I have been enjoying the abundance and luxury of life in the USA for nearly three months. I have traveled from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Seattle, Washington, to Sacramento, California and finally landing in San Diego with brother, sis-in-law and dog Bodhi. The time has included hiking in the Sierras, kayaking in the shadow of Mt.Shasta, hot tubbing at Big Sur, whale watching in Monterey, and bi-plane flying along the coast of San Diego.

Within a couple of weeks, I will be launching into a new job and a fantastic adventure in Cameroon, West Africa. Who could have predicted that a chance meeting of a young man on a train in Zambia would lead me to this next step. Cristian was working for Medecins Sans Frontiers. When I told him about my desire to use my mental health skills in international work he told me about a friend of his who was working for an organization that did this. This clue put me on an internet search which led me to this organization. The outcome is that I will be working for Center for Victims of Torture, assigned to an 11 month position in Bamenda, Cameroon.

Stay tuned for the new blog: KAYEINCAMEROON

June 7th, 2010

KRUGER PARK

After my final departure from Lesotho, I went directly to Kruger National Park for 3 days. It lives up to its reputation both as being one of the best and easiest ways to see animals (I saw 4 of the Big 5) but also as a place full of cars and mini-traffic jams. But the lions didn’t seem to mind as they romped around and about the cars. The most exciting was the Cheeta with its freshly killed antelope lying in the middle of the road. The park is abundant in rhinos, giraffe, water buffalo and elephants. It is truly a remarkable place.

Bussing from S.Africa into Mozambique was easy enough but at the border, I was caught in the “new computer system” chaos resulting in a 2 ½ hr process to move through the border patrol. The next two days in Maputo (the Capital) were spent trying to arrange the next 12 days. Maputo doesn’t have much charm to it in spite of having waterfront property. I touched base with the Peace Corps office who gave me a helping hand and the names of some volunteers in Moz.

IHLA DE MOCAMBIQUE/PEMBA

First stop was Ihla de Mocambique, the first Portugese settlement dating back to the 1500’s. Although it is a World Heritage Site, there is little to see beyond a half day walk around the Old Fort, chapel and Museum. Happily, I connected with a PC volunteer there who showed me her little island accommodation, a swimming beach, and a nice roof top bar.

My next destination was Pemba, in the far north. It is famous for its archipelago of islands off the coast nearly touching into Tanzania. Each morning I stepped on to a white sand beach, as far as the eye could see. The sea is the life here with fishermen and nets and dhows. I had two days of beach-walking and snorkeling, but the highlight was a deep water dolphin encounter in which we were able to get into the water and swim a little with them. The snorkeling was delightful but a bit freaky as there were billions (no exaggeration) of white fist-sized jelly fish floating about. Fortunately this variety doesn’t sting, but it took some getting used to as they bumped up against my mask and body. Occasionally a brown one floated by and these were the stingers I avoided.

Sadly, there is a sense of desperation as the young men might follow me on the beach saying “Hello Mommy, don’t you want to buy a necklace/shell/bracelet/etc? Can’t you help me? I have no food for tonight?” I say “no” and then go sit and eat my nice fish lunch on the deck of the hotel. Guilt and inner conflict arise. Here, I also met with a PC volunteer who told me about her life in what appears to be a dream come true assignment. She reported that her biggest stress is that she has rich friends there who invite her to their extravagant parties in their huge houses, and she doesn’t quite know how to find the balance with the poverty that surrounds her.

VILLANCULOS/BAZARUTO ARCHIPELAGO

I have found a little chunk of heaven on the Mozambique coastal town of Villanculos. With thousands of miles of white sand beaches, this is a beach combers dream. I am perched on a hillside (about 50 stair-steps) above the beach, overlooking the harbor with a view of the Bazaruto Islands lying in the Indian Ocean. Sunset is glistening through the palm trees that are harboring a melodious bird song. The tide is flowing in, and the tired beached dhows are once again afloat. The men have pulled in their fishing nets for the night and the bargains for fresh fish have been made. The hotel chefs are heating up their grills as the village women stroll home with babies on breasts, wondering what they can afford for dinner tonight.

Whose heaven and whose hell? The man pulling in the nets tonight said “Hello, Sister. You have job for me?” A Zimbabwean hotel employee who has made his own refuge from the unconscionable devastation of his country said of the Mozambiqans - “These people are very poor.” Mozambique had an 18 year war for independence (won in 1974) and then another 18 year civil war with horrible and vicious stories to go with it. They now reside under a one-party system while pretending to be a democracy. But the people seem happy enough that there is peace at last. Foreign investment is coming in and the beach front properties are being sold to foreign corporations. The potential for growth and development is huge but there is fear as to how the corrupt government will handle these opportunities.

On the flight into Villanculos, I sat next to a Japanese consultant hired to work with the Ministry of Tourism in Moz. She said that Japan had promised support to Moz and this was one of the ways they were providing it. After 10 days here, I was delighted to have a place to dump all my opinions and observations about making Moz a more tourist-friendly place. Not the least of these problems being the corrupt pay-off I had to make to the airport security guard or be detained from my flight. The problem was the crystals I had brought from the States, given by a friend to plant around Africa. The guards claimed I needed a certificate for the stones. So not only did they take the stones but I had to pay a $30 “fine” which went from one pocket to an under-the-table hand-off. All of this transpired from the policeman, who only spoke Portugese, to the baggage handler who spoke very broken English. In my most indignant American fashion, I proclaimed very loudly “This is corruption. This is very bad for Mozambique. We don’t do this in America.” As it turns out, this flight was delayed by 6 hours. So I should have challenged the “fine” and seen where it would have taken me. What does the inside of a Mozambique police station look like, I wonder?

Villanculos is a sleepy town with lovely beach resorts and plenty of activities. I enjoyed horseback riding on the beach (with horses rescued from Zimbabwe), a dhow ride to a reef for swimming and snorkeling, and an absolutely outstanding time at the 2 Mile Reef. This is one of the top 10 spots in the world for snorkeling and it was stunning. I also indulged in great seafood and a couple of massages. It was the ultimate in rejuvenation before my Long Journey Home.

June 22nd, 2010

HOME

After 30 hours of travel from Villanculos to Johannesburg to Atlanta to Minneapolis,, I arrived in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. It is lush and green and gorgeous and peaceful. I am surrounded by family who love me. All is well.

HOW TO SAY GOOD-BY

During my two years in beautiful Lesotho, I spent some of the time teaching counseling skills for issues around grief and loss. And now it is time for me to deal with my grief and loss around leaving the people and the place I have called home for two years. I have always disliked good-bys and have much preferred the “see you later” version of a good-by. But here, there is no escaping the finality of these good-bys. I have no fantasies of returning and no dream that anyone here will be able to visit me in the States. I have some hope that one or two people may find a way to stay in touch with email, but this is an unusual communication style for Basotho and not one I can expect.

I am finding that the Basotho are pretty darn good at good-bys as long as it isn’t dealing with someone who is sick and dying, as in these cases they are not supposed to acknowledge that the person is dying. This would indicate that they WANT them to die. But regarding my departure, there is a lot of anticipatory expression of loss “I am really going to miss you”, starting weeks ahead of time and expressed often and very heartfelt. During this last week, I am blessed to be the focus of three celebrations of appreciation. And as it is with notable events, they deliver speeches and ceremony, song and dance, food and drink. This week the high school had a big good-by celebration for me and it was marvelous. I have the God-given ability to spurt tears at any expression of sentiment, so there I was in front of 600 students, trying to express the love and appreciation I had in my heart, but mostly just choked out a few words. Ahhh, but I think they received the message.

I just delivered my two kitties to their new home across the border in Clarens. This is an extremely pet-friendly place where I don’t have to worry about whether they are going to be turned into a meal or a hat. They are now living with an animal lover who already has 5 cats and 3 dogs. I told Kerry-Ann, their new mother, that we are now family since she is adopting “my children”. The Basotho laugh at me and think I am nuts – one of the cultural differences!

I have noticed the “woulda, coulda, shoulda” arising at times; that internal monologue that examines all the things I didn’t do, all the possible opportunities for interventions that I didn’t take; the ways I might have adapted/pushed/reached/interjected/created more connection, more meaning, more understanding. The “if-onlys” can be even more ridiculous: if only I was more out-going, if only I had tried harder, if only I had more experience in…., if only I knew how to do…., if only I was more assertive, if only…. I WAS A DIFFERENT PERSON. Yes, it does start to sound silly. I was never out to save the world or save Lesotho, but I think, I mostly wanted to deepen and expand myself and a big part of this is through connection with others. And although I have Basotho friends here, I have missed what I would call the deep connection that would have kept a heart-thread alive between me and Lesotho. And I question why this didn’t happen – what part is me, what part is my site location, what part is the Basotho character, what part is being a foreigner, being White, not knowing the language?

There are so many things that go into the mix of making each and every person’s experience unique. But in the end, I am left with a deeper understanding of myself, a keen appreciation of the faithful friends in my life, a new found desire to live “in community”, and a sense of satisfaction that I have contributed in some tangible and intangible ways.

I am not deeply hopeful that Lesotho is going to change anytime soon. The greed and selfishness seems to find its way into the power positions and there just isn’t enough support for any single person to create significant changes in the system. There is also the issue of HIV/AIDS, which has so many layers of complexity. Education is a part of the answer, behavior change is part of the answer but those haven’t made a big impact in the spread of the infection. After two years, I am still befuddled by the thinking, denial, and resistance around HIV/AIDS.

Tomorrow I will be a “Returned Peace Corps Volunteer”. I know these two years have stretched, stimulated, frustrated and opened me in ways that I cannot yet know. I am grateful for the lifelong friends I know I have made here. I will love to follow along with many of the “youngers” in my group who are launching into graduate school and careers. No matter what stage in life one enters into this, there are always going to be uncountable blessings.

I am off to two weeks on the Mozambique beaches before heading to the USA. I am mostly feeling calm, settled and deeply grateful.

NAMIBIAN AUTUMN

It was good timing to get out of Lesotho, away from a variety of dramas, disappointments and frustrations. Basically, I was overdue for a vacation. So another “elder” of the PCVs (Barb) and I signed ourselves up for a 10 day camping safari through Namibia. Until coming to Lesotho, I had thought of Namibia as one big sand dune with nothing but beetles and lizards surviving there. But it is a big beautiful country (twice the size of California- population 1.8 million) with a diverse landscape including towering red sand dunes, grey craggy mountains, desolate ocean beaches of the South Atlantic and grasslands feeding cheetahs, lions and elephants. It was home to the San Bushmen with numerous sites of rock paintings and engravings. Throughout the1700and 1800’s the Dutch, British and Germans claimed various parts of the area but the Germans finally won the claim and called it German Southwest Africa. Fast forward to recent history when after WW I, the territory was taken from German control and passed to South Africa.. In 1948, apartheid was imposed upon the peoples of Namibia, and the tribal people were forced into townships. Throughout the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s wars of resistance were being fought against the ruling apartheid government, but not until 1990 was the Republic of Namibia established.

With such recent conflict and apartheid influence, there is a feeling of distance and economic separation between the blacks and whites, unlike what I experience in apartheid-free Lesotho. The German influence is very strong throughout the country with German street names, German bakeries, and German architecture. Because of being in the tourist-bubble-mobile, I didn’t have the opportunity to talk with any of the local people, outside of our guides. But it is clear that the wounds of the apartheid policies continue to impact the economic well-being of the population. Mining, fishing and tourism are the primary industries of the country with 15% of the land designated as national park.

The first three days of the trip involved a roundtrip drive south from Windhoek to the Sossusvlei valley where the monumental red dunes are found. They are truly spectacular! We took a few hikes into and amongst the sand mountains, playing, sliding and rolling down the hillsides. The group of 13 included 8 nationalities – German, English, S.Korean, Russian, Finish, Namibian, Israeli and of course the Obama-T-shirt-wearing Americans.

The next leg of the trip was 7 days driving north towards Etosha National Park, the Skeleton Coast and Swakopmund. During this trip we visited Bushmen rock drawings over 3000 years old, visited a unique and primitive Himba tribe, saw a seal colony of over 200,000 seals, and enjoyed the marvelous wild life of Etosha to include rhinoceros, giraffe, lions, zebras, elephants, and Oryx. Sightings of these gorgeous beings are always breathtaking. We also visited an animal rehabilitation center called Africat where we were able to get up close and personal with some cheetahs and a leopard. (I still feel guilty about the leopard coat my mother wore throughout most of my childhood!)

We had a few equipment malfunctions along the way to include leaky tents (discovered after an all night rainstorm) and a partially hobbled vehicle, which limped towards home the last couple of days. My hiking sandals were also a casualty after I left them outside the tent one night – turning them into a tasty treat for the local camp jackals that cruised through regularly.

The final highlight was a 2 hour small aircraft flight over the countryside, reviewing by air much of the territory that I had covered by land. It was a beautiful ending to a unique and fascinating country.

SANGOMAS, WITCHCRAFT AND SPIRITS

ST.ROSE

Arriving back to my mission home on Sunday, I found a large group of “church ladies” gathered in a nearby one-room house. The room was filled with prayerful song as the purple-caped ladies encircled a writhing screaming young woman. She was lying on a thin mattress on the ground and was being restrained by eight strong loving hands. The story from our nurse is that this woman was seeing three people who attack her, scratch her, beat her, and threaten her. Her flailing and screaming was in response to these attacks. The nurse reported that the woman does have bruises and scratches on her body, inferring that something “real” is going on. Present in the room standing over the woman was the Mission Priest and a few of the Sisters. They were using Holy Water, “smoke” and prayers to help the woman.

