways. Basically, the car had barely stopped when this gaggle of kids comes jogging across the street. They must have been lying in wait for some tourists (tourists = easy prey) and seen us coming. We got out of the car with a soccer ball (or football, if you will) that alfred had kindly purchased, and bummed around with it, and with a couple of the kids, until lunch was ready. We ate, while the kids stared and hoped for some food. One of the kids I’m pretty sure had kwashiorkor. His stomach was incredibly distended, while the rest of him was bones. And it was sad seeing them, but I guess living in Africa for a year and having to deal with people expecting hand-outs all the time had hardened me some, because I don’t think I took it nearly as badly as some of the group. Barbara gave them some cookies (biscuits) she had, and as we were leaving on of the guys in our group gave them some more food. The boy to whom he gave the food responded “tell madam [he was referring to me] that we want the football [soccer ball],” or something similar. I happened to have taken the soccer ball onto the bus. This is why I don’t feel too much pity for the kids. They can’t just say “thank you” for the food, but try to milk you for all your worth. And I guess I’m being western and wealthy and unfair, and if I was in their position I would try to get as much as I could out of every opportunity, but what can I say, I am western, and used to western forms of politeness.

Anywho, we continued from there to etosha, and arrived in time for a short game drive prior to hitting our campsite for the night. Almost as soon as we passed into the park, we came across two young male lions (their manes weren’t yet fully grown) just lying by the side of the road. We were off to a good start in the game-finding. Many of the animals in the park are so used to cars that they are completely indifferent to them. Our guide was telling us that lions can’t differentiate between cars and people in or by the cars. He had actually used this information once to scare off a lion that had come close to the car while a tourist was outside of it using the bathroom. One of george’s many fun stories. And better him than me. Anyways, these lions were completely indifferent to our presence, or to the presence of the car. So we hung out for a few minutes, lifted the top of the car up, and got some pictures. Then we moved on. A little while further down the road we spied giraffe. Now, I had wanted to see a giraffe on this trip, as I had never seen one before. Little did I know how greatly my dream would be fulfilled. We were all really excited by the first giraffes we saw, but then as we began to see 10, 20, 50, seemingly hundreds of them, their appeal died in favor of more rare sightings. Seriously, they must breed like rabbits in etosha because we saw them everywhere over the next couple of days.

Giraffes are very graceful animals, though. They look like they should be incredibly awkward, with their spindly legs and long necks. One ran right in front of our car, though, and it had an incredibly smooth, loping gait. It was like a tower moving on wheels, instead of bumping up and down as you would expect.

We turned the corner in the park and went up to a water hole. On the way we saw springbok and impala (these were also very common) and dik-diks, which george said were a relatively rare find. They were also hard to see, as their coats blended into the terrain. They looked like a cross between a rabbit and an antelope.

At the watering hole, we got to watch giraffes drink. They have two different methods: bend their knees, or spread their front legs. How they choose which method to use, I know not. We also saw some Egyptian geese. Why they were in Namibia, I know not.

By this time, it was getting late, so we headed for camp.

To be continued…

After breakfast the next day, and after our tents, etc. were packed, we headed down to the water, to a motorboat that would take us into the delta. There are crocodiles in the water near that campsite, I think, but I didn’t see any. After we were all on the motorboat, we rode for maybe 20 minutes into the delta. The area of the delta near the campsite is relatively open, but then the delta becomes reedy, and channels actually have to be cut to allow the boat through. The reeds amazed me. They were a few feet tall, and so densely packed that you could only see water for a couple feet surrounding the motorboat, and then the mokoros. Beyond that, it looked just like a field, kind of like tall grass on solid ground. Beautiful. So, once the motorboat reached its destination, we transferred to mokoros, which are flat-bottomed and small, and kinda reminded me of canoes. Instead of paddles, though, each mokoro had a man at the back who was a poler. He had a pole that he would dip into the water and push against the bottom of the delta to move and to steer. Kyla’s and my poler was named risk. No joke. He was also very young, and a little shy. It took him a day to warm up to us and start talking.

The polers poled for about and hour and a half, I think, and we got to see more fields of reeds. There were also lilly pads everywhere, and a lot of sharp plants. We had been warned to keep our hands inside the mokoros, but sometimes the plants would dangle into the boats, so I got a few scratches. And the polers generally tried to follow narrow paths through the reeds that I think were made by hippos or elephants (did you know elephants could swim? I didn’t), but I think my poler was a little inexperienced, so we did a bit of off-roading into the reeds over the next couple days.

