(This is my second submission to our PCV newsletter in Lesotho. Take the "ultimate" seriously--it is!)

It's not much of a secret that I think baked goods can solve almost any problem. Anyway, in light of that, I thought it was time to share with you what I fondly term the Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. Yep. As far as I'm concerned there's nothing better and I will never so much as try baking another chocolate chip cookie recipe, because this one is the best. Period, the end.

So, what makes it so good?

1) Proportions (so measure carefully!). Note the several kinds of flour, sugar, and leavening--all readily available in Lesotho--they are adjusted to make the cookie at once chewy, crispy and cakey.

2) Bittersweet chocolate (have you requested Ghirardelli's chocolate chips yet?). Milk chocolate is insipid in a cookie--or just about anywhere. Here, the delicious cookie dough surrounds nuggets of equally delicious, slightly sweet, very chocolatey chocolate. (Excuse me while I drool on my keyboard.)

3) Salt thy cookies! Seriously. Our taste buds are wired so we taste contrasts best; we taste sweet better when we also taste salt. Generally, a dusting of salt on top of your cookies will add that extra savory punch which makes it impossible to stop eating them. (Don't say I didn't warn you!)

4) Sleep on it! The cookie dough is supposed to rest at least 24

hours before you bake it. This helps the dry stuff absorb perfectly into the wet stuff; even the chocolate chips start to blend their essence with the dough around them. I do realize that waiting to bake your cookies is a big sacrifice, but it's worth it. I suggest baking a few cookies right away, or just stuffing yourself with cookie dough, and then making the rest the next day. This is easiest if you have a fridge--just wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and bake cookies as you, er, need them. (Yes, I have left cookie dough in several peoples' fridges around Maseru--for their protection, I won't divulge their identities.)

A lot of people ask me why I like cooking so much. I usually say that I like food a lot, or that I'm Mediterranean. In all seriousness, the act of making food and giving it to people is, to me, about love and life. We all have to eat; it's a basic need, and cooking for someone helps satisfy that need. But what about fulfilling not just a nutritional need, but a spiritual one? What if you can make an

everyday moment extraordinary? What about not just going through the motions of life, but living as fully and beautifully as you can?

If you can create something special, something delicious, something that makes the act of eating about more than the need for calories, you are in fact giving your life a dimension of beauty. So please, bake these cookies, feed them to your friends, feed them to your family, and add some joy to your life and theirs. Cooking for just you? Isn't it most important of all to give yourself love and joy? Listen, this is what I think: when life is ugly and cruel and bleak, that's when it's most important to add beauty when you can. Laugh. Wear a nice outfit. Take care of yourself. Make cookies. Make something.

And share with me! ;)

Chocolate Chip Cookies (NY Times, adapted from Jacques Torres)

2 cups minus 2 tablespoons (8 1/2 ounces) cake flour

1 2/3 cups (8 1/2 ounces) bread flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt

2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter

1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) light brown sugar

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (8 ounces) granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract (in Lesotho, use Moir's, NOT Robertson's!)

1 1/4 pounds bittersweet chocolate pieces, preferably >60% cacao (in Lesotho, Midnight Velvet or Cadbury's Bourneville, chopped up, is OK)

Sea salt

Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Cream butter and sugars until very light. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing after each. Add vanilla. Add dry ingredients and mix until just combined. (Note: at first it will seem difficult to mix in all the dry stuff. Keep trying--I recommend using your hands. It's fun!) Incorporate chocolate pieces. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate 24-72 hours. (You can keep it wrapped tightly in the fridge for a week or two, or in the freezer indefinitely.)

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350ºF. Line a baking sheet with parchment. Scoop 3.5 oz. mounds of dough (the size of large golf balls, because big cookies are love) onto sheet, making sure to turn horizontally any chocolate pieces that are poking up (for a more attractive cookie). Sprinkle with sea salt and bake until golden brown but still soft in the middle, 18-20 minutes. Cool on baking sheet on a rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto rack to cool more. Eat warm, with a big napkin and a glass of milk.

(This is my first food-related submission to our volunteer newsletter, for the August edition. I thought I'd share it--everyone deserves brownies!)

Dear PCVs, Some people tell you that when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade. I think lemonade is a pretty poor consolation when stuff goes wrong. I say eat your lemons when you're feeling virtuous, and when you're upset, reach directly for the dark chocolate. Let me tell you a story.

Some few months ago, when it was raining torrentially and I thought the ending of 2012 might actually come true (good thing I'd be safe in Mokhotlong), I was going for a long run. Barely a couple miles out, soaked and already grouchy, I dodged up on some rocks to avoid colliding with a herdboy, who was my competition for the few available inches of not-flooded dirt road. Shortly after, I tripped and donated some blood from my right knee, elbow, and palm to--well, let's just say to Lesotho in general.

"#$%!*!" I said. "$%&(*ing @%$!" I said. I wish you could have seen that herdboy's face. He had the biggest "WTF?" expression I've ever seen on a Mosotho, even counting the times I tried to tell PCV Life my Form As that the moon goes around the Earth. I considered cleaning myself up with the abundant muddy water around, thought about trying to explain that to D. J when I came in a month later with some terrible skin infection, and, with a few more words this fine publication would not tolerate, turned around and started limping back home.

Herdboy followed. Presumably he was heading that way anyway, but he was also regarding me like a bomb that might explode. After about five minutes, he inquired, "Ke bohloko?" I replied that yes, it was painful, and I was going home. As I went on my way, I tried to console myself. It would have been a miserable run anyway, right? Now I could sit in my warm, dry house for three hours instead, right? Now I would have time to read a trashy book and . . . yes . . . and make brownies.

With a lighter heart, I magnanimously bid my comrade goodbye, started running towards home, and howled behind me in Sesotho as he finally got up the nerve to ask me for candy.

I like to cook, and I regularly make nice things with which to assuage my loneliness and taunt my cats (they think anything on the stovetop is their rightful property, of course). But I save brownies for occasions when I really need them. Like scraping myself up and ruining a run, or it being super cold and me requiring three sweaters, or because I'm grouchy, or because it's Tuesday. You know.

At present I have fifteen brownie recipes in my recipe files (I know--a pitiful collection, really), and, my dear PCVs, I am going to share with you two of my favorites. While I was on home leave in the States I spent a lot of time wandering through various American bookstores, gaping at the sheer volume of reading material, and the fact that you could get a mocha next to the current fiction section.

While my family members looked at books about . . . mollusks, and high seas exploration (my marine biologist uncle and my history-loving grandmother, respectively), I went straight to the cookbooks, picked up the most frivolous I could find, with the largest cupcakes on the covers, and proceeded to write down as many recipes as I could on the cafe's napkins (they give you those for free in America, too--really!) As fate would have it, I picked up Alice Medrich's Pure Dessert, and her bittersweet brownie recipe was the one I decided to try on that rainy day in February. I daresay it must be a proof of the existence of a benevolent deity that I picked up that book, then later fell on

my face and made these brownies. And I daresay they are, if not the best brownies in existence, something very like perfection. Even when life sucks, there's an upside!

Some notes for making good brownies (totally possible, by the way, even in a Dutch oven): use butter. No, seriously, not Rama. If you don't have butter, here's a secret: you can use olive oil in place of melted butter in lots of chocolate recipes (even cakes!). As stated in the recipes below, do not overbake your brownies. It is a sin against humanity. Much better, if anything, to have them slightly underdone and gooey, so you can smear them all over your face while eating them, just like you're still five. Am I right? Also--maybe self-evident--use dark chocolate, and use the best you can. If you don't want to wait for a care package full of Ghirardelli (but put that on your wish list, really), the Cadbury Bourneville or Midnight Velvet dark chocolate you can buy in Maseru is OK. And if you must, must have brownies but you have no solid chocolate, we need to have a talk, first of all; but second of all, I have also included the only cocoa brownie recipe I feel is worth making. Because I love you, and I want you to be happy and brownieful.

So when life gives you lemons, blow your nose at them and make brownies. And then share some with me!

Peace, love and chocolate ~Me

Classic Bittersweet Brownies (from Alice Medrich)

6.5 ounces bittersweet chocolate (184g)

7 tbs. unsalted butter (98g)

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup flour

2/3 cup walnut or pecan pieces (optional)

Line an 8" square pan (or, another pan/pans with approximately a 64 square-inch capacity) with foil or parchment paper, leaving a 1” overhang on the sides (this works like handles to let you lift out the brownies). Preheat your oven to 350ºF (or get your Dutch oven set up), and put a rack in the lower third of oven. Melt chocolate, butter and sugar in a metal bowl atop a pot of simmering water (or, melt over very low heat in a metal pot--stir continuously and be careful not to burn the chocolate!). Remove from heat, let cool until just warm, then stir in the vanilla and salt. Add eggs one at a time, stirring after each. Stir in flour and beat until the batter is smooth and glossy. Mix in the nuts. Bake ~20 mins (longer, in a Dutch oven). The brownies are ready when they are starting to pull away from the sides, the top is dry and a toothpick stuck in the center will come out slightly gooey. (DO NOT overbake!) Remove from oven and put in a larger pan of ice water/cold water to help them cool.

Best Cocoa Brownies (from Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet)

10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks, or 141g) unsalted butter

1 1/4 cups sugar

3/4 cup + 2 Tbs unsweetened cocoa powder (natural or Dutch-process)

1/4 teaspoon salt (or a heaping 1/4t flaky salt)

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 large eggs, cold

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

2/3 cup walnut or pecan pieces (optional)

Preheat your oven to 325°F, with the rack near the bottom (or set up your Dutch oven). Line an 8x8" pan with parchment or foil, leaving overhangs (see above). Melt butter, sugar, cocoa, and salt, either in a double boiler, or very carefully, in a small pot. Let cool till just warm. Stir in vanilla. Add eggs one at a time, stirring after each.

Stir in flour, then beat vigorously 40 times (come on, do you have something better to do than count to 40 while alone in your rondavel?). Stir in nuts. Spread in pan. Bake until toothpick inserted emerges slightly moist, 20-35 mins. Let cool on rack. Remove using overhang, and cut.

Hello friends and family~

As promised in my Staying Alive email, here’s my shameless sales pitch for my most recent crusade. Let me start with some backstory. When I first arrived at my school, it was impossible not to notice the things they were missing which we take for granted in America. There’s no gym, no cafeteria, no auditorium, no art or music room, no youth center. They just don’t have the money for “indulgences” like that. After all, if you have to choose between building one of those things, or building enough classrooms that you only have 60 students in each, not 100, you make the pragmatic choice, right?

I’ve mostly stopped noticing what the school lacks, to try to focus on helping them work with what they have. But the school wants to move past that stage of providing for only the students’ absolute needs. They want their students to be able to eat meals inside, out of the winter cold and the summer rain. They want a place for the students to play games and have concerts and debates, a place where the whole school can come together as a community. They have wanted for a long time to build a multi-purpose hall that would serve many of these functions; our principal, Nt. Mohlomi, has been trying to do so for 15 years, almost his entire tenure at the school. The problem is money. My school is remote. It gets almost no attention from the government and none from NGOs (other than Peace Corps). Any project they do, they must accomplish on their own—and to their credit, they have, over the years, bought solar panels and computers, built dormitories, staff housing, a poultry house to generate income, etc. But a project like an assembly hall is, due to its size, nearly impossible.

Having lived in Lesotho almost three years, I have definite (and mostly uncharitable) opinions about NGOs swooping in and giving things and money to needy organizations, instead of helping build their capacity to get those things on their own. However, I have full confidence in my school’s capacity and will to conduct projects. They would build this hall on their own, eventually. Maybe in ten years. But in the meantime, students will continue to go without the benefits of it, which is what convinced me to help the school achieve their goal sooner—this year, in fact.

After lots of labor on my and the school’s parts, I have a Peace Corps Partnership grant approved to fund the building of the hall. And it’s for about $25,000. Of course, one thing I had to convince Peace Corps of was my capability to raise this amount of money. And much of it will, I hope, come from various foundations and corporate donors in the United States and South Africa. However, I know that I also have a fantastic bunch of friends, family and colleagues back home, who have supported me throughout my Peace Corps service, who might be willing to help me with this last project, which is so important to me and my school (to emphasize the school's commitment to this project, they are contributing almost $9000 to the building of the hall, a huge amount for them). As my principal has told me repeatedly, if we can get this hall built, it will be a milestone in the history of the school.

Now, I have a lot of different people on my mailing list: some of you are just out of school, some in school, some retired, some between jobs. I realize that not everyone is in a position to give much, if anything. But if you can donate, please do, whether it’s $10 or $100 or more. I figure I have a lot of friends, and those small amounts add up. And if you can’t give anything, but you believe in the cause, please pass this request on to someone who can. If you think your friend/parent/rich uncle might want to donate to a (tax-deductible!) good cause, spread the word! If you belong to a church, or a company, or some other group which has the resources to donate to a great cause, please ask them if they can help! We’ll need all the help we can get!

Donate securely here:

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=632-067

Just to warn you, I will follow up this e-mail with more e-mails, including cute little essays my students have written describing the need for the assembly hall, cute pictures of my students being the camera-loving scamps they are (I told them to look miserable while eating lunch in the cold. Instead, they grinned and mugged at the camera, the little drama queens). In the meantime, they send the following message: "Thank you sincerely for your help. We are immensely grateful and we love you too much." And so do I! If you want more information or want to tell me how shameless I am, hitting up all of you great people for your hard-earned cash, please write back. You're right--I am shameless, because my school needs this, and deserves it, and I will do everything in my power to help them get it. Please help us any way you can!

Peace, love, and tax-deductible donations,

~Violeta

Hello, my dear, neglected friends and family!

I'm afraid my record for time between sending update emails is only getting longer. As people have been asking me for awhile--how are you? What's going on in your life? How's Peace Corps? When are you coming home? Well, I promise answers to all these questions and more, plus pictorial evidence that I am, in fact, still alive, working, and having adventures in my tiny little corner of the world here! :)

First of all, nothing much has changed here in Lesotho; the seasons progress in actually rather comforting monotony. A few more cows show up more regularly at my house; as I learned recently, my host dad has brought his total cow count to 9 (in addition to 30 goats and about 90 sheeps. Mokhotlong, my district, is evidently famous for its high-quality, economy-sized sheeps). The government has decided to mosey towards resurfacing the road up to Mokhotlong, meaning going in and out of my district will no longer be fraught with quite as much peril as usually (that road is where potholes go to get beat up by their older brothers). The government is planning to build a new dam in Mokhotlong (and use it sell more of their water). Amusingly, the dam's name will be Pulihali (li's are pronounced like di's). This, evidently, translates to "enlarged goat," which raises a lot of interesting questions (my principal told me it's named after some guy who jumped in a lake near the dam site--which begs the question of why you would ever name your child "enlarged goat").

Oh, and we have a number of new people on our country staff in Peace Corps Lesotho. As new staffs always seem compelled to do, they have been making changes to the already-Byzantine, miles-long list of PC rules. (They don't tell you about PC rules when you apply. It's sort of like being in a two year-long summer camp as an adult.) Among these is the requirement to dress up when we go to the Peace Corps office in Maseru--a sure indignity if there ever was one!--forcing us to look like normal, semi-professional when there are sheep gnawing the verge outside the office! Another is that, for safety reasons, we have to leave the office (and the internet) by 5 PM. So, I have a partial excuse for not writing before now. That's just the tip of the regulatory iceberg, but my new bosses have already promised to read my blog (though perhaps they wrote me off as a lost blogging cause, as many of you might have!). So, I'll shut up. (For now. When I close my service, it's open season, and I've got my targets lined up... just kidding.) ;)

Onward! My other excuse for not writing is that, once I returned to Lesotho after being sent home for a month to clean myself up so I wouldn't (presumably) embarrass Peace Corps, both my iPod and my laptop committed a sort of electronic hara-kiri. This was a tragedy of unparalleled proportions for me, as it threatened my semi-comfortable lifestyle of listening to podcasts, watching Dexter and writing emails and grant proposals in my mud hut at nights, while the cold, cold winds howled around... (OK, that's an exaggeration. Winter's just starting now.) Anyway, I have a spanking new iPod and am trying to wrest my laptop from the evil clutches of the repair people in Cape Town (be very glad, my American friends, that you live in the land of the Apple store and the home of the people who understand how to use a credit card machine). Anyway, once I and my laptop are reunited I will at least have the capacity to answer e-mails and write updates more often!

So, this month of home leave I spoke of, back in December. I got to see unfortunately few of you! I did have as American a Christmas as my family is capable of, and soaked up large amounts of butter, seafood, meat, chocolate, etc. I brought as many goods back as my baggage limit would accommodate too, including a 10-pound bar of excellent semi-sweet chocolate (ahh). Anyway, to answer questions regarding my return to the land of the designer chocolate and the home of the wide variety of coffee beans... I will be held hostage in Lesotho until January 2011, though I have to vacate my hut for the next hapless occupant mid-December and will be essentially twiddling my thumbs in Maseru for the last month. (Another of those Peace Corps rules.) So, expect me back Stateside in late January. I plan to cower in fear of all the electric lights and drive-thrus on my Grandma's remote Washington island for awhile. Once I no longer spend 10 minutes gaping at the cookie aisle in supermarkets, I promise to emerge to undertake a pilgrimage to visit many of you!

In the meantime, let me continue to a brief rundown of what I've been up to in 2010, starting with what's obviously crucial: what mountains, townships or cities have I run marathons through lately? Well, I decided to run Two Oceans (the 56-kilometer ultramarathon I ran last year) for the second time. Take two was even better: the weather was perfect (overcast and gloomy, except for the last 20 minutes, when the sun came out and ruined my groove. Thanks, weather gods!), I was with more great running buddies, and I ran almost 30 minutes faster than last year! Also, my buddies and I rented a previously-unknown thing called a Car. You wouldn't believe how much easier it is using a Car to get around, as opposed to the squashed, loud, slow, smelly wonders known as taxis or buses, which I am now accustomed to riding. Our Car was a Chevy Spark, which was one of the silliest vehicles I've ever been in. We called it, fairly affectionately, the Bubble or the Hamster Ball. The trunk ended 6 inches behind the passenger door, it had no power steering, and there wasn't even space in it for a clock. Hah! But despite its ridiculousness, having it let us see a lot of Cape Town easily--we went to art galleries in Kalk Bay, revisited Chapman's Peak the day after the marathon (eerie to drive up what you ran up, painfully, the day before!), ate everything from Thai to sushi to Haagen-Dazs (I almost took out an oblivious porter who was wheeling a shopping cart full of TUBS of Haagen-Dazs through the Waterfront Mall), and went to wine estates in Constantia and Franschoek. Our favorite was one owned by a Belgian couple, which made exclusively Cap Classique (South African champagne). ("Why had he moved to SA?" I asked as he poured us tastes. "Have you been to Belgium?" he replied. Apparently waffles and chocolate have nothing on fatcakes and boerewors.) Although I'd been to Cape Town twice before, this time was the best! If you ever get a chance, come visit--it really is a phenomenal city!

As many of you know, my twin sister swore into her Peace Corps service in Ecuador in 2009. Due to Peace Corps Rules, she wasn't able to visit me until when she just did: a few short weeks ago. (It had been almost two years since we had seen each other!) I met her in Durban at the end of April and we demonstrated, collectively, how variety-deprived Peace Corps Volunteers can dedicate hours in pursuit of food. We went to the Botanic Gardens and uShaka Marine World (note: do not say "aquarium" when directing a taxi driver there. This word is unknown)--our favorite part was seeing apathetic nautiluses (nautilii?) being fed shrimps by a disembodied hand. The nautilus feeder had to sort of waggle the shrimp in front of their tentacles until they reluctantly enfolded the shrimp and absorbed it into themselves. We watched this process for about 5 minutes, and were disappointed when apparently the nautilii were sufficiently fattened for the day, and it ended. We saw Clash of the Titans (Gloria's first theater movie in a year, and worth every ridiculous minute), went to the Victoria Street Market and tried not to inhale too close to the giant piles of Zeal (pure MSG) and Mother-in-Law-Exterminator Curry. We then went off to beautiful Port St. Johns, a beachside town happily stuck in the 70s where everyone, apparently, has to own at least four dogs (no one there has heard of neutering their pets, evidently). We went hiking and kloofing (cliff-jumping, which is very popular in SA), tanned on the beach in the company of cows (a common sight there), and, unfortunately, lacking a Car, spent hours on taxis going to our next destination: Lesotho! We entered my 'hood in possibly the most dramatic way possible: took a tour up Sani Pass (where I ran a marathon in my first year of service) and gawked at the rock baboons, birds, and hyraxes on the way to Sani Top, where it was windy and freezing.

We went on to my village, where everyone I've ever met enthused about how much Gloria and I look and sound alike (my deputy principal just covered her mouth with her giant fuzzy scarf and laughed for about 5 minutes). While Gloria got over her mild shock at cold weather (having lived on the equator for a year), she got to meet my host family, who were thrilled to have a new daughter and gave her a name. Mine is Sebongile, which means, roughly, we're grateful; they decided that because we are "so much the same" she would have to be called Bongiwe, which means, roughly, gratitude. (This is the African equivalent of naming your kids Mary and Marilyn, but they meant well!) My principal and deputy also expressed their enthusiasm, and said that, in honor of Gloria's visit, they would have given us a chicken, only they weren't sure if we ate chicken, or liked chicken (as Allison, the previous PCV at my site, was a vegetarian, they're relatively enlightened about non-meat eaters, though they don't really understand why you wouldn't want to eat meat). So, instead they insisted on giving us money for "provisions" (impossible to refuse, as Mom and I found out when she visited last year). My Form E Biology students were treated to a mini-seminar from us on how twins are formed; we visited the other classes, too, and Gloria got to give an impromptu lecture on diamond mining, volcanoes, tectonic plates, the Big Bang, and mountain formation. She also informed several shocked classes that in Ecuador, "which is near Brazil," the WOMEN take care of the cows (my students have previously insisted to me that if women watch over cows, the cows will sicken and die. Their worldview was broadened dramatically).

I may have mentioned, in past emails, the existence of Mission Aviation, which flies mini planes around Lesotho mostly to transport sick people, but which healthy people can travel on, for a price (sometimes the two coincide, and I had a friend who rode the plane with an XDR TB patient--they all had to wear masks!). Anyway, after two years of wanting to do so, I finally got to ride the mini plane in honor of Gloria's visit. She sat up front and got to drive the plane a bit, with the pilot in control, of course. He seemed like a very nice soul, but she tells me he joked about making the petrified Mosotho teenager in the back with me toss his cookies (most Basotho haven't flown at all--this kid, whoever he was, sat in the back with wide eyes and a zipped-up mouth, looking like he'd gone beyond hope to prayer). I must revise what I said earlier: even better than a Car is a Mini Plane. We made the trip from Mokhotlong to Semonkong in 30 minutes--on public transportation it would've taken two days!

Once there we visited the neighborhood PCVs, one of whom is my boyfriend and who was a little freaked out by how similar Gloria and I sound (fortunately for him, he could otherwise tell us apart). We went abseiling (rappelling) down the giant beautiful waterfall there--its claim to fame is being the "longest commercially-operated single-drop abseil in the world," at 200-odd meters. This was lots of fun, but Gloria wished we'd climbed up first (and rather shocked the guides when she said that). We also went pony-trekking, which was fun and scenic, though our rides--nicknamed Slow Horse, Snack Horse, and Mean Horse, based on their evident propensities--were not exactly the trained horses we're used to in the States... Mean Horse eventually bit the guide during a determined lunge at his horse, which was unfortunate. (More unfortunate: the lodge staff didn't seem to think this was a problem, despite the fact that the horse had bit several other people, too. Again: it's not America, people!)

We didn't expect to spend much time in Maseru before seeing Gloria off, but as her South African Airways flight decided to up and leave 40 minutes early, without her and with only three other passengers, we ended up spending a day there. She passed it spending a lot of money changing her connecting flights to Ecuador (no, SAA wasn't apologetic and wouldn't help her talk to the other airlines--I won't fly with them again, and neither should you!), and meeting various PCVs and PC Lesotho staff. And also Fat Cat, who belongs to a US Embassy employee and is a spiritual heir to our beloved ex-cat, Attila the Ton. He responds to "Fat Cat! Mew mew mew!" and allows his owner to pick him up by the tail. No, really... Also, we tricked poor 'M'e Jimi, our HIV/AIDS projects coordinator, by sending Gloria into her office first. She literally jumped a foot in the air and I had to later bribe her with cake to forgive me. So, I got an extra day with Gloria, though at the price of much frustration and money. Dropping her off at the airport the next day, I became aware of the presence of a large number of uniformed police officers and military people--more than I'd ever seen in one place. Evidently, it became clear that King Letsie was also flying off from the stupid little Maseru airport that day, which occasioned all the police and military presence, a motorcycle escort, lots of shiny cars, and (on Gloria's side of the airport) I quote: "a rather bad brass band and people fussing with red carpets." I can only theorize that the universe couldn't let her leave Lesotho without seeing King Letsie, and Fat Cat.

Of course, in addition to fun vacations, I've been busy working. My workshops with the local HIV support groups are finished, though my irrigation project is not (imagine bureaucratic issues you might encounter in the States, times three--we discovered we needed permits from the Ministries of Agriculture and Forestry in order to build, our ordered materials were delayed, and there was a delay in transporting the materials, and... However, it'll get done in the next few months!). We held a very successful Diversity Camp in Maseru for students in the lowlands (with pizza! and Indian and Chinese food!), and are working on Highlands Diversity camps to take place in August (...alas, no pizza places in the highlands). My school and I have been working on a variety of things: using our brand-new projector, getting the library all prettified and functional, painting murals, and one super-big project, which I'll tell you about in a separate e-mail, because it is so super-big. Other exciting activities I've participated in are developing new sites for incoming volunteers (I'm jealous of those who will get to work at some of these sites, especially the one with a piggery which has extremely fat, healthy pigs!), doing a salsa-dancing workshop for my friend's healthy living club, and trying to make super-awesome PC Lesotho T-shirts. There's lots to do, and (relatively) little time to do it!

What's next? I'll continue to work on these projects, and do my best to survive the World Cup, which the entire region has been anticipating for, oh, the past year. There was recently an explosion of South African flags all over Lesotho cars, which is both cheerful and ludicrous. Furthermore, Lesotho Radio has promised the people of the nation that tourists will be showing up in droves wanting to pony trek. It is impossible to explain to remote villagers readying their horses that probably tourists will not show up at a village whose road is so treacherous even local taxis refuse to go there ... But anyway, "survive the World Cup" isn't quite a joke... though the South African police force has hired a bunch of new staff, plenty of us are worried about safety in June. Let's hope South Africa gets this right. I hope to go to at least one game, so I can't entirely hide under a rock from what's going on (though I could do a good job trying, in Lesotho!). Assuming I survive the World Cup, I have another marathon coming up right after the finals in July, in beautiful Knysna in the Eastern Cape. I hope to beat my current PR (4:12 at the Soweto Marathon in November), but even if I don't, there's an Oyster Festival taking place at the same time, so I can console myself on my slowness with huge amounts of shellfish. (Protein, right? Right?)

On that hopeful note, I'll close this long-awaited (and long) update. Unfortunately, as internet has been screwy (technical term), I haven't been able to post pictorial evidence of my thriving existence and adventures, but I promise to do that, and notify all of you, as soon as I do. Also, as I warned you, I'll be sending a separate e-mail about my super-big project with my school, which I hope you all can help me with! I think of you all often and love hearing from you, so write me and console me in my cold, goatful highlands solitude. ;)

Peace, love, and livestock,

~Violeta

Hello, my dear, neglected friends and family!