Outside of the room I spoke with the nurse who said that this was not the first episode for this woman. In the past, the nurse had prescribed for her some tranquilizers . I wondered out-loud if the woman was “schizophrenic” and needed some regular anti-psychotic medicine which the clinic does have. She agreed to let me call one (of two) psychiatrist in Lesotho for a phone consultation. (No answer.)

Later, the nurse spoke to me about the mysterious spells that befall people here. That there are Sangomas (traditional healers) and witches who are able to cast spells for both good and evil. She told me of an old woman who lives in the mountains near here and is known to fly. They know this because she is rather crippled yet has appeared suddenly, in the evening, on the Mission grounds.After several hours and super doses of tranquilizers, the distressed woman was escorted home by her mother and friends.

Later, I was told that one of the suspected spirit “attackers” was seen and confronted. And everyone feels that the spell has been broken and that the woman is now OK.

HIV/AIDS

That evening a nurse-friend from the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) dropped by. I know him to be a very intelligent, competent professional and a devout Christian. I told him about this incident with the woman and wanted to hear more of his perspective. He stated unequivocally that there are many people that hold these special powers. He said that he has seen an old woman flying in a wash basin; he has seen a man stop bullets by saying one spellbound word; he has seen wounds disappear with a word. I asked how this fit with his Christian beliefs because clearly for him and others, there is no conflict between believing in witchcraft and being a Christian. He explained that God has the ultimate power, so if you acknowledge that the ultimate authority is God, you can overpower the witchcraft. My understanding is that most Africans hedge their bets, appealing to both powers to gain their wishes. This is also how the Christian missionaries sold Christianity to Africans, by giving them some sense of power (God/Jesus) over the witchcraft.

Because illness is so often believed to be caused by witchcraft, it continues to be difficult to get people to take responsible action towards HIV/AIDS. There are commonly held beliefs by those that don’t acknowledge the reality of AIDS, that AIDS information is a plot to undermine African society. And for many who do believe that AIDS exists, they believe that it was imported from the West to annihilate the Africans. And there are many who don’t understand the connection between sexual activity, AIDS and the illnesses that are killing them. A spell can kill you quickly (in the form of a heart attack, a car accident, lightening); AIDS does not so it is less frightening. TB is now one of the biggest AIDS related illnesses. More recently people are willing to acknowledge that they have TB, or that a family member died of TB. But AIDS is never mentioned as a killer. It is nearly impossibly to get accurate information on AIDS-related deaths as people rarely know each other’s status. Even my nurse friends who have lost multiple siblings, only “suspect” that they might have had AIDS. More commonly, deaths are caused by a spell cast because of a neighbor’s jealousy, a sibling’s grudge, the in-laws dissatisfaction. There is no proof, of course, but speculation, rumor and suspicion are enough to cement it into the lives of the people.

CRAZY LIKE US

Relevant to the experience with the “bewitched” woman is a book I just picked-up called Crazy Like Us by Ethan Watters. His premise is that the global spread of American culture includes exporting our ideas about mental illness and the psychopharmacology that goes with it. We enter into cultures with our assumptions and ideas about treatment, sometimes discounting and trampling the ways that have been used for centuries. So, I am curious if the “bewitched” woman will have another psychotic-like episode. Or if the spell has been broken and if she will be able to live a normal and medication-free life. If she had walked in to a mental health clinic in the US, there is no doubt that she would have walked out with a diagnosis and a bottle of pills. But here, in Africa, with the priests, nurses and sangomas all confirming the reality of her experience, they also may have the answer for her cure.

ONE LOVE

Know Your Status (KYS) has been a government-led 5 year campaign to get the country tested for HIV. A great deal of NGO money has gone into activities which will draw people (sports activities, youth camps) who will then also be available for HIV education and hopefully testing. After 5 years it has been found that only 15% of the population has been tested. In spite of all the education, people continue to be fearful of the stigma and have been unwilling to get tested and/or they live so rurally that it is not practical. The other reality is that one test is meaningless if the risky sexual behavior doesn’t change.

So now the government is throwing itself behind the One Love campaign. The intention of this is to educate people into a willingness to reduce the number of concurrent sexual partners they have. Research indicates that on the average Africans have 2.5 sexual partners in a lifetime. In the West it is found to be double that. The critical difference is that in the West, we usually don’t have concurrent partners, (we tend to have serial monogamy) while in Africa the concurrent partnerships are tolerated and common. The strategy behind changing this behavior is to improve the communication skills between couples, improve their sexual understanding, and therefore reduce the desire to go outside of the relationship for sexual satisfaction. This sounds like a reasonable strategy. But since I have begun talking about this to the public, I can’t tell you how many times I have heard , “Ahh, but I am a Basotho man and I will die a Basotho man.” Or,”I am a man and I must have what a man needs.”(Read between the lines, “To be an African man means to have more than one woman at a time.”) Faced with this attitude, (and coupled with the Catholic prohibition against condoms) it appears that there is a long road, possibly generations long, before the AIDS pandemic will be under control.

Lucky me! I had two rounds of visitors over the holidays. Nephew Kris joined me for a tour around Lesotho and into the South African Drakensburgs. He maneuvered the mountain roads, over rivers and down hair-pin Sani Pass. We picked-up friends in Tsaba Tseka (a wild west kind of town) and delivered them four hours later to their remote mountain family home in Mohotlong for the holidays. We were in the remotest parts of the Maloti mountains, occasionally picking up a roadside hiker who appeared to be in the middle of nowhere. Our accommodations were varied from a luxury guesthouse in the town of Himeville at the foot of the mountains to our Christmas house with a gorgeous view in the Champagne Valley to a tent in Royal Natal Park. We hiked to Bushmen caves, went horseback riding into dozens of giraffe and zebra herds in Spioenkop Reserve, meandered through the Drakensberg Midlands, and met many helpful and kind Lesothans and S.Africans. It was a trip full of contrasts between the simple rural pastoral mountain life in Lesotho, and the sumptuous, abundant and beautiful tourist-friendly life of South Africa.

Rebecca and her daughter arrived on New Year’s Eve. They wanted an authentic Lesotho experience which came primarily in the form of many many taxi rides in all shapes, sizes and levels of noise. My personal favorite was the large bus, standing room only, music so loud in spite of the fact that we had ear plugs jammed in as far as we dared. The men on either side of Rebecca and Sierra must have been especially inspired by the ladies’ presence, as they were dancing their hearts out in Michael-Jackson-crotch-grabbing fashion. I was sitting, so I had my own up-close-and-personal view of the dance moves. We also had numerous hours of waiting at taxi ranks, Maseru offering the best slice of city-life-in-Lesotho. We had some beautiful down time at Malealea Lodge, taking a waterfall hike and a horseback ride through the stunning countryside. We hung-out in my village, introducing them to Mopeli School and its principal who is the recipient of the books they gathered for the African Library Project. It was touching for all of us, when Rebecca and Sierra stepped into the new library, knowing each and every book they had gathered had now found a new home in Lesotho.

My cup runneth over from the joy of sharing this life with my good friends!

FRIENDS AND HOLIDAYS

Christmas

Lucky me! I had two rounds of visitors over the holidays. Nephew Kris joined me for a tour around Lesotho and into the South African Drakensburgs. He maneuvered the mountain roads, over rivers and down hair-pin Sani Pass. We picked-up friends in Tsaba Tseka (a wild west kind of town) and delivered them four hours later to their remote mountain family home in Mohotlong for the holidays. We were in the remotest parts of the Maloti mountains, occasionally picking up a roadside hiker who appeared to be in the middle of nowhere. Our accommodations were varied from a luxury guesthouse in the town of Himeville at the foot of the mountains to our Christmas house with a gorgeous view in the Champagne Valley to a tent in Royal Natal Park. We hiked to Bushmen caves, went horseback riding into dozens of giraffe and zebra herds in Spioenkop Reserve, meandered through the Drakensburg Midlands, and met many helpful and kind Lesothans and S.Africans. It was a trip full of contrasts between the simple rural pastoral mountain life in Lesotho, and the sumptuous, abundant and beautiful tourist-friendly life of South Africa.

CHRISTMAS IN LESOTHO- 2009

I am finding it particularly hard to relate to anything resembling Christmas as we move into summer here. The school kids are on summer break, people are on summer vacations visiting their families, and the weather is warm/hot. There is no advertising telling me about all the things I need to be buying for people, there are no stores with Santa Claus ringing bells and no Christmas music. In other words, it is quite peaceful.

GRIEF COUNSELING

A number of things have come into fruition over the past months. I have trained nearly 200 Basotho people in Grief Counseling. These groups have included Village Health Workers, Baylor Clinic staff, youth leaders, and NGO and government staff. Every training has been unique and wonderfully rewarding. I have learned so much about the culture because a component of the training is to examine the cultural practices and norms around grief. The gender roles are quite marked with women and men having very prescribed and different ways of handling it. Participants are also noticing a difference between the older more traditional people and the younger people, and some differences are arising between the rural and city people. Also as newer Christian faiths enter into the culture, these people are less likely to follow the very traditional pre-Christian Basotho traditions. Traditions include the widows wearing only black clothing for 6 months to a year, and widows not being able to work in the fields while they are in their grieving period. The widows must sit on the floor until the body is buried, and one of the female family members must sit with her and tell the story of the death over and over again to every visitor. Widows are not able to engage in sexual activity for a year and for men it is one month. The burial feasts include the killing of a cow (which is very expensive) to help guide the body into its next life. Witch doctors and black magic are still a strong part of the culture here, so often when someone becomes ill, fingers are pointed at the wife, the neighbors, or a “jealous” family member as a cause of the illness. So the impending death is never acknowledged as this would indicate that you wanted the person to die and you could become a target of suspicion. Everyone agrees that children are almost completely left out of the process. After the burial, if the children are orphaned, the adult relatives gather and may then begin dividing up the children, deciding whose home they should go to. This is never discussed in advance and the children are never consulted. Children are not thought of as people who have many feelings about the losses in their lives. They are expected to get on with their chores, their school work and their new life. It they are found to be crying, they are typically told to get over it and may be shamed out of it. Lesotho has an (unofficial) estimated 400,000 single or double orphans (in a total country population of 1.8 million) so the burden of more children on already stressed families leaves the children especially vulnerable. The double orphans receive assistance from the government for some living expenses and school fees. But because of the very high unemployment here, many single-parent families have no one earning any money. Primary school is now free but starting in grade 8 the kids have to pay for school, so many children have to drop-out at that point due to lack of finances. With AIDS continuing to ravage the country you can see how fragile the traditional family is becoming.

I have been impressed with how open and willing the training participants have been to embrace new ideas about the psychology of grief, the importance of grieving, and how to assist children in their grief. Often the members get in touch with their own unresolved grief and finish the three week training with a much deeper appreciation for the benefits of the grieving process. Tears, laughter and jubilation have been shared in these trainings.

LIBRARIES

The five school libraries have mostly been launched. Although this has all seemed to move slower than molasses, (we are on Basotho time) it does appear that they will be a functioning part of the schools for the new school year. A big component of the success of this, is training the teachers how to use the libraries. This is something that we take for granted, but in fact, many of the teachers have never been around a library so are afraid or just unfamiliar in how to apply it with the students. Four new libraries will be established this spring as another shipment comes from friends and the African Library Project.

PEACE CORPS PARTNERSHIP PROJECTS

Two grassroots projects were funded by friends and family through the Peace Corps Partnership Project. These are both now launched with the Seeds for Orphans receiving $2500 worth of seeds to plant, and the Alter Boys Chicken Raising at $750 providing 100 chickens to raise and sell. Both of these are planned to benefit orphans and create income generation for years to come. Hooray!

GOOD-BY KIDS

My joy over the past 18 months has been the darling younger border children who live at the mission. My sorrow is that their housing has been closed so they will not be returning this next year. Prior to their departure, I arranged a day of games for the 20 of them, playing pin the tail on the donkey, three-legged relay race, egg- in- spoon relay race, blind pairs racing (picture that!), dodge ball and others. In the end, they all gathered in a circle and did their wonderful traditional dancing. It was great fun!

HOLIDAYS-YIPPEE

The next few weeks will be a whirlwind of visitors. Nephew Kris from Alaska will be the driver as we tour the dramatic Maloti and Drakensberg Mountains of Lesotho and S.Africa, spending Christmas in a beautiful mountain valley in S.Africa. New Year’s Eve will be spent with friend Rebecca and her 30 year old daughter. We will attend the midnight mass at my mission church and saturate ourselves in the gorgeous music of the Basotho people.

Swazi with the Kids

A week after returning from Zanzibar, and just barely recovered from the Big Cough, I jumped onto a bus with 50 primary school kids and a few teachers for their annual trip to Swaziland. I will spare you the blow by blow gruesome details of the launch…except for a few. I was told we would leave at 6pm for an all night bus ride. When we left at 8pm, it seemed like we were doing well. After taking 2 hours to get through the South African border crossing (yes, it takes the personnel that long to stamp and type in 55 people’s information into their data base) we then discovered that one child’s passport had been left behind. So it took another 2 hours to return to retrieve that. Somehow it became one am before we left the border town which is only 45 minutes from our departure point… 5 hours to travel 45 minutes.

I grabbed a seat to myself up close by the driver where I had some leg room. But no heat. It was FREEZING all night. I was totally unprepared for this and the dear principal shared her blanket with me, but most of the time was spent shivering to stay warm. And the driver was constantly getting lost. He would get on the phone and tell someone on the other end what signs he was seeing, and the next thing I knew, we would be turning around and retracing our steps. Ahhh, my kingdom for a GPS!

