Beach Volleyball, local beer, rum, good people, the ocean

THANKS US TAXPAYERS

My frosty plane:

Driving to the training center:

View from the training center in St. Lucia

I was stuck in Newark airport for a little over 24 hours, but managed to run into G Dogg at like 4am after not sleeping. I am extremely thankful for SATO travel, who organizes government transportation, they made what was a nightmare for lots of other people (waiting hours in line in order to reschedule) really simple (20 minute phone call and they got me a new ticket with a different airline that left the next day). Considering my arrival time, it took almost as long to go from Lesotho to America as it did to go from New Jersey to Miami.

The day before yesterday I arrived in Miami at ~9pm and ate some cuban food at a restaurant before catching some blessed sleep. I woke up the next morning and got on a plane to St. Lucia, drove through the country to where I'm staying now. I met a lot of interesting people thus far, and I'm working on the whole name thing. I did manage to get out for a run this morning, which was great despite sweating for more than an hour after I finished running. We had some introductory meetings this morning and are now free for the weekend. I just finished lunch and figured I'd upload some pictures and just let everyone know that I made it over here OK. I'm not really interested in writing well for this first post, so expect some more interesting writing later down the line.

OK the internet is not cooperating so now pictures at the moment.

It's been quite a while. I'm stateside again, have been since December 17th. I'm leaving for St. Vincent and the Grenadines on January 27th to serve in youth development on the island of Bequia. I should have internet access, so it's likely that I'll be able to update this thing quite a bit (and I need to work on my writing skills, so expect that to happen).

Hey all,

Life is good.

The major shake-up in my life is that the education group that trained my group is now departing/has departed for the states. As a result I now have a lot more friends in the states (and quite a few less here).

As a result of these changes and a few others, I'm now also the only volunteer in the district of Qacha's Nek (~90 of us in country, 10 district) and that's kinda sad, as it means my closest American neighbor is at least 3 hours away. I'm bummed on that, but little else.

I have finished my first year. At some point I hope the internet won't be so slow so I can upload pictures.

till then!

Disclaimer: I will eventually post the photos I talked about, but the

internet is painfully slow today, even by Lesotho standards.THE LIBRARY IS ON ITS WAY. PLEASE HELP OUT! Contact Barbara Burk at

bburk@brookdalecc.edu, (732)577-1941, or 104 Juniper Dr. Freehold, NJ

07728It's been quite a while since I've updated, and believe me it?s not

from lack of things happening. The main reason I haven?t written is

because I feel very distanced from technology in lots of ways (and not

so much in others) but I don?t really enjoy sitting behind computers

like I used to and when I have the option to sit in front of one it?s

probably the first time I?ve seen Americans in a month or two.

Lots has changed at school. We had three teachers quit in the period

around our winter break (remember, the seasons are reversed) which

means 40% or 2/5ths of the staff has left since I joined, I can?t take

responsibility for this, as the last Peace Corps volunteer was at my

school longer than any other teacher. He served 2 years.

Fortunately the three teachers who quit were the three worst at the

school and the three that have since replaced them have been pretty

incredible thus far. ?M?e Ntsatsi graduated from Form E, by the skin

of her teeth, last year (she was, however, the only )one who graduated

last year... the other 15 students failed their year end test). She is

still very shy around the other teachers as a result, I?m sure, of the

fact that quite a few of them probably hit her with sticks for talking

during class just the year before. However, she does lots of work and

gets along very well with the Form A?s and B?s. ?M?e Mphati is

actually my host-sister, who was living in Maseru till she got the

job. She?s very high-spirited and is easily one of the best educated,

motivated and smartest teachers at the school, it?s also nice to have

her around because she knows the deal with PCVs well already. Ntate

Khotso is my favorite of the new group. He?s very well educated, and

spent a fair amount of time in South Africa, so we?re able to talk

about lots of things: he?s a big fan of Wu-Tang and is very interested

in learning chess.

I do want to admit I just had a chuckle to myself imagining some of

the members of my family trying to figure out how to pronounce any of

those names. ;-)

This weekend is the annual district ?ball sports? meet. This means

that all the high school and secondary school children come to the

camp town for the weekend and play soccer, netball, and volleyball.

They also manage to get really drunk and cause lots of problems for

their teachers (who also manage to get really drunk). The first day

finished and my school won the boys and girls soccer matches we played

and lost at netball, which is no surprise considering we don?t have

netball hoops in my area, so they just practice by throwing balls back

and forth. For those not in the know, netball is like basketball with

no dribbling, a short field, and no backboards. Other than that

there?s almost no difference. Here?s a picture (my school?s team is in

the green):

PICTURE

On the home front, the sheep have birthed 3 baby lambs, and I was able

to witness one of the births (and managed to get a little involved).

The next picture could be a little gross (only a little) but this lamb

is not even a minute old, so I figure I?d post it anyway.

PICTURE

The most exciting part of these births is that it marks the beginning

of SPRING! This means the temperature has been consistently higher

than 50 degrees in my rondavel, which is very exciting, during June

and July it never topped 53. The sun is wonderful and has increased my

mood a lot, and now all the peach trees are blooming so there?s bright

pink everywhere. Lesotho really can be beautiful.

PICTURE

I?ve been teaching my brothers how to play Frisbee with the hopes of

them learning Ultimate Frisbee and a potential match being played

here, which I think would be a lot of fun. They really enjoy the game

and a bunch of my students and Bo-Abuti from the neighborhood are

getting really into it.

PICTURE

With the return of spring comes the return of the insects. Fortunately

I took the advice of some fellow PCVs and cut my mosquito netting

(malaria is not a problem in Lesotho, and mosquitoes don?t really hang

out at my elevation, 6,000 feet or so) and used it to make screens. I

also managed to accidentally trap a brown button spider (I think)

which is up there with the black widow, in it. It is one of the

smaller spiders I?ve seen running around my rondavel, but 2 inches for

a spider is nothing to shake a stick at. Again, the picture is not so

great because of the netting being in the way, but it demonstrates the

point

PICTURE

I?ve been running a lot lately, planning tentatively for the Cape Town

marathon in Easter with the potential to do one or two in the time

before then.

That?s enough for now, here?s a bunch of pictures from the past few months:

Hey it's been a while since I have updated. I've been teaching winter classes this past week (My Form C's need the extra work). My girlfriend came through and we had a lot of fun, I'll post pictures at some point (Maybe tomorrow). Sorry I'm bad at blogging as of late. More tomorrow I hope.

As you may or may not know, I am a United States Peace Corps Volunteer serving proudly in a country called Lesotho (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesotho for more information). My primary responsibility as a PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) is as a teacher in Tebellong Secondary School, located in the Qacha’s Nek district.

This beautiful, rural school, set on the side of a mountain, hosts 250 Basotho students, Forms A through E (Think grades 8-12 in the US). These students have a great interest in learning, but their resources for doing so, both in and outside of school, are extremely limited. Fortunately, my school does have a library, thanks to a prior PCV’s effort. The children LOVE reading, they will sit for hours and pour through encyclopedias, poetry anthologies and anything they can get their hands on. When reading in the library they ask involved, interesting questions and want nothing more than to dive into the worlds the books provide. However, this library needs books that are more age-appropriate and new materials for the students. There are a few hundred books in there now, but many of them are well above the level my students can read at, and many others are not challenging, though they tear through them despite this. Because of this, I am asking for your help.

The African Libraries Project (http://africanlibrariesproject.org) provides support in building and filling libraries in Botswana, Swaziland, and Malawi, and Lesotho. Their primary function is as (relatively very cheap) cross-Atlantic transporters. The one thing I need on the stateside for my school’s library is to consolidate 250-1,000 books for shipping to Africa. My mother, Barbara Burk, has graciously volunteered to assist in the stateside efforts and will thus serve as my American liaison.