So, this journey ended at a small island that we dubbed “tiger island”. I think it has a name, and I think the name sounds something like that, but it isn’t actually tiger island. There are no tigers on this island. There were, however elephant and hippo footprints, and we did hear a couple hippo in the water less that 150 m away the first night we were there. We set up our tents and then lounged for a while. Most of the wildlife sleeps during the day, so we weren’t going in search of anything until 4 pm. A hole in the sand behind a bush was dug for us to use as a pit latrine, and a kind of toilet seat-thingy was brought along with our luggage so we could use the bathroom.

At 4, we headed for another island to hunt hippos, etc. on the way, we saw a fish eagle. Actually, we saw a lot of these over the days we were in the delta. When we got to the island, our guides, who were also our mokoro polers (they stayed on tiger island with us while we were in the delta) showed us around, pointed out elephant, hippo, and leopard tracks, taught us the difference between female and male elephant droppings (the female’s are in a nice, neat pile, while the male’s are spread) and the difference between hippo and elephant spores (hippo’s are greener and really spread around). The polers also pointed out a couple plants used for weaving baskets, one of which grew into a tree and produced a kind of edible fruit and seed. I actually have one back at ha thaba bosiu. A cross was carved into it, courtesy of on of the british blokes. I named it kris (kris kross’ll make you jump, jump). One thing I thought was interesting were the number of downed trees near our campsite, and on other islands. Elephants scratch themselves against the trees hard enough to knock them over. Durn.

After wandering around this island (we didn’t see any animals other than birds) we returned to camp, ate dinner, talked around the fire (I miss fires now), slept. I was awakened early in the morning by my tent being shaken. I thought it was george waking us up (he liked jokes and pranks, so this was something he would do) but it turned out that it was some animal, not sure which, brushing against the tent. I thought it was kinda cool, perhaps in a slightly unnerving way.

When we finally got up that morning, and after breakfast, we went with the polers to the hippo pool, as all of us were keen to see hippo. We found them, and sat very quietly watching them for a while. There was an adult male, an adult female, and a baby. One of them got pretty close to us and reared its head and neck out of the water with its mouth wide open. It was a beautiful and powerful image. I would never want to mess with an angry hippo. In fact, the polers decided it was time to leave after that. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of the hippo, but some of the people I was with did. We had discussed setting up a group site on flickr and if that happens you’ll be able to see it. It was something out of national geographic.

After leaving the hippos, we went quickly for a walk around another island. This is actually where kriss, my nut, was picked up, and then back to camp for lunch and a rest before going out again at 4. after lunch, we hung out for a bit reading heat magazine (a trashy celeb magazine from England) and thoroughly enjoying it, and then some people decided they wanted to try to pole in the mokoros. I was not one of them. Mike, Stephen, Andrew, clare, kyla, george, and Alfred went out, and this quickly turned into a tip the mokoro contest. Kyla, in her effort to tip mike’s mokoro, was dubbed the “evil American witch”. I just watched all of this. Once everyone was thoroughly soaked, a mud fight ensued using mud from the bottom of the delta. Kyla left the water at this point. I was increasingly tempted to join, as it looked like loads of fun, but never did. I just sat at the water’s edge. The fight actually turned into a WWII re-enactment of germany (Alfred and george) vs. England. I think it ended in a truce, as America refused to enter, but I’m not quite sure. After everyone rinsed as best they could in the delta, we had a couple races. One of the guys discovered that the grass near our site is really prickly. He ended up have to get a few splinters removed over the course of the next few days. Then we went out again at 4 to visit another couple islands. This time we saw elephants, which was nice. The head guide actually tried to chase one of them our way (sounded crazy to me, but I guess he knew what he was doing?) with no success. Hopefully some of my pictures will be ok. After that, we returned to camp. I think this was the night which included some of barbara’s funny jokes. The main one involved her confusion over the term “shag” which she, being southern, thought of as a dance but which the brits knew as something else. I won’t tell the full story out of consideration for the delicacy of some reader’s ears, but hilarity ensued. I went to bed crying from laughter. Barbara also announced a slight crush on the elder of the polers. She actually had her picture taken with him the next day. It was cute.

The morning we left the delta, we saw loads of monkeys in the trees near out campsite. I think they were vervet monkeys. Oh, I forgot to mention the alarm clock bird. He was really annoying and started making sounds like an alarm clock every night before we went to bed. He was also known as the go away bird. Anyways, we packed up and left tiger island. We had an uneventful trip back to guma. I think some people saw more fish eagles, but I missed them. We got back to guma early enough to hang out for a while, but I’ll leave that fun-ness for the next blog, as this one is already about three pages.