We survived a second border crossing getting from S.Africa to Swazi, and arrived at our “lodging” by 10am (most people say that the drive should take between 6-7 hours). I thought we were in a broken down juvenile detention center, by all appearances. The kids stayed in rooms on the floor with wall to wall raggedy mattresses. The teachers had their own room with equally scrungey mattresses on the floor. Prior to the trip I had said that I would like to have my own room, so I was given the room that the owner’s small children stayed in. Sabi (my 16 year old friend from the Mission with whom I brought) and I had the Deelux quarters – a flush toilet, bunk beds, and a shower that sometimes worked. We felt pretty lucky. The others had to bathe by waiting in line outside for the water to be boiled in a big tub, then they would take their little plastic tubs to a concrete room and, hunching over the warm water in the cold room, wash themselves. Needless to say, this took a lot of time, so the morning schedule of “we absolutely must be ready and out of here by 7am tomorrow morning” always turned into 9am at the earliest, with the teachers the last to straggle onto the bus.

In, now familiar, Basotho fashion, things never went as planned.

Disorganization and waiting were the norm. But, in spite of my perspective on this, many things were seen and done by the students. And what impressed me the most is that the kids never seemed to mind the endless hours of sitting and waiting on the bus. Some memorable experiences for us all included the Swazi Cultural Village, the museum, the Parliament, a little game park with a huge hippo, and the crafts market (guess which was my favorite?). Swazi is well known for its crafts which include batiks, baskets, cloth, jewelry and many more items.

On my final afternoon I was determined that I would spend some time in a store called Gone Rural (www.gonerural.com) which I knew had beautiful items. (It is made up of 700 village woman artisans who are able to work at home and then sell their products at the main store.) But, after spending half the day sitting in the bus, I didn’t want the kids to wait for me, so I made the bus drop me off and I said I would get myself home. In hindsight, I think I was desperate to have a little control over my time and activities, at least for a couple of hours. The shop was a straight few kilometers up the road from the “detention center”… or so I imagined. After finishing my luxurious shopping time, I hit the road for a nice walk ”home” on a rather featureless highway surrounded with maize fields. As the sun began to set I realized I had better get myself off the road and into transport. (Do I need to say here that I was beginning to realize that I had done a completely idiotic thing and that chagrin and fear were now settling in?) So, I began to hitch. A couple of cars whizzed by, not even glancing at me. The sun was now down with the final rays of light fading. The next car that approached turned out to be a police car –oops? Good news or bad? For my “safety”, they said, they wanted to drive me to my place. But, where is my place, and what the heck is it called? It turns out it is much much farther than I had remembered. And it wasn’t a straight shot at all, but it involved a turn and I couldn’t remember which way. And, I didn’t know the name of the place we were staying as it didn’t have any signs on it, if it did have a name. And they had no idea of what I was talking about as I described it. So we drove and drove, and I am feeling completely stupid and apologetic and LUCKY beyond words. Finally, the policemen spotted the bus parked in the back side of the facility. As we drove into the concrete sprawling guest house, I had the biggest smile on my face, knowing that I narrowly escaped making Darwin’s Award for Natural Selection.

A postscript to this which I heard the next day from the owner’s wife: The police returned to the place asking to speak to the owner. They wanted to see the facility, asked a lot of questions about its operation and generally made the owner extremely paranoid. They had no idea that I had introduced the police to it, so they wondered why they were being investigated. It was funny to me, but maybe not to them!

Overall impressions of Swaziland are that it is a country with much more wealth and infrastructure than Lesotho. It is one of the top three countries for HIV infection but the government seems to be tackling this head-on with posters and billboards and free condoms at every turn. They are well set-up for tourism with game parks and lodging and information readily available. They have a king that is revered and a one-party government, with the king choosing half of the parliamentary representatives. They are keeping their historical culture alive through the cultural village, dance and music. The people are friendly and there are wonderful crafts to enjoy.

The bus ride home was also an overnighter but this time I was prepared for the cold. I had my sleeping bag on board. I can only shake my head as I report that the bus driver was lost again several times on the way home. And upon arrival at the border gate, we had two hours to sit in the predawn light, waiting for the gate to open. My goals were simple – to spend more time with this primary school and the teachers, to get to know Swaziland a little, and to show my friend, Sabi, a world she might otherwise not see.

Mission Accomplished!

ONE YEAR IN PERSPECTIVE

I must be adapting because I have less and less to write about. That which, at one time, seemed so remarkable, is now just normal. The boys trotting by on donkey-back no longer catch my attention. The horse parked in front of the clinic is no longer a surprise. The crushing and suffocating public transport rides are to be expected. The public nose-picking, crotch-scratching, peeing-by -the –side-of- the-road no longer offends me. I no longer cry when I go out to visit the pigs- they are just as starved and skinny as ever but I have grown accustomed to it. Watching the clothes wash -water turn into a kind of mud as my clothes soak, is dismaying but to be expected. I now routinely get candles and flashlight ready whenever there is an electrical storm, as the electricity invariably goes out for some hours or longer. I haven’t had running water for a month and no hot water for longer. No one seems to know what has gone wrong with the water supply, and my hot water heater may never get fixed. Basotho missing deadlines is definitely to be expected. Unfortunately, some of those deadlines are really just that, which means that no matter how hard I am cheering them on for funding for a project, their fate is in their own hands. Teachers punishing children with swats from a stick, still makes me cringe, but I am no longer shocked. The children’s fascination with my skin color, freckles, puckers and wrinkles is now just fun rather than alarming. I am accustomed to seeing huge handsome 20+ year old men running around the high school campus as students. And the sexuality oozing out of every pore of the pre-adolescent girls is a wonder to behold.. The continual ignorance about HIV/AIDS, the denial, and the avoidance no longer stop me in my tracks. Although the infection rate is 40% for the sexually active age group, no one knows anyone who is sick with HIV/AIDS….people die of TB and stroke….when people are sick, it is with “the common cold”. The stigma is huge and therefore the silence is deafening. Each of us here with Peace Corps, is working on this in our own way. Youth and young men are two groups which have been identified as target groups for prevention and education as they hold the key to the future and the gender issues.

It has taken me a good 8 months to really find my footing, my place, a way to contribute that feels mutually satisfying. Peace Corps warns us about this, and it has been true for me. My Sesotho is probably regressing since training as I hardly ever use it. I am surrounded in a world where most everyone is able to speak English…and those that don’t, I would never know enough to be able to have a conversation anyway. I have been able to put together some mental health trainings having to do with Grief Groups. I have had my first trial run of presenting 9 hrs of training to a group of 25 Village Health Workers, Support Group leaders, and Red Cross Workers. During these sessions, I deepened my knowledge of their mourning practices while opening their minds to the benefits of experiencing feelings, both sad and joyful. The culture has a very ritualized practice of mourning, which basically puts the grieving person on the floor on a mattress for a week or a month – until the body is buried. The grieving woman is then to tell the story of her loved one’s dying process over and over to whoever enters the house with condolences. There are aspects of this that can be very helpful, but all the women in the group felt that after awhile it just increased their depression. The culture doesn’t allow them to sing or dance or laugh or get-away at all during this time or they will be accused of being happy the person died. Or worse, they could be called a “witch”. I gave a session on “self-care” which included massage. They went nuts over this! It is out of their realm of experience to have a woman giving another woman a hand or face massage (this is reserved for husbands, although a husband would also never do this!) But they were champs and jumped into it and became so enlivened and giggly. The room was bubbling over after this exercise.

I helped my clinic sponsor a day- long meeting between the traditional healers of the area (35 came) and the clinic staff. Because the head of the clinic is a wise and open-minded nurse, she stayed out of any judgment towards the healers and honest sharing was encouraged. The healers come from a variety of traditions to include intuitive healers, those that speak with the ancestors, those that have apprenticeships with other healers, and those that go to a program to receive more formalized training. They work with dreams, herbs, spirits and prayers. Unfortunately some of the practices are harmful and impede healing with Western medecines. The healers spoke of their feelings of being marginalized by the medical community, their belief that they can cure AIDS, their wish to be able to work more collaboratively with the clinic, and an overall sense of relief that these two communities were finally in dialogue. It was a huge success with hopes for a repeat in the future.

The 5000 library books for the 5 schools have arrived. Schools go on a two month winter break soon, so the libraries may not get set-up for another few months. But the schools are thrilled and chomping at the bit to use them. Since it is in my back yard, I have been working closely with St.Rose Primary. I was dismayed to see that they have, for some years now, had over 700 wonderful library books that they haven’t been using. I found many dusty and splattered with mouse droppings. I asked the teachers why they hadn’t used the library and one said in a rather meek voice, “We don’t know how to use a library”. So, an important part of this project, along with getting the books, is teaching all of the teachers how to use the library. It is one of those details that we, in our resource rich country, tend to overlook as we send resources to the underdeveloped countries only to find that they are clueless as to how to put them to good use.

I had my two kitties neutered recently. It was one of the more traumatic times I have had here. Rosie, the brown chubby one, did just fine. But darling rambunctious, Mika, suffered in pain for hours after the surgery. As she writhed and wimpered and cried in pain, I sat next to her in sympathetic sobs. People would drop in to see how she was and shake their heads. My one neighbor was really mad at me and said he wouldn’t forgive me until he saw that she was OK. Fortunately, they have made a full recovery, and I don’t have to worry about finding homes for baby kittens in a land where they may be viewed as dinner.

A wonderful youth group has formed from the nearby high school. They meet on Saturdays in my back yard and their focus is HIV education. They created a chilling drama about an HIV positive family and performed it in front of hundreds of people at a soccer tournament. These kids are wonderfully creative and motivated. Their wish is to get other youth groups going in other high schools and I believe they have the wherewithal to do it. As always, the hindrance is money – for transport around the area. How to get 10 high school kids to another school 5 miles away?. I have a partial solution for myself. I have permission to rent a horse as needed to get myself to some of these hard to reach locations that are too expensive by public transport and too difficult by foot. I have an official helmet from Peace Corps that makes me look like I should be in a dressage competition rather than riding an old nag across the rocky slopes of Lesotho.

Entertainment has included reading 30 books this year – many of them by African authors. I have had three great trips – Cape Town with the nuns, Wild Coast of S.Africa, and Botswana & Livingston Falls. In-country, I most recently went to Sani Pass which has the highest mountain in southern Africa and awoke the first morning to snowfall. An easy and beautiful get-away spot just over the border is the town of Clarens – an artistic enclave with wonderful shops, restaurants, bakeries and coffee houses. The contrast between the normal life in Lesotho and these escapes across the border are always pleasantly jarring.

I listen to NPR daily and adore the Sunday morning program “Speaking of Faith”. I receive phone calls from a few dedicated friends and get to visit with my dog, Bodhi, on Skype. Technology has certainly changed the Peace Corps experience from the extreme isolation it used to be. Although, there are PC sites where volunteers have no cell phone contact, no electricity to charge their computers, and may have to walk an hour to the nearest shop. I’m just happy for the modern conveniences I do have. My health has been good and I think I have figured out how to keep a balanced diet. Sadly, two good friends are leaving soon which will change my sense of connection and companionship. But, that is the nature of this two year assignment.

The 2007 CHED group is leaving soon, heading out before they have to endure another winter. The new CHED group arrives this week. It is always exciting to welcome in the newest group and we hope to glean some new good friends from the 15 arrivals (a smaller group than before).

April 2009

My plans for an Easter vacation in Madagascar were squelched after the young upstart mayor of the capital city of Mad succeeded in getting the current president to step-down at the cost of some riots and deaths. PC evacuated the PC volunteers in the country and closed it for travel. So very hastily, I threw together a trip to Botswana - land of the Kalahari Desert, the Okavango Delta and abundant wildlife throughout Chobe National Park. Friend, Madeline, and I went our separate ways after traveling to Garbarone (Botswana’s capital) together. She went on to visit a friend and I,to a mobile camping safari in northern Botswana. I flew from southern to northern Botswana, across the brush and desert of the Kalahari, home of the San (Bushmen) people. Flying into Maun, at the edge of the Okavango Delta, one enters another ecosystem – a river delta fed by the Okavango River from Angola. This consists of canals, islands and marshlands – think crocs, hippos and an abundance of birds for starters. It is a gorgeous area filled with gigantic trees, flora and birdsong, and the grunts of hippos. The10 day trip was spent with an international group of 7 (Danish, German, French, Australian). We had a superb bush-guide and a wonderful team who put up our tents and cooked tasty dinners. We covered a lot of territory in our open cab Landrover – driving from Maun to Livingston, Zambia in 10 days. Every day was filled with stunning wildlife. The most shocking and Ah-Ha moment was on Day 1 when a giraffe leaped from the bush and onto the road in front of us. That breath-taking vision was when I absolutely realized that I was in Africa. Our various campsites were always charming and remote. The evening we camped next to the hippo pond, we sat around the campfire not only listening to the snorts and grunts of the hippos but also the roar of the lions. It is a primal experience to have ones senses totally alert to the sounds and signs of an approaching predator or aggressor. Hippos have a well-deserved dangerous reputation as they are very territorial, aggressive, and have a record for killing the most tourists. Our Australian newlywed was showering in our outdoor shower tent when she heard a hippo grunt outside the tent. The next thing the whole camp knew was that we had a streaker through the camp, racing for the safety of the fire.

This year has brought a 60 year high of rainfall – good for the wildlife, bad for tourism. This means that the animals have a much broader range of choices for water and therefore aren’t gathered together at the watering holes as much as is the norm. It also means that roads are washed-out, therefore limiting some of the places we could get to. But my experience was as full and rich as I could have hoped for. The safari included 2 half days on the water. One trip was in a traditional dug-out boat, poling through the reeds and water lilies, experiencing the peace and sublime stillness of these back waters. Spotting a Black Mambo snake crawling up a reed was the only adrenaline rush on that excursion. The other water trip was on the Chobe River which is a border between Namibia and Botswana. Again, because of the high waters, land was under water and a few houses flooded. It was so delightful to have the waterside perspective of the elephant families playing in the river next to the hippos.