The books should be gently used or new and should be of the following types:

Juvenile Literature

Children’s fiction and non-fiction

Teacher’s books (the teachers can greatly benefit from resource)

Dictionaries

Encyclopedias less than 15 years old

Accurate, up-to-date atlases

Thesauruses

Books with universal themes (friendships, animals, love... The children will ultimately try to read anything, but their world is rather limited so plots involving specialized interests may be lost on them)

Books like Chicken Soup for the Soul (inspiring stories with life skills lessons)

Books about Africa or African Americans

Brainteasers, flash cards, educational games and puzzles

Even more important would be access to textbooks, and any other educational aides for the following subjects from grades 5-12 (the testing is standardized and based on a British exam)

Math books, including Algebra, Geometry, and Pre-Calculus

English books (focusing on grammar or comprehension, especially for ESL learners)

Geography books (Most of the kids had never seen a map before one was presented this year)

Health books (general is great, but anything regarding HIV/AIDs education is especially pertinent as the country has a 23% infection rate)

Science books including general science, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics books (again, these should be aimed towards middle/high schoolers)

The books can be dropped off at/shipped to

Barbara Burk

104 Juniper Dr

Freehold, NJ 07728

Telephone: 732.577.1941

Email: bcb1@optonline.com

My mother is also frequently at Brookdale Community College, so dropoffs can be arranged there as well, I'm sure.

I am hoping to get a school or schools involved (possibly a book store or two as well) so that books can be dropped off at those locations, but for now, focusing on digging through old books that you have access to would be more than enough. If you would like to contribute books, time, or help, my email address is brettmburk@gmail.com (though my access to the internet is rather haphazard here).

You can also reach me at

Brett Burk, PCV

Box 361

Qacha’s Nek 600, Lesotho

Southern Africa

Telephone: +266.59167839

Take note that it may take up to two months for me to respond to snail mail as the mail systems in place in the country are slow compared to America’s.

You can also check out my blog at http://itswhatyouwill.blogspot.com where I’ll make sure to post updates and it can be used to contact other people involved.

Thank you so much!

Brett Michael Burk

the staff room and the form C and form B building and the Form A building.

the school's kitchen building

parking lot

my roof

school's truck

accidental twins

my friend, the black widow

inside the rondavel (that's the old bike, not the new one, which is actually tall enough for me)

I'd like to lead off with a big thank you to the people who write me or send me packages; even small notes make all the difference out here.

It's been a while since I've written, so I'm hoping to make some sort of amends with this post, so forgive my wordiness, it comes as a result of my recent lack of proclivity towards writing.

Winter is here. It's been chilly; I don't think I've seen anything above 50 degrees F in a few weeks. I did buy myself two blankets, one for wearing during the day, which helps with my indoctrination into the local culture. The other blanket is a pretty garish leopard spotted thing (the reverse side has a giant lion on it) but it keeps me nice and snuggly in my cold little rondavel. More so than the cold of winter, it's the shortened daylight that I feel. My rondavel and school sit between two mountain peaks, and both sit partially on a mountain, so the sun peeks out at about 8:30 and hides itself at about 420. School starts at 7 and ends at 4:30, so my daylight hours are rather limited, which is quite a bummer.

Fortunately, school goes out on winter vacation on the 12th, until August, so I will be able to enjoy the short daylight hours plenty. My next quarter will actually begin July 20th, when I'll be teaching poetry to the Form C's for two weeks before beginning teaching all my other classes. Hopefully there will be a new teacher at my school when I return, so that I can stop teaching 30 credit hours/week, which is definitely cutting into my effectiveness, but after being approached by the teacher (since departed) several times to explain what an electron is (as in the basic high school definition of the thing that orbits an atom and has a negative charge) I volunteered to teach science (no chemistry or physics since junior year of high school, and I can tell you I wasn't exactly an academic inspiration to my classmates at the time).

All this teaching means that I have a lot of marking to do, it being exam time at my school. The marks this semester, due at least partially to my over-abundant schedule, have been fairly disappointing. Fortunately, when marks are disappointing, and you've included open-ended questions, you do get a little bit of enjoyment:

(Following a diagram of a microscope)

Question: (c) Which one of the sense organs is aided by this instrument?

Answer: Sperm

Let's just say that there's still a lot of confusion regarding sexual education with my form B's (aged 14-20). I do accept some responsibility for the copiousness of sexually related answers to open-ended questions on my exam: I did teach sex Ed. This quarter. Let me just say that I felt resource-less, as I literally only had an overly technical bio dictionary and what I could recall from high school sex Ed. This means that I felt a little amiss about some of my answers regarding menstruation. Fortunately the kids were not nearly as immature as American students and were very intently interested on what I had to say, as it is definitely a cultural faux pas to talk about sex with your parents or teachers, or for those same authority figures to address it with anyone. The children were initially resistant to asking questions until I told them they could submit them into a jar (OK . . . plastic bag) that I put in the front of the classroom. At this point they decided that it was perfectly OK for them to write down the questions, hand them to me, and have me immediately read them and answer them, as it was really only the speaking of certain words they felt was forbidden to themselves

Unfortunately, this was not the most interesting part of teaching at Tebellong Secondary School this quarter. That would have to be the fight that occurred about two weeks ago. One of my Form C students, Chabana, who is not a high-performer, but otherwise has been fairly non-descript in my classes, got into a fight. He hit another boy, Suntaha, because he wanted to get seconds at lunch before others had gotten their firsts. Suntaha, a Form D student, is in charge of making sure this doesn't happen and did not allow Chabana to get more food. Chabana took a swing, and a fight broke out. Suntaha, a bigger, older boy, clocked him in the mouth a few times, I didn't see this, but I did see the blood gushing out of his mouth. At this point in the fight I was still in the staff room marking papers.

I stepped outside after several teachers had already gone outside (I looked around and found the staff room suspiciously vacant) and saw the two boys on the lower part of the ground fighting, while literally the entire school was watching from the upper tiers of the compound. Chabana was clearly enraged as the majority of the school had sided with Suntaha, both on principle and because he was the better fighter, and were thus laughing at Chabana.

I was confused as to why the teachers were taking no action, assuming I was missing out on some cultural precedent (it wouldn't surprise me to find out they have a "let them fight it out" mentality... as they essentially do). Finally, another teacher, Ntate Sekonyela, walked down to intervene and I followed. The two of us pulled the kids apart. Suntaha, who I had taken out of the fight, walked towards the office building calmly. Chabana, held by Ntate Sekonyela, was much less sedate. He shook free of Ntate Sekonyela and he did not seem upset and did not try to restrain him, so I grabbed him and he seemed to calm down, so I let go of him. At this point he darted up the steps, directly next to all of the other teachers who had been watching, picked up a rock bigger than a fist, and threw it full force at the now running Suntaha, as he fled to the staff room. Unfortunately, Basotho are notoriously good aims with rocks and he managed to wail Suntaha square in the back. I ran to catch the boys, now fighting in the staff office, with 'M'e Tembe caught between them. I tore Chabana away and outside. 'M'e Tembe came quickly outside, covered in her own blood, with an incredibly vicious, unsightly cut above her eye (I swear I could see her skull). She was immediately rushed down the road to the hospital, fortunately my school has a truck and the hospital, one of the best in the district, is a ten-minute walk from my school. Needless to say the boy was expelled and will not be returning.

Violence in Basotho schools related to food is far from uncommon. This quarter, one of the closest high schools in my area had a food riot. The students, upset that they were only being fed cabbage and papa (essentially corn meal) when they wanted a little more diversity (my school has cabbage and papa on Monday and Thursday, Beans on Tuesday, Samp [dried corn with water added to it] on Wednesday, and Soup [featuring soy] and papa on Friday) decided the appropriate action would be to take stones to all the windows in the area, including the teachers residence, and even beat-up a few teachers. Another school, Eagles Peak, which is the closest school to me, closed its doors two weeks before the end of the quarter, for fear of the same thing happening. This means that they will be testing their students for this quarters work in two months. You don't have to be a teacher to understand how utterly ludicrous this is.

That's not to say that everything is bad at my school. I hosted a meeting at my school about a month ago and was able to essentially take beatings off the table. I wish I could take complete credit for this, but I feel that most of it lays with the wonderful examples set by the previous PCVs at my site, Meg Stockhausen and Todd Ellick, who did not use corporeal punishment, and the terrific class that Janice and Karen led on the subject during my phase III training. While I'm not going to pretend that kids aren't hit by some of the teachers during class, we set a strict punishment plan for various offenses that involve no beating and very limited alternative corporeal punishment. The alternative corporeal punishments mostly involve cleaning up the school premises with shovels, which rely upon consumption of time after school rather than grueling work. Otherwise the students sit for detentions and have to write letters, the latter turning out to be quite an intense punishment for non-native English speakers.