I'm afraid my record for time between updating is only getting longer. As people have been asking me for awhile--how are you? What's going on in your life? How's Peace Corps? When are you coming home? Well, I promise answers to all these questions and more, plus pictorial evidence that I am, in fact, still alive, working, and having adventures in my tiny little corner of the world here! :)

First of all, nothing much has changed here in Lesotho; the seasons progress in actually rather comforting monotony. A few more cows show up more regularly at my house; as I learned recently, my host dad has brought his total cow count to 9 (in addition to 30 goats and about 90 sheeps. Mokhotlong, my district, is evidently famous for its high-quality, economy-sized sheeps). The government has decided to mosey towards resurfacing the road up to Mokhotlong, meaning going in and out of my district will no longer be fraught with quite as much peril as usually (that road is where potholes go to get beat up by their older brothers). The government is planning to build a new dam in Mokhotlong (and use it sell more of their water). Amusingly, the dam's name will be Pulihali (li's are pronounced like di's). This, evidently, translates to "enlarged goat," which raises a lot of interesting questions (my principal told me it's named after some guy who jumped in a lake near the dam site--which begs the question of why you would ever name your child "enlarged goat").

Oh, and we have a number of new people on our country staff in Peace Corps Lesotho. As new staffs always seem compelled to do, they have been making changes to the already-Byzantine, miles-long list of PC rules. (They don't tell you about PC rules when you apply. It's sort of like being in a two year-long summer camp as an adult.) Among these is the requirement to dress up when we go to the Peace Corps office in Maseru--a sure indignity if there ever was one!--forcing us to look like normal, semi-professional when there are sheep gnawing the verge outside the office! Another is that, for safety reasons, we have to leave the office (and the internet) by 5 PM. So, I have a partial excuse for not writing before now. That's just the tip of the regulatory iceberg, but my new bosses have already promised to read my blog (though perhaps they wrote me off as a lost blogging cause, as many of you might have!). So, I'll shut up. (For now. When I close my service, it's open season, and I've got my targets lined up... just kidding.) ;)

Onward! My other excuse for not writing is that, once I returned to Lesotho after being sent home for a month to clean myself up so I wouldn't (presumably) embarrass Peace Corps, both my iPod and my laptop committed a sort of electronic hara-kiri. This was a tragedy of unparalleled proportions for me, as it threatened my semi-comfortable lifestyle of listening to podcasts, watching Dexter and writing emails and grant proposals in my mud hut at nights, while the cold, cold winds howled around... (OK, that's an exaggeration. Winter's just starting now.) Anyway, I have a spanking new iPod and am trying to wrest my laptop from the evil clutches of the repair people in Cape Town (be very glad, my American friends, that you live in the land of the Apple store and the home of the people who understand how to use a credit card machine). Anyway, once I and my laptop are reunited I will at least have the capacity to answer e-mails and write updates more often!

So, this month of home leave I spoke of, back in December. I got to see unfortunately few of you! I did have as American a Christmas as my family is capable of, and soaked up large amounts of butter, seafood, meat, chocolate, etc. I brought as many goods back as my baggage limit would accommodate too, including a 10-pound bar of excellent semi-sweet chocolate (ahh). Anyway, to answer questions regarding my return to the land of the designer chocolate and the home of the wide variety of coffee beans... I will be held hostage in Lesotho until January 2011, though I have to vacate my hut for the next hapless occupant mid-December and will be essentially twiddling my thumbs in Maseru for the last month. (Another of those Peace Corps rules.) So, expect me back Stateside in late January. I plan to cower in fear of all the electric lights and drive-thrus on my Grandma's remote Washington island for awhile. Once I no longer spend 10 minutes gaping at the cookie aisle in supermarkets, I promise to emerge to undertake a pilgrimage to visit many of you!

In the meantime, let me continue to a brief rundown of what I've been up to in 2010, starting with what's obviously crucial: what mountains, townships or cities have I run marathons through lately? Well, I decided to run Two Oceans (the 56-kilometer ultramarathon I ran last year) for the second time. Take two was even better: the weather was perfect (overcast and gloomy, except for the last 20 minutes, when the sun came out and ruined my groove. Thanks, weather gods!), I was with more great running buddies, and I ran almost 30 minutes faster than last year! Also, my buddies and I rented a previously-unknown thing called a Car. You wouldn't believe how much easier it is using a Car to get around, as opposed to the squashed, loud, slow, smelly wonders known as taxis or buses, which I am now accustomed to riding. Our Car was a Chevy Spark, which was one of the silliest vehicles I've ever been in. We called it, fairly affectionately, the Bubble or the Hamster Ball. The trunk ended 6 inches behind the passenger door, it had no power steering, and there wasn't even space in it for a clock. Hah! But despite its ridiculousness, having it let us see a lot of Cape Town easily--we went to art galleries in Kalk Bay, revisited Chapman's Peak the day after the marathon (eerie to drive up what you ran up, painfully, the day before!), ate everything from Thai to sushi to Haagen-Dazs (I almost took out an oblivious porter who was wheeling a shopping cart full of TUBS of Haagen-Dazs through the Waterfront Mall), and went to wine estates in Constantia and Franschoek. Our favorite was one owned by a Belgian couple, which made exclusively Cap Classique (South African champagne). ("Why had he moved to SA?" I asked as he poured us tastes. "Have you been to Belgium?" he replied. Apparently waffles and chocolate have nothing on fatcakes and boerewors.) Although I'd been to Cape Town twice before, this time was the best! If you ever get a chance, come visit--it really is a phenomenal city!

As many of you know, my twin sister swore into her Peace Corps service in Ecuador in 2009. Due to Peace Corps Rules, she wasn't able to visit me until when she just did: a few short weeks ago. (It had been almost two years since we had seen each other!) I met her in Durban at the end of April and we demonstrated, collectively, how variety-deprived Peace Corps Volunteers can dedicate hours in pursuit of food. We went to the Botanic Gardens and uShaka Marine World (note: do not say "aquarium" when directing a taxi driver there. This word is unknown)--our favorite part was seeing apathetic nautiluses (nautilii?) being fed shrimps by a disembodied hand. The nautilus feeder had to sort of waggle the shrimp in front of their tentacles until they reluctantly enfolded the shrimp and absorbed it into themselves. We watched this process for about 5 minutes, and were disappointed when apparently the nautilii were sufficiently fattened for the day, and it ended. We saw Clash of the Titans (Gloria's first theater movie in a year, and worth every ridiculous minute), went to the Victoria Street Market and tried not to inhale too close to the giant piles of Zeal (pure MSG) and Mother-in-Law-Exterminator Curry. We then went off to beautiful Port St. Johns, a beachside town happily stuck in the 70s where everyone, apparently, has to own at least four dogs (no one there has heard of neutering their pets, evidently). We went hiking and kloofing (cliff-jumping, which is very popular in SA), tanned on the beach in the company of cows (a common sight there), and, unfortunately, lacking a Car, spent hours on taxis going to our next destination: Lesotho! We entered my 'hood in possibly the most dramatic way possible: took a tour up Sani Pass (where I ran a marathon in my first year of service) and gawked at the rock baboons, birds, and hyraxes on the way to Sani Top, where it was windy and freezing.

We went on to my village, where everyone I've ever met enthused about how much Gloria and I look and sound alike (my deputy principal just covered her mouth with her giant fuzzy scarf and laughed for about 5 minutes). While Gloria got over her mild shock at cold weather (having lived on the equator for a year), she got to meet my host family, who were thrilled to have a new daughter and gave her a name. Mine is Sebongile, which means, roughly, we're grateful; they decided that because we are "so much the same" she would have to be called Bongiwe, which means, roughly, gratitude. (This is the African equivalent of naming your kids Mary and Marilyn, but they meant well!) My principal and deputy also expressed their enthusiasm, and said that, in honor of Gloria's visit, they would have given us a chicken, only they weren't sure if we ate chicken, or liked chicken (as Allison, the previous PCV at my site, was a vegetarian, they're relatively enlightened about non-meat eaters, though they don't really understand why you wouldn't want to eat meat). So, instead they insisted on giving us money for "provisions" (impossible to refuse, as Mom and I found out when she visited last year). My Form E Biology students were treated to a mini-seminar from us on how twins are formed; we visited the other classes, too, and Gloria got to give an impromptu lecture on diamond mining, volcanoes, tectonic plates, the Big Bang, and mountain formation. She also informed several shocked classes that in Ecuador, "which is near Brazil," the WOMEN take care of the cows (my students have previously insisted to me that if women watch over cows, the cows will sicken and die. Their worldview was broadened dramatically).

I may have mentioned, in past emails, the existence of Mission Aviation, which flies mini planes around Lesotho mostly to transport sick people, but which healthy people can travel on, for a price (sometimes the two coincide, and I had a friend who rode the plane with an XDR TB patient--they all had to wear masks!). Anyway, after two years of wanting to do so, I finally got to ride the mini plane in honor of Gloria's visit. She sat up front and got to drive the plane a bit, with the pilot in control, of course. He seemed like a very nice soul, but she tells me he joked about making the petrified Mosotho teenager in the back with me toss his cookies (most Basotho haven't flown at all--this kid, whoever he was, sat in the back with wide eyes and a zipped-up mouth, looking like he'd gone beyond hope to prayer). I must revise what I said earlier: even better than a Car is a Mini Plane. We made the trip from Mokhotlong to Semonkong in 30 minutes--on public transportation it would've taken two days!

Once there we visited the neighborhood PCVs, one of whom is my boyfriend and who was a little freaked out by how similar Gloria and I sound (fortunately for him, he could otherwise tell us apart). We went abseiling (rappelling) down the giant beautiful waterfall there--its claim to fame is being the "longest commercially-operated single-drop abseil in the world," at 200-odd meters. This was lots of fun, but Gloria wished we'd climbed up first (and rather shocked the guides when she said that). We also went pony-trekking, which was fun and scenic, though our rides--nicknamed Slow Horse, Snack Horse, and Mean Horse, based on their evident propensities--were not exactly the trained horses we're used to in the States... Mean Horse eventually bit the guide during a determined lunge at his horse, which was unfortunate. (More unfortunate: the lodge staff didn't seem to think this was a problem, despite the fact that the horse had bit several other people, too. Again: it's not America, people!)

We didn't expect to spend much time in Maseru before seeing Gloria off, but as her South African Airways flight decided to up and leave 40 minutes early, without her and with only three other passengers, we ended up spending a day there. She passed it spending a lot of money changing her connecting flights to Ecuador (no, SAA wasn't apologetic and wouldn't help her talk to the other airlines--I won't fly with them again, and neither should you!), and meeting various PCVs and PC Lesotho staff. And also Fat Cat, who belongs to a US Embassy employee and is a spiritual heir to our beloved ex-cat, Attila the Ton. He responds to "Fat Cat! Mew mew mew!" and allows his owner to pick him up by the tail. No, really... Also, we tricked poor 'M'e Jimi, our HIV/AIDS projects coordinator, by sending Gloria into her office first. She literally jumped a foot in the air and I had to later bribe her with cake to forgive me. So, I got an extra day with Gloria, though at the price of much frustration and money. Dropping her off at the airport the next day, I became aware of the presence of a large number of uniformed police officers and military people--more than I'd ever seen in one place. Evidently, it became clear that King Letsie was also flying off from the stupid little Maseru airport that day, which occasioned all the police and military presence, a motorcycle escort, lots of shiny cars, and (on Gloria's side of the airport) I quote: "a rather bad brass band and people fussing with red carpets." I can only theorize that the universe couldn't let her leave Lesotho without seeing King Letsie, and Fat Cat.

Of course, in addition to fun vacations, I've been busy working. My workshops with the local HIV support groups are finished, though my irrigation project is not (imagine bureaucratic issues you might encounter in the States, times three--we discovered we needed permits from the Ministries of Agriculture and Forestry in order to build, our ordered materials were delayed, and there was a delay in transporting the materials, and... However, it'll get done in the next few months!). We held a very successful Diversity Camp in Maseru for students in the lowlands (with pizza! and Indian and Chinese food!), and are working on Highlands Diversity camps to take place in August (...alas, no pizza places in the highlands). My school and I have been working on a variety of things: using our brand-new projector, getting the library all prettified and functional, painting murals, and one super-big project, which I'll tell you about in a separate e-mail, because it is so super-big. Other exciting activities I've participated in are developing new sites for incoming volunteers (I'm jealous of those who will get to work at some of these sites, especially the one with a piggery which has extremely fat, healthy pigs!), doing a salsa-dancing workshop for my friend's healthy living club, and trying to make super-awesome PC Lesotho T-shirts. There's lots to do, and (relatively) little time to do it!



What's next? I'll continue to work on these projects, and do my best to survive the World Cup, which the entire region has been anticipating for, oh, the past year. There was recently an explosion of South African flags all over Lesotho cars, which is both cheerful and ludicrous. Furthermore, Lesotho Radio has promised the people of the nation that tourists will be showing up in droves wanting to pony trek. It is impossible to explain to remote villagers readying their horses that probably tourists will not show up at a village whose road is so treacherous even local taxis refuse to go there ... But anyway, "survive the World Cup" isn't quite a joke... though the South African police force has hired a bunch of new staff, plenty of us are worried about safety in June. Let's hope South Africa gets this right. I hope to go to at least one game, so I can't entirely hide under a rock from what's going on (though I could do a good job trying, in Lesotho!). Assuming I survive the World Cup, I have another marathon coming up right after the finals in July, in beautiful Knysna in the Eastern Cape. I hope to beat my current PR (4:12 at the Soweto Marathon in November), but even if I don't, there's an Oyster Festival taking place at the same time, so I can console myself on my slowness with huge amounts of shellfish. (Protein, right? Right?)

On that hopeful note, I'll close this long-awaited (and long) update. Unfortunately, as internet has been screwy (technical term), I haven't been able to post pictorial evidence of my thriving existence and adventures, but I promise to do that, and notify all of you, as soon as I do. Also, as I warned you, I'll be sending a separate e-mail about my super-big project with my school, which I hope you all can help me with! I think of you all often and love hearing from you, so write me and console me in my cold, goatful highlands solitude. ;)

Peace, love, and livestock,

~Violeta

I'm with my family in the San Juans in Washington, and we're on a break between Christmas dinner and Christmas dessert(s). I go back to Lesotho in a little over a week (where has my home leave gone?). To be here has been wonderful: a great, terrible relief. Things are so easy, so beautiful, so clean. We are so lucky. This thought recurs with no regard to its obviousness, its inanity. We are lucky. I am lucky to be able to come back to this place where it is so easy to think, to have energy for difficult things: like reading great, sad books (so often synonymous), and mourning death and pain. And there's world and time enough for beautiful things too, like forgiveness, and empathy, and poetry, and homemade ice cream, and making pastry that needs chilling.

In honor of that, and the things I hope to take back to Lesotho with me for my third year, here's this poem, which came to me on a run in the (not always ubiquitous) Northwest rain. I finished it on a walk overlooking the sea and the mountains this morning, with my family. Merry Christmas all, and may you always remember luck and love!

I was born in autumn

under leaves turning

to bright glorious passion.

And you could say, certain

as that morning,

I was born in love.

Nestled beyond doubt and blood,

marrow, bone, flesh

I had in growing hands what

there is no need to hold, or fear,

or even treasure,

though I did. I do.

Look back: to when love fled and

I fled it--

not the first love, but the last, all the lasts

the ones that had to follow.

My heart did not wither,

it did not shrink.

I never chose solitude.

But one day by the sea my heart burst

free of the prison of my bones

and it said I am not full,

no more than the ocean.

Let the ice caps melt,

overflow my shallow shores.

Let salt pour me over, shut my lids,

fill up my mouth--I need not sight, nor breath

When you can look in lovers' eyes

and kiss them under sun

And if I overflow, it said, let me sink--

If I drown we will have lived.

The dike is fear.

You will never love as you have loved.

You have never loved as you will love.

Let the sea rise, that I

will be consumed, and you.

Flood me once, and again

Let me taste the deep,

the dark, the lost.

Let me find new continents.

It asked, does the ocean have a shore

(does it)?

And I remembered,

on that cloudy day by the sea

that surrender is dominion, voluntary

And love the native element

of the heart

- Violeta Jimenez

December 25, 2009

So! I am here in a schmancy (for Lesotho) hotel drinking overpriced Coke Light in order to use the free wireless, which is so fast it makes me weep (I will probably have a nervous breakdown on my return to the States). Anyway, I have included most of my recent update e-mail, and some more proof that I have a twin.

ME: yeah, i had a really high fever the past couple days and couldn't do anything.

TWIN: hope you are feeling better. I got sick too and threw up in 2 bus terminals on my way here--awesome!!

And there is a new contestant in the fat-cheeked baby contest. Lesotho is (still) winning by default!

Also, some of you may remember my plaintive request for American dollars in my last post. Well, hot damn! I no longer want your money! THANK YOU to all the people who donated, or wanted to donate, to my irrigation project. I really have the best friends and family in the world! I'm happy to announce that the project was fully funded a few weeks ago (like I said, my e-mail is late). So if you e-mailed me to tell me you couldn't find it on the website, that's why. Anyway, I'm sure I'll do another project that will need funding in my remaining year plus some, so if you're disappointed about not being able to spend your money on cute little orphans, there will likely be another chance sometime!

To all of you who donated, the HIV support group wishes me to convey their greetings and thanks. They've begun the process of locating the water source in the surrounding mountains so they can run a pipeline from there to the garden. They are all really excited, and I have been ordered to send pictures once they start building stuff. I promise to do so!

There is not too much else to report about what's going on here. Winter is finally ending--though one rather regrets that, as its end ushers in my most hated season of the year: the windy season, in which giant dust storms rage and turn everything beige and gritty--ew! School has started again (a week late, as it snowed for three days just prior to the start date), and thus so have my Life Skills classes, though my students have somewhat forgotten that they're supposed to be learning anything.

Excitingly, we (myself and the library committee, consisting of several of the book-happy students and one English teacher) have also begun organizing the library (the books arrived just before school closed)! We're in the process of cataloging the 1000+ books sent by Allison, who was the PCV in Ha Senkoase before me. Next we will sticker them and stick borrowing cards inside, and put them on the shelves. I'm happy to report that we have a complete set of such classics as The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, the Twilight series, and many others. I'm looking forward to seeing the library set up so the students can start using it (I hope that'll happen by October).

On the home front, my kitten has become a small cat, and she and mega-cat overflow their kitty bed (a flat-rate box with a pillow and fleece blanket in it). I should graduate them to a larger box, but they figure out such cunning configurations for themselves that I can't quite convince myself to do it. Also, I woke up one morning to find that the family pig (which gets fed my food scraps) had six cute, scared little piglets. My book-read count has gone up to 254 (in part thanks to the days of snow, when I had no electricity and nothing to do).

Also, my group just had our Close of Service (COS) conference this week, which is a chance to stay at a hotel and eat at a buffet for two days while being told how complicated closing your service is. Of course, I'm not actually leaving with my group, but I got to come anyway. In classic style, I went through some kind of 36-hour flu as soon as the conference started, but rallied in time to come to the COS dinner and party (go me!). I'm in Maseru finishing up some business until Sunday. It's strange and sad to see everyone I came to Lesotho with preparing to leave. You get pretty close to the group of people you enter Peace Corps with, and all but one (also extending) are going home sometime between October and December. I don't regret my decision to stay, and given my site placement in the mountains, I'm not usually around a lot of volunteers anyway, but it feels lonely already!

Things I'm looking forward to: doing follow-up workshops to one of the camps I organized earlier this year--this time, we're bringing the workshops to the students, and visiting four of the schools whose students were involved. In October, I'm planning a short trip to Swaziland with friends. We hope to see animals, buy crafts, and go to a spa (if this sounds too...shallow...for Peace Corps Volunteers, I'll send you a picture of my feet. You may then beg me to go to a spa). In November is the Soweto marathon, which will be delightfully normal and low-altitude, and then in December I'll head back to the States for a month of home leave! (I'm already planning the crucial things to accomplish: see movies in nice theaters, eat ice cream and seafood, go to a good running store, etc!)

So things continue more or less as usual. Thanks again for your help with the irrigation project, and thank you for writing to me and telling me everything you're all up to! It's odd to realize that time didn't just freeze when I left the U.S., and that everyone's done so much that I've missed, but I love hearing about it. :) Enjoy the end of your summers (haha, means it's getting warmer down here!), and I promise another (relatively) timely update soon!

Peace, love, and caramel apple sticky buns (which got eaten within 30 minutes of being baked!),

~Me

As my students say, when I've been gone in Maseru or something (they never quite understand why I'm not always in my village), "after a long time, madam!" I apologize for being too lazy to force myself to update before now. (People, I made an outline before typing this up.) Also, it's been weirdly precipitative and cloudy in my little mountain village, and the days are shorter since it's winter here, so I get less electricity from my solar panel, and I have to choose between various computer activities I want to do everyday. Unfortunately, watching Dexter (love!) and various cinematic marvels like Snakes on a Plane--while shivering in four layers in my rondavel--usually trumps e-mail writing, which involves my unprotected fingers and is therefore cold. Sorry! Anyway, this is long, but hopefully, not too boring.

Onward! So, as I said, it's winter right now, meaning school's out and, lacking exciting vacation plans like going to France or Mozambique, I've been exerting myself most profitably by huddling in my rondavel in the (cold, cold) mountains. I've spent most of my time the last few weeks going between warm and cold activities: cooking (warm), running (cold), reading (cold), working my way through my stash of movies and TV shows from other PCVs (cold, except when done in bed), and sleeping in (warm! warm! you try getting up everyday in sub-freezing temperatures). You may be asking me mentally: why, Violeta, do you not go do something fun in your remaining 6 months in Africa--or better yet, go help starving, undereducated African children, like you're supposed to be doing?

The answer is multi-part, sort of like a layer cake (yay!) and happily, will accomplish my purpose of describing the e-mail-less void of the last 8 months (yay!)! Part one: if I was in a rush to do stuff, I have slowed down, because instead of having 6 months left in Africa, I have 18 (urk). That's right, I've decided (against most of my sensible, American, hot water and central heating, shrimp and ice cream-loving impulses) to extend my service in Lesotho for a third year. In brief, it's because I like what I'm doing here, feel like I'm making a difference, and want more time to make more of a difference (and, enjoy my mud hut fully).

The impulse to stay was made a reality in part because my job changed a lot a few months ago. While I had enjoyed full-time teaching for a year, there was a lot of other stuff I wanted to do, but had no time to do. Fortunately, my school was amenable to my request to teach part time (influenced, no doubt, by the arrival this year of two new science teachers). So that's what I'm doing now. I'm primarily responsible only for three Life Skills classes. (Life Skills is sort of like a combination of Health class and Socialization for Dummies, except my students haven't ever been taught about stuff like self esteem, diversity, peer pressure, etc--so it's more like Last Ditch Socialization for the Deprived.) Anyway, both I and the kids have lots of fun in these classes. My technique is playing them songs that relate to whatever we're talking about (gender stereotypes? No Scrubs! Love and sex? Paradise by the Dashboard Light! Ah, Meat Loaf). Anyway, they love it, and I get to proselytize to a most interested audience about high fives, the Dixie Chicks, what a gangster really is, and safe sex. I still help with the science classes too.

With my extra time I've been able to do things like organize youth camps for multiple schools--sort of like the Life Skills classes enlarged, and really rewarding (though lots of work) for me. Also, I help out a few other organizations, like the local HIV/AIDS support group (more about that later!) and LeNePWHA (weird, awkward acronym--Lesotho Network of People Living With HIV/AIDS) on Men as Partners workshops. This is part of an initiative started by another PCV, aimed at educating men as conscious and conscientious partners (in all senses of the word) in the fight against HIV/AIDS. All good stuff! I'm still working on defining exactly what I'll be doing next year (get back to me in a couple months), but I expect to mostly be continuing this suite of projects.

Anyway, since I have an extra year it will mean extra time to do fun things in the region. Also, it is an extension of the opportunity for my dear friends and family to visit me! After all, how many chances do you get to experience a guided tour of the exciting wildlife of Lesotho? We boast such exotics as--oh yes, the cow, the donkey, the small curly goat, the large demonic goat, and the filthy sheep. And the house cat! (Though some of my more, shall we say, creative PCV friends have been trying to convince me of the relationship of their beloved pets to the African wild cat). But really--Lesotho's beautiful and there are actual animals in our neighboring countries, as well as, oh yeah, the World Cup next year and all that jazz.

For example, when my mother visited for Christmas she got to experience not just the joys of Lesotho (which she liked very much despite freaking out about driving over the myriad potholes on the way into the mountains, in a car without four wheel drive), but also those of Cape Town and Victoria Falls. In the latter, she got her fill of big ole waterfalls, African crafts and the accompanying desperate salespeople (my favorite was named Prince. Me: ... as in, the Artist Formerly Known As? Prince: Yes, yes, When Doves Cry!!). Also, I made her go white-water rafting. Twice! (She loved it.) And in Cape Town we saw African Jackass Penguins (that's really what they're called, thanks to the noise they make), danced 2008 away in a (great!) jazz restaurant with pink champagne . . . oh, and I made her go to the mall. Twice. (It was my vacation too after all, and I required new running shoes and chocolate-covered espresso beans.) We managed to sample a finely-grilled variety of the African wildlife too, including warthog, ___bok, and mini kudu (mmm). All these wonders and more (like dried guava, mayo-laced sushi, and bungee jumping, which Mom forbade me to do in Vic Falls) await you in Southern Africa! See pictures here.

Oh, I mentioned the need for new running shoes. Pouquois? you ask. Well! The only thing I was diligent enough to report on in the past months, as you might remember, was my first ultra-marathon (35 miles, on a different, Mom-less trip to Cape Town, this time accompanied by a bunch of PCVs who were determined either to run or eat their way through Cape Town. Or in my case, both). But let's rewind to my first marathon south of the equator, which took me almost as long to run as the ultra! The aptly-named Sani Stagger endurance marathon (that sounds repetitive until you've run the race) was at the end of November at Sani Pass (see pictures: http://pics.livejournal.com/raphaelle/gallery/00013wrr). The first half is "up" 1300m (~4200 ft), and then you go down the same way (a small mercy). Despite this, I had a great time, and reinforced my everlasting love for Coke. As a hydration-conscious American runner, I never thought I'd advocate drinking something like Coke on a marathon course. However, I take back any disparaging comments I may have made about such things. It is a miracle drink. (Also, thanks for the scholarship, Coke people! *waves*) If you're wondering, I finished in pretty good shape (I thank the Coke and my mountain road-hardened ankles).

Anyway, next to said race, the Two Oceans Marathon (which in contrast understates its case--it's not a marathon, it's an ultra) was almost easy. Since I wrote about how awesome it was here, I will say about it only that I loved it, was dancing til 3 AM after the race (and up for a wine tour the next morning), and will be back next year. Again, I thank Coke and the altitude difference (between 2500m and sea level) for my success.

So, it's been an eventful and fun 8-9 months. And though I'm currently occupied with determined torpor, experimentation with puff pastry and lots of warm food, and observation of my cats' success at piloerection (one of my very favorite biology words--it means poofing!) . . . things will inevitably pick up again. Along with the temperature, thankfully. In a few weeks I'll start training for my third marathon in this hemisphere: Soweto, which is (shockingly) almost normal (I'm excited for the chance to PR, which should be possible given I passed the marathon mark at Two Oceans close to my previous marathon PR).

But hey! Important!! (Let's see who made it this far.) You know how I mentioned helping the HIV/AIDS support group? I continued a project started by the PCV before me, which was getting a grant for the irrigation system for the support group's garden. (Lesotho is really dry and has had some bad droughts in the past years. I blame global warming--why not?) Anyway, the support group does some really great things; they're participating in the Men As Partners workshops, help with the local preschool, and more importantly, the produce from their garden feeds sick members and AIDS orphans. The grant for the irrigation system, which will dramatically increase their production, is through the Peace Corps Partnership Program, which means I *cough* have to hit up my dollar-having friends back in the US for the funds.