The final leg of the trip took us across the border into Zambia, the town of Livingston and Victoria Falls. At this point, we lost the camping team and were now in a lovely hotel on the Zambezi River. The infamous country of Zimbabwe is just across the river and has even better views of the falls. But travel in Zim is forbidden by PC. Zambia gets many of the Zim refugees, people trying to survive in an impossible situation. The Zimbabwean money has been devalued so much that it is no longer in use and they have turned to the American dollar. As a tourist curio, vendors tried to sell the worthless Zim money which may have 3 billion or 10 trillion marked value on one bill. I was told that professional women from Zim, former nurses and teachers, come to Zambia as prostitutes to feed their families. I didn’t hear anyone in Zambia hold anything but empathy for the desperation of the people of Zimbabwe.

Vic Falls is Adventureland for the brave – bungee jumping, absailing, white water rafting, lite-flight. My group chose the helicopter flight over the falls and through the canyon. It was spectacularly beautiful and really the only way to see the falls. The “smoke that thunders” is running so heavily this time of year that when I walked around the falls, I received an intense cold shower but almost no views of the falls. The bungee-jumpers-Zimbabwe-border-bridge offered a partial view of the falls along with the thrill of watching the jumpers bravely dive off the bridge platform. I wasn’t the least bit tempted. My final evening was spent on a sunset cruise on the Zambezi. Coincidentally, there were 3 Peace Corps volunteers from S.Africa there, and a few other Americans, so we managed to have a wonderful celebration before leaving our luxurious surroundings.

I flew from Livingston to JoB, and was picked-up at the airport by the B&B in which I was staying. The next day, I took a taxi to the infamous JoB taxi rank. PC has given us plenty of scary stories about the JoB taxi area, so passing through there felt like the biggest obstacle of my entire trip. My driver happened to be a former policeman and body-guard. He dropped me exactly in front of the bus I needed, so I never had to wander the rank and worry about getting robbed. I was safe, secure, and well-taken care of.

I was happy to return to my Mission home and my kitties. I was greeted with hugs and purring and the sounds of crickets…a much tamer version of “wildlife”.

VILLAGE HEALTH WORKERS

These women are my heroes. Every village has women (a few men) who volunteer for this role. They are paid possibly up to a dollar a day to perform numerous care-taking tasks for their fellow villagers. Plus, they must get themselves to monthly meetings and continuing education classes. They are women of all ages, some who hobble along in their bedroom slippers bent over their stick-canes, and some who appear young and strong and wise beyond their years. They are the ones who care for the bed-ridden, the injured, the sick babies, and the dying. Some have died themselves due to exposure to the HIV virus in the days before much was known about protecting themselves. They are responsible to know who in the village is ill, who needs bed-side nursing, who is suffering from neglect, where the orphans live, and just about anything you can imagine having to do with health issues. They are to be supplied by the government with medi-kits to include gloves and bandages, but like so many other things here, there aren’t enough, and they often work without the supplies they are supposed to have. They also are paid erratically and may not know from one month to the next if they are going to receive their small paycheck. They do the work anyway. Yesterday, a fellow Peace Corps volunteer came to my district to give First Aid training to over 50 VHW. They were also to receive their monthly checks that day. Many waited around until late afternoon, only to find that the money that was promised was not coming on this day. I found one old toothless health worker shuffling home close to sunset, still having a long distance to walk before arriving home. So much is asked of them for so little material compensation. Some women have been doing this for 40 years and have watched the pandemic of AIDS wipe-out much of a generation of their children, leaving thousands of orphans who they very well may become responsible for.

On my satellite radio I have been listening to the African Learning Channel which always has some interesting stories and reports about African issues. Southern Africa has the highest statistics for HIV infections and education campaigns have been here for some years. But what statistics are showing is that the rate of new infections is not declining. In other words, education is not having an impact on people’s behavior. People are still not getting tested. The stigma is still a strong deterrent. People may lose their jobs if their boss finds out they are positive, husbands leave wives blaming them for the infection, friends reject them. People don’t want to know their status because they fear that if they were HIV positive they would then be unmarriageable, unable to have children and have no future. Denial keeps them safe.

Earlier this week, a group of 5 high school juniors and seniors approached me. They want to develop an HIV education and outreach program in their school with and for their fellow students. They want to support and encourage the students to get tested and help them learn more about protecting themselves, and offer support if they do find themselves positive. I asked the group how many of them had been tested and only one said he had. The others looked sheepish and said that they were very afraid. That is pretty much the same reason they all give for not getting tested. The one who had been tested had a very traumatic experience. He was told he was positive. He said he cried for 2 weeks, didn’t tell anyone, and didn’t go to school. He said he was sure people knew something was wrong, but he kept it a secret. He now says that his second test reported that he was negative. He now wants to help his fellow classmates. What better ground-work to become a sensitive and compassionate peer educator!

I am involving myself more in my immediate community, and not waiting for invitations. I now show-up at the classroom door of the primary school and say “I am here to help. What can I do?” I have now spent time in the 5th-7th grade classes, teaching health, English, geography and whatever pops out of my mouth. I also go over to the high school and sit-in on the debate classes. My teen-age friend, Sabi, who lives next door, is on the team and one of the better debaters. So I fill her full of information to back-up her arguments and she is now one of the best “researched” of the group. I have been inviting the boarders (40 girls of all ages living at the mission) to come to my house for “drawing time”. They come in smaller groups and spread around the kitchen table and floor. I supply them with paper and pencils and magic markers and they have a blast. It is very fun for me as I enjoy assisting them in bringing out their creative sides. Art supplies are not something that these kids ever get their hands on. I am working with a community of village Support Workers to develop an income-generation project with egg-laying hens. They want to generate money to support the 40 orphans they have in this community of 300 people. Besides helping them think it through and getting the numbers correct, I will be doing the fund-raising through the Peace Corps Partnership Program. Another thing, I am starting to meet with the five schools who will be receiving the books from the African Library Project. Thanks to the efforts of 7 special friends Stateside, these schools will be receiving books and starting libraries. Nine months here and I am just beginning to feel like I know how to use myself. I am told this is the norm. Meanwhile, my kitties are getting big and brave. I receive many comments from people about how beautiful they are. I think I am converting some cat-avoidant people into reconsidering their position. The pigs are still emaciated and pitiful, but I have become used to this and don’t cry when I see them anymore. Ahhh, the gift of adaptation.

THE TAXI RANK- Jan. 15, 2009

I made a trip in and out of Maseru today. I was lucky to hitch a ride in with the nuns. The ride home was via the route that most of us dread – Public Transportation! We all have to go into the taxi rank to find the vans that are heading on our route home. It always feels kind of chaotic and noisy and crowded and dirty – and a little edgy. Sometimes it looks like a sea of vans all lined-up bumper to bumper. Someone usually approaches and points me to the correct van. Once established in the van, it is not uncommon to sit for an hour, waiting for it to fill. Today was such a day. The ranks are always filled with vendors selling food, drink, jewelry, t-shirts, watches, air-time, etc etc. And sometimes the vendors are curious and want to chat. Today I found myself in a lengthy conversation with a 24 yr. old man who started the conversation with “I want a job. Can you get me one?” It was one of the first times I gave much thought to what these folks are about. In a country with a huge unemployment rate and so many people fading away with little or no hope, these vendors are out there giving it their best to save themselves and their families. This man is the youngest of 5 children. His parents are at home with no work. His siblings are scattered around and the work of supporting himself and his parents is on his shoulders. He can’t afford to return to high school and he can’t afford to get training in anything that might give him an income. So he goes from van to van all day trying to sell cookies and air-time. I asked what he might make in a day with his cookies and he said about $2 (20 Maluti)(That is the one-way taxi fare for me to travel to Maseru.) He asked about Barack Obama and said how happy he was for this new president He spoke about the war in Israel, and he spoke about the hardship of his life. I felt a little of what this life would be like; to be smart, caring, young and ambitious, yet to wake-up every morning knowing that all I would be doing is trying to sell cookies to people who don’t want them. So, I bought the box. Needless to say, I made his day. And it probably helped a little with the African-American international relationship. It seems like a pretty good investment for my $2.00.

SCHOLARSHIP NOTES

There is a scholarship program offered by an organization called Kick 4 Life. It is sponsored by Prince Harry and seems to be a very well put together program, offering not only scholarships to orphans and vulnerable children, but also mentoring, leadership training, and HIV education. High School, to include tuition, books, exam fees and uniforms, can cost up to $700/ year. This may be more than the often unemployed parent can afford. Here are a few samples of what the students wrote in their applications.

Boy – 16 yrs. old

I am an orphan and my family does not have fields or animals to rely on. With just a small amount of money that my mother gets from teaching she could not afford to make a living and provide a stable family for seven children. She could not have that money to support each and every one of us with everything we need. Having experienced the need of my family, I feel the need of being educated right inside me because education is the only key to success these days. I want to learn of how one can raise something for a big family like mine earning little. I also want to provide something good for my country because giving hand receives a lot. There are some great achievements in life that I have dreamed about doing after I have finished school in order to build a stable home for my family. Not only family is my goal but also I want to help my fellow orphans so that they can understand there is nothing tough in the world if people living around you are willing to help you. I would like to provide jobs for needy people so that we can work together to bring up something good for the nation. I want people to feel the need of education inside them. I also want to make people realize that it is not only through rich people that our country can become strong and face its problems. If I can, we can!!

From his mother who teaches in the primary school:

My son is a brilliant child. As I am a single parent and a mother of seven boys, it is not easy to pay the school fees of my last born twins. I have no other means of getting money to feed them and to pay his school fees as he is a twin boy and I like both of them to be educated. To my observation, he is able to achieve the good pass in his class and this will lead him to go through all his education.

Girl – 17 yrs old

I have noticed about some people who are not educated that are futureless. They are not like some people who had been educated. And also what I have noticed here in our country Lesotho there are shortage of people who know about the importance of being educated. Some people who are not educated they are taken as the slaves of the different works. Many people from different country are dying because of HIV/AIDS and other diseases. When I have finished school I want to be a nurse to look after sick people.

Girl- 19 yrs. old

As it is known that education is the key of success, that is why people need to go to school and to be educated in order to live life smoothly, live it positively and help other to be success. I want to go to school because I want to help my family, my nation and my country to survive and able to achieve their needs. Apart from that, I want to help orphans, vulnerable children and people who are affected by HIV/AIDS. After completing school, I want to be a nurse or doctor or even to be a farmer in order to supply them and advise people with HIV to know how they are supposed to live and protect themselves from other many diseases and even to know their HIV status for those who do not want to go to test. And teach them that they have to work for themselves to stay alive and happy.

MY REMARKABLE NEIGHBOR

Thabiso ( it means “one who is happy) is one of those young men (27yrs old) who everyone enjoys. He is always optimistic, smiling and kind. His story is exceptional. He was always a good student and he wanted to become a doctor. When his father abandoned his family for another woman, Thabiso was left to carry the responsibility of his mother and younger sibs. His two older brothers basically left this to him, because they knew he would pick-up the slack. This meant that he had to abandon his plans for medical school, and use his savings and income to help his family. He went to nursing school instead, finished at the top of his class, and became a Nurse Midwife. His younger brother (by 8 yrs.) was unable to finish high school because of a lack of money. Rafiloe became a herd boy, taking care of the family cows in the fields. When Thabiso’s widowed older sister died (of cancer) she left behind two little girls. Thabiso took on the financial responsibility for these girls also. After his dearly loved mother died last year, his father called to tell him he was sick. Thabiso went to his father’s side, saying that “it isn’t for me to judge him, God will do that.” So, Thabiso found his father in rags and penniless although he had been a veterinarian and had once had a decent life style. The father reported that the second wife had left him and taken everything. Thabiso then took on the responsibility of caring for his father.

In this past year, Thabiso married his beloved and pregnant fiancé (see wedding photos above) who is due in the next month. He is living next to me on the mission grounds in a two room “house” probably smaller than my 300 sq.ft place, with a pit latrine for toileting. In the past week he has brought his 19 yr old brother here to live with him so he can finish high school. He has also brought his two nieces here, to stay in the boarding house and attend the primary school at the mission. The fees for boarding and for high school are beyond most peoples’ budgets, yet he is carrying it all, plus the preparation and expense of a new baby. And, he still hopes to go to medical school some day. I am in awe of this man. He would be exceptional in any culture, but especially in Lesotho where men very often have a negative reputation for responsibility and participation. So far, I have met a few of these men and they always seem to carry 200% of the normal load; so much above and beyond the call of duty. Yet, when the call is so loud, the needs so terrifying, the numbers of willing and able so pitiful, there are a few who listen and respond to their maximum ability. Observing them is so very humbling.

SIX MONTHS IN LESOTHO- December 6th, 2008

Six months sounds like a long time, but I feel that I am just beginning to get the hang of life and culture. I feel like a rocketship that has all engines ignited but is still on the ground. January really feels like launch time. I have a number of projects in mind, others that have been spoken and agreed upon, and others for which I will need to find seed money. The five libraries have been approved by the African Library Project and work will begin to assist the schools in preparing for the books. The longer I am here, the more need I see- orphans tucked around every corner (110,000 in Lesotho), mothers asking for food to feed their babies, children in raggedy clothes and toes sticking out of their shoes. And the AIDS epidemic continues ravaging the country- the average life expectancy for men/women is 39yrs/44yrs, 50 people/day die from AIDS, and 62/day are newly infected. The long history of multiple partners, the male-dominated culture, and the male’s anti-condom stance contribute greatly to the on-going problems.