Other than school, a whole lot of nothing has been happening. Minus getting dropped off a few hours from home well after dark in a closed town by myself with no more public coming, life has been largely uneventful. This of course will change shortly, as Danie, my wonderful girlfriend, is flying in for a two-and-a-half-week visit this month.

Till next time

One Love

Brett Burk/Teboho Nthako

So it's been about a week and a half since I've been back from vacation. Time moves quick over here.

My first day back I discovered that someone had moved in while I was away. I laid down on my bed after arriving back and saw something out of the corner of my eye. I looked over, and lo and behold, there was a Black Widow spider (red hourglass and all) sitting within inches of my head. I have pictures (just not with me) that will get posted of my now-former housemate.

My girlfriend's coming to visit in June! I'm real excited about that.

also, I've added an rss feed option to my blog which you can find on the bar on the right side all the way at the bottom

so long for now.

Local media are reporting the attempted assassination of Prime Minister

Pakalitha Mosisili on April 22. Following this incident, sustained

gunfire was heard in Maseru West, and gunshots were also exchanged in

the areas surrounding Ratjomose Military Barracks, Makoanyane Military

Barracks and the National Abattoir between 3:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m.

Following the incident, three assailants fleeing the Prime Minister's

residence carjacked a combi-bus/taxi in Thetsane Extension. Reports

indicate some of the assailants were killed and others apprehended by

police, who are still actively seeking other suspects. There is no

indication of Americans being targeted, and all gunfire appears to have

ceased at this time.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/8013432.stm

That's exactly where I sat for a large part of my vacation.

Camera broke so no pictures of my own, but I'll cross post my friends when they put them up, however Rebecca has put up a few:

http://rebeccagoestoafrica.blogspot.com/

Went with Jack, Rebecca and Madeline

We tripped to Port St. John's in South Africa.

It took us 14 hours of a combination of hitches and a lot of public transport to get there. In total we drove in 9 different vehicles that day. Shortly after hopping the border, we watched a man in a full prison jumpsuit run out of jail screaming "woooohooo" and then ten minutes later saw him down the block sitting on the corner. Have I mentioned that Lesotho has a national prisoners day that involves lots of dancing and singing? Because they do.

It sits right on the coast less than a 5 minute walk from the hostel to the beach. Unfortunately the beach we were right next to was shark infested (there'd been a few attacks recently) so we weren't really allowed to swim, or at least night right near the life guards.

We saw monkeys all over the place, including just a few feet outside of the hostel. The hostel itself was gorgeous and had fires every night and a pretty decent bar (still only quarts of castle and black label, but the ambiance was cool)

Learned a little Xhosa while I was out there and taught some Sesotho.

I fell really hard off a rope swing, maybe 5 feet, but fortunately I landed in a soft patch of brush and only have a few bruises as a result. Shortly after that, Jack and I hiked to a waterfall over moss covered super slippery boards that sat 15 feet up at points, with a sharp dropoff shortly thereafter. The waterfall was gorgeous and I jumped off a few times and had a lot of fun.

Rebecca, Jack and Madeline all ate badfish and got food poisoning, so I branched off on my own for a day, fortunately they recovered the next day (PC makes you strong).

Lots and lots of other adventures were involved, but I don't feel comfortable talking about everything here. You, reader, will have lots to hear about this trip from me if you so wish!

We rented a private car on the way back, which was so worth it. We stopped at a rest stop (!!!) and got pulled over a million times because they were cracking down for easter (no tickets or laws broken, pulled over feela)

Went to a mall in Bloemfontein on the way back. There were teenagers dressed like American teenagers and goths and emo kids and the whole thing totally blew Jack and my mind, whereas Rebecca and Madeline had been out of the country quite a few times since coming.

We also watched "He's just not that into you" which was kinda terrible but it was so amazing to sit in a movie theatre. I also watched cable TV and saw this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A_ma2h0idk

Overall, lots of exploring and lots of hanging out HARD, which felt SO good. Back to school and Basotho Life tomorrow.

We sang the national anthem (terribly) as he left Lancers, the restaraunt my fellow pcvs and he were at. He was wearing shorts and a track jacket.

Also, I'm taking a vacation to somewhere on the wild coast (All I know is that there are hammocks, monkeys, and the ocean) next week, so I'll have no cell service for a while

also, feel free to check out the stuff over here ---->

for ideas of what to send me

also, beautiful Ha Stirling, where I reside:

View Larger Map

staff room on friday (of course there was a chicken wandering around when i went in)

Left to Right: Katleho, 'm'e moipoma (my former counterpart who just quit being a teacher in order to go back to school to get her high school degree), kori, myself, 'm'e moroesi (my new counterpart)

went out for the day with Ro, Cullen and John at John's town.

found this cave

cadbury assorted slabs of chocolate for sale at shoprite

my bicycle request was approved by the peace corps

SOOOO siked

View from near the school

My rondavel

Family's Compound

My toilet

Backyard

Roof of my brother's living quarters

Hen

Cheesin in my rondavel

An article featuring me graduating from training, another featuring me dancing during graduation and an article from the local paper about a man stabbing a policeman with a spear

Family duck

I hate these geese so much

Tiger

My brother's quarters and their "stove"

Storage

So as I write this, I’m hanging out in the VRC (Volunteer Resource Center) in Qacha’s Nek.

The VRC is a room, five feet by ten feet of what feels like a little bit of heaven. There’s a computer, a big bookshelf packed with a lot of classics, and electricity (even a lightswitch with a working light)! There’s also a flush toilet and a running faucet around the corner, and although neither of these things actually increases my quality of life by much, it makes everything here seem so much easier and more pleasant.

The reason I’m enjoying this comfort is because my dog bit me yesterday. I was attempting to apply tick/louse medicine to him, of which he’s terrified and a few minutes after trapping and pinning him, I attempted to pet him and he found his revenge by cutting my hand a tad. This is the kind of injury I wouldn’t even consider in America, but the Peace Corps has a pretty strict “dog bite” policy that requires me to get a Rabies shot for the most provoked bites (and I understand and appreciate the rule). Tiger (my dog) has been acting a bit weird recently and I figured I’d rather stay on the safe side.

So instead of writing lesson plans for tomorrow, I’m taking it easy on Qacha’s Nek and eating a little bit of cheese with some Frank’s Red Hot (thanks to a package from home!). This is definitely a luxury meal here, for better or worse.

On the Tsoelike Sweat:

This past weekend was the Tsoelike Sweat (it’s alliterative if pronounced correctly, this I promise). I met up with Gwen and hung out at Christina’s place in Ha Monteko (a 4 rand 4+1 ride out of the camptown) on Friday. Three other girls came over after finishing a backpacking trip (on their way back home) so we had a packed night at Christina’s (and even snuck in some good scary stories, provoked by a mix of local insects/herd boys/and strange episodes from the home front).

On Saturday Gwen, Christina, and I headed out to Au Plaas (part of Tsoelike in the same way Ha Sterling [where I live] is part of Tebellong) and met up with Chris, Ben, and Victoria. We hiked down the little canyon near Chris’ place and set up our Sweat Lodge right next to the river Chris lives near. We all went out and gathered some kindling/mild firewood to add to the stuff that Chris had bought from his school (hauling it down was not a lot of fun for my back). An hour later we had the fire blazing and a few rocks sitting inside accumulating heat.

After letting the rocks heat for a while, we put them inside our sweat lodge (constructed of two rain-flies from tents and a whole bunch of burlap bags stretched over the top). We read some poetry and Chris poured water over our coals and we got a nice sweat/steam going on inside. After doing this for a while we ran outside and went for a wonderful swim in the river which definitely invigorated all of us (it’s a little chilly in Qacha’s, maybe 65 or 70 degrees F outside on this day). We spent the rest of the night Braai’ing (BBQ’ing) and having ourselves a fair amount of drink and lots of good talk/hanging out. Most of us forewent the tents we’d constructed and chose to sleep outside (and even endured a middle of the night drizzle). We hiked out the next day and had a GREAT time over the course of the weekend.