On principle I dislike asking for money, ever since being a kid seduced by the "prizes" offered by school magazines and candy sales, and thus motivated (to my mother's mortification) to try to sell Reader's Digest subscriptions and peanut brittle to our friends and neighbors. (More creatively, I once went door-to-door selling frozen meat for my gymnastics team's uniforms.) However, though I'm the mouthpiece, tiny, malnourished, really adorable children like these are the mouths to be fed. And I can tell you (being on a $225/month salary right now), a little bit goes a long way. Everyone asking for money for whatever cause says "please donate what you can"--but I mean it. Ten dollars is worth a heck of a lot more here. So I know the economy sucks, but please donate whatever you can, if you can, here. Find my project by typing in my last name, Jimenez, or the project number, 632-059.

And hey! It's tax-deductible. Skip a few Starbucks coffees or whatever. I, and hundreds of very needy (and very, very cute) children will thank you!

With that shameless (but earnest) request for your hard-earned, depreciating American dollars (or Euros, or whatever you have at the moment--I'm not picky!), I will (attempt to) close this long, long post. Have I not slaked you curiosity about my doings? Want to see more cute children, cranky animals, large mountains, or elaborate cooking projects? Check out my photo galleries (plenty of photos under "Peace Corps Lesotho").

Or, want to hear (a little) more about Lesotho? Surf through my LJ entries. In news some of you have already heard, my dear twin left for Peace Corps Ecuador in February! She's now a sworn-in, conservation-doing, alpaca-hugging, babaco- and cuy-eating, fully-accredited PCV in Cuenca. A new feature of my LiveJournal is lesotho vs. ecuador, in which I compare vitally important (read: mostly trivial) points of our disparate Peace Corps experiences. Recent comparisons include the postal systems of Lesotho and Ecuador, produce available, weird PC rules, and our ongoing fat-cheeked baby contest, sparked during an e-mail exchange:

G: I am convinced that Ecuadorean babies have the fattest cheeks in the world.

V: You take that back!

Votes will be tallied and will contribute to the logs of pointless sibling rivalry, as well as the (non-existent) rivalry between Ecuador and Lesotho (ahem--disclaimer--views expressed herein do not represent those of the U.S. Peace Corps).

And with that I (finally) bid you adieu, happy late 4th of July (hope you ate some ice cream and barbecue for me *sniffle*), stay in touch, and please donate to my irrigation system grant!!

Peace, love, hot water bottles, and hot chocolate

--or, for you lowlifes in the Northern hemisphere--

Peace, love, air conditioning, and Haagen Dazs,

~Me :)

My sister and I have been trying hard to make a date to talk on Skype for, oh, a month now. It's been difficult, between her being in the field, me not being near the internet, and the sketchiness of internet service here (allow me to publicly blame Vodacom for screwing up their network during our previous Skype attempt), and apparently, both of us having synchronized sickness.

ME: MY NOSTRILS ARE ACTUALLY BLEEDING I HATE MY LIFE I'M GOING HOME.

TWIN: (by email) hey, we're obviously twins 'cause I've gotten a nasty cold this past week too.  anyway.

ME: (a week later, having recovered my dignity and my mucous membranes) huh. so what you're saying is IT WAS YOUR FAULT.

Happily, our ensuing e-mail conversations, in which we tried to organize a new date, raised another topic of Lesotho vs. Ecuador comparison.

ME: i will probably leave tomorrow (thurs) in the early afternoon for maseru (i have to go back and help train the new comm. health volunteers--but this is ok, as i need to purchase sundries such as strawberries, lime juice, and gruyere. and broccoli!  mmm).

TWIN: hurray!  have fun with the sundries.  wow, they let you eat strawberries there?  our PCMO pretty much said if we ate strawberries we'd get worms in our everything and die.  thus the only time I've purchased strawberries was to make a cake sauce that involved cooking the hell out of them.  fun.

ME: ...the fuck?  how can strawberries, if fresh, be contaminated by worms, as long as you wash them?  i am confused.  the only food prohibition they give us here (that comes to mind at present) is fresh milk, as the cow might have TB.

that stinks.  i guess also in our favor--the only place to get strawberries are grocery stores, meaning they've come from SA farms, meaning probably any worms have been pesticided all the way to zimbabwe or something.

And now you are edified on another fine point of comparison. Keep mum. They might try to take away my right to strawberries (or twin's access to fresh milk)!

This is my first installment of what I hope will be an ongoing series comparing my Peace Corps experience with my twin's. (My family's holding up our end, obviously!)

So while I am busy being in Peace Corps Lesotho, my twin sister (cherijo) has just sworn in as a volunteer in Peace Corps Ecuador. It is a fact universally acknowledged that while there are certain aspects of Peace Corps which tend to be the same everywhere, e.g.: culture shock, problematic transport, alarmed fat-cheeked babies which stare at you, frustrations with Peace Corps Washington, the weakest link in our Peace Corps daisy chain (and no, I won't apologize for or qualify that statement; it's true), etc . . . mostly, your experience will be very different from a PCV's who lives in a different country. Even if the country is next door to yours.

This is even more true if you are an ocean apart, as twinnie and I are now. For example, there are no alpacas in Lesotho, and she gets to hug baby alpacas (it's disgustingly cute). Also, different languages are spoken, we have different jobs and living situations, and so forth and so on. But when she sent a story about her experience in an Ecuadorian post office and challenged me to match it, I said, okay, that I can do. So, I present: the postal system in Ecuador vs. the one in Lesotho.

(In twinnie's words)

someone sent me a very nice and very much appreciated package in the mail, but with a value declared, and over 2 kg. so I and three other unfortunates got to go to the post office to pick up our packages. the following is a completely faithful account of what happend (the truth is stranger than fiction...).

we get in a cab and tell the driver to take us to the central post office. we dismount somewhere that looks too small to be "central"--but hey, this is Ecuador. we ask the nice police officer at the door whether we're at the right address, but he tells us to go ask inside because he doesn't know. we find out we are in the wrong place, so we take another taxi, and arrive somewhere slightly larger and dingier. we present ourselves at the window and exchange our package slips, two passport copies, and $1.25 for a dinky unreadable receipt, then are told to wait until our names are called. we wait 15 minutes until they ask for the Cuerpo de Paz, and then are led into a back room where they demand the receipts, scold us for having overweight boxes, slit open said boxes and rifle the contents (fortunately no one's box had anything expensive or unexpected...). they then give us another receipt and tell us to wait further down the hallway where a bored looking clerk squints at our papers and types things for several minutes. she prints out two receipts and tells us to go pay the bank clerk conveniently located inside the post office. we pay $1.18 and our receipts are stamped, and we get an additional receipt, and we are sent back to the bored clerk, who tells us to cross the street and make photocopies. we stare in astonishment and check our Spanish. the nice police officer starts laughing, and we j-walk to the copy center, where the clerk takes pity on our obvious confusion, snatches our papers, makes the proper copies, and charges us 5 cents each. we return these copies and are sent to sign more papers, which we then cross the room to give to the (still laughing) police officer, who then finally gives us our packages. the whole process takes about an hour and a half.

so, the moral of the story is that sometimes large packages get through... except if the customs agent is having a bad day. and if you declare a value, I'm definitely screwed. the sad part is that I was lucky today because there wasn't a line... it might have taken

twice as long. so, I love packages and I love you all for sending packages! but DON'T DECLARE A VALUE, and make sure it's 2 kg or less.

So, the postal system here is actually fairly reliable. At first we were warned to have our package-senders write things like "Jesus Loves You," "Religious Materials Enclosed" and "Stealing Is a SIN," etc. on them. This turned out to mostly unnecessary--almost every package gets here unscathed--though it did occasion some of my inventive relatives to send creative packages. For example, a Book of Mormon, razorbladed and filled with caramel-stuffed communion wafers. Religious materials, indeed!

So the postal system here is okay, though it gets backed up at busy times. My story belongs to another volunteer in my district, Mokhotlong; her village is far enough from the camp town and the central post office that it gets its own post office, so she gets her mail there.

Her story begins one dark and stormy afternoon when she'd just arrived in her village. The wind was howling fiercely, it was hailing, and she was shut up in her rondavel hoping not to be bothered by anyone. Of course, someone pounds on her door. "Ausi! Ausi! You must come!" Wretchedly, she puts on a coat and follows the guy into the storm. She is led to the chief's compound, and brought into an auxiliary rondavel. Once her eyes adjust, she sees a fire in the middle, surrounded by rows and rows of drying mail. She is presented with (slightly soggy) letters and cards, including a singing card someone sent her (which miraculously survived the storm).

You see, the mail is carried to her village on horseback. A mail guy (think Paul Revere!) rides a grey horse to and from the camp town to fetch the mail a few times a week. And evidently, neither snow nor sleet nor driving wind deters him (well, maybe the snow--we'll see, shortly). This guy even went when there was only one letter--for my friend--waiting to be picked up, and delivered it to her door.

Think UPS, with one guy wearing a blanket on horseback!

Sure, I have annoying stories too, mostly regarding the extended lunch break the postal ladies at the main office take. I want a personal horseback-riding mail guy for my village!

Be edified! In my next installment I shall compare Ecuadorian to Basotho food. Or alpacas to donkeys. Or maybe not. Wait in suspense (but not too much suspense; the inspiration has to come)!

I know it's been a long while between LJ posts, and I owe a real update as to what I've been up to, but for now I'm just going to enthuse about my Saturday morning: I ran the Two Oceans 56km Ultra Marathon in about 6 hours and 12 minutes! I came to Cape Town with some other PCVs for vacation--many of them ran the half marathon and then came out to cheer me on at my finish line (after showering, having lunch, etc). This was my first ultra (about 35 miles) and it was painful, of course, and beautiful (trees! ocean!) and actually more doable than I would've thought. I'd heard all kinds of stuff about how tough the hills were and whatnot, but I guess the mountains I run in pwn all else!

The course was great, as I said; really well-planned with plenty of water and Powerade and Coke (my new favorite marathon drink, surprisingly enough! It's caffeinated and sweet and bubbly--perfect), and also random other snacks like bananas and boiled potatoes (good!), popsicles, and Bar Ones (sadly, that was at 48 km and I could only eat a bite). Fortunately, also present were some sweet little children who'd cleverly figured out that if they hung around the course, the runners would hand over their half-eaten ice cream and chocolate bars (for the first time in Africa, I offered sweets to children!). Also, there were a lot of cool supporters out. One of my favorites was around mile 10:

MILE 10 GUY: Ke le joetsa (= I tell you)--eat your f--ing broccoli!!

There was also some guy in a gorilla suit, and cheerleaders in Bar One minidresses (teehee!). Also, bless their boerewor-loving little South African hearts, they played the Gipsy Kings' "Bamboleo" around 50km. (There might even have been real Spanish people at that water stop!) My legs hurt somewhat, but my stomach (which had been acting up, and I was worried about it) did not; I managed to eat nachos and a smoothie the afternoon post-race, and I didn't feel any more gimpy than usual after a marathon.

In fact, after nachos and a smoothie, I went shopping with a friend and bought new running shoes--damn you, Asics, for redesigning your toe boxes--I've finally had to cave and buy NEW BALANCES. Urgh! Then met up with my fellow PCV runners for Ethiopian food. We divided into two factions: the vegetarians and the carnivores (guess where I was. Yes, that's right. I wanted it still mooing, if possible). We meat-eaters included me and five guys, and we demolished our plate of injera (flat bread) and beef, beef, beef, prawns, lamb, and chicken. It went like this:

US: NOM. MUNCH.

SAM: Oho! There is a piece of bread trying to hide, is there?

ME: I've got it.

VEGETARIANS: Holy shit! Where did it all go?

US: ...are you going to finish that?

And then, fueled by protein, we went out dancing (though I had to cut out at about 1:30 AM because I yawned at too many people)!

So, I'm over the moon. Or, more precisely, Chapman's Peak, which the course ran over (we had to sign waivers to run it in case rocks fell on us. They didn't)!

More later about my job (and fabulous changes to it), the other marathon I ran in November (aptly called the Sani Stagger), Mom's visit and our trip to Vic Falls, Cape Town, and Lesotho, and other exciting things! Please write/e-mail or even call (yey!) to let me know how you're doing. I do actually have more internet access because we finally got a modem and got it working in my district. So I will read and respond to your e-mails with (relative) speed, I promise!

With love, Gu (Saturday's count: 4 chocolate Gus), Tylenol 8-hour, and lots of endorphins!

~Me

My uncle was evidently surprised at the number of e-mails I'd sent, given that I usually go weeks between being able to reply to my e-mails (thus missing out on fast and furious exchanges between my family members). Because I currently have more e-mail access than usual, so I thought I'd post it for your, uh, edification? ;) PETER:How do you suddenly have so much internet access? Did someone hook an ethernet cable to a goat and let it wander up the mountain until it found you? ME:that's a good idea!! no, i'm just in maseru helping with training, which means i have regular, if slow, internet. i'm going back to the mountains on sunday, sans ethernet cable-bearing goat. PETER:Why aren't you doing anything useful with your time there like distributing solar-powered/goat-powered wifi internet hot spots in the mountains?I did read about the dirt fuel cells being developed in South Africa and Lesotho (see article I just sent). Actually, one could also get the goats to charge the cell phone batteries in another way, biomechanically. Then the goats would form a roving mobile network that could distribute telecommunications to remote places. I suppose it's probably a dumb idea because the goats would rub against trees or butt heads and the things would be dead after 2 days. But if encased properly it might work. Next time there's an internet bubble (we'll have to wait a while... time to get the system in place), the goatherds would become millionaires gambling other people's money from mountain tops while they watch their goats. ME:yes. i am ashamed of my laziness. also, i fear that my telecommunications goats would be struck by lightning during summer storms, thus rendering my four-footed network, er, fried. PETER:Then we're back to the subject line... electrifried goat.

Cookies for anyone who can spot the lyric in the title! So, I went to Mozambique for my October vacation. It was fabulous, as I’m going to describe in detail. But before I get going, I have something to say about taxis here (do you know what I mean by a taxi? Not like an NYC cab—we call that a 4+1—like a little minibus stuffed with 15-plus people and their luggage and, sometimes, domestic animals). I spend a lot of time on taxis. During this trip, I spent a lot of time on taxis (you’d be horrified to hear exactly how long travel took us—I’ve deliberately left the figure out). Anyway. I hate taxis, but they’re a necessary evil. I do a lot of great thinking on them; you often get sick to your stomach trying to read or whatever, so you get good at sort of sitting and peace-ing out. Anyway, on one of my taxi rides in Mozambique, I was struck by the inspiration to mix things up in my upcoming blog entry. And so, all of the trip segments described here are delineated with different representative songs. My arbitrary rules say that they had to be songs I heard during that time. They might not all make perfect sense, but, well, not everything in Africa does. :) There’s internal logic somewhere, I swear…Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of - U2I left my little piece of nowhere after giving quarterly exams to each of my five classes--something which, shockingly, my students had been asking for. Not sure how much they liked what they got; I heard a lot of “Acchh, Madam, it is so difficult!” before I left. And they’re right; I don’t write easy exams, but they’re also not unfair, and they’re exceedingly feasible if you understand the concepts we’ve discussed (that right there is the problem). Anyway, despite the fact that I usually enjoy teaching, and my students, I left home in a hot second as soon as I could. Sometimes you need a break! Also, we just got 5 inches of snow the weekend before I left—it came as somewhat of a shock to everyone, since we thought spring had started—and so getting out of the mountains felt like, well, getting out of a moment I was stuck in. (Did I mention this song title gimmick might make this entry unbearable kitschy?) Thus, when "Stuck in a Moment" came on my iPod on shuffle as I was heading out of the mountains, it felt appropriate. I met Emilie and Jen, my travel buddies, in Butha-Buthe, and the next morning we set off to Joburg to get an overnight bus to Maputo (the capital of Mozambique). Now, we’d carefully planned our trip so as to avoid Noerd, which is the most notorious of Joburg’s taxi ranks (for having some ridiculous rate of muggings—80% or something like that). We were set to arrive in a different rank near the bus station and thus avoid it. However, when do plans go as they should? We took a wrong turn and ended up shoving our way through a corner of Noerd anyway. It was a hair-raising 15 seconds (as this guy in a shop said, who pointed us on our way: “You really shouldn’t be here.” Us: “Dude, we believe you”). Afterwards Jen joked that we should have T-shirts made saying “I survived Noerd.” I’m torn between thinking people would find them hilarious or fearing that it’d induce some punks to mess with us. Thoughts? I Kissed a Girl - Katy PerrySo despite our short walk on the wild side (heh), we made it into the bus station without incident, and then had a good six hours to sit around while waiting for the bus. We used the time well by eating ice cream and meeting some Botswana PCVs who were also headed to Mozambique. Did I kiss a girl at this time? No. But the song came on while I was eating my nutty chocolate ice cream, and because I live under a rock (so to speak), I’d never heard it before, and we initiated a debate about whether cherry Chapstick is good or not (it’s Jen’s favorite, but I hate it. Too waxy. I prefer my Scharffen-Berger chocolate lip balm). :) The overnight bus was more or less as we expected it: a bit cramped, over-air conditioned, and uncomfortable. Our Botswana PCV friends had come totally prepared, with blowup neck pillows, eye masks, Benadryl, and stainless steel goblets (in which to drink mimosas upon crossing the border, of course). I’d loaded my iPod with movies in anticipation of not being able to sleep, but surprisingly, a couple Tylenol PMs knocked me out. The bus stopped at the border a little before 6 AM in a really super long line of cars waiting for the border to open (think like the line outside the Apple store when the iPhone was released). Because Lesotho is teeny, there are few embassies in it, so Em, Jen and I did not have our visas to get in—and the conductors had warned us, very chivalrously, that they wouldn’t wait for us if it took too long. So we ran up the huge line of cars, begged and fluttered our eyelashes to cut the lines, and got our visas . . . and then waited for three hours while the conductors figured out how to do their own version of cutting the line. Ah well. And then, finally, about four hours late, we got into Maputo. My initial impressions went something like this: hey, that’s the same bridge we have in Maseru! Wow, look at the tall buildings! They have trees in their city? Hmm, the sidewalks aren’t in such good shape . . . Anyway, most cities are pretty cool when compared with Maseru, in my opinion, but Maputo appealed to me in a way that’s somewhat difficult to describe. Evidently it’s a little decrepit because of Mozambique’s period of civil unrest some years ago, but it’s a very alive city, and much more open and mixed than anywhere in Lesotho (and many places in South Africa, too, in my experience). I found there to be much more energy and hope in it than in the sort of sterile, pristine cities in SA I’ve been to. Violet Hill - Coldplay, covered by jam session dudes We expected to be exhausted after, but we sure weren't going to waste our first day of vacation sleeping. So we dropped our stuff off at Fatima’s, a pretty nice backpackers, met their fauna (several sharpeis—those Chinese wrinkly dogs—and a fat squishable cat named Frou-Frou), and went off to buy fish for dinner. We got all wide-eyed upon going into the market, not having seen fish in quite some time (Lesotho’s land-locked, and the rivers don’t really have a lot of water in them during winter, which is the dry season). Anyway, we evidently got ripped off for the fish we bought, but it was yummy, so, oh well. We also started a vacation-long trend of meeting cool people. Some semi-Americans happened to be at the backpackers, and we ended up going out with them to Gil Vicente for a jam session, which included covers of some great music, including “The Writing’s on the Wall” and a few of the new Coldplay songs (including "Violet Hill," which got to be my title song cause it talks about a long December with snow, and I was coming from the snow to the summer!). Besides drinking Mozambican beer (really good! As opposed to Lesotho beer—eww), we were treated to the spectacle of Green Sweater Guy and Tiny Bass Boy. Green Sweater Guy impressed us by hanging over a banister and rocking out unabashedly, and then he solidified our devotion by pulling out a fiddle and joining in on a few songs. Tiny Bass Boy appeared to be about twelve, but played like nobody’s business on both the bass and the keyboard. We were exceedingly impressed, and wondered what the age of consent was in Mozambique (just kidding!). Also, we told our new friends about treasured Basotho customs, like women casually feeling each other up (it’s friendly! Really!), and they told us about the differences in etiquette between German and American locker rooms (good to know...). I’ll give you an example. We’re in the taxi back to the backpackers.ME: (taking money out of my bra) Here you go!SEMI-AMERICAN FRIEND #1: Wait, did that just happen??US: …This is where you keep your money if you’re a girl in Africa!SAF #1: …Awesome. So, you remember how I lamented my first Peace Corps all-nighter while marking my midyear exams? Well, my second was far more satisfying. We were leaving on a shuttle to go to Tofo (beach town up the coast from the capital) at 5:30 AM, but left the club somewhat after 3, so we decided hey, why sleep? Much better than marking papers all night! While very lucidly reasoning out why we shouldn't sleep, we figured that we could nap on the beach in Tofo once we got there. Sadly, it was cloudy and cold once the bus dropped us off there, as it had been the day before (someone asked, when we arrived at Fatima’s in Maputo, who’d brought the bad weather—we had to confess it was probably us). So we strolled around a bit, admired the surf (Tofo is evidently a big surfer destination due to the water's, er, surfiness, and I have to say it looked like it would be real fun, if I knew how to surf), and were followed by tiny boys encouraging us to buy their beaded bracelets. We found this endearing, despite the steadfast determination of these young entrepreneurs. Perhaps this comparison can clarify things:LESOTHO CHILD: (screaming down at you from a mountainside) Geeev meee sweeeeeets!MOZ CHILD(ren): (crowding up next to you in a horde) Buy for present! I give you special price! Look, I have Rasta colors! At least they're offering something for your money, yeah? I also went for a long run, and you know the fun thing about living 2500 meters up? When you go down to sea level you feel fabulous. Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely (please…hong hong!) - Backstreet Boys We left early the next morning for Vilankulo, a town up the coast from Tofo. This involved more travel: a chapa (Moz speak for taxi) to Inhambane, a ferry across the water to Maxixe ("ferry" being used very, very loosely to mean overlarge motorboat with some benches in it), and then another chapa up to Vilankulo, on roads that were more pothole than road (they were worse than the mountain roads in Lesotho, which I didn't think was possible--the taxi actually drove on the road shoulder when possible, because it was clearer than the road!). Anyway, living in Lesotho, we're pretty stoic when it comes to keeping company in a taxi with bags of maize meal crying babies and stuff. However, this particular ride surpassed our expectations, as four extra people and multiple chickens were stuffed in the taxi. The only positive part was that rather than aggravating accordion music, a la Lesotho, we were treated to a medley of Portuguese and American music from about my middle school years. Including a whole Backstreet Boys CD. This half hour went something like this:JEN: (behind me) Bye bye bye!ME: (turning around) ...EMILIE: (in the front seat) ...(It transpired that Jen knew all the lyrics.)ME: (squished in a row with my backpack and three people) You know, I can really get into this song now. Show me the meaning of being lonely--please?JEN: Hong hong! (now now, in Sesotho) Mozambique - Bob Dylan Anyway, we survived, and staggered out of the taxi in Vilankulo only to be surrounded by more tiny children offering to take us to "Bowbab" or "Sombee Coocumber" (Baobab and Zombie Cucumber are two backpackers there--no, I don't know the story behind the name of the latter). Fortunately, our luck with friend-making held, and a couple guys pulled over and offered us a ride (much to the disappointment of our small would-be tour guides). We must've given off good vibes, because they joined us for making and consuming dinner (we were continuing to fix our seafood deprivation, and wanted crabs. And tuna). We shall call our new friends C and K. Cooking went something like this:ME: (chopping tomatoes) (Chop chop chop)C: Excuse me! (takes tomato and knife away) (Chop chop chop)ME: ...okay...(several minutes later)ME: (picking up orange) Is there an extra knife?C: Excuse me! (takes orange away)ME: ...man wants to cook for me. Okay! Have an onion! C and K were also kind enough not to laugh at us for not knowing how to eat crabs sans crackers. I can now proudly say that I am able to open a crab with my bare hands. Yay! They also allowed me to make them lose at pool (it's been some years since I've played, and, er, hitting the ball was a little bit of a challenge). My title song for this piece of vacation is (appropriately enough) Mozambique (love Dylan!), because it came on my iPod while laying on the beach that afternoon. (Go listen to the song--you'll get it.) :) The next bit of fabulous was snorkeling the next morning. We met Eddie, our guide, while at the backpackers the night previous. I might've endeared us to him by inadvertently helping him win at pool. Guess some good came of me being inept... Anyway, we set off on a dhow (boat) in the morning, after Eddie collected his crew (a pal of his and a punk kid who, according to Eddie, "came by our house one day and we just adopted him. He's crazy. He's a little shit, won't go to school or anything.") and I stepped on a dog (accidentally). And I proceeded to have the best day ever. We saw dolphins (in the distance), had fun looking nerdy in snorkel masks, squealed over pretty fish, were fed lunch, napped under the sun, ran around the mostly-empty beach (it was like being on a private beach…nice!), watched power boats full of tourists from other islands buzz the reef, and finally sailed back at sunset using the dhow sail (fun, if slightly queasy-making). A lot of Lesotho PCVs say this, but I’d go back in a heartbeat! (And maybe will—if it works out, I might be joining my friend Vicki for a pre-vacation there, before heading off to Vic Falls to meet Mom. But you’d be surprised how impossible it is to get from Mozambique to Vic Falls, without either a private car or private plane. And sadly, I think I left my jet back in the States.) Wish You Were Here - covered by Rasta McRastafarian The next day we got back on a taxi (with fewer people but more chickens, this time) to go back to Tofo. We arrived in time to wander around a little, be hassled by tiny bracelet-sellers, go running (me), buy chicken skewers (Jen), play in the surf (I’m about six when it comes to the ocean, so I like chasing waves and getting knocked down and stuff), and have Coke floats. We were wandering around thinking about lunch when I decided I was craving ice cream, which is when Jen uttered her line which came to define the vacation for me. Somewhat paraphrased:ME: My kingdom for a root beer float!JEN: Ice cream would be pretty great.ME: Ice cream would make my week!JEN: Yeah, the (beach) and the snorkeling were pretty awesome, but ice cream would make my vacation. And it did. Later that night, we made more friends: this time, it was a few Wall Streeters from New York—very weird and not entirely pleasant, I have to say, to remind myself I came from that world—some crazy British doctors, and a guy who’d been a volunteer (not Peace Corps) in Kenya. We played various strange card games and listened to groovy Rasta versions of various songs (like Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here.” Which I did. Yes, you!) And the next day was (drum roll please)… Petit Pays – Cesaria Evora My birthday! We got up and went to Inhambane in the morning, where we located a café with internet so fast it made me cry (why not in Lesotho? Why is the world so cruel?) and chocolate cake for lunch and really yummy iced coffee. I successfully searched the market for a turquoise sarong (surprisingly difficult to find—I was tempted to ask one of the women wearing one if I could just, er, buy hers), found a Moz sticker for my Nalgene (I’ve jumped on the sticker bandwagon in order that my Nalgene can be identified out of a sea of similar Peace Corps bottles), and had a very enjoyable time haggling for earrings shaped like snakes.ME: It’s broken. Look, the tail is chipped.EARRING VENDOR: It is fine!ME: It’s broken! I want a discount! And so on. Once we got back to Tofo we went out for dinner at a place called Casa de Comer, where I had seafood lasagna (inspired by my uncle ordering the same in Roscoff—see the France entry for details). I’m happy to say it was as yummy as in France. They did not have chocolate cake, but I did have chocolate crepes with bananas, and that was fine. (By the way, Petit Pays, sung by Cesaria Evora, came on during dinner, and I love her, and also love Mozambique, despite it not being particularly little…thus, the title of this segment.) We drank rum with pineapple juice upon returning to the backpackers, and went to bed earlyish.WALL STREET FRIENDS: Boo, you can’t go to bed early on your birthday!ME: It’s my birthday and I’ll sleep if I want to! We went back to Maputo early the next morning, and I was awake enough to see some of the (very pretty) scenery this time. We spent the afternoon wandering around and enjoying the sunshine, with the help of chocolate ice cream. Also, I bought mini Snickers from a supermarket (everything’s better there than in Lesotho). And then—more bus! We left that night, arrived in Joburg at 3 AM, and ventured out to the taxi rink at first light to go back to Vereeniging and then Maseru. In a Little While – U2 (I started with U2, might as well end with them, eh?) I arrived back in Lesotho feeling simultaneously elated and upset. As some of you might remember, I was originally supposed to be assigned to a Portuguese-speaking country (and the only option in the Sub-Saharan region is Mozambique). Given that, I had to wonder: what would it have been like to be a volunteer there? As I said in my other entry, you can’t really know what it’s like to serve in another country without, well, actually doing so. So I try not to speculate in that way. But it is a bit of a downer to think that, wow, I could be living on a beach and speaking Portuguese and not constantly be harassed. The elation enters because I can do that, if I want to. I close my service in a year here (unless I extend, and I have very mixed feelings about that), and there’s nothing stopping me from sticking around in-region afterwards and working with an NGO other than Peace Corps, if I want to. In a little while. The best way to say it: the trip reminded me of my reasons for going into Peace Corps, and my excitement about living in Southern Africa. It reminded me that the whole region isn’t like Lesotho (or South Africa); actually, you could say that it redeemed the region in my eyes. Which is awesome. I’ve always been the sort of person who loves making plans (a little detour—the exposition of a book or movie can be better than the climax, because there’s so much possibility), and now I have some more possibilities swimming around in my head which I really like. It gives me something more to look forward to. In a little while. ;)

I know, I know…I’ve gotten a few messages asking why I’ve disappeared. Some people theorized I was snowed in, which was true on one occasion, but the main reason I’ve been out of touch for a few months is that life’s been busy and also, a truck crashed into a telephone pole in my teeny mountain town, and that was all she wrote for the dialup. So I’ve been without internet even more than usual. But I’ve plunked myself down in front of a computer in Maseru to rectify the situation.