Oh, so I know I said I’d stop writing, but I just have to reiterate how wonderful I thought the delta was. I can’t decide whether this or the dunes was the best part of the trip. The delta was just so peaceful. We saw no other people in the delta the entire time we were there. It was just our group and guides. And there were no people trying to yell at each other from a half mile away. It was really nice just being in a small group of people with whom I got along, and hearing no one else. Hearing nothing else in fact, besides the sounds of nature. Hippos and water, and even the annoying go away bird really beat yelling people, donkeys braying, taxis, etc.

So, we were picked up at the cardboard box on Thursday, june 26, by a guy named george who turned out to be our guide, and his assistant Alfred (or, as the brits dubbed him, alfredo of nothing) who turned out to be crazy. we had a 15-seater bus whose roof opened and which had oodles of storage space for food, tents, luggage, etc. because yes, we were camping. Kyla and I boarded the bus, the first of the eight people who were going on this safari. We stopped next at a hotel to get another woman. The first thing that registered to me about her was her voice. She was still outside the bus when I heard her speak and thought “she’s from the south!” yep, turned out she was from Georgia, she was in her mid-sixties, and she had been a peace corps volunteer in uganda from 2003-2005. She dubbed herself “mamma” for the trip, as the next closes person in age to her was in his mid-thirties. Actually, sometimes when she spoke, the things she said, or her mannerisms, did remind me of my mother. I told her that once. She was a lot of fun on the trip, and I wish I’d kept a collection of some of the things she said, because they were priceless. She was doing this tour and then returning to Uganda to visit for the second time since her tour with peace corps had finished.

The rest of the group we met at the airport. There were 3 british guys, mike and Stephen, who were brothers, and Andrew, who was not. There was also one british girl, clare, and Johanna, who was originally from the domincan republic but who had been living in London for five years. She had a massive camera that I nick-named “the beast”. So I’ll probably say this again sometime, but I think this trip was the best vacation I’ve ever been on. It was very worth it, and I think a lot of that had to do with the people on the trip, including the guides. I hadn’t really put that much thought into the people with whom I’d be traveling, but they were all really laid back and wonderful. I actually didn’t think about the fact that I could’ve ended up with some difficult people on the trip until a couple days in, when one of the brits mentioned that she had booked the safari through an English company in an effort to avoid Americans. Apparently there are a lot of difficult American travelers out there. George had a couple of stories about them, though the people he liked least were the Italians. I think/hope that they felt differently about Barbara, kyla, and me. We all got along very well. I guess it’s just really important to be laid back and have a since of humor, and not complain all the time on vacations, especially ones such as these.

Moving right along…

Once we’d all been picked up, we drove the entire day from Namibia to Botswana and up to our first campsite. We saw warthogs crossing the street on the way, which made me happy because I love warthogs. One of the british guys, mike, ended up buying me a warthog post card because I kept talking about them so much. The warthog is covered in mud and really cute. It’s now stuck to my wall above my bed so I can look at it every night before I go to sleep.

We got to our first campsite at dusk. We saw cheetahs there, but they were in cages. We also saw wild dogs, which I thought were behind a protective fence, but I was told they were actually in cages, too.

Once at site, we were taught how to set up tents. It’s not that difficult, really. I never got to be very quick at it, but that’s ok. Kyla and I shared a tent. Once the tents were set up, we put our mattresses in (we all got mattresses to sleep on for the trip), and then our backpacks. I was getting cold, and went ahead and changed into my pajamas, and then proceeded to trip on my tent trying to get out of it. And of course, someone happened to be looking my way at the time, so we had a good chuckle about that. After all that, we had dinner and could take showers if we wanted. I think I ate better and was cleaner on my safari trip than I have been my entire year in Lesotho. Showers I tell you, and daily even! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I can do without the lighting in my house, but I miss showers. Warm, running water, how I love thee…