On school matters:

I did recently find out that one of my coworkers (a teacher) impregnated a Form E student (senior year high school by American standards) last year (maybe the year before?). Apparently shortly afterwards he had an affair with another of my coworkers (a female teacher) and he reportedly beat her. She threatened to contact the police, but I don’t know how far all of that went, but the situation was “resolved” well before I came (she was probably shamed into keeping quiet).

My best friend at school, and my counterpart (PC sets up people in the community/job that are supposed to aide the transition of PCVs to their community/job) is leaving my school. She’s leaving because she’s going to take her COSC (senior level exam). This means that one of the most competent teachers I work with is leaving to return to school so she can practice for the equivalent of the SATs in America. Also of note is the fact that I am indeed the oldest teacher in my school (aside from the principal who teaches Sesotho only) out of 10. I am also only one of three of the ten teachers with a tertiary degree (this means most of the teachers in my school have the same degree that the students they’re teaching hope to obtain by the completion of school).

In other news, one of my students in Form C, A sophomore of high school, has dropped out due to pregnancy. Fortunately due to the young age of teachers at my school, we remain rather liberal (despite the fact that I teach for an Anglican Christian school) and even encouraged the student to return to studies. Unfortunately she has apparently teased several past impregnated girls so she probably will not return.

Another Form C student’s parent was murdered. Apparently his father had been after a married woman for a while, was beaten nearly to death (the family assumed they’d killed him) and continued to pursue the same woman. The second time the family, utilizing a spear was able to successfully (?) murder the boy’s father, so he’s now a double orphan. Unfortunately, this makes him one of the many at my school. Lesotho is supposed to reimburse at least partial tuition on these students (those who are double orphans) but they inconsistently come through on their promises. Fortunately, my school is rather liberal and will allow him to continue assuming that the government will pay (this is not true in all places).

Not that everything in school is sad and bad, there’s plenty of great stuff going on. The Form B’s are doing quite well in their quarter presentation (they have a big test every quarter… theirs is coming up next week). The Form A’s are working hard (their English is still pretty horrid). I have a hard time assessing the Form C’s because I only teach them Physics and English Literature (not language) so it’s hard to get a good general standing from them, but their summaries of the horrible British play we’re reading are pretty good.

On Vacation:

Looks like I’ll be heading to Bloemfontein (sp?) in South Africa for my first break (before April 6th I won’t be able to leave the country due to PC regulations). I’ll be crashing at a friend’s friend’s place thereabouts and will spend a fair amount of time between coffee shops, book stores and a movie theatre (none of which exist in the country in which I dwell) with Jack (and I have no idea who else is involved in this caper, it seems most people are heading to Durban, which rests on the coast of the Zulu Nation and is about as close and expensive for me to visit as Maseru, so I’ll definitely be heading over there at another point).

On actually arriving in Maseru:

Turns out the Rabies shot has to be done in two sessions (the first was today... I had three shots during preservice training) and another on saturday. So that means I'll be chilling here till then. AKA I'll be on the internet a bunch and reading a bunch and being really smelly (only brought one change of clothes cause I thought I'd only be here for an overnight)

SO IF YOU EMAIL ME AT BRETTMBURK@GMAIL.COM I'LL WRITE YOU BACK WITHIN A DAY UP TILL SATURDAY!

the internet is real slow in the camptown, so only three pictures for now. they're older than the last set and I never uploaded them (and the computer picked randomly which ones to upload for whatever reason)

more in two weeks when I'm back in Maseru for more PC training

just got a load of packages, super siked. I also just mailed out letters to 9 different people. so everyone who's been slacking about writing to me needs to pick up the pace

one of my students dropped out because she was pregnant this week

another one's father was beaten to death by a family for being in love with a married woman

and so it goes

tsoelike sweat lodge this weekend

I'm siked!

Tiger (my dog) lounging:

My family's baby cow in my front yard (so cute, loves to run, so dumb)

Back yard (I have to walk this way to use my latrine)

Cooking rondavel/where my boabuti (brothers) sleep

View from halfway up the mountain I live on

Aids ribbon above my place. My littlest brother (tsepo) and my neighbor (mohapi) followed me up. I live right at the base of this part of the mountain.

The Boys (my brother is further away)

my whole village (the school and stuff is there...)

The pyramid that I summitted while taking these pictures (I had to hike up to where the picture was taken from, then down to the river, then up again to the top via the back side)

Cheesin

Lesotho's "wild life"

The river I jumped across on the way there (boulder hopped) and had to take off my shoes and socks and walk across on the way back.

View from the pyramid (the mountain in the foreground is where I took the first set of pictures from, those in the background are South Africa)

The river I have to cross (the road in the background is the closest road to me, it takes about 30 minutes to get to the point where this was taken, and 15 down and ten back up, the way back is a lot worse as you can tell by the descent, especially with all my groceries in my bag)

Hey Everybody

So it’s been quite some time since I’ve been able to do a full update, so I hope you don’t expect me to encapsulate everything I’ve been up to in this post (but I’m going to try).

As I write this, I’m in Maseru at the T-House (Transit house) which also doubles as the training center. It’s 7am and I’m enjoying being able to use my own computer. It’s the first time in 7 weeks that it’s had power! My solar backpack can’t charge laptops, so I’ve been able to use my kindle, iPod and cell phone and keep them more or less charged. By more or less I mean there’s been a few days (and at one point a week) where it rained and there was constant cloud cover during the day, so I was barely able to maintain my cell phone’s charge and had to rely on my battery charger for my cell phone (don’t worry, rechargeable batteries are being recharged right now).

First, I’ll start with what happened for me to get to Maseru, the capital of this beautiful country. I left class Thursday right after lunch, about 1:15 P.M. From there, I walked to the river, which takes about 45. Then I wait for the boat, figure about 15 minutes to wait for them to get to my side and then to cross. Then I wait between 10 minutes and an hour and a half for the taxi to leave (they have to have enough passengers, the taxi is about the size of a conversion van). It then takes about an hour to get to the Qacha’s Nek camp-town. Then I have to spend the night.

My other option is to skip the trip to Qacha’s Nek and get on the bus/sprinter when it passes White Hill (where the boats are) but then there’s a slim to none chance that I’ll be able to snag a seat.

QN (Qacha’s Nek) has a VRC (Volunteer Resource Center) with a computer and electricity that I can crash at from now on (and charge my stuff! Woo!). I can also stay at one of the volunteer’s sites in the area, I crashed at Christina’s this weekend and Clare was there too (a volunteer from Quthing), we had fun and ate grilled cheese (mm!). I have to wake up at 5:30 so that I can catch a 4+1 (think 4 people can fit in the car + 1 driver, as I’m sure you can imagine, fitting 3 full sized adults in the back of a car can lead to a tight fit) in to the camp town, get on the Sprinter (a very large, sometimes comfortable conversion van: Sprinter is actually a model name for Mercedes-Benz who produces them, feel free to Google yourself a picture). Then I usually sit there or wander around (after claiming a seat) for about an hour before we finally head out from QN.

At this point I can enjoy the scenery AND all of the seeming near-misses created by the driver going 80km/h over the tops of hills and around corners, while passing lots of cars. It’s quite exciting (read: nerve-wracking) if I don’t put my head into a book. The ride takes between 6 and 9 hours depending upon how many stops we make (dropping people off and always picking people up, even if they have to stand and squish, but you adjust to the close-nature of these rides relatively quickly).