What’s been going on for me? A lot! Last time I wrote, I was on my way to Europe for my first big vacation here, to France and Spain. And now, I recently got back from another vacation (this time in-region) to Mozambique. Now, in the interest of not sending a daunting 30-page e-mail about all this, I am directing you to my blog to read about the details of my vacations. In order to entice you to read, I offer the following synopses:

My Peace Corps vacation in Europe:My excitement over plane food was somewhat dampened by my accidental importation of an intestinal parasite. I arrived in Barcelona and was bowled over by the number of museums there. Wait, those were grocery stores?? I tried to speak Sesotho to a few people and got weird looks. I felt naked in my bikini. I decided that ice cream twice a day was good for my health. In France, I endured my sister squealing every time we saw a Smart Car (she likes watching them turn left), almost got run over because I'm not used to cars going on the right side of the road, and ate brioches and meringues the size of my head. Under my uncle's tutelage, we explored the mystifying French nightclub scene (they do line dances!) and learned the secret of crepes en flambée. I had Haagen-Dazs in Paris, and almost fainted with glee in a bookshop. The moral of the story? You can take the girl out of Africa but you can't take Africa out of the girl!Vicariously get out of Africa: (the link will come, in time—check back soon!) My birthday trip in Mozambique:I went from 5 inches of snow to sun and sea. This involved being exceedingly philosophical about hours spent on taxis and buses. The reward was seafood, snorkeling, ice cream, and hearing people speak Portuguese. In Maputo I fell hopelessly in love with a tiny and exceptionally talented bass player, in Tofo (say it like the food!) I wished I knew how to surf and practiced my haggling, in Vilankulo I learned how to eat crabs without crackers, snorted seawater while trying to squee underwater about pretty fishies, and appreciated the true value of hammocks. I can sum up the vacation with a semi-exact quote from my vacation buddy Jen, on day 5: "The beach and the snorkeling were pretty awesome, but ice cream would make my vacation." (Shortly afterwards, we had Coke floats.)

Why I like to spend some time in Mozambique. Interestingly, I didn't connect most of these dots until after coming back from vacation in Europe; maybe the distance gave me some perspective. I should emphasize (because I wrote some upset letters to a few people and scared them) that I'm not unhappy most of the time, nor do I want to leave Lesotho early. But being in Mozambique for vacation (where, as some of you might remember, I was originally supposed to be sent) made me wonder what it would be like to be elsewhere, without the cultural barriers I experience in Lesotho. Of course, every Peace Corps post has its unique difficulties, so it's silly to say you wish you were somewhere else instead--how would you know what it's like without actually serving there? Was it hard to go back to Lesotho after both vacations? Yes. As much as I still love my little house in the mountains, and as much as I still enjoy teaching my students (most of the time), there are significant cultural challenges for an American living in Lesotho, and they won't ever really go away. You might think, duh, it's Peace Corps! But the truth is that I'm not bothered by living without electricity or running water, or by having to run in long shorts, or staying in my house after dark every night. What bothers me is the difficulty of interacting with the people and the culture in Lesotho beyond at a superficial level. While I don't wish to rant about the situation (though I could), this country, like most in Africa, has endured a lot at the hands of foreigners, and the result is a certain amount of xenophobia and resentment of foreigners. While people may come to like you personally, most of them lack the education to differentiate Americans from, say, Afrikaaners, or to know that any white person isn't a rich racist (that sound too harsh? Truth hurts). In a nutshell, they like the presence of white people in Lesotho because they perceive that we bring resources, but they don't actually like us. The result? Almost every person I meet in Lesotho assumes that I am rich and will give them things. Besides the fact that neither of those is true, it makes it hard for me to form close relationships. It's especially aggravating when my students and even the teachers at my school ask me for things (my instinctive reaction is tensing up and shouting, which isn't exactly productive). Anyway, life in Lesotho goes on. Spring has sprung, finally; the peach trees needed only one day of rain to be encouraged to bloom, and while I was gone on vacation it rained some more, so the barrenness of the winter landscape is finally being replaced by the astonishing green that I barely remember from my initial time here. I never would've said I was seasonally affected at all (indeed, I'm vociferously in favor of distinct seasons), but when the first bright pink blossoms and new leaves started coming out on the trees, I did feel like a part of me woke up. Of course, then it snowed a few weeks later, so I guess it wasn't quite spring yet! I've been in Maseru this past week for Training of Trainers. Impossible as it feels, I've been in Lesotho almost a year, and we're welcoming a new group of Education trainees in November. So I and some of the others in my group will be helping train the new people (tremble in fear!). This has afforded me the opportunity to visit nice grocery stores (I found ostrich meat, which is a family obsession), eat food I didn't make myself (cupcakes! milkshakes!), and vegetate on the internet (yay!). At school, my Form Es have started their exams, and when I go back to site, I'll have only a few more weeks before the Bs and Ds also start writing exams. Then school will finish by the beginning of December. In examining my feelings about the year, I have a few conclusions: first, I know most of my students will fail, which is depressing (even more depressing? they'll be passed ahead anyway). However, some have the potential to do quite well, and even for the rest, I have to believe that I've made a difference for them in some way. And as I've said before, you can't correct years of bad schooling in one year. Second, I know that next year will be easier and better (I'm the eternal optimist, I suppose). In more uplifting news, I will be running my crazy marathon at the end of November, on the 29th. My training's been going well, though as the weather gets hotter, I do get more and more annoyed by the fact that I can't strip down to shorts and a sports bra, which was my method of coping with New York summers. I can't even wear normal-length shorts (I'd scandalize my village). Anyway, my fabulous Mokhotlong buddies are coming to see me run, which is great (I've joked that they may have to scoop me off the road with a shovel afterwards, but they seem to be okay with that). Assuming I am still in one constituent whole afterwards, I'll ooze my way back to Maseru to help with training, and then Mom is coming for Christmas! We shall be going to Vic Falls, Cape Town, maybe Stellenbosch (for wine tours, naturally), and, of course, Lesotho for a little while. :)

Anyway, I hope to be in better touch over the next few months! My district has been promised a modem for our Volunteer Resource Center sometime before the election, which would mean I might have internet every weekend (!). (Also, it might mean I can find out fairly promptly who wins this November!) So, hopefully I can send more frequent updates about such important things as school and training and staggering up mountains. And, of course, scintillating anecdotes about life in Lesotho. Like furry traffic jams (when a herd of goats fords the road in front of your vehicle) and weird forms of speech (the accepted way to verify what someone's said is "is it?"--pronounced "eezeet?").

Oh! Before I forget, go see my picture page (everything's updated!). Please stay in touch, and thanks as always for the letters and packages and phone calls! I miss you all! Peace, love, and carnivorous food options, ~Me!

Sorry for the long break between updates, but hey! I'm in Africa. Efficiency isn't precisely a catchword here. Anyway, lots has happened since my last e-mail: we closed the school for the holidays, I marked an ungodly amount of tests, I visited some neat places, and celebrated Thanksgiving in June (it's winter here—pie was necessary for survival. Also red velvet cake, but I'm getting ahead of myself).

First things first: school closed on June 13th. Before then, all my classes had to take midyear exams, with mixed results. As I expected, certain students did quite well, and others failed dismally. I suppose this happens in any class, but it's pretty depressing when the high score on an exam is around 65%, or worse, 45%. I guess a realization most of the Peace Corps teachers come to here is that it's hopeless to imagine that you can turn around ten to fifteen years of bad schooling in your two year service. The fact is that most of my students shouldn't have passed in previous years, but they're pushed through the system anyway. How can you teach mole concepts to someone who still doesn't know how many electrons go in an outer shell? It's a depressing thing to accept that you must teach to the top of the class, here (top in this case meaning those who are remotely ready to understand the concepts on the syllabus), but if you don't, and try to review years' worth of material, no one has a chance of passing.



This is something I've discussed with other secondary education teachers here, especially the science and maths (it has an s at the end here) teachers: we feel that although we can make a difference in the prospects of a minority of our students, we're at best a stopgap measure, and furthermore, our efforts generally don't fit into the Peace Corps paradigm of sustainability (once we leave, the schools will be in more or less the same position as before: lacking equipment, and possessing teachers who are unqualified, untrained, or uncaring). There are a number of teacher trainer PCVs, but their focus isn't on science and maths, and those are the subjects that baffle and frighten the most students (and teachers) here. However, any change in that arena has to come from the Peace Corps administration, both here and in Washington (meaning, I'm not holding my breath. Not that I don't apprehend the difficulties of coordinating a worldwide organization with thousands of staff and volunteers, but a turtle walking uphill in molasses in the winter could move faster than Peace Corps policy). Anyway, there are days I love my job and days when I don't think there's anything I can do to help my students achieve what they want to.



So, the midyear point passed with a certain amount of ambivalence on my part. Fortunately, I had Lindt 85% dark chocolate and Rwandan French Roast to help me cope with marking multiple 17's and 10's, and Nutrageouses when I discovered one of my answer keys was wrong (my howl scared the cat out of his kitty bed). I had to go to Maseru in the middle of invigilation, which is the local term for spending two to three hours watching your students doodle and go to sleep on their test papers. Let me put this in perspective: it was a choice between standing around bored out of my mind or being stuck with a great huge needle for my second HPV shot (I bled profusely and accused Dr. J of hitting an artery—he laughed at me, the unfeeling wretch. Take note, you future doctors!). I picked the needle. My reward was escaping Maseru for a day to go to Bloemfontein with Joseph and Andy, two other PCVs. We got up at the crack of dawn and arrived in time to have brunch (French toast!), discover a candy store (from thence came the Nutrageouses—also, Butterfingers and horrifyingly expensive Reese's Pieces), and see Indiana Jones and the Shameless Play on Our Fond Memories of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Nevertheless, I am a sucker for my action movies, so I loved it. And even at 60-odd, or however old he is, I am happy to say Harrison Ford has still got it (someone once told me that when I grew up I'd fancy Han instead of Luke. Ain't that the truth).



I will spare you the details of my boring home life when I have little actual work to do (though I could detail some truly well-considered analyses of the relative merits of Trader Joe's versus Lindt and Cote d'Or chocolate, and also a character study of my cat). Suffice it to say I've filled my time between school and other stuff with a variety of books, letters (thank you!), and contemplation of my rondavel walls. "Other stuff" is, first, Faux Thanksgiving. I think I mentioned that the PCVs in my district were horrified by the idea of cold weather without mitigating holidays, so we devised a plan to celebrate Thanksgiving in June. This involved fifteen PCVs (most of whom we figured would only make it up through the mountains if bribed by food), two frozen chickens, a paper turkey with Ikea lights, and a small child's weight in potatoes. I was in charge of dessert, which was pumpkin pie and red velvet cake (triple layer!). I cooked for about a day straight. The whole thing was great fun, though of course half the guests scarpered before cleanup (creeps!). But on the second day we ate leftovers and made chicken soup and carrot cake. Mmm!



Then last weekend I and Ben, another PCV in my district, decided to visit Underberg, which is a small South African town over the nearest border from us. A brief explanation of where that is, for those of you not up on your Lesotho geography: I live in the easternmost, most remote district of Lesotho, in the middle of the highest mountains south of Kilimanjaro in Africa. Getting in and out of them is a hair-raising experience, especially if crammed in one of the VW bus-type vehicles that serve as taxis here. It takes about five hours, if you're lucky, to get from Mokhotlong to either Butha-Buthe, the camptown over the mountains to the west, or Underberg, to the east. Anyway, the drive there, even if smushed in with 15 other people and their associated gas tanks and chickens (not kidding!), is spectacular. You go through the snowy, icy mountains to Sani Pass, which is the pass going east out of the mountains (also it marks the border between Lesotho and South Africa). Sani Pass is one of the favored hangout spots for the Four Wheel Drive club of South Africa, which might tell you something. The road down from it is dirt with lots of rocks, hairpin turns, and steep corners. As you descend (probably around 1500 meters in ten miles—see http://sanistagger.com/STAdiag.htm), it gets greener and warmer, until you're in another climate zone altogether. My experience was enhanced by having woken up at five AM (when it was still dark) to get to town in time to get the taxi, and also by the fact that the taxi driver was wearing this padded mechanic's suit which made him look like a navy blue version of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. (I'm wretched about the fact that I didn't get a picture before we reached sunny South Africa, when he took it off.)

Anyway, though this was certainly an instance in which the journey was worth half the destination, Underberg itself is a small, pretty town with a couple decent grocery stores, wireless internet (I was devastated that I hadn't brought my laptop!), a health food shop, some nice restaurants, and lots of fun craft shops full of smelly and breakable things (and you know how I love places like that). Unfortunately, most of that closes at the ungodly hour of 4:30 PM, as Ben and I discovered after only a few hours of browsing and poking shiny things. Fortunately, this facilitated us going to a restaurant and sports bar called Mike's, where I ate the best fillet mignon I've had since being in America (they have no idea how to cut meat in Lesotho), and made the acquaintance of a fat sweet kitty named Tigger, who marauded around the bar before eventually settling on my lap like a large noisy space heater ("Tigger owns the place," the proprietor informed us). Other highlights of our trip included: flirting with a bookshop owner who tells me he can order me Spanish books, buying a large rose-shaped rose-smelling candle, and going to the museum in neighboring Himeville, which was small but quite good. Always having been a diorama fan, I especially liked a diorama of an ox-cart. The label informed us that in the olden days, there could be 20 or so oxen harnessed to a heavy cartload. Each had and responded to its own name; common ones included Longman and Bichman (I'm sure it means something less titillating in Afrikaans, but we laughed anyway). Also, the museum curator, who was very friendly, had us guess at the uses of various artifacts from the Boer settler days, including a horse bootie (for walking on hayfields), a Braille typewriter, and a pretty china sippy-cup, which was evidently exceedingly useful to the fastidious mustachioed settler, to keep whiskers from getting soggy. Brilliant!

(P.S. I just registered for a marathon which goes up and down Sani Pass, called (heh heh) the Sani Stagger—a nice runner guy who owned a health food shop informed me about it. Check out that elevation map. It's going to be awesome and I will pancake on the road afterwards!)

Anyway, I always try to send entertaining e-mails which tell about the best parts of my experience, but there have been some unpleasant events lately in Lesotho, which bear reporting: first, one should understand that Lesotho 1) receives a lot of AIDS funding from international donors, since it has the second-highest AIDS prevalence in the world (#1 is Swaziland, #3 is South Africa. Tell you something about the region?). However, people are a little unsure where this has been going. As is probably the case with many African countries, people blame the government. As a Peace Corps volunteer I'm not supposed to express any political opinions (and I'm posting this on my blog), so I'll just say maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong. Anyway, add to that the fact that there's pretty bad inflation (staple food prices have risen over 100% in the past year!), and people aren't terribly happy. Also there have been a couple recent taxi strikes because the government raised license prices for taxis by a huge amount in order to pay for new government buses, which will compete with the taxis (yeah). This has derailed some of my plans (I was supposed to go down to Maseru for a 4th of July party, which didn't work), but moreover, it's a source of worry for the PCVs here. We'll see what happens.

Well, I'm currently in a high state of excitement as I prepare for another Peace Corps vacation . . . to France and Spain! (No, I also didn't think my first major vacation in Africa would be to Europe, but life moves in mysterious ways.) My uncle Peter's eating artichokes and studying phytoplankton porn (his words) in Roscoff, a little bit of nowhere in Brittany. So he and Mom came up with the fabulous idea that Gloria and I should meet them there! Of course, I'm totally on board with this plan and intend to eat my (ever increasing) weight in pain au chocolat. So, my next update e-mail will be a little different from the previous ones, but I'm sure it will still include amusing anecdotes about animals, food, and things lost in translation. It'll sure be great to be back in a first-world country for a while, though it'll also probably be really weird. Wish me a fun 20-hour trip! J Also, before I forget, I updated my photo page, so go see some pictures of my adventures (pictures from Faux Thanksgiving have yet to be posted):

http://pics.livejournal.com/raphaelle/

And now I'm off to sort the warm clothes out of my hiking backpack. I have several objectives while in Europe: swim, wear clothing that shows my knees, eat really good food, buy new running shoes (it's looking like it'll be a 1000-mile year, and my shoes are looking pretty sad after the roads here!), maybe see a movie (Gloria suggested that Batman in French would be fun!), etc… I hope you're all enjoying the summer in the Northern Hemisphere (I'll be there soon!), and much love till I next see you all!

Peace, love, and much-anticipated pain au chocolat,

~Me!

I must report that life since my last e-mail, after vacation and the last part of training, has been fairly boring. (Also, it's been awhile, because the internet place in town was broken. I heart Africa!)Life's been busy though; we're getting close to the midyear exams (in June), so I've been trying to finish up the syllabi in all my classes, with mixed success. First of all, I'm now teaching six classes. As I may have mentioned before, I've been "helping" the Form E Biology class, since the principal (their teacher) seems to be too busy to teach them. Anyway, as of about a month ago I decided to fish or cut bait, so I took over their class. They're on track as far as the syllabus goes, except that they don't seem to have learned much last year. But in Chemistry, I'm frantically trying to cram a year and a half, plus remedial work, into a year. So I've been stressed with the extra course load (30 hours per week instead of 20 hours, as recommended by Peace Corps) as well as the desire to help my classes actually do well! I'm getting used to it, though, I guess; my eye twitch on Fridays has reduced slightly and I only want to use my students for target practice on alternate Tuesdays. But it still exhausts me.I discovered that I like my job, except when I have to mark stuff (and you college professors with TAs can shut up!). I don't mind marking exams. The trouble is that I have at least 40 kids in each class, and copying homework is an accepted means of getting good marks here (and trust me, you'd feel homicidal too after reading sixty or so mostly-identical homeworks, in identical bad English). I yell at them time and again without much result. I gave out a passel of zeros the other day and got lots of "Acchh, Madams!" for it. It's depressing!Life is otherwise, well, going. A tragedy struck a few weeks ago: Khoeli ("moon") my sweet obnoxious girl kitty, disappeared. I asked my 'M'e where she was and at first got just a shrug. However, later she told me that the cat had been eaten by the neighbors' dog! Now, I did consider I'd misheard, given that my Sesotho's not fantastic, but she definitely said "jelle" (ate). Of course I was upset, despite my whinging about my annoying cats, and given that two of the family's rabbits were attacked a few weeks ago too (I didn't even know they existed before the fact), I worry that there's some awful rabid dog around or something. So I've been letting Letsatsi ("sun") the sweet boy kitty stay inside at night. Since I fear he's depressed I've been feeding him extra (apparently in Africa I'm the cat owner who feeds the cat what she eats), on the theory that food makes everybody happy. And pudgy. Which is all right; he could stand some extra padding for the coming winter. Though that darned animal turned up its nose at my (delicious!) risotto. But he meows in his sleep--sort of like kitty snoring (smeoring?)--so I get all gooshy and forgive him his trespasses.One of the other PCVs is offering me a hand-me-down cat named Seponge ("love sponge!" she said--huh), but I don't know if I want to bring another kitty into my life only to have it killed by dogs or something. I have to ponder it. Also, "Seponge" is disturbingly close to my Sesotho name (Sebongile). I think my family and students would get a real kick out of that . . . On the plus side, Seponge is evidently a girl cat, so she and Letsatsi could procreate and make kittens for me to play with!Of course, neat things have been happening too. It's my philosophy that in general you have to look for things that will make you happy. Like treed sheep. Yesterday morning I walked out of my rondavel and heard a sheep maa-ing dispiritedly. I located it on top of the corral wall. Since I don't think it could've gotten there on its own (though sheep are unexpectedly nimble little buggers—and have you watched them eat?? It's creepy how fast their mouths move! Anyway), I figured someone put it there so it wouldn't wander. It was acting like a treed cat, so I call it a treed sheep. And it distracted me from being annoyed at my cheating Form Es, so it's all good!A little more commonplace than treed sheep, but still cool (literally!): we got our first mountain snow about a month ago, which was pretty stunning: I looked out at 11 PM after marking a pile of tests and the world was utterly white. Given that the Basotho hate cold as welll as snow (I tried to educate my students about snowball fights, and they "achhh"-ed and gave me their usual we-consider-you-quite-mad looks), we had a snow day. I spent the time writing letters, drinking hot cocoa, and laughing at my cats (there were still two at that point) who spent a lot of time hoping the snow would disappear and trying to come in and out of the rondavel. It did in fact mostly melt by the next day, and we've had warmer weather since. But I'm told April is early for snow and we might be in for a really cold winter . . . that will be exciting, without indoor heating!My students also keep me amused as well as annoyed. Occasionally they say accidentally hilarious things because of the language learning process, like, when describing starch tests, "put iodine on a food." Give me a food, I say! Also, one of my B1s has invented a new designer food: the pomato. Look for it in a Whole Foods near you. I predict it shall be good for stew. (She was really confused about why I started laughing when I saw her exam…) I wish I could transmit their amusing drawings via e-mail, too. The cow pictures are the best: my favorites, I call the square cow (space-efficient?) and the cow of doom and pointiness (for eradicating the rest of your livestock).And although the extra E Biology class has taken a toll on my time and sanity, it's also been really rewarding, because I've gotten to talk to the students about things like biological magnification and global warming. And, coincidentally, whales and penguins. And Antarctica. Their faces, on seeing a world map and realizing that there are places covered in ice! "Madam, do people live there?" (They were very impressed when I told them my uncle had visited there.) "Madam, what is a penguin?" "Madam. Do Eskimos live there?" (How do they know about Eskimos and not penguins??) Someone needs to send me Happy Feet so I can show them about pollution and penguins and Antarctica in one fell swoop! I've started to get a lot of neat questions in class (rather a departure from the subject areas, but I'm glad the students are interested), like why boats float, why the moon "disappears sometimes" at night, why blood clots, why hair and fingernails grow after you die (again, how do they know that?). It's sure depressing that they've never been able to have these questions answered before I showed up, but it is really cool to see their faces when they hear the answers!So, I keep busy and happy. And both the mail and the booming inter-PCV loan system regularly bring some excellent entertainment my way, like The Wire and Battlestar Galactica (it's funny that I watch more TV shows while in the Peace Corps than ever before…), and a number of nice books. Occasionally I get bored, of course, and then I do things like have conversations with my cat. Today we meowed at each other for almost two minutes (I was watching the clock), which is a long time, if you think about it. So keep the reading material coming! ;) It's great to hear how you all are doing, and since my radio no longer seems to be able to locate BBC, I depend on you all to let me know about important things happening in the world, like:

- the Democratic primary

- the director of The Hobbit movie (awesome!)My address remains the same, though for reasons too annoying to tell, I have had to switch phone carriers--I'm switching back to my original number: country code 266, 588 10578. I have the worst phone karma in the world, for some reason . . . Anyway, I must conserve my precious internet time (as I mentioned, it's not always working) so I'll finish by sending you all hugs and kisses and entreaties to write (and send Reese's peanut butter cups!).

Peace, love, and persimmons (currently at my Fruit & Veg store),

~Me

So, here is my account of my first vacation and last phase of training, at last. I'm back to the cold cold mountains really early tomorrow morning, and am currently sitting outside the Peace Corps office in Maseru at a rondapicnic table (it's round, with a thatched roof like a rondavel and little stone blocks for chairs. Very cute. Everything's better rondified!), typing out last-minute e-mails and things. It's been a great, if busy and at times startling, few weeks.