Slap, slap, back to reality

After dinner at nights we’d sit around a fire talking. Kinda adds to the romanticism of the safari, doncha think. I finally found the southern cross constellation, after living in the southern hemisphere for a year. And george told funny stories about past safari trips he’d been on. Oh, I also discovered that british people say “crikey!” that night. Really. I’d just associated this with the crocodile hunter, and Australia, and I’d never heard the word used in real life before. It made me happy. Then we went to bed. I think this was the coldest night of the safari. My feet were icy and I kept waking up with a frozen nose. “my name I chilly willy, I’m frozen through and through. Da da da da da da da da, ah, e, ah choo” ran through my head quite a few nights of the trip, but on the first one especially. In the morning we awoke to find antelope tracks outside the tent. I think kyla had heard them, but I guess I had been asleep at the time. We grabbed breakfast (there was muesli and nutella, praise breakfast!) then we were on the road to the Okavango. We had to stop on the way at foot and mouth disease checkpoints to have the car sprayed and the soles of our shoes cleaned. We finally made it to guma, a camp which is right on the delta, set up tents, and got to watch the sunset over the delta. It was beautiful. We had dinner at a proper table, and then I went to take a shower. I discovered that this wasn’t the best of ideas, as it was after dark, my contacts were out, and the showers had no light. They were basically surrounded by wooden poles and ceiling-less. And while it is nice to have a view of the stars while showering, it’s also nice to be able to see, especially when you’re also trying to do laundry in the shower. I was made fun of for taking to long. Ah, well. And we were lulled to sleep that night by the sound of hippos. So, another night passed, and the next day we were on to the delta…

We drove into Windhoek when it was still dark out. Actually it was really pretty. We rounded this large hill and there we lights spread out across the horizon. Lights! And everywhere! I knew I would like the city. It is a pretty city, and so much larger than maseru. That’s not saying too much, but there were more shops, actual museums and art galleries, 2 malls, well-paved roads and sidewalks, and streets with names like fidel castro and Robert mugabe. There was a nice, small but grassy park on the corner of independence ave. and fidel castro st. where I spent an hour or so just relaxing one day.

So kyla and I arrived at the cardboard box at maybe around 6 am, only to discover that reception didn’t open until 7. at 7, we found out that we couldn’t check in until 10 am because that’s when everyone who was leaving that day had to be out of their rooms. It turned out that we didn’t get to go to our rooms until mid-afternoon, which was a little rough after sitting on a bus for almost 24 hours. In the time in between, we went to a mall near us that had a grocery store and bought some food, and checked out some stores. I was determined to find an outlet plug for my ipod. This proved tricky, but after 2 days of searching I finally succeeded. We also went down post street mall, which has a bunch of crafts that vendors lay out daily to sell. I’ve started to feel that most places in Africa have all the same crafts, or very similar ones, but there actually was some unique stuff in Windhoek. Everyone I’d talked with had told me to buy things in swazi, because that’s where all the crafts were. True, they are cheapest there as far as I can tell, but I think there was cooler and better quality stuff in the shops in Windhoek.

After we finally got to our rooms, we went to sleep to the soothing sound of the man sharing our room snoring. The next day, which would be Tuesday, we decided to go check out the history museum. I was excited just by the fact that I was in an area of the world that had such museums. And, while we were there, a school group came in for a tour. That was really nice to see. The museum had info on Namibian animals, and Europeans settlers, and an area that looked kind of new on the native tribes of Namibia, so we spent a couple hours going through all of that. Then we walked down the street to an art gallery which was not impressive at all. By then we were hungry, and we were going to go to joe’s beerhouse for lunch, as we had been told that was the place to go to try game food in Namibia, but it is open only for dinner, so we had Indian instead. After that I walked a couple miles to the other, larger mall in Windhoek in search of my elusive ipod charger. No dice, but I did find FUDGE!@!! Okay, yes, I was excited about this find. It had been a while, and I went through a massive chunk of chocolate fudge in less than a day. Sooooooooooooo worth it. And then, on the way back I noticed an electronics shop. And they had my ipod charger. It was a good day. And to top it off, I found a pretty cool craft market. I’d found a lot of craft shops with more expensive items, but this was an area with some nice but more modestly priced goods. I still didn’t but anything, but it was fun to look. I did really like the ostrich egg lamps I found, but I guess they wouldn’t be much use without electricity L.

I spent Wednesday mostly resting, relaxing, and reading. And between Monday night and Tuesday, we’d had to change rooms. Turned out that we were sharing a room with a guy from Chicago who’d just finished uni and was in Namibia to visit his brother who was a peace corps volunteer in rundu, in northern Namibia. So it was nice to talk with him for a while. Actually, I spent Wednesday evening talking with him over a jug (yes jug, because I am that quality) of wine about what his brother was doing, Chicago, etc. Perhaps not the smartest idea considering my safari was to start the next day, but oh well.