What made the ride particularly interesting this last time was the 12 year old girl I sat next to. I was zoning out staring at the DVD of local music (the video’s are really really really strange) and almost asleep when I look over and see the girl with a phone that looks just like mine in her hand. This is a little strange because while the phone isn’t extraordinary, most Basotho children I’ve encountered opt for the absolute cheapest phone. She put it away. I checked my pockets a minute later and realized that my own phone was missing (and I remembered it being in the pocket closest to her). I asked her in English then Sesotho if she had seen my cell phone. She responded with no. I asked Clare, who was riding with me to call, but there was no service. After 20 minutes (and making sure that I had checked all around me, anywhere it could have been) we finally got to a place where I had service and my phone rang… in her pocket. I chewed her out vocally for a little and she spent the rest of the ride really embarrassed (the phone had probably fallen out of my pocket and she took the opportunity to upgrade). Oh well, at least I got it back and learned that I definitely have to secure stuff in my pockets if I’m planning on Z’ing.

Ok, so that’s what it’s like for me to get here. Fortunately, for about the same cost and travel distance I can go to Durban in South Africa, which has much much much better everything (even Matatielle [sp?] right on the other side of the border from me has much better selection than Maseru). Unfortunately, I can’t do this until another month, when I’ve finished Phase III of my training.

Things are going well at school. I teach 30 classes a week, at 40 minutes each. I was teaching 19, but after having to constantly explain basic science to our “science teacher,” I decided to take over, so I’m now a science teacher. Unfortunately my school has absolutely no supplies, so any experiments or explanations have to come completely from me. I don’t even have a syllabus for what I’m supposed to teach, as I have yet to acquire one from the PC (they also have a bunch of other materials). I’ve also started teaching Life Skills, which are all the things that they teach you in Health class in America, plus a lot of AIDs/HIV education.

In further school news, 6 out of the 40 kids cheated on my last test in Form B. They were the 6 lowest grades ANYWAY, I don't know why they think cheating off the not so smart kid next to them is going to help them, but it's impossible to keep them from eying their neighbors papers when they're all crammed in 3 or 4 at a desk. Fortunately, they're not creative enough to change the wording on the answers, so when I'm marking, picking out the copies (THEY'RE EXACTLY THE SAME) is pretty simple.

My counterpart (my cultural liaison with the school) is leaving. This is a major bummer for me, as she’s basically my best friend at the school. She’s leaving to go back to HIGH SCHOOL and take her COSC (the test you take to graduate from high school) in Maseru. This should tell you a lot about the state of my school. She’s very smart and I’m sure she’ll pass, and at my school she only teaches agriculture and Development studies to the secondary kids (8th grade through sophomore year of highschool in the US). This is still pretty strange, having a teacher who hasn’t passed high school teaching essentially middle school kids. And she’s definitely one of the better teachers at the school.

At school last week there was a frog in the staff room in the morning. Most people would assume that Africans wouldn't run out of a room screaming because of a harmless frog. Those people would be wrong. I had to escort the critter off the premises before they would return to the room. SOO strange how ok they are with spiders and insects and other animals always being around, but a little frog can scare them so much.

In unrelated community news, the river that I have to cross has been killing people. Three people died last week by drowning where I have to cross. One committed suicide by jumping off a cliff. The other incident involved three people crossing the river in a boat filled with supplies. The boat flipped over about halfway and only one of the guys made it to shore. The Basotho are infamous for not being able to swim (and thus being terrified of water). As a result of these deaths (and a few others further upstream involving similar situations) I’m going to try to teach Basotho river workers how to swim when the river gets lower. I could probably even use this as my secondary project, develop a self-perpetuating swimming club.

The hiking’s been a lot of fun. I get to bushwhack (hike where there are no trails) on virtually every walk, and get to climb rocks and stuff, it’s lots of fun and it only takes me about an hour to get to a spot where I see nothing manmade and no one.

As a result of my hiking and my limited access to fatty foods (there’s no chips or anything really at the store in my village) I’m down to about 200 lbs. My goal is to stay at this weight, which means I’m gonna have to up my intake of Rama (margerine) and home-made baked goods (I’ve been making all sorts of breads and brownies and stuff from scratch, I love it).

I've been learning relatively little Sesotho because everyone around me speaks english all the time. This is both great and sucks for obvious reasons.

Lots of reading at site, lots of hanging out and enjoying the quiet. Unless my family’s geese are being loud, in which case I have to restrain myself from strangling them.

Khotso, Pula, Nala

Brett.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=white+hill,+lesotho&sll=-30.071471,28.427811&sspn=0.146773,0.219727&ie=UTF8&ll=-30.072659,28.461456&spn=0.073386,0.109863&t=h&z=13

I live just north of the big river there.

Hello fine folks at home.

For those of you keeping score, it's been about 3 months since I came to Lesotho and about 1 month since I arrived in Ha Sterling in Tebellong, where I live.

Teaching has been going well so far. It's slow work and takes a lot of adjusting.

Some days the kids are GREAT and pick up on everything I teach and understand all my words and sit in silence and everything is WONDERFUL.

Other days the kids are terrible and they don't understand my english or my concepts or anything and they get up and walk across the room to talk to their friends and it sucks.

I teach Form A1 and A2 (8th grade or so) in Literature and English Grammar (Combined 7 times a week for each class, so 14 classes)

I teach Form B (Freshman) in Language 3 times a week.

I teach Form C (Sophomores) in Literature 4 times a week.

The classes all read on a very low level compared to Americans and each class has between 50 and 65 kids. It's a struggle because they encompass every level (Advanced, medium and low) in the same class so I have to teach to all of them

My fellow teachers are great. I'm actually one of the oldest at 25 (there's another 25 year old), and very few of them have any sort of tertiary education (college/university). They had a party for me and I got to see how Africans drink (A LOTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT). I watched three guys down 2 cases of beer. A case here is 12 750 mL bottles (roughly the size of a 40). (I was not one of those guys, I was fine with my six pack). I do miss good beer terribly. If anyone can find a way to send me some gourmet beers, I'd love you forever.

The town I live in is great. It's very remote, and last weekend the river I have to cross was flooded so I could not come in to the camptown (where I am now). Fortunately there's a shop (very expensive) in my town and there's tons of fresh produce grown locally. I take about half a dozen peaches off the trees near the school and eat them every day. I can also buy fresh potatoes, eggs, corn, tomatoes, grapes, and currants locally for dirt cheap. I bought a 30 pound bag of potatoes for 35 rand ($3.75 US). They were great. I have already lost a bunch of weight (on the last notch of one of my belts) but still have a bit of a gut. There's virtually no way for me to get fats for foods, all the oils are sunflower oils and even that I don't use a lot of (unless I treat myself to french fries!)

I do lots of hiking in my area, as I live near the top of one mountain next to ranges and ranges of mountains. It's gorgeous. There's green everywhere, a big river (the Senqu or the Orange) and the people are wonderful. Today I met Koloi who speaks perfect english in a way that's almost unnerving compared to the accent I'm used to from my colleagues. I also met a doctor from the hospital, who also speaks english quite well and is a very knowledgable and cool dude who happens to be on the internet right next to me. He's from Cameroon and speaks Sesotho as well as I do (not very) but English and French (I'm gonna see if I can use him to practice). I hope to get a peace corps bike soon!

I have not received any letters in a month, as they're all in Maseru, which I won't be in till the end of March. Fortunately, my friend Gwen will be picking things up for me (I hope) in Maseru this weekend and I should see her next weekend at my peace corps welcoming party for the district, Qacha's Nek. I promise promise that I'll write you back, I just sent out a bunch of letters and hope to send out more next time I'm in town (bought a huge sheet of stamps and envelopes and I have TONS of free time, I read a book every day or every other day and still manage to get out and do stuff)

Anyway, before I head out, I have a little wish list:

Red and Green Crossword puzzle book (or any New York Times crossword puzzle books aside from the Black and White one which I have)

a good paperback dictionary

any books on crafts and skills I can develop with the little I have out here (my mom sent me a harmonica and book)

anything with lots of information in it, I'd love to learn more about science and math

The Believer (it's a magazine published by Mcsweeneys)

any books or magazines that you liked and think I would enjoy

WORD UP

Brett

Brett's internet is down, so I'm doing this little update for him.

Brett would like you to send your letters and packages here, to his new address.

Brett Burk, PCV

PO Box 361

Qacha's Nek, 600 Lesotho

Southern Africa

From what I understand, if you have sent him anything to his address in Maseru, he will still get it. However, it will just take awhile for him to make it back to the capital to get it.

So update your address book, people!

xo danie.