My little house and mission community have now really become my home. And partly because of the kittens I am quite a home-body. There are not too many places I would rather be (especially sleeping on other volunteer’s floors!) The Obama presidential election was a total delight so I invited other volunteers to visit and follow the event with me. The fact that Kenya, in particular, and Africa overall were so shocked, thrilled and charmed that we elected a Black man made it all the more delightful. Strangers would stop me on the street and ask me what I thought of a Black man as our president. I wanted to imprint this historic time on the children, so I spoke to several hundred high school kids, giving them some background on our civil rights history and our electoral process. Once again, I feel good to be an American.

I had the pleasure of attending the wedding of my neighbor, a nurse who works at the clinic. He is a darling 27yo. man who just graduated with honors from his nursing program. He put a tremendous amount of time, attention and money into the smallest of details. It was a combination of a beautiful church wedding with flower girls and bridesmaids, and a traditional Basotho event with men on horseback escorting the bride and some marvelous traditional dancers. Then there is the food, where women stay-up all night preparing the feast for possibly hundreds of people. They do this for weddings, graduations, funerals, ceremonies – these feasts seem to go on all the time.

Peka, my community of 5,000, experienced a huge tragedy this past month. A kombi filled with local women going to their nearby factory jobs, ran-off the road while trying to pass on a hill and 9 people were killed. The driver, who is the brother of my counterpart, was unlicensed. The kombi owner hired him knowing this. They are both facing charges. Most of these women had 2-3 children. These women were the wage-earners for their family. We all wanted to help in some way. My feeble response was/is to try to find scholarships for the new orphans. (Primary school is free but after that families must pay up toe $300/yr for tuition, books, uniforms – prohibitive for most families. Children going on to secondary school is only 35%.) I am finding the frequent challenge of staying open and sensitive in the face of overwhelming needs and my own sense of helplessness.

On the lighter side…I was invited to my first clinic staff meeting. There were 12 of us crowded into a room for 6. I asked why we were meeting in this room. It was because it was next to the labor room and a woman was in labor. The only thing separating us from the woman was a thin glass window with a curtain. Occasionally the woman would moan and one of the nurses would shush her. I kept peeking through the curtain to see how she was doing. ( Confidentiality and privacy are not high priorities here!) A couple of the nurses disappeared and the next thing I knew I heard a baby crying. Again, I looked through the curtain and there was the baby being swaddled. From the delivery room, Sr. Teresa put her head through the glass window into the meeting room and said “Did I miss anything?” Yes, this is a very different world.

For Thanksgiving, 7 volunteers met at a gorgeous part of Lesotho with wonderful authentic huts called Malealea Lodge. The scenery was breathtaking with layers of mountains, green valleys, the supreme pastoral setting. Karrin and I took a guided hike to the local waterfall and loved every minute of it. There were some Dartmouth professors there with their environmental studies students, and made for delightful company.

My CHED group returned to Maseru for the Phase 3 (and final) portion of our training. It was 10 jam-packed days of information that is most useful now that we have our feet on the ground. We spent 2 of those days with our counterparts going through a Project Design and Management workshop which was extremely helpful to both of us. I feel like I have so many more tools and skills than I did 6 months ago.

Plans for Xmas include a jaunt to the “wild coast” of South Africa (the Indian Ocean south of Durban). Two PCV age-mates and myself will rent a car and spend 6 nights on the beach – hopefully eating seafood and swimming. I am excited to experience the tropics – away from the high and arid mountains, although, with the frequent thunderstorms, the countryside is transforming. It almost looks and feels like a different land. The view is filled with beautiful colors of green and gold fields, red and black earth. I love my sunset walk where I have a 360 degree view over the countryside and the often dramatic sky. It is getting into my blood.

Oct. 28, 2008

I missed the singing today. Normally, at 8am sharp, the children are marching onto the school grounds singing cheerful and beautiful songs. But today, I noticed it was quiet, somber. There was a reason. I have some reluctance to share this story as I don’t want the readers to believe that this is typical of Lesotho. It is not, and everyone’s reaction here is as disbelieving as yours or mine is. One of our primary school 6th graders died this past weekend. It seems that he was known to steal food from his nearby cousin’s house. The adult woman became enraged with this. So one day she cooked a lovely dinner for the boy and his 2 younger siblings. The boy gobbled down the liver but the younger ones didn’t touch it. Later that day, the boy became sick and quickly died. It turns out that this cousin had loaded the liver with rat poison, fully intending to kill all three children. When she heard that he had died, she turned herself into the police. She is currently staying with friends, awaiting criminal proceedings. The victim’s classmates and teachers spent the following day in tears. And soon, they will be singing mass for his funeral. These children are confronted with death in so many shapes and forms.

Later: The service was excruciating. Teachers were choking out their prayers before bursting into tears. Children were gasping for breath they were sobbing so hard. The mother was buried under her blanket, shoulders heaving up and down. Such a sad day. Yet the singing started up again soon.

I attended a massive pilgrimage event this past week-end. It is a reenactment of an event that occurred in Portugal a hundred years ago where Mary appeared to some children. There were over 1000 people there, mostly nuns and children. It was old home week for most of the nuns, seeing friends from all over Lesotho. It began with a massive march up to the top of a hill where there was a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains. People were praying and singing on the walk up the hillside. Because the preaching at the top was in Sesotho, I put on my headphones and listened to some gorgeous music while admiring the view. I have seen very little of Lesotho at this point, but the few trips to other convents that I have been on, have always impressed me with the gorgeous countryside. October is supposed to be the month when the big rains begin, but we have had almost no rain this month. The countryside is still brown, the animals still hungry, the gardens unplanted, the water supply intermittent. I have completed day three with no running water, living off of my 2 buckets. My dishes are dirty, my bathroom is stinky and my body is dusty. I am meeting the Director of Peace Corps from the US tomorrow, so the final drops of water will go to cleaning-up a little for this lunch.

My little house has a new little member. I have had this kitten for 24 hours after ripping her away from her sibling who wouldn’t be caught. She and I are having bonding time, and then I hope to have her sib too so they will keep each other company. She has been living in a shed with no human contact so we have some connecting to do.

My new satellite radio is keeping me up on all the drama that is occurring on the world financial scene. I am sure that so many lives are changing course as a result of these mortgage/banking /stock market crises. Meanwhile, I am thrilled to be tuned in to the election process and plan to be celebrating next Wednesday morning! For as flawed as our system seems at times, I listen to the horrors and corruption happening in so many countries around the world, and I thank my lucky stars that I was born where I was.

CAPE TOWN- Sept 28-Oct.2, 2008

HOW MANY NUNS DOES IT TAKE TO FILL A BUS?

One, if she has her bags with her.

Peace Corps miraculously and generously allowed me to travel to Cape Town with 37 sisters from the Holy Names. They came from missions from all over Lesotho for a “trip-of-a-lifetime” for many of them. The entire trip, including hotel and transport cost less than $150, but for many this meant using up most of their savings. We spent 3 nights at a large “older” (read between the lines) and once grand hotel and 2 over-nights riding in 2 small vans with luggage trailers.

It was a two track learning adventure. Track 1 was taking-in the experience of S.Africa, a country so apparently different from Lesotho, and the absolutely stunningly gorgeous environs of CT and its super-modernity. Track 2 was life with Basotho nuns. The launching is a good example. Five of us from my mission (to include Linda, the Canadian) left our place at 10am to be in Maseru (the meeting point), for a noon departure time. By 1pm everyone was present but the buses. Rumors began to float that maybe the buses weren’t gong to be there until 3 or 4, but no one knew. At 5:30pm, 2 buses and one small trailer arrived. It was obvious to all that this trailer could not hold the large bulky luggage of the nuns. Most had brought large bed blankets with them. Basotho, above almost anything else, do not like to be cold. So one trailer alone would be filled with the mound of blankets. We waited while they went to get a second trailer. After that was loaded, they realized they didn’t have the ropes to tie it down, so we waited while they fetched the ropes. The next task was loading ourselves, food and blankets into these vans. Nuns are often notoriously large and when they are bundled into their sweaters and coats with purses and blankets on their laps, bags and coolers of food at their feet, we were packed like Pringles chips. (I guess the good news is that if the van had rolled, we would have just bounced off of the blankets and each other like marshmallows.) At 7pm our buses left the parking lot – 7 hours later than expected. (Expectations are the bane of PC volunteers in Lesotho.)

Fast forward 16 hours (I expected 10-12 hours!) to our entry into Cape Town. We were all excited and oh-so-ready to release our bodies from their cramped and rigidified positions. But the directions to the hotel were vague (and no GPS!). It took us another 90 minutes of stopping and turning around to get to the hotel. Linda and I were roommates and part of the lucky few who got rooms with 2 single beds instead of having to share a double as many did. Quoting Linda, “Nuns suffer well”. (I believe this applies to Basotho people in general). Given that I don’t, I noticed this contrast in so many big and small ways. Example: an older nun sat with her purse and blanket on her lap the entire 16 hrs – not until I suggested that she could put it on the aisle floor did she do so. She also sat with the seat in front of her tilted back, practically into her lap, without making a peep about it. If the driver had the music cranked-up too loud, Linda and I were the only ones who would ask him to turn it down. At some stops, the driver would forget (?) to unlock our door so we were stuck inside. I would be the one banging on the window to get us out.

Back to Track 1 and the breathtaking beauty of the Cape Town area. My best description is that is has the appearance of San Diego (modern harbor, glitzy waterfront mall, beaches, tide pools, and surfers), Kauai (green cliffs dropping straight into the ocean, ocean meets mountains as far as the eye can see), Napa Valley (vast expanses of vineyards throughout the countryside) and Colorado (snow-dusted mountain peaks, winding river gorges with waterfalls).It doesn’t get better than this – except for a couple of flaws. Another tour bus outside our hotel came out in the morning to find their tires gone. There are also the Shantytowns. We passed by a couple of them near the freeway. They look like 12’x12’ tin, board and rock structures lined-up by the hundreds with no water or electricity. Cooking is done by little fires next to their shed and pit latrines were laid-out together by the dozens. A horror by any standards, and nothing we would dream of in Lesotho. People can be poor and hungry here, but they usually have shelter and land.

We had a couple of South African guides (teachers by profession) who were helping us get where we wanted to go. The two things that everyone knew they wanted to do were to go to Robben Island (the prison where Mandela spent most of his 27 years) and the top of Table Mountain. Unfortunately, neither of those happened – TM was closed due to wind and Robben Island needed advance reservations. So the most successful day was our visit to the Cape of Good Hope. Wow! - the southern most tip of Africa, the meeting of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, the stories from history classes about the many ships that were lost trying to get around the windy and dangerous cape. The drive from CT to the point was spectacular – we saw dolphins, whales close enough to touch, and (protected) baboons along the road. We hiked-up to the 600 ft. overlook and lighthouse and basked in the wind, sun and beauty.

Meanwhile, Linda and I explored the city during our free time. We took a self-guided walking tour, taking us by the Old Town Hall where Mandela stood and gave his first speech (1990) after being released from 27 years in prison. We wandered through a gorgeous garden strip(Company Gardens) that extended for blocks, breathing in the gigantic fichus trees, tropical plants, cypress trees and aviary. We found our way to the Moslem section with its brightly colored homes (pink, yellow, blues and greens) and many locals in the streets celebrating and greeting each other. We wandered along the campy Long Street filled with fun shops, cafes and restaurants. We wandered the cultural museum, filled with remarkable cultural anthropology displays. My favorite area was Green Market Square where African crafts were being sold, enclosed by sidewalk cafes. I saw beautiful dyed fabrics, masks from many countries, beaded and bone jewelry, and exquisitely stained wooden bowls. I noticed I was having trouble finding a context for shopping. Below the mind’s surface were my musings- I am in the Peace Corps, I live in poor dusty Lesotho in a 300 sq foot house, I just gave away most of my worldly possessions, What could I use this for? Where would I put it? When would I wear it? You see my conundrum. What I wasn’t confused about though, was book shopping. I dropped some big bucks in the book store, storing up on African novels and travel guides. Overall, it was disorienting to be in a place where everything is accessible and at one’s fingertips. I am already adapted to the emotional state of inaccessibility of goods and information. Back in Lesotho, I know what I want and have never been able to find – it is simpler! Linda and I spent all three evenings at the Waterfront– eating fabulous food, checking out the gorgeous shops, basking in the opulence, even seeing a movie(the first one in over 4 months). This was mostly of no interest to the nuns. It was an extravagant world, beyond their reach and not relevant to their lives. What was relevant to them though, were good shoes. So our final day in CT was spent entirely in 2 shoe stores. From 11am to 4pm we were either in the stores, waiting for others or traveling to the next store. And they weren’t only shopping for themselves but for friends or children at home. We departed CT at 4pm, spent a little time lost in the gorgeous countryside, and arrived in Lesotho 16 hours later.