So, I’m writing this retrospectively, about 3 or 4 weeks so, and I’m sure I’ll miss some points, but anyways, here goes…

Kyla and I left Lesotho Saturday, June 21st to spend the night in Bloemfontein because our bus was scheduled to leave at 9:30 Sunday morning. Kyla’s birthday was actually on Sunday, so we had a bit of a party in our hotel room Saturday night in celebration. For us, that basically means decent food (cheese, truffles, sushi, mmmmmmmmmm) while sitting in bed watching quality television. This included a show called “pimp my ride” whose purpose seemed to be to take trashy cars and make them as gaudy as possible, and “the amazing race” whose contestants included teams titled “beauty queens” and “male models”. So yes, calling the shows quality is a stretch. It’s nice to see that other countries are getting the best of America. I also love that I can now claim that, thanks to peace corps and my time in Lesotho, I have now seen an episode of both “survivor” and “the amazing race”. These are the things that make this job worthwhile. Anyways, after a nice sleep on a large bed whose springs I couldn’t feel, Kyla and I woke up and walked to the bus station.

The bus actually left on time. My bus to cape town earlier this year was 3 hours late. The trip to Windhoek was to be made in 2 parts – bloem to upington, and then upington to Windhoek. The first part was pretty uneventful, as I recall. When we got to upington, we had time to grab a bite to eat, and then boarded a new bus, a double-decker, for the second half of the journey. We were sitting in the second row from the front of the bus, on the second level. In front of us and to the left were two Americans, a woman and her 16-year-old nephew. It was fun talking with them. The boy was actually an aspiring photographer who was hoping to one day work for national geographic. He had come to Africa with a lot of equipment and apparently had gotten some good photos. He gave us his website, but I don’t think it’ll be ready for a while. He was actually extending his stay in the hopes of getting to Zimbabwe if things cooled down. Good luck.

There was also a south African guy sitting in front of us. I think he was maybe a couple years older than me, and he had worked in Namibia but currently had a farm in south Africa. We were invited to visit if we wanted. This happens a lot, as far as I can tell. I’ve gotten a few invites to visit people’s farms. Kyla and I actually hitch-hiked from Lesotho to bloem (don’t worry mom – it’s safe) and were invited to stay at the woman’s house next time we visited.

And then there was the boy sitting next to me. He was 14 years old and really nice, but had an inability to sit down and be quiet. I talked with him for a little while and then pulled out my book as a subtle hint that I wanted some quiet. This didn’t work. He just kept talking and occasionally asked “am I bothering you?” which was almost more exasperating because the answer was so obvious. So I put on my ipod. This is part of the reason I love my ipod. It can block people out, especially bo-ntate who are hitting on me in taxis, though it’s not 100% effective, as you will find out in a few blogs. Anyways, cranking the music up blocked him out, and kyla eventually handed him a book of puzzles to occupy him and shut him up.

Eventually we reached the south African border. We all had to get out, get passports stamped, and get back on the bus in the middle of a kinda chilly night. This should have been all we had to do, but someone (guess who – yep, the 14 year old) was carrying produce across the border which isn’t allowed (I think there’d been some disease issues) so we all had to get out, get our luggage, and have it scanned. This was another hour and a half of standing in the cold. The girl behind me made a joke about the border patrol thinking I was an American terrorist. She was nice, though, so we got talking, and that helped pass the time. When we finally got back on the bus the 14 year old actually started complaining about the way the immigration officers had treated him. Seriously, everyone was upset at the delay, and not very happy with him, and he was complaining about his vegetables being examined. Sigh.

About 10 km down the road we stopped again to go through Namibian immigration. Then, we were on our way. The bus driver was apparently determined to make it to Windhoek on time, despite the delay, and I guess he must have been driving quickly because we did make it there when we were supposed to. Kyla and I got our luggage, hopped the free shuttle to the cardboard box (yes, that is the actual name of the backpackers – like it?) and drove off into the sunrise.

News for this week: there may, or may not be a taxi strike tomorrow. The Lesotho government, in its infinite wisdom, decided it would be a great idea to take the tax money given to them by the taxi owners (public transport is owned privately by individuals) and use it to buy government-run public transport. Raise your hand if you see a slight problem here. Yes, the taxi owners are a bit peeved. There have been fights, and the police tear gassed an entire bus of innocent bystanders a couple weeks ago. And there were shootings last week. And there is supposed to be a nation-wide strike tomorrow. We’ll see if it happens. I’d first heard that there was going to be a strike today (btw, it’s Monday, June 2 – Wow, it’s June!), but that didn’t happen. Maybe tomorrow…

Also, Exams were supposed to start today. Note: supposed to. Yep. My teachers and principal couldn’t figure out how to work the printer, so exams haven’t been printed. And the principal is blaming the teachers, and the teachers are upset over this, and for some reason my principal decided today would be a good day to go to Maseru. And he won’t be able to get back if there is actually a strike tomorrow. So the students’ exams are being crunched into a shorter and shorter period of time, which is totally unfair to them. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggh.