EDIT: PS.. Brett's lovely mama got him a subscription to the new yorker, so no need to send those anymore, but other magazines are lovely.

I just found out that Lesotho is technically a Fourth World Country. Check it on wikipedia.

I swear in as a PCV on Thursday morning.

I tested as intermediate-medium on my Sesotho language test (one more thing I can put on my resume! I speak two of South Africa's 11 official languages).

Things have been going really well here, I'm super excited to get out to site and start taking care of business.

Been reading a ton, plan to keep reading a ton.

I don't know when I'll be able to update this again (might be as much as a month). Write me letters! I'll write back and it will entertain me!

Love y'all

Brett

ps: check out the blogs on the right side of the page, they're from other people in my class and some will update a bunch (and you can see pictures and descriptions of events and the culture!)

These photos are not really organized:

Photo's taken right outside my training village:

Just after touching down in Lesotho

My new dog, Tiger:

My room for the next two years:

View from the front door of my new house:

Lots of exciting stuff:

We had a ton of AIDs/HIV training, because Lesotho has the third highest percentage of AIDs prevalence in the world. There are about 2 million people in the country, and 24% has AIDs, which means that somewhere around 500,000 people in the country have the disease. There is a very strong social stigma regarding AIDs here, to the point that you will never hear about people dying from the disease, instead you will hear dozens of cases of people dying from ?the common cold? or ?a broken finger? etc? anything but this highly stigmatized disease.

At the end of the sessions we were all tested, and the testing here is very different than the United States. They prick your finger and put a drop of blood on this little slip of paper that functions similarly to an American pregnancy test, and then you stare at the paper for 15 minutes and hope that the paper doesn?t change color. I was tested shortly after leaving the states (negative) as a result there was virtually no chance that I was going to test positive, and it was still pretty frightening to sit and stare at this paper. I can only imagine what it?s like for Basotho, who stand essentially a 24% chance of having the disease. There are state-sponsored ARVs, which can treat the disease, but a large portion of the population doesn?t know that they exist and that they actually help. These people believe that knowing their status won?t do them any good, which contributes to the stigma.

Moving on from the HIV talk, I?ve had a very exciting week.

On the 24th, we moved out of our CBT (community based training) village , and had a huge feast as a result. We prepared the day before (peeled a whole lot of vegetables) and had about a hundred people show up, including my CD (country director) Ted, who surprisingly speaks very little Sesotho. My friend Cullen said to one of the trainers, ?Ha Ke Na Matata,? Ted responded, ?That?s not Sesotho?. The nearby Bo-?m?e (married females) corrected him (It sounds just like Ha Ku Na Matata, which you may remember from the Lion King (did I post about this already?) and means ?No worries?. We danced some with some of the crazier townsfolk and sung a bunch and then peaced out to the TC (Training center)

We had a few drinks and something like 20 packages which had just arrived were dropped off. We waited a few hours and opened them on Xmas eve, I got a new pair of shoes from my wonderful girlfriend and some teas and assorted things from my mom which are greatly appreciated.

I slept outside on my travel hammock and it was something like 75 degrees out at night (I believe it was in the 90s otherwise).

Christmas day we cooked all our own meals and we ate really well? ?M?e Mamothe, who is in charge of training, went to South Africa and picked up our grocery list, so we had almost all of the trimmings of home, and there were a boatload of good cooks.

We hung out the next day (boxing day is a holiday here!) and on the 27th departed for our permanent sites.

I showed up at about 3 o?clock at the river (the Senqu river, also known as the orange river) and took a boat across with my stuff (which had to be bailed a little, and was essentially a row-boat with logs with boards attached that served as paddles). I re-met my counterpart (who is essentially in charge of making sure I?m not committing cultural faux pas?) and my ?M?e and my Ntate, who will serve as my host family (along with a few sisters and brothers) . I moved all my stuff in and spent the next few days meeting the community and exploring the area.

I went to church on Sunday for a wedding ceremony. I showed up at 11:40 for an 11 ceremony (my counterpart showed up late). The entire ceremony was conducted in Sesotho, so I understood very little, but the wedding ceremony seemed pretty traditional. That is, until after the I do?s I was told it was time for donations (this was about 12:30). They call for donations in groups (first they?ll announce a school, then another, then a profession, then various church organizations, then just the bo?m?e and bontate). This means that most people go up a few times and every time a group is called they sing a very invigorated 5 minute long song. This took approximately 2 and a half hours. Then they did a wrap up, I was introduced to the community and then we took off for the party. I sat at the table of honor, which initially made me feel weird (I thought it was because I was white) until I realized that one of my sisters (who I had not met yet) was the maid of honor and I think the bride was a cousin. We ate really well (all feasts entail an open invite to the community and lots and lots of food).

I spent the rest of my time in my village, which is called Tebellong, hanging out with my dog, Tiger, my host family and checking the place out. I love the site and I?m very excited to start teaching.

Next post will entail some more specifics about the school and community members, I just haven?t posted in a while, so I?m sorry if this wasn?t very exciting.

LOVE YALL

-Brett

everything's going well

I don't have any time at all to write

I'll be back within a few days of xmas (I hope) to update

meanwhile I've been writing letters

expect them soon

check out other pct's blogs on the side

call me/write me/send me a harmonica

merry christmas

-brett

We received site announcements today. I am going to Qacha's Nek. "Qacha" is pronounced with a click noise in the beginning, otherwise it's exactly how you'd think it would be pronounced.

I HAVE A PHONE: (to call from the us) 011+266+59167839

you can purchase 15 minute phone cards from 711 for about $10, feel free to call me (I don't really have regular hours as of now that I can tell you I can pick up, but in a few weeks I will). I will try my best to pick up, but there are tons of situations here where I can't (but it shouldn't eat up the phone card).

Back to Qacha's Neck: I will have a rondavel, and to get to it from one of the two highways in the country (the only paved roads outside of the capital) I have to take a boat across a river and then hike up a mountain. I WILL HAVE A BIKE (at some point, it's currently nonoperational from what I hear). The site sounds really good and I'm excited to meet my family (I think 3 more weeks?)

Now to try to summarize the week:

Apparently the words in Sesotho for "little boy's penis" and "rainbow" are very similar, replace an o for an a, and you can really confuse people when you talk about how much you love rainbows.

I received my first letters since I've been here (and no packages yet). They were letters 2, 4, and 5 from my mother (thanks mom)... so realize that stuff always ends up getting to me, but it may be delayed etc.

I've been here a month. That still kind of blows my mind.

My pit latrine has a spider in it. Apparently it's a Brown Button Spider, South Africa's second deadliest (which makes it not at all deadly), but does mean that I can't even poop in peace here. I also saw a wasp fly down the hole right after I opened the door to my latrine. Needless to say I waited half an hour before coming back.

I finished my practice teaching at school. I taught my kids about metaphors and similes, and they really grasped the concept, which made me feel terrific (a lot of other teachers had a hard time getting concepts by, for a lot of different reasons). The last question on the test required the students to write a new metaphor about themselves. The most interesting was, "I am a fat dog". Americans might assume that this was self depreciating, however being fat (especially for women) is a very desirable trait here, so she was actually being self appreciative.

Also, students don't "cheat" in Lesotho, they "confer with collegues". The kids have tried to pull all sorts of things with the teachers, but don't really get away with anything, as we're pretty good at not falling for their ruses. This will be a lot easier at site, as we'll be able to establish ourselves as people who aren't going to fall for lame deceipts. They do love their check marks (they will actually do extra work and try to do real well if you promise them a sticker/red check mark on their papers).

I found ants in both my sugar and peanut butter. This IS Africa (and I am a volunteer without a lot of money), so I just mixed them in.

I walked in to my current house the other day and the thermometer on my travel clock was so nice as to inform me that it was 105 degrees Fahrenheit. It doesn't feel like Christmas.

Ok, so I gotta jet. I realize a lot of people have been asking me what kinds of things I'd like, so I compiled a small, cheap list of little stuff that I would appreciate:

New Yorker magazine

News magazines (just about any, used ones are very acceptable)

Notecards (I can't find them anywhere, and they'd definitely help me with my language training)

A book of chess puzzles/any xword puzzle books

A french/english dictionary.