After writing my sleep-deprived e-mail to you in Mokhotlong, I got on the taxi to leave the mountains for the first time in a few months, along with a couple other people from my district. We stopped at Butha Buthe for the night (our neighboring district's camptown, about four hours away), ate really good pizza and ice cream (!), and gawked at their much more busy camptown (ours is pretty frontier-looking, even on a payday when everyone forms a huge line in front of the bank). We left for Maseru the next morning, hooked up with the rest of our traveling group, and headed off to South Africa. The differences between Lesotho and South Africa were pretty immediately apparent; we came down gradually out of the mountains into rolling flatlands ("now this is what I thought Africa would look like," said James, an English teacher in Mokhotlong) and were stopped by traffic cops who were efficient, polite, and unreceptive to bribe attempts. Once we got to Bloemfontein we were let off into a taxi rink which looked pretty much identical to that in Maseru (we exchanged looks wondering what we'd come to Bloem for) but once we got a cab to our hotel, we moved from the poorer (read: black) section of the city, we went from reactor towers overlooking the taxi rink, and streets papered with "cheap! safe! clean!" abortion flyers, to tree- and office building-lined streets, shiny glass storefronts, and white people. After showering in the hotel—let me interject that one’s first shower in three months feels AMAZING—we went for dinner at a fish/steak restaurant in the mall nearby, which was a treat, but extremely disorienting. Despite the warnings of other PCVs, I didn’t really realize how strange it would be to be walking around a mall after being in, essentially, the third world, for months. It was very difficult not to stare at everyone. Some of us tried to greet people in Sesotho (Bloem is still in the Sesotho-speaking part of South Africa), and were replied to in perfect English. Anyway, we were immediately evident as tourists, and very quickly figured out that this was partly because we actually treated our (black) servers like human beings. Gives you a depressing but rather apt idea of what Bloem is like; it’s the capital of the Free State in South Africa, which is evidently one of the more rural and conservative parts of the country (and conservative, in SA, means conserving some of the views of the former apartheid regime. You do the math). Despite that unpleasantness, which is always somewhat visible under the surface, it’s a fun place to visit, especially for PCVs who’ve been out of touch with the Western world for a while, and I met some very nice people while I was there. The girl who cut my hair, for example, gave me her phone number and invited me to stay next time I passed through (an offer I hope to take her up on!). We basically spent the first few days in Bloem wandering the two malls there, eating waffles, drinking coffee, shopping, seeing movies, in my case getting my hair cut (I felt like a girl again!), etc. Bloem has its cultural charms, too, such as kids (and some bearded old men) walking around the malls barefoot. It’s really weird to see bare feet ahead of you on the escalator! Some of the things I bought: shampoo (yes!), a muffin tin and a decent springform, spices, a couple nice shirts, colored paper and envelopes (so I can write to you people on nice paper instead of boring notebook paper), and gruyere and ORGANIC PEANUT BUTTER. I almost fainted in Woolworths’ food section, which was beautiful, well-stocked, and made me miss living in New York. I didn’t expect to be as disoriented as I was by my little dip back into Western culture; it made me miss the easy availability of things more than I thought. However, conversely, it also felt much more natural and relieving than I thought to come back to Lesotho. Well, once we’d stuffed our hotel rooms with purchases, and our stomachs with mall food, we ventured out to the rest of Bloem—to a Greek place (I miss ethnic food so…) and a sushi place, among others. Sushi was phenomenal. And we sampled the Bloem nightlife. As I mentioned, I was excited to see the Mystic Boer, one of Bloem’s pubs, but the reality somewhat underwhelmed me. I did like the brightly-colored pictures of Boers on the walls, but not the boring techno house music. However, we randomly bumped into a PCV from South Africa who informed us that in Kimberley, near her site, the Boers will waltz, barefoot, to house music. It sounds like something I have to see—purely for anthropological reasons of course! The next night (Easter Eve?) we went to the sushi place and then back to the Greek place to dance. As there were approximately 24 PCVs from Lesotho in Bloem at that point, we sort of took over the dance floor and made the DJ play hip hop and Michael Jackson and stuff. It was awesome to go and dance with a bunch of friends! (And they had good sangria.) There was also quite a nice art museum (the Oliwenhuis, meaning olive house as it is surrounded by olive trees, evidently) which we went to on one of our last days there; it had a nice collection of contemporary art, and also some beautiful old landscapes and a cool sculpture garden. The best things there included an African carousel (unfortunately, since that Monday was a holiday, they didn’t let us ride it—had they done that the experience would have been perfect), with cool African-esque carved aminals rather than the standard froufrou horsies. Also there was a flock of sculpted sheep, complete with injunctions not to sit on the sheep and little eartags and plaques explaining the deeply moving meaning of the sculpture (I think it related to the Boer War in the early 20th century). We, naturally, were entranced and sat in the grass by the sheep to admire them and take funny pictures. So, Bloem—my first vacation!—was a lot of fun, partly because it enabled me to buy lots of nummy food and other things unavailable in Lesotho and, especially, Mokhotlong. Once we returned to Maseru, we got to see the rest of our training group and hear about their vacations (a couple ended up going to Cape Town, but most hung out around Maseru or Bloem). Training was mostly boring, though my loud and enthusiastic group made the best of it. We watched cheesy movies together, like Heidi’s Christmas Story (we braided our hair for this experience) and I made a yummy layer cake, which we all ate with our hands. We also were allowed out of the training center after dark this time, since we’re no longer trainees, so some of us sampled the nightlife of Maseru, which is, as it turns out, rather fun. For example, we went to a foam party (which, for those of us out of college for a while, is where they have a machine producing foam bubbles, which get all over the floor and everyone), which was messy but rather amusing, especially since it’s in Maseru. Sadly, they played all house music there too. But, we met some nice Basotho who speak great English, which was great. Also, we were invited back to the US Ambassador’s for a pool party (take 3!), where we drank wine and ate cheesy poofs on US State Department napkins. Also, the ambassador’s wife showed us the feral kitty and her litter of kittens living under their topiary! We were enchanted, of course, and I cuddled a fat one (whom, in my mind, I named Makoenya) for about two hours. I fell in love, and am now pining! L I learned that taking a cat back to the States is much easier than taking a dog (you just have to get it a rabies shot), which strengthened my desire to adopt Makoenya the kitten, or one of my box kittens (I need help with this kitten problem!). Another cool thing is that the ambassador invited us to come to the Embassy’s Fourth of July party, and invited a couple (including me) to stay at his house a few days prior! As I’m making it my project to get the hell out of Mokhotlong during the winter (which, remember, is in the Northern hemisphere’s summer), this sounded fabulous to me. So, the break has been great, and it has been really nice to see everyone and buy yummy food and so forth, but I am looking forward to going back to my site (I’ll leave at 6 AM tomorrow morning for a 9-hour bus ride—ick!). I’ve missed my students, and my rondavel, and my host family and my obnoxious cats. I may revise my opinion on all this when I get up there and it’s already 25 degrees Fahrenheit at night. But really, I’m excited to go back and start teaching again (and make red velvet cake and/or cheesecake with the cream cheese I bought!). Oooh! Go see pictures from vacation (as well as the promised pictures of the box kittens and the sheeps on leashes) here at my photo website. The pictures from Bloemfontein are in the Bloemfontein gallery; all the rest are under the Peace Corps Lesotho gallery:http://pics.livejournal.com/raphaelle/gallery/0000ag7z?page=1 Also, I’m looking forward to the mail and packages probably awaiting me at home. I promise you reply letters on pretty colored paper once I get back to site and finish making sure my classes have actually done something for the past week and a half! Well, I’ve been on this computer too long, and I want to go buy an ice cream bar before it’s too late! I can’t be bothered to check it over right now, so I apologize for anything that doesn’t make sense grammar-wise. Big hugs to all of you! Peace, love, and cream cheese, ~me

I had to write a "short" project description for a volunteer database, and this is what came out. I thought it was worth preserving for posterity.They say I’m a science teacher, and it’s true that that’s what takes up most of my time at my site. But the truth is I am what the kids here need me to be, which is more of a combination of disapproving parent replacement, athletics coach, tutor, big sister, and sometimes the only source of amusement and news for miles around. It’s not really a pat job description to put on a resume, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I live in a village called Ha Senkoase, in Mokhotlong, the most remote district of Lesotho. Lesotho, as I had to explain numerous times before leaving for my Peace Corps service, is a little country in the middle of South Africa. My friends back home often have trouble at the post office, they tell me, when the staff insists that Lesotho isn’t a real country, and did they mean to send a package to Louisiana or Lithuania instead? It’s a strange blend of the stereotypical and the unexpected here: you don’t see the endless flat savannahs or inevitable giraffes and lions people expect populate Africa indiscriminately; Lesotho is mountainous and, in many parts, reminds one more of Scotland than Kenya. Given the latitude and altitude, neither do you see scantily-clad people stalking antelopes; haute couture here is blankets worn various ways and cows and sheep more numerous than people, in some places. Blankets (likobo) are particularly popular in my district, since it has the highest altitude and thus the coldest temperatures. As I said, my primary project is high school science teaching. I teach two younger classes (about equivalent to 8th and 9th graders) general science, a combination of biology, physics, and chemistry, and I also teach biology and chemistry to some of the older students. There are challenges to doing both. The younger ones have a lot of trouble with English to begin with, so learning science is especially difficult. Myriapods and diffusion and first ionization energy might as well be gobbledygook to them! The older ones, while better with the language, still have a good deal of trouble, and I have to prepare them to take their leaving exams, which are written in the U.K. and assume a native command of the language. These exams also determine whether the students can go to university, and as you might expect, only a small percentage are able to. The thing is, they lack not only English but the natural capital that we take for granted in the United States. They don’t know what a coral reef is; they cannot even imagine the ocean. Pictures of New York City, where I’m from, astound them. I think they subconsciously doubt that a city with that many people, and such buildings and cars and curiosities, really exists. So I teach them science, and I do the best I can, because their exams are tickets to a better future, and they’re tickets that are mostly sold out. But I try to teach them about the rest of the world too. We’ve imported Western culture, and Western education, without also giving these students any of the tools Westerners have to discriminate between trash and treasure. So they think everything American is good, because Americans have money. They listen to Britney Spears and house music, despite barely understanding the words, and have no idea what my violin is. They see the accoutrements of the twenty-first century without the perspective necessary to understand them. They have been given the what of the world today without the why and the how. Realistically, most of my students won’t choose to study science at university, even if they manage to get there (though I have a number of aspiring doctors and nurses in my classes). So one of the most important things I can give them is that perspective they’re lacking: the ability to look at something and evaluate it critically, and simply, the knowledge that there are places and people radically different from Lesotho and themselves. Places covered in ice year-round, places that are totally desert, places that are totally cement. I want to give them reasons to succeed, to value their lives; Lesotho has the third highest prevalence of HIV in the world, and the idea of my bright students dying in a hospital (if they are that lucky) instead of working in one turns my stomach. I want to make them hungry for the rest of the world. And even if they never see it, I want them to know a little about the people who share their blood and their DNA, who have changed their country. So besides my primary project, as I said, I wear hats as tutor, coach, and any number of other things. I help the school’s English club with debates and a school magazine. I show them movies on my laptop; and they sit riveted despite my feeble speakers and little screen. They adore The Princess Bride, and now say “inconceivable” when they don’t believe something in my science classes. Students I’ve never even met have begun to bring me English poems and compositions during lunchtime, because word apparently got out that I’m happy to point out their mistakes and talk to them about how to write better. I brought my Peace Corps med kit to show those aspiring doctors and explained the use of butterfly bandages, Tylenol, and eye wash. I’m an avid runner myself, and have been coaching “athletics” (track, here). The kids run barefoot up the mountainsides around my school as nonchalantly as I ever jogged around a track in the States. After seeing that I was perfectly willing to go with them (in sneakers), those students, who might not have paid as much attention in my classes, now sit in the front and ask questions (quite a feat, for kids whose teachers have, in the past, beaten them for having the wrong answers). I have been at my site for barely three months. I have almost two years (or maybe three) left of my service, to help my students pass their exams and teach them all the other things I wish they knew. Already I feel that I am exactly where I should be, and exactly where I wanted to be. My reasons for joining the Peace Corps would require another essay altogether, but suffice it to say that I wanted to see a different side of the world, and share a little of the heritage I was lucky enough to be born with. I got my wishes. I have said what I am to my students, but not what they are to me: inspiration, delight, amusement, food for thought, and, sometimes, of course, sources of irritation and perplexity. More than anything they remind me of the common birthright we share, the common humanity of people everywhere. That is perhaps the foremost reason I am here, in Lesotho, in Africa. It’s why the Peace Corps is here as well. By helping each other we nourish hope for the futures of our countries and our future as a human race.

So, I am about to leave for my first Peace Corps vacation! I feel I deserve it--It's been an eventful few weeks. I will be gone from school for almost two weeks, so I had to make lesson plans for all my classes, plus all of them had quarterly exams. I've been working like mad for the past few days, marking hundreds of exams and writing lesson plans that might or might not be followed . . . I am convinced that one of the circles of Dante's hell involves marking 77 exams, most of which were 25/100s. Urk. I actually (can you believe it?) pulled my first, and hopefully only, Peace Corps all-nighter last night. And here I thought my days of slugging coffee and glaring at the sunrise were over. I am currently running on fumes, or something, and gleefully, overcaffeinatedly hanging out at the internet place while I wait for my traveling companions to get to town.Anyway, I had a nice clever e-mail written out on my computer, which I didn't end up transferring to a CD. So you'll get the scatterbrained sleepless version instead. First: vacation! I was originally going to go to Cape Town, South Africa, and, among other things, run a half marathon there. However, I made the mistake of letting someone else plan the details, and they failed to buy bus tickets before they sold out. To get there, we'd end up driving 12-15 hours each way for two days. So we decided to go to Bloemfontein (meaning "fountain of flowers" in Afrikaans) instead, a smaller, but nice town a couple hours away from Maseru. I'm disappointed, since Cape Town is, by all reports, awesome, and I wanted to run the half. But Bloem will be fun anyway. It has all the things I'm really wanting right now: a drug store, a decent grocery store, a place to get my hair cut, a bar I can go into without being asked how much I charge, a movie theater (movies!!), a restaurant which actually has the things on its menu, ice cream . . . So, essentially, my first vacation will be about nostalgia for the things you can find in any smallish American town. I promise that next vacation, I will go on safari and subdue fat rhinos or whatever you're supposed to do on vacation in Africa. But this time, you'll probably get an effusive e-mail next week gushing about some movie that came out in the states months ago, flush toilets, Greek food, running in shorts, and the drinks at the Mystic Boer (one of the college bars in Bloem--a Boer is an Afrikaaner, or white South African, but I can't hear that name without thinking of a mysterious pig). I can't wait!And after vacation, I'll be in Maseru for training for two weeks (accounting for my absence from school). It'll be great to see the rest of my group, and enjoy the semi-decent grocery stores and restaurants in Maseru. Plenty of people, it seems, have broken lockdown (our 3-month incarceration in our districts) but Mokhotlong is pretty far from anywhere else, so I haven't, myself, and it will be great to get out. Don't misunderstand--things are going well, and I have been enjoying myself, but a break and a partial dip back into Western culture will be great!

School is still good. As I said, it's been busy, but at least a few students did well on my exams, which gives me hope, and the teachers are still cool. I've been complaining about my disappearing pens (I keep a jar on my desk, which apparently might as well have a sign saying "take me!" on it), and one teacher (the one who calls me Sebongi-bongi) told me there's a sangoma (traditional healer) up the hill, who I could go to to find my pen thief. I replied by putting a sign on my pen jar saying "If you steal my pens I will disembowel you and sell your organs to the sangoma to make a charm against pen thieves. Have a nice day!" The teachers find most everything I say and do a riot (it's nice to be appreciated) and this was no exception.I also began my program of showing movies to the English club with the Princess Bride, which the kids adored. They now say "inconceivable!" to me every chance they get. After the movie, when I asked if they had questions, one nice Form C boy raised his hand and said "Madam, I have seen a terrible animal!" after which I had to explain that ROUS's don't actually exist, and in fact, that was an actor in a big rat costume (I got incredulous stares after that). Next I plan to try Finding Nemo, mostly because it's the only other kid-appropriate movie I have (the Basotho are rather Victorian in their sensibilities, despite--well, why do you think there's a 30% HIV prevalence here?). However, this will entail explaining, oh, animation, coral reefs, boats, dentists, pet stores, sea turtles (and stoner humor), and probably a million other things. But you can't not like Finding Nemo--except if you're my sister and heard a million kids screaming "Where's Nemo??" in multiple Australian aquariums. It'll be a fun time. I hope to maybe find some Disney movies or something while in South Africa/at the Transit House (where there's a volunteer library and DVD collection).And I learn new things at school myself, like this euphemism: green insults. Three of my Form Ds (unfortunately, smartish ones) were expelled on Friday for insulting, greenly, some Form D girls. I still don't know exactly what happened, but it was explained to me that there "aren't enough words" in Sesotho, so green insults are really terrible insults. Hunh. Why green? Why not red? I don't know. The mysteries of learning Sesotho continue.Through my marking travails, the box kittens have sustained me with their adorability, which needs no translation. They have grown fat and fuzzy since my last e-mail; they're really rotund little beasts, probably because they live in the kitchen--it doesn't help that the bo-'m'e in the kitchen like entertaining me, and so pour the kittens a dish of milk every time I visit. Anyway, my resolve not to adopt one weakens daily. Speaking of the box kittens, the promised pictures last time were impossible to load on this computer, so I shall have to upload them plus more when I'm in Bloem or Maseru. (It'll be a progression of adorable fuzziness!)Anyway, I'm off for now, as I am running low on caffeine and I think I shall nap on the floor of our Volunteer Resource Center (a little house with a computer, which may one day have internet--please, God!). I promise an update on vacation, including pictures of kittens, the sheeps on leashes, and me fainting with shock in front of a movie theater, as soon as I return. Wish me ice cream and pedicures!

Peace, love, and crunchy coffee (since my French press broke),

~Myself

Lumelang kaofela! (Hello all!)It's been about two months since my last e-mail, and I apologize for that! There is an internet cafe in the town near my village, but, in true African style, its services and hours seem to be available by the grace of God rather than on a set schedule. Anyway, it was just in the past couple weeks that I was able to actually find it open and use the internet. So I figure I owe you all a nice long entry (if you disagree, though, skip to the end!).What's been happening in my life? Well, mostly, school. The school year started in late January, though in a much more belated fashion than we expect in the States. Most students didn't bother to show up the first week, and even now, a month after school starting, a few are still straggling in. Anyway, I'm teaching Form A and B Science (combination of Bio/Chem/Physics), Form D Biology, and Form E Chemistry. However, my school has a shortage of teachers, and we've had some teaching students from the College of Education here taking some classes for the first month. But they're leaving to go back to school, so either the rest of us have to pick up the slack, or some classes just won't have teachers (this isn't uncommon, unfortunately). So, because I'm always ready to agree to overload myself, I just agreed to teach Form D Chemistry as well. If I didn't do it, who would? I was horrified to find out that my Form Es had the same situation last year--no teacher for most of the year. And this year, they have to take their COSCs (school-leaving exams, produced in England, which determine whether they get to go to college or not. Only about 5% are able to). As a result, I have half of the syllabus from last year as well as this year to cover with them. I couldn't stomach the idea of letting this year's Form Ds undergo the same thing, so I agreed to take their class.Generally, things at school are pretty good. Lesotho's school system has preserved a lot of the tenets and of British colonial education and bows to the gods of uniforms, obedience, corporal punishment, cleanliness, rote learning, and exams (they're moving towards a more modern ideal of education, but it's slow going). My school seems pretty liberal compared to others. We have the uniforms (hunter green and white in various combinations; there's some sort of rule I haven't figured out which allows the wearing of grey vs. khaki trousers on alternate days, and very chic green and white tracksuits on sports days), but corporal punishment is minimal. The students get smacked on the palm for minor infractions, but mostly they're made to run up hills or carry stones or clean things as punishments. And on the whole, they've been well-behaved so far--I'm thankful for this, as I've heard less sterling reports from other PCVs. Rote learning has quite obviously been a big element in the kids' education thus far (they stare at me when I ask them to explain <em>why</em> a certain answer is correct), but they seem more willing to ask questions than other students I've seen (often kids won't do so because in the past they were beaten for asking questions). And exams are the be-all and end-all of evaluation here. Most teachers give homework, but it doesn't count for much--a student passes to the next class based on the end-of-year exams.My classes have been going well, I feel. My biggest problem is really that the kids don't speak much English. The Form As (sort of like 8th grade) can barely ask questions in proper English; for example, they tell me "Madam, we don't hear" instead of "we didn't understand." So besides the usual problems of trying to make scientific concepts understandable to students, I have to consider whether I'm using words or sentence constructions that they'll understand. And science is full of terms from Latin and, simply, terms that are difficult for English speakers. My students glare at me accusingly when I try to explain that words like "millimeter" or "myriapod" aren't actually gobbledygook but really mean something, as if I'm responsible for the diaspora of Romance languages and the subsequent conception of English. And imagine trying to explain stoichiometry and things like "concentration gradient" to non-native speakers. Anyway, it's difficult, but it's also really cute when they get it--I explain, for example, that the mysterious allotrope of carbon called graphite is in pencil lead, and get very satisfying "ohs!"Another problem is class size. Again, my students are relatively well-behaved, but my smallest class is 45 students (Form Es) and I have almost 75 Form Ds. Put that many kids in a class and there are bound to be side conversations going on. Grading is rather a nightmare. I grit my teeth when assigning homework. My principal (who's been very supportive) suggested multiple-choice questions, but all that'll happen in that case is that they'll all copy from each other and never learn. So I'm doomed to write "show your work!" and "label your units!" and "explain!" in sixty-plus exercise books every time I give homework. Ouch!I don't want to give the impression that I'm not happy though--it's the opposite of the truth. I'm actually enjoying myself here a lot; I've fallen more easily than I thought into the routine of not having running water and electricity or reliable transportation, among other differences. And I'm regularly amused by what Peace Corps calls "cross-cultural differences." I don't want this whole e-mail to be a diatribe on the trouble I have teaching, so here are a few of my favorite pastimes:1) <strong>Sticking my tongue out</strong> at the small curly goats who stare at me suspiciously as I walk past them on the way to school. Laughing at the cow with advanced cow laryngitis, making it sound like a draining sink, which hangs out near my water pump (the water pump, by the way, is up a dramatic hill--fortunately, I carry empty buckets up and full buckets down, but I'm planning on hiring the sweet Form E girl who lives nearby to fetch my water every couple days).2) <strong>Watching assembly.</strong> Before school every day, the students assemble in front of the administration building (in matching hunter green uniforms and matching shaved heads--shorn hair is required) and pray, sing the national anthem and some religious hymn in eight-part harmony (they're fantastic!), and listen to announcements. It's really quite picturesque to see the sun rising over the mountains as all the matching students stand in their class lines. I've surreptitiously taken a couple pictures, but I have to be careful not to let the students notice what I'm up to, or I'd be mobbed by students shouting "shoot me! shoot me, madam!" Anyway, next comes uniform inspection. The students straggle between a pair of school prefects (I was so pleased that we have prefects--it's like Harry Potter!!) and are checked for cleanliness, appropriate dress, and, importantly, sock wearing. I don't know why socks are so important (or why some students try to forgo them--it can't be comfortable in their leather shoes), but I've watched students and teachers chase after non-compliers howling "socks!!" The boys do a funny little sock-dance to demonstrate sock wearage, lifting each trouser leg as they shuffle past. I try not to laugh at this procedure and usually fail.3) <strong>Our mascot.</strong> The hyena. (How much more awesome can you get?!) The students have little green school ties that they wear on alternate days, with a scowling embroidered hyena below the knot. They write paeans to the hyena in class assignments. I found one particularly splendid example in last year's school magazine (started by my PCV predecessor, Allison), which went something like, "Oh, HYENA, how my heart beats for you . . ."4) <strong>Coaching/herding girls' athletics</strong> (what they call track, here). They're enthusiastic but mostly inexperienced (I've been informed that the best runners are "hiding" and will emerge when we have inter-class competitions. Hmph). They put us Americans to shame--they think nothing of running up and down the rocky hills around school in bare feet and their school uniforms (which, later, they'll wash by hand). Anyway, recently I was trying to set up weekend training runs and assumed, based on my general knowledge of teenagers, that they'd want to sleep in. So I suggested 7 AM. The girls made a collective "acchhh!" noise (this syllable functions in the Basotho vocabulary as an expression of upset, distaste, or disbelief) and a spokesperson said "But madam, we shall expire of the heat!" They don't like weather extremes here. I get "achhhs" and entreaties to fear the "common cold" for walking in the rain, and I have been warned multiple times that "there is even snow" in the winter in Mokhotlong (upon hearing that I've lived in places in America which regularly get feet of snow--"achhh!"). They bundle up in seventy degree weather. My Ntate once told me (while wearing a sweater and a blanket around his shoulders), "It is too hot!" It's weird--for a people who live in a land with winter and summer, they don't seem to tolerate either happily! Anyway, training runs are now at 6 AM on Saturdays and Sundays. Some days I grudgingly get up and run with them, and other days I consider staying in bed an act of piety, because I'm sure some divine force is offended by me not sleeping in on weekends.5) <strong>Helping the Snowball Club at school</strong>. This is a club formed by students interested in bettering their English, so named because of reading Anne Fine's play Goggle Eyes, which I understand includes a metaphor involving snowballs. Anyway, they're so enthusiastic and cute it hurts. They recently instituted the rule that anyone who speaks Sesotho during club meetings will be made to write a poem in English and present it in front of the club. They produce the school magazine and are interested in debating (I gave them the topic of same-sex marriage, which they gleefully accepted, to research for a practice debate). I'm excited about helping them and have rashly promised to show them some English movies occasionally (now I really regret having left my DVDs behind at the last minute, and am nervously going through the few DVDs I brought from the volunteer collection in Maseru, wondering if they're appropriate).6) <strong>Attempting to learn to play "Casino,"</strong> a card game which the Basotho are very fond of (somehow, the only American import in their card game repertoire seems to be Crazy Eights--why that one, of all the options??). Casino has the same kind of internal logic the Easter Bunny or the Mormonism does: the rules and reasoning are fairly inexplicable, and make sense only to someone who was raised familiar with them. As far as I can tell, the most important thing to do is snap your cards when you're laying them down. This makes a satisfying papery noise like an inanimate "hah!" However, since only the male teachers play (the female teachers tell me "achhh, it is too hard!" which I heartily sympathize with), my necessarily-dormant sense of feminism is offended, so I've made it my project to learn and beat them all. (Snap!)7) <strong>The peach truck</strong> in town. Every weekend a pickup parks near the post office in town, its bed filled with piles of peaches. I go and greet the Peach Lady, Agnes (some Basotho pick English names), exclaim over the peach bounty, and usually eat one or two before I even get home. (Maybe gorging on fruit is contagious here; on a trip to the <strong>fruit and veg shop,</strong> which is another of my favorite things, I introduced the principal of my school to kiwis, which they had that week—after tasting one, he went straight back in and bought a bag of ten!)8) <strong>Cackling over my small hoard of coffee and chocolate,</strong> courtesy of all of you lovely people who sent me care packages! I now have enough coffee to start a small black market trade among Peace Corps Volunteers, or to hoard and drink at my leisure (I'm partial to the latter, though fencing coffee to other desperate PCVs does have a certain comic appeal). 9) <strong>Being not-scary</strong>--evidently, I am one of the more approachable teachers. A couple students cornered me last Friday to ask me to sign their forms so they could go home for the weekend (many of the students are boarders and stay in the dorms here). I told them I didn't know anything about that and that they should go to the staff room to ask another teacher, and one girl (same one who told me she'd expire from the heat if she ran at 7 AM) said "but madam, we are scared of the other teachers!" Snitch that I am, I immediately repeated this to the whole staffroom after chivvying the girls inside, to general hilarity.10) <strong>My Sesotho name,</strong> Sebongile Kao. For a while the other teachers called me 'M'e Kao, but now most use my first name, and one has begun to say "Sebongi-bongi" every time he addresses me. This sounds to me like some sort of small bouncy toy, a characterization which I find I rather like, inexplicably!</lj-cut>11) Last, but not least, <strong>my kitties,</strong> who are adorable and obnoxious and start up a Greek chorus of woe whenever I open so much as a cupboard (even worse if it’s a can of something like tuna). To my terrible upset, the teeny adorable kitten was sold a few weeks after I got here (how I miss it and its inability to jump up on things! I am sure its new owners don’t give it the love it deserves!). Since then I have contemplated trying to set up a romantic atmosphere so that the remaining cats will get it on and have more kittens, but so far tuna seems the only thing they’re really passionate about. *sigh* However, I recently discovered a box of three 2 week-old kittens in the school’s kitchen: bite-sized, teeny little creatures with their eyes not all the way opened, whose squeaky little mews were almost above audible decibel level. I was enchanted and made sounds also, probably, almost above audible decibel level; the Basotho laughed at me; and several maintained their fear of cats and cringed away from the tiny helpless fuzzballs (later I watched, perplexed, as they stood nearby the actually scary large dog who hangs around school--"this one does not try to come inside," they said). I have decided that whatever time I don't spend in classes will be spent playing with the kittens in the kitchen. I fear that I shall want to adopt one/all--and then what if I couldn't bear to leave them behind when I leave??Anyway, in addition to being amused by minor things, there are plenty of breaks in the routine here. I and the other volunteers in Mokhotlong visit each other on weekends to eat non-Basotho food, complain, play cards (not Casino!), and swap stories. Also, there was a staff party this past weekend, which was from start to finish somewhat of a comedy of errors. First, I looked out the window on Friday and saw--sheep on leashes! Cool! So I went and took pictures of the sheep on strings. Then they were tied to a metal pole, and I needed a picture of that, too. Then, it transpired that the sheep were to be the main course during the party. Huh. So I escaped to the kitchen to help the women chop endless amounts of vegetables (it was the squash horror redux), while the men killed the animals. At various intervals, sheep entrails were brought to the kitchen to be cooked and eaten (I tried a piece of liver, but it was cut chunkwise and boiled, and I can't think of a worse way to prepare liver--I flatly refused to eat the sheep intestines, since I'd seen them brought in steaming and, er, full-looking). At one point they showed me the sheep head, charred beyond recognition besides its shape, and said, "'M'e Sebongile, we are going to eat it!" ("Have fun," I replied.) Eventually the sheep skin was brought to the kitchen by a hapless student who happened to be hanging around long enough to receive orders--I took a picture of that too. Oddly enough, I saw not a single piece of actual mutton at the party--what happened to it? (But everything else that afternoon was eclipsed and made up for by the fact that it was during endless slicing of vegetables that I discovered the box 'o' kittens in the kitchen!)So the food preparation/sheep slaughter began at about 1 PM, and by about 6-7, I and even the Basotho teachers were getting quite restless. Evidently the principal, who had left early that morning to buy the drinks, was nowhere to be found, and God forbid that the party should start without booze. So we sat around, and as it was getting dark, several of the male teachers began the process of transplanting a lightbulb into the ceiling of the party room (only a few rooms of the school are electrified). This process took four teachers, two students, and a lot of shouting in Sesotho, and gave me a new understanding of the joke, "how many people does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" Finally, the principal and the beer arrived at 9 PM. Then, the lightbulb process was repeated with the TV/music player, everyone seemed to do their best to get hammered right away, and they turned on a CD of music I'd burned for the party. I, of course, started dancing, and discovered that the other teachers believed that what I was doing was the "right" way to dance to said music, so they tried to imitate me, and afterwards I was accused of "breaking" several of the other teachers (not my fault!). Also, I was told I looked, or maybe danced, like "Brenda," evidently some South African pop artist (someone please Google her and tell me whether that's a good thing?). With liberal application of beer and apple "ale" (bearing about as much relationship to ale as wine coolers do to wine) and Justin Timberlake, though, they all seemed to groove quite comfortably to their own styles. Anyway, around midnight (when I'd warned the teachers I would turn into a pumpkin--and therefore had to explain Cinderella), I decided it was time for me to get home, but I was not going to be allowed to walk home alone, and so two teachers were dispatched to walk me home (the process of actually getting them to leave took another hour, as most all the male teachers were in the incoherent, expansive hand-waving stage of drunkenness). That was my latest night thus far, but an enjoyable one despite its weirdness!Of course there are less pleasant things that break up the routine of daily life; it must have been almost a month ago when, during my final class of the day (Form A), one of my students started hyperventilating and quivering. She couldn't tell me what was wrong, nor could her friends, so I ended up fetching another teacher to help drag her (now shaking and hyperventilating quite loudly) to the office building. I reported what had happened to the principal, who informed me that the girl is a double orphan (both parents dead, her father just recently) and had had another such episode the week before. I went outside to check on the girl and found her in a chair, surrounded by a small crowd of curious students, with one of the teachers performing an honest-to-God impromptu exorcism (complete with "get thee out, demon," drawing crosses on her forehead, etc.). Anyway, eventually the principal gave her some sort of pill and told her friends to take her to bed. By the time I left the school, she had to be physically restrained, as she was trying to run away, or something. Popular opinion amongst the teachers ranged between the girl being possessed by an evil spirit or it being the result of witchcraft. All in all a very disturbing situation--she was sent to the hospital the next day, but they could find nothing wrong with her (the principal and deputy principal, who were the only ones who talked to me in Western terms about what was happening to her, told me they feared it was psychological). She was back at school, quivering mildly, the next week. That sort of incident, among others (like sheep being slaughtered ten feet from the door of the staffroom) are the things which remind me that I'm in Africa, despite all the Westernization colonialism has brought to Lesotho.