And one of my students got married this weekend. She’s 17. Her boyfriend is about my age and is the son of my counterpart here. She came by my house Saturday, presumably to study because she left her books, but I had come into town to run some errands and talk with my mother, so she left to meet her boyfriend at the shop and then got married. And she wasn’t at school today, so I’m going to try to track her down later today or tomorrow to try to convince her to stay in school. She’s a Form B (9th grade) student, and on of my favorite ones, and she had been trying so hard in school. It’s really frustrating seeing one of my students just run off like that. I think both of their families are unhappy as well. Sigh. Some days I just want to stay in bed and cry.

I happier news, I’m leaving for a safari in Namibia/the Okavanga delta in 3 weeks!!! I’m uber excited. It’s gonna be BEAUTIFUL. Anyone interested in reading about what I’ll be doing, google Wild Dog and Crazy Kudu Safaris and look for the 14 day dune and delta (maybe it’s delta and dune) tour. Hip hip hooray.

The above is the advertisement on some dolls’ boxes at Pep in Mohale’s Hoek. Pep is like a small version of Target. These dolls look like Bratz wanna-be’s. They’re pretty scary. I love thinking of the reaction the company would get in the States for trying to use that advertisement to sell the dolls. I can only imagine the lawsuits that would ensue… I thought the ad was kinda scary. I keep meaning to bring in my camera to take a picture of the box, and keep forgetting.

I also don’t remember how much I have written about the public transportation here. Mainly it’s mini-buses. If you’re really lucky you can get a Quantum or a Sprinter. Then you have air-conditioning and heating, and the seats are less likely to wobble back and forth as you move, as though they might come apart from the rest of the car. The mini-buses themselves are interesting. Most of them have doors that no longer have handles, and are therefore jerry-rigged to open. And you can actually see the road through the floors of many of the taxis. And then, Lesotho also has four + ones, know to us Americans as taxis. They mainly travel locally, and as far as I can tell are usually in at least somewhat better condition than the taxis. Regardless, most public transport owners (transportation is not government-owned here, though that is changing in at least somewhat in Maseru) like to decorate their vehicles. The primary form of decoration on the exterior is stickers that are words or short phrases. For example, in Mohale’s Hoek there is a mini-bus carrying a sticker on its hood stating, “Life is so Tricky.” Aaahhh, taxi philosophy. There is another that has a sticker reading “The Palace” on its side. Then there are the 4 + 1’s, “Two Bop” and “Five Bop.” I often wonder if the people have any idea what these stickers mean, or if they just buy the ones that match the color of their particular vehicle. My guess is the latter. Especially when min-buses have stickers reading things like “The Punisher”. I’ve heard, but not seen for myself, that there is a minibus in Maseru with a sticker reading “Taliban”. My favorite Mohale’s Hoek stickers are ones stating “Always Arrive” and “Arrive Alive”. Comforting. I even saw a private car with a sticker on the windshield reading “Tear Gas”. Really, do the owners understand what that is? I hope not.

And there are also proper buses that run between the camp towns. My favorite is the purple one that, in shiny letters written on both sides of the bus, reads “Ghetto Tours”. I’ve never had the pleasure of riding in that one, but someday maybe I will live the dream. I have ridden in a bus labeled “Lehooa Tours”. Lehooa (might be spelling that wrong – I forget how) means “white person”. Lesotho, how I love thee.

I can also now say that I have played soccer with a tennis ball. Soccer balls are expensive, especially nice ones, and between the barbed wire fences and the rocks they usually don’t last long. So a lot of kids use tennis balls. Those things are darned tricky to stop with your foot. Some of the kids are really good with them, though. Seriously, they have amazing ball control when playing soccer with a tennis ball. A boy who lives across the dirt path from me, Lefo, can do rainbows and everything. He comes home after school, borrows my tennis ball, and plays keep away from my dog. It’s pretty cute to watch. And it’s comforting to know that not all kids are afraid of my dog.