Some of the questions I kept asking myself throughout the five days were:

Who is in charge? What are we waiting for? When should we regroup? Where are we going? Why are we doing it this way? I will never make a good Basotho nun with all of these ridiculous questions. There was rarely structure like “Be back at the bus in one hour”. So at various stops, people would linger around the bus, then break-off and scatter and no one knew for how long. Or the bus would be loaded but just sit there, sometimes for an hour, with no questions asked. Or there was the time at the mall when the guides told everyone to regroup at 6:30 (Whew! I love a time frame) but after everyone departed, “they” decided that we should leave at 5:30. Meanwhile, nuns are scattered throughout the mall. (I think this was an example of the generation gap – the younger nuns loved looking around, while the older nuns saw nothing of interest in this gigantic world of fashion and consumption.) When I would ask the guides what the plans were, they would always say “We don’t know, it is up to you all”. Finally after one confused waiting-for-Godot experience I said to them through grinding teeth, “YOU have to take charge – no one here can do that. Please!” Linda speaks of the “herd mentality”. There is discomfort if anyone launches out in front or singularly. So no one wants to take charge, make decisions without consensus, or stay behind to do their own thing. Example: a few nuns wanted to stay at the beach (some had never seen the ocean before) while the others went up to Table Mountain. The bus sat for an hour until the beachers agreed to go up the mountain with the whole group. But overtime, I began to notice that things really did work themselves out, and without my fabulous organizational skills! People did return to the bus, eventually, and no one was ever lost.

Things always took many more hours than I could have imagined, and there was usually an abundance of sitting and going nowhere. But, in time, there was movement, cohesion and completion- just not in the time frame that my Western, efficient, Aries-type temperament would have chosen. The nuns are talking about returning with another group next year. I wonder if offering myself as their tour organizer could be a good Peace Corps project?

BODIES IN MOTION

As I live next to a maternity ward, there are pregnant women always flowing in and around my world. They come from villages far and wide to deliver here. Some are here for 24 hours and leave after delivery. ( I saw one woman being stitched-up after delivery and three hours later she was walking out of the clinic with baby wrapped on her back.) Others are here for a long time, having misjudged their impending delivery. I have mentioned that I would love to be around for a delivery and the time finally seemed right. A woman (June) was having very intense contractions but was hardly dilated. It turns out that she had been to a traditional healer who had inserted some “medicine” in her to bring on labor. This is not uncommon for the village women to use traditional medicine. I was told that it consists of horse placenta, mercury (?) and herbs. I checked in and out of the labor room as the evening progressed. By the time she was dilated to 8, she was exhausted and no longer having contractions. At 11pm, I walked into the strangest of scenes. The woman had four nurses around here – one was standing on the head of the bed, feet on either side of her head, bent over her, pressing down on her womb with all her weight. When this nurse became tired, another nurse climbed onto the bed (hiking boots and all) and did the same thing. The woman looked like a rag doll while she was basically being pounded by the staff. They were also angry at her and called her “uncooperative” because she had been pushing when she wasn’t supposed to be. To make a long story short, the baby’s head was jammed/turned into the pelvis so they sent her to a government hospital for a Caesarian. Sadly, the baby did not survive. A bad labor, a bad outcome. That scene is seared into my mind’s eye and I am sure I will never forget it.

And now for another scene I will never forget. I received a personal hand-written invitation to attend a “crime-prevention” event beginning at 8am. I am thinking that this will be some classroom lecture with the local police. It turns out to be a major event being held at the town soccer field. Chiefs from the major towns were there, heads of police departments, Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Forestry, Deputy Prime Minister of Lesotho, choirs, dance performers, and a band. Of course, the event didn’t begin until 11am. So to kill time, my counterpart and I began walking around the town and we were waved into the local funeral home. They wanted to give us a tour. The entry room was filled with caskets standing on-end, some purple, some blue, some brown, ranging in price from $150 to $600. The funeral home handles the whole event for $150 plus casket. This business says they do about 5 funerals per month. It seems that every Saturday, everyone is going to a funeral. The previous week, they were holding 30 bodies (just from the local area). So, I am asked if I want to see the dead bodies and I say “sure”- (they did look a little surprised). I am walked into the body-preparation room and the cold storage door is opened. I feel the coolness and I smell the formaldehyde. Then I see death. Through the dim light, the first person I see is an old silver-haired man, skin and bones. I see that the room has a couple of bunk beds with several bodies on each bed (probably 10-12 in all), partially, but not completely covered with sheets . I looked hard, trying to see the ages, the conditions of the bodies, the faces. Mostly what I noticed was how thin and emaciated they all appeared. And I noticed how one bed held several bodies which were all small and very thin. I imagined AIDS to be the grim-reaper for most of them. The smell of formaldehyde lingered around me for some hours.

Neither the labor room nor the cold storage room shocked or horrified me. I mostly found myself fascinated with practices that are somewhere between two worlds – the world of the traditional/simplified/primitive, and that of the steely, precise, Western sophistication. This is consistent with my impression of Lesotho as a land in major cultural transition. The Basotho have a long history of Kings, chiefdoms, patriarchy, polygamy, and traditional healers.. But with democracy, Christianity, gender equality laws and technology, they are stumbling into something new and unknown. It doesn’t move gracefully or easily. It can appear comical, or horrifying, or clumsy. I am grateful for this snapshot of a land and culture trying to do this difficult dance in two worlds.

THE FEAST

The Mission has been anticipating this event for some time – even putting-up a new outdoor chapel for the special day. It was in honor of a local priest who has been in service for 25 years. Holy Names Sisters came from all over Lesotho and some from S.Africa. The Bishop was even here. Food preparation went on for days to feed the hundreds that arrived. It was truly an amazing accomplishment and such beautiful teamwork by all.

It started with honking horns and a parade of trucks and animals (fancied-up with ribbons and bows. The horses were galloping around the chapel and the air was filled with trilling, singing and the banging of drums. The children danced, everyone sang, there were prayers and speeches interspersed throughout. The world appeared to be made of beautiful swirling blue blankets. It was a meeting of the traditional Catholic church (with the robes and the habits and the symbolism), combined with the Basotho culture of song and dance, animals, and blankets.

LOSSES

I heard some beautiful singing near my house and followed the song. I found the Primary school children outside practicing for an upcoming mass. The Basotho, as most outsiders will testify, are gorgeous harmonizers and it seems to be bred into their every note. I was told that they were practicing for the funeral of one of their classmates – a 5th grader. Her story is that she came here from S.Africa some years ago. She had extreme and terrible symptoms of TB with bursting and draining lymph nodes. She was tested for HIV but came-out negative. She improved, them became worse. She was tested again, again was negative but was sent for more sophisticated test. From there the story is fuzzy, but it is believed that the hospital did not test her because it costs more money. It turns out that she had been HIV positive all those years but it wasn’t confirmed until it was too late.

The service was held outside next to the school. The casket was driven in on the back of a pick-up truck. Relatives sat in the middle of a circle of children and teachers. After the singing and memorials, the cover was lifted and the adults filed by to see her face. (the children were spared this). None of us were without tears. No death goes unnoticed here and families openly mourn for months, shaving their heads as a symbol of their grief.

The denial through the country of the AIDS epidemic is astonishing. I spoke to a HIV positive woman at the clinic. She had come into the clinic with a CD4 count of 03 (at 350 one is put on ARV drugs). She was very ill and had been for sometime. She knew about AIDS and knew people who were dying from it. But she said it never crossed her mind that she could have it. She now works in the clinic as a counselor and is doing a great job. Statistics in developing countries indicate that life expectancy for someone on ARV’s is only 10 years. This is due to poor nutrition, vulnerability and exposure to secondary infections, and lack of consistent adherence.

PEPFAR (Presidents Emergency Plan for Aids Relief) is expected to put 28-40 million/year into Lesotho in the upcoming years. The focus will be on preention and outreach to the most remote areas. Peace Corps Lesotho monies will increase from $89,000/yr to $500,000. Some will go to increasing the number of volunteers here – currently there are about 85 of us. Statistics indicated that 40% of the population between 15-40yrs are HIV positive.

People here die of things besides AIDS , TB and car accidents. A clinic nurse had just returned from the graduation party of his best friend. He received a frantic phone call from the friend (John). John’s brother, a policeman, had shot and killed his father, brother #1, injured brother #2, and shot at John. Apparently, he was jealous that he hadn’t been given such a celebration at his own police graduation. A Congolese friend’s comment to me seems apt. I had said to him, “I find the Basotho people very patient, they sit and wait for so many things so often.” He said “Until they aren’t.” As an African but not Basotho, he has a unique perspective. He has found that the people are slow to burn, but once they ignite, there is no stamping out the flame.

On the lighter side (Whew!), I attended a Peace Corps September Birthdays Party at the Irish Ambassador’s home. A PC couple have been “adopted” by the ambassador so a big birthday bash was held at their home. Nice big house, gorgeous grounds, and lots and lots of drinking by the youngsters. I was hoping to meet a bunch of NGOers but no such luck. I did meet many fine volunteers who I hadn’t seen before – many who are finishing their assignments in the next couple months. The following day I was a guest at the very upscale athletic club in Maseru. It was a bizarre experience to be on an exercise machine in a gorgeous building with tennis courts and a full indoor swimming pool, in the heart of impoverished Lesotho.

BLOOMIN’

Spring is happening, and the beautiful pink peach tree blossoms are coloring the brown countryside in every direction. My garden was planted this week. Since I have never successfully grown anything more than a basil leaf, this will be a challenge. But I am noticing that I have a lack of greens and veges in my diet so I will welcome the access to them (she said optimistically). I live in a small village area that has very limited supplies. No shortage of potatoes and rice or fruit of the season – but little else for now. And the two “camptowns” on either side of me ( 20-60 minute taxi ride) aren’t much better.

My experience of “luxury” has taken a hit since the first week. I haven’t had any hot water. And as often as not, I don’t have any water at all. I have taken to filling-up a very large pot whenever I do find the water running (sometimes at 3am!) so at least I will have drinking water. Bathes and clothes washing are now in the luxury category. I guess this is the norm around here. The compound is filled with water tanks that catch the rain run-off. The clinic buildings are using a well which is where the shortage is happening, but some of the nun residences use the public water supply which has to be paid for and is running fine. Everyone scurries around here with buckets looking for water for cooking, cleaning , animals, and gardens. Maybe this will ease when the rains come. We had a terrific 24 hours of wind. It sounded like a North Dakota blizzard except with dirt and dust- everything is oh-so dry. I am just beginning to feel what it is like to live in a very poor country where access to everything (food, water, books, medical care, information, transportation, lamps, sponge mops, paint colors, maps) is so extremely limited. It is really a lack of choices (one type of cereal, 5 paint colors, 2 hours walk to the clinic) and a lack of people with skills to offer services or information. The computer school that is next to me has one computer with internet access. I finally received permission to use it 2 hours per day – I was happy – but it “broke” the day before I got to it. They think it may be fixed in the next few weeks.

St.Rose Clinic is intending to reopen its Village Health Posts in four different areas. As there are over 20 villages in this catchment, it means the villagers from surrounding areas will need to get themselves to these posts for the once/month contact. My counterpart, Call, and I took a taxi to these posts to make contacts with the chief and/or village health workers. Our taxi was a little broken down Corolla that scraped along the barely noticeable road-we should have been in a Landrover! Finally we had to get out and walk the last 15 minutes as the road ended in a ravine. The chief of this village was a woman whose husband had died some years ago. We always ask the villages to think about the kinds of needs they have and then later we can see how Peace Corps can assist them in these needs.

I have also begun to meet with some of the village outreach groups ie.Red Cross, Know Your Status, Village Health Workers, to introduce myself and get their ideas about the type of trainings they feel would be beneficial to them. These trainings will likely fall into categories of HIV/AIDS counseling and prevention, nutrition and gardening. I am hoping to invite other PC volunteers in to help me with these trainings as they have expertise that I don’t have- (to say the least!)

Peace Corps has suggested that we take these first three months to “integrate” into our community and not attempt to jump into any projects. This is great advice as there is so much to learn about the systems we are living in and to understand more deeply the Basotho culture. I am so fortunate to know a Canadian woman (Linda) who is living on the compound and will be here for the next year. She has been in Lesotho for 9 months, so her perspective and understanding is also very valuable. Besides this, she will be a great friend. We both count our lucky stars to be on this journey together.

My first package arrived after seven weeks with a French Press and Starbucks coffee. My mornings have been made! I am still enjoying the Milky Way and try to catch the spectacularly orange sunsets every day.

A DAY IN THE LIFE

The Health Center –Mission is teaming with life. It is my community, my village, my family, the center of my work. It is a multi-generational world, from birth to death. Besides the community that lives here – the nuns, the staff and their families, the boarding school children – there is the influx of patients that come to the clinic and the hundreds of elementary school children The catchment area for this clinic alone is 15,000 people and 22 villages. Every day has a different focus for the clinic – ARV testing, HIV counseling and meds, mothers and infants, generic outpatient issues. This week the UN World Food Program made their once/mo food delivery to HIV+ and/or TB+ individuals and their families. Hundreds of villagers from the area came with their wheel barrows, their donkeys, their oxen carts and taxi transport to receive their rations of palm oil, peas, corn-soy blend, and maize meal. At the same time the villagers were scurrying around measuring and loading their supplies, the elementary school was practicing their “traditional dance” performance for the competition this coming week-end. It was a wild and wonderful cornucopia of sound, movement, and life.

I am beginning to be introduced to the chiefs in the various villages and also the principals of the schools. I am excited that I can start taking some action with the African Library Project (http://www.africanlibrary/ Project.org). This will involve book drives and fund-raising ($500) from the States, and the books will be shipped to me where I will be working at getting the school libraries established. Most schools don’t have anything resembling libraries, so the need is tremendous. If you have an interest in participating (before Feb) please let me know.

OATH OF SERVICE

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge my duties in the Peace Corps. So Help Me God.