That sort of thing is what also makes me really excited for my first vacation: over Easter I'll go to Capetown with some of the other volunteers. I was planning to run a half marathon there, but was just devastated to note (first visit to the web in 2 weeks, folks) that entries had closed. Boo!! Well, I was excited for the race, but also, fortunately, to go to a movie, eat in a restaurant where all the menu items are actually available (definitely not the case in these parts--the hotels in town, for example, advertise totally non-existent ice cream, much to my dismay), have a cappuccino (I wonder if they have Starbucks in Capetown?), go to a bookstore . . . I guess that's one nice legacy of the nasty racial history of South Africa--the white people living there still want grocery stores, movie theaters, etc. And also, it'll be great not to be stared at just for being white, and wear a short skirt, and speak English fast and sloppily. So that's the light at the end of the tunnel, currently.

Right now I am sick as a dog and staying home from school, which has enabled me to catch up on correspondence and type out a big long e-mail home (if anything's misspelled or doesn't make sense, blame the drugs!<--generic Peace Corps-issued Sudafed, Ibuprofen, and throat-soother stuff). Anyway, if you've made it this far through my ultra-long e-mail, you deserve a prize and eternal love! Another way to get eternal love is to write me a letter! It'll cost you 90 cents--90 cents isn't a very high price for eternal love, now, is it? I'm eager for news from all of you; many, I know, are in the process of med/grad school applications, or finishing college, or switching jobs, and I'd love to hear where you all end up! I hope to be in much more frequent e-mail contact, but snail mail does reach me reliably and fairly quickly (within two weeks, often!), and will earn you a snail mail reply from me, and eternal love. :) I'm best reached at my Mokhotlong address:(my name), PCVSenkoase High SchoolPO Box 133Mokhotlong, 500LESOTHOSOUTHERN AFRICA(Adding "Southern Africa" evidently helps the mail sorters who don't know where Lesotho is--don't write South Africa, though.) You can also call me (do it!) at country code 266, 628-10578. Finally, I've updated my picture webpage. See photos of sheeps on leashes here.Now I need to remedicate and possibly nap, so, I hope you are all well, and I hope to hear from you soon!Peace (Corps), (kitten) love, and (non-existent) ice cream,~Me

(Or, Happy New Year--from Lesotho!!) I'm making up for being out of touch for the past few weeks with a super-long post (written on my own computer) and pictures! Anyway, things have been a bit mad here around the holidays. It's been very up and down. Christmas in Lesotho was excellent: we had a potluck party, to which I contributed pumpkin and apple pie, opulent chocolate truffle cake (for those of you not lucky enough to have gone to college with me, that's my most favoritest cake ever, with a cream cheese and fruit topping), and stöllen (for those of you not lucky enough to be in my family, that's a fabulous sweetbread which traditionally Grandma gets up at 5 AM to make. In Lesotho, after being up till 2 AM baking everything else, I was awoken at a quarter to five by Sesotho religious music--my family had put a big speaker outside their door and was starting the party early. Real early. I glared balefully out my window and started the stöllen). There was also ham, chicken cacciatore, veggie loaf (sounds frightening in theory, but it was actually pretty good), and a halved watermelon filled with cut fruit--very exciting in Lesotho! I'm sad to report that the gingerbread rondavel project was postponed for lack of time, space, and energy to bake anything else. Next year, or maybe during the winter here, it'll happen! Anyway, we also had a Secret Santa exchange (a lot of tupperware was passed around, and I got a cute little handpainted pot), and one of the volunteers made everyone neat trading cards, with little pictures of us and stats on the back--we got attack and defense points and skill points. I had one point for pop culture knowledge, six points each for arcane knowledge and baked goods love, and, I'm happy to report, six points each for attack and defense (the maximum). In theoretical PCV Lesotho deathmatch, which was discussed at length, it was decided that I would rip apart everyone except Lynn, our beloved (and very feisty) older volunteer. Apparently I might break her hip, but then she'd bite my face off. (Well, you can't win em all, eh?) ;) We left the villages a couple days before New Year's with a lot of ceremony--my host family gave me a seshoeshoe outfit (se-shwe-shwe, traditional Basotho clothing), hand-sewn by my host sister, Tsepang (she also made her adorable little daughter, Ithumeleng, the most precious little mini seshoeshoe dress ever--see in my pictures!). It's beautiful, though the shirt has the horrendous puffy leg-of-mutton sleeves that they seem to adore in this country. They also gave us all T-shirts which say "Qhomane Ha Mofoka" (sort of equivalent to "jumping Ha Mofoka"). There was a feast, for which we spent several hours peeling about our weight in squash the day before. If you've never tried it, it's a torment that belongs in at least the fifth circle of Dante's hell. My peeler broke a third of the way through, so I was using a mostly-blunt knife. And afterwards, it's close to impossible to get the squash off your hands and out from under your fingernails, especially without any running water. It caused a peculiar squash-induced mania; one girl snapped and stabbed several squash in fury. (None of us touched the squash puree the next day.) Speeches were made; I was elected by the other volunteers to speak in Sesotho, which is a big crowd-pleaser among the Basotho (afterwards the village chief told me I wasn't allowed to leave the village--Ted, our country director, told him he couldn't have me). It was sad to leave the village, since my family was very nice, but it was exciting to be off to our actual sites, and almost done with training at last. The training experience has been good overall, but it is rather stressful to be on a summer camp-esque schedule for so long (we call it Camp Africa), and it's hard to be in such close quarters with everyone (nice as they are) for so long. Anyway, once we returned from the villages to the training center in Maseru, we had to fulfill one of the last training requirements: our Sesotho tests, which were on New Year's Eve, on which we had to get at least an Intermediate Low score (for safety reasons). So we spent most of the 30th studying, and planning an awesome post-test New Year's Eve party. Unfortunately, I woke up at 3 AM on New Year's Eve with some kind of god-awful stomach flu/food poisoning thing, and spent from 3 until about 10 in the morning throwing up, even after there wasn't anything left in my stomach. Despite this, I was told that I absolutely had to take my test, and so, feverish and disgruntled, I complied. Fortunately, as some of you know, I have a pretty good record of doing things like acing tests and running marathons while sick. So, I was awoken after a fitful post-test nap and told that I got the highest score out of my group on the Sesotho test (Advanced Medium, "with three stahs!" as 'M'e Mamothe, our training director, said). As a reward, I get to speak for my group (in Sesotho) at swearing-in, which is tomorrow. Anyway, I wasn't up for much as far as New Year's festivities, but I did curl up on the couch and watch in amusement as the rest of the group carried on--someone received glitter in a care package from the States, which was used in abundance, and the guys gamely dressed in drag for the night (they make some really pretty girls, by the way). On New Year's Day, the ambassador, who had us over for Thanksgiving, invited us over for a pool party, which let most people laze off their hangovers (and I luxuriated in being able to drink Coke successfully, and sat in the shallow end of the pool). We cleaned his house out of trashy US magazines, which his daughter had apparently left while visiting--thus, we learned about Britney Spears' exploits last month and such. (Oh, the BBC World Service--the one news station we tend to get reliably all over Lesotho--saw fit to describe, every hour last week or whenever, her mental breakdown upon losing custody of her kids. Big, big important news, eh?) Oh, and on New Year's Eve I got my first package from the States, which, excitingly, contained my new violin bow! (The bow I brought was mysteriously broken my second day in Lesotho, which was really unfortunate.) Also, I almost fell over upon biting into a 68% chocolate bar with cocoa nibs. Really, I got weak in the knees. So, mail is getting to me, if slowly (and it's terribly much appreciated)! On a much less light note, the holidays in Lesotho are unfortunately the most dangerous times of the year; many of the Basotho seem to regard them as opportunities to drink themselves into idiocy. There are a lot of visitors from out of town, and thus the villages are essentially different places on days like Christmas and New Year's. So, on Christmas night, while we were still in village, one of the volunteers in my village was attacked. Someone broke into her rondavel and tried to strangle her. Probably he intended worse, but fortunately, she fought him off and screamed for help, and he got scared and ran away. The girl in question is physically fine, and has recovered well--she's very strong. However, this shook us all pretty badly. I don't want to spend time placing blame or even going through our reactions, but I will say the Peace Corps staff here, as well as our host families, were wonderfully responsive in the wake of this. The rest of the volunteers in my village, me included, decided to stay the last few days in our village, since we felt safe with our families, but we were given the option to leave and stay elsewhere if we'd wished (usually that's against PC policy). My ntate (host dad) came and talked to me the night after the incident, holding a large metal spikey thing, and told me (in Sesotho and broken English) that he was going to stay up till 5 AM walking around the house. (I'd never been so grateful to have someone threaten violence on my behalf.) Anyway, to me, this reinforced my feeling of luck to be here, in Lesotho: our Peace Corps staff here is really great and helpful, and the Basotho themselves are on the whole very protective of us and happy to help. There are some great stories of attempted robberies of Peace Corps volunteers--all it takes is shouting "tsotsi" (thief) or "ke kopa thuso!" (help me) and big bo-'m'e (women) will take the buckets off their heads and chase down and tackle the culprit. So, if you're wondering if I still feel safe here--yes, I do. I've lived in "dangerous" places most of my life, and am used to the idea that nowhere is totally safe. It's complacence that induces danger, I think. There are always things you have to do to keep yourself safe; here in Africa, those things are a little different, but for the most part I thing it boils down to being aware and alert. I have good sense and pepper spray (and sharp elbows and knees), a decent grasp of Sesotho, and practice radiating hatred and don't-mess-with-me vibes (thanks, New York subway). So don't worry about me too much; I'm not doing so! Whew, it's nice not to worry about running out of internet time. The last thing I wanted to talk about is my actual site, which I visited a few days ago. As a refresher, I'll be living and teaching in a small village, Ha Senkoase, in Mokhotlong, the most mountainous and remote district in Lesotho (average elevation is about 3000 meters, I think). The site itself is phenomenally gorgeous: my rondavel is on a mountainside over a river valley--I look out onto an oxbow of the river, which I can hear rushing. The sun rises and lights the mountainsides so they look like glowing green velvet. It's a bit of a hike to get anywhere--I can walk to the camptown (main "city" in my district) in about two and a half hours, or take a taxi, which runs once a day in the mornings. That takes about 45 minutes. The camptown has pretty basic amenities; the fresh produce available there is pitiful (mostly, it seems to consist of potatoes, onions, and tomatoes). That'll be an adjustment. But basic necessities are covered. There also is a place which evidently has internet, though according to what I've heard it opens and closes fairly frequently. However, I'm holding out hope that I'll be able to stay in touch! Oh, and there won't be any such thing as an easy run there--there are huge rolling hills in every direction (I'm on a mountain, remember?). But that's OK; I'll leave Lesotho with giant lungs and really strong (or really screwed up) knees. :) My new host family seems really fabulous; so far they've been very helpful and very happy to have me. I have a new Sesotho name--well, actually it's not in Sesotho, it's in a Zulu dialect which nobody here seems to really speak anymore, but this particular clan preserves names in it. So I'm now Ausi (sister) Sebongile Kao (seh-bon-ghee-lay). It reminds me a little bit of sponge, or something, but I don't get a say, and it's well-intentioned; it means "we're thankful." My new rondavel is nice and pretty spacious, and has dark turquoise walls (nice!) and an oven (nicer!). I have a little solar panel, which will trickle electricity to my computer/cell phone/overhead light--I'll probably buy a bigger one once I can go to South Africa, since they're cheaper there. (Peace Corps has a policy that you're not allowed to leave your district for the first three months of your service, in order to get to be a part of the community and stuff. They call this period "immersion." The volunteers here call it "lockdown.") One of the most exciting things is that my host family has nice, well cared-for and pettable kitties--very unusual in Lesotho! They're hippie cats: there's an orange one named Letsatsi (sun), a tawny tortoiseshell-esque one named Khoeli (moon), and a teeny little adorable grey kitten named Naleli (star--word to the wise: in Sesotho "lu" and "li" are pronounced "du" and "di"). I discovered the kitten while being shown the family's kitchen--she's a little ball of fur the size of my hand, minus the ears (and I have small hands). She was was trying to hide behind a pot. It's charming to see that that kittenish trait is universal! The kitten wasn't sure what to make of me at first, but I seduced her with a little bit of milk, and now she and Khoeli (her mom) wander into my rondavel on a regular basis looking for food and petting. So, I have cat TV, which is great and terribly entertaining (for example, Letsatsi climbed the clothesline pole and got stuck--she mewed whinily and the other animals came to watch. I was laughing too hard to get her down; eventually she slid down on her own). So, I think I'm going to love my site. I don't have any news about what I'll be teaching particularly; I just met my supervisor (the principal of my school) Ntate Mohlomi, who seems very reasonable and helpful, and fairly forward-thinking--he told me he wants me to help work on alternatives to corporal punishment at our school. Anyway, he said that they will divide up classes between me and the other science teachers at our first staff meeting, on the 19th. I have between now and then to settle in, meet people in the community, and nest in my rondavel (I'm very excited!). Given the (lack of) availability of stuff in Mokhotlong, I just bought half of Shoprite (Maseru's very exciting Western-esque grocery store) yesterday, and about ten pounds of nuts and dried fruit, with my settling-in allowance. So hopefully that'll tide me over till late March, when I'm allowed out of the mountains again! Anyway, as I said, I hope I'll be able to stay in touch through e-mail on a semi-regular basis. However, as a reminder, here are the other ways to reach me. I have a new cell phone number, since my old provider doesn't work in the mountains (I'll keep the old number, 588 10578, and my voicemail's set up now, but generally you should try to reach me first on the new number). The new number is country code 266, 628 10578--almost the same. This is my address in Mokhotlong--send boxes and letters here, as I won't be in Maseru at the other address much!(my name), PCVSenkoase High SchoolP.O. Box 133Mokhotlong, 500 LESOTHO

Anyway, be sure to go see the photos uploaded at my scrapbook. I probably won't be able to upload more for a while, since I'll be stuck in the mountains, but these'll give you an idea of what I've been seeing and doing here. Stay in touch--I hope I'll be able to be on the internet, but if not, there's always old-fashioned letters (and packages. Oh, packages!). Big big hugs and kisses to you all from across the ocean!

Or, as they say here (spelling might be off): Keresemase o monate!We're gearing up for our 80-degree Christmas here (it's very weird!) and enjoying our last week in village before we head off to our actual sites (that'll be New Years Day). We're planning a big Christmas feast, for which I'll be making pumpkin pie (that'll be an adventure, as I have no fridge/ice and no pie tins), opulent chocolate truffle cake (an absolute necessity, as far as I'm concerned), and stollen. I'm glad to report, on the food front, that I successfully made an angel food cake for my friend's birthday today, and I didn't even cry as I whipped all 10 egg whites to stiffness! I deserve a prize, I think. :) As usual I don't have a lot of time (eventually I'll stop adding this disclaimer, maybe). Anyway, it's been wonderful to hear from all of you--I'm particularly excited about the packages winging (well, maybe crawling) their way all the way across the ocean to me. :) They haven't arrived yet, but I have faith (the other trainees' packages have been getting to them reliably, if slowly). Please keep the e-mails and letters coming!! Anyway, the highlight of the past week was going on several field trips--we went to Thaba Bosiu, one of Lesotho's historical sites (and supposedly where the kingdom was founded) and Sehlanyane Natl Park--it was absolutely gorgeous, and we got to go swimming in a cool little mountain stream, and barbecued about an entire cow afterwards. Speaking of gorgeous, I hope to post/send some pictures next week; it's a little difficult because of the virus-infested computers here, but I'll figure it out. :) Also, we met our counterparts (people doing similar jobs at the schools we'll teach at, who are supposed to help us figure out the school and the village and so forth). Mine seemed nice, if a little confused by my English (they have trouble with American accents). The counterpart meeting was primarily instrumental for discovering that should I decide to marry a Basotho man, the cows his family will pay for me will be sent to my Basotho family, rather than my American family (are you disappointed, Grandma?). Although the usual price is twenty cows, white people are more expensive, so any potential bridegroom had better bye prepared to pony up at least thirty. (Actually, I plan on telling people my lobolla--brideprice--is five thousand cows, in order to fend off the marriage proposals which happen virtually all the time.) Also, the quote of the week comes from a very vociferous and talkative nkhono (grandmother) who's someone else's counterpart: NKHONO: Respect is very important in Lesotho. Don't boyfriend my husband!! Kanete (really)! Oh, and my other project for this week is making a gingerbread rondavel. With a set of chocolate solar panels. Should this enterprise be successful, I promise you'll hear all about it, and see lots of pictures. ;) With that, I wish you all a very happy holidays/non-denominational Christmas! Enjoy all the lovely American food for me, and please call me in the next few days if you get a chance!! Peace, love, and gingerbread rondavels!

Hello all~

I have even less time than usual, so this will be short. Today we found out where our actual sites are (where we'll be living for 2 years!). I will be in Ha Senkoase, in Mokhotlong, the most mountainous, remote, and beautiful district in Lesotho. I'll be teaching at a high school, hopefully upper level science, and living in a little rondavel with a solar panel, so I'll evidently have electricity (but no running water). My site is, according to most people, the most beautiful site in Lesotho, so I'm very excited! I have a new address there, which you should send any future mail to (I'm about 12 hours from Maseru, the capital, so I won't be able to pick stuff up here very often at all):Violeta Jimenez, PCVPO Box 133Mokhotlong, Lesotho (no zip code apparently) So, the last few weeks have been full of ups and downs. I've experimented with baking in my Dutch oven (a large pot with my pan--I found a springform!--set on a tuna can in the bottom so I don't scorch whatever I'm making), with great success: I made chocolate cake, banana bread, and cookies--the cookies sort of melted and turned into one coagulant megacookie, but they were still yummy; I gave exams to my students and was very pleased with the Form Ds' results, as well as their enthusiasm; I've gone for some lovely runs; and I've fallen into the rhythm of life here, including bucket bathing, sweeping all the time (there's so much dust!), and dodging the odd herd of very intent-looking cows and goats. I love it here, and I'm excited about my site. Call it intuition, but I thought from the beginning I'd be in Mokhotlong, and there I am! Fortunately, three other volunteers were placed near me--two guys and a girl--and we'll probably be best friends for the next two years, since it's so hard to get anywhere else from where we are! I wanted to share some funny/sad highlights from the last couple weeks:- One of the trainees' host families owns a couple donkeys, including a baby, and he loves them and thinks they're adorable. Unfortunately, his English class picked "ugly" as an adjective to describe donkeys. He stormed back into the staff room saying he hated them and that they were going to get the hardest exam ever (I think he was joking). He plans to spread the gospel of the Cute Donkey throughout Lesotho these next two years. (And they really are cute--they have big eyes and sort of mushroom cuts!)- The entire village camps outside the post office on pension day (a couple days ago). Then, the entire village goes to the joaleng (bar) and has a wild party in the streets. Including the grandmas.- When I go running the other trainees' families pull them out of bed to come stare at me. "look, look!" The only other runner I've seen in the village runs in a taekwondo uniform and a wrestling helmet. (Somehow I don't think he'll be my running buddy.)- At our concert on Sunday (lots of fun! We sang California Dreamin and Cecilia) the favorite songs we sang were the Hokey Pokey and In the Jungle (the students asked us all week to sing them again)! The way it works is that people will pay to make you sing something--or they'll interrupt a song to make everyone sing facing the wall, switch places, sing something different--that's the way fundraisers work here! We dubbed one of the students, who led the school choir, "Ray Charles," given his big smile, good voice, and jauntily-tilted bucket hat (those are huge here). We wanted to pay to have Ray Charles sing alone, but there wasn't time. *sigh* I've sent off another batch of postcards, and got my first mail in Lesotho last week (thank you Grandma and Emily!!!). It's a huge treat--you don't realize how wonderful it is till you're here, alone, and then see a card postmarked from the U.S. So I look forward to hearing from the rest of you, hopefully! :) I don't know how much internet access I'll have once I get to my actual site in January (that remains to be seen), so I'll rely on paper mail to hear how your lives are going! (I'm waiting to hear from certain people--you know who you are!--about med schools, job plans, etc?!) If you happen to go into a secondhand bookshop, by the way, and see something you think I'd like (and want to send it across the ocean), I'll appreciate that almost as much as I would chocolate (though you could slip a chocolate bar in an envelope with the book, couldn't you?) :). Books are a hot commodity here--I haven't seen any bookshops, and libraries are few and far between. We have a book trade going on between volunteers, but we'll need an infusion of new printed material soon! Anything from Janet Evanovich to Garcia Marquez is welcome (I love the couple Spanish books I brought since they take me so much longer to read than English ones!). That's all the time I have. Khotso, rata, le maokoenya, (Peace, love, and fatcakes--they're delicious and addictive donutty things sold by the roadsides here) ~Me (Mpolokeng) :)

Khotsong! (another way of saying hello!)