A good knife that I can use for cooking

Mix cds, I'm hurting for music (my computer and ipod crashed days before I left). Specifically I would love any Johnny Cash and any Q and Not U.

Love all yall, my next update will probably be after Xmas, in which case, PEACE AND MERRY CHRISTMAS

-Brett

My Room/The View ^

Oh man, it's been nuts being in village. My host mother, 'M'e Mamaseliso, is a crazy alcoholic. In Lesotho, women can only drink if they are older (and usually have to be widowed), and my 'm'e is and she takes full advantage. She's very nice though, and the crazy is more charming than anything else, she loves screaming RAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA when she sees me (which essentially means my little baby, since I am her newest [but not youngest] child). The people in town are incredibly nice and considerate.

The other day we hiked to the top of a nearby mountain, and literally 25 kids from the age of 5 to 15 followed the three other volunteers and myself to the top. And by followed I mean beat us... and only four of them had shoes on. They have a ton of energy and love showing off for us, and are amazed any time we do anything. They got us to sing a few songs, and then kept telling me what a beautiful voice I have (anyone who knows me knows this is a terrible horrendous lie).

I did manage to get real sick the other day and spent a real long time on the "toilet". Hopefully this will be my major illness of my time here and it's out of the way.

I was given a Lesotho name by my host mother, and it is Thato Chele. Chele being my 'm'e's last name, Thato meaning strong-willed.

Life here is really good and beautiful and I love all of it, and I finally get to start cooking my own meals tonight.

I'm planning on writing out next weeks update (coming next saturday!) before I get here so I can type it up in time and so it's not disjointed (like this one is)

send me stuff! (letters, tea, snacks, the new yorker, books etc)

Brett Burk/PCV

US Peace Corps

PO Box 554

Maseru, 100

Lesotho

Southern Africa

My first site visit:

Monday morning we left bright and early (5:30am local time) and took a 7 hour ride on a “sprinter” which is essentially a conversion van with four sets of seats + the drivers row. It’s “illegal” for there to be more than 22 people in the sprinter, there were easily 40 in ours, it was incredibly packed. One of the other PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees) I went with had a little kid on his knee, someone else’s bag in his lap and a woman’s breast on his head (Breasts are not a big deal to anyone here in Lesotho, they are referred to as mountains and are used by women to hold money etc.). We finally arrived and there was some confusion about where I was staying, so my bag ended up at the wrong place, so I didn’t have access to any of my stuff (including my camera) till late the last night I was there.

We arrived in Qacha’s neck at about 3pm and sat down and had a decent meal at one of the restaurants, everyone else had either fried chicken or fish and rice and some other local dishes, I just got rice and the local sides, and the total (including a coke) was about $2.80 USD or 24 rand/maluti. Here in Lesotho, the currency is the maluti, but it is at a stable exchange rate with the South African Rand, which is accepted as currency everywhere within the borders. We hung out for a bit and had people gawk at us (we are Lahua, which translates as white people) and even had a young lady come over and take pictures of us with her camera phone, apparently just being fair skinned earns you celebrity status in the country. We sat around a bit and then headed back to Chris’ (my host for the few days) rondavel. I was very impressed by all the stuff he was able to keep in it and the amount of room in it etc, especially because Chris has spent $0 of the money he had before the PC since being here. He told me about his vacations to Namibia and South Africa that were paid completely by his PC salary, so it’s nice to know that I’ll be able to trek around without digging into my (rather paltry) savings.

I met Chris’ ‘m’e (‘M’e translates as mother, ntate as father and abuti and ausi as brother and sister respectively and all names are prefaced by one of these four words) who was very nice although she spoke no English and toured his garden and met the pigs owned by the family and then took a little walk down to the canyon that hosts the Orange River and hung out and talked about PC and hikes and trips we’ve both done. We went back and cooked dinner and listened to some music and passed out early. The PCVs here tend to go to sleep at or a little before 9pm, because it gets dark and there are no lights or television to make staying awake easier (there are candles though!). We did go sit under the stars (which are super super super impressive) and watched a lightning storm in the distance for a few minutes before calling it quits.

We woke up the next morning at about 6:30, made oatmeal (which is a luxury here, to keep things in perspective) and walked around a bit and headed to Chris’ school, where I met some of his students, coworkers, and his principal who were all very nice and encouraging to me. I met a fair amount of people from his town, as everyone wants to talk to the white people, and it is especially endearing when the 6 year olds walking around ask you in English, “How are you” and don’t know how to respond when you ask them the same question back (they tend to just reply with “How are you” again).

We got back to Chris’ rondavel, made lunch (PB&J is also a luxury food here, but the peanut butter is especially delicious) and set out on a 9 mile hike up and down some pretty decent hills (we did have to climb up and down some rocks) and wound up at the place we’d be staying for the night after hitching a ride. We met up with another group of PCTs and their host, had a few beers, talked about life (both before and during PC) and crashed pretty hard. I got really really sunburnt (I didn’t have any of my stuff as I mentioned earlier) and am blistering a little while writing this (oof). But, this is Africa, and I’m sure this will be low on my list of memorably bad incidents by the end of my service. I would like to mention that aside from the red skin, my trip was really enjoyable and I am doubly excited to get my own rondavel and start doing some real work in the community.

I woke up this morning at 5, hopped on another 7 hour bus ride, got to Maseru and ate some pretty decent pizza (there are a few decent restaraunts in the capital, they’re a bit pricey on PC salary, but we’re still being fed plenty of extra money by them at the moment). I ate a full pie and drank two cokes for 42 rand, or roughly $5 American. Made it back to the compound, caught up with the other PCTs, wrote a few emails (I love you Danie) and am sitting here, enjoying the perfect weather and writing this in the corner of the PC Compound. I’ll hopefully have a few pictures online from the busride back (the only time I had my camera) within a few days.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving with the ambassador (HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE)

Friday is my first practice teaching assignment.

I think Sunday we head out to our villages for a while, which means the internet will be a lot less accessible, so I bid you all adieu for a little and I’m sure I’ll have a lot to talk about after that trip.

Disclaimer: this post in no way represents the thoughts or opinions of anyone but me, and  does not represent the Peace Corps in any fashion.

Lumela Bontate le Bome!

Ok so first I'll start with a bit of a travelogue, then I'll move on to information about training and my life in Lesotho, the kingdom of the sky.

I arrived at the Sheraton in Philadelphia on November 11th for training, after my girlfriend Danie and my friend Adam dropped me off. There was some initial confusion about my room, I was initially assigned to a room that already had an occupant, which I expected, however, he was not a Peace Corps Trainee. After a little bit of working I was set up in a nice room and met my REAL roommate, John. We made our way down to the conference room and started socializing with the other Trainees going to Lesotho. A few hours of training and setting up scenarios and we were free for the night so I dragged the group to Dock Street Brewery, where Danie works, and we ate and drank very well (so well that people still talk about how great it was).

We got up the next morning and took a bus drive from Philadelphia to NYC, during which the bus driver clipped the mirror off the bus in the Lincoln tunnel (why he took us through Manhattan to get to JFK we will never know). We arrived very early for our flight and waited a few hours to check in, before finally boarding our 18 hour flight, with a stopover in Dakar. We talked a lot on the flight and watched a lot of movies, and the general consensus was that everyone was trying to watch "one last movie" or flush the airplane toilet "one last time"... only later would we find out just how many amenities we would have during our training.

We made our way to the shuttle from the Airport in Johannesburg (known to locals and cool Americans ;-) as Jo'burg) to the hotel that was about a block away. Jo'burg is definitely dangerous, and as PCTs (lots of acronyms here, this is the government) we are not responsible for ourselves yet, so we were not allowed to walk the block (it's not THAT dangerous, the government is just THAT overprotective of us... which is a GREAT thing).

We cleaned up and went to the hotel's restaraunt (again, we were not allowed to leave the hotel until we were to fly out the next morning) and had our second set of taxpayer beers (THANK YOU EVERYONE!) this time they were local to South Africa, and the brand, Castle, isn't half bad. The buffet was amazingly good, we ate our fill and crashed hard. Some people chose not to sleep on the plane ride so they could better adjust (me) and other people stayed up (there's a 7 hour time difference for those of you keeping track) and were miserable the next day when we had to depart at 4am local time.