I am 48 hours into being an official Peace Corps Volunteer, having been sworn in at our graduation. I must say, it was one of the more emotional days of my life. When I went to the front to accept the “certificate”, the Asst. Director hugged me and said “This has been a long time coming”. I was already teary from the previous speeches, so this broke me open into the realization of what I have done and am doing. Both the US Ambassador and the Country Director gave great talks about PC volunteers being the best emissaries of peace that the US has. They emphasized that we are on the ground making the person to person contact which can influence hearts and minds for a lifetime. Peace Corps has been in Lesotho for 40 years, and current volunteers often run into people who remember volunteers from many years back. Mostly, I am putting one foot in front of the other – but there are these few moments when I am overwhelmed by the reality of this long-held dream which I am living-out.

Our assignment for the next 3 months is to observe, ask questions, improve our language skills, and deepen our understanding of the community we are to serve. Sounds so good to me after that exhausting training schedule we were living. I am missing Bokone Village and the closeness to nature I experienced there – living with the rhythms of the herd animals by day, and at night the moon rise and the Milky Way smeared-sky. To mediate this yearning, I seem to be adopting the farm animals on the clinic compound. I have been visiting and watering the pigs every afternoon and talking to the horse and four cows. Such a different life from mid-town Sacramento!

ANTHEMS – August 4th

I think the Lesotho Anthem reflects something about the culture, as our anthem reflects something about the U.S., our history and culture.

The translation goes something like this:

Lesotho, land of our forefathers

Among the countries, you are the most beautiful

It is where we are born

It is where we grew-up

We love it

God, please protect Lesotho

Do away with wars and worries

Oh, this land of our forefathers

Let there be peace

Peace, Rain, Prosperity

You can see in some photos the unusual shaped hats that both the men and women might wear. They are cone shaped. This is taken from a geological formation in the countryside (see photo) of Thabo Bosiu) which has something to do with King Moshoeshoe and his fight to save the Basotho lands. It is a beautiful area!

Another facet of the Basotho history and mentality is represented in The Married Persons Act which came into law in 2006. Basically, this takes women and children out of the position of property owned by the husband or father, and into equal legal status. Prior to this, women could not own property and were passed from one household to another. Children now also have legal protection similar to that in the States. But, as you might imagine, the changing of cultural norms will take its own sweet time.

AUG. 3rd -

My new home is contained in St.Rose Health Center in the town of Peka – about 90 minutes north of Maseru. The town and surrounding area doesn't have any of the famous Mountain Kingdom scenery but the Health Center has many wonderful qualities. It is a large compound with many buildings to include a primary school, a computer school, a health clinic, a facility to care for aged nuns, a maternity ward, a boarding facility for girls/boys, housing for nuns and housing for staff. It also has gardens, maize fields, pigs, cows, sheep and chickens. From one side of the compound, I look across the fields and hills and can count numerous villages that I will be visiting in my outreach work. It looks like I could be doing a lot of walking.

My little 3 room residence puts me into the lap of Lesotho luxury – electricity, hot running water, toilet, and a small frig. Compared to volunteers who have to climb a hill to their pit latrine, or walk ¼ mile to pump their water, I have it made! Besides the little kitchen/sitting area I have 2 rooms with beds and desks and wardrobes. I use one closet for food storage and hope to make the room into a pleasant study room. I am looking forward to my home beautification project.

My supervisor, Sister Teresa, is a nurse and an amazing woman with seemingly boundless energy.. She came to this mission when she was 16 yo to escape apartheid. She often speaks about her experience with apartheid and the Boers. She says that to this day, she is still jittery at night for fear of the police knocking on her door and pulling her out of bed. She also has stories of helping political refugees cross the borders to escape prison. At 63yo, she still does night shifts and just delivered 2 babies the other night. My counterpart is a delightful 27 yo. nurse. She and I will be sharing a lot of time as we do the village outreach together. I am not allowed to provide “direct services” so my role is to train others how to teach about AIDS and how to deal with the emotional issues that arise. So much of the work has yet to unfold, but Peace Corps is very clear that sustainability is the focus and foundation of anything we bring to our sites.

Today we jumped through our last training-hoop – the language exam. We all passed – even though some of us have the most primitive of vocabulary. Our most used verbs are, I eat, study, teach, like, stay, and have. The nouns I know are about food, family, and home. A tutor will definitely improve things! On August 6th we have our graduation. What a relief to get out of this trainee role and into the life for which we have been preparing!

GOOD-BY BOKONE

The village held a feast and celebration for us on our last day. The “mother's" prepared enough food to feed hundreds. It was a formal process with our Country Director and the Village Chief sitting at a table together – the volunteers on one side and our Mothers (M'es) on the other. There were speeches by many, the mothers sang and danced, the village men did a dance, the girls did a traditional dance and drumming, and the volunteers sang a good-by song. The chief gave a beautiful speech (which was translated for us) saying that we as volunteers were here to help them, the Lesothoans, because of our Love. And that the Mothers, who took us in were also doing this because of their love and desire to help their people. It was very touching. After the huge meal of chicken, pumpkin, mashed potatoes, rice, and moroho (spinach), we took out last photos and gave our final hugs to our families. We piled into the Peace Corps vehicles, with most of the village shouting and calling and waving good-by to us. We were full of tears and smiles.

My M'e says that the little house/room that was my home, will be mine whenever I want to return for a visit. I look forward to sharing this beautiful and peaceful place with my American visitors.

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT

What a day!The volunteer trainees were invited to the American Ambassador's home today for lunch. It is a lovely home and they are a charming and easy-going couple. While there, we were surprised with an early announcement of our site assignments. I will be at a clinic run by a Catholic mission with many opportunities for extensive community outreach, HIV education, peer support groups, life skills training and much more. I also will have running water and electricity! After 6 weeks without this, it sounds like quite a treat. The primary work assignments of the volunteers cover a huge range from agricultural training in a high school, to eco-tourism development in the mountains, to small business development, to hospital work and more. Most of us are very excited about our assignments and ready to go.

I am now happily plopped on the front stoop of my Bokone village home, watching the bright orange full moon rise on my right, and on the other side, viewing my neighbor's wake. We have now had 5 village deaths in the month I have been here. The women have been preparing food for days, they've probably slaughtered an animal, (which I am glad I missed), and the men are now putting up the tent. Usually at these events (in fact, most any event) the men do a lot of drinking and can get rowdy. I am told it is going to be a noisy night.

INTO THE MOUNTAINS-July 19, 2008

We drove several hours north today to hike and BBQ in one of the national parks – Tsehlanyane. Finally, we got out of the Maseru “lowlands” (4500' ft) and into the famous Mountain Kingdom scenery – and it is gorgeous. One of our volunteers has been assigned to this park where an outstanding lodge has been built (and just happens to be where his office will be!). His assignment is to help them develop their eco-tourism business. Needless to say, he was thrilled! I was glad that I didn't know ahead of time how difficult the “2 hour” (really 3 hr) hike was going to be. There were many ups and downs, with 6000 ft. elevation, a tiny bit of snow, and a bunch of muddy slippery slopes. But it was a beautiful day and I patted myself on the back when I stumbled back for the BBQ.

To date, I haven't seen any TV or listened to any radio, so my only news is a weekly South African paper. The S.African President Mbeki has been in support of the Zimbabwe President Mugabe in spite of the horrors Mugabe has created in the economy. For example: the inflation rate has escalated 2.2 million percent, driving the cost of a loaf of bread to about1/3 of a teacher's monthly salary. There is 80% unemployment. Eight weeks ago the Central Bank issued a Zimbabwean $50 billion note – at the time it was worth about $4 (US) but 8 weeks later it is worth $0.40. there is a cash shortage so ordinary citizens can only draw about $.75 (US) per day (Z$100 billion). The African Union is trying to get together to decide how to intervene but so far they have been impotent.

Other bad news has to do with global warming and the increased droughts in countries like Ethiopia which has had 5 out of eight years of drought. In Uganda there is a combination of droughts and floods, increasing landslides, deforestation, malaria, and the tsetse fly.

Lesotho's practical and fashion wear are blankets. They have distinctive colors and designs related to the districts they are from The designs are of a corn cob (fertility), a cabbage leaf (prosperity), and a crown (related to the British Imperialism). They have only been part of the culture since the late 1800's when European traders gave King Moshoeshoe a blanket which became the rage, and the animal skins were thrown aside. Women wear them like coats or skirts They have a gigantic safety pin which seems to be the only assistance in keeping it in place. Men are often bundled head to thighs in them, protection from the frosty mornings in the fields. Babies are also bundled-up in the blankets on the backs of their mamas. They are expensive but everyone seems to have them.

I had my M'e (mother) and her two daughters to my room last night for popcorn and hot chocolate. It has been especially cold (below freezing) the past 2 nights and they have no heat in their house. Whereas, I have my little propane heater which keeps me comfortable. She is always amazed at how warm my room is. There is a donkey-neighbor who, every night when it is most cold, goes into a noisy donkey protest. I am imagining that in donkey language he is screaming - “It is friggin' cold out here!”.

Although I am living with only a 2 burner propane stove, a propane heater, and one kerosene lamp, I still feel like a spoiled Western consumer. I was the first of my group of 7 to use-up my propane tank. My M'e has to pump and haul my water for me and I am guessing that I use more then the locals. The 2 large buckets that I have are for drinking ( I boil it), bathing (not so often), washing dishes and clothes. My garbage consists of a smallish plastic bag which usually takes me a week to fill.

I am still figuring out the shopping and cooking thing. So far, I am good with rice or Ramen noodles mixed with anything- anything to date means canned tuna, salmon, and smoked oysters. I am also getting my fill of yogurt, granola and fruit. I have made two types of bread (orange and apple)which I consider a major accomplishment. What about the refrigeration, you might ask? Well, as this is winter, everything stays cool enough. Summer will present new challenges.

We have had 3 deaths in the. village over the past 2 weeks – 2 men in their 20's and one older man. Our group of volunteers spent a little time with the mother and wife of 2 of the deceased and donated some money which brought her to tears. As people are said to die of the “common cold” here, it is often hard to know the cause of death. Bur we are told that one young person died of TB. I read that 30% of the world's population has TB (astounding!) and a high percentage of people with AIDS have TB as their immune systems are so vulnerable As volunteers here, we are also at risk, especially as we will be relying on public transport which is cramped and full of people. The Medical team here has given us prevention tips and will test us as time goes on.

Bokone Village volunteers had an assignment to do a village fund-raiser. We held a “concert” which is different than what we Americans think of. There was an admission fee ;1 Maloti -.(12 cents) for adults and half that for kids. Then people paid whatever they wanted to get someone or some group to sing. One could also buy their way out of it by paying more than the inviter paid. Our volunteer group had a grand repertoire prepared – Blowin' In The Wind, Hokey-Pokey, Row Your Boat, In The Jungle, Hakuna Matata, and some Basotho songs. Our families all came with dozens of children and adolescents. I paid to have my extended family perform, and there were about14 of us. Almost everyone was in front at some point. The Basotho are natural harmonizers and it is always wonderful to see and hear the women singing and moving to their lovely songs.

The training continues to be a 40 hr/wk job with more info on HIV/AIDS, small business development, working with youth, language, and self-care. It should all be useful when we get to our own villages.

I am sitting on the front stoop of my little home in Bokone Village, late afternoon. I am watching and listening to the cows, sheep and goats being driven home by the herd boys, come sunset time. Occasionally I will see a man galloping down the road on his horse, or a young boy bouncing by on the back of his donkey. Hens and their chicks are scratching around in the dirt, clucking and peeping. The family is building their outdoor fire, preparing for their dinnertime. It has been corn-harvesting time so after the cobs are cleaned by hand with a sharp stone, the bare cobs are used to fuel fires. Families cook with open fires both inside and outside. The inside fires are nearly unbearable with smoke and it is hard to believe that everyone does not have lung cancer. My 33 yo Me (mother) likes to take me around to visit her extended family of in-laws. As I have done this, I have taken photos which I have been able to get into my computer. So we then go back for a second round to show the pictures. The family stands around the computer and laughs uproariously as the photos appear. She is so thrilled that these pictures will be seen in America. The grandparents had 13 children (11 sons) so several are still alive and living in the village. I have cousins everywhere! This village has had 10 different PC training groups over the years, but they are still very curious about us. If I go for a walk, I am always joined by children or young adults who want to practice their English. (They also know that they are to get us to practice our Sesotho.) Greetings are being shouted from every doorway, usually with the questions of “what is your name” and “who is your family”.

Peace Corps is doing a great job of acculturating us. Last week we had our first opportunity to negotiate the taxi system from one town to another. These taxis are mini-buses holding 12-15 people. This usually includes the “stuff” we are transporting. Volunteers are known to spend 3-6 hours (and more!) getting to the PC Office from their sites. It seems that they get pretty mellow about this overtime. All I know is that my legs were going to sleep after one hour. One of the little quirky cultural things is that as a female I can't walk into the village store and buy myself a bottle of beer.(This is true for the Basotho women also.) It is different in the larger Camp Towns, but here, it would damage my reputation.. So, I have to “do a deal” with one of the male volunteers and use discretion in the “hand-off”. Another traditional no-no, is, as females, we should not walk in front of a herd of cattle. This is hard to pull-off at sunset when it seems like cow-time rush-hour traffic. I am still in skirts ALL the time....even for our hiking outings....pretty annoying. I am hoping that this will change once we get to our sites (around Aug.6th)

The children are on a 3 month winter break from school. We are holding our PC classes in a nearby school room. It is in shocking disrepair – blackboard half broken-off, floor tile half torn-up, termite dirt piles along the edges of the room, ceiling water stained and falling-in. I am told that this is not exceptionally bad or unusual. Primary school is free but not mandatory. Possibly 1% of the children who begin school actually graduate from high school. English is the official language but is not even necessarily used in the schools. The children must pass exams along the way, British-style, and have a very hard time in meeting basic standards. The PC educators that come here have some fantastic challenges.