I have a very short time, as usual, on the internet, so this will be a brief update! And as usual, excuse any typos I make. I am back in Maseru, the "big" city here, after one week in my homestay village, Ha Mofoka. Last Saturday we packed our bags and headed off to our villages where we'll have CBT (community-based training)--basically language and cultural immersion, and practice teaching. We arrived in our bus (honking all the way into town) and attracted a horde of children and villagers. After some speeches (welcomes and hellos in English and Sesotho, and the chief's wife warned the children to be nice, not bother us, and not ask us for sweets--"lipompong") we were each given to our new host moms. They did little song and dance routines upon receiving their new children, and then gave us our Sesotho names. Here, names are meaningful, though they're decided upon before the baby's born (or the PCV arrives, in our cases)--so, usually they're things like Rethabileng (we're happy), Lerato (love), etc. Sometimes a baby born after a miscarriage or something gets a bad name like Ntja (dog) to ward off misfortune. Anyway, my 'M'e named me Mpolokeng--it means something like "one who will protect us" or "one who will be protected"--I'm not totally clear on which. I like it, though (and I'm very glad I didn't get an uncomplimentary name!). So, then she and a horde of neighbors and kids brought me and my stuff to my home for the next month or so. I have a very cute little rondavel nestling near the family's house. It's an ideal dwelling for Lesotho--it's well insulated, though rather dark (it has two little windows). And the village is beautiful--it sort of sprawls down the side of a small mountain; I look out my door and can see for miles. To give you an idea of the setting, I'll say this: while I was unpacking the first day (my door open to let in some light), I heard a little pitter-patter on my floor, and looked over to see four fuzzy baby chicks wandering confusedly into my rondavel! They were closely followed by my Ntate (host dad), saying "Sorry, ausi (sister)!" So I'm surrounded by cows, chickens, dogs, a cat, a couple pigs (and some adorable spotted piglets), a few donkeys and horses, and some goats. By the way, whoever said that roosters call at dawn is sadly mistaken. My roosters have all-night conversations up and down the mountainside with the neighboring roosters. (As most of you know, though, I can generally sleep through a hurricane, so it isn't a problem for me!) Oh, and there are some trees, and lots of giant mutant aloe plants--they're taller than me. They stick off the hillside like thickets of confused green claws. My days go generally like this: If I'm not up by 6 AM, my 'M'e comes and knocks on my door, saying "Late, late!" (one of the only English words she knows). She brings me hot water, I take a bucket bath (that's a process in and of itself; bathing is very important here and you're expected to do it at least once a day!), and then I go eat in the main house. Breakfast is eggs, lesheleshele (a sort of whole wheat Cream of Wheat), steamed bread (very yummy and smushy, but also very heavy) and peanut butter of margarine. They think I eat nothing, of course, and encourage me to get fat every meal. Then I go off to whatever session we have that day (practice teaching, Sesotho lessons, HIV/AIDS info, etc). Once I get back, my family teaches me to peel vegetables or bake steamed bread or something like that (they were so impressed to see that I know how to sweep, cut things, and serve food onto plates--I think they were told to expect me to be totally incompetent?), and then we eat dinner. Then, I retreat to my rondavel for the night. You're not supposed to go out after dark here, especially not unaccompanied, because the dogs (which sleep all day) become active at night and are supposed to ward off intruders. Supposedly they go easy on family members, but I haven't tested this theory yet (I don't know that they know my scent, either). Dogs here, by the way, say "hop hop hop!" rather than "bark" or "woof" or whatever--some little girls laughed hysterically when i and another trainee discussed this, with sound effects. So, I mostly spend the nights reading and listening to my iPod, and go to bed early. I got up early yesterday to go for a run (we're required to wear skirts always while in village, unfortunately, which is kind of annoying), which excited a lot of comments. No one seems to think there's anything wrong with it (though some shout at me and ask where I'm going) but they're very impressed that I'm "training" or "doing roadwork" (the local terms for running, evidently). This week has been pretty good overall. My family is very nice; my 'M'e and Ntate are wonderful and patient, and one of my sisters, who is older than me, speaks a little English and helps to translate. There are four little kids (under 6, I think) running around, who at first weren't sure what to make of me, but seem a little more comfortable with me now. The adorable little baby has begun to smile and wave, too! I'm speaking a lot more easily now, too, though knowing all the verb tenses will help. The big downside has been eating, unfortunately. Though at least some of the food is very yummy (I love the steamed bread and stews they make, and lesheleshele and eggs are pretty innocuous), some of it is really oversalted/primarily composed of mayonnaise. And I'm fairly certain that not everything my family feeds me has been washed properly and made with boiled water (a must for our delicate Western stomachs). I got pretty sick on Tuesday, and am only really feeling better today. Fortunately, we begin cooking for ourselves tonight, which is great. I just bought a huge amount of food at the Shoprite in Maseru (it was great to see fresh vegetables and fruit, pasta, juice, etc!). So things are going pretty well here. It has been lovely to hear from many of you over e-mail, and I hope to receive some postcards/letters/packages from home soon!! I just sent off another batch of postcards, so hopefully many of you will hear from me in time for the holidays (I apologize in advance for my microscript, but really, do you like receiving postcards that say "hi, it's fun here, running out of space, love you, bye"? No!). Anyway, I may not be able to write again for another couple weeks, but I love you all and miss you a lot! Remember, you can get in touch with me via e-mail (erratically), mail: Violeta Jimenez, PCTPO Box 554Maseru 100LESOTHOOr via my shiny new cell phone (country code 266, number 588-10578). It would be wonderful to hear your voices! I send you all my best from the Southern Hemisphere (where it's hot, with occasional spectacular rainstorms). Peace, love, and Oreos (I found them at Shoprite!!), ~Me

Lumelang bakhotsi ba ka! (hello my friends!)I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with lots of turkey and pie and family. We had a uniquely American Thanksgiving here in Lesotho--all of us trainees were invited to the American ambassador's house for Thanksgiving dinner and swimming (it was kind of chilly, so most of us chose not to go for the latter). There was turkey (purchased in Ladybrand, South Africa, and shipped there from Brazil, you'll be horrified to note, Gloria!), mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, greenery, some delicious mashed squash thing, and a zillion desserts (much to my glee)--even little pumpkinny things and ice cream! After dinner, those of us so inclined even watched the football game on the large flat screen TV. :) Also there was a hefty amount of wine and beer, of which we partook liberally--then we all went home and had a dance party in our courtyard. It was fantastic! Today we leave for CBT (community based training) during which we'll stay with a host family and speak only Sesotho at home--it'll be a challenge, but I look forward to learning the language a lot faster. Also, we'll get to practice teaching at the local schools (again, amazingly, the students are volunteering to come in and be our guinea pigs over their summer break!). It should be exciting--I'm teaching the Form A (sort of like 8/9th graders) some math (place numbers, and multiplying fractions and decimals by ten), and the Form D students (juniors, sort of) science. That should be really fun--I'm going to do cell structure and then maybe food chains and adaptations. It should be interesting. They're only supposed to speak in English starting in secondary school (Forms A-E), but they evidently don't understand as much as you'd think, nor do they understand American accents very well, and you need to speak very slowly and enunciate well in order to be understood. Wish me luck... We got back from our PCV site visits a couple days ago; I stayed with a current PCV named Paige, who lives in the mountains in Leribe district (sort of like a mini-state within Lesotho). She lived in a rondavel with electricity (very weird!) so she had a fridge and an oven, which I coveted a little. But CBT will be good for teaching us all that we can, in fact, live without electricity and running water. I'm thinking of requesting a site with electricity, since I brought my computer and have a lot of resources on it, but we'll see. The one thing I know for sure is that I want to be in the mountains. Going up to Paige's site was phenomenal. It was jaw-droppingly gorgeous--the taxi was an experience in and of itself, too. (You're crammed in this VW-bus-type taxi along with 15 other people, all of whom believe fresh air is second only to dirt in evilness, and who don't seem to mind that the music is turned up to an ear-splitting level--oh, traditional Basotho music consists of a guy screaming in Sesotho over an accordion. The music videos are hilarious; this singing is supposed to be done while pumping one's shoulders forward and shaking a stick. I had a couple conversations about how this art form came to be--what poor, unknowing colonialist schmuck dropped an accordion in the mountains a hundred years ago? Had he only known... ;) Some of it is pretty good music, but some of it is horrifyingly misogynistic and racist, if you actually listen.) Anyway, before closing I will reiterate once again my plea for an overseas infusion of chocolate and coffee and letters (or phone calls! my number is 588-10578, country code 266). If you want something to reach me in time for Christmas (yes! yes!) send it ASAP; evidently the postal system gets backed up here around the holidays, so I might not get your box till February if it's not sent off before the end of November. The cheapest way to mail stuff is evidently International Flat Rate boxes--you're charged a flat fee of something like $30-50 and you can stuff a box with whatever you want. Yes, it's expensive, but you wouldn't want me to expire from chocolate withdrawal, would you? Or languish in front of my paraffin lamp without coffee in the mornings? :) I miss you all very much and hope to hear from you soon. Another batch of postcards went out in the past few days, so maybe you'll hear from me snail mail-wise in time for Christmas!! While I'm in village for CBT, which will be till about New Year's Eve, I'll have much less email access than I have so far--once a week at the most. So phone calls, postcards, letters, packages, visits via private plane, etc will be much appreciated. I hope all is well, and big hugs to you all!! Peace, love, and Eet Sum Mors (my fave South African cookie--ask Gloria!), ~me

lumelang bo-'m'e le bo-ntate! (hello everyone!)first, i'll apologize for not using proper capitalization (and possibly having many typos in here), but as i have limited time on the internet, i want to go as fast as possible. getting on with it--as you can see, i've found internet!! maseru, the capital of lesotho, where our initial stage of training is, has all the amenities you'd expect from a city, such as grocery stores, little specialty shops, and internet cafes. it's not a very beautiful city; lots of trash and exhaust and few nice buildings, but the scenery around it is phenomenal. nor is it very safe, especially for white people, though it's clear they've been intentionally trying to scare us so people don't get hurt or robbed. our training group has actually been able to visit the city fairly often during the past week (it feels like so much longer!), though this is the first time i've been able to sit down and write a long e-mail. it'll be a while till the next e-mail, too, since soon we'll be off to CBT (community based training) which is in a rural village, where we'll all stay with host families and experience language and cultural immerson (peace corps is very fond of throwing around such phrases!). i'll try to give an overview of what lesotho has been like for me so far, but as i said, the time here so far seems to have stretched far beyond the capacity of a mere week! we arrived here last friday on a little weeny airplane from south africa (the 24 of us plus one basotho woman were on it) and touched down at moshoeshoe I international airport, which is about the size of, say, bellingham's airport (no gates--you get off on the tarmac). the country's landscape reminded me a lot of certain parts of colorado; maseru is in the lowlands of the country, so there aren't many mountains here (plenty of foothills though), but in the highlands the mountains are supposed to be breathtaking (i'm going to visit a volunteer in a mountainous area tomorrow, so i'll let you know how that is!). once we arrived at the training compound, our language trainers immediately broke into song (with that awesome ululation that i hope to learn while here) and pressed mounds of food on us. we're being slowly broken into the idea of being here in lesotho; at the training center we have showers, electricity, and americanized meals, but soon we'll be eating and living much more traditionally--which here means bucket baths, papa (a sort of bland chunk of millety carbs), and boiling any water you want to drink. anyway, we've been spending our time learning sesotho (it's a fun, beautifully rhythmic language), and having various safety, culture, and health sessions. we're essentially pincushions--so far, i'm done with meningitis, hep A, rabies I, typhoid, and yellow fever. however, all the health sessions are improved by the presence of dr. j (doctor johnson), our extremely suave, well-dressed, beautiful nigerian PCMO (medical officer). just about all of us start fanning ourselves when he walks in the room--sadly, our love shall never flourish, as he is married with children. he kept emphasizing that we should call him or our nurse on their cell phones should we have any medical questions or problems--a bunch of us looked at each other sideways and with intent. ;) our running joke is that the no-relationships-between-trainees-and-trainers rule was instituted solely because of dr. j. he's just fantastic! the group is really great--there are many wonderful, interesting, committed people with great senses of humor here, and the dynamic is great. the trainers are great as well, as are all the basotho we've met (admittedly a limited number, since we've been mostly shut up in the training center). they seem to be a very warm, welcoming, happy people. and they sing all the time, which is wonderful! also wonderfully, many of the other trainees like running! (i am, by the way, totally recovered from the marathon, and i feel great!) so every other day, several of us get up at 6 am (the schedule here is very different) and go run around the maseru golf course--there are some great hills here! maseru is i think about 1000 ft above sea level, which you wouldn't think is significant, but really makes a big difference. a few miles feels like more than it is! we also went on a school visit a couple days ago, and saw some of the schools where we'll practice teaching. that was a lot of fun, but also quite intimidating--even communicating with the high school students, who speak an OK amount of english, was hard (and at that point we could just barely greet them and ask how they were doing and what their names were). they asked some difficult questions regarding whether we could take them back to america, whether we were rich, and (in one group's case!) why america is at war with iraq. nevertheless, they seem really excited to have us there--in fact, since the kids will be on summer break, they've signed up to come in and act as guinea pigs for us! pretty impressive! we also visited a primary school and a pre-school. that was major cuteness--this flock of teeny little children saw our bus and rushed out of their rondavel shrieking with delight. (the high school kids did the same thing, but they were more of a horde.) the school system here has some major problems, though, prime among them that they use british exams, while classes aren't always taught in english; unemployment is very high, even if you manage to pass your exams, and very few can afford college (about 1-3% attend college). added on top is the death rate from HIV; lesotho has the 3rd highest HIV prevalence in the world, at 1 in 4 people infected, so this has a big impact. despite a lot of HIV education, denial is evidently a huge problem; peoples' death certificates will read that they died of a "common cold" or a "broken finger" rather than AIDS. very depressing, and it's a reality that we'll have students die and be too sick to come to school. the other cool thing is that the US ambassador had us all over to his house for lunch yesterday (there were mini-eclairs and pineapple tarlets--i almost died of joy!). he's also invited us over for thanksgiving dinner, including an open invitation to swim in his pool (remember it's summer here!) which was greeted with much rejoicing. apparently lesotho is a pretty sweet post, as the basotho (people of lesotho) like americans, and lesotho has few major political problems. there were elections in february, which the opposition party is contesting (they delivered a petition to the US embassy trying to ask for US intervention while we were there, in fact)--but as international observers feel that the elections were fair, the US won't do anything. oh! IMPORTANT! i just bought a cell phone. the number is 588-10578 (lesotho's country code is 266). it's extremely expensive for me to call you, but i can text you, and if you call me i can talk for free. so buy a calling card (go to callingcards.com and get the super asia lesotho card--this was in a previous e-mail) and talk to me; i'd love to hear your voices! remember that i'm 7 hours ahead of new york (GMT +2), and try to avoid calling me between midnight and 6 AM unless it's an emergency. but please, please call me (and write me postcards--some of yours are in the mail!)! also, importantly, we have learned that while in training, peace corps pays the customs charges on packages for volunteers (which are usually reasonable, but sometimes rather high). so send me stuff by early december (hehe)! use m-bags (more info on the usps site) for printed material and international flat rate shipping for other stuff. put it in an envelope rather than a box if possible. also, rei ships to lesotho (for not terribly much--$30 is evidently reasonable for shipping out here!). this is my list so far, based on what i've gleaned about available products here. you will earn my eternal gratitude for sending me stuff while i'm in africa. no, seriously. friends for life.- books - you evidently get very bored in the winter here. i'll accept anything except your term papers and theses and scholarly books. ;)- battery-operated ipod speakers (mom? gma? xmas present?) - i'm very jealous of the trainees who brought 'em!- a french press coffee cup from REI (it's plastic, very important, and light)--thus far we haven't been able to find french presses here despite being assured that we would be able to.- peanut butter - they have acceptable hydrogenated stuff here, but no nummy organic valencia deliciousness. my initial stymied attempts at peanut butter hunting have been confirmed by the other PCVs here. so, i'll need a resupply. hint: trader joe's puts their PB, which is quite good, in a plastic container!- chocolate - um, do i have to explain? there's cadbury's here, but only milk chocolate. *shudder* i seriously won't last without a refill of the chocolate quotient in my blood.- coffee - there's only instant coffee here. send it pre-ground!- cuticle clippers - the south african airport screeners took mine! it was awful!!- yummy -smelling body spray/perfume. smelling good is evidently very important here, which i did not know. i'm very jealous of one of the other trainee's warm vanilla sugar bath and body works spray.- if you happen to visit a thrift store or see a fabulous sale, send along below-the-knee dresses (especially in delicious light cotton) and wrap-sweater type things. we had a great mini sex-ed/appropriate clothing session in which we were told that thighs are hot stuff here while breasts ("mountains," according to 'm'e mamothe, one of our trainers) are meaningless--anyway, anything that hits at the knee is fine, and spaghetti straps are easily covered by said wraps or cardigans. and actually, anything you send me will be received with squeals of delight. the thing we're all figuring out about peace corps is that our living allowance is just fine for living basically as the people here do--but if you want something that the people in country don't usually have, like non-hydrogenated peanut butter, coffee, or dark chocolate, it's hard/expensive to get a hold of it (and the living allowance is peanuts, literally, in american dollars!). i have to close, as i'm running out of internet time, but i hope you are all well. if you haven't sent me your address and would like a postcard, please send it along! i miss you guys and look forward to getting some phone calls and letters from america soon!

So, here I am at the Southern Sun hotel in Jo'burg, South Africa, unexpectedly full of ice cream and crepes and basking in the glow of (rather pricey) wireless internet. I and my training class of 24 people left Washington DC yesterday, and 15 hours later arrived here in Jo'burg. The plane trip was fine--long, but tolerable, and all of us were enchanted at the brightly-colored bags of socks, toothbrush, toothpaste and eyemask that were left on our seats before we boarded (it doesn't take much, apparently). ;) We had little screens on which to play "Volcanix" (knockoff Tetris, I guess) and watch movies. The sound on mine was broken, but I moved to another seat briefly in order to watch No Reservations and grin at Catherine Zeta-Jones stabbing a raw steak on a customer's table. (Anyone who's worked at a restaurant sympathizes, trust me!)

We didn't really get to see much of South Africa--as directed, we got right on a shuttle bus to our hotel, which is quite close to the airport, and hung out here for the evening. It's a rather shockingly posh hotel for a bunch of soon-to-be-PCVs, but I suppose the Peace Corps didn't want a bunch of wide-eyed touristy types wandering Jo'burg after dark, so they sprung for the closest option with food inside. Anyway, the hotel is a modern-looking metal and glass building with chandeliers, potted plants, carpeting, and a wine and cheese tasting once you walk in (picture a bunch of grimy kids with huge backpacks standing in this nice lobby holding glasses of wine). There are also all the amenities you'd expect at a high-end hotel: a fitness center (wood-paneled! I was tempted by the shiny elliptical trainers till I realized I'm still supposed to be resting--grr), a nice restaurant (so good), and a spa in the hotel (I considered getting a pedicure, as it's pretty cheap and my feet are disgusting right now, but gave up the idea, as the spa closed early tonight).

So we had another nice dinner (dirt cheap and very yummy--lots of meat and curry and crepes and ice cream and wine for under $30) and put on our nice clothes to walk around the hotel so as not to stick out like sore thumbs (fortunately, we all have nice clothing with us, as we're supposed to arrive in Lesotho looking "professional" tomorrow--it'll be professional with a side of exhaustion, annoyance, and 100-some pounds of luggage each.

Anyway, that's all I have time for now. Probably next time I'll have less to say about ice cream and ellipticals and more to say about vaccinations and outdoor plumbing. But one can hope, right? ;) Next time may be some time coming; we were warned not to expect much phone and internet access our first couple weeks in Lesotho. But I'll be in touch as soon as I can.

Next time in Maseru!

1) Are your parents married or divorced?

Divorced.

2) Are you a vegetarian?

No. Meat!

3) Do you believe in Heaven?

Not in the religious sense.

4) Have you ever come close to dying?

Not as far as I know. (You never really know, do you?)

5) What jewellery do you wear?

Usually: necklace, earrings, watch. Sometimes I add stuff to the mix. Accessories are love!

6) Favorite time of day?

Twilight, midnight, and dawn (you'd never know the latter from my sleep habits, though).

7) Do you eat the stems of broccoli?:

...yes.

8) Do you wear makeup?

Usually eyeliner and mascara, lip balm, and tinted moisturizer. With SPF. I have all these nummy shiny lipglosses I always forget about.

9) Ever have plastic surgery?

Yes. On my FEET. (Joking.)

10) Do you color your hair?

No. But someday maybe I'll get lowlights. Next time I feel bored. That might be in line after short hair, though.

11) What do you wear to bed?

PJ pants or shorts and a tank top.

12) Have you ever done anything illegal?

Sure, but nothing terribly interesting.

13) Can you roll your tongue?

No. Curses.

14) Do you tweeze your eyebrows?

Yup.

15) What kind of sneakers do you wear?

Asics Gel Nimbus 9s. But I'm switching back to Kayano 12s. They're white with raspberry stripes!

16) Do you believe in abortions?

Absolutely. It's a travesty that we're still being asked this question. I mean, to be fair, I think it's a decision women really should make before the end of their first trimester, and before the baby's really started developing as a human rather than a generic embryonic lifeform. However, no one should be forced to have a child they don't want, especially under extenuating circumstances (medical reasons, rape, etc). I understand that some people have religious reservations about cutting off a life at any point during its tenure. I don't. An honest assessment of humanity's time and significance on Earth compels me to disbelieve the sentiment that all life is sacred and that every soul must be brought into the world. I think it's wonderful, and a miracle, that people can and do make so much of their lives. I'll be as idealistic as anyone could ask about humanity's purpose and capabilities. But I am unable to feel outrage on the behalf of a developing embryo (which might well be miscarried anyway) when so many children and adults die every year in far more preventable ways. That's all, and it's more than I wanted to say in the first place.

17) What is you natural hair colour?

Brown with some other stuff in it.

18) Do you have any children?

No. Unless you count George Madeleine and Superball II. I'm very attached to my electronics.

19) Do you snore?

Generally no, but most anyone snores if they sleep in a weird position, I think--so maybe I have every once in a while.

20) If you could go anywhere in the world where would it be?

Mmm. Italy. Or Barcelona. Or Chile. New Zealand? Don't ask me this question!

21) Do you sleep with stuffed animals?

I slept with Henry the Columbia Lion for four years. It's nice to put your elbow on something.

22) If you ever won the lottery, what would you do first?

Go on a mini shopping spree. No, really. Wouldn't you? Just because you could? Funny thing is, whenever you have money to burn you realize you don't actually want and need as much stuff as you thought. OK, then I'd schedule a vacation with cherijo somewhere exotic.

23) Gold or silver?

Both!

24) Hamburger or hot dog?

Burger. With stilton and caramelized onions. Or possibly cheddar and bacon. Mmm.

25) If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?

One of those thingies that the Nobel Prize was won for, some years back, with all the vitamins and minerals and stuff in it that you need to survive. Because it would be a short life if you picked a normal food!

26) City, beach or country?

This is a stupid question. A city by the beach and the country. Like Seattle, or Bellingham, or anywhere in the Northwest. Accept no substitutes!

27) What was the last thing you touched?

Trackpad.

28) Where did you eat last?

Grandma's kitchen. Unless you count coffee, in which case, right here.

29) When's the last time you cried?

During my run last Sunday. I get very emotional while pumped up on endorphins. Shut up!

30) Do you read blogs?

Yes. I especially like blogs centered around cupcakes, food, and funny cat pictures.

31) Would you ever go out dressed like the opposite sex?

Not sure what the point of that would be . . . Maybe if I thought it would be for my own protection.

32) Ever been involved with the police?

No.

33) What's your favourite shampoo?

John Frieda, Brilliant Brunette. Smells fabulous, looks fabulous, and it's got crushed pearls as an ingredient! :D

34) Do you talk in your sleep?

I don't think so. If you talk to me while I'm falling asleep, I'll talk back though. Apparently that's really funny.

35) Ocean or pool?

Ocean. Seriously, who would pick pool who I'd feel comfortable associating with ever after?

36) What's your favorite song at the moment?

Er . . . Chopin's Nocturne Op. 9, No. 1. Possibly the C-sharp minor op. posthumous. My aunt was playing them last night and I was reminded of how much I love them. I could sit and listen all night.

38) Window seat or aisle?

Tough call. Window cause you can look out, or snuggle up against the wall and sleep (cozy!), but aisle because I drink a lot of water and I feel bad bugging my seatmates to get up so I can go to the bathroom. Best of all is when you've got the window seat and no one's sitting next to you.

39) Have you ever met any one famous?

Sure. I live in New York. It's not something worth keeping track of, though. I have a life.

40) Do you feel that you've had a truly successful life?

I've barely started.

41) Do you twirl your spaghetti or cut it?

I twirl it. I'm not a barbarian. My father would have felt obligated to kill me as a child if I had cut my pasta.

42) Ricki Lake or Oprah?

Urk. Gag me with a double-bladed axe. I suppose Oprah seems to promote literacy, though, which is too the good.

43) Basketball or Football?

If football = soccer, I like the shorts. XD

44) How long do your showers last?

Depends how tired/stoned on endorphins I am, and whether I have to shave my legs. I heart hot water. I do a lot of good thinking in showers.

45) Cake or ice cream?

Both, please. Make sure one is chocolate.

47) Are you self-conscious?

Sometimes.

48) Have you ever drank so much you threw up?

Twice exactly. Ick ick.

49) Have you ever given money to a tramp?

When I was a kid. Then I figured out not to.

50) Have you been in love?

It would be a sad life if the answer was no!

51) Where do you wish you were?

In the Northwest. Where I am right now. Sometimes, in exotic places. Where I'm going soon.

52) Are you wearing socks?

Purple!

53) Have you ever ridden in an ambulance?

No.

54) Can you tango?

Oooh! A little bit! Love it! It's best with a good partner, though.

55) Last gift you received:

My fuzzy teddy bear jacket from the North Face!!!

56) Last sport you played:

Running. I have the most impressive set of toe blisters right now, for serious.

57) Things you spend a lot of money on:

Right now? Various things in the camping department, I suppose. I wish I was spending money on, oh, lacy bras or possibly a motorcycle, but . . . well, I sort of don't. I want that to come next.

58) Where do you live?

Well, most recently, New York, but I'm between locations right now.

59) Where were you born?

New York, New York. Saint Vincent's, to be exact. I like passing by it and feeling--if not true familiarity--a sort of recognition.

60) Last wedding attended:

My uncle Mickey's. Held in the butterfly garden of the Woodland Park Zoo. He and his wife are marine biologists. They had octopus cake toppers (little snails with buttercream slime trails on the groom's cake). It was perfect!

61) Favourite fast food restaurant:

I suppose I tolerate Wendy's a little more than other places, because they have Frosties. Oh, wait. Dairy Queen. Road ice cream. There you go.

63) Most hated food:

The badly-made variety. Anything with too much MSG and hormones. And recently, I've accepted that I have a phobia of certain kinds of apples--the ones which stick to your teeth when you bite into them and leave a puckering feeling. *shudder* It's very specific and idiosyncratic.

64) What's your least favorite chore?

Something to do with moving things inside to outside. I like my tasks localized.

65) Can you sing?

Somewhat--evidently I shall have to develop my voice while in Lesotho, since it's supposed to be a very musical culture. I'm excited!

66) Last person you instant messaged:

AIM was a long time ago in my life. It's the easy way out of communication. I decided I don't like it.

67) Last place you went on holiday:

Er...the Northwest? I'm kind of boring as far as holidays go, but seriously, who doesn't want to go someplace where the cookie jar's always full?

68) Favorite regular drink?

Water. Filtered, please. Unless you meant of the alcoholic variety, in which case: G&T, Plymouth martini, chocolate martini, or a champagne cocktail.

69) Current crush?

Omigod, Karl Urban. I just saw the Bourne Supremacy and was struck by how beautiful he is with dark hair. And how much he looks like an aardvark sometimes. I don't care. He's totally hot. And every time I see him in a movie I squee and shout "Hiii, Eomer! Hiii!!" All those pale, dark-haired, thin-nosed men in funny furry Russian hats. I was totally in love.

70) Do you want people to do this meme?

Sure!

. . . because if you don't read, I want nothing to do with you. (Maybe there are a few exceptions, but don't count on it.)

KEY:

bold - I've read it.

italics - Started to read, but for whatever reason I didn't finish.

strike through - I couldn't stand it.

underline - On my to read list.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

Anna Karenina

Crime and Punishment

Catch-22

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Wuthering Heights

The Silmarillion

Life of Pi : A Novel

The Name of the Rose

Don Quixote

Moby Dick

Ulysses

Madame Bovary

The Odyssey

Pride and Prejudice

Jane Eyre

A Tale of Two Cities

The Brothers Karamazov

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

War and Peace

Vanity fair

The Time Traveler's Wife

The Iliad

Emma

The Blind Assassin

The Kite Runner

Mrs. Dalloway

Great Expectations

American Gods

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Atlas Shrugged

Reading Lolita in Tehran : A Memoir in Books

Memoirs of a Geisha

Middlesex

Quicksilver

Wicked : the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

The Canterbury Tales

The Historian : A Novel

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Love in the Time of Cholera

Brave New World

The Fountainhead

Foucault's Pendulum

Middlemarch

Frankenstein

The Count of Monte Cristo

Dracula

A Clockwork Orange

Anansi Boys

The Once and Future King

The Grapes of Wrath

The Poisonwood Bible : A Novel

1984

Angels & Demons

The Inferno

The Satanic Verses

Sense and Sensibility

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Mansfield Park

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

To the Lighthouse

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Oliver Twist

Gulliver's Travels

Les Misérables

The Corrections

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

Dune

The Prince

The Sound and the Fury (51)

Angela's Ashes : A Memoir

The God of Small Things

A People's History of the United States : 1492-Present

Cryptonomicon

Neverwhere

A Confederacy of Dunces

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Dubliners

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Beloved

Slaughterhouse-Five

The Scarlet Letter

Eats, Shoots & Leaves

The Mists of Avalon

Oryx and Crake : A Novel

Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Cloud Atlas

The Confusion

Lolita

Persuasion

Northanger Abbey

The Catcher in the Rye

On the Road

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : An Inquiry into Values

The Aeneid

Watership Down

Gravity's Rainbow

The Hobbit

In Cold Blood : A True Account of a Multiple Murder and its Consequences

White Teeth

Treasure Island

David Copperfield

The Three Musketeers

Speaking of reading . . . my latest addictions are the Twilight series (Stephenie Meyers) and the Stephanie Plum books (Janet Evanovich). Both fall into the category of junk food reading, I guess--that designation isn't meant to detract from their quality at all, but I mean that they're like eating cupcakes Snickers bars or French fries: absolutely fun, absolutely necessary every once in a while, impossible to put down or eat just one.

Anyway, the Evanovich books are so hilarious that I maintain no one can dislike them if they have a soul. I actually cried laughing at several points. (If you've read them, I'm talking about Hot Six, with Bob the Dog . . . "Not even in Pakistan have I seen a thing such as this!") Stephanie's great. I think I sympathize with her because I, too, really secretly wanted to be Spiderman when I was growing up. Or maybe an X-person, I suppose, since I don't think I knew about Spiderman. Point is, I still do, but, like her, realize I can't be. So I laugh myself silly while sympathizing with her desire to be badass. (Also, Ranger and Morelli are hot. That's the one problem with reading those books--once I put them down I go out on the street expecting to see smoking hot Italian or Cuban men, and then remember the difference between fiction and reality . . . bugger.)