Actually, the kids are getting much better with her. Some of the ones who were most afraid have started to play with her, and they don’t even freak out when she jumps up on them, or barks. Not that I want her to be doing this, but she’s a puppy, so she’s learning. Anyways, these are big steps for the kids here, especially since many of them are not so much afraid of dogs as terrified. And the kids who are getting over their fears are helping the other kids to do so. Hooray for progress. This is not true of everyone, though. A couple days ago this woman who is probably about my age was walking down the path in front of my house. My dog was off sniffing something in a field on the other side of the path, not paying any attention to the woman. This woman however, saw the dog, started screaming, and ran towards the back door of my M’e and Ntate’s house. Of course, this attracts the dog’s attention and she thinks “Ooooooooo, something fun to chase.” Next thing I know, I hear a combination of this woman trying to beat down my M’e’s door and the dog barking. The kids around all started laughing at her, and honestly, I almost did too. It was so ridiculous. And I had a student of mine come to visit me who hid behind me when the dog came around, wrapped her hands around my waist, and started turning me to keep me between herself and my dog. Not even my dog. My puppy. Whew.

On a more depressing note, the volunteers have district meetings quarterly to discuss how projects are going, vent frustrations, etc. Mohale’s Hoek’s was last week. One of the volunteer’s who teaches at a small village secondary school was telling us that she had started a volleyball team at her school, and that they had had their first match the week before, against a school in a more urban area. Now, trash talking in America usually involves some insult to the person’s skills, intelligence, their mother, or to the person’s being overweight (at least as far as girls are concerned). Not here. The volunteers school, being new to the game, wasn’t a strong team, and they were not at all prepared for jeering student from the other school who apparently were yelling things like, “What do you eat? You eat nothing but papa. You so skinny, you don’t eat no protein.” Papa is the staple grain here. Basically refined cornmeal and water. The students from the other school were insulting these kids because they were from a poor village and didn’t have money to buy more expensive foods like meat for protein. If that wasn’t low enough, the students from the other school also yelled, “What’s your CD4 count?” That’s really low, especially in a country as decimated by AIDS as this one, and in which there is such a stigma against AIDS. And, of course, this is just another way of continuing the stigma.

Because sometimes you have to laugh to keep from getting too depressed, we started joking around about insults we could make up that would be pertinent to this country. Your mother jokes really aren’t understood here. People don’t get why you would be talking about their mother. So we thought, “What about ‘Your kobo’ jokes?” A kobo is a blanket, and blankets are very important here. People wear them throughout winter and even in summer, wrapped around their shoulders, or sometimes women wear them wrapped around their waists. Anyways, someone came up with, “Your blanket is so tattered, it looks like a dishrag,” and, “Your blanket is so ripped, I wouldn’t use it on my sheep.” Maybe you don’t get it back home, but I thought the jokes were pretty funny.

Well, I was going to talk a little bit about Basotho culture, but this is probably a long enough blog for now. Hope all is well.

hey - just wanted everyone to know that i've posted 3 new articles, and maybe i'll be writing another tomorrow or saturday.

The above is the advertisement on some dolls’ boxes at Pep in Mohale’s Hoek. Pep is like a small version of Target. These dolls look like Bratz wanna-be’s. They’re pretty scary. I love thinking of the reaction the company would get in the States for trying to use that advertisement to sell the dolls. I can only imagine the lawsuits that would ensue… I thought the ad was kinda scary. I keep meaning to bring in my camera to take a picture of the box, and keep forgetting.

I also don’t remember how much I have written about the public transportation here. Mainly it’s mini-buses. If you’re really lucky you can get a Quantum or a Sprinter. Then you have air-conditioning and heating, and the seats are less likely to wobble back and forth as you move, as though they might come apart from the rest of the car. The mini-buses themselves are interesting. Most of them have doors that no longer have handles, and are therefore jerry-rigged to open. And you can actually see the road through the floors of many of the taxis. And then, Lesotho also has four + ones, know to us Americans as taxis. They mainly travel locally, and as far as I can tell are usually in at least somewhat better condition than the taxis. Regardless, most public transport owners (transportation is not government-owned here, though that is changing in at least somewhat in Maseru) like to decorate their vehicles. The primary form of decoration on the exterior is stickers that are words or short phrases. For example, in Mohale’s Hoek there is a mini-bus carrying a sticker on its hood stating, “Life is so Tricky.” Aaahhh, taxi philosophy. There is another that has a sticker reading “The Palace” on its side. Then there are the 4 + 1’s, “Two Bop” and “Five Bop.” I often wonder if the people have any idea what these stickers mean, or if they just buy the ones that match the color of their particular vehicle. My guess is the latter. Especially when min-buses have stickers reading things like “The Punisher”. I’ve heard, but not seen for myself, that there is a minibus in Maseru with a sticker reading “Taliban”. My favorite Mohale’s Hoek stickers are ones stating “Always Arrive” and “Arrive Alive”. Comforting. I even saw a private car with a sticker on the windshield reading “Tear Gas”. Really, do the owners understand what that is? I hope not.