My training group had a little holiday BBQ today with burgers, beans and slaw. I am having a little holiday Minnesota home-sickness as this is my favorite time to be with family at the lake....children, games, water, boats, fireworks. It is winter here and the days are short. I am bundled into my long underwear and warm jacket, seemingly worlds away. But as one of my classmates says, “How bad can it be? We are sitting on the steps of the Chief's house in the middle of Africa!”

The country is the size of Maryland or the country of Belgium. 1.8 million people here. 21-26% (ages 15-40) with HIV/AIDS. Third largest prevalence in the world (next to Swaziland and Botswana). Thee are over 60 AIDS related deaths per day. In April 'o8 the government made ARV drug treatment free. They have also begun to connect ARV treatment with food supplements. There are 77,000 children who no mothers and 46,000 double orphans. lesotho is one of the poorest countries in the world. The average life expectancy is under 40 years.

Today we met with a village chief who speaks English. Nearly every village has a chief (oldest son of first wife) and the villages ae run with the traditional hierarchy. We are told that he is on-call 24/7 to handle any and all questions, problems and decisions. We have an assignment to do a fund-raising activity for the village, which must have approval from our chief.

I have been here 6 days and the weather has included a day warm enough to be in t-shirt and sandals, a day cold enough for long underwear and thick socks, a thunderstorm to shake me out of my skin, and a high decibal hail drop on the metal room of my room.

Forty-eight hours in my training village of Bokone and I am totally charmed. My new family consists of a 33 yo woman whose husband is away working in the mines of S.Africa and hr 9 yo and 8mo. old daughters. I feel extremely fortunate for this match as she is delightful, a wonderful mother, and speaks a little English. There are 7 volunteers in this village and we meet for language and other classes every day. Our schedule still seems to be very full as we are also learning to prepare and cook the local foods. This week every meal is prepared for us, but soon we will be on our own.

The countryside is gorgeous - dramatic buttes and hills rising all around us - it has a Southwest USA feeling... until you see the cattle and sheep hearders brining in their animals every evening at sunset. My room has a full on view of the sunrise and moonrise and the gorgeous golden pinks of sunset. The evening sounds are of cow bells, barking dogs and donkey braying. I am fortunate not to have roosters living around me, as some volunteers are suffering from sleep depravation because of the 3am crowing.

My room for the next 7 weeks is 12'x16' with a new queen bed, a table and 2 chairs for eating, and a table to hold teh burner and pots and pans - and happily a propane heater. I also have my bathing tubs, my pee bucket and a variety of other buckets for very specific purposes. My 'mother' brings me hot water every morning for bathing and she keeps me supplied with boiled water for drinking. We are a football field away from S.Africa to the NE across the river. It is corn harvesting time so most everyone has piles of corn in front of their houses which will soon be turned into meal for 'papa', their main dish.

June 18th

I am imagining that one day I will wake-up and realize that I am not just on a cool adventure vacation....that bucket baths, pee buckets, outhouses, and lantern light are really my life.

The wind is blasting across the countryside today, rattling every window and door, and throwing sandy dust into our eyes. Even the children aren't playing in front of my room today. My room has four types of linoleum on the floor. When the wind blows under the door it puffs-up the linoleum into the center of the room.

We are in classes all day from 8:30 to 4pm - language, health, culture, community organizing, HIV, fundraising, economics, small business, etc etc. This is because our group of 23 is called CHED - Community Health and Economic Development. We are all receiving the same preparation for our final sights with skills and info that we may or may not use.

I am in a language class of 3 - we all know we are the slow ones struggling with the basic greetings and verbs. The whole village joins in helping us. Every person we meet on the road stops to talk, asking us our names and the family we are from and the coutnry we are from. We all have been given Basothu names - unfortunately mine has a gutteal KH and a click in it (Khatljo - meaning success/prosperity). The language has many vowels reminding me of Hawaiian with a little Italian flare thrown in - and the occassional impossible click. I am happy and well. Mostly, am still surprised I am here!!

Well, I had a nicely formed report all written out but now, with my moment of internet access, I don't seem to have it with me. We have had an action-packed week jammed full of information regarding security, culture, language, policies and vaccinations. I can't believe that I am learning a new language!! The dust balls keep getting in the way of the brain circuitry so it is going to be a slow process. The trainers and staff are delightful, patient, kind and jolly. They sing in beautiful harmony to us everyday and we all sing the Sesotho National Anthem together....also the Star Spangled Banner. Probably my most poignant moment this week was when the Country Director was introducing himself to us and began with an NPR "This I Believe". He reminded me of the values and principles of the Peace Corp which has to do with promoting peace and understanding, to assist the poorer in growth and opportunity, and to promote understanding between our cultures. The original flame and desire for joining PC suddently came rushing into me. I was again feeling the idealism and heartfullness of this very big journey. It was as if time collapsed and I was once again 20 years old with this dream....and here I was actually Living it!! It was pretty overwhelming and later I explained to the Director why tears were rolling down my face as he was speaking.

The culture is much more playful than I had imagined given the info I had about the Catholic and missionary history here. The women speak very openly about their "mountains" where money is kept for safe keeping. The mountains are exposed without much self-consciousness but never never show your thighs....that is the sacred territory. And the men must keep their "animals" covered at all times also. I can't wait for the class on the Sesotho sexual practices!

We haven't been out in the world much at all as we are in classes from 8am-8pm. Some of us gather to take 6:30am walks to get in a little exercise before the long days of sitting. Maseru seems to be a place in which we need to travel in pairs and never at night. Our compound has 24/7 security guards and barb wired fences. We are receiving many instructions about how to stay safe. The village life is suppposed to be very different.

The weather has been very decent with no rain and not too cold. The days are sunny and relatively warm. I am so loving my down sleeping bag! The food is ample and it is easy to gain weight. Sesotho women are supposed to be fat as it is a sign of abundance. If people call you fat, it is a compliment.

On Sunday, we divide into three groups and go to three villages with trainers where we will be stationed for the next 2 months. This is where we will receive the true lessons in village life to include cooking, gardening, public transportation, and more language. We are all ready to roll.

I should have some email access most every weekend so will love hearing from you.

Wow! We are here in Lesotho!! After the 19 hour South African Air flight, we spent the night in Johannesburg...just long enough to have dinner, bathe, sleep and catch the morning flight to Maseru. Flying into Maseru in our small prop plane was magic. It was a crystal clear day with bright blue skies. We could see the snow-capped mountains of Lesotho from many miles away. The mountins rise-up like a table - very abruptly. The country is 2/3 mountainous with a western edge of lowlands (4ooo ft) and foothills. Maseru is in the lowlands so we are enjoying mild weather -like crisp fall days in Sacramento.

We are living at the Peace Corps training center for the first couple of weeks. We have a schedule of classes every day taught by the local Peace Corps staff and schedules for our numerous vaccinations. Security is very high and that is the first class they gave us. So we know to travel in packs, hide our money, don't go to certain areas, and give it over if confronted by a thief. This is the city-life. Once we are in our villages, I understand that safety is not an issue.

Accommodations at the training site are really basic. We decided that they did this, so that we will be happy to leave for our training villages in 10 days. We will be divided into three groups and sent out with two trainers to live the village life. They are going to teach us many many things - most of which I am completely clueless. Examples include making our own gardens, preserving and canning, making bread, hauling water, bathing with a bucket....and of course the language. I can literally feel the missing circuitry in the memory bank. I am having trouble even remembering one or two words in Sesotho at this point. I am going to get myself some flash cards and study hard. There are younger volunteers here who are fluent in Japanese, Swahili, Spanish..thank goodness we aren't being graded on a curve! After our 8 weeks in the training villages, we will be given our assignment for the next 2 years. They try very hard to match our needs and desires with an appropriate sight. I am looking forward to exploring the possibilities of how I might use my mental health background.

The Lesothans at the sight are kind, patient, open, friendly, and full of life. I can't say much more at this point, since our exposure to the public has been minimal.

No worries, I am in good hands and with good company.

We have just finished our 2 days of "staging/orientation" in Philadelphia. Here, I have met the 22 other volunteers who are on my team and will be serving the 27 months with me in Lesotho. They are a vital, vibrant, thoughtful, bright group of mostly 20 somethings. There are four of us in the 40-60yo age range. It will be so fun to get to know these people better over the next months of training.

We climb onto the plane tomorrow (June 4th) and look forward to a nearly 18 hr flight. We arrive at our training center on June 6th and begin the long and busy days of language and cultural training.

A current volunteer in Lesotho has written a very thorough and descriptive article on life in Lesoto as a volunteer. So, rather than repeating that which has already been said, I will refer you to her article. http://www.thedailypage.com/isthmus/article.php?article=8019

The Obama speech tonight was thrilling. It is an auspicious send-off.

At 8am, Mike the neighbor with the truck, the muscles and the know-how was knocking at my door. At 8:30, six neighbors and I were scurrying back and forth across the street, like excited ants transferring our prize from one nest to another. My too-beautiful-to-part-with bedroom set was going to the home across the street for some extended TLC. This seems like a win-win - teen-ager gets new bedroom set an d I don't have to sell it.

The next job for "Saint Mike" was to load and transfer my very large and heavy dining set to friend and new owner. She is thrilled and I am thrilled that she is thrilled. Next, newly annointed "Savior Mike" is loading up all the left-overs from my "estate sale" - turning it over to people who love yard sales and gleaning through stuff. Blessed are the hoarders and gatherers for they shall inherit my stuff.

The estate sale itself was a combination of overwhelming, fascinating, annoying, gratifying and fun. I was fascinated by what people were interested in of my stuff. Hey what's the story with the guy who is looking at my old violin music? That must be a cool lady who loved my big basket from Bali! I bonded with a new neighbor who recognized the Burning Man dust on my tent. I had stories for so many items - the basket from Kenya, the scarf from Egypt, the etching from Switzerland, the needlepoint my mother made, the flowers my aunt painted. It just seemed right and important that the new owners knew a little piece of these stories. As a friend said, it is just energy moving out into the world. Bye-Bye I am now shocked that all of my worldly belongings can fit into a corner of my brother's garage.

After saying good-by, crying, hugging, laughing, crying, dog Bodhi and I jammed the car completely buldgingly full and made the 9 hour drive to San Diego -v-e-r-r-r-y c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-l-y-y. Please God, no silly accidents or injuries at this stage! Arriving, and dumping out all of the stuff I haphazardly threw from the house into the car, I must face the big test. Can I really squeeze all this stuff into my 2 bags? Unloaded, unorganized and scattered all over my brother's living room, I begin the final sorting, consolidating and cramming.

Bodhi is content in his mostly familiar San Diego surroundings with rabbits to chase and beaches to romp upon. I have eaten several years worth of scones, carrot cake, cheese cake, salmon, pizza and ice cream. This needs to hold me for 27 months! And talk about indulgence, my sis-in-law drew me the most luxurious bubble bath I have ever seen - complete with candles and soft music. Ahhh - this takes me to my new favorite Peace Corps joke - one-half glass of water: pessimist sees it half empty; optimist sees it half full; Peace Corps volunteer says Gee, I could take a bath with that!

On June 6th, picture me arriving in my new home in the southern hemisphere - land of unfamiliar starry nights, land of King Moshoeshoe and the Basotho's, land of music and song.

To my villaage -you know who you are- I am in deepest gratitude for all the love, physical and emotional support, time and energy you have offered. You have made this journey possible.

I awake at 7am and at 7:15 I find myself in front of the sink scrubbing the broiler pan. I move from room to room and each object I lay eyes on is another unfinished project. Everything I own is being reevaluated for monetary value, sentimental value, practical value and irreplaceableness.

I have been blessed by so many synchronistic reunions recently. A friend with whom I thought I had lost touch, calls out of the blue and we find time to collapse our 100 mile distance. A brother drives the 500 miles to take responsibility for my soon-to-be rental home and bumps into the soon-to-be-renters. A friend from Seattle finds 30 hours in her crammed schedule to fly in and help create the wardrobe I will have for the next two years. I fly to Minneapolis for 4 days and am able to see and soak in the 30 family members I wanted to see. A precious out-of-town friend arrives for a long-planned visit with the news that she was just given 3-6 months to live. A nephew just returning from living in England and a niece from Las Vegas both fly into the Bay Area for a fast and furious rendez-vous. I am able to return to the Contemplative Group at Old Folsom Prison for a final good-by because the Catholic Chaplain (who disapproves of me) retired last week. The timing of it all is quite exquisite.

The household is disassembling piece by piece. This week-end, I hope, will be one big gush with the estate sale event. Friends are responding to my call for help, and now I don't know how to use this help. But it feels oh-so-good to have the offers and feel the support.

People keep asking me if I am nervous, scared, excited. I am none of these. I am content. I think this is due to a deep sense of the Right Time and Right Action. No doubts and very few questions. The very biggest issue is getting my stuff sold or stashed - and trying to have the details organized so that my brother isn't pulling out his hair as he manages things for me. Beloved sis-in-law Patricia is making a second trip in her van from San Diego to carry back the short category of "irreplaceable" items. It's a great exercise and I recommend it. Look at all your stuff and decide what you absolutely whole-heartedly need to hang on to , what you will still want and need in five years, what doesn't matter to you one way or the other. I keep hearing my mother's voice saying, "You never see a U-Haul Trailer being pulled behind a hearse".

Unless we believe like the ancient Egyptians, and then we'd better have a big puppy-pile of friends and favorite foods in the pyramid. I'm bringing the pastry chef!