The Twilight series is in some ways the polar opposite of the Evanovich novels, because in it, the idea of everlasting love is taken absolutely seriously. And they're funny in parts, but more often, you feel like you've been dropped into a dream of a more beautiful world (that's what I love about fantasy novels). Plus, what's not to love about sparkly!romantic!Michelangelo's David-esque!vampires and literally!scorching hot!half-naked!werewolves? I finish reading Twilight and I get this fuzzy, hopeful feeling about life and love and Washington state.

Anyway, both the Twilight series and the Stephanie Plum books are highly recommended, as far as I'm concerned. I'm trying to think about which, and how many, paperbacks I can cram into my backpack on the way to Africa. But that leads to madness, because I adore way too many books. *sigh*

I have a huge backlog of half-finished entries to be uploaded, and in the interest of not making one mega-entry, I figure I'll just finish them up and post them one by one. Which makes the thought sequence not chronological, but I hate backdating things generally. Ah well. So, the deal is that virtually as soon as I got back from the Northwest, cherijo came to visit New York for our birthday, and then Mom came, and so I was compelled (poor me) to go to dinner/lunch/etc with a bunch of old family friends. Furthermore, I had the happy realization while in Friday Harbor with Grandma that there was no reason I had to be in New York for all of October, and thus, that I could a) save on rent and b) save on sanity by coming back to the Northwest. Which is where I am now--I'll be back in New York in time to run the marathon and get on a train to DC for staging the next day.

(It is an excellent plan--I shall get up at 7 AM the day after the marathon, drag myself and 120 lbs. of stuff on the train and shuttle bus, and sort of slither into my hotel, helped along by an IV drip of coffee and a supply of emergency carbs. Probably there will be a hefty number of people wondering about my health and sanity. But I plan to wear my marathon shirt and thus warn people in advance of my neediness and temporary disability.)

Thus, I had lots of birthday fun and visiting, lots of online ordering of Peace Corps stuff (God, the amount of things to buy!) and then I had to pack up everything, including deciding what to take to Africa. Very frazzling. When you think of going somewhere for two and a half years you start thinking of all the things you could possibly need and want, which for an American girl is a long list (one reason, I suppose, why I'm going into the Peace Corps). And of course there are baggage restrictions on size and weight, and you have to be able to carry everything you bring. I'm going to have to repack everything once I get back to the East Coast.

Packing was a very strange experience. It's by no means the first time I've had to pack up all my stuff in anticipation of going somewhere else, but it was the first time that I had to pack with no expectation of seeing the majority of my things for a while, and with very few realistic certainties as to what I'll need and miss most. Of course some things were right out--silk skirts and cashmere sweaters don't belong in a place where I have to hand-wash all my clothing.

As I rolled and stacked, it began to feel like a ritual, or maybe a goodbye. I became aware of a curious feeling of tightness near my heart. I had not expected to feel any pain for something so simple. So I folded everything slowly and carefully. I have always loved texture and color; worn crimson silk and cobalt wool and soot black corduroy if I have a choice. Felt that life should be lived in bright color and contrast, that the senses should feast on their surroundings. Butterflies have nothing on my color palette. I felt the silks and linens and velvets under my fingers, and I felt like I was putting away not just bits of cloth but bits of memory and bits of self.

I felt a strange protectiveness towards these pieces of identity, as if I was looking down at myself splayed open from a distance. I like the person I am in many ways. She is not perfect, of course, but she tries to strengthen those parts that are weak, and think deeply about things that require thought. She is loving and interesting. She enjoys a diversity of things. I would love her were I in another body.

I fear for her in the eyes of my future self. I fear that I will come back and find all of these things that I love silly and useless. I suppose I fear that she--that I--am frivolous and vain and materialistic, and that I myself will be the one to confirm this. I fear the expectation that this is not a good way to be, that I will change entirely while I am away, and come back some pared-down, spare version of myself who won't want to wear silk skirts and high heels. I don't think I want to be that person, nor do I want to feel that I must be her.

I went into the Peace Corps process with the hope and expectation that I would be changed. As I said, I want to strengthen the parts of me that are weak, I want to think about things that require thought, and I want to pass on some of my luck and privilege. I want to deserve those skirts, but not disdain them.

It is, probably, a normal fear for someone setting out for a new experience: the fear of having one's identity and rhythms of existence subsumed. I know I won't change entirely, and that even if I do change a great deal, it will be partly conscious. I know I will feel that I am a better person once I return. I simply do not want to believe that everything I was before now has meant nothing.

I suppose identity has always been important to me. Gloria and I were never those idiotic, stereotypical twins who try to remain exactly the same as each other--we differentiated ourselves very consciously from an early age. It's fun to dress similarly, and introduce each other to friends who only knew one of us, but neither of us would want to be mistaken for the other by someone who knows us. Maybe this is where my desire to remain, at least in some ways, as I am, comes from. I don't want to conform to anyone's ideas of what I should become. I don't want to be anyone's stereotype. I want to make my own path.

At the same time, saying goodbye to both Mom (who's off to Germany to learn Hurrian during her sabbatical year) and to Gloria (back to Tennessee to take pictures of roots, curse at strip malls, and learn to say "y'all") was very strange and disconcerting. Gloria and I have always been sanguine about separation; we never feared losing touch or losing our intimacy. It's just not an appropriate fear to have about someone you've been so close to all your life. However, it is disconcerting, occasionally, to realize how many things are going on in her life that I don't know about, and to realize she has changed (in small ways) without my notice.

Two and a half years (or longer, if she also goes into the Peace Corps and we can't visit each other) is a very long time. I do not worry that we will lose our closeness, but it will be strange and hard not to be able to talk to her when I am sad or upset or happy. It will confound my experience to feel, even slightly, that we are strangers. It feels that I will leave a part of me behind, across the ocean.

We will have to learn to write.

This is a birthday list for cherijo. Or whomever. You want to buy me things? Go ahead. Have a party! This list is partly for reference for both of us, as we already talked about most of this stuff. Most of it is, of course, for taking off to Africa with me.

• Pepper spray. Yum! In purple!

• Jewelry roll. Google it or look it up on Amazon; I found a whole bunch. Here are some of the ones I thought looked best. I have some doubts about some of the nice silky ones I saw; they looked flimsy and didn't have many pockets. But use your judgment! Here are some options.

• Oh God, the jacket many teddy bears gave their lives for? In "brownie?" With matching gloves? Oh GOD, wearing it is like an orgasm for your arms!!

• Hehe. I'm torn between thinking this is silly and impractical or absolutely sensible and necessary. You be the judge. Shaken or stirred?

• Gloria, you have in mind some super special Swiss Army knife you were going to buy me. With a corkscrew and a saw. If it comes in purple, I will heart you forever.

• Good sunglasses (preferably polarized) which will stay on my head if I turn upside-down or shake my head violently.

• Therm-a-Rest. Gloria, you must help me navigate the strange and frightening world of the REI sleeping pad shop.

• Hiking boots/trail runners, as waterproof as can be. I think I want trail runners, to extend the life of my precious running shoes!

• Rain boots. With tread. And preferably obnoxious colorful ones with dinosaurs or something on them. :D

• Battery-operated or solar-powered AM/FM radio. So I can listen to radio stations in Sesotho, yay! Or possibly the BBC. Do you get the BBC in Lesotho?

• I suppose you could get me long shorts for running, which are basically against my religion, but might keep me from getting stoned for not being in accordance with theirs in Lesotho...

• If you want to get me something fun on my list, find me multi-colored duct tape. (No, really, duct tape is on the packing list and I know there exists clear/pink/orange/etc duct tape--they gave us some to tape our names on our shirts at the marathon one year!)

• Also on the side of fun rather than terribly practical: my Lesotho packing list keeps insisting I need slips to wear under my dresses and skirts. Hmph. Well, far be it from me to assume I know how to wear clothes. It sounds like something like this or this or this is absolutely necessary.

What? It's only been, er, four weeks since my last update.

I really must get better about this, especially since starting in November I shall be off having exciting adventures with pedagogy and outdoor plumbing in Africa. Yes, you heard me right! I finally got my Peace Corps assignment: I shall be teaching high school science in Lesotho (pronounce it "Les-oo-too;" I just learned that!). Lesotho is a little country in the middle of South Africa. See the Wikipedia page for more; it used to be a British protectorate until they cleared out, which is why it's totally surrounded by South Africa.

It's a mountainous country with seasons (yay!) where they speak Sesotho, a Bantu language I, unsurprisingly, know nothing of. Though I have picked up that "Khotso" means peace. I'll be ready to teach children about mitosis any day now! :D I don't know exactly where I'll be in the country. I could be in a very rural setting (where I might be issued a horse for transportation--talk about kickass!) or I could be in some type of larger town/city. What specifically I'll be teaching is also up in the air. We have three months of training during which they'll decide where to assign us within Lesotho.

Anyway, once I stopped jumping around the room hugging my welcome book (and after I was taken out to dinner by my amused friends and plied with copious amounts of wine and moscato) I scoured the web for more information. Happily, I found a Peace Corps Lesotho Facebook group, and nerdily, have already made several online friends who will be in my staging group. Also, I cannibalized someone's photo album in order to see what my home for the next couple years will look like (approximately). Thank you, unknown PCV.

This is a shot of a traditional village:

This is a rondavel, a one-room hut-type thing. I might be living in one of these!

As I said, Lesotho has seasons! Here's a shot of snow-covered mountains:

And finally, they evidently like my favorite sport:

Not sure how well they'll like some chick running around in shorts, though. Apparently most of the country is Catholic or Protestant (thanks, missionaries) and quite conservative. We'll see how it goes . . .

Anyway, I'm very excited about this. Initially I was disappointed that I wouldn't be going somewhere Portuguese-speaking, as originally planned (the short story with that is that the Peace Corps Medical Office exemplifies the best of the procrastinatory, sluggish bureaucracy the US government is famous for--and they just took too long with my medical stuff for a September departure date). *deep breath* However, I think I will really love it in Lesotho. It's a very interesting part of the country, and it's mountainous and beautiful, and it has seasons, and, well, for some reason this feels completely right, in a way I can't explain. I barely got past the cover of the welcome book, which had only the bare bones of the assignment description on it, because, for whatever reason, I didn't need to know more. It felt like that flash of illumination when an answer you've been searching for comes into your head. Or maybe just the sudden knowledge, upon seeing something for the first time (even something unexpected), that it will be a part of you.

It's like love at first sight, but not; I feel no great attachment to the country (yet). It's just . . . intuition. No greater explanation than that. Upon finding out, I changed my "About Me" in Facebook to say: I can't wait to leave for the other side of the world.

And it's true. (Also, I added that I will be taking as many Trader Joe's Pound Plus bars as I can carry--you just never know if they'll have good chocolate there!--and that I hope I get issued a horse. I mean, come on! Riding a horse through wild mountaintop scenery? Who wouldn't want to? Also, I could name the horse Cupcake or something <--N.B.: must learn Sesotho word for cupcake...) But that's a departure. It's not that I hate America or anything, I just feel this longing to be away, to see something new. I'm not sure I make my point when I say this. I think that when the plane lifts off the ground to take me across the ocean, I will feel relief (and apprehension, and uncertainty, and possibly some terror, of course). Like I will leave behind something that has been weighing me down here and be lighter.

Again, intuition. I could clarify it and analyze it, but it would be less true if I did so. Language is a "cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars." I'm skipping the explanations and the dancing bears. I may not have written a symphony, but I think there's a hint of a tune in here. So--

I can't wait to leave for the other side of the world.

*looks around*

(contemplative voice)Ah, yes. Posting on LiveJournal. I remember what that's like.

I wish I could say I've been busy and thus not posting, but really, despite working 7 days a week, I've been less busy than usual. And more lazy! It's great! My life of late has meant working (at Isabella's, a restaurant on the Upper West Side notorious for its brunch and its corporate "personality;" and babysitting some adorable kids on the Upper East Side), running (most lately, the NYC Half--totally fun, and I hit my PR despite being undertrained!), getting sick (nuff said), being annoyed at Peace Corps' torpor (they JUST told me they need another Hepatitis B test, when I'm supposed to leave for Africa next month and my insurance has run out. Bitches), reading, and watching lots of Buffy. And Angel. Who is a total hottie. *sigh*

So, I'm a bum. And I love it. Oh, and I loved Harry Potter 7 and if you badmouth it to me you're an annoying mouthbreather with no taste and I will cut you.

Most everyone has said what needs to be said already--plot great, loved the Deathly Hallows, miss Hedwig, and think there could've been a sentence in there about how Lupin and Tonks died . . . Incidentally, I thought Cassie Clare was spot on with her description of Draco as "medium evil;" I thought it actually fit very well into canon thus far that Draco didn't end up being an important character (no matter what fandom thinks). And I knew Snape wasn't evil and was going to redeem himself and die. And I suspected he loved Lily. That didn't surprise me (it was foreshadowed), but I thought the way it played out in the book was cool and satisfying. But I also wished the Slytherins in general had gotten some redemption rather than being The Totally Evil House. I think that JKR just sees the houses as much more black and white (well, green and red, actually) than fandom does. If the most important thing to you is personal gain and ambition, then you are evil. Period. If there's a redeeming factor (e.g., you're ambitious to prove yourself worthy, like Harry or something) you'd have been sorted elsewhere.

Other thoughts: this was the first book in which i actually liked Ron--I liked that he screwed up and found his way back and Did Useful Things For Once. I was OK with the R/Hr pairing at the end, despite generally disliking that ship, since he finally got off his ass and proved himself slightly worthy of her. Still think she could've done better. I loved her in the book--I've always liked Hermione's conniving side, as I feel it takes the swottiness out of her, and making her parents into Australians and stuff was fantastic.

I think the biggest part of reading the book (which I read overnight, as usual, finishing at 6 AM and then going to work at 9:30) was the culmination of what Harry Potter has meant to me so far. Not to say it's all over (yay fanfic, yay rereading!), but to me, reading Book 7 was like living the last days of a very beautiful summer, when you look back and think of all the times you ate blackberries and went swimming and stayed up until 5 in the morning reading. The only time I really broke down was at the end, during the epilogue, simply because it was the end and there were so many beautiful things in it.

Other people (the wise ones who aren't whining about who died or their ship being sunk) have commented on their gratitude and love for the experience of reading the books over the years, seeing the movies, having Harry as part of their lives, and I think that's what I'm trying to get at--JKR didn't just write books we liked, she wrote books that (for some of us) became parts of our lives, inextricably tied to the process of growing up and to many, many good memories.

I, too, am incredibly grateful.

That's all for now. I have to go tear a child away from the computer and feed him chicken nuggets. *rolls up nonexistent sleeves (as New York has been hellishly hot)*

So, in the past couple days, I have:

- slept

- caved and bought a 100 userpic add-on

- made delicious tiramisu again

- halfheartedly tried to do thursday's crossword

- stolen Rosie's vogue for perusal

- read almost all of Piled Higher and Deeper

And, oh, that's more or less it. Also, cherijo and Mom are off to Tennessee, where the former will be working at Oak Ridge. With a new bright red shiny Volvo, which I insist is a girl car and thus needs a girl name. Or an androgynous name, because I like weirdly hyperbolic, nonsensical, and inappropriate names for my pets and electronics. Like George Madeleine, my new iPod. Which I also considered naming something like Bonbon Waffle Écureuil the First. But instead I named it after my uncle George, following in the family tradition (George had a parrot named Liza and Liza had a dog named Eva, so I figure it was George's turn now). And Mom and Grandma objected strenuously to all my baked good name ideas, like Cupcake or Éclair, but came up with the madeleines which inspire remembrance in Proust. So, George Madeleine.

I think Gloria's car should be, therefore, Pierre Cheri (after uncle Peter, currently in France, and because it is cherry red).

But no one listens to me.

And now I am going to roust myself off the couch and go running. I think.

Or maybe I'll just drink iced coffee and read more Vogue. ;)

Updated: Oh, and also, read this and be horrified out of your mind. Seriously.

I am now in New Jersey, hanging out at my aunt Gracie's and being temporarily bummish (also really full--dinner + champagne punch + nummy rich champagne truffle makes me a happy bloated person). So, of course, I'm doing silly things on the interwebs. From dmacabre: tell me 33 things about you!

1.)Q. Can you cook?

1.)A. Yes! I love to. Especially baking, as I have a giant sweet tooth.

2.)Q. What was your dream growing up?

2.)A. To be a writer.

3.)Q. What talent do you wish you had?

3.)A. I wish I could fly. Um--I mean. Hmm. I wish I knew how to oil paint (I suppose I could teach myself, though!).

4.)Q. If I bought you a drink what would it be?

4.)A. Sex on the Beach, G&T, or and Orgasm.

5.)Q. Favorite vegetable?

5.)A. Cucumber or fresh bell peppers (don't you dare cook them!).

6.)Q. What was the last book you read?

6.)A. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera.

7.)Q. What zodiac sign are you ?

7.)A. Libra!

8.)Q. Any Tattoos and/or Piercings?

8.)A. Ears, cartilage and navel pierced. Wing tattoo on my ankle.

9.)Q. Worst Habit?

9.)A. Incorrigible internet/electronics addiction.

10.)Q. If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride?

10.)A. If I recognized you on sight, of course!

11.)Q. What is your favorite sport?

11.)A. Running!

12.)Q. Negative or Optimistic attitude?

12.)A. Disgustingly optimistic.

13.)Q. What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?

13.)A. Offer you Godiva chocolate balls.

14.)Q. Worst thing to ever happen to you?

14.)A. The death of one of the most beautiful, sad people I ever knew.

15.)Q. Tell me one weird fact about you:

15.)A. I have a twin sister.

16.)Q. Do you have any pets?

16.)A. A cat named Attila the Ton, and a dog named Eva (after my mother).

17.)Q. What if i showed up at your house unexpectedly?

17.)A. Cool! Come in and have a drink.

18.)Q. What was your first impression of me?

18.)A. She writes well. :)

19.)Q. Do you think clowns are funny or scary?

19.)A. Neither. I think they're boring and stupid. Perhaps slightly on the creepy side, if I was forced to make a decision.

20.)Q. If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be???

20.)A. An inch and a half upwards. Or, I would make my feet prettier.

21.)Q. Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?

21.)A. Depends who defines the law.

22.)Q. What color eyes do you have?

22.)A. Chocolate. :)

23.)Q. Ever been arrested?

23.)A. No. *sigh*

24.)Q. Bottle or Draft?

24.)A. Draft!

25.)Q. If you won $10,000 dollars today, what would you do with it?

25.)A. Travel Europe, or as much of it as I could see on ten thousand bucks.

26.)Q. Would you date me?

26.)A. Hehe. Are you offering?

27.)Q. What 's your favorite bar to hang at?

27.)A. I have an affinity for 1020.

28.)Q. Do you believe in ghosts?

28.)A. No.

29.)Q. Favorite thing to do in your spare time?

29.)A. Er, surf the web? Hehe. Run, and bake.

30.)Q. Do you swear a lot?

30.)A. No, though my mom thinks so.

31.)Q. Biggest pet peeve?

31.)A. Willful ignorance. Wake up.

32.)Q. In one word, how would you describe yourself?

32.)A. Hopeful.

33.)Q. Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same?

33.)A. Sure thing!

1.)Q. Can you cook?

1.)A.

2.)Q. What was your dream growing up?

2.)A.

3.)Q. What talent do you wish you had?

3.)A.

4.)Q. If I bought you a drink what would it be?

4.)A.

5.)Q. Favorite vegetable?

5.)A.

6.)Q. What was the last book you read?

6.)A.

7.)Q. What zodiac sign are you ?

7.)A.

8.)Q. Any Tattoos and/or Piercings?

8.)A.

9.)Q. Worst Habit?

9.)A.

10.)Q. If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride?

10.)A.

11.)Q. What is your favorite sport?

11.)A.

12.)Q. Negative or Optimistic attitude?

12.)A.

13.)Q. What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?

13.)A.

14.)Q. Worst thing to ever happen to you?

14.)A.

15.)Q. Tell me one weird fact about you:

15.)A.

16.)Q. Do you have any pets?

16.)A.

17.)Q. What if i showed up at your house unexpectedly?

17.)A.

18.)Q. What was your first impression of me?

18.)A.

19.)Q. Do you think clowns are funny or scary?

19.)A.

20.)Q. If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be???

20.)A.

21.)Q. Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?

21.)A.

22.)Q. What color eyes do you have?

22.)A.

23.)Q. Ever been arrested?

23.)A.

24.)Q. Bottle or Draft?

24.)A.

25.)Q. If you won $10,000 dollars today, what would you do with it?

25.)A.

26.)Q. Would you date me?

26.)A.

27.)Q. What 's your favorite bar to hang at?

27.)A.

28.)Q. Do you believe in ghosts?

28.)A.

29.)Q. Favorite thing to do in your spare time?

29.)A.

30.)Q. Do you swear a lot?

30.)A.

31.)Q. Biggest pet peeve?

31.)A.

32.)Q. In one word, how would you describe yourself?

32.)A.

33.)Q. Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same?

33.)A.

More later, but for now I am very very shleepy. Post the answers in the comments or put it in your journal!

So there's a funny thing about writing which makes me, sometimes, unfit for blogging. Some things you want to write to fulfill some kind of inner need; but what you discover, upon thinking about them and mapping them out in your head, is that once you're done with the planning part, you don't need to write them anymore. It was the figuring out you needed to do.

(On a side note, I think this is what's wrong with a lot of writing today: are you writing because you need to, or because you think you have something to say? Sometimes the two come in happy coincidence, but often, I don't think they're even on the same continent, figuratively speaking.)

Of course, sometimes that sort of thought process is really interesting (and then, as I said above, you may produce something neat). And on your own blog, no one expects fine literature (I don't think). So it would be OK to write that all down. But, in my post-graduation torpor, I just couldn't quite summon up the will.

So, this is my summary of my post-finals period. Senior Week was awesome; among other things we went to Six Flags (and skipped the lines thanks to our diabetic buddies, yay!), and had a fabulous Senior Ball plus drinks at the Gansevoort. Also I went to see Phantom, but God, it sucked. I was deeply disappointed, given that after the movie release I developed a deep and squeeful love for Phantom. Unfortunately, though, I hated the girl playing Christine's voice (too squeaky and Broadway, ugh), and the dynamic between the Phantom and Christine simply did not convince me at all that there could be any sort of undying love between them (which is why I heart Phantom in the first place). He was too scary, she was too scared. Anyway, I had to cleanse myself from that experience by sulking and watching my Phantom DVD. And copious application of chocolate. I bought these little chocolate balls from Godiva:

ME: (gleefully) So . . . these are to chocoholics what glucose tabs are to diabetics?

GODIVA BOY: Um, I guess.

Evidently, I am surrounded by unbelievers. Anyway, the chocolate medication helped, but also, as a graduation present some friends and the family took me to see NYCB's new production of Romeo and Juliet, which was beyond fabulous. And afterwards we went to Café des Artistes for cognac and fondue (hehehe).

And then there was graduation. My mother and grandmother came, which was great, although it is a proven fact that my family does not believe in celebrating. Anything. (cherijo and I apparently are the mutants in the gene pool.) Grandma relented by the end of the graduation festivities, though. Anyway, graduation--well, first I had my champagne breakfast with my department, at which there was, well, champagne, and nummy little carrot cakes, and the rest of the awesome people in my department. Something I will miss very much.

At graduation itself there were a lot of people in baby blue, and we had fun throwing things at each other, which is apparently a Columbia tradition. My school threw apple cores, since we have the Core Curriculum. I threw mine at the law school, since neither the business school nor the engineers were close enough. The engineers threw paper airplanes, and threw back our apple cores; the lawyers threw frighteningly realistic-looking smushy rubber gavels; the J-school threw shredded newspaper; Social Work blew bubbles; Barnard threw carnations (*snort* totally not destructive enough for my taste!); the doctors threw latex gloves; and the dentists threw toothbreesh (I got one! yaye!). Several of them, sitting right in front of me, had five foot tall blue toothbrushes, which I approved of highly. :)

So that was entertaining. But otherwise? Well, it was a graduation. I cried a little and hugged a lot of people and tried not to go shutter-happy. I threw my hat and sweated in my baby blue robes. And afterwards, Grom had no line. Which was fantastic (so was the extra-dark chocolate gelato I had). But really I had my "God, I'm done!" moment almost a week beforehand--the day after my last final I went running for the first time in a while, and the sky was the beautiful grey that feels like a blanket stretched over the world, insulating and safe. The trees were a wonderful bright spring green, and it smelled like spring. And I realized that I had nothing left to do in college. It was all done, and I was free.

So I had my graduation moment long before the formal ceremonies. Afterwards, well, I packed up my room and set off back to Minnesota, stopping in Pittsburgh to visit my uncle (who is there doing a post-doc in which he swears he works with the second-ugliest frogs in the world. And then I was back home in time for lots of doctors' appointments (more on that later) and cherijo's Senior Week and graduation from Carleton. Which was entirely different from mine, let me tell you! But it was very fun meeting all her friends and seeing her dance performances.

Also, solely to vex amishmonster, I should add that she, Kelly and I exercised our powers of persuasion to get him and his roommates to take body shots off of one another. With photographic documentation. Snerk snerk!

So, that's the substantive part of what I've done for the past month. Also I did a lot of running and baking--I made waffles (not that that's particularly hard), chocolate olive oil cupcakes, tiramisu, and next up is chocolate croissants. Am squeeful about the difficulty of said project, as despite all my protestations to the contrary, I like having difficult projects to work on. As long as there aren't too many at once (which was the whole problem with college).

Updated: holy god, this is longer than the intended brief summary. I knew it. I am incapable of conciseness.

More later, perhaps--Graduations Redux, part 2, or How Much I Love Orlando Bloom in Billowy Black Shirts and How I Am a Total Sucker for Tragic Love Stories.

In response to pigwidgeon37's meme (leave a comment, and I'll pick 3 of your interests and 3 of your icons which I'd like to know more about. Post answers and meme to your own LJ):

Interests:

1. Neruda - my favorite poet. I was enchanted the moment I picked up a book of his poetry at age 16, and opened it to the lines:

Quiero hacer contigo

lo que la primavera hace con los cerezos.

(I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.)

His writing is so earthy and sensual. I think he related to language on a much higher level than most people: you can almost feel his poetry. It is at once simple and vivid, and reading it aloud is like an invocation.

2. Eva Green - I first saw her in The Dreamers, and thus descended into the beginnings of a girl-crush. Bertolucci (director of The Dreamers) famously said that she was "almost indecently beautiful;" she's got one of those enchanting and malleable faces which looks fresh and simple, but draws the eye every time. No one was happier than me to see that she was the new Bond girl!

3. Marathons - I'm running my third this year! If you told me four years ago that I would become a distance runner, I would have told you you were smoking something weird. But it sort of crept up on me--I did halves, and then the NYC marathon two years ago. It's really strangely addictive. You feel strong and in touch with your body in a very intense way.

My sister got me into Firefly, and (like anyone with sense who's seen the show) I'm addicted now! In this particular scene, Inara is talking to Mal and being snarky (which she's good at); she looks wickedly amused and I love it.

Ahh, Eva. As I said above, she has a wonderfully expressive face--and she's not afraid to make fun of herself. There are oodles of pictures of her making faces at the camera. Because of that expressive quality, this picture, like many of hers, seems to suggest a storyline to me. You can't just look at it and think "pretty!"--you look at it and think, is she going somewhere? coming back? practicing a smile?

I have always loved the Sleeping Beauty legend. I particularly enjoy this picture because it's not the sterilized Disney princess (although I have a deep fondness for Disney)--this seems an older version of the fairytale, a more wild one. She looks like she's a part of nature, like it's changing her while she waits for her prince. She looks like she's dreaming, and I wonder what she dreams of.

. . . and now I have to go back to finals studying. Grr. Ah, but first, a coffee meme!

I am 79% Addicted to Coffee

Mingle2 - Free Online Dating

This seems particularly fitting as I sip my latte and eat my espresso-laced banana bread muffin. Mmm.