And there are also proper buses that run between the camp towns. My favorite is the purple one that, in shiny letters written on both sides of the bus, reads “Ghetto Tours”. I’ve never had the pleasure of riding in that one, but someday maybe I will live the dream. I have ridden in a bus labeled “Lehooa Tours”. Lehooa (might be spelling that wrong – I forget how) means “white person”. Lesotho, how I love thee.

I can also now say that I have played soccer with a tennis ball. Soccer balls are expensive, especially nice ones, and between the barbed wire fences and the rocks they usually don’t last long. So a lot of kids use tennis balls. Those things are darned tricky to stop with your foot. Some of the kids are really good with them, though. Seriously, they have amazing ball control when playing soccer with a tennis ball. A boy who lives across the dirt path from me, Lefo, can do rainbows and everything. He comes home after school, borrows my tennis ball, and plays keep away from my dog. It’s pretty cute to watch. And it’s comforting to know that not all kids are afraid of my dog.

Actually, the kids are getting much better with her. Some of the ones who were most afraid have started to play with her, and they don’t even freak out when she jumps up on them, or barks. Not that I want her to be doing this, but she’s a puppy, so she’s learning. Anyways, these are big steps for the kids here, especially since many of them are not so much afraid of dogs as terrified. And the kids who are getting over their fears are helping the other kids to do so. Hooray for progress. This is not true of everyone, though. A couple days ago this woman who is probably about my age was walking down the path in front of my house. My dog was off sniffing something in a field on the other side of the path, not paying any attention to the woman. This woman however, saw the dog, started screaming, and ran towards the back door of my M’e and Ntate’s house. Of course, this attracts the dog’s attention and she thinks “Ooooooooo, something fun to chase.” Next thing I know, I hear a combination of this woman trying to beat down my M’e’s door and the dog barking. The kids around all started laughing at her, and honestly, I almost did too. It was so ridiculous. And I had a student of mine come to visit me who hid behind me when the dog came around, wrapped her hands around my waist, and started turning me to keep me between herself and my dog. Not even my dog. My puppy. Whew.

On a more depressing note, the volunteers have district meetings quarterly to discuss how projects are going, vent frustrations, etc. Mohale’s Hoek’s was last week. One of the volunteer’s who teaches at a small village secondary school was telling us that she had started a volleyball team at her school, and that they had had their first match the week before, against a school in a more urban area. Now, trash talking in America usually involves some insult to the person’s skills, intelligence, their mother, or to the person’s being overweight (at least as far as girls are concerned). Not here. The volunteers school, being new to the game, wasn’t a strong team, and they were not at all prepared for jeering student from the other school who apparently were yelling things like, “What do you eat? You eat nothing but papa. You so skinny, you don’t eat no protein.” Papa is the staple grain here. Basically refined cornmeal and water. The students from the other school were insulting these kids because they were from a poor village and didn’t have money to buy more expensive foods like meat for protein. If that wasn’t low enough, the students from the other school also yelled, “What’s your CD4 count?” That’s really low, especially in a country as decimated by AIDS as this one, and in which there is such a stigma against AIDS. And, of course, this is just another way of continuing the stigma.

Because sometimes you have to laugh to keep from getting too depressed, we started joking around about insults we could make up that would be pertinent to this country. Your mother jokes really aren’t understood here. People don’t get why you would be talking about their mother. So we thought, “What about ‘Your kobo’ jokes?” A kobo is a blanket, and blankets are very important here. People wear them throughout winter and even in summer, wrapped around their shoulders, or sometimes women wear them wrapped around their waists. Anyways, someone came up with, “Your blanket is so tattered, it looks like a dishrag,” and, “Your blanket is so ripped, I wouldn’t use it on my sheep.” Maybe you don’t get it back home, but I thought the jokes were pretty funny.

Well, I was going to talk a little bit about Basotho culture, but this is probably a long enough blog for now. Hope all is well.