We made it to the airport, waited a while for the place that sells coffee to open and made our way to check out, when John, my roommate from the first day, discovered he'd lost part of his ticket (he just finished filling out the paperwork that will get him reimbursed the $150 it cost him for a new ticket... this will be even more unfortunate when I finish this section of the story). We flew in a small plane for about an hour and arrived to just about Maseru and circled for a little. The pilot made a garbled announcement about "unreliable equipment" and after a little bit of confusion, we received clarification that the plane was fine, just that clouds were preventing a landing (theres no radar at the airport and the area around Maseru is covered in mountains, so it would have been treacherous to land and we were all greatful the pilot relied on his thoughts).

We wound up back in teh same hotel and made a lot of jokes about groundhogs day (the movie) and repeating the incident step by step, including convincing John that he had lost part of his ticket again (he didn't, but it sure made us laugh!)

Once we arrived back at the hotel and opened our luggage, a lot of people realized that their stuff had been pilfered, a few volunteers lost hundreds of dollars worth of stuff. Someone had clipped my lock but did not steal anything, so I was very lucky (I had put all my electronics in my carry on as Jo'Burg is relatively notorious for this kind of theft, so be careful if you ever swing through).

We landed in Maseru and were greeted by a relatively large party that was screaming and had made signs and the thing that overwhelmed us the most after our initial greetings was the silence. We were in the middle of the largest city in the country (by far) and at an airport and you could have heard a pin drop. The scenery is beautiful here and there are mountains everywhere. I hope to be able to get pictures to you guys soon, but I have yet to steal a flash drive to put them onto a computer at the internet cafe (which is where I type this, right off of Kings Way).

We went over some basics at the center and took a trip downtown with our Basotho teachers (Basotho being the name for the native peoples). They took us past stores and showed us where to buy phones and stuff and then told us we'd be going to a Shoprite. I thought to myself how funny a coincidence it was that I used to work at a grocery store named Shoprite in America. It turns out that it's part of the same chain and has the same slogan (the ALWAYS in yellow script comes to mind). I would even go so far as to say that it's better stocked and cleaner than the one I worked in, which I find incredibly funny.

Since then it's been a blur of classes and taking tours around the city and learning and practicing the language. We eat breakfast at 7am, start class at 8, take an hour break for lunch and dinner and have two 30 minute tea breaks (I no longer drink coffee and only drink decaf tea if you want to include some good stuff in a care package ahha.) and class usually wraps up at about 7, and sometimes we get an hour before dinner to run downtown and send out some emails and stuff.

The language is very interesting and very beautiful. The structure is very very basic and intuitive and the only real struggle I have (and many others have) is pronunciation. There is a click noise that's made whenever you say the letter Q, and all sorts of other noises that you have to make with different letter combinations that really make it difficult to pronounce let alone at the speed the natives do it.

The other day the ambassador came to visit and delivered a great speech and invited us all over for Thanksgiving. I'm assuming my mother will be forwarding this email to my relatives (who should email me back so that I can add them to my list, and again, feel free to check out my blog where Ill be posting this stuff as well) so I would like to apologize if I'm not able to give a call on Thanksgiving (its very very very very expensive to call out here and I don't know if I'll be able to get a cell phone before then (its not real expensive for you to call me with a card, and it costs me nothing to pick up the call you've made)).

Last night we partied with the PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) and the ambassador's daughter and it was a lottt of fun and we all bonded and danced outside in the rain and there was a lot of beer (essentially $11 american for 30 beers). On a slightly related note, the stuff here seems dirt cheap compared to American things, it costs me $.25 american to send a letter home, a can of coca-cola is about $.30 american. While we're all still thinking about money by American standards its easy to buy all sorts of crap (one of the PCTs bought plastic dart shooters and we've been ambushing each other with them for the past few days) but money will seem a lot tighter once we've switched over to local currency.

We have training for another 7 weeks or so, and we have a lot to do. On Monday I will be heading out to Qacha's neck (pronounced with a click at the beginning) which is a 7 hour taxi drive (yes, I will be riding a taxi for 7 hours, and yes, in USD the roundt rip will cost me about $35) and as far as any volunteer can go from Maseru. I will be hanging out with "Cardboard" Chris Collins For monday and tuesday and return Wednesday. I believe I'll be observing him teach and just getting to know how day to day life goes. I'm very excited as I feel a little trapped in our current schedule, and the fact that I have to sign out and stay in groups every time I leave and that I can't go out after 6pm. I start CBT (Community Based Training) in a few weeks, which means I will be going to live in a village for a few weeks to experience what it's like and continue my lessons with one of the Me's (Pronounced May and it translates as Mother, but is how all older women are addressed). Then I come back and get my assignment, which I'm assuming because of my size and the fact that I'm a male will be far away and in the mountains (that they're sending me there for my site visit is relatively indiciative of where I'll be).

We had a visit to a real school a few days ago. The people here LOVE white people, the kids were all dancing and singing "Lahua" which translates as white person, but does not contain negative connotations (anyone who is not white... and even some people who are and is not Basotho is called MaChina, and there is a little bit of derogatory implications in that phrase). Everyone here sings all the time, we've learned all sorts of songs and dances and everyone does it any time they are happy, it's very beautiful and makes me wish America was a little more into singing like that.

I want to point out before this next section that as a PCV I have the best medical coverage EVER. They will helicopter me out at the drop of a pin, they will give me any medicine I need at no cost (including something that will stop HIV from being contracted if taken within 72 hours of exposure... heaven forbid I have to help an injured person who's bleeding, at least I know I'll be safe from the virus). They evacuate us if there is any sign of concern in our area or in the general government (Lesotho is very stable in this sense) so I am not concerned about any of these things, and I don't think anyone else should be either.

So I've heard a few scary stories about Maseru and the country that I'm going to share, but I want to warn that some people (my mother) may not want to read them, so read the following paragraphs at your own risk (I'll put some text in caps after it's done so you know you can read it).

Back to Maseru: There are apparently a lot of pickpockets and a few volunteers have had wallets and other stuff stolen. There are also a fair amount of muggings, both at gunpoint and knives and again, a few volunteers have had backpacks and other things stolen, but I am very vigilant and I'm all about traveling in groups during the day (there is NO risk of muggings during the day here, especially for a 6'4 male).

We had a few teachers come to my school the other day to talk about their experiences and serve as a panel. One of the teachers relayed a story of a time when a PCV was teaching in their school and there was a student riot. Teachers were beat with sticks and stones and cut and all of the money was stolen and kids were trying to set the buildings with teachers in them on fire. That made everyone more than a little nervous, but we all understand that this is the exception and not the rule. Also, the volunteer escaped early on and was told by his boss to evacuate the area immediately and he was reassigned shortly thereafter.

Apparently my Sesotho teacher (Sesotho being the name of the language) was hit by lightning on a trip related to PCTs. She's ok but has a scar on her head from it. Oof.

OK ITS SAFE TO READ AGAIN

I'm sure I missed a lot in this email, and feel free to ask me whatever questions you have about me and my stay and point out things I missed. (I don't know if I mentioned that there are 19 other volunteers, two of which served previously and are in their 50s, but most of us are shortly out of college and in our mid twenties, they're a great group and I love them all, they're so much fun and everyone has a great attitude). I miss you all and I want to send a ton of love your way and I'd like to wish everyone a happy thanksgiving. I'll try to do this once a week if possible until I get to site, at which point it may be more difficult to do anything than write (SEND ME YOUR ADDRESSES AND ILL WRITE YOU, its dirt cheap and I'll have a TON of free time and love letter correspondences. I'm also not adverse to correspondence chess). I'll leave you all with a local phrase, "Ha Kena Matata" Which means no worries (for the rest of your days). It's our problem free philosophy. Hahah, ok that is a real phrase and people do say it a lot, and apparently Sesotho shares a common ancestor with Swahili (where the movie the Lion King got that phrase).

Love and peace and kisses,

